Wherein I suffer trouble. — Here St. Paul bids Timothy take courage, by thinking of the brave, patient example he was setting him in his Roman prison, undaunted and full of hope. “Wherein I suffer:” in which, that is, discharging my office as a preacher of the gospel, I suffer trouble.
As an evil doer. — Better rendered, as a malefactor: the same word used in St. Luke’s Gospel for the two thieves crucified with Jesus Christ (Luke 23:32-33; Luke 23:39).
Even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound. — A prisoner in chains and, as he tells us further on in the Epistle, expecting death, and yet he still could write and pray and speak from his narrow prison. Surely his disciple, still free, ought to work on with undiminished spirit and zeal. Though St. Paul was in bonds, his sufferings and imprisonment had in no way weakened the power of the gospel.