2 Timothy 2:4
4 No man [oudeis] that warreth [strateuomai] entangleth himself [empleko] with the affairs [pragmateia] of this life; [bios] that [hina] he may please [aresko] him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. [stratologeo] KJV-Interlinear
4 No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. NASB
Warreth or in active service, ‘strateuomai,’ means to be enlisted as a soldier in the midst of battle.
Entangle, ‘empleko,’ means to weave into, to be made an integral part of something.
Affairs, ‘pragmateia,’ means to busy oneself in active trade, negotiations and so forth.
And so in the first part of this verse, we learn that when we believe in Christ, we are drafted instantly into a live battle that has been raging since the fall of Satan. The angelic conflict.
And as such we have an obligation to our commander and chief, Jesus Christ, to be obedient to His authority.
And, as soldiers in the midst of battle, we have a further obligation to pay attention to the battle raging around us, namely the angelic conflict and to function within our spiritual life, thus fulfilling our obligations and duties before God.
This in effect not only protects our life as an individual and soldier, but prepares us for the eventual victory in the next life and eternity.
Therefore, our focus and first priority in life is our spiritual life.
As such, we are not to get caught up in this world and the things going on around us, such that we ignore or forget, or simply fail in our spiritual life.
This does not make other activities wrong, it only sets our priorities for life.
Obviously everything we do contributes to our life and our ability to function in life. We all need an education, a career, food, clothes, transportation, hobbies, social life and so forth. Some people have a drive to accumulate vast wealth, which in turns leads to jobs for many others. Some folks invent things which make our lives easier. Some folks perform services that we need in life and so it goes.
All of society works in unison to some extent, in that all activities together create and complete the human experience. And that in turn establishes the logistics that gets us through life and gives us the opportunity to simultaneously function in our spiritual life, which is our priority.
Your life in this world is but a blink on the eternal timeline. Eternity is far, far longer than this life, therefore, preparation for that future and longer phase of your life should obviously be more important than time spent on this life.
You do not exclude the activities in this life, from your life, for obviously we need them, but more important, you are to not exclude your preparation for the next life either.
Unfortunately far too many folks exclude their preparation for the next life from their current life and thus will leave this life, quite unprepared. They get so entangled and caught up and woven into the day to day activities of their current life, that anything of eternity and a spiritual nature, gets lost in the fog of life.
Functioning within the framework of your spiritual life, pleases God and more specifically Jesus Christ.
God, all three members of the Trinity, enlisted us into the battle for life. Anything of truth, of a victorious nature, anything that brings you to a completed state in and for your life, is a good thing. And good things, happy accomplishments, completed lives that will be blessed forever, is obviously a pleasing thing.
Anything that leads to self destruction or eternal condemnation, or loss of blessing, is not a pleasing thing, but a disappointment, to say the least.
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