Paul’s prescriptions for Timothy include gentle teaching to help those in opposition to find repentance with the purpose of being removed from captivity into the knowledge of the truth. We discuss many related issues including the fact that repentance is given by God as a gift through the means of teaching the truth.

There those in opposition are in the visible church but clearly not truly part of the church as defined biblically. Religious services in a church building with some references to a Christ (whether defined or not) is not the “church.” Only those who are attached to Jesus Christ, the head of the church, through being born again are part of the church.

When Paul describes some in opposition who are in captivity to Satan, he describes unregenerate people who a part of a local fellowship but unsaved. I introduce the concept of domain transfer from darkness to light and the dominion of Satan to God (Acts 26:18). This means that the kingdom of God is not a geographical territory on earth because there are members of both kingdoms all over the earth.

The transfer from one kingdom to the other at conversion does not imply a change of location. The change is relational, not geographical. We will take this up more next week as we more fully discuss 2 Timothy 2:26.