NOTES for Ti2 2:8-9
What Paul means, by saying that "the word of God is not bound"? It would have been of course possible to say that the truth will win in every case, in spite of all the persecutions and the pursuits. But it would have been possible to speak so, only in the case if the truth was something completely independent from man and from his choice. The famous "and all the same the earth turns!" is a good example for that: if "the earth" really "turns", no matter what people think, quite as no matter, if shall be obliged to give up his words, the one who spoke of this to others: who heard, has heard, after each makes his conclusions, and the reality will not change an iota because of these conclusions.
Of course, for the scholar, his position and loyalty to the truth revealed by him is a question of spiritual choice, but the human weakness in that case change nothing: "the earth” will “turn" in any case, and the personal spiritual qualities of each and his choice in a concrete situation influence only on his own destiny. And everyone who will like to study what was revealed to others, will be able to do that independently of the position and the personal qualities of his predecessor.
When it is about the witness of the Kingdom, everything turns out otherwise. Only the one who is a member of this Kingdom can witness about the life in the Kingdom, and from his witness depends the spiritual fate of the seekers. And here the loyalty of the witness is important not only for the one who witnesses; it just stops being his personal affair. But the testimony already turns out here not only the word, but also the life of the one who witnesses, and even his death.
It is not accidentally that, those whom we began to call later martyrs were called witnesses in the times of early Christianity: parting from the earthly life, they thus proved that there is another life, life of the Kingdom, of which before they told those who were ready to listen. And for the sake of this life, a life in all its plenitude, it is not regrettable to part from this small grain of plenitude, which forms our life in this non-transformed world. Well then it turns out that God's word is really "not bound": because if it is not only the life, but also the death of the one who witnesses, that is the witness, then it is impossible to mute such word.