1-2 Timothy, Titus

1 1 Timothy 1 Order and Disorder Before reading this letter it is important to remember not only that the sender “Paul” and the recipient “Timothy” are pseudonyms for the real persons but also that the situation of the church in Ephesus is artificial as well. That is, there is no independent evidence about the conflicts this church was supposedly experiencing in the actual times when Paul and Timothy were co-workers. Nevertheless, in order for the letter to be received as authoritative and relevant, the author’s description must correspond near enough to the historical reality of his congregations. His writing would need to reflect the sorts of persons, tensions, and movements already familiar to his audience and would also need to be understood as a valid response to those situations. As with all letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament,1 1 Timothy opens with the apostle’s name as the letter-writer (1:1). However, usually in the other letters, at least one co-sender is named and most often this is Timothy (2 Cor 1:2; Phil 1:1; Col 1:1; 1 Thess 1:1; 2 Thess 1:1; Phlm 1). Only the letters to the Romans and the Ephesians identify Paul as sole author.2 Of course, since the supposed circumstances of the Pastorals 1. In canonical order these are: Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. 2. First Corinthians identifies Sosthenes as a co-sender (1:1); Galatians adds “all the members of God’s family who are with me” as co-senders (1:1). 2 1–2 Timothy, Titus dictate that Timothy is the recipient of two of the letters, he cannot be a co-author. What sets the openings of all three Pastorals apart from those of the rest of the Pauline collection is that they have both a single author (Paul) and a single addressee (either Timothy or Titus). Thus, at a first reading, these letters are designed as correspondence between two individual (male) church leaders, rather than as letters written to entire communities. In spite of this, a closer reading of these “letters between individuals” reveals that in reality they are meant to be heard, studied, and acted upon by believers and groups within the author’s larger field of vision. That the church ultimately included the Pastorals in the canon shows that they were useful for such a collective audience and not just for Timothy and Titus. It is as if members of the author’s house-churches peer over the shoulders of Paul’s named co-workers and examine the private correspondence of their historic leaders. The relationship between the sender and recipient is defined by a familial label: Timothy is called the true, genuine, legitimate, “loyal child in faith” (1 Tim 1:2; see also, Titus 1:4 and 2 Tim 1:2). This then implies that Paul is Timothy’s father in faith, although our author does not state this as clearly as Paul does in 1 Cor 4:14-17 (see also 1 Thess 2:11). In this way, the very beginning of this letter primes the reader for a particular social context: the Roman patriarchal household. “Paul” is an older authoritative man who is likened to a father of the younger Timothy who is his legitimate apostolic son, his heir, and his successor. As the letter continues, the idea of Timothy’s legitimacy—as if he were a child born within a legal marriage or one who is legally adopted—must be kept in mind because Paul has a piece of paternal property (παραθήκη, “deposit,” 1 Tim 6:20; 2 Tim 1:12, 14)3 to hand down to Timothy: the “instruction” (1 Tim 1:5, 18), also called “the sound teaching” (1:10). For 3. See my comments on this word in “Translation Matters: ‘What Has Been Entrusted ,’” p. 96. 1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, 2 To Timothy, my loyal child in the faith: 1 Tim 1:1-2 Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. [3.135.205.146] Project MUSE (2024-04-16 17:54 GMT) 1 Timothy 1 3 Pauline communities reading this letter, the apostolic authority—which is embedded in Paul’s very name as well as in the claims about his call by God—is similarly...