2 Timothy 4:9-11 Do your diligence to come shortly to me:… 1. The expression, "Demas hath forsaken me," etc., probably means, in the first instance, that he loved his life too well to risk it by farther companionship with one, all but condemned, and whose martyrdom might be the signal for his own. 2. But the expression involves something more. That "love of this present world," which assaulted Demas under the lone roof of the apostle, is what we can all understand, and a snare which is more or less laid for us all. It was the result of not having counted the cost of what might be required of him; a perilous "looking back," after "having put his hand to the plough," and therefore being "unfit for the kingdom of God." In his former home at Thessalonica there might be a comparative security to be obtained. There he might find a comparative easement from a confessor's labour; a retirement from the responsibility of a more marked and active disciple. There, at all events, he might not be called upon to defend his faith; to sustain it against the onset of impiety and false doctrine; but might indulge the illusion of adhering to it in what the world calls "peace." There, in short, freed from the severer claims of an appointed trial, he might live as seemed best in his own eyes; and cling to the vain hope of reconciling the duty of a Christian with the divers conflicting habits and temptations, which beset the man of "this present world." (Canon Puckle.) Parallel Verses KJV: Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me: |
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