1 Timothy

What 1 Timothy is about

Timothy had travelled with Paul for years and has been left at Ephesus with a difficult assignment: a church where certain teachers are promoting speculation, genealogies, and controversies that generate arguments rather than faith. Paul’s instruction is to stay and deal with it.

Much of the letter is practical church order. There are directions about prayer, about conduct in the assembly, and — most influentially — about the qualifications for overseers and deacons. What is striking about those lists is that they are almost entirely about character rather than ability: above reproach, self-controlled, hospitable, not violent, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, managing his own household well, and well thought of by outsiders. Only one item, able to teach, is a skill.

The letter also contains some of Paul’s most quoted lines on money. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils; godliness with contentment is great gain; we brought nothing into the world and can take nothing out. And the instruction to the rich is not to divest but to be generous, ready to share, and not to set their hopes on something so uncertain.

Two passages in this letter have been read differently across Christian traditions — the instructions about women in chapter 2, and the structure of church leadership. Faithful Christians have reached different conclusions about how these apply, and churches order themselves accordingly. This site describes the difference rather than settling it.

Where it sits in the story

First Timothy is one of three letters usually called the Pastoral Epistles, with 2 Timothy and Titus, written to individuals with responsibility for churches rather than to congregations. Their setting fits a period after the events Acts narrates.

Why it is worth reading

Because it is the New Testament’s most concrete picture of how an early congregation was meant to be organised, and because its measure of a leader is one nobody can fake for long: what they are like at home, with money, and under provocation.