God’s Word for You

2 Timothy 4:11-12 Next and next and next

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, July 15, 2026

11 Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. 12 I sent Tychicus to Ephesus.

When we read verses 9-10, we heard Paul say, “Come to me soon.” There were two or three reasons for Paul to talk this way. The first was that he had been deserted; the second was that he was lonely. Losing a friend to desertion was hard, but Paul had few other men with him. In fact, since he had sent Crescens and Titus away, he now explains that of the other men that Timothy surely knew about, only Luke was left; perhaps he had stayed with Paul as a physician as much as a friend.

The inclusion of Mark here is, I think, far more important than many might think. There are eight references to Mark in the Bible. To begin with, Mark was present in Jerusalem in the early days when Peter was still working there. Mark is there in his mother’s house where the disciples often gathered (Acts 12:12). This has led many to suspect that Mark’s mother’s house was the location of the Upper Room where Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, and even that Mark might possibly have been the young man who ran away naked when Jesus was arrested (a detail that is only found in Mark’s Gospel, Mark 14:51-52). Paul and Barnabas took Mark with them when they left Jerusalem (Acts 12:25). Then there was a disagreement between Paul and Barnabas over Mark’s reliability, “because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work” (Acts 15:37). Barnabas trusted Mark, or was willing to give him another chance, and so Paul and Barnabas parted company on friendly terms and Barnabas took Mark with him for ministry on Cyprus (Acts 15:39). This might have been a rough moment for Mark and his ministry, even with Barnabas trusting him. But Paul commends Mark more than once. Mark was with him during his first imprisonment in Rome, since Paul sends greetings from Mark to the Colossians (4:10) and to Philemon (1:24). Peter, too, gives Mark a good report, calling him “my son” (1 Peter 5:13). Perhaps Mark worked with Peter while Paul left for Spain. We think that Mark’s Gospel is mainly a record of Peter’s recollections about Jesus from his (Peter’s) preaching. So we see that Mark had two or three witnesses commending him for work in the church: Barnabas, Paul, and Peter. His momentary lapse as a young man was not held against him.

Without these witnesses testifying to Mark’s usefulness (notice Paul’s own term here), would there perhaps have been those who might have spoken out against the use of his Gospel as the word of God? Scripture contains everything necessary for faith and a godly life, and thus for attaining salvation. Scripture, in fact, has the characteristics of perfection and sufficiency. While it was written down by sinful men (how could it have been otherwise?), they were chosen by God to do this writing, and they are characterized by the Scriptures themselves to be “holy men of God” (2 Peter 1:21). I do not think that the Church would have accepted the writings of any unrepentant man, a man who had abandoned his divine call to service in the field of the Lord. Notice the humility even of James and Jude who call themselves “slave(s) of Jesus Christ” (James 1:1; Jude 1:1). And do not overlook the name that the group of musicians took for themselves, calling themselves “the Son of Korah” (Psalm 42:1, and again in ten other Psalms). Descended from a traitor who opposed Moses and paid with his life, they humbly accepted the name of their forefather (for his line did not die out completely, Numbers 26:11) and they used it, most likely, as a reminder to be faithful to the Lord and to his holy word. Therefore with the witnesses as to Mark’s repentance and usefulness, the Church has accepted his book as one of the inspired books, but foremost because it bears the hallmarks of divine inspiration, since it is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16), is does not contradict anything anywhere else in the Scriptures, and it gives and strengthens faith. Now, the real key to faith in the Scriptures is not in the writers, but in the perfect and flawless text that is written. Therefore the reader or listener should not take my words here farther than I mean to say, which is that I doubt whether the ancient church would have accepted Mark’s excellent book if he had fallen from grace, abandoned his call, and remained unrepentant for what happened at Pamphylia. So much for verse 11.

In verse 12, Paul says simply that he sent Tychicus, an old and reliable friend (Acts 20:4. Ephesians 6:21; Colossians 4:7; Titus 3:12), to work in Ephesus. No doubt, Timothy would have been glad to hear this, since Timothy (in Ephesus) was being asked to come and to join Paul. The Apostle was sending a suitable and familiar man to step into Timothy’s pulpit. Today we might use the term “vacancy pastor” for this assignment. In fact, it is also likely that Tychicus was the one who carried this letter from Paul to Timothy.

While the divine call into the pubic ministry is a worthy office, pleasing to God, and a public service to the church, that is, the people of God, it is also the task of every Christian, especially parents (Proverbs 4:1-2) but including grandparents, uncles, aunts, and neighbors, to share the word of God with one another and most especially with our children. For “God has hidden things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children” (Matthew 11:25). Of all the things that Mark and Tychicus did in the service of the kingdom, and Luke too, the greatest was passing along the faith in Christ to the next generation, and from that generation to the next, and down the years and centuries, next and next and next, to us, and from us, to our children and theirs. Share the gospel, and learn the joy of it all over again.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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