06.29. The Pastoral Epistles

Chapter 28 The Pastoral Epistles The fourth and last group of the Pauline writings is known commonly as the Pastoral Epistles, and consists of the two to Timothy and that to Titus. They are called “Pastoral” because they are addressed to young pastors and deal, not with the great questions of doctrine and philosophy except incidentally, but with the practical matters of the pastoral and ministerial office. Their genuineness has been questioned more than that of any other writings of Paul on the ground of peculiarities in the phraseology and because that matters of church polity are discussed in a way to indicate a later period of ecclesiastical development, than that of his time; but as the early church received them without question, and as all the peculiarities and other matters may readily be explained by difference of time, subject and other circumstances, there need be no hesitation on our part to receive them as well.

It is to be hoped that the preceding chapters have made clear that the question of the genuineness of any of these writings is not identical with that of its inspiration or authority, but only touches its authorship. These epistles may not have been written by Paul, but by some other inspired writer and yet have just the same interest and authority for us, although it must be confessed that the thought of the Pauline authorship is so bound up with them, that to see good evidence to doubt it, would lead one to doubt them. But such evidence, as we have said, does not exist.

Timothy, to whom two of these epistles are addressed, was probably a native of Lystra or Derbe (Acts 16:1), the son of a Jewish mother and Greek father, who had received a thorough training in the Old Testament Scriptures (2 Timothy 1:5; 2 Timothy 3:14-15). He was probably converted to Jesus Christ under Paul’s ministry on the occasion of the first visit of Paul to his neighborhood (Acts 14:1-28; 1 Timothy 1:2), and chosen to be his traveling companion and assistant on his second visit. In this capacity he probably continued with more or less interruption until after Paul’s release from his first imprisonment at Rome (for Paul seems to have suffered another imprisonment later than that recorded in the Acts), when he left Timothy at Ephesus, he himself being en route to Macedonia. At Ephesus Timothy seems to have filled the office of bishop or overseer of the church or churches (1 Timothy 1:3), where he labored, apparently, until Paul during his second imprisonment called him again to Rome (2 Timothy 4:21). Later on, he himself seems to have been cast into prison, though when, where or why, we do not know (Hebrews 13:23), and tradition has it that he suffered martyrdom somewhere near the close of the second century. Timothy is everywhere spoken of in terms of praise and as possessing many gifts and graces, but his apparent youth (1 Timothy 4:12), and state of health (1 Timothy 5:23), superadded doubtless to the trying situation in the church of Ephesus everywhere touched upon in the two epistles addressed to him, made it necessary for Paul to admonish him again and again. From these admonitions we gather that Timothy was a man of a somewhat timid, perhaps weak or wavering disposition, requiring constant spurs to activity, although there are those who would disagree in this opinion about him. It is a question, however, which any reader of the Acts and the epistles of Paul may determine for himself. As to the first epistle, Paul was on the road from Ephesus to Macedonia when he wrote it (1 Timothy 1:3), but, as already intimated, this does not refer to the journey spoken of in Acts 20:1-38, after the uproar in the theater, but a much later one, following his liberation from the Roman imprisonment, and not narrated in the Acts. The contents of the epistle show progress and development in ecclesiastical affairs which demand a certain lapse of time from the so-called prison epistles to account for them, bringing us perhaps to A.D. 64 or 65. Heretical teachers had arisen, and Timothy was young and needed counsel for his conduct and encouragement. He needed also a public testimony from the great apostle to the agreement of their respective teachings. This explains the epistle from the human point of view, but from the divine point of view we may feel assured that the Holy Spirit was thinking of and caring for the wants of the church in coming generations, as well as in that place and time. This does not mean that we have here expressed the fixed forms in which church polity must always move from century to century in all lands, but it does mean that here we are to find the great, unchangeable, fundamentals which govern them. The epistle to Titus intervenes before the second to Timothy. Titus is not named in the Acts, and what we learn of him is incidentally mentioned in the Pauline epistles. He was by birth a Greek (Galatians 2:3), and converted to Christianity under Paul (Titus 1:4). He traveled with Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem on the occasion of the first great council (Acts 15:1-41; Galatians 2:1-21), and afterwards with Paul in certain of his missionary journeys. The apostle frequently names him in terms of commendation, several times indeed in 2 Corinthians 7:1-16; 2 Corinthians 8:1-24; 2 Corinthians 9:1-15; 2 Corinthians 10:1-18; 2 Corinthians 11:1-33; 2 Corinthians 12:1-21. At the time of this epistle we do not know the whereabouts of Paul, but Titus was in Crete, an island in the Mediterranean, near the mouth of the Aegean, where he had been left by Paul for much the same reason as Timothy at Ephesus (Titus 1:5), although it is not as easy to determine when this may have taken place. Some imagine it to have been after Paul’s first imprisonment as in the other case. Titus joined Paul in Rome afterward, as there is reason to believe (2 Timothy 4:10); and was with him doubtless in his second imprisonment, although tradition relates that he died and was buried in Crete at the age of 94.

Titus had a difficult task in Crete, for the people are described to be “unsteady, insincere, quarrelsome, and given to licentiousness and intemperance.” It was therefore necessary for Titus to be prepared and strengthened for the contest evidently before him by having in his hands the written instructions to which he might appeal and in proof that he was acting in accordance with apostolic mandates. But, as Calvin states, and any reader of the epistle will perceive, it was written scarcely more for Titus himself than for the church as well. The second letter to Timothy was written when Paul was in prison the second time and saw his martyrdom at hand. That it is not the time of his first imprisonment is shown in the fact that Mark is not present with him (2 Timothy 4:11), though he was with him during the earlier imprisonment (Colossians 4:10). Nor was Timothy with him now although he had been with him previously (Php 1:1). Timothy is now at Ephesus where he was on the occasion of the first epistle, and this is sent to him for the purpose of encouraging him in the performance of his duties, and also acquainting him with the condition of the apostle in view of his approaching end, and to urge him to come to see him as soon as possible and bring Mark with him. The tone of the epistle is even more natural and affectionate than the farmer one, and while the apostle still inveighs against the false teachers, he is speaking now more than formerly “in the tender grief of a departing father.” The mention of many individuals is an internal evidence of genuineness, and without any extended argument, the epistle may be said to be “a self-evident and lasting authority for the martyrdom of the great apostle.” Van Oosterzee, from whom the last two sentences are quoted, speaks of it, and truly, as “a treasure to the Christian church of all ages, and a noble crown to Paul’s earlier testimony.”