| II Timothy 4:17
| But the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me, that by me the preaching may be accomplished, and that all the Gentiles may hear: and I was delivered from the mouth of the lion.
| The Lord stood, etc. All agree that Nero is here meant by the lion. St. Chrysostom thinks that St. Paul was set at liberty after this first justification of his conduct, but that having afterwards converted the cupbearer of Nero, he was by him beheaded. (St. Chrysostom, hom. X. p. 611.) --- But the Lord assisted and fortified me on this occasion by a vision, in which he assured me that he would prolong my life for the more perfect preaching of the gospel. (Bible de Vence) --- The times predicted by the apostle in this epistle, (ver. 3. and 4.) are now arrived; and the warnings he gives to Timothy and to all preachers of the word, should be sedulously attended to: preach the word: be instant in season and out of season; reprove, entreat, rebuke with all patience and doctrine. There will arrive a time when men will not bear sound doctrine; eager in the extreme to hear what flatters, they will have recourse to a variety of teachers not lawfully sent or ordained, calculated to tickle their ears: Assentatores populi, multitudinis levitatem voluptate quasi titillantes. (Cicero) In the same sense Plutarch says: ta ota apoknaiousin. It is yours, adds St. Paul, os kalos stratiotes Christou Iesou, [2 Timothy 2:3.] as a valiant soldier of Jesus Christ, to oppose yourself as a wall to all these evils, to attend to every branch of your ministerial duty, not to yield to either opponents or dangers, and to see that the gospel is both preached and practised in all its purity. Thus may the Church find in you, and in her other ministers, what she is soon to lose in me, knowing as I do that my course is nearly run. --- That by me the preaching may be accomplished, (or fulfilled) and that all the Gentiles may hear it. This is an argument that he wrote this letter in his first imprisonment. --- And I was delivered from the mouth of the lion; that is, according to the common exposition, from Nero. (Witham)
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