What Is Distinct About the Theology of 1 Timothy?

This text is a part of the Distinctive Theology collection.

Three Phrases

The distinctive theology of Paul’s letters to his delegates, Timothy and Titus, could be helpfully distilled by means of three phrases that belong to the distinctive terminology of the letters. That stated, within the trendy period this distinctive terminology has usually been cited by liberal and demanding interpreters as proof that the letters weren’t written by the apostle Paul. So the query arises, If the distinctive theology of the letters is mirrored within the distinctive vocabulary of the letters, does that imply these naysayers are proper in spite of everything? Under no circumstances!¹ Some of the terminology and theological emphases may differ from Paul’s different letters—certainly, as every of his letters differs from the others—however the theological core is recognizably Pauline.

The three phrases I take into consideration are “savior,” “showing,” and “godliness.” These three phrases are distinctive of 1 and a couple of Timothy and Titus, however what can simply be missed is that they’re put to totally different use in every letter, and people totally different makes use of serve the totally different functions and messages of every letter.

Savior

In some ways, the storyline of Scripture is about how God has saved a folks for himself. The message of the Previous Testomony is that God is Savior and there’s no different (Isa. 45:21–22), and his deliverance of his chosen folks, Israel, from slavery in Egypt served as a paradigm of his saving interventions on their behalf (Ex. 20:2–3; Deut. 6:20–23; cf. Isa. 45:14–21). Nonetheless, the prophets appeared ahead to a remaining, future salvation by God’s messianic King/Son that will contain all nations (Isa. 11:1–10). The New Testomony is about this promised one who got here into the world to avoid wasting sinners (1 Tim. 1:15) and who obtained the identify “Jesus” as a result of he would save his folks from their sins (Matt. 1:21).

Given this, we would anticipate finding the title “Savior” steadily within the New Testomony. But it surely happens solely twenty-four occasions;² ten of these within the letters to Timothy and Titus (1 Tim. 1:1; 2:3; 4:10; 2 Tim. 1:10; Titus 1:3, 4; Titus 2:10, 13; Titus 3:4, 6)! The three occurrences of “Savior” in 1 Timothy are utilized to God the Father. It’s the most frequent title for God within the letter and characterizes his nature and position. The principle theme of the letter is God’s want to avoid wasting a folks for himself (1 Tim. 2:4).

God is the initiator, supply, and creator of salvation. These whom he saves name upon him as our Savior (1 Tim. 1:1; 2:3). The letter foregrounds the common scope of God’s salvation—not that each one folks can be saved—solely those that consider are saved (1 Tim. 1:15–16; cf. 1 Tim. 5:8)—however relatively that God’s salvation now embraces all kinds of folks, Jew and Gentile (1 Tim. 2:1–7), female and male (1 Tim. 2:8–15; 3:1–11; 5:16), slave and free (1 Tim. 6:1–2; cf. Gal. 3:28), these in want and the wealthy (1 Tim. 5:3–8; 6:17), rulers and their topics (1 Tim. 2).

The logic is that there’s solely “one God” (1 Tim. 2:5; cf. 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16; additionally Deut. 6:4), and so for all folks there is just one approach to be saved. And the individuality and supremacy of God (1 Tim. 1:17; 6:15–16) underwrite the salvation he supplies. There isn’t any non secular or human being who can present a greater salvation and nothing and nobody who can threaten or forestall the eschatological consummation of his everlasting salvation plan.

Showing

In 1 Timothy, God is Savior and Christ Jesus is the agent of God’s salvation. The great assertion “Christ Jesus got here into the world to avoid wasting sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15) not solely tells us why Christ got here into the world, but it surely additionally provides us a glimpse of his pre-existence, demonstrates the shut connection between Christology and soteriology on this letter, and introduces the theme of his appearings in historical past. As elsewhere within the New Testomony, in 1 Timothy Christ Jesus is the God-man—actually God and actually human. Nonetheless, the stress on this letter falls on his humanity. He’s the “thriller of godliness” who “appeared within the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16 NIV) and lived a real human life on this world (1 Tim. 1:15; 6:3, 13), and, as “the person Christ Jesus” and solely “mediator between God and males” (i.e., humanity), he inaugurated and enacted God’s salvation plan, by giving “himself as a ransom for all” sorts of individuals (1 Tim. 2:5–6). In doing so, Christ supplied an atoning sacrifice that was each consultant and substitutionary (1 Tim. 2:6). And having paid the worth for our freedom, he was vindicated by the Spirit by means of his bodily resurrection and now reigns in glory (1 Tim. 3:16). The Christ occasion³ is the last word disclosure in human historical past of God’s everlasting will to avoid wasting and the means by which he has accomplished so.

Christ’s saving mission continues to advance by means of the preaching of the gospel amongst all of the nations as folks consider on him in all of the world (1 Tim. 3:16). All that awaits is his “showing” a second time on the finish of historical past, when God’s everlasting salvation plan can be consummated (1 Tim. 6:14), after which those that have believed upon “Christ Jesus our hope” (1 Tim. 1:1) will obtain everlasting life (1 Tim. 1:16; 6:12). The current age (1 Tim. 6:17) is the epoch between the 2 appearings of Christ, when salvation could also be attained by means of religion in Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 1:4; 4:10). The Holy Spirit has warned that apostasy and false instructing with demonic origins can be options of this epoch (1 Tim. 4:1–2; cf. 1 Tim. 1:3, 19–20; 1 Tim. 6:3–5, 20–21).

God is the initiator, supply, and creator of salvation.

Godliness

On this current age, those that have been saved are members of “the family of God” (1 Tim. 3:15), which is the dominant metaphor for the Christian group in 1 Timothy. As those that each belong to and reply to God as head of the family, the Christian group is to be “the microcosm or paradigm of a world obedient to God’s ordering⁴; and its mission is to increase this actuality past its partitions.”⁵

For this, believers want orthodoxy of perception and orthopraxy of life: that’s, data of the reality (1 Tim. 2:4) that comes from the gospel (1 Tim. 1:11) and wholesome or “sound doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:10; 6:3) and “godliness,” which holds promise for this life and the subsequent (1 Tim. 4:8; 2:2; 5:4; 6:6, 11). Timothy is to be an exemplar of each. He’s to dedicate himself to studying and instructing God’s phrase, and he’s to coach himself for godliness. He’s to do that to satisfy his ministry earlier than God, and so that each one the believers in Ephesus can be taught from him (1 Tim. 1:18–9; 1 Tim. 4:6–7, 12–16; 1 Tim. 6:11–14, 20). On this, he’ll current a pointy distinction to the false lecturers, with their false asceticism, lies, myths, and speculations and their loveless, vice-filled lives (1 Tim. 1:3–7, 19–20; 1 Tim. 4:1–3, 7; 1 Tim. 6:3–5, 20–21). They don’t belong within the church of the residing God, which is “a pillar and buttress of the reality” (1 Tim. 3:15; cf. 1 Tim. 1:20). Alternatively, these in church management are to have exemplary non-public and public lives and overseers should be capable of educate the reality (1 Tim. 3:1–13).

First Timothy additionally reveals there’s a correspondence between household relations and the family of God. Members of God’s family are sure to 1 one other in familial responsibility, love, and repair (1 Tim. 1:2, 18; 1 Tim. 4:6; 1 Tim. 6:2), and but these new bonds don’t negate God’s order and obligations inside the household (1 Tim. 5:3–16). Eligibility for church management requires faithfulness and competence in household relations (1 Tim. 3:2, 4, 12). And God’s design for ordered complementarity between the sexes, which informs the sample of marriage (Gen. 2:15–24; Eph. 5:21–33), equally applies in God’s family, the place the duty for instructing and governing management is assigned to suitably gifted and duly appointed males, and to not ladies (1 Tim. 2:11–3:7).

The imaginative and prescient of the church because the family of God is theologically and missiologically pushed. At its coronary heart is the salvation plan of God, who needs all types of individuals to be saved, and so God’s family is to be shaped by, ordered for, and primarily directed towards the gospel. Till Christ’s remaining showing, believers are to adapt to God’s ordering in our personal lives and households; and as God’s family, to carry to quick to and make recognized the reality and thriller of godliness, who’s Christ.

Claire S. Smith is the creator of The Appearing of God Our Savior: A Theology of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus.

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