What Does 2 Timothy 2:10 Mean?

(10) **Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sakes.**—Better rendered, *For this cause I endure*, &c.—that is, I endure all things in order that the “word of God,” which, unlike its preacher, I have just declared to be confined by no bonds—in order that that “word” may be widely spread and disseminated: for this reason do I, as a faithful soldier at my post, bear up with quiet, patient courage against suffering; and I do it for the elect’s sakes, that is, for those whom, in His infinite mercy, God has been pleased to choose as His people, for those who, in His unfathomable love, are yet to be brought into the one fold. And this brave and steadfast endurance on the part of St. Paul contributed to the furtherance of God’s projects for gathering these elect in this wise—(1) His endurance, his patient, gallant witness in suffering, would serve as an example to many, not only to the generation then living, but to countless men and women yet unborn; and (2) his faithful, true preaching, now that his voice was hushed, in such writings as this Epistle to Timothy, would help, through the ages to come, to draw countless others, in accordance with the divine counsels, into fellowship with Christ. The question has been often asked, whether those “elect” or whom the Apostle endured these things were, when he wrote these words, *believers.* This point has already been touched upon; it may, however, be here answered, with some certainty, that the “elect” here spoken of include both believers and unbelievers. The first—the believer—would in all ages be built up by the contemplation of the steadfastness under suffering of St. Paul; the second—the unbeliever—would be won to the faith by the divinely-inspired arguments and exhortations which the brave old man ceaselessly spoke or wrote down in prison just as when free. How could one like St. Paul, who was conscious that he himself had won the “salvation,” *not patiently endure* all things, if such an endurance could help the elect to obtain that salvation which delivered those who obtained it from the misery of sin and death, and which besides—O blessed thought!—had the sure prospect of eternal glory?