Introduction
How do you respond to letters? When the post arrives – or perhaps I should say if the post arrives – what do you do with it? I firstly sort out which is actually our post then as far as possible which is intended for me. We used to joke about all sharing the same first initial being an excuse for us to open our children’s mail. I then sort mine into interesting – handwritten, card / packet, boring and painful. There is still a sense of anticipation when receiving one that looks interesting – what is the post mark, what might be in it, who sent it?
Over the next few weeks we are going to be looking at a series of letters tucked away at the back of our Bibles – 1Timothy, 2Timothy and Titus. These are known collectively as the pastoral epistles / letters. Before starting to look at them in some detail let us address the basic who, what why when and where kind of issues. They are written by the apostle Paul to two of his co-workers, Timothy and Titus. Timothy had been delegated by Paul to look after the church at Ephesus and Titus the church on Crete. They were written late on in Paul’s life, the assumption is that he was released following his imprisonment with which Acts ends, completed a fourth missionary journey and then faced final imprisonment and martyrdom. It was during this period that these letters were written. They therefore have about them the weight of “last words”. Paul knew that his time left on earth was limited and so he wanted to brief his trusted colleagues – to give them words of encouragement, practical advice and accumulated wisdom.
So without further ado let’s start at 1Tim1:1. A fairly conventional Pauline greeting – see his other letters, but note how he addresses Timothy “My true son in the faith”. It is quite possible that Paul had led Timothy to Christian faith on his first visit to Lystra. Certainly by the time of his second visit recorded in Acts 16 we find that Timothy is a disciple thought well-of by the local church and was invited by Paul to join him on his mission. Timothy’s background was mixed in that his mother was a Jew who had become a Christian and his father was a gentile Greek.
Vv3-11 In my Bible and most commentaries this passage is entitled “Warning against false teachers of the law” which indeed it is but I want to ask why? How come that the very first thing Paul does in writing to Timothy is to warn him about such people? After all it is hardly one of our major concerns is it? I mean when Deborah started her curacy here it wasn’t high on my list of instructions! If we look at verse 11 I think we have a clue “the glorious gospel of the blessed God which he entrusted to me”. Paul is passionate about false teachers because he is passionate about the gospel – do we share that passion?
There is much discussion about what precise form this false teaching was taking – obviously some form of legalism that was taking away from the gospel of grace. Whatever the precise nature of the teaching the important thing was the end result vv.4-5. “These (false teachings) promote controversy rather than God’s work – which is by faith”. So a simple test of whether some teaching or other is genuine is “What does it lead to?” Does this teaching lead people closer to God in faith or does it simply promote controversy?
Paul goes on to say that the reason he is being so strong about this is the overarching commitment to love: “The goal of this command is love which comes from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith” v5. This is an example of a favourite feature of Paul’s writings – a triad. Perhaps the most famous of these is the one which comes at the end of 1Cor13 – “Faith, hope and love”. Here we have love from a pure heart, good conscience and sincere faith”. If Timothy has these as his goals he will be able to recognise and contend with false teaching and continue to uphold the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which Paul had been entrusted and which is now his responsibility.
Paul views the gospel as a precious treasure with which he had been entrusted and which he in turn has passed on to Timothy and others. The question I want to end with is “Do we share Paul’s passion for the gospel?” Do we describe it in similar terms to Paul viz: ”the glorious gospel of the blessed God”? Are we as eager to defend it against those who would dilute and distort it?