Today we will finish Paul’s first letter to Timothy by summarizing the significant lessons taught there.  This is the list. Last time we went chapter by chapter, today theme by theme.

        * An Exhortation (1 Tim. 1:4)
        * Its Essence (1 Tim. 1:6)
        * Its Foundation (1 Tim. 1:15-17; 3:16)
        * Its Application (all chapters)
        * Amplified (1 Tim. chapters 1,4,6)

• Today we will finish Paul’s first letter to Timothy by summarizing the significant lessons taught there.  This is the list:
  
  

Some Have Swerved from True Doctrine, Teaching Not Grace But the Law (Chapter 1)

• Saved through Childbearing, the Promise of the Seed Gives Hope Always (Chapter 2)
• Without Controversy, Great is the Mystery of Godliness  (Chapter 3)
• In the Latter Times, Some Shall Depart from the Faith (Chapter 4)
• Honour Widows that are Widows Indeed, Desolate, and Trusting in God (Chapter 5)
• The Challenge for All Seasons Is To Lay Hold on Eternal Life (Chapter 6a)
• Timothy’s Final Challenge — To Keep the Faith and the Trust! (Chapter 6b)

The blessings gained though this study have been so transforming for me and hopefully for you as well.  Enjoy Him and His unlimited grace, for great is the mystery of godliness and through it we may “lay hold on eternal life”.

• In today’s study we reach the last two verses of Paul’s first letter to Timothy.  These are not his last words before his martyrdom, but they are his last words for a while with Timothy and must have struck a powerful note for him and should also for us today.  Here, he writes of the sacred trust committed to his son in the faith, and that is as the last verse says, the faith itself.  As we have already shared here, “the faith” signifies the body of truth itself committed to Paul and now passed also on to Timothy.  It is the pure doctrine of grace as Ephesians chapter 3 explains.  To “keep” it until the end is Timothy’s charge.  Some had turned aside, he again reminds Timothy, to their own spiritual destruction.  Those that turn aside engage in worldly chatter, such a demeaning way to describe their oppositions to Pauline doctrine, and also promote “false knowledge”, or a knowledge not based on the truth.  But the truth must be protected and honored always, he writes, no matter what.  I can only imagine how often Timothy thought on Paul’s words here as he lived through the challenges of his short life, with his own martyrdom, it seems, not far ahead after his mentor’s.

• Twice in the final chapter of this letter, in both verses 12 & 19, the apostle in this culminating exhortation to his son in the faith, uses a word that needs some explanation.  That word is here translated “lay hold on”.  It is a good translation.  In our English Bibles that term is found predominantly in John’s gospel and his first letter where it is found 34 times.  But Paul also uses it 14 times while the other authors of scripture rarely use it.  In the gospels it is found only in the rich young ruler teaching.  Here though Paul exhorts Timothy and also all believers to “lay hold on” eternal life by living an uncompromised life consistent with the grace of God as he valiantly had proclaimed it.  Timothy needed to do the same and to ensure that some in the assemblies would take seriously their eternal and heavenly calling.  Here, again, he singles out the rich in this world whose riches could never compare with the glorious blessing of grace available now and forever.  Laying hold on eternal life here and now is his subject.  For the riches of this world are blessings indeed, but only for a season.

• In the midst of chapter 6 of 1 Timothy, the apostle exhorts his son in the faith to take very seriously the false teachers he will be encountering in his ministry.  Their teaching, he warns, entirely misses the point regarding God’s great work in this dispensation.  That work has been the subject of Paul’s teaching in chapter 3 where he calls it “the mystery of godliness”.   The false teachers were teaching a heresy that contradicted that teaching directly.  They were teaching that “gain is godliness”!  Oh, what a contrast that is and its danger toward believers should not be underestimated, he writes.  One of its most dangerous teachings was concerning “the love of money” which he writes is “the root of all evil”.  To to stand apart from all such teachings was critically important.  Finally, Paul exclaims that the virtues of the mystery of godliness working within Timothy must be received and brought forth “unto eternal life”.  Truly “gain is godliness’, for now and for eternity!

• Paul here emphasizes again how necessary it was for the truths of the mystery and specifically the mystery of godliness to be taught.  Those elders that labored in the teaching of that doctrine were to be honored well.  But, to underscore this teaching to Timothy, the apostle adds to the gravity of the situation by writing here that there are heavenly observers of Timothy’s oversight of the assembly. Then, perhaps considering that this exhortation might be somewhat overwhelming, he adds here that he should not forget to take care of his own personal physical needs.  Finally, concluding his guidance in the selection of elders and “widows indeed”, he adds that since some sins are hidden for a time, it is best not to select someone for those offices until they are well proven in ministry first.  Since there was surely going to be opposition to these godly and wise principles, Timothy is told that he must separate publicly from some, as difficult as that might be.  Separation is practically difficult but sometimes necessary.  Amen.

• In our teaching today, the apostle continues his theme on order in the churches and particularly emphasizes the care of widows by the church.  He identifies some widows as “widows indeed” and lists their qualifications.  No younger widow is to be allowed into this privileged group, we writes, because they are so much more likely to ignore their ministerial duties as widows in this category, will marry after having been admitted, or will be caught up in worldly matters entirely.  This group of women are seen by Paul as a special (and permanent) missionary class, it seems.  Although proper respect is to be shown by Timothy for all, whether older or younger, women or men, here in this fifth  chapter he shows his special concern for widows, perhaps because of expected (and current) persecution and martyrdom for many.

• In dark times, where Pauline doctrines clearly taught in his letters concerning the Mystery revealed to him for the church, the bold and true teachings must be continued, whatever the consequences.  This, Paul writes here in this letter is most critically important.  That those with the responsibility in the churches must never fail to make that teaching known is Paul’s meaning here.  The consequences of promoting the truth, Paul, promises here, will be severe, since it will be satan himself energizing that opposition.  Such has always been true as we have seen for so very long. Nevertheless, Paul emphasizing the responsibility of Pastors to teach true doctrine, he also said how critical it is for one to first nourish oneself and then others.  Therefore one who holds such high offices in the churches must without hypocrisy powerfully and boldly preach and teach the Mystery of Godliness, first applying that teaching to oneself.  Praise God!

• In our lesson today, we see that “A Heavenly Service Requires Heavenly Minded Leaders.”  And it is a heavenly service to serve in the Church which is His Body.  That is because this church is a heavenly organism indeed.  Though our feet are on the solid footing of earth itself, spiritually that footing is unstable and always changing as opposed to our heavenly citizenship in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.  The Lord God himself has established a structure of both authority and responsibility in the Church and that is the focus in our study in 1 Timothy today.  In this lesson the focus is where we find it in 1 Timothy chapter 3, on the offices of bishop (or overseer or elder, all equivalents) and deacon.  The pastoral and teaching ministries are not the focus here but will be reserved for later in our studies.