Question: 2 Tim. 4:1313The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments. (2 Timothy 4:13). It has been stated that “if men were really converted, their libraries would go to feed the flames.” Is this quite sober? Of course the supposition is that “the parchments” were portions of Holy Writ; but there is the possibility that they were not. Paul quotes on two occasions (Acts 17:2828For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. (Acts 17:28) and Titus 1:1212One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. (Titus 1:12)) profane poets.
Whether the quotations were remembered from his preconversion days or not does not seem to affect the principle involved. If this teaching is of the Spirit, it appears that no Christian, however gifted, should read human writings even with a view to exposing their fallacies in the light of the word of God. Your enquirer fully admits that “all things are lawful; but all things are not expedient,” and this question appears to be one in which everyone is to be “fully persuaded in his own mind,” always of course before the Lord. X.
Answer: It has long seemed to me that the apostle’s direction has a larger bearing than is generally apprehended. He desired the cloak left behind in Troas rather than to procure a new one; “the books” too, which do not appear from the general expression to have been the scriptures; and “most of all, the parchments.” These naturally imply that, being of the most valuable and lasting material, and not yet written on, they were wanted by the apostle, conscious that his outward ministry was closing. “For I am already being poured out, and the time of my release is all but come.” Can we conceive of anything more present to his spirit than the desire to have his Epistles copied with care under his own eye and for permanent use? When he originally wrote, as to the Thessalonians and others, he was perfectly aware of its inspired character, and adjured by the Lord that what he wrote should be read to all the brethren. And in the next letter, as he speaks of a spurious one to mislead the saints, he drew attention to each of his conveying at least the salutation by his own hand. We can the better understand the distinction drawn between the written books which had no sacred character, and the unwritten parchments destined to the most important use at the moment when he could say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” He would not on his journeys, we may be well assured, leave behind a single roll he had of the scriptures; but be neither burnt nor despised other books. Yet all he writes shows a soul wholly above the indulgence of the mind, and repudiating all authority but God’s in divine things.