In II Timothy 4:13, we read of the Apostle Paul asking Timothy to bring the cloak which he had left at Troas; in verse 21 of the same chapter, we read Paul’s request that Timothy come before winter if possible. Putting these two verses together, it may seem we can conclude that Paul was asking for his garment to stave off the cold. This seems especially reasonable if one considers the request for a cap and coat by William Tyndale (cp. the Christadelphian, 1967, p. 493), and by any visitor to the dank and damp Mamertine Prison in Rome, where tradition claims Paul was kept on his second imprisonment when he wrote II Timothy. Upon consideration, however, we feel Paul did not ask for his cloak to keep warm.
Paul wanted the special cloak
If Paul was cold and wanted a coat, he could have asked Luke, who was with him (II Tim. 4:11); surely Luke would have given Paul the coat off his own back. Further, one would think that if Paul was really cold, the brothers and sisters in Rome would gladly have showered him with a roomful of coats, cloaks, quilts, and blankets.
When we think about it, if you want a cloak because you are cold, you don’t send a letter halfway across the Roman Empire to someone who may or may not be able to come before winter, especially if a trusted friend is able to visit you daily. Even if you do, you simply ask the person to bring “a” cloak, not one in particular.
Paul didn’t want just any cloak — he wanted the particular one he had left in Troas with Carpus. So he was asking Timothy to go out of his way to travel to Troas on his way to Rome just to get this particular cloak. Thus we confidently conclude that this particular garment was special, but what was so special about it?
Some special garments
Clothing is useful for more than merely keeping us modest and protected from the elements. Oftentimes a particular garment can have an importance directly or because of its sentimental value. In Scripture, three quick examples demonstrate this.
First, there is Joseph’s coat of many colors. It was immediately recognized by all as more than simply a garment to keep Joseph warm. Second, there is Jonathan’s robe which he gave to David (I Sam. 18:4). Jonathan did not offer this to David because David had gotten his clothes dirty while fighting Goliath — it was a symbolic act of pledging his allegiance to the one he recognized would be the future king over Israel instead of himself. The third example is Elijah’s mantle, which was picked up by Elisha (II Kings 2).
This last example evokes an attractive idea as to what made this garment special. If this was the garment Paul wore when he first met Timothy, it would likely be the one in which he was stoned at Lystra, an event no doubt witnessed by Timothy, who was of Lystra and converted on Paul’s first visit there (Acts 16:1). Our suggestion is that Timothy saw Paul, still wearing that cloak, rips and all, stand up and fall into the arms of the brethren who stood round about him. We suggest Paul wanted that coat to give to Timothy as Elisha took Elijah’s mantle. Paul knew he was about to be executed and wanted Timothy, as we can tell from the epistles, to follow in Paul’s footsteps as a defender of the faith and a valiant preacher of the word.
This is just a suggestion, but the fact remains that, whatever the exact reason, we can be sure that Paul asked for this particular cloak because it was important to him for some specific reason, and not just to stay warm.
Special books and parchments
Paul also asked Timothy to bring “the books, but especially the parchments.” It is doubtful Paul was merely asking for a written copy of the Old Testament Scriptures. As with obtaining a cloak for warmth, a copy of the Old Testament Scriptures in either Hebrew or Greek should not have been difficult for Paul to obtain in Rome. Perhaps Paul was interested in a particular copy of the Scriptures that he had “marked up” with his own notes. While this possibility cannot be ruled out, there is a far more intriguing possibility: Paul was wanting the autographed copies of the Scriptures he had written over the previous years.
In II Peter 3:15-16, we read of the Apostle Peter making mention of the collection of Paul’s epistles as fully comparable to “the rest of the scriptures.” Additionally, there is clear extra-biblical evidence that Paul’s epistles began to circulate as a recognized collection prior to the end of the first century.
As Paul wrote his epistles over the years, they were surely shared among various ecclesias, although probably not in an organized fashion. Our suggestion here is that as Paul neared the end of his life, he recognized it would be helpful to collect the epistles so they could be circulated as a collection in a more organized manner. If indeed this was Paul’s motivation, who better than Timothy to gather these epistles, and indeed the original autograph copies if possible? One way or another, Timothy was involved in most, if not all, of Paul’s epistles. Let us examine this by considering Paul’s epistles according to the order in which they were written.
Timothy’s involvement
Galatians appears to have been written between the first and second missionary journeys, at about the time of the Jerusalem conference recorded in Acts 15. Recall that at the beginning of the second journey, Paul found Timothy so well recommended that he asked for his assistance. Timothy was from Galatia and was thus one of the intended recipients of the epistle to the Galatians, but he may have been more than just one recipient among equals. Paul entrusted young Timothy with a great deal of responsibility almost immediately, and this suggests that Timothy had been the literate brother who read Paul’s epistle aloud to the ecclesias in Galatia, and then explained it.
Shortly after picking up Timothy at the start of the second journey, Paul and Silas found it necessary to write two epistles to the young ecclesia in Thessalonica. These two epistles are thus addressed from “Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy.”
During Paul’s third missionary journey, he wrote the two epistles to the Corinthians and the epistle to the Romans. In I Corinthians 4:17 and 16:10, we learn that Paul sent Timothy to Corinth as an ambassador from Paul at about this time. And II Corinthians is addressed from the two of them. In Romans 16:21, we read of Timothy sending his greetings to the saints in Rome, and thus we know he was with Paul at the time of the writing of this epistle, as Acts 19:22 and 20:4 also strongly suggest.
During Paul’s first imprisonment in Rome, he began by writing Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon. While none of these specifically mentions Timothy, we can have full confidence that Timothy was very aware of these three epistles because of his later ministry in Ephesus (see I Timothy 1:3) and because these letters were specifically to be shared amongst the ecclesias of Asia, where Timothy was then located.
Later during this same two-year period of imprisonment (Acts 28:30), Paul wrote to the Philippians, and also wrote the first “Pastoral Epistles” to Timothy and to Titus. Timothy is listed as a co-author of Philippians, and of course received the letters addressed to him.
This leaves us with an attractive suggestion concerning Paul’s desire to collect the earliest possible copies of his epistles so that they might be brought to one place. From there, copies would be made of the epistles as a group and circulated to the ecclesias.
As he reached the end of his life, Moses spoke and wrote words of exhortation to his young helper Joshua, and exhorted Joshua to be faithful to the words of that written exhortation (Deut. 31:23-30; see also Josh. 1:1-9). Joshua and the generation with him indeed were faithful (Josh. 24:31; Judges 2:6-10), but then Israel fell into a long period of idolatry. It would seem that Paul likewise asked Timothy to gather the scriptures which Paul had authored, so that the early Christians would have a written record of Paul’s exhortations to them. It seems reasonable to suppose that this is what Timothy gathered when he collected the “books, but especially the parchments,” so that these epistles continue to serve as an inspired witness to us today, as surely as do the Books of Moses.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One