1 Timothy 4:16

Paul had left Timothy in Ephesus to oversee the church. This letter, written around A.D. 62–64, is one of the three Pastoral Epistles, with Second Timothy and Titus, which give practical guidance for the order and leadership of the church. Ephesus was a busy and crowded city, a centre of the worship of Artemis, also called Diana, and a meeting place for philosophers. The young church there faced pressure from the city around it and error from within. In 1 Timothy 4 Paul warns that “in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1), teachers who forbid marriage and certain foods (1 Timothy 4:1–5). He has already warned against “fables and endless genealogies” (1 Timothy 1:4).

Against all this Paul sets the picture of “a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine” (1 Timothy 4:6). Such a man refuses “profane and old wives’ fables” and trains himself in godliness (1 Timothy 4:6–7, 4:7–8). Godliness, eusebeia, is the goal of everything this letter teaches. Then Paul says, “These things command and teach” (1 Timothy 4:11), and our passage follows at once, because Timothy’s teaching will carry weight as his life matches it. The standards Paul set for the church’s leaders in 1 Timothy 3 now come home to Timothy himself, so that the church can be what Paul calls it, “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).

Among the Greeks and Romans of Paul’s day, age went with wisdom, experience and authority. Timothy was Paul’s trusted companion and held a weighty post in a leading city, but he was still young for it, perhaps in his thirties. Older members of the church or of the city could easily look down on him. The word for despise, kataphronéō, joins katá, “down”, to phronéō, “to think”. To despise someone is to think down on him and hold him in contempt as a person of less account. The word for youth is neótēs.

Paul gives Timothy a remedy that lies in his own hands: “be thou an example of the believers.” Timothy is to live in such a way that nobody has a fair reason to scorn him for his age. His respect will rest on a godly character that people can see for themselves, and he will earn it by the way he lives.

The word for example is týpos. It first meant the mark left by a blow or a stamp, and so came to mean a pattern or a model to copy. Timothy’s life is to be a pattern pressed into the church, plain to see and possible to follow. Paul gives Titus the same charge, “In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity” (Titus 2:7), and Peter tells elders to lead “Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:3). God has always been glad to work through people the world thinks little of, for “God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27). A young man living a holy life is one more proof of it.

“Till I come” tells us that Paul meant to visit Timothy, and until then these three duties come first. The verb “give attendance”, proséchō, means to hold the mind toward something, to pay attention to it and apply oneself to it. Paul is asking for steady, devoted attention, day after day.

The first duty is reading, anágnōsis, “the act of reading”. Here it is the public reading of Scripture to the gathered church. The second is exhortation, paráklēsis, a word of appeal, encouragement and comfort. It covers comforting the grieving, encouraging the faint-hearted, warning the wayward and urging believers to live out their faith, so that God’s word is pressed home on daily life. The third is doctrine, didaskalía, instruction, which means both the act of teaching and the truth that is taught. Timothy is to teach the whole body of Christian truth accurately, so that the believers are grounded in it and guarded against the doctrines of devils Paul has just warned about.

The three belong together. God’s word is read, it is applied to the hearers, and it is taught as a connected whole, so the order runs from what God has said to how his people live it and understand it. Paul wrote that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). He told the elders of this same church at Ephesus to “feed the church of God” (Acts 20:28), and he wrote to the Ephesians that Christ gave pastors and teachers to build up his body until it grows to maturity (Ephesians 4:11–16). Later he would urge Timothy, “That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us” (2 Timothy 1:14).

After charging Timothy about his conduct and his public ministry (1 Timothy 4:11–13), Paul turns to what equips him for it. “Neglect” is ameléō, to be careless of something and make light of it. Timothy is to guard against letting his gift lie idle or treating it as a small thing, and he is to keep using it with care. Paul says the same later in warmer words: “Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands” (2 Timothy 1:6).

The gift is a chárisma, a gift of grace, an ability God gives freely. Such gifts are for the good of others and the building up of the church (Romans 12:6–8, 1 Corinthians 12:4–11). The context points to a gift for Timothy’s work at Ephesus, likely for teaching, preaching and leading, an enabling of the Spirit given along with whatever natural ability he had. Peter writes, “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10). A gift left unused robs the church of what God meant it to have and dishonours the Giver.

Two things marked the giving of this gift. It came “by prophecy”, which means God made Timothy’s calling and gifting known through a prophetic word, probably at the time he was set apart for his work. And it came “with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery”. The presbytery, presbytérion, is the body of elders, and the same word is used for the council of the elders of Israel. In the church the elders taught, governed and shepherded the flock (Titus 1:5–9).

Laying hands on someone was an old custom among God’s people. Jacob laid his hands on Ephraim and Manasseh to bless them (Genesis 48:14), Jesus “laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them” (Mark 6:5), and the apostles prayed and laid their hands on the seven chosen to serve (Acts 6:6). At Antioch the Holy Ghost called for Barnabas and Saul, and the church fasted, prayed, laid hands on them and sent them away (Acts 13:1–3). In Timothy’s case the elders’ hands were the church’s public and visible confirmation of what God had already said, and with it came their blessing on his ministry. His call came from God and was owned by the church, which kept his ministry under authority and in good order.

“These things” are everything Paul has said since verse 6 (1 Timothy 4:6–14): sound doctrine, godliness, an example in all of life, reading, exhortation and teaching, and the gift. To “meditate”, meletáō, is to give careful thought and diligent practice to something, to turn it over in the mind, to take care of it and to rehearse it until it is mastered. “Give thyself wholly to them” is in Greek en toutois isthi, literally “be in these things”. Timothy is to be so wholly given to godliness, to Scripture and to his ministry that they fill his life. Paul has just used the language of training, “exercise thyself rather unto godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7), and Greeks who prized the discipline of the athlete and the philosopher would have understood a man who gave himself entirely to his calling.

The purpose follows: “that thy profiting may appear to all.” The word prokopḗ means progress or advancement, properly progress on a journey, and here it is Timothy’s progress in his life and ministry. The word phanerós means visible, evident, plain to see. Everyone would be able to see him growing, and that growth would answer the false teachers, encourage the believers and bear witness to the gospel he preached.

Growth like this takes effort, and God is at work in it. Paul tells the Philippians, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). Peter tells believers to add to their faith virtue and the rest, so that they are fruitful in the knowledge of Christ (2 Peter 1:5–8), and Paul calls us to present our bodies a living sacrifice and be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1–2). By the Spirit we are being conformed to the image of God’s Son (Romans 8:29).

Verse 16 gathers up the whole section. “Take heed” is epéchō, made of epí, “upon”, and échō, “to hold”. It means to hold upon something, and with the mind to fix attention on it and keep a steady, careful watch. Paul names two things to watch.

“Thyself” is Timothy’s own character, conduct, motives and spiritual health. His life must stay in line with the gospel he preaches if he is to serve others well, and his example is itself a kind of teaching. “The doctrine” is didaskalía again, the teaching itself, which must stay sound and faithful to what the apostles taught. That calls for diligent study, faithful explaining and a brave defence of the truth against everything that departs from it. Paul gave the same double charge to the elders of Ephesus: “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). The two hang together. A compromised life weakens the doctrine it preaches, and false doctrine bends the life that holds it. The pastoral letters come back to sound doctrine again and again (Titus 1:9, 2 Timothy 4:3).

“Continue in them” asks for perseverance in both. Ministry is the work of a lifetime, and its fruit comes from faithfulness kept up over years. Paul has already spoken of some who “concerning faith have made shipwreck” (1 Timothy 1:19), and he will tell Timothy, “Fight the good fight of faith” (1 Timothy 6:12).

Every part of this charge points to Jesus Christ, the perfect example of the believers. In word, he is the Word who was with God and was God (John 1:1), and the officers said of him, “Never man spake like this man” (John 7:46). In conduct he humbled himself and became obedient unto death (Philippians 2:8). His love was shown on the cross: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13), and “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). His spirit burned with zeal for the work he came to do: “I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” (Luke 12:50). In faith he trusted his Father through the cross, and he is “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). In purity he was tempted “yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), the one “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). So Paul can say, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).

Christ also stands behind each of Timothy’s duties. The Scriptures Timothy read aloud testify of him, as Jesus said (John 5:39), and he expounded them concerning himself on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:27). All exhortation draws on him, our “advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:1), who died “that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Corinthians 5:15). All sound doctrine comes to rest in who he is, “the image of the invisible God”, through whom God reconciles all things to himself (Colossians 1:15–20). He said, “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me” (John 7:16), he taught “as one having authority” (Matthew 7:29), and he is himself “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He came down from heaven to do his Father’s will (John 6:38), and he finished the work he was given to do (John 17:4).

The salvation that Timothy’s ministry brings to others was won by Christ, who “gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world” (Galatians 1:4). As head of the body he gives his church its gifts (Colossians 1:18), and as we abide in him, the true vine, we bear much fruit to the Father’s glory (John 15:5–8). With our minds set on things above, where he is (Colossians 3:1–4), we serve as “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:20), and his Spirit makes us more like him.

If you are young in years or young in the faith, this passage tells you that God can use you now, and that a life others can follow is the way to earn a hearing. Whatever our age, we have Scripture to read and hear, brothers and sisters to encourage, and truth to learn and pass on. Each of us has received some gift of grace, and it is meant to be used. Progress in godliness comes to those who give themselves to it, a little each day, and over time others can see it.

The passage ends with a word of hope. Keep watch over your own heart, hold to the truth, and keep on. God uses that steady faithfulness to keep you, and he uses it to bring others to himself: the people at your table, in your church and at your work who hear what you say and watch how you live.