2 Timothy 1:14Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“Keep the good deposit.” How? “By the Holy Spirit Who dwells in us.” The human soul and human power cannot by themselves preserve such good things entrusted to them. Why? Because around us there are many robbers, the darkness is deep, the devil stands by and schemes, and we do not know at what hour or time he will attack us. How then can we preserve them? “By the Holy Spirit,” that is, if we have the Spirit within us. He will be present in us if we do not reject His grace. For “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps vigil in vain” (Ps 126:1). He is our wall, He is our enclosure, He is our refuge. If He lives in us and Himself guards us, then why are instructions needed? So that we may hold Him, preserve Him, and not drive Him away from ourselves by evil deeds.

Keep what I commanded you concerning faith and life, or the gift which you received, as he said above. But how will you keep it? Not by human strength, but by the Holy Spirit, Who dwells in us through baptism. If we keep Him and do not drive Him away by evil deeds, He too will keep for us all that we have from God. Therefore strive to keep the Spirit, and He will keep for you what has been entrusted. "Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman wakes in vain" (Ps 126:1).

Keep the good deposit which I entrusted to you through the Holy Spirit, Who dwells in you, as also in me.

You have sufficient grace of the Spirit for illumination. Therefore by it preserve your zeal. Then, by mentioning his own temptations, the Apostle persuades Timothy also to endure similar things.

“Keep the good deposit.” That is, the deposit of right faith and piety. A great treasure has been entrusted to you, and therefore great caution is required from you. Around you there are enemies and deep darkness. Hear, then, how you are to preserve this treasure. “By the Holy Spirit Who dwells in us.” For preserving faith and piety, and for conquering enemies, our own powers alone are not sufficient. But with the grace of the Holy Spirit helping us, we shall be able to conquer the enemies. “Who dwells in us” means that the Holy Spirit abides in us when we have right teaching and God-loving deeds. Likewise, through deeds and words opposed to God, He withdraws from us. Next he depicts his own sufferings in order to encourage his disciple. If Timothy is subjected to them, he should look to his teacher and, remembering what happened to him, not lose heart.

"Keep the good deposit by the Holy Spirit," παρακαταθήκην. In setting forth for Timothy a pattern of faith and love, the Apostle asks him to preserve this pattern, to hold this rule, and to guard his father's good testament. It is a pledge of the life promised to those who love Christ and believe in Him. Without a pattern it is easy to go astray, and without a pledge it is hard to receive what was promised. Yet the assistance of the Holy Spirit is given for keeping the law.

At the beginning of the instructive part, the holy Apostle Paul points directly to the fruit by which Timothy may first show that he is stirring up the gift of God received through apostolic ordination. Timothy must not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord Jesus. That is, he must not be ashamed of the preaching of His Cross, which is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks. If circumstances require it, he must also suffer together with the gospel of Christ. He must be inspired by the lofty meaning of the divine economy accomplished by the Savior. He must be guided both by the example of the Apostle Paul himself, his teacher, and by the example of Onesiphorus, who was not ashamed of Paul’s chains, while all the Asian disciples abandoned him.

The exhortation to hold to sound teaching with faith and love in Christ, and also to preserve the deposit of the gift of the Holy Spirit, has the same encouraging meaning as the preceding words. These concerned firm abiding in a Christian disposition under every difficult circumstance. According to St. John Chrysostom, the Apostle speaks here as if saying: “As painters do, so, having drawn for you the image of virtue and of all that is pleasing to God, I placed in your soul a kind of rule, prototype, and outline. The Apostle instructed his disciple not only by letters about what he ought to do, but also orally. He expresses this in many other places, for example when he says, ‘either by word or by our letter’ (2 Thess 2:15). But here he says it much more plainly.

The Apostle’s further exhortation was also useful to Timothy: not to be ashamed of the ridicule and disgrace then falling upon the preacher of the gospel who testified to Christ. This is the meaning of, “Therefore do not be ashamed of the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Timothy must suffer for the faith just as Paul does, because the power of God dwells in him. The Apostle recalls the greatness of this power to Timothy and points to his own sufferings for the gospel. In this way he further strengthens Timothy’s courage by his own confidence in his eternal salvation, his “deposit.” In teaching, Timothy must be guided by the pattern of faith, or symbol, ὑποτύπωσις, which he heard from the Apostle’s lips and surely remembered.

“The good deposit,” παραθήκη, means the tradition, what has been handed over to you and entrusted to your keeping. It is the same as “the pattern of sound words,” or what he expressed above by saying, “He is able to keep my deposit,” τὴν παραθήκην. This deposit is good because it is good in itself. It proceeds from the good source of God, is given for good, leads to good, and will be crowned with a good end. Keep it unchanged and whole, he says, ordering by it both the form of your views and the form of your action and life. “Keep what I have commanded you, both concerning the faith and concerning life according to faith,” says Blessed Theophylact. Keep it as my successor, and hand it on whole to your successors.