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Introduction

See Timothy. Although this letter is directed to Timothy, it also seems that it was written with the expectation that it be read in the churches where Timothy was working. Hearing these marching orders for Timothy from Paul and the confidence Paul had in him would give people reasons to heed the words of a young man they might otherwise regard lightly. Similarly, when your wife and children hear in the daily Bible readings of the responsibility God places on you as the man, and the respective responsibilities to God they have, they might give your words consideration that they otherwise might take lightly.

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1 Timothy 1

1 Tim 1:1 – Being an apostle must have been an overwhelming assignment. It helped Paul to remember that it was something he was “commanded” to do. Remember how a “command” from Jesus was what gave Peter the confidence to step out of the boat and walk on water? (Mt 14:28) Likewise, when our responsibilities as husbands and fathers overwhelm us, let us find strength in remembering that our responsibilities before God are not options – they are commandments.

1 Tim 1:2 – Timothy may have been the subordinate of a great man of God, but he had to live by the same “grace, mercy, and peace” as the rest of us.

1 Tim 1:3 – Certainly we today live in a time when “strange doctrines” are proliferating. We are therefore well-acquainted with the kind of environment Paul and Timothy were experiencing. Let us always be thankful for anyone with a platform who stands up to the proponents of strange teachings.

1 Tim 1:4 – Every time someone expects us to affirm their self-determined, but counterfactual identity, they are asking us to believe a “myth.” ***** As for “endless genealogies,” this sort of thing today goes by the name “evolution.” ***** Faith cannot be built on speculation; it comes from that which is certain.

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

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Rom 14:22 The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God…

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1 Cor 8:2 If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know;

Where faith is concerned, it is not enough to “suppose” or “think” that we know something. We must know that we know.

1 Tim 1:5 – A good summation of the Bible’s purpose.

1 Tim 1:6-7 – Faith is confident, but not all confidence is faith. Ignorance and error can be very confident. Just because someone opens the Bible and teaches from it confidently does not mean that he is teaching it rightly. Know enough of Jesus and the Bible yourself to be able to test what you’re hearing against what you already know.

1 Tim 1:8-11 – Do you recognize Paul’s allusions to various of the Ten Commandments in this passage?

1 Tim 1:12-16 – I’m so thankful Paul wrote this and that it was preserved for us to read! I say this because you and I face many moments when we’re confronted with our unworthiness to open the Bible with our families. Paul shows us that feelings like this can be overcome with a will to believe in X’s forgiveness and obey His commands.

1 Tim 1:17 – Amen, indeed!

1 Tim 1:18-20 – A “good conscience” is like a rudder that can keep the ship of faith sailing on a clear course to its destination. ***** As they say, “a word to the wise is sufficient,” (as it was for Timothy), but “some people have to learn the hard way” (as it was for Hymenaeus and Alexander).

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1 Timothy 2

1 Tim 2:1-2 – Perhaps a lack of prayer explains why we are having a difficult time “living tranquil and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity.”

1 Tim 2:3-4 – God desires “all” men to “lead tranquil and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity.” This why we should pray – not just to the end that Paul specified in verses 1 and 2 above, but also to the end Jesus specified below. The two are connected.

Matt 9:36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.
Matt 9:37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
Matt 9:38 “Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

What connects Paul’s exhortation to prayer with Jesus’ exhortation to prayer is that two things are required for the gospel to be heard – the gospel of Jesus Christ being the only message that can foster and sustain “tranquil and quiet lives living in all godliness and dignity.” Those two things are 1) God-sent preachers, and 2) rulers who allow them to preach. That’s why we have to pray for God to send preachers (as Jesus taught) AND pray for rulers who will not try to shut them up (as Paul taught).

As for the role of rulers in this process, consider the level of success Paul had in his preaching ministry to Gentiles compared to that which he had in preaching to his fellow Jews. He was far more successful in preaching to Gentiles than he was to Jews and the reason was the difference in leaders. Jewish authorities forcefully opposed Paul at every opportunity while the Romans kept asking, “What’s the big deal?” In later times, Roman authorities would persecute believers as violently as Jewish authorities did, but for most of New Testament times, it was the Jews who fought the preaching of Paul and the other apostles while the Romans were the rulers protecting preachers. Consider as possibly the most dramatic example being what Luke described in the last eight chapters of the book of Acts: the Jews in Jerusalem were trying to kill Paul any way they could – legally or illegally – while the Romans consistently protected him and got him out of Dodge with an all-expense paid trip to Rome.

Jewish rulers were so successful at stamping out apostolic preaching that they eventually drove Christianity completely out of Judaism. What began as a Jewish belief in a Jewish Messiah taught by Jewish apostles eventually became known around the world as a Gentile religion! That demonstrates the power rulers have in either allowing or fighting the gospel.

Therefore, let us pray for preachers…and let us pray for rulers who will let them preach.

1 Tim 2:5-6 – God couldn’t find a satisfactory human being to mediate between Himself and humanity. Not even Moses – great as he was – fully measured up. Therefore, God had to become a human being to do the job.

Is 59:16 And He saw that there was no man,
And was astonished that there was no one to intercede;
Then His own arm brought salvation to Him,
And His righteousness upheld Him.

1 Tim 2: 7 – The apostles were crying out to the world, “Believe us – we are telling the truth, we are not lying!” Though dead, they still cry out that same message to the world through their writings. Because we believe these men were not liars, we read from their writings every single day. Is that not the least we can do to show the appropriate respect to those who died ignominious deaths so that we could know glorious truths? (They led God’s pride and joy – the greatest generation of all.)

1 Tim 2:8 – This is Paul coming full circle to what he said in verse 1 above.

1 Tim 2:9-15 – See where Paul was getting his information.

Gen 3:4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!
Gen 3:5 “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Gen 3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

Adam’s sin was worse than Eve’s because she had to be tricked into partaking of the fruit but he did not. Both men and women are logical and emotional. But in men, logic tends to dominate while in women emotion tends to dominate. Each is wired this way to help them fulfill the respective roles they have in life. Men have to lean on logic to protect and provide; women have to lean on emotion to nurture and comfort. Of course, a man should not completely ignore his emotions and a woman should not ignore logic. We’re talking about general tendencies. The point here is that Satan manipulated Eve, but Adam flat out knew he was doing wrong. To him belongs the greater condemnation.

There are plenty of examples in the Bible of women who were wiser than men, so a man who ignores his wife’s views is a fool. But a man is also a fool if he follows his wife’s lead when he knows better. Loving your wife doesn’t mean obeying her – it means listening to her and making all your decisions in her best interests. When she’s right, honor it. There’s no sense being a Nabal (1 Sam 25). (For more, see the book The Honor of Marriage.)

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1 Timothy 3

1 Tim 3:1 – The apostles appointed leaders from the congregation to manage the people much like Moses’ father-in-law advised him to appoint leaders from the people to help carry the administrative load. These NT leaders went by various names: overseers, (supervisors, bishops), elders, shepherds (pastors). People today define these words in different ways and see hierarchies in them. But in New Testament times, all those names I just gave you were synonyms – completely interchangeable in usage. (For additional comments on this point, see the BSN commentary on Titus 1.) This leadership role – by whatever name it was called – was only temporary until the Lord came. Well, He came. (Jesus Christ Has Already Came Again) Therefore, believers don’t need that kind of oversight anymore – especially now that complete Bibles can be kept in every home and even in every pocket (with a small print Bible or a smartphone). Such universal and ubiquitous access to the Scriptures was unimaginable in biblical times. Thus, for both spiritual and practical reasons, the time is past for families to have spiritual overloads. (The Kingdom of God Versus Church). You don’t need a vicar of Christ because you have Christ Himself and His word.

All that said, the instructions in this chapter are not useless. On the contrary, what Paul is about to say about the qualifications for church leaders is quite pertinent to leading a family.

1 Tim 3:2-3 – For some very useful instruction, substitute the word “man” for “overseer” in these two verses.

1 Tim 3:4-7 – There are also good principles which can be extracted from this passage and applied to men leading their families. Some of the exhortation doesn’t have to adjusted at all.

1 Tim 3:8-13 – The principles embedded here can not only be applied to men but especially to women. (Remember the distinction made between apostles and deacons in Acts 6, and that was followed by Peter in 1 Pet 4:10-11; so it is in the male-female partnership of parenting.)

1 Tim 3:14-15 – If the church was the “pillar and support” of the truth in those days, who or what is the pillar and support in the kingdom of God? The man. (That is, the “he” and “him” of this promise which was given just as the Lord was about to come in His kingdom.)

Rev 3:11 ‘I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, so that no one will take your crown.
Rev 3:12 ‘He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name.
Rev 3:13 ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

The Second Coming was the fitting finale to the messianic plan. Everything was being restored – most fundamentally, God and Adam and their respective roles in creation. You will have to think about this passage and this point for a while for the restoration to fully dawn on you…but it’s worth the wait. Use the following passage to help you pass the time.

Acts 3:19 “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;
Acts 3:20 and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you,
Acts 3:21 whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.

There is only one church worthy of being called “the church of the living God” and “the pillar and support of the truth” – the 1st-century church, the one headed by Jesus in heaven and His apostles on earth. No other church since or ever qualifies for that status. But a nuclear family can emulate it.

1 Tim 3:16 – NT congregations, not having easy access to all the writing devices we do, would often shape something they learned from the apostles into a lyrical form – like a poem or song – which was easier to recall. This appears to be an example of that practice. That is, Paul sounds as if he’s repeating something they’ve all heard.

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1 Timothy 4

1 Tim 4:1-3 – The New Testament talks about the last days of Israel and of the biblical age, but the patterns of Israel’s behavior and the resulting judgment play out in the history of every nation. They’re even playing out in the history of America in our time. ***** As for how they played out in biblical times, you can read the book The Biblical Case for the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact, which explains terms like “last days” and the sequence of events that led to the end. ***** As for as how these patterns are working out in America, just look around you and see that there are masses of people “paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars.” There seems to be no end of it. I don’t see a lot of people forbidding marriage but they might as well be because they clearly think it’s a completely separate issue from sex. Nor have I seen many people “advocate abstaining from foods,” though perhaps this is because they’re too busy consuming excess amounts of it. In any case, there are significant perversions and dysfunctions regarding both sex and food in our time. Altogether, the signs of our beloved country’s demise are all around us.

1 Tim 4:4-5 – The spirit of entitlement has become strong in us. Most of us can see it in others, but we seldom recognize it in ourselves. Entitlement is ingratitude. We should cultivate an attitude of gratitude and seek to drive out every vestige of entitlement we find in ourselves.

1 Tim 4:6 – Faith is cultivated through biblical teaching – that is, the teaching of the word of God. Faith actually comes from that word.

Rom 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

1 Tim 4:7a – I’ll grant that the first statement in this verse shocks 21st-century sensibilities. Of course, it deserves to be said that those same sensibilities don’t seem shocked by a man saying he’s become a woman, so I don’t know that shock is a good indicator of strange ideas anymore. But let’s leave stranger things aside and examine Paul’s sentence a piece at a time to see if it’s as shocking as it first appears.

“But have nothing to do with…” – That’s not hard to understand.
“worldly fables…” – Other English translations of these words include, “godless myths,” “profane myths,” “silly stories,” and “godless ideas.” That’s a spectrum of meanings, but there’s no drastic difference in meaning from one end of the spectrum to the other.
“fit only for…” – Again, not hard to understand.
“old…” – Con artists target senior citizens because everyone knows old people are more susceptible to scams than the general population. (I’m 71 as I write this and take no offense at the insinuations being made here.)
“women.” – I think Paul is making the same point about women here that he was making in 1 Tim 2:9-15, which is consistent with the point just above about the elderly.

Therefore, Paul’s point is only that some bad ideas gain currency because they’re circulating in more vulnerable segments of the population. Bad ideas shouldn’t be entertained regardless of their degree of circulation.

1 Tim 4:7b-8 – Everyone is going to heaven…but not everyone lands in the same place once there (Judgment Is upon Us).

1 Tim 4:9 – I can’t tell whether Paul is making this statement about the content of the previous verse or of the next one. Either way, this assurance seems appropriate.

1 Tim 4:10 – God saves all men, but especially believers because of what Paul said in verse 7b-8 above. Just because everyone is going to heaven doesn’t mean that it makes no difference whether we obey Him or not.

1 Tim 4:11-12 – If Timothy is practicing what he’s preaching, it will make it harder for people to dismiss him because of his youth. (I wonder if he took offense at insinuations about his age. Probably not.)

1 Tim 4:13 – This is what you are doing with your individual and family daily Bible reading times.

1 Tim 4:14 – The word “presbytery” comes from the word “presbyter” which simply means elder. Therefore, a presbytery was simply a group of elders who ruled a church. The kingdom of God made church obsolete in the same way that the church made the temple in Jerusalem obsolete, but prophetic utterance will never be made obsolete because God did not decide He wanted to go mute just because the Bible was completed.

1 Tim 4:15 – Notice that Paul is telling Timothy he only has to show progress, not perfection. Granted, we ultimately want to achieve perfection…just because the Lord said that’s what He wants.

Matt 5:48 “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Still, we have to make progress to ever hope for perfection. So let’s show progress!

1 Tim 4:16 – Paul exhorted Timothy the same way he exhorted himself:

1 Cor 9:27 but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

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1 Timothy 5

1 Tim 5:1-2 – Even though he is not a young man like Timothy, we do see Paul following his own advice in the letters he writes – demonstrating by example the attitudes he teaches Timothy to adopt. We should follow Paul’s model as we teach and lead our “Timothys” in our homes.

1 Tim 5:3-16 – Although church is obsolete in the kingdom of God, and although widows are not as disadvantaged and vulnerable in our age as they were in ancient times, there are still many things we can learn from this lengthy passage on care for widows. Let me comment on a few of them.

Recall that the NT church began its formal care for widows in Acts 6 with the appointment of seven deacons (servants), each taking responsibility for a day of the week to help the weak. This allowed the apostles to continue focusing on spreading the word about Jesus and His new life. It was a division of labor – a wise one that was followed throughout NT times (Phil 1:1; 1 Pet 4:10-11).
Notice how practical Paul’s instructions about widows are. Too many ways to count. Paul and his like were down to earth and their good deeds were for the purpose of meeting pressing needs (Tit 3:14) – not catering to the whines of freeloaders. As Paul had written to the Thessalonians, “if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either” (2 Th 3:10). Tough love is love.
Notice how Paul looks to the family as bearing the primary responsibility for the care of widows. If that was true in NT times, how much more in the kingdom of God!

1 Tim 5:17-20 – Having addressed the work of deacons in the previous passage, Paul now addresses the work of elders in this passage. These are those who, like the apostles, handled the word.

1 Tim 5:17-18 – Unlike the deacons who would devote one day a week to their assignment, elders were increasingly taking on a full-time role as the apostles were being spread increasingly thin by the burgeoning size of the Christian movement. The church was being prepared for the Second Coming, but we can look back and see that it wouldn’t take much before some elders saw benefits in portraying the church as a permanent institution – mainly, a way of getting a steady paycheck (Acts 20:30). The same temptation to greed and self-serving that Paul was warning about in the passage about serving widows above were also at work when it came to church leaders – but it was when the Second Coming came and went (Jesus Christ Has Already Come Again) that this problem became systemic in the church. Though we don’t need the church anymore in the kingdom of God, we still desperately need preachers and they should be financially supported. The problem right now is that there just aren’t many preachers who preach the kingdom of God.

1 Tim 5:19-20 – As with Titus 3:10-11, note that what Paul is saying here is a paraphrase of what Jesus had taught. By applying it to elders, Paul is making the point that “no one is above the law.”

Matt 18:15 “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
Matt 18:16 “But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED.
Matt 18:17 “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
Matt 18:18 “Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

In other words, if a church didn’t distance itself from a self-identified believer who was guilty of serious sin – whether he was an elder or not – then the whole church would have been bound to that sin and therefore subject to the judgment coming for it. This is why Paul told the Corinthians…

1 Cor 5:9 I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people;
1 Cor 5:10 I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.
1 Cor 5:11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler–not even to eat with such a one.
1 Cor 5:12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
1 Cor 5:13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.

Of course, we as families cannot separate ourselves from our children because of their sins – at least not until they are adults. But there are time-outs, which are of the same spirit.

1 Tim 5:21 – Paul is still talking about church leadership (elders) as this chapter continues. ***** To be impartial is to be like God. One of the reasons life is so disheartening in America these days is because partiality has become commonplace in the administration of the law.

Prov 18:5 To show partiality to the wicked is not good,
Nor to thrust aside the righteous in judgment.

1 Tim 5:22 – The laying on of hands is a ceremonial and spiritual means of conferring authority. This goes back to Paul’s earlier point about not binding yourself to a sin by binding yourself to a person who’s committing it.

1 Tim 5:23 – Timothy had stomach issues and Paul had eye issues (Gal 4:12-15; 6:11), so it’s not like these men of God were getting a free ride through life. In addition to carrying the world on their shoulders, they bore up under the stress of less-than-perfect bodies just like the ones we have. God bless forever the greatest generation!

1 Tim 5:24-25 – It’s obvious when some men are headed for a fall. There are other men’s falls, however, that take us completely by surprise. Yet God is never surprised. Everyone will get what he deserves – especially because God has both this life and the next in which He can distribute His judgments.

Gal 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.

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1 Timothy 6

1 Tim 6:1-2 – God designed family, but all other human institutions have been designed by man – slavery included. As long as societies insisted on maintaining slavery, God was going to show them how to practice godliness in it – whether as slave or master. Once the Industrial Revolution put societies in a position to shed slavery, Christian thinking pushed them to act on that opportunity. Today’s social justice warriors tell us that had they been living in the days of slavery they would never have tolerated it, yet they regard a child in the womb as a slave, less than human, who may be dealt with as private property at the discretion of the mother who is master. The ancients had their societal injustices and we moderns have ours; and as the ancients had a chance to correct their injustices, so we have a chance to correct ours. For more, see the essay Why Do Modern People Obsess over Past Slavery?

1 Tim 6:3-12 – This passage is a glorious ode to the godliness that Jesus Christ lived and taught. In extolling godliness, Paul identifies the instrument necessary to live godly in an ungodly world: contentment. This is because we have legitimate needs in this world – the need for shelter, food, and clothing. Yet we also face temptations to let needs turn into insatiable wants. Contentment is the key to clearly distinguishing needs from desires. Reading and understanding these ten verses as whole is better than getting lost in the weeds and letting an individual sentence get quoted out of context in your mind.

1 Tim 6:10 – See Jn 2:14-17 and accompanying BSN note.

1 Tim 6:12 – To “take hold of the eternal life to which you were called” is to take hold of Christ. For other verses that speak to Christ as our life, see THE LIFE.

1 Tim 6:13-16 – This passage is a reminder – inserted into Paul’s ode to godliness – that the NT church was a fulfillment of the Feast of Booths established by Moses. That is, it was a temporary living arrangement. As we see on almost every page of the New Testament, the purpose of the church was to prepare people for the coming kingdom of God. It was like the cocoon which is the temporary shelter for a caterpillar who is being transformed into a butterfly. Prior to NT times, God was working through one nation – Israel. Since NT times, God has been working through all the nations. Every nation rises and falls according to the justice administered by Jesus Christ the Lord. The quest for godliness was necessary for the churches members to recognize and enter the kingdom when it arrived. Peter coached similarly.

2 Pet 1:5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge,
2 Pet 1:6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness,
2 Pet 1:7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.
2 Pet 1:8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Pet 1:9 For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.
2 Pet 1:10 Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;
2 Pet 1:11 for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.

Peter and Paul and all the apostles were preparing people for the coming kingdom like Mordecai was preparing Esther for a life with King Ahasuerus. For us, the kingdom is already here. There is no longer any waiting for it. However, we must still become worthy to enter just as they had to be worthy to enter. Let us not think it is too easy or too hard to enter. Even if we fail to enter, we’ll be better for having tried, eh?

Matt 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
Matt 7:14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

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Matt 5:48 “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

1 Tim 6:17-19 – Paul returns to the theme of this chapter – the closing segment of his letter – which is godliness with contentment in a world of temptation and sin. In doing so, notice that being rich is not a sin – it’s a means God uses to help us be generous.

2 Cor 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed;

1 Tim 6:20-21 – Paul’s final words to Timothy in this letter hold great value for we who live in a world of multiplying media – which is a world of ever-increasing “chatter” and “arguments” about “what is falsely called ‘knowledge’.” Faith is based on things we know for sure, and nothing is more sure in this world than the word of God.

Matt 24:35 “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.”

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John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

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