Scripture · Colossians 3:16
2 Timothy 2:15
Saint Jerome Reading
Make every effort to present yourself approved to God, an unashamed workman who accurately handles the word of truth.
The signature says “Latour fec.”—La Tour made it—but the Louvre catalogues the canvas as workshop. A name on a painting and the hand that painted it do not always settle into a simple answer.
About the artwork
Jerome reads a letter by a concealed candle in this work owned by the Louvre and deposited at the Musée lorrain in Nancy. The scholar’s attention and the hidden light belong to La Tour’s visual world, while the workshop attribution preserves uncertainty about who executed the canvas.
The French state acquired the painting at auction in Poitiers by pre-emption, the right to buy at the final bid. In 2017–18 it appeared in a Geneva exhibition devoted to translation. For Jerome, remembered for his Latin Bible, that setting brought the act of reading into contact with the work for which he became a patron saint.
Featured in: Georges de La Tour’s Bible Paintings: The Candle Painter Hidden Under Other Names
What does 2 Timothy 2:15 mean?
Second Timothy 2 warns against quarrels over words that damage those listening. The call to be an unashamed workman belongs within that argument: careful handling of the word of truth is contrasted with empty or destructive talk.
The verse is paired with Jerome’s patient reading and his later reputation as a translator. It is not a judgment about workshop production or the moral worth of an uncertain attribution. The task in the text is fidelity to the message entrusted to the reader and teacher.
Second Timothy 2:15 connects Jerome’s concentrated reading with the responsibility of handling Scripture carefully.
Sources
Image source and rights declaration.
2 Timothy 2 — Berean Standard Bible. The paired text read with its surrounding chapter.
Georges de La Tour’s Bible Paintings: The Candle Painter Hidden Under Other Names. Exact-work research, history and interpretive qualifications for this reading.
Also from 2 Timothy:Saint-Sébastien