TIMOTHY, MY SON, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, 19holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith. 20Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to satan to be taught not to blaspheme.
THE INTERPLAY OF vocabulary between the opening and closing verses of this chapter is striking. Paul calls Timothy “my son” in verses 2 and 18. In verse 3 he tells Timothy what to command (parangello) the false teachers; in verse 18 Paul uses the noun form of the same verb (parangelia, translated “instruction”), but this time he commands Timothy himself. In verse 3 Paul mentions his prior urging of Timothy to stay at Ephesus; in verse 18 he mentions prior “prophecies” about Timothy. The apostle does not mean prophecies related to Ephesus; rather, he wants Timothy’s ministry there to be consistent with the prophecies made about him as well as with Paul’s urgings. These prophecies pertain somehow to the fight he will wage there, something not mentioned in the earlier section.
The next words, “faith and a good conscience” (v. 19), pick up, in reverse order, “a good conscience and a sincere faith” from verse 5 (see comments there). The structure of the phrases that follow (though not all the words in them) are also similar: “Some have wandered away from these” (v. 6) and “some have rejected these” (v. 19). Finally, verse 7 refers to some of the heretics without naming them, while verse 20 cites two heretics by name. There is, therefore, something of a long, complex inclusio in these two sections, marking out chapter 1 as a literary unit.
Knight observes that the word “give” in verse 18 (paratithemai) carries the idea of entrusting something to someone else, often with the idea of subsequent transmission to yet another person.1 The instruction or command thus given is passed from Paul to Timothy and applied to the Ephesians. Timothy’s authority in Ephesus is specifically delegated to him as one whom we call, with good reason, an apostolic delegate.
We do not know what “the prophecies” were, but 4:14 mentions a prophetic message as the agency of the gift Timothy received at the laying on of hands (see comments there). That “gift” is not identified, but the purpose of the “instruction” and “prophecies” in 1:18 are for the purpose of his fighting well, so the gift is probably not of a ministry as such but of the means to carry out that ministry. Since the ministry was to involve confrontation and conflict in the process of giving corrective teaching, the gift may have been, or included, the power, love, and self-discipline mentioned in 2 Timothy 1:7.
The word translated “these” in verse 19 (a relative pronoun in Greek), referring to what the heretics have rejected, is feminine gender singular and therefore in agreement with both syneidesin (“conscience”) and pistin (“faith”), which precede it. The NIV understands this word as referring to both concepts and pluralizes it (“these”). The NRSV chooses the second word and uses the paraphrase “by rejecting conscience.” It actually may, be extension, refer to the blend of a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith that produce the love that is the goal of the command (cf. 1:5). This would point up the contrast between the bad mixture of heresy and personal evil that characterizes the false teachers and the blend of sound doctrine and godly life that is to characterize Timothy.
Regardless of our understanding of the referent for the relative pronoun, it is by an attitude of rejection that “some…have shipwrecked their faith.” Paul uses the definite article with “faith,” which, as elsewhere in the Pastoral Letters, can refer to the body of faith, that is, essential Christian doctrine. If so, the heretics would not have shipwrecked it, but rather have suffered shipwreck concerning (peri) that faith. The verb used here means to suffer, not cause, shipwreck. Nevertheless, since faith was just mentioned in the verse with the probable meaning of one’s own faith or trust, the definite article can have a possessive sense. The heretics then have suffered shipwreck with regard to their own personal faith.2
Hymenaeus reappears in 2 Timothy 2:17. Alexander may be the same person who tried to speak during the uproar when Paul was at Ephesus (Acts 19:33). Acts mentions him as though he were known to the readers, which would have been the case if he were known in the Ephesian church (see also 2 Tim. 4:14 and comments).3
THIS CLOSING SECTION gives chapter 1 a tight integrity. The opening greetings are followed by the statement of the need for Timothy’s presence in Ephesus, which specifies his main duty there. The problems he will face include the teaching of those with a defective view of the law. This leads to a discussion about the law that, in turn, segues, via a mention of the gospel, into Paul’s testimony. It now remains for the initial statement of Timothy’s assignment to Ephesus to be enlarged by a transformation into a charge, which is the function of this final section.
The reference to prophecy here is significant. Timothy had the benefit of both clear words of instruction from Paul and prophetic direction that he was to follow. This shows that the Pastoral Letters, in spite of the ecclesiastical structure evident, are not in conflict with the charismatic nature of the church’s ministry as seen in the Corinthian letters (e.g., 1 Cor. 11:4–5, 7—11; 14:1–40). It also shows that Paul’s own instruction to Timothy was consistent with the prophetic word. This presumably relieved Timothy of the type of inner struggle that earlier must have taken place in Paul when his friends begged him to change his plans because of the prophetic word of Agabus, which, while not commanding Paul to stop his journey to Jerusalem, gave him reason to reconsider his intentions (Acts 21:10–14).
Christian ministry is more than proclamation; it is combat. The names change, but people like Hymenaeus and Alexander have managed to infiltrate groups of professing Christians down through the ages. The very expressions “shipwrecked” and “handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme” hammer home the seriousness of heresy. And in this paragraph about resisting heresy Paul picks up the words from earlier in the chapter, “faith and a good conscience.” The repetition of expressions in his instructions to Timothy that combine sound religious faith and integrity of character is not only a major distinctive of the Pastoral Letters but the final legacy of Paul to all Christians who would succeed Timothy in the service of their Lord.
It is not clear what it means to hand someone over to Satan. It appears to be a much stronger action than the one prescribed in 2 Thessalonians 3:14–15, not to associate with someone “in order that he may feel ashamed.” The language is close to that in 1 Corinthians 5:5, where an immoral man is to be “handed over [paradidomi, as here in 1 Timothy] to Satan.” In 1 Timothy the purpose is correction; in 1 Corinthians it was to save the person’s spirit by destroying the “flesh,” which could, as in the NIV, mean destroying the sinful nature or, perhaps more likely, afflicting the incestuous man physically. The function of Satan may be as the prince of this world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), in which the excommunicated member now lives, exposed to evil without the protection of church fellowship. These two men must learn not to blaspheme. Since they are already in the church, their blaspheming is more serious than Paul’s (1 Tim. 1:13), who acted in ignorance.
TIMOTHY’S CALL. Timothy had the certainty of God’s direction for him through both the prophetic word he had received and Paul’s specific instructions. Prior to his designation as Paul’s delegate to Ephesus, he had the assurance of God’s leading into “missionary” work from the very fact that Paul had chosen him (Acts 16:1–5).
Many Christians who are open to special ministries would like to know with certainty whether God is calling them. Several major issues call for investigation prior to anything near a conclusive discussion of this question. One main issue is whether God calls people in the New Testament period in the same manner and to the same extent as he called prophets in Old Testament times. If there is a specific “call” defined in the New Testament, we need to discern (1) what ministries require such a call, which is too large a question to discuss here, and (2) what the nature of a call is. Should there be an inner sense or feeling that one is called, and if so, how does one avoid subjectivism? Is a perceived need or specific spiritual gifting part of a call?
It should be observed that instances of what we might term as a call to ministry are infrequent in the New Testament. The following are notable: Jesus’ call of his disciples (see esp. Mark 3:14–15; Luke 5:1–11 for details of their assignment), the Great Commission (Matt. 28:16–20), Peter’s commission (John 21:15–19), the commission to the disciples in Acts 1:8 by the risen Lord, the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus and his subsequent direction through Ananias in Damascus (9:1–19), the commissioning of Paul and Barnabas for their first missionary journey (13:1–3), and Paul’s dream of a “man of Macedonia” (16:9–10). Apart from these, there is no example of a call as we usually think of it in the New Testament except for Timothy’s experience.
What Timothy had was the communication of God’s will to him through other Christians. Paul was one of these intermediaries (1) when he selected Timothy at Lystra in Acts 16, (2) when he sent him to Macedonia (1 Thess. 3:2–5), and (3) when he instructed him to stay in Ephesus (1 Tim. 1:3). Also we know that a prophetic word was given when hands were laid on Timothy by Paul and by the elders (see 1 Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6). And if the prophecy referred to in 1 Timothy 1:18 was given on an occasion different from the laying on of hands, that would be yet another instance of other Christians’ conveying God’s direction to him. In all of this we may assume that believers at Ephesus joined in the commendation of Timothy.
Calling in the New Testament. These instances of calling in the New Testament can be grouped according to the means God used: (1) the audible voice of Jesus, (2) the unique conversion of Paul, (3) the dream about Macedonia, and (4) God’s call through other Christians. Even Paul’s own specific commission came not only from the voice in heaven but through another believer, Ananias (Acts 9:15–16).4 This means that apart from the call to Macedonia, there is no instance of a call to ministry that was not either directly from Jesus prior to his ascension or through other believers. All of the above underscores the importance of the Christian community in whatever we might define as a “call” and requires great care if all that an individual has is some sense of inner direction without the confirmation of other Christians.
In Timothy’s case he had solid grounds for knowing the ministry God wanted him to accomplish. While we have the inner leading of the Spirit in daily life (Rom. 8:14), we must not disregard the Christian community, the church, to give us direction and to confirm—or call into question—what we may believe is the ministry God is calling us to fulfill.5
There is a strong contrast between Timothy, who was drawn close to God and his people through hearing the “prophecies” and through Paul’s instruction, and Hymenaeus and Alexander, who were handed over to Satan. One was accepted, the others were rejected. Whatever “handed over to Satan” may have involved, it certainly included separation from the church fellowship. A friend of mine once read an account about his great-grandfather, who was disciplined because he had “fallen horribly.” Quaint as that may seem, it was probably much closer to the way Christians in the first century looked at sin and put someone out of fellowship than are our practices today. To be barred from the warm fellowship of the house church and exposed to the influence of the one who is the “prince” of that pagan, ungodly world must have seemed fearsome at that time.
Postmodernism and the need for discernment. The message of the last paragraph—and of 1 Timothy 1 as a whole—is that while truth is to be celebrated, error must be discerned and corrected. This is a difficult assignment for the contemporary Christian. The very nature of pluralism and postmodernism makes this unpopular. Postmodernism has been with us for some decades now, not only in philosophy, theology, and literature, but also in art, music, and architecture. Old norms and standards, the depiction of form and reality and structure of any sort, have long been out of fashion.6
Recently laypeople have become more aware of deconstruction as it has become more pronounced and as its effects on biblical study and theology have become more obvious.7 A postmodernist will deconstruct traditional sacred writings and their teachings. Ascribing univocal meaning to, say, a piece of literature or art, with the assertion that this is what the author or artist “meant,” is unacceptable in many quarters today. One may only approach art and literature from his or her own perspective; in postmodernism any construction of a “worldview” is considered illegitimate. Nothing has universal truth, value, or meaning.
While such developments as the waning of Newtonian physics are “twentieth-century developments, the rejection of authority and absolutes is not confined to our contemporary society. From the words of the serpent, “Did God really say…?” (Gen. 3:1), to the false prophets and foreign priests in the time of Elijah, to the false teachers Timothy confronted at Ephesus, the person who declares “God’s truth” has been considered narrowminded and unacceptable. However, that person must make sure that “God’s truth” is indeed just that and not some individual and idiosyncratic interpretation of the biblical text.
In grappling with such issues, we often find ourselves grappling with people as well. Within the church, the “combat” metaphor colors relationships as well as dialogues. We must remember that Paul’s references to combat may be with respect to personal diligence (2 Tim. 4:7). But such terminology does not necessarily imply that personal antagonism against those who hold different doctrines is advisable. As the Pastoral Letters unfold, we will see the importance of patient, gentle wooing of false teachers back to truth as well as of sharp rebuke of those whose rebellion is destroying the church.
The relevant texts are an integral part of these letters and cannot be merely lifted out of their contexts for citation or applied indiscriminately to a contemporary situation we may be facing. The Pastoral Letters need to be applied in the whole, not just in part. If we do not do this, we will be in danger of either tolerating what we should not or alienating those we seek to win.
1. Knight, Pastoral Epistles, 107–8, referring to BAGD, 623, it can have this meaning when used in the middle voice (see also Luke 12:48; 2 Tim. 2:2).
2. BAGD, 644 (sub peri [1e]).
3. See also F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: Greek Text With Introduction and Commentary, 3d rev. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 419.
4. Apparently it was through Ananias that Paul was told what he “must do” (Acts 9:6).
5. This whole matter of calling and confirmation by the church is also relevant to the passages on Timothy’s receiving the laying on of hands; thus this discussion will be continued in the comments on 1 Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6.
6. Some helpful works on postmoderism are David S. Dockery, ed., The Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement (Wheaton: Victor, 1995); Jimmy Long, Generating Hope: A Strategy for Reaching the Postmodern Generation (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1997); Dennis McCallum, ed., The Death of Truth (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1996).
7. The process of deconstruction disentangles or takes apart the language of a text, thereby separating it from any validation of objective truth, including philosophic and theological affirmations. Without going into this complex topic here, we can acknowledge that our human ideas do indeed intrude into the reading of a text and into our attempt to understand truth, and that our ideas are often subjective and to a greater or lesser degree fallible. The facts of human sinfulness and of the distortion and partiality of our perceptions do not, however, mean that God’s truth cannot be comprehended at all. Acts 17:22–31; Rom. 1:18–20; 2 Tim. 3:14–17; and 1 Corinthians 1 are among the pertinent Scriptures. For a comprehensive treatment of these and relevant issues see Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998). On deconstruction see Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1991), 380–86.