Book Intro › Paul’s Letters

1 Timothy

Πρὸς Τιμόθεον αʹ Pros Timotheon A, “first to Timothy”. Letter to a co-worker. 6 chapters, 113 verses.

Instructions to Timothy at Ephesus on false teaching, prayer, church leaders, widows and money, so that he “may know how men ought to behave themselves in God’s house.”

Read 1 Timothy 1 →

Overview

1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus have been known since the 18th century as the Pastoral Epistles, or Pastorals, because they are addressed to individuals caring for churches. Paul, leaving for Macedonia, has asked Timothy to stay in Ephesus and stop certain teachers from spreading “a different doctrine” (1:3) and paying attention to “myths and endless genealogies” (1:4). The goal, he says, “is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith” (1:5).

The letter then sets out how the church should order its life: prayer “for all men” (2:1), conduct in worship, the qualities required of overseers and servants (deacons), care for widows, honour for elders, and the duties of slaves. It ends with warnings about the desire for wealth, since “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (6:10), and a closing charge, “Fight the good fight of faith” (6:12). Throughout, sound teaching and godly living are treated as belonging together.

Author and date

The letter names Paul as its author and Timothy, his long-time co-worker, as its recipient (1:1–2). Whether Paul wrote the Pastoral Epistles is one of the most debated authorship questions in the New Testament.

Traditional view

Paul · c. AD 62–64 · from Macedonia

The church received the Pastorals as Paul’s from at least the late second century, and many scholars still hold that view. The journeys they mention do not fit the story in Acts, so this view dates the letters to a further period of travel, after Paul’s release from his first imprisonment in Rome. Differences in vocabulary and style are explained by the new subject, Paul’s age, or his use of a secretary.

Academic view

A follower of Paul · late 1st or early 2nd century

Most academic scholars think the Pastorals were written after Paul’s death by someone writing in his name for a later generation. They point to vocabulary and style unlike the undisputed letters (the seven that nearly all scholars accept as Paul’s). They also note a more settled church with established offices, and “the faith” used for a body of teaching. And the travel details are hard to fit into Paul’s known life. Some suggest the writer drew on genuine notes of Paul’s, especially in 2 Timothy.

Both views treat the three Pastorals together, since they share vocabulary, concerns and setting, and both see them as concerned with handing on sound teaching to the next generation of leaders.

Audience and setting

Timothy came from Lystra, the son of a Jewish mother and a Greek father (Acts 16:1), and travelled with Paul for years, often as his envoy. Here he is in Ephesus (see Ephesians), a large and established church, where teachers from within the congregation were spreading “what is falsely called knowledge” (6:20). Their teaching seems to have involved speculation about genealogies and strict rules of self-denial that forbade marriage and certain foods (4:3). The letter is personal in form, but much of it is plainly meant to be heard by the church.

Genre, and how to read it

Read 1 Timothy as a manual for a church and a letter to a younger colleague at once. Short sayings are marked out with the formula “This is a faithful saying” (3:1) or a variation of it (1:15, 4:9), and 3:16 preserves what may be an early hymn about Christ, beginning “God was revealed in the flesh.”

Several passages are central to present-day disagreements between churches. The instruction “I don’t permit a woman to teach, nor to exercise authority over a man” (2:12) is read by some traditions as a lasting rule for church leadership and by others as addressed to a particular situation in Ephesus. The qualifications for overseers and servants in chapter 3 are applied to bishops, priests, elders and deacons in different ways by churches governed by bishops, by elders or by the whole congregation.

What an overseer must be

Outline

• 1:1–1:2 Greeting — To Timothy, “my true child in faith”
• 1:3–1:20 False teachers and Paul’s story — Myths and genealogies; the chief of sinners
• 2:1–2:15 Prayer and worship — Prayer for all people; men and women in the assembly
• 3:1–3:13 Overseers and servants — The character of church leaders
• 3:14–3:16 The household of God — The mystery of godliness
• 4:1–4:16 Timothy’s example — False self-denial; godliness and teaching
• 5:1–6:2 Widows, elders and slaves — Honour and care within the church
• 6:3–6:21 Money and the good fight — Contentment, the rich, the final charge

Key themes

Sound teaching

The letter contrasts “sound words” (6:3) with myths and controversies, and ends with the charge, “guard that which is committed to you” (6:20).

Salvation for all

God “desires all people to be saved” (2:4), and “there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (2:5).

Grace to the worst

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1:15).

The church’s order

The church is “God’s house, which is the assembly of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (3:15).

Contentment

“But godliness with contentment is great gain” (6:6), and the rich are to set their hope “on the living God” (6:17).

At a glance

11 people and 2 places named.

Most mentioned: Jesus Christ, Timotheus, Adam, Satan, Alexander

Main places: Ephesus, Macedonia