Recap

So far in 1 Timothy, we've read through Paul's instructions for the church in Ephesus and have started Paul's instructions to Timothy. Traditionally thought to be written by Paul around 64 CE while in prison, the letter is addressed to Timothy, who was leading the church in Ephesus. Timothy was first introduced in Acts as a young man with a Jewish mother and Greek father, who became a significant figure in Paul’s ministry.

Paul’s letter focused on Timothy’s pastoral role and the challenges he faced. Specifically, combating false teachings spreading in the church. He advised Timothy to address false teachers who promoted misleading doctrines. Paul highlighted that teaching should come from sincere faith and love, aiming to strengthen the community.

In addition, Paul gave instructions for maintaining order in the church. He encouraged men to pray without anger and advised women to dress modestly, avoiding flaunting their wealth. Paul also advised women in Ephesus to learn quietly and not to teach. This was possibly due to their limited education, which made them more susceptible to false teachings circulating at the time.

Paul outlined qualities for church leaders, focusing on two roles: overseers (or bishops) and deacons. Overseers, who oversaw spiritual guidance, were expected to have impeccable character, self-control, and be capable teachers. They were to avoid traits like drunkenness, greed, and quarrelsomeness. Overseers also needed to manage their households well, have a strong reputation, and not be recent converts to avoid pride. Similarly, Deacons, managing the church’s daily operations, were to be dignified, honest, and moderate, holding their faith sincerely.

He warned Timothy of those who would stray from the faith, influenced by false teachings like extreme self-denial. Timothy was advised to let his teaching flow out of his faith rather than special knowledge. Paul then encouraged Timothy, despite his youth, to lead by example and continually grow in wisdom to uphold and benefit the church.

1 Timothy 5-6

Next, Paul encourages Timothy with specific instructions for different groups in the church. First up is addressing people in the church who are older and those who are younger. Paul’s framework is to see and treat the church like a family.

When Timothy needs to correct an older man or woman, he is to correct them as he might his own father or mother. With those who are younger, like a brother or sister.

When it comes to challenge false teachings and its impact, Timothy might be tempted to come in harsh and severe, but Paul is warning against that. As their leader, Timothy’s challenge has to come from a place of love, not to punish, but to redeem.

Then Paul addresses widows. The church were taking it upon themselves to support widows, which is good. But there were plenty of widows who were undeserving of the church's support, or who just didn’t need it. This meant that the support was spreader thinner, and those who needed it most weren’t getting enough.

So Paul lays out some guidelines to be used to assess who best to support with the church's resources. The first is whether a widow has family around her still. If so, then the first step is to be encouraging the family, particularly children and grandchildren, to support their mother or grandmother.

With members taking care of their own family, this frees up the resources of the church. That, and anyone who is unwilling to provide for and care for their own family, is clearly not going to be willing to support the wider church family, and is opting out of the faith.

The second guideline is how the widow lives her life. Some speculate that there were wealthy widows in Ephesus who were taking support from the church and then going outside the church, spreading gossip and sleeping around.

A quick fix Paul suggests is to limit support to just widows who are over sixty. Those under sixty are young enough to be remarried, and probably should to avoid the risk of them being filled with sexual desires they couldn’t satisfy without slipping into sexual immorality.

Our individualistic society today would balk at the idea of just telling a woman she should remarry and stopping her from getting the support she would otherwise get. But in the Greco-Roman world, the majority of people married for economic reasons. If there are young women who are needing financial support, it was already expected they would get married for that financial support.

All Paul is doing here is closing a loophole that some women were abusing, where they realised as widows they would get support and then didn’t have to remarry.

It’s also worth noting that these are guidelines that should have been applied with love. Paul wasn’t encouraging the church to turn to a woman whose husband has just died and tell her she will get no support. She has to remarry straight away. In practice, it may have looked like a church supporting a grieving, newly widowed woman, and then after some time has passed encouraging her to remarry and let her know they will start weening her off support.

The other criteria Paul puts for widows is that they not be gossipers or idle. Some suggest that when Paul encourages Timothy enrolling the widows, or putting them on a list as some translations put it, he is talking about adding them to the widows team.

This team of widows would then work supporting the church, and are therefore compensated for their work in some way. The benefit of this being that these older women are not only given financial support but that greater sense of community and purpose.

Then Paul addresses how to handle elders. This is the same group of leaders previously called overseers/bishops. These leaders who spend their time serving the church deserve honour and pay for their work.

That doesn’t mean they have to be paid. Paul has expressed in many of his letters that he willingly passed up the pay he deserver in order to be less of a burden to the church. But the point still stands that these people deserve to be paid. Paul quotes Deuteronomy 25:4 to suggest that if God cares for the beasts of burden that they are properly looked after, how much more will he care about those who lead his church?

Paul also suggests that not every accusation made against these elders should be taken seriously. Instead, only when the accusation is made multiple times by multiple people should it be acted upon. This isn’t a call to not hold leaders accountable.

Quite the opposite, as Paul immediately goes on to say that elders who continue to sin should be rebuked in front of the whole church. There is no quietly getting a leader to step aside to save the reputation of the church. The reputation of the church is maintained by its public accountability.

But what Paul highlights is that as leaders, there are always going to be those that aren’t happy with how they lead and try to undermine those. Do what you can to not indulge those people, while still very much holding leaders who do sin or abuse their role accountable.

Today we have safeguarding systems in place, because we recognise that there are times leaders abuse their powers in a way where there is only one witness. Or times when one person making their complaint publicly allows others to have the strength and confidence to bing their concerns too. So our priority is to make sure that our safeguarding systems are rigorous, and that they are well held to.

For Timothy, he’s not to show partiality in this. Just because an elder, or even a complainant, is a friend of Timothy, does not mean that their sin or their complaint is overlooked or given priority. This is why Timothy should be super cautious in deciding who gets lifted to the role of elder, as it will have an impact.

Paul then gives a quick encouragement to Timothy to drink wine for his health. The water available was often contaminated and made those without sturdy immune system unwell.

He also highlights that all things eventually come out. If someone is sinful, sometimes it’s clear for all to see, and sometimes it’s not, but eventually it gets out. In the same way, sometimes the good things that people do are clear for all to see, and sometimes not, but they too will eventually come out.

The point to Timothy and any other leaders is to not think that the stuff they do in secret or private doesn’t matter. It does.

Then Paul focuses on slaves. It seems like some Christian slaves were refusing to work anymore for their Christian masters. Just as we highlighted in 1 Timothy 2:12 that Paul didn’t want this new Christian faith to get swept up and absorbed a women’s liberation movement, here he doesn’t want the faith to be caught up in a slavery liberation movement.

It wasn’t that these things were bad, but just the fact that faith was too young and fragile to not be completely absorbed in these. Many, many years later (definitely too much later) it was Christian who picked up the slavery liberation movement and saw slavery abolished. Likewise, Christians today should seek to unravel the practice of slavery or the oppression of women wherever they see it.

But as for the church in Ephesus, for now, Paul encourages these slaves to serve their masters all the more, not less.

Paul now gives general instructions and warnings, many that we’ve seen before. Teachers should avoid being caught up in arguments and controversies. They should not be envious or cause divisions or seek to benefit from their position. They should learn to be content with what they have, for those who seek to be rich will be trapped by that desire.

As for Timothy, he should avoid all these bad things and pursue the good. He should fight hard for the faith and hold tight to the gospel. If there is anyone in the church who is already rich, then Timothy is to encourage them to not be proud of their riches but be generous with them instead.

1 Timothy is a letter from a seasoned church leader with a clear pastoral heart, to a much younger one. It provides good guidelines and encouragement for leading a body of believers. There are boundaries that have to be set to keep the church flourishing, and there are clear guidelines for choosing and managing leaders.

As with everything else, these aren’t meant to be rules to bind the church, but guides to support them and help them. That is 1 Timothy.

Psalm 18

Attributed to king David, it is believed that this psalm was written by David when God had delivered him from Saul’s hand (2 Samuel 22). It falls into the category of royal psalm. Royal psalms are psalms that are focused on either God as king or on a human king.

Psalm 18:1-3 - Introductory praise

Psalm 18:4-6 - The psalmist calls out to God

Psalm 18:7-15 - God’s awesome presence comes down

Psalm 18:16-19- God protects the psalmist and defeats his enemies

Psalm 18:20-36 - God is good and generous to the psalmist

Psalm 18:37-48 - God lifts the psalmist above his enemies to a position of authority

Psalm 18:49-50 - Praise to God

The psalmist starts off with praise. He recalls of the time that it seemed he was close to death and he cried out to God. God heard and came down to intervene.

The psalmist then uses very visceral language to demonstrate the awesomeness of God’s presence. The earth and mountains shake. His anger is like a fierce fire, billowing smoke. He rode on the clouds, a common description of God (see Deuteronomy 33:26; Psalm 68:32-33; Psalm 104:1-4; Isaiah 19:1). His voice was like thunder.

This great and mighty God protects the psalmist and defeats his enemies. God then generously blesses the psalmist, revealing himself to them. He is loving and true. He strengthens their hands and feet, training them to be good at war.

All this allows the psalmist to defeat their enemies themselves. Through all this, God exalts the psalmist as king, head over the nation. If the psalmist was David, we can see that he gives God the glory for all the successes he had in life.

And so the psalm ends, giving praise to God for his faithfulness and goodness. It’s God and his strength that established kings.