Theodoret of Cyrus — Commentary on Scripture

It is not nature but faith that has made Timothy a son.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

Believers of Jewish background, taking pride in their knowledge of the Old Testament, laid certain questions before Gentile believers. They did this in order to take advantage of their ignorance of these same divine words, and in the attempt to persuade them to embrace the law as a way of life. They rehearsed with them the human genealogy of the Lord as descended from Abraham and David. Therefore, Paul instructs Timothy to block these people and to prevent them from corrupting the teaching. The others he orders not to listen. He calls their ideas “myth” because they involve the Jewish, Mishna-like exposition of the Scripture, which focuses on superfluous and useless questions, rather than the essential divine economy of salvation.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 1:8

To use the law appropriately is to keep its purpose, that is, to lead one to Christ the Lord. Those who refrain from the sins that Paul mentions are living in conformity with the law.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 1:18

By recalling prophecy, Paul makes it clear that Timothy received the laying on of hands in accordance with divine revelation, and after numerous signs that he, Timothy, had been so elected.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 1:18

With the name of “son,” Paul gives his blessing to Timothy.

INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

1 Timothy 1:20

The sinner is separated from the body of the church, stripped of divine grace, and so will be cruelly beaten by the Adversary, will fall into illnesses and painful passions and into a host of scrapes and calamities. It is understood that the sentence will be revoked when the sinner has repented.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 2:5

There is one conciliator of peace, who joins in himself what has been in disjunction. Paul calls Christ man precisely because he is the Mediator, the one in whom human and divine natures are joined in friendship.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 3:4-5

As a good overseer of his children, the father’s task is not to abdicate to their opinion but to teach them all the virtues, even if he must act strongly to shape their wills.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 3:8

“Not double-tongued” means that the deacon is not to be a person who says one thing to one person and something else to another.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 3:16

The “mystery” is the sacred object of reverence, namely, that what was foreordained from the beginning and afterward became manifest.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 4:2

“Consciences seared” refers to their final numbing, the deadening of their consciences.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 4:7

“Godless wives tales” are Jewish speculations in the form of false interpretations of the law and its proper observance.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 5:3

Those faithful widows who have no other support must have churchly assistance.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 5:9

The teaching that a widow should be the wife of only one man is an encouragement to chastity within marriage, not a forbidding of second marriages.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY

1 Timothy 5:10

In emphasizing hospitality and the care of the saints as important qualifications for the widow, Paul’s goal is not to focus on a certain quantity of virtuous activity but rather on a quality of mind.

INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY