New Devotional Series: Paul’s letters to Timothy

Painting by Blaffer Foundation Collection, Houston, TX, Public Domain

Time for a new devotional series! For the next few months, I will be sharing weekly thoughts based on 1 and 2 Timothy. We’ll explore how the Apostle Paul sometimes gets a bad rap as being misogynistic, harsh, and didactic. But perhaps he’s seen this way when people forget that we’re only reading half of the conversation, as Conrad Gempf points out in How to Like Paul Again. If we don’t consider the bigger picture, we might be confused as to why Paul would tell one church that they needed to tighten up (the Corinthians) whereas he tells another they should loosen up (the Galatians). When we delve more deeply into the clues in the letters and those in the book of Acts, we may grow to understand Paul’s heart and hopes not only for the gospel, but for the growth and flourishing of those in the early church.

In his letters to Timothy, Paul writes to a younger man whom he has mentored. In his first letter he knows that Timothy faces the effect of false teachers who are leading people astray. Such is the level of his concern that he uses strong language to encourage Timothy to root out the heresy and lead the people into the ways of truth and life. He instructs him about church life and how the leaders should live, and how they should treat the widows in their midst.

1 Timothy also contains a controversial passage where Paul forbids women to speak in church (2:11–15). I haven’t included it in our daily readings, partly because our space is limited – in contrast to the doctorate dissertations, articles, and books written on it. But I also don’t want to impose my view on you in your daily engagement with the Bible.

As we’ll see, Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy after his letter to Titus, when he was still concerned about the influence of false teachers. By the time of this final letter, that crisis seems to have passed, but Paul faces execution in Rome at the hands of Nero. His letter to the man he mentored, whom he now sees as an equal, contains his last words. He sums up the charge he leaves Timothy with as he embraces his final homecoming.

I pray our journey into these pastoral letters will enrich, challenge, and encourage you.

As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work – which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm (1 Timothy 1:3–7).

False doctrines, myths, and endless genealogies – the apostle Paul instructed Timothy to stay where he is so that he can speak against the teachers who, as Paul’s says clearly, don’t know what they’re talking about. Paul doesn’t mince his words when naming the truth about others spreading falsehoods, but neither is he overly concerned with rules for rules sake. What he’s most keen to stress is love, which he says is the goal of the life of faith.

I wonder what Paul would say to Christians today. Have we, on the one hand, become too worked up over naming false teaching? Or on the other, have we embraced myths and thus utter meaningless talk? Or do we land somewhere in between? No doubt we all veer one way or another at times, and therefore we need a dose not only of humility but of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to keep us walking in step with God.

We can ask the Lord to make love our goal, helping us keep a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. As he molds us, he may gently reveal the stances we grasp too strongly or the areas in our lives in which we need to tighten up. His correction is soaked in love, not condemnation, making it all the easier to welcome and receive.

Prayer: Purify my heart, Lord, and cleanse my conscience, that my works might bring you glory and spread your love.