Daily Liturgy and Scripture

Paul outlines to Timothy how those who put their hope in God receive help from the body of Christ, the Church. Not only direct work such as work with widows, but also a voice. In a time of emperors and kings, the Church was establishing a place where rich and poor alike could have power, possible through the shared power of the Spirit.

This chapter gives an insight into the give and take in leadership of the early church. They didn't lord leadership over one another, but they sought to follow Jesus and teach others to do so. The previous chapter about deacons and overseers now leads into this one, where we see a pastor being ordained by the church elders.

Paul needs to do more than cheer Timothy on, he needs to give him good tools with which to build a strong church. Two of those things are help and right belief, and he gives a little guidance for each here. Deacons, overseers, and pastors remain part of the church today.

Paul seems to have a low view of women in this passage, but this letter to Timothy should not be seen as the universal rule. It was certainly specific to Timothy's experience, and elsewhere Paul highly praises women who lead in the church, particularly Phoebe, Tryphena, and Tryphosa in the book of Romans, which was written to a large audience.

Like Philemon, 1 Timothy is a look at the dynamic between two followers of Christ. In Timothy's case, though, Paul is raising him up as a pastor. This means that in addition to the practical side of Christian living that Paul had with Philemon, he is teaching Timothy how to both know sound doctrine and live in such a way that he would be able to see it play out in life.

Reading Philemon is eavesdropping on a conversation between two people who are committed to following Christ and letting that guidance be their true motivation. Paul isn't coercive, he doesn't need to be. It is a conversation of certainly, not in the foundation of their own friendship, but in the shared priorities of the Kingdom of Jesus.

Once again, Paul's incarceration is the method of working God's will: he is allowed to address the Jewish leaders, and this amounts to a few converts. Perhaps Paul was actually relieved to have been in the company of the Romans, since the Jewish leaders tended to respond to him with violence.

A voyage that started as a prison transport has now become an opportunity for Paul to visit growing churches. It's kind of fascinating to watch how this unfolds, since the purpose of jailing Paul was to keep him from doing his work, and now that very establishment is what grows it.

The purpose of Paul's preservation extends to those around him. It is not recorded why Paul needed to get to his final destination, but Church tradition records that this trip did end with Paul's death following his trial. Whatever God was doing, the protection of the Creator of the Universe was ample to preserve all those aboard as Paul guided them along the way God intended, whether they were believers or not.

"He could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar." Paul seems to be the architect of his own doom? Perhaps it is also that Paul's purpose in front of this high court is to win converts to Jesus even at that level, and this certainly did begin to happen.