1 Timothy 1: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul writes to Timothy, whom he left behind in Ephesus, and tells him to stop certain people there from teaching a different doctrine and giving their attention to myths and endless genealogies. Paul explains what the law is properly for, listing the kinds of wrongdoing it addresses, and says the goal of his instruction is love from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and honest faith. He then tells his own story: he had insulted God, persecuted, and acted violently, and was shown mercy as an example of Christ's patience. He ends by handing Timothy the charge to hold faith and a good conscience, naming Hymenaeus and Alexander as two who have not.

Claim by Claim

1. 1:1
   • Paul is the writer.
   • Paul is an apostle of Jesus Christ.
   • Paul's apostleship is by the commandment of God our Savior.
   • Paul's apostleship is also by the commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ.
   • Jesus Christ is our hope.
2. 1:2
   • The letter is addressed to Timothy.
   • Timothy is Paul's genuine child in the faith.
   • Paul wishes Timothy grace, mercy, and peace.
   • The grace, mercy, and peace come from God the Father and from Christ Jesus our Lord.
3. 1:3
   • Paul had urged Timothy to remain at Ephesus.
   • Paul was going into Macedonia at that time.
   • Paul's purpose was that Timothy charge certain people not to teach a different doctrine.
   • Certain people at Ephesus were teaching a different doctrine.
4. 1:4
   • Timothy is to charge them not to give attention to myths.
   • Timothy is to charge them not to give attention to endless genealogies.
   • Such myths and genealogies produce speculations and disputes.
   • Such myths and genealogies do not produce the stewardship of God that is in faith.
   • Timothy is to act accordingly.
5. 1:5
   • The goal of the charge is love.
   • That love comes out of a pure heart.
   • That love comes out of a good conscience.
   • That love comes out of faith that is not hypocritical.
6. 1:6
   • Some people have missed these things.
   • Those people have turned aside to empty talk.
7. 1:7
   • They want to be teachers of the law.
   • They do not understand what they are saying.
   • They do not understand the things about which they make confident assertions.
8. 1:8
   • We know that the law is good.
   • The law is good only if a person uses it lawfully.
9. 1:9
   • Law is not laid down for a righteous person.
   • Law is laid down for the lawless and the insubordinate.
   • Law is laid down for the ungodly and for sinners.
   • Law is laid down for the unholy and the profane.
   • Law is laid down for those who kill or strike their fathers.
   • Law is laid down for those who kill or strike their mothers.
   • Law is laid down for murderers.
10. 1:10
    • Law is laid down for the sexually immoral.
    • Law is laid down for men who lie with males.
    • Law is laid down for kidnappers who enslave people.
    • Law is laid down for liars.
    • Law is laid down for perjurers.
    • Law is laid down for anything else that is contrary to sound doctrine.
11. 1:11
    • Sound doctrine accords with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.
    • That gospel was entrusted to Paul.
12. 1:12
    • Paul gives thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord.
    • Christ Jesus empowered Paul.
    • Christ Jesus considered Paul faithful.
    • Christ Jesus appointed Paul to service.
13. 1:13
    • Paul was formerly a blasphemer.
    • Paul was formerly a persecutor.
    • Paul was formerly a violent and insolent man.
    • Paul was shown mercy.
    • Paul was shown mercy because he acted in ignorance.
    • Paul acted in unbelief.
14. 1:14
    • The grace of our Lord overflowed in exceeding abundance.
    • That grace came with faith and love.
    • That faith and love are in Christ Jesus.
15. 1:15
    • The saying is faithful.
    • The saying is worthy of full acceptance.
    • Christ Jesus came into the world.
    • Christ Jesus came to save sinners.
    • Paul is the foremost of sinners.
16. 1:16
    • Paul was shown mercy for this reason.
    • The reason was that in Paul as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display all his longsuffering.
    • Paul's case serves as a pattern for those who would afterward believe on Christ.
    • Those who believe on Christ receive everlasting life.
17. 1:17
    • Honor and glory are ascribed to the King of the ages.
    • That King is immortal.
    • That King is invisible.
    • That King is the only wise God.
    • The honor and glory are for ever and ever.
    • The doxology is sealed with Amen.
18. 1:18
    • Paul entrusts this charge to Timothy.
    • Paul calls Timothy his child.
    • The charge accords with prophecies previously made about Timothy.
    • The purpose is that by those prophecies Timothy may fight the good warfare.
19. 1:19
    • Timothy is to hold faith.
    • Timothy is to hold a good conscience.
    • Some people have thrust away a good conscience.
    • Those people have made shipwreck concerning the faith.
20. 1:20
    • Hymenaeus is among those people.
    • Alexander is among those people.
    • Paul has delivered Hymenaeus and Alexander to Satan.
    • The purpose is that they be taught not to blaspheme.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1

"Apostle" translates a Greek word for an envoy: someone sent out with authority to speak for the person who sent him. Paul opens most of his letters by claiming that commission, since his right to the title was contested by some.

1:2

Ancient letters opened with the sender's name, then the recipient, then a one word greeting. Paul keeps the standard form but replaces the usual greeting with "Grace, mercy, and peace." Grace means favor given freely to someone who has no claim on it, and peace carries the Hebrew sense of shalom, whole and settled well-being. Timothy was not Paul's child by birth; "my own son in the faith" marks him as Paul's convert and protege.

1:3

Ephesus was a large port city on the west coast of what is now Turkey, the leading city of the Roman province of Asia, where Paul had worked for about three years. Macedonia was the Roman province covering northern Greece, across the Aegean Sea.

1:4

Long lists of ancestors were a normal part of Jewish scripture, and teachers of this period spun elaborate stories and calculations out of the names. The complaint in "endless" is that the chains of ancestors, and the speculation built on them, never arrive anywhere. Note also that the Greek words for stewardship (a plan being administered) and for building up differ by a single letter, which is why the King James has "godly edifying" where modern translations have God's work or stewardship.

1:5

In 1611 "charity" simply meant love, with no special connection to giving money to the poor; the Greek word is agape. "The end of the commandment" means its goal or aim, not its abolition. "Unfeigned" means not put on, not acted.

1:6

"Vain jangling" was ordinary English in 1611 for empty noise or pointless chatter. The Greek word describes talk that leads nowhere, not talk that is loud.

1:7

"The law" here means the law of Moses: the commands and case law in the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures. Being a recognized teacher of it carried real social standing.

1:8

The Greek contains a wordplay English cannot keep: the law (nomos) is good if a person uses it lawfully (nomimos), that is, in the manner a law is properly used.

1:9

"Profane" in older English did not mean swearing. It meant treating as ordinary something that had been set apart for God. "Manslayers" is the 1611 word for murderers. The list runs roughly in the order of the second half of the Ten Commandments: honoring parents, killing, sexual conduct, stealing, false testimony.

1:10

"Whoremongers" covers sexual activity outside marriage generally, not prostitution alone. "Them that defile themselves with mankind" translates arsenokoitai, a rare Greek compound built from the words for "male" and "bed"; because the word appears almost nowhere before Paul, the precise conduct it names is disputed. "Menstealers" means kidnappers, in practice the slave traders who seized free people and sold them.

1:11

"Gospel" is an old English word meaning good news, translating a Greek word for the public announcement of good news. "Committed to my trust" means handed over to me to look after, the way you would be trusted with someone else's property.

1:12

"Putting me into the ministry" uses a Greek word that means plain service, the sort of work a household servant does. In the first century it did not yet name a clerical profession.

1:13

A blasphemer is someone who speaks abusively, here against God. "Injurious" in 1611 did not mean merely harmful; it named a person who inflicts harm arrogantly, an overbearing bully who enjoys the damage.

1:14

"Exceeding abundant" renders a single Greek verb meaning to overflow past all measure, piling one intensifier on another.

1:15

"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation" is a set formula. It appears five times across 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus, and flags a line the readers already knew and repeated, rather like quoting a well known motto. "Chief" here means first in rank, foremost, rather than leader.

1:16

"Longsuffering" is a 1611 compound meaning patience held over a long stretch of time, restraint in the face of provocation. "Pattern" means a sample or prototype, a first case by which later ones are measured. The word translated "first" is the same Greek word rendered "chief" in the previous verse.

1:17

The oldest surviving manuscripts read "the only God"; the word "wise" comes from the later copies available to the King James translators. "For ever and ever" is literally "to the ages of the ages," a Greek way of saying time without any end. "Amen" is a Hebrew word carried over untranslated, meaning roughly "so be it" or "this holds," used to endorse what has just been said.

1:18

"Charge" translates a military term for orders handed down the chain of command, and "war a good warfare" continues the image: a soldier on campaign, not a single duel. The prophecies are words spoken over Timothy by members of the church when he was set apart for this work.

1:19

KJV "put away" means deliberately shoved aside, not mislaid by accident. It is a decision, not a slip.

1:20

Hymenaeus is named again in 2 Timothy 2:17. Alexander was an extremely common name, and whether this is the Alexander mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament cannot be settled. "Delivered unto Satan" is an idiom Paul also uses in 1 Corinthians 5:5. It means putting a person out of the community and back into the world outside it, which he pictures as Satan's ground.