God’s Word for You

2 Timothy 4:13 especially the parchments

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, July 16, 2026

13 When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and also the books, especially the parchments.

First, let us imagine the trip Paul is asking Timothy to take. There is a good harbor to the west of Ephesus on the Aegean coast. To sail to Rome would most likely have involved a merchant ship, a coaster, that would stay mainly within sight of shore, traveling north from the Ephesian harbor, past (or stopping at) Smyrna, Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, through the Diolkos at Corinth (an overland pass for ships), and on to the toe of Italy’s boot to the west. This journey might have taken up to two weeks. From the Strait of Messina in Italy, Rome was about another day’s sail to the north, assuming fair winds and a speed of four to five knots.

But what about Paul’s request? We have moved from spiritual and pastoral things in Paul’s letter to these final ten verses, almost all about personal or private matters. Is there something to be learned here by the Christian? Certainly there is, and very much so!

First, there is a lesson in this verse about contentment. Paul might have asked for better clothes, lovelier clothes, more dignified clothes. But all he asks for is his cloak, certainly because he was cold. This, then, is his third reason for writing. Paul was in a cell with walls of stone and brick; if he was cold, the guards couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything about it. Paul had left a warm cloak with his friend Carpus in Troas; this was the main reason for asking Timothy to travel. It isn’t as if Paul wanted or cared about his worldly possessions. Indeed, “one who cannot cast away a treasure in need is in fetters.” It is God who gives man his possessions (Ecclesiastes 6:2; Obadiah 1:17), and we may use them with joy and contentment, but if we must give them up, we can be content with that, as well (“for wealth is worthless in the day of wrath,” Proverbs 11:4). The Lord will provide what we need, usually through the hands of the willing, but sometimes by other means (Ephesians 4:28; Exodus 12:36).

Then we come to the matter of the books. This is so ordinary a task that there might be religious fanatics who look with contempt on such a passage as being beneath them; that simple domestic tasks are unworthy of the time of a man of faith. But the Holy Spirit has a lesson to teach. If someone thinks that the holiest of tasks is to do the great good works, to pray and to sing hymns and so on, let him notice that Paul also blesses the humble work of fetching a book from a shelf somewhere, and lets us know that whatever we do with joy, thanks, and praise to God, whether it’s going to the store to shop, rocking a cradle, pre-heating the oven, or taking out the trash, or, as Jesus also says, giving a child a drink of cold water (Matthew 10:42), then we are living as disciples of Christ and doing the will of God. Whether I sweep my own front steps or the steps of the church; whether I tend to my own lawn or trim the rosebush under my pastor’s window, I am serving Christ when I do either thing in the service of God. As Luther said, “Paul commends it even when I start a fire in the stove. It seems to be a work of no (religious) value, but regardless of how private and domestic these things are, they are outstanding if they are done on the basis of faith” (LW 29:87). And he adds, “All human life and all human works are done in the name of the Lord. A child may be filthy, scabby, and infected with lice; yet he is an altogether precious thing. Thus when a Christian does works that are good, moral, and theological, they are as good as bringing (Paul his) parchments” (29:87).

One other word about those who scoff at this verse (sometimes trying to use it to prove that this letter was not inspired by God, since it contains such trivial matters). The argument that the Holy Spirit could not have included these words because they are mundane can be turned on its head, since a forger would certainly not have included such “mundane” matters in a forgery. “These incidental comments,” Professor Habeck maintains, “have rightly been termed watermarks of genuineness.”

So much for the act. What books and parchments were these? It’s most likely that they were copies of the Scriptures, but we can’t say for certain. It would not surprise me to learn that Paul had worked and scrimped and saved his money until he could afford to possess his own copies of the Scriptures. Indeed, as a young Pharisee and a learned man, “a Pharisee, according to the strictest sect of their religion” (Acts 26:5), he might have made most or all of these documents with his own hands. There is hardly a better way to spend one’s free time when family or work obligations are finished for the day.

One final word. My eye doctor has told me that it is wise to stop looking at screens about two hours before going to bed. This creates an ideal space at the end of the day to read ordinary books, or to draw, work on poetry, sewing and mending, or other pursuits. Our church libraries, even very small ones with only one or two shelves, have an opportunity to provide excellent material for our people to read and to learn about Christ, the geography and history of Bible lands, to find devotions, commentaries, and translations of the Scriptures like the new Evangelical Heritage Version. Our blessed Dr. Luther said, “This is essential, not only that those who are to be our spiritual and temporal leaders may have books to read and study, but also that the good books may be preserved and not lost [for the people] … which we now have by the grace of God” (LW 45:373). “He who wins souls is wise” (Proverbs 11:30). Why wouldn’t we use the simplest of tools at our disposal? Bless the Lord with his books in your hands, and in the hands of the people around you.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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