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About Jesus Steve Sweetman 1 Timothy 1 ch. 1:1-2 ch. 1:3-12 ch.1:12-19
Introduction The
following commentary is based on the 1984 edition of the New International
Bible. The chapter titles
correspond to the chapter titles of the NIV to make for easy comparison. Concerning
the dating of this letter there seems to be much ambiguity about just when
it was written. However, we
know that it was written by Paul to Timothy as an instructional letter.
Timothy was in
Paul’s
Introduction (ch. 1:1 - 2) In
verse 1 Paul introduces himself as an “apostle of Christ Jesus by the
command of God”. Of course
an apostle is one who is sent, and in this case Paul was sent by a command
of God. We often say that God
“calls” us to His service and that is correct.
Yet in this verse Paul says that God commanded him to be an
apostle. You might remember at
Paul’s conversion where God commanded him to serve Him and preach His
message. This indeed was a
call, but the call came as a command. Paul
felt as if he had no other choice than to be a representative of God as
one of His apostles. Paul
says that God is “our Saviour”. We
often think in terms of Jesus being our Saviour, and that is clearly and
technically true. We must
remember that God sent Jesus, and that God was Jesus, so in this we can
note that God is our Saviour. Paul
also says in verse one that Jesus is “our hope”. Because Jesus rose
from the dead, we have a hope of rising from the dead as well to live with
Him. This is what 1 Cor. 15 is
all about, that is the great resurrection
chapter. Note
that Paul links God to Jesus. He always does this.
Many of us miss the point, but it is one of the most fundamental
points of the Bible. The God
of the Bible cannot be separated from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Any attempt to make such a separation means that God has been
redefined and this redefined God is not really God.
In
verse 2 Paul calls Timothy “his true son in the faith”.
Timothy was not Paul’s biological son, but his spiritual son.
Paul felt like a father to Timothy when it came to things of the
faith. I'd
like to suggest at this point that some have doctrinalized Paul's
statement here. Because Paul
viewed himself as a "father in the Lord" to Timothy, some Bible
teachers say that all Christians need to find a "father in the Lord
to submit to". I don't
see that as being New Testament thinking.
Yes, we do see some Christians having a "father in the Lord in
the New Testament, but there is no specific New Testament teaching that
says we need to go out and search for one.
It is bad Biblical interpretation to take a relationship that Paul
had with Timothy and turn it into a doctrine of the church
Paul
says, “grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and from our Lord
Jesus Christ”. Paul was sent
by and from God and Jesus to speak on their behalf.
Therefore Paul could truly say “grace, mercy and peace from
God…”. It was as if God
was sending Paul and giving him this letter to pass along to Timothy.
You
might say it this way. If
Robert tells Steve to go and visit Jim and give him a certain message,
when Steve comes to Jim’s house he says, “Robert sends his
greetings”. Paul is telling
Timothy that God is sending His greetings. Note
once again, as we always note, that Paul connects God and Jesus by putting
them in the same sentence. The
God that Paul, and all Christians serve and worship, is the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other God, although this Scriptural
truth has been pretty well lost in the so-called liberal church today. Warning Against False Teachers Of The Law (ch. 1:3 - 11) In
verse 3 Paul states at some point in the past told Timothy to stay in If
you remember in John 8 the Pharisees claimed acceptance by God because
Abraham was their ancestral father.
They were counting on genealogy to find acceptance with God. Paul
does not believe that being a Jew makes you a Christian.
The Judaizers that Paul addressed in his letter to the Galatians
believed that their Jewish heritage was sufficient for the purposes of
salvation. This was not
the gospel that Paul preached. Timothy was supposed to try to straighten
this matter out. Note
the word "command' here. Paul
is usually quite strong when it comes to false teaching.
He does not beat around the bush. He comes right out with the
rebuke, and this is what he wants Timothy to do as well.. In
verse 4 Paul says that such thinking does not produce the real work of God
“which is by faith”. Salvation
comes by trusting in Jesus, not by being of a certain race as the
Judaizers were teaching. Note
the term "endless genealogies" in verse
4. These genealogies
were meant to prove that certain people came from certain Jewish
patriarchs in the past. Again,
the Jews were strong on the point that they were God's chosen people.
A good study of the Old Testament will show you where these people
are coming from. It was very
easy for Jewish Christians to think the was they did.
Over and over again throughout the Old Testament God reminded His
people to follow the Law of Moses, and if they didn't, they would be cut
off from In
verse 5 Paul gives this command to Timothy, that is to address the problem
with false teachers. “The
goal of this command is love, which comes
from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith”.
Paul’s ultimate goal was love, love for your brothers in Christ.
So often teaching separates us from each other.
This should not be the case. We
should have a “pure heart, good conscience, and a sincere faith”.
Many claim faith, but it is not sincere, not real, as James clearly
says. Much of our activity
does not really come from a pure heart and a sincere conscience but from
vanity and pride, wanting to promote ourselves above the gospel and the
Lord Himself. Part
of what Paul is saying here is that love should be
the motivating factor in Christian leadership who care for God's
people, but this is not always the case.
As I just stated, pride and arrogance in today's style of churches
is often the motivating factor in church leadership.
This should not be. Leaders
are to be humble servants. Paul
was rightly upset with these false teachers, but beneath being upset, he
still loved them, and he still loved the truth.
It broke his heart to see false teachers in the church, but out of
a good conscience he could not let truth be laid aside for error.
He had to do something about it.
Love, a good conscience, and a desire for truth drove Paul in his
ministry. In
verse 6 Paul says that some
“have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk”.
I wonder how much meaningless talk Paul might find in our modern
church. The whole thing about
genealogies and Jewish heritage was meaningless talk to Paul.
This would have disturbed the Jews and Jewish Christians to no end.
Again, if you understand the Old Testament, you can see the problem
that Paul and the gospel has created.
In
verse 7 he says, “they want to be teachers of the law, but they do not
know what they are talking about…”.
This clues us in to what false teaching is being spread in The
fundamental issue here is how one should view the Old Testament as a New
Testament Christian. I believe
this is one of the most misunderstood issues in the church today, as it
was in Paul's day, even though Paul went to much trouble to explain these
things. The Old
Testament still has significance for us today, but much of it, especially
the Law of Moses has taken on a new meaning for us today.
The Law of Moses has no more significance for the purpose of
salvation. It still has
prophetic meaning though, since it is just as much a book of prophecy as
it is a book of rules and regulations.
In
verse 8 Paul says, “we know that the law is good if one uses it
properly”. Paul in other
letters that he has written tells us some good uses of the law.
The law was a schoolmaster, something that told us of our sinful
condition that should lead us to Jesus, the one with the answer to our
condition. One thing that the
law is not good for is to bring us to salvation.
Paul makes it very clear that the law cannot save us.
In his letter to Timothy, he says that the law is for the sinful
person. He provides a long
list of examples of sinful people in verses 6 through 11 that the law is
meant for. He ends this long
list by saying “and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine
that conforms to the glorious gospel…”
The glorious gospel teaches us that salvation comes by trusting in
Jesus alone, and nothing else, even God’s law.
I
just point out one particular sin that Paul mentions here.
He only mentions this sin once in his writings, and that is the sin
of "slave trading". Many
people think that Paul was for slavery because in 1 Corinthians 7 he
states that if you are a slave don't try to be free unless you are granted
your freedom. Paul speaks
about slaves in other parts of his writings as well, but here, he
certainly states that trading slaves is evil.
I believe that Paul had no real problem with having slaves as long
as you treated them with respect and dignity as a human being.
But, when it came to trading of men and women as slaves, Paul felt
this was a grave sin.
Note
the use of the word doctrine in verse 10.
Doctrine simply means teaching.
Paul was concerned with right doctrine, or right teaching,
something that in our modern church has been lost.
Sometimes I feel we have gone the way of the world and believe in
relativism. That is to say,
that truth is relevant and may change from circumstance to circumstance.
Our de-emphasis on right doctrine undermines both the Bible and the
very nature of truth itself. If
something is true, if something is truth, then it cannot be relevant in
this sense of the word. It
cannot change from place to place or age to age.
Truth remains the same or else it is not truth.
Paul strongly believes in the importance of right thinking The Lord’s Grace To Paul (ch.1:12 - 20) In
verse 12 Paul says that he thanks “Christ Jesus our Lord”.
Notice the word “our”. He
includes Timothy as being one with him as having the same Lord. Paul is
thankful to Jesus for “considering him faithful, appointing him to His
service”. God not only
called Paul to salvation, He called him to a ministry, a particular task,
that is preaching the gospel. As hard of a life Paul had because of this
calling, he felt extremely thankful and privileged to be a servant to the
Lord of all the universe. I'd
suggest that each and everyone of us are not only called to salvation, but
also called to do work in the service of the Lord. This work varies from
person to person, but as each part of a human body has a duty to perform,
so each of us have a duty to perform in the Body of Christ. I
think we should be as Paul states in this verse.
I think we need to be thankful.
I think we need to view ourselves as servants, and, I think we need
to understand we have a job to do in the In
verse 13 Paul felt especially grateful to Jesus because of his past.
Even though Paul said that he was once a blasphemer, a persecutor
of Christians and even a violent man, God had mercy on him.
Why did God have mercy on him?
Paul says that he “acted in ignorance and unbelief”.
When people are steeped in unbelief they are often ignorant that
the things they are doing are wrong. Telling
them that what they are doing is wrong is not necessarily the right
approach. You must first confront them about their unbelief in Jesus.
Once that issue is settled then they become less ignorant of what
is right and wrong. Too often
as Christians we major on telling people about all the sins they are
committing, when we should be telling them of the most important sin,
which is unbelief. Note
the reason why Paul said that God had mercy on him.
It was because he did these things in ignorance.
I think there is something of importance here.
God does have extra mercy on those who are ignorant of the gospel
and Biblical truth. He is
harder on those who know the truth and do not obey it.
That can be seen in
Jesus' treatment of the Pharisees. I'm
not sure how God's mercy is shown to the ignorant, only that He has extra
mercy for them. Paul
says in verse 14 that “the grace of our Lord was poured out on me
abundantly”. You might say
that Paul felt extremely drenched with God’s grace.
By using the word “poured”, you get the idea of the Lord
standing over Paul with a big barrel of grace and just dumping it all over
Paul. Then by using the word
“abundantly” it suggests that the Lord used more than one big barrel.
Paul’s
use of the words “our Lord” strikes me as
I read this passage. Paul
often uses these words. Paul
saw himself as a servant to the Lord. Paul was a number of things.
He was a Christian, an apostle, a preacher and teacher, and a
fellow worker with Jesus Himself. But
the foundational thought that Paul had about himself was that he was a
servant of Jesus. When
preaching the gospel to those who aren’t Christians we tend at times to
neglect this idea of servant-hood. When people become Christians, they
become a servant of Jesus. We
are not merely saved to go to Heaven.
We are saved to become a servant, which implies following Jesus and
doing what He wants us to do. This
is something that is often overlooked in the modern gospel we preach. In
verse 15 Paul says to Timothy, “here is a trustworthy saying that
deserves full acceptance”. Remember,
Paul is speaking to one man here, and what he is doing is teaching him
what he needs to know in order to perform his duties in the Lord.
So Paul says that he has something trustworthy to pass along to
him, and it is, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”.
We were all sinners. There
were no saints on earth when Jesus was born to Mary.
Jesus came to save sinners, or in another word, to rescue sinners.
Note
the phrase "Christ Jesus came into the world".
The very nature of this phrase tells us that Christ came into the
world, and if He came into the world, He must have existed prior to coming
into the world. This shows us
that Paul believed in the Deity of Christ, and that He existed before His
incarnation. Paul
goes on to tell Timothy that as far as he was concerned, he himself was
the worst sinner. Now whether
he really was the worst sinner in history we don’t know.
We do know that Paul considered himself the worst of sinners.
Maybe he was using this designation
somewhat generically. Maybe
he considered himself to be in that group of real bad sinners. From
what we know of Paul prior to his conversion, we do know that he was a
good Pharisee, but a bad sinner. Earlier
he said that God showed him mercy because what he did was in ignorance
because of his unbelief. Here
in verse 16 he says that God showed him mercy because he was the worst
sinner. Paul says that the
reason why God chose him was because Jesus being so good and he being so
bad could clearly show God’s glory in his life.
If you have a white dot and a black background, the dot can be seen
very easily. If you see a
while dot on a off white background, the dot will be hard to see.
This is the way it was with Paul.
He was so bad that people had to see the change in him brought
about by Jesus. Note
the words "unlimited patience" in verse 16.
God has "unlimited patience".
That is, He is very patient, but at some point, His sense of
justice will rise to the occasion and bring judgment to that which needs
to be judged. This is clear if
you read the book of Revelation.
Paul
uses the word "ignorance" here.
He said that he sinned in ignorance.
He did not know what he was doing was wrong.
This was one reason why God called Paul and poured out grace to
him. This tells me that if
people are truly living in ignorance, God will do something to help bring
them out of this life of ignorance. That
is only the just thing to do, and we know that God is just.
So when we are asked about those who have never heard about Jesus,
and are ignorant of these things, we can be sure that God will be just in
the way He treats these people. In
verse 16 Paul says that his life was an example “for those who would
believe on Him and receive eternal life”.
This point is always in the forefront of Paul’s thinking.
He wanted so much to be a good example for others to follow.
On many occasions he would ask his readers to follow him, as he
followed Christ. The same can
be true with us today, assuming we are indeed following Christ as
we should. Paul
being an example was meant for those “who believed”, or really trusted
Jesus with their lives, resulting in “eternal life” with Jesus. We
know from other passages that Paul wasn't asking Timothy or others to copy
exactly who he was and what he did. He
wanted Timothy and others to follow him in the way he trusted in Jesus.
We are all different, with different personalities.
We aren't to be robots of Christian leadership.
This is important in this day when many Christian leaders are
teaching an unhealthy version of submission and authority to leadership.
I've seen abuses in this when people are told to submit to
pastors/shepherds, to apostles, and to spiritual fathers.
Paul
ends this portion of his letter with a doxology before giving Timothy some
instructions. He says in verse
17 “now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be
honour and glory, for ever and ever, amen.”
Paul states some of the attributes of God in this verse.
He says that God is eternal, meaning without beginning or ending.
God was never created. He
always was and ever will be. God
is immortal. The Greek word
“aion” is translated as “eternal” in this verse and others.
“Aion” basically means an indefinite period of time.
Greeks did not view this word necessarily in terms of length of
time, but characterized it in moral quality of time.
Although our word “age” denotes a specific period of time, with
a beginning and ending, Greeks did not necessarily see “aion” in the
same way. You might say that
they thought that the beginning and ending of time was not knowable. Thus
the beginning and ending of God is not knowable. The
Greek word “aphtharsia” is translated here as “immortal”.
It means “not being destroyed by some corrupting agent”.
Man is mortal because our bodies decay, leading to death.
This is not the case with God.
Corruption is not part of who He is. God
is also invisible, as Paul puts it. He
cannot be seen, at least with human eyesight.
Does this mean He can’t be seen at all, say by angels or spirits?
We don’t really know the answer to this.
There are many things that are invisible to the human eye but non
the less can be seen or detected by other means.
Verse
18 begins with ”Timothy my son”. Timothy
wasn’t Paul’s biological son, but a spiritual son in the Lord.
I've said this before, but it needs to be said again.
In today's church there is a teaching stating that all Christians
must go and search out a spiritual father, or fathers, to submit to.
They teach this, partly based on this verse.
I think it is bad Biblical interpretation to take a relationship
that Paul had and make a New Testament doctrine out of it and teach it to
the church as something that is necessary to follow.
I feel if one has a spiritual father, that is good, but if not,
there is no need to search for one, unless the Lord gives you one.
Worse still, I do not see the Scriptural logic in making a doctrine
out of this.
Paul
says in verse 18, “I give you this instruction”.
The instruction that Paul is about to give him doesn’t really
appear in the letter until chapter 2:1.
Before getting to the instruction he reminds Timothy that there
were certain prophecies given to him, or as he puts it, “made about
you”. The
word “prophecy” has a wide range of meaning.
In its simplest form it means speaking forth God’s word.
This could take place in a variety of forms.
It could be a sermon in a Sunday morning church service, although
all sermons are not prophetic. One
sharing the gospel on a street corner can be prophesying, or speaking
God’s word inspired by the Holy Spirit.
What appeared to happen in this instance with Timothy is what often
happens in charismatic style meetings today.
That is a prophetic message is given for a particular person.
It may be an encouraging message, or it could be a message of
specific direction for that person to take.
This is what appears to have happened with Timothy.
Paul wants to remind him of these prophecies.
God spoke to Timothy on more than one occasion. Paul
continues by saying, “by
following them (the prophecies) you (Timothy) might fight the good fight
of faith.”. The prophecies
were definitely directive. God
told Timothy to do something that should be followed.
By following these prophecies Timothy would be able to stand the
test, or fight the fight. By
using the word “fight” Paul tells us that the Christian life is not
always easy. Jesus never
promised that it would be easy. Verse
19 says, “holding on to faith and a good conscience”.
Timothy, and us, need to “hold on” to our faith, or our trust
in Jesus, with a “good conscience”.
A good conscience implies that Timothy would live his life the best
way he knew in the sight of the Lord.
His conscience would have no need to tell him that he is doing
wrong. Sometimes
our conscience can be right and other times it can be wrong.
Part of the Christian life is bringing our conscience in line with
the Word of God. Paul
goes on to say in verse 19 that “some have rejected these and have
shipwrecked their faith”. Forsaking
your trust in Jesus will obviously shipwreck your faith, or bring your
faith to an end. If then you
have lost your faith, that which your salvation is based on, then you have
lost your salvation. Paul
mentions two men in verse 20, “Hymenaeus and Alexander” who have
shipwrecked their faith. Paul
says that he has handed these men over to satan “to be taught not to
blaspheme”. We are not sure just what these two men have done, but
whatever it was, Paul felt to hand them over to satan.
Paul has done this elsewhere. The
man who committed adultery in the Corinthian church with his father’s
wife is another example of handing someone over to satan. I believe what
Paul is saying here is that he would not try to help these men.
He would let them go on their destructive path where satan could
have his way with them. Paul was hoping that the end result would be a
lesson learned, and that these men would eventually return to the Lord and
real faith. In
the instance in the Corinthian church where the man was sleeping with his
father's wife, Paul gave him over to satan that his body would be lost but
his spirit saved. I believe
that means this man would eventually die in his sin, and because of his
sin, but in the end, he would be saved.
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