NOTES for Ti2 2:4
In the letter to Timothy, as in some other cases, Paul compares the Christian to a soldier who cannot allow himself to be bound by the everyday affairs of life that burden others.
It can seem that in that case a Christian should have neither home nor family, and that the only possible Christian path is the monastic path: after all, a monk resembles a soldier precisely in that nothing in this world binds him. But in fact the point need not be monasticism specifically, although there is a certain link between the way of the monk and the way of the warrior, at least as the warrior was understood in traditional cultures. The issue is above all the inner state of a person, which the Bible calls poverty. Not poverty in the sense of material condition, but precisely in the sense of a spiritual state.
Of course, in certain cases and for certain people the path of inner poverty is possible only through a complete refusal, including an outward refusal, not only of every wealth but also of family and home, and therefore of property in general, except the barest necessities. But the point is not such refusal as such. The point is to renounce every attempt to rely in life on anything except God.
And for this a person must recognize the simple and, in general, obvious fact that we do not even belong to ourselves: after all, we became human beings thanks to the "breath of life" that God "breathed" into us at creation. And if we are not our own but God's, then our claims to possess anything in this world hardly have any meaning. God gives us the whole world, but not as property; He gives it for use and stewardship, yet on one necessary condition: practical recognition of His full and unconditional sovereignty over the world and over ourselves.
Then a person can use everything and live possessing nothing and binding himself to nothing, like a soldier who, while on duty, does not think about how to earn his living but about how to carry out the order he has received. The one in whose service the soldier stands takes care of his food. And if such an attitude to life is expected of everyone who has set out on the spiritual path, then all the more should it belong to a Christian as a resident of the Kingdom, as Paul reminds Timothy.