1 Timothy 5:17-25

Timothy's duties in regard to Presbyters

Timothy's official treatment of the presbyters follows, and his personal bearing as requisite for this. The same general subject runs throughout, though (as noticed above on 1 Timothy 5:16), the absence of the connecting particles indicates some fresh aspects of it introduced with the more broken style of older age. The dark shading of the picture is dark if it is taken as applying to the permanentstate of the Church and its clergy. But if we bear in mind that Timothy was not so much the settled Bishop of Ephesus as the authoritative delegate of the apostle for a specific mission, with -temporary functions which would now be called episcopal," so far from stumbling at this view as inconsistent with the praise given to Ephesus in this respect, Revelation 2:2, -I know thy works … that thou canst not bear evil men, and didst try them which call themselves apostles, and they are not, and didst find them false," we shall rather see in it the proof of Timothy's faithful and successful efforts to put down laxness and restore the high ideal of the ministerial office to which he is here urged. This will hold good, whether we take the earlier and more probable date (a.d. 69), or the later (a.d. 96), assigned to the Apocalypse. See Introduction, pp. 19, 20, 66.