1 Timothy 1:5

Straight after his greeting in 1 Timothy 1:1–2, Paul turns to the reason Timothy is still in Ephesus. “Besought” translates parakaléō, a compound of pará and kaléō that means to ask earnestly, urge or exhort. It is an apostle’s request, carrying both his authority and his care for the church. “Abide still” is prosménō, to stay on in a place, and figuratively to hold fast and persevere. Paul travelled on into Macedonia, and Timothy was to stay at his post. Paul leaves the occasion unnamed. He once went on from Troas into Macedonia (2 Corinthians 2:12–13), and this may have been that journey or a later one. The letter itself was written around AD 62–64.

Ephesus was a leading city of the Roman province of Asia, famous for its great temple of Artemis (Diana), counted among the seven wonders of its day. It was a meeting place of philosophical schools, mystery religions and pagan worship, with a large Jewish community as well, and ideas from all of them pressed in on the young church. Paul had spent a long time there and built up a strong church (Acts 19:1–10). When he said farewell to its elders, he warned them that wolves would come in and spare none of the flock, and that men would rise up from among them to distort the truth and draw disciples after themselves (Acts 20:29–30). Timothy was left in Ephesus to meet that very danger.

His task was to “charge some that they teach no other doctrine”. “Charge” is parangéllō, a firm command, and Timothy gives it with the authority Paul has passed to him. “Teach other doctrine” is a single Greek verb, heterodidaskaléō, built from héteros, other or different, and the word for a teacher, didáskalos. It means to teach differently, and Paul uses it for teaching that departs from the gospel itself. He names what these men taught in the verses that follow, and the whole letter grows out of this charge: the right use of the law later in this chapter, the qualifications for overseers and deacons in 1 Timothy 3, and the warnings about error that run to its end.

Paul guards the gospel the same way elsewhere. He rebukes the Galatians for turning so quickly to another gospel (Galatians 1:6–9). In his second letter he charges Timothy to preach the word, because the time would come when people “shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:1–5).

Timothy is to keep the church from giving heed, paying close attention, to “fables and endless genealogies”. “Fables” is mŷthos, a made-up tale, myth or legend, a story of human making. “Genealogies” is genealogía, the tracing of a family line, from words for a generation and for speaking. Scripture has genealogies of its own, and the lists of Christ’s forebears in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 serve real purposes. The trouble lay in an obsession with lines of descent that went on forever.

Paul leaves the details unstated. The fables may have been pagan myths, Jewish legends stretched far past Scripture, or early speculation of the kind the Gnostics later built into long chains of spiritual beings flowing down from a supreme god. The genealogies may have been Jewish family lines pressed into the service of spiritual pride, or those same chains of beings. Either way they were “endless” because they ran beyond what God has revealed, and so they could only go on and on.

Such things “minister questions”. The word is zḗtēsis, from the verb for seeking, and it means a searching, a debate or a dispute. These questions lead to more speculation and to quarrels that divide a church. Over against them Paul sets “godly edifying which is in faith”. “Edifying” is oikodomía, building up, a word related to the building of a house, and it pictures believers being strengthened and matured as a house is built to stand. “Faith” is pístis, trust and conviction of the truth, and especially reliance on Christ. The building up that God gives comes through faith and deepens it. The closing words “so do”, implied in the Greek, press the charge home to Timothy.

Paul gives the same counsel elsewhere. Foolish and unlearned questions are to be avoided because they breed strife (2 Timothy 2:23), and foolish questions, genealogies and strivings about the law are unprofitable and vain (Titus 3:9). Believers are to follow after the things by which they may edify one another (Romans 14:19) and to speak what is good to the use of edifying (Ephesians 4:29), and Christ himself builds up his body through the ministers he gives it (Ephesians 4:11–16). In place of myth, God gives us “the mystery of godliness”, the truth revealed in Christ (1 Timothy 3:16). Jesus is the truth (John 14:6), and the love of God in giving his only Son (John 3:16) is the answer that ends speculation.

“From which” points back to that love and its three sources. “Some” have “swerved” from them. The verb astochéō means to miss the mark or to err, the picture of an arrow that misses its target, and these men aimed wrong at the very goal Paul has just named. “Turned aside” is ektrépō, to deflect or turn aside from a path, and they turned “unto vain jangling”. The word is mataiología, from mataios, empty or futile, and logos, word: random talk, babble, speech emptied of any profit for the soul, which feeds arguments where it ought to build up.

The “some” are the false teachers of verse 3 and those who had come under their sway. Paul warns Timothy against “profane and vain babblings” again in his second letter (2 Timothy 2:16–18), and this letter closes on the same note, with “perverse disputings” (1 Timothy 6:5) and “profane and vain babblings” (1 Timothy 6:20). Together verses 5 and 6 give the measure of any teaching: whether it produces love from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith. Talk that leads anywhere else has missed the mark, however clever it sounds.

These men were “desiring to be teachers of the law”. The word is nomodidáskalos, from nómos, law, and didáskalos, teacher: an expounder of the Jewish law, a rabbi. They wanted the standing and influence of authoritative teachers of the law of Moses. Yet they understood “neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm”. “Understanding” is noiéō, to use the mind, perceive and grasp, and “affirm” is diabebaióomai, to assert confidently and insist. They spoke with great certainty about things beyond their grasp, and confidence joined to ignorance is what made them dangerous.

Their error was most likely a distorted, legalistic reading of the law that missed its purpose in God’s plan of salvation in Christ, perhaps pressed on Gentile converts. Paul tells Titus of “many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped”, in the same place where he describes the kind of elder who can answer them (Titus 1:9–11). Jesus said of such guides, “they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Matthew 15:14). The Bereans show the right answer to confident teachers, for they “searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11).

Christ is the one who truly understands the law. He came to fulfil the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17), in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3), and he has the words of eternal life (John 6:68). The law, rightly understood, leads to him.

Paul turns at once to keep anyone from blaming the law for the misuse of it. “But” is dé, the ordinary connective, which marks a contrast here, and “we know” is eídō, properly to see, and by implication to know. Paul appeals to what believers already know and sets it against the ignorance of verse 7. “Good” is kalós, good, and also beautiful and excellent. The law comes from God and shows his holy character, and Paul says the same in Romans: “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12).

Its goodness is realized “if a man use it lawfully”. The adverb nomímōs means legitimately or according to law, in keeping with the purpose God gave it. God gave the law to make sin known: “by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20). It leads us to Christ: “the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24). Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans 10:4), and in those who walk after the Spirit the righteousness the law requires is fulfilled (Romans 8:4), so the law still shows them what pleases God.

The law is misused when someone tries to earn righteousness by keeping it, presses its ceremonies on others as a way to God, or mines it for speculation. Used lawfully, it guards against two errors at once: legalism, which tries to earn salvation by rules, and antinomianism, which sets God’s moral standards aside because of grace.

Paul goes on, “Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man”. The law here, nómos, is the law given through Moses. The righteous man, díkaios, is one who is just, and in Paul’s teaching that means one whom God has declared righteous through faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:21–22). The law’s condemning work is aimed at the lawless. Those who are in Christ are free of its curse, because Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13).

Then comes the list of those the law is made for. The lawless, ánomos, are those without law or who transgress it, setting aside God’s standards whether given in the law of Moses or known through conscience. The disobedient refuse to submit to God’s commands. The ungodly lack reverence for God, and sinners miss the mark of his standard. The unholy and profane treat sacred things as common. Then the list narrows to particular crimes: murderers of fathers and of mothers, who break the closest bonds of family, and manslayers, a general word for murderers. Paul moves from broad words for lawlessness down to the worst of deeds, and so shows the reach of the law over human wickedness.

Verse 10 carries the list on. “Whoremongers” is pórnos, from a root meaning to sell: properly a male prostitute, and by extension anyone given to sexual immorality outside marriage. “Them that defile themselves with mankind” is arsenokoítēs, formed from the words for a male and for a bed, a man who lies with a man. “Menstealers” is andrapodistḗs, an enslaver, the kidnapper or slave trader who takes away a person’s freedom. It is built from the words for a man and a foot, one who brings men under his feet. Liars follow, and then “perjured persons”, epíorkos, those who swear falsely or break an oath. Lying and perjury strike at the truthfulness that justice and every covenant depend on. The law makes all these sins known for what they are, as Paul says: “I had not known sin, but by the law” (Romans 7:7). The works of the flesh he lists in Galatians 5:19–21 stand beside this list.

These sins were common in the Gentile world of Paul’s day, and they are just as destructive now, because the moral law behind the list stays the same. Paul closes with “and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine”, which shows that the list is a sample. Anything in act, attitude or teaching that opposes sound doctrine comes under the same law.

Paul measures every sin on his list against “sound doctrine”. “Sound” is hygiaínō, a verb meaning to be in good health, to be well, used figuratively of teaching that is uncorrupt and true. “Doctrine” is didaskalía, teaching, the content of what is taught. Sound doctrine is healthy teaching, which gives life and leads to righteous living, and the deeds in this list are its opposite. What a church believes and how it lives belong together. Paul tells Titus to speak the things that become sound doctrine (Titus 2:1), and he tells Timothy to “hold fast the form of sound words” (2 Timothy 1:13).

Sound doctrine in turn is “according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God”. The gospel, euangélion, is the good message, the news of salvation through Jesus Christ in his life, death and resurrection. The word behind “glorious” is dóxa, glory, and this gospel carries God’s own glory and makes it known. Paul speaks of “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6), who is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). At its heart is Christ in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).

God is “the blessed God”. The word is makários, blessed or happy, and Paul uses it of God again near the end of this letter (1 Timothy 6:15). Every blessing comes from him, and the good news comes from the God who is blessed in himself.

Last, Paul says this gospel “was committed to my trust”. The verb, episteuthēn, is passive: Paul received the trust from God, and it came to him as a gift. He received the gospel by the revelation of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11–12), was separated unto it as an apostle (Romans 1:1–5), and had the gospel to the Gentiles committed to him (Galatians 2:7). He speaks the same way of the preaching committed to him in Titus 1:3, and of Israel, to whom were committed the oracles of God (Romans 3:2). This is the authority behind Timothy’s charge. The false teachers had their own ideas, and Paul had a gospel entrusted to him by God.

This passage shows a God who guards his people with the truth. He gave a charge to Timothy, and its whole aim is love from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith. The law he gave is good. It tells the truth about sin, and it leads the sinner to Christ. The gospel he entrusted to Paul carries his own glory, and he himself is the blessed God from whom it comes.

So the test of any teaching is what it produces. Fables and endless questions leave people arguing, and the gospel builds them up in faith until they love. Every believer now holds this same gospel as a trust, to keep it whole, live by it and pass it on, as Paul and Timothy did. The safeguard God gives against error is a heart he has made clean, a good conscience, faith that is real, and the healthy teaching of the glorious gospel.