2 Timothy 3:11

‘Persecutions, sufferings, what things befell me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me.’

Furthermore he had first hand knowledge of Paul’s persecutions and sufferings, and what befell him at Antioch, Iconium and Lystra (Timothy’s home town - Acts 16:1-2), and he knew how he had been delivered, for he was there when some of it happened and would at least have learned about the remainder (see Acts 13:13 to Acts 14:20). Was it something that Timothy could ever forget, when, having watched with great sadness the stoning of the great Apostle who had come to them, and having seen his lifeless corpse dragged out of the town, Paul had somehow survived and had risen up and had come back into the town? Indeed let Timothy remember how the Lord delivered him out of all his afflictions. What more evidence then does he need?

Some may ask, why look so far back? The answer, of course is that Paul knows what a great impression these things had made on the young Timothy, and he wants to remind him of them. They had provided a foundation for Timothy’s faith. Indeed they may well have been partly responsible either for his conversion or for a rededication of his life, and have contributed to his resulting call (Acts 16:1). To him therefore those experiences meant much more than something that had happened more recently. They had been the very bedrock of his dedication. The mention of them reveals therefore that the writer is someone very familiar with Timothy’s inner life, and experience as a young man, and who more so than Paul?