2 Timothy 2:4

2 Timothy 2:4. No man that warreth. Better, ‘no soldier on service.'

Affairs. The Greek word had acquired the secondary sense of affairs of trade, the businesses of this life. In Roman practice a soldier could not make a trade contract, or be plaintiff in a lawsuit

Who hath chosen him to be a soldier. The Greek word is-technical: the commander of a band which he himself has raised. As such it has a manifest fitness as applied to Christ, the great ‘Captain of our salvation.' It was perhaps natural that the analogy thus stated should have developed in ecclesiastical legislation into a rule forbidding the ministers of the Church from engaging in any secular pursuits as a means of livelihood. Such a rule has much to be said in its favour on grounds of general expediency, but it should be remembered that it rests on them and not on St. Paul's words. They are wider in their application, and extend to all soldiers of Christ, i.e. to all Christians, and they warn us, not against engaging in secular callings, but against so ‘entangling' ourselves in them that they hinder the free growth of our higher life.