See the contents of Paul’s First Letter to Timothy, with its varied instructions to a church leader.
SIMPSON, p. 8.
FAIRBAIRN, p. 314.
MOULE, p 18.
CALVIN, p. 292. Cf. p. 242 for a similar comment on 1 Tim. 4:6.
MOULE, pp. 40 and 45.
ALFORD, p. 342, a comment on 1 Tim. 4:14.
PLUMMER, p. 314.
BARRETT, p. 94.
During his earlier house arrest in Rome Paul called himself a (or the) ‘prisoner of Christ Jesus’ in Eph. 3:1 and Phm. 1, 9, just as here he is ‘his prisoner’, while in Eph. 4:1 the expression he used was ‘the prisoner in the Lord’ (en kuriō), meaning perhaps that he had been imprisoned because of his union with Christ.
MOULE, pp. 45, 72.
pro chronōn aiōniōn. The same expression occurs in Titus 1:2 with reference to God’s promise of life. Cf. Rom. 16:25.
See Rom. 8:28; 9:11 and Eph. 1:11 for other examples of God’s predestinating, saving ‘purpose’ (prothesis).
ELLICOTT, p. 115; eudokia means ‘good pleasure’.
SIMPSON, p. 125.
BARRETT, p. 95.
MOULE, p. 50.
GUTHRIE, p. 73.
GUTHRIE, p. 132.
MOULE, p. 16.
MOULE, pp. 67, 68.
BARRETT, p. 97.
I take the verb as being ‘simply passive’ (ELLICOTT, p. 121), although it might be the middle voice ‘strengthen yourself inwardly’. The same verb occurs passively in Eph. 6:10 and actively in Phil. 4:13 and 2 Tim. 4:17.
Early Latin Theology, edited by S. L. Greenslade (Vol. V of the SCM Library of Christian Classics, 1956), p. 47.
Address to Martyrs, chapter 2, para. 3. Alfred Plummer’s translation, p. 346.
SIMPSON, p. 131.
MOULE, p. 77.
Holiness by J. C. Ryle (James Clarke, 1952), p. 21.
LOCK, p. 95.
Rom. 1:4. Note that in Rom. 1:3 Jesus is also described as ‘descended from David according to the flesh’.
There are four similar quotations in the Pastorals introduced by the formula ‘the saying is sure’, namely in 1 Tim. 1:15; 3:1; 4:9 and Tit. 3:8.
HENDRIKSEN, p. 260.
SIMPSON, p. 136.
CALVIN, p. 313.
BARRETT, p. 105.
Cf. 2 Cor. 2:17. It is significant that the noun orthotomia was used by both Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius for ‘orthodoxy’.
SIMPSON, p. 136.
The only other occurrence of this word is in 1 Tim. 6:20.
FAIRBAIRN, p. 345.
LOCK, p. 101.
Here and in 1 Tim. 6:11.
CALVIN, p. 312.
LOCK, p. 98.
CALVIN, p. 322.
Similarly, the backsliders and the scoffers who belong to ‘the last days’ or the ‘later times’ and are referred to in 1 Tim. 4:1, 2 Pet. 3:3 and Jude 18 are regarded as already active when Paul, Peter and Jude were writing.
SIMPSON, p. 143.
SIMPSON, p. 144.
Synonyms of the New Testament by R. C. Trench, 1854. 9th edition 1880, xciii, p. 329.
SIMPSON, p. 143.
ELLICOTT, p. 144.
ELLICOTT, p. 146.
ELLICOTT, p. 146.
Cf. Jesus’ parable recorded in Mt. 13:24–30, 36–43.
See Acts 13:14–14:23 for the Galatian cities Paul visited on his first missionary journey, and for the persecutions he endured there.
CALVIN, p. 327.
PLUMMER, p. 385.
ELLICOTT, p. 152.
BARRETT, p. 113.
CALVIN, p. 330.
The Reformed Pastor, 1656. (Epworth, 2nd edition revised, 1950), p. 145.
ELLICOTT, p. 160.
CALVIN, p. 334.
LOCK, p. 111.
SIMPSON, p. 154.
It is interesting that Paul used both metaphors during an earlier imprisonment, in which he had also faced the possibility of death (Phil. 2:17; 1:23).
WHITE, p. 178.
Jn. 17:4: ‘having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do’.
LOCK, p. 111.
MOULE, p. 145.
SIMPSON, p. 157.
MOULE, p. 150.
GUTHRIE, p. 173.
MOULE, pp. 157 f.
HANSON, p. 102.
LOCK, p. 118.
MOULE, p. 152.
CALVIN, p. 341.
MOULE, pp. 158 f.
HANSON, p. 102.
So EUSEBIUS 11.22.1–8.
GUTHRIE, p. 175.
PLUMMER, p. 420.
LOCK, p. 116.
EUSEBIUS, 11.22.4.
HANSON, p. 103.
PLUMMER, pp. 425 f.
BARRETT, p. 125.
Bibliography
A Greek—English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature by William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich (University of Chicago Press and Cambridge University Press, 1957).
The Greek Testament, a Critical and Exegetical Commentary, by Henry Alford. Vol. III (Rivington, Fourth edition, 1865).
The Authorized (King James’) Version of the Bible, 1611.
The Pastoral Epistles by C. K. Barrett (The New Clarendon Bible, Oxford University Press, 1963).
The Epistles of Paul to Timothy and Titus by John Calvin, 1548 (Oliver and Boyd, 1964).
The Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul by C. J. Ellicott, 1861 (Longmans, Fourth Edition, 1869).
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Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn, 1874 (Oliphants and Zondervan, 1956).
The Pastoral Epistles by Donald Guthrie (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Tyndale Press and Eerdmans, 1957).
The Pastoral Letters by A. T. Hanson (The Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible, Cambridge University Press, 1966).
The Epistles to Timothy and Titus by William Hendriksen (Baker Book House, 1957 and Banner of Truth Trust, 1959).
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Greek-English Lexicon compiled by H. G. Liddell and R. Scott. New Edition by H. S. Jones (Oxford University Press, 1925–40).
The Pastoral Epistles, a Critical and Exegetical Commentary, by Walter Lock (The International Critical Commentary, T. and T. Clark, 1924).
The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament by J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, 1930 (Hodder and Stoughton, 1949).
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The Revised Standard Version of the Bible (New Testament, 1946; Old Testament, 1952; revised edition, 1971).
The Pastoral Epistles by E. K. Simpson (Tyndale Press, 1954).
The Pastoral Epistles by Newport J. D. White (The Expositor’s Greek Testament, Hodder and Stoughton, 1910).
