The epistle to Timothy: an introduction

I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen

Here we come across more of Paul’s emphases in the first epistle to Timothy. In talking with others, we’ve noted that as you go through this letter it can seem that Paul is almost writing in a stream-of-consciousness style. As things come to his mind he puts pen to paper. There is certainly some truth to this, Paul covers an eclectic mix of topics throughout the letter but he undoubtedly has particular groups of concerns. Concerns which are particularly relevant to Timothy at that time. While we won’t find the kind of large literary structures we saw in Matthew, we can certainly hear Paul’s voice to the church at Ephesus.

To do that we have to consider what this letter is-what most of the New Testament letters are: one side of a converstion.

In most of the New Testament letters we have an apostolic response to a situation that we have to reconstruct based on what the response itself. In some ways this is easy. As we see in v. 3 Paul tells Timothy to to “charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies” This gives us a clear outline of the situation:

Paul left Ephesus with Timothy as his stand-in
Some in the church were teaching “different doctrine” and focusing on “myths and endless genealogies”
This is almost by definition heretical and so Paul exhorts Timothy to squash it

At this level, the context is plain but it also gives rise to other questions. For instance, as was mentioned previously, there’s not a small amount of debate over the authorhsip of this epistle and the situation that’s being addressed for it is a large part of that. It seems like Paul (I’m going to show my hand) is addressing opponents of his in the Ephesian church who believe and teach ideas that resemble Gnostic heresy. The issue is that Gnosticism is mostly a 2nd century belief system so it can seem like Paul is writing four or five generations to early.

Another wrinkle in having only one side of the conversation is that the we don’t have the context by which to gauge the severity and quality of response. This manifests in terms of 1 Timothy in a number of lexical questions. We’ll look at one: why does Paul, in contrast to the rest of the NT and even in contrast to the rest of his letters, focus on the term “godliness”?

Godliness

The verbal root of the word godliness is σέβω which means worship or show reverence or respect for. This group of words show up 62 times in the NT with both positive and negative senses including “irreverent”, “dignified”, “a sacred object”, “impiety”, and “godliness”. Of these 62 uses 14 of those are in Acts and 15 are in 1 Timothy. Think about that a moment. In my Bible Acts covers 42 pages and 1 Timothy covers 5.

There’s also a difference in the character of usage. Luke uses the word group in its verbal form 9 or the 14 times (meaning “worship”). While it’s used in Timothy as a verb only once. In 1 Timothy 5:4 widows are to learn to:

“show godliness to their own family” (ESV)
“practice piety”(NASB)
“their religious duty”(NRSV)

There’s obviously a heavy emphasis here even in terms of Paul’s own writing. Paul uses the word group 5 time in Romans (almost exclusively with the negative connotation as “impiety”) and 5 times in Titus where it is used similarly to this letter. This is another piece of evidence that is sometimes used in the argument that Paul did not write 1 Timothy.

But I find it more likely that Paul is trying to tell Timothy something. Colleen used to always tell her class that the Bible was not written to you but it was written for you. Paul is making a point to Timothy and by extension he tells us the same thing. There is a decidedly ethical slant to Paul’s instruction. Take for example the vice-list from 1 Tim. 1:9-10. Clearly taking inspiration from the Ten Commandments it lists not the actions that are sinful but the sinner’s who do them. Compare it to Romans 1:29-30 where Paul provides a vice-list describing those who refuse to acknowledge God:

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Now 1 Tim. 1:9-10:

the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine

Notice how the final element is a little jarring? It stands at the end and is quite different from the first part of the list. Paul moves up the ladder of abstraction. He was speaking of those who are characterized by various sins to the general conceptual condemnation of anything “contrary to sound doctrine”. Why is this?

I think Paul is drawing the connection between the embodied life and belief. There is a fundamental and irrevocable connection between the ethical and the religious. What we believe inevitably flows out into what we do, the tree is known by it’s fruit.

In a curious way it goes the other way too. How many times have you realized that there was something you should do, it was something a Christian should do, even something a Christian should want to do, but you didn’t want to do it? Now if you did that thing all of the sudden you have made a kind of self-determination. That act is fruit, what does it say about the tree?

Paul is making the connection between the teaching of the church and the character of it’s people and we’ll see that more when we look at his self-description.

The ethics of the church: the unity of 1 timothy 1

what is “godliness”

Used often in Hellenistic culture (from Towner):

“reverence for the most manifest goddess Artemis”, inscription in Ephesus
“wardens of the mysteries of the Artemis cult who also were a part of the city’s governing structure, were titled εὐσεβεῖς”

But the concept appears often in Hellenistic Judaism as well as attested in the LXX:

Prov. 1:7, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction”
Isa. 11:2, “And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.”
Isa. 33:6, “and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is Zion’s treasure”

what is the charge?

“The charge” plays an important structural role in chapter 1. So what is it?

v. 3, (verb) “remain in Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine.”
v. 5, “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”
v. 18, “This charge I entrust to you…”

Personal application

“Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you,” Most likely this is something like Acts 13:1-3 where Paul and Barnabas are set aside by the will of the Holy Spirit. It is likely Timothy’s initial call and commissioning into the ministry in mind. This would probably have included investiture of authority since it is “by them” or “in accordance with them” that Timothy will obey the following commands from the apostle.

the military metaphor and the ethical life

“that by them you may wage the good warfare,” I prefer the rendering of “fight the good fight” since it preserves the connection between the verb and the noun. Here we have the word from which we get “strategy” and Paul is just using the verb and noun form of it. Literally just saying “verb the noun.” But we gain something by the translation in the ESV: “wage the good warfare”, what different connotations do we get?

The fight in mind is one that covers a lot. Paul starts with the specific charge to oppose the teaching of heretical doctrine but he is pointing towards the all-encompassing nature of the Christian life. Or to put it another way, Timothy’s faithfulness in carrying out the specific charge of guarding the Ephesian flock is indicative of and predictive of his faithfulness in carrying the characteristic values of Christian discipleship: faith, love, and a good conscience, a pure heart.

The role of the moral life

“holding faith and a good conscience.” Every command (imperative) is an answer to the implicit question “What should I do?” or “What ought I to do?“.

The participles function like what we saw in the Great Commission, the command is

“wage the good warfare” which requires
“holding faith a good conscience”

Conscience is the crucial connection between belief and action. It provides the movement from correct knowledge to correct action. The tree is known by its fruit.

Notice that the command to the implicit question is often based on a theological truth. We saw this in Paul’s own description last week. In response to the overflowing grace of the Lord Paul moved from “a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent” to apostle. This is/ought connection is not universally agreed upon, many philosophers have but a dividing line between the two saying you cannot get to an ought from an is. But that’s precisely what Paul often presupposes.

Is provides the framework for ought, and if we then respond in accordance with those oughts we further establish ourselves as the is and importantly as a good instantiation.

You’re a father. Okay that’s an is. What is the ought that comes from that: minimally you can say you must protect and provide. And if you do protect and provide you start to become a good father. And we often even see this outside of the preexisting is. Think of fostering and adoption or even just emergent familial relationships in the church. A man can act as a father to a child, protecting and providing, and even if he has no other children we would praise him as being a father to that kid. It works negatively as well as we’re going to see in chapter 5 where Paul talks about widows who are eligible for church support, in v. 8 he warns “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” This is also what we see with Hymenaeus and Alexander.

Whether Paul is the actual “foremost sinner” or he means he’s the prototypical sinner doesn’t matter, since he would automatically be prototypical if he were the foremost.

“By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith,”

Cf. Acts 7:27, “thrust aside”
cf. Rom. 11:1, “Has God rejected his people?”

Discipline in the church

“among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander,” Paul identifies two particular Ephesians who are representative of the failure to fight the good fight, hold to the faith, and who reject their own conscience.

Hymenaeus, likely the same as the Hymenaeus of 2 Tim. 2:16-17
Alexander, less certain that this would be the same Alexander of Acts 19:33-34 (a Jew) or of 2 Tim. 4:14, “Alexander the coppersmith”

“whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.”

cf. 1 Cor. 5:3-5 where Paul strongly condemns the man who is commiting adultery with his dad’s wife: “For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord”

This is a clear statement of church discipline. The offending teachers are to be put out of the congregation but with a purpose, “that they may learn not to blaspheme.”

Cf. also 2 Tim. 2:24-25 for further evidence that the goal of correction was repentance.