1 Timothy: in God's household

About the book

Timothy came from Lystra, "the son of a believing Jewish woman and a Greek father" (Acts 16:1). He had his faith from his grandmother Lois and mother Eunice (2 Timothy 1:5) and travelled with Paul from the second journey on. Paul calls him "my true child in the faith" (1 Timothy 1:2). Leaving for Macedonia, Paul had asked him to stay at Ephesus "to instruct certain men not to teach false doctrines" (1 Timothy 1:3).

1 and 2 Timothy and Titus are called the Pastoral Letters, a name in use since about the eighteenth century, because they teach two co-workers how to shepherd the churches in their care.

The church has traditionally held that Paul wrote all three. They are full of his affairs and requests, and the early church received them as his. Irenaeus, late in the second century, opens Against Heresies by quoting 1 Timothy 1:4 as the apostle's words Irenaeus, Against Heresies, and an early list of the New Testament counts all three among Paul's letters The Muratorian Fragment. Long tradition holds that Paul was released after the two years that close Acts, travelled again, was arrested once more and died in Rome under Nero; 1 Timothy and Titus belong to those years, the mid-60s. Its holders explain the different words by a new subject and readers, an older Paul, perhaps a secretary, and note that Philippians already greets "the overseers and deacons" (Philippians 1:1).

Since the nineteenth century many scholars have held instead that a disciple wrote the three in Paul's name after his death, late in the first century or early in the second, to hand his teaching on. They point to many words not found in his other letters, to a more settled church order (overseers, deacons, an enrolled list of widows), and to journeys of Paul that do not fit Acts. Some think 2 Timothy holds fragments of Paul's own last letter. Many other scholars, among them evangelicals, who stress the authority of Scripture and the telling of the gospel, keep the traditional view. The events they tell of, the end of Paul's ministry, lie in the era the map under the Jesus tab calls the church (c. AD 30–90).

How it unfolds

Key passages

Paul sums up the gospel with his own story. He was "a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man" (1 Timothy 1:13), and he was shown mercy:

This is a trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.

1 Timothy 1:15

The saying means, writes Matthew Henry, "That the Son of God came into the world, willingly and purposely to save sinners" Matthew Henry. To keep this gospel the church must be in order, and Paul writes to Timothy

so that you will know how each one must conduct himself in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

1 Timothy 3:15

So he asks for prayer for everyone, kings included (1 Timothy 2:1-2), and for overseers and deacons chosen above all for their character. Against teachers who forbade marriage and certain foods, he says, "train yourself for godliness" (1 Timothy 4:7). To those who love money he says, "godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Timothy 6:6): we can carry nothing out of the world.

Christians differ over chapter 2's "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man" (1 Timothy 2:12). Complementarians hold that men and women are equal in worth but have different roles in the church; since Paul grounds his words in the order of creation (1 Timothy 2:13), they read them as given to the church in every age. Egalitarians read them as addressed to Ephesus, where false teaching was spreading, and note the women who worked beside Paul. So some churches give the office of pastor or elder to men only, others to women as well. Both views hold that women are to learn and do valued work in the church. See Does the Bible put women down?

The book and Christ

Christ stands at the letter's centre:

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all

1 Timothy 2:5-6

‘One God’ echoes Israel's daily confession, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One" (Deuteronomy 6:4); ‘a ransom for all’ echoes Jesus' own words, that he came "to give His life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). On Israel's confession of the one God, Paul sets the one way to him.

Chapter 3 ends with what seems an early hymn to Christ: "the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit … was taken up in glory" (1 Timothy 3:16). As Matthew Henry puts it, "The mystery of godliness is Christ" Matthew Henry.

Reading it

A chapter a day takes six days; begin with 1 Timothy 1. First read Paul's farewell to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:17-38: his warning that "savage wolves will come in among you" (Acts 20:29) is what this letter meets.

In the lists of qualifications, picture the person they describe. Then go on to Paul's last letter, 2 Timothy.

Practice