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.

Chapter 5

• Honor all
• Office of widows
  • almost protomonastic
• compensation for presbyters
• Torah standard for 2–3 witnesses for accusations
• But sin requires public rebuke
• Both sin and good works will out

Chapter 6

• How slaves should behave
  • Note the believing slave with a believing master are brothers.
• Again St Paul says to not get bound up in endless controversies
• Contentment is a chief virtue.
  • Avarice/greed especially love of money is a root of all sin. (St Paul uses hyperbole here, certianly there are other sins, but the tendency of translations to soften it to all kinds of sin is not commendable.)
• Flee from sin; persue righteousness.
  • Fight the fight of the faith.
    • note the action here. Being faithful is a struggle.
• Note: King of kings was used in 2 Ezra 7.12, Ezekiel 26.7, and Daniel 2.37 as title for the Bablyonian and Persan king. Here is used of God. Compare 2 Maccabees 13.4 and 3 Maccabees 5.35.
• God is revealed — made manifest — in Christ.
• Wealth is given to the wealthy to distribute it, by this they may make a good foundation and take hold of eternal life.
• Paul ends by again commanding Timothy to be strong in the faith and keeping tradition.