1 Timothy

Chapter 1

• Address to St Timothy
• Timothy charged to stay at Ephesus to preach the Gospel
• Don’t get bound up in endless genealogies and disputes/speculations (dep on Greek text).
• Rather the focus is stewardship/building in the faith
• The Law is good if used lawfully, in accordance with the Gospel, to restrain sin.
• God’s grace changed St Paul, and enabled him to preach the Gospel because he was faithful.
• The faithful saying is “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the first.”
• Purpose of instructing Timothy, to keep the faith.

Chapter 2

• Prayers to be made for all.
• That we may live a quiet life (a theme of St Paul’s) a-quiet-life
  • Cf 1 Thessalonians 4.1, 2 Thessalonians 3.12, Ephesians 4.28
• Christ desires the salvation of all, and mystically uses our prayers and a quiet life to do so.
• Christ mediates between God and man, and St Paul was appointed a preacher of the Gospel
• Again St Paul calls for a quiet and modest life. Modest being primarily not showing off wealth.
• This is noted particularly of the women, but then he says woman is saved through Childbirth (which must find it’s ultimate fulfillment in the Virgin Mary giving birth to Christ. Not also contrast between Adam and Eve. The Theotokos since St Irenaeus has been regarded as the New Eve, and there may be hints of it here.) new-eve
  • Note salvation in NT is broader than the Protestant understanding of ‘justification’.

Chapter 3

• Requirements for bishops/priests.
• Requirements for deacons.
• Mystery of the faith — incarnation and Gospel

Chapter 4

• Apostasy in the last days
  • False asceticism (no marriage for all, no feasting, always fasting [clearly not against fasting considering the Gospels and Jesus’ teachings])
• Timothy advised to persue godliness
• Timothy to study the scriptures.