1 Timothy 1 - Introduction

Timothy is put in mind of the charge which was given unto him by St. Paul, at his going to Macedonia. Of the right use and end of the law. Of St. Paul's calling to be an apostle: and of Hymeneus and Alexander.

Anno Domini 58.

ST. PAUL began this epistle with asserting his apostolical dignity; not because Timothy was in any doubt concerning it, but to make the Ephesians sensible of the danger they incurred, if they rejected the charges and admonitions which, by the commandment of God, the apostle ordered Timothy to deliver to them, 1 Timothy 1:1.—Next, to establish Timothy's authority with the Ephesians as an evangelist, he renewed the commission that he had given him at parting; namely, to charge some who had assumed the office of teachers, not to teach differently from the apostles, 1 Timothy 1:3.—and in particular, not to draw the attention of the people to those fables, which the Jewish doctors had invented to make men rely on the ritual services of the law for procuring the favour of God, notwithstanding they were utterly negligent of the duties of morality; neither to layany stress on those endless genealogies whereby individuals traced their pedigree from Abraham, in the persuasion that to secure their salvation nothing was necessary, but to be rightly descended from him; an error which the Baptist, long before, had expressly condemned, Luke 3:8. Begin not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father, 1 Timothy 1:4.—This kind of doctrine the apostle termed vain babbling, because it had no foundation in truth, and made men negligent both of piety and love, 1 Timothy 1:5.-Farther, because in recommending these fables and genealogies, the Judaizers pretended that they were teaching the law of Moses, the apostle assured Timothy they were utterly ignorant of that law, 1 Timothy 1:7 which he acknowledged to be a good and highly useful institution, provided it was used lawfully; that is, agreeably to its true nature, 1 Timothy 1:8.—whereas the Jews perverted the law, when they taught that it made a real atonement for sin by its sacrifices. For the law was not given to justify the Jews, but by temporal punishments to restrain them from vice; so that the law of Moses was no rule of justification to any person, 1 Timothy 1:9.—This account of the law, St. Paul told Timothy, was agreeable to the representation given of it in the gospel, with the preaching of which he was intrusted, 1 Timothy 1:11.—an honour for which he was exceedingly thankful, because formerly he had been a persecutor of the disciples of Christ, 1 Timothy 1:12.—But he had received mercy for this cause, that in him Jesus Christ might shew to future ages such an example of pardon as should encourage the greatest sinners to hope for mercy on repentance, 1 Timothy 1:16.—Then in a solemn doxology he celebrated the praise of God in a sublime strain, 1 Timothy 1:17.—And that Timothy might be animated to surmount the danger and difficulty of the work assigned to him, the Apostle informed him, that he had committed it to him by prophesy; that is, by a special impulse of the Spirit of God; and from that consideration urged him to carry on strenuously the good warfare against the false teachers, and against all his spiritual enemies, 1 Timothy 1:18.—by always holding the truth with a good conscience; which some teachers having put away, had made shipwreck of themselves and of the gospel, 1 Timothy 1:19.—Of this sort were Hymeneus and Alexander, two noted Judaizing teachers, whom the apostle, after his departure from Ephesus, had delivered to Satan, that they might learn no more to blaspheme, 1 Timothy 1:20.