1 Timotius 1:3

Timothy’s Task in Ephesus

1:3 As I urged you when I was leaving for Macedonia, stay on in Ephesus ¹  to instruct ²  certain people not to spread false teachings, ³ 

1 Timotius 6:7

6:7 For we have brought nothing into this world and so ⁴  we cannot take a single thing out either.

1 Timotius 6:9

6:9 Those who long to be rich, however, stumble into temptation and a trap and many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

1 Timotius 1:15

1:15 This saying ⁵  is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” – and I am the worst of them! ⁶ 

1 Timotius 2:14

2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, because she was fully deceived, ⁷  fell into transgression. ⁸ 

1 Timotius 3:16

3:16 And we all agree, ⁹  our religion contains amazing revelation: ¹⁰ 

He ¹¹  was revealed in the flesh,

vindicated by the Spirit, ¹² 

seen by angels,

proclaimed among Gentiles,

believed on in the world,

taken up in glory.

1 Timotius 3:7

3:7 And he must be well thought of by ¹³  those outside the faith, ¹⁴  so that he may not fall into disgrace and be caught by the devil’s trap. ¹⁵ 

1 Timotius 5:11

5:11 But do not accept younger widows on the list, ¹⁶  because their passions may lead them away from Christ ¹⁷  and they will desire to marry,

1 Timotius 5:13

5:13 And besides that, going around ¹⁸  from house to house they learn to be lazy, ¹⁹  and they are not only lazy, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things they should not. ²⁰ 

1 Timotius 5:24

5:24 The sins of some people are obvious, going before them into judgment, but for others, they show up later. ²¹ 

1 Timotius 6:21

6:21 By professing it, some have strayed from the faith. ²²  Grace be with you all. ²³ 

1 Timotius 5:9

5:9 No widow should be put on the list ²⁴  unless ²⁵  she is at least sixty years old, was the wife of one husband, ²⁶ 

1 Timotius 5:22

5:22 Do not lay hands on anyone ²⁷  hastily and so identify with the sins of others. ²⁸  Keep yourself pure.

1 Timotius 6:10

6:10 For the love of money is the root ²⁹  of all evils. ³⁰  Some people in reaching for it have strayed from the faith and stabbed themselves with many pains.

[1:3]  ¹ map For location see JP1 D2; JP2 D2; JP3 D2; JP4 D2.

[1:3]  ² tn This word implies authoritative instruction: “direct, command, give orders” (cf. 1 Tim 4:11; 5:7; 6:13, 17). See BDAG 760 s.v. παραγγέλλω.

[1:3]  ³ tn Grk “to teach other doctrines,” different from apostolic teaching (cf. 1 Tim 6:3).

[6:7]  ⁴ tc The Greek conjunction ὅτι usually means “because,” but here it takes the sense “so that” (see BDAG 732 s.v. 5.c). This unusual sense led to textual variation as scribes attempted to correct what appeared to be an error: D* and a few versional witnesses read ἀληθές ὅτι (“it is true that”), and א² D² Ψ Ï read δῆλον ὅτι (“it is clear that”). Thus the simple conjunction is preferred on internal as well as external grounds, supported by א* A F G 33 81 1739 1881 pc.

[1:15]  ⁵ tn Grk “the saying,” referring to the following citation (see 1 Tim 3:1; 4:9; 2 Tim 2:11; Titus 3:8 for other occurrences of this phrase).

[1:15]  ⁶ tn Grk “of whom I am the first.”

[2:14]  ⁷ tn This phrase uses a compound form of the same verb as in v. 14a: “deceived” vs. “deceived out, completely deceived.” The two verbs could be synonymous, but because of the close contrast in this context, it seems that a stronger meaning is intended for the second verb.

[2:14]  ⁸ tn Grk “has come to be in transgression” (with an emphasis on the continuing consequences of that fall).

[3:16]  ⁹ tn Grk “confessedly, admittedly, most certainly.”

[3:16]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “great is the mystery of [our] religion,” or “great is the mystery of godliness.” The word “mystery” denotes a secret previously hidden in God, but now revealed and made widely known (cf. Rom 16:25; 1 Cor 2:7; 4:1; Eph 1:9; 3:3, 4, 9; 6:19; Col 1:26-27; 4:3). “Religion” (εὐσέβεια, eusebeia) is a word used frequently in the pastorals with a range of meanings: (1) a certain attitude toward God – “devotion, reverence”; (2) the conduct that befits that attitude – “godliness, piety”; and (3) the whole system of belief and approach to God that forms the basis for such attitude and conduct – “religion, creed.” See BDAG 412-13 s.v.; 2 Tim 3:5; 4 Macc 9:6-7, 29-30; 15:1-3; 17:7. So the following creedal statements are illustrations of the great truths that the church is charged with protecting (v. 15).

[3:16]  ¹¹ tc The Byzantine text along with a few other witnesses (א^c A^c C² D² Ψ [88 pc] 1739 1881 Ï vg^ms) read θεός (qeos, “God”) for ὅς (Jos, “who”). Most significant among these witnesses is 1739; the second correctors of some of the other mss tend to conform to the medieval standard, the Byzantine text, and add no independent voice to the discussion. A few mss have ὁ θεός (so 88 pc), a reading that is a correction on the anarthrous θεός. On the other side, the masculine relative pronoun ὅς is strongly supported by א* A* C* F G 33 365 pc Did Epiph. Significantly, D* and virtually the entire Latin tradition read the neuter relative pronoun, ὅ (Jo, “which”), a reading that indirectly supports ὅς since it could not easily have been generated if θεός had been in the text. Thus, externally, there is no question as to what should be considered original: The Alexandrian and Western traditions are decidedly in favor of ὅς. Internally, the evidence is even stronger. What scribe would change θεός to ὅς intentionally? “Who” is not only a theologically pale reading by comparison; it also is much harder (since the relative pronoun has no obvious antecedent, probably the reason for the neuter pronoun of the Western tradition). Intrinsically, the rest of 3:16, beginning with ὅς, appears to form a six-strophed hymn. As such, it is a text that is seemingly incorporated into the letter without syntactical connection. Hence, not only should we not look for an antecedent for ὅς (as is often done by commentators), but the relative pronoun thus is not too hard a reading (or impossible, as Dean Burgon believed). Once the genre is taken into account, the relative pronoun fits neatly into the author’s style (cf. also Col 1:15; Phil 2:6 for other places in which the relative pronoun begins a hymn, as was often the case in poetry of the day). On the other hand, with θεός written as a nomen sacrum, it would have looked very much like the relative pronoun: q-=s vs. os. Thus, it may have been easy to confuse one for the other. This, of course, does not solve which direction the scribes would go, although given their generally high Christology and the bland and ambiguous relative pronoun, it is doubtful that they would have replaced θεός with ὅς. How then should we account for θεός? It appears that sometime after the 2nd century the θεός reading came into existence, either via confusion with ὅς or as an intentional alteration to magnify Christ and clear up the syntax at the same time. Once it got in, this theologically rich reading was easily able to influence all the rest of the mss it came in contact with (including mss already written, such as א A C D). That this reading did not arise until after the 2nd century is evident from the Western reading, ὅ. The neuter relative pronoun is certainly a “correction” of ὅς, conforming the gender to that of the neuter μυστήριον (musthrion, “mystery”). What is significant in this reading is (1) since virtually all the Western witnesses have either the masculine or neuter relative pronoun, the θεός reading was apparently unknown to them in the 2nd century (when the “Western” text seems to have originated, though its place of origination was most likely in the east); they thus supply strong indirect evidence of ὅς outside of Egypt in the 2nd century; (2) even 2nd century scribes were liable to misunderstand the genre, feeling compelled to alter the masculine relative pronoun because it appeared to them to be too harsh. The evidence, therefore, for ὅς is quite compelling, both externally and internally. As TCGNT 574 notes, “no uncial (in the first hand) earlier than the eighth or ninth century (Ψ) supports θεός; all ancient versions presuppose ὅς or ὅ; and no patristic writer prior to the last third of the fourth century testifies to the reading θεός.” Thus, the cries of certain groups that θεός has to be original must be seen as special pleading in this case. To argue that heretics tampered with the text here is self-defeating, for most of the Western fathers who quoted the verse with the relative pronoun were quite orthodox, strongly affirming the deity of Christ. They would have dearly loved such a reading as θεός. Further, had heretics introduced a variant to θεός, a far more natural choice would have been Χριστός (Cristos, “Christ”) or κύριος (kurios, “Lord”), since the text is self-evidently about Christ, but it is not self-evidently a proclamation of his deity. (See ExSyn 341-42, for a summary discussion on this issue and additional bibliographic references.)

[3:16]  tn Grk “who.”

[3:16]  sn This passage has been typeset as poetry because many scholars regard this passage as poetic or hymnic. These terms are used broadly to refer to the genre of writing, not to the content. There are two broad criteria for determining if a passage is poetic or hymnic: “(a) stylistic: a certain rhythmical lilt when the passages are read aloud, the presence of parallelismus membrorum (i.e., an arrangement into couplets), the semblance of some metre, and the presence of rhetorical devices such as alliteration, chiasmus, and antithesis; and (b) linguistic: an unusual vocabulary, particularly the presence of theological terms, which is different from the surrounding context” (P. T. O’Brien, Philippians [NIGTC], 188-89). Classifying a passage as hymnic or poetic is important because understanding this genre can provide keys to interpretation. However, not all scholars agree that the above criteria are present in this passage, so the decision to typeset it as poetry should be viewed as a tentative decision about its genre.

[3:16]  ¹² tn Or “in spirit.”

[3:7]  ¹³ tn Or “have a good reputation with”; Grk “have a good testimony from.”

[3:7]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “the ones outside.”

[3:7]  ¹⁵ tn Or “be trapped like the devil was”; Grk “fall into the trap of the devil.” The parallel in 2 Tim 2:26 supports the rendering given in the text.

[5:11]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “refuse younger widows.”

[5:11]  ¹⁷ tn With a single verb and object, this clause means “pursue sensuous desires in opposition to Christ.”

[5:13]  ¹⁸ tn L&N 15.23 suggests the meaning, “to move about from place to place, with significant changes in direction – ‘to travel about, to wander about.’”

[5:13]  ¹⁹ tn Or “idle.” The whole clause (“going around from house to house, they learn to be lazy”) reverses the order of the Greek. The present participle περιερχόμεναι (periercomenai) may be taken as temporal (“while going around”), instrumental (“by going around”) or result (“with the result that they go around”).

[5:13]  ²⁰ tn Grk “saying the things that are unnecessary.” Or perhaps “talking about things that are none of their business.”

[5:24]  ²¹ tn Grk “they [the sins] follow after others.”

[6:21]  ²² tn Grk “have deviated concerning the faith.”

[6:21]  ²³ tc Most witnesses (א² D¹ Ψ Ï sy) conclude this letter with ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”). Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, the earliest and best witnesses (א* A D* F G 33 81 1739* 1881 it sa) lack the particle, indicating that the letter concluded with “Grace be with you all.”

[6:21]  tn Grk “with you” (but the Greek pronoun indicates the meaning is plural here).

[5:9]  ²⁴ sn This list was an official enrollment, apparently with a formal pledge to continue as a widow and serve the Lord in that way (cf. v. 12). It was either (1) the list of “true widows” who were given support by the church or (2) a smaller group of older women among the supported widows who were qualified for special service (perhaps to orphans, other widows, the sick, etc.). Most commentators understand it to be the former, since a special group is not indicated clearly. See G. W. Knight, Pastoral Epistles, 222-23 for discussion.

[5:9]  ²⁵ tn Grk “let a widow be enrolled if she has reached not less than sixty years.”

[5:9]  ²⁶ tn Or “a woman married only once,” “was devoted solely to her husband” (see the note on “wife” in 1 Tim 3:2; also 1 Tim 3:12; Titus 1:6).

[5:22]  ²⁷ tn In context “laying hands on anyone” refers to ordination or official installation of someone as an elder.

[5:22]  ²⁸ tn Grk “and do not share in the sins of others.”

[6:10]  ²⁹ tn This could be taken to mean “a root,” but the phrase “of all evils” clearly makes it definite. This seems to be not entirely true to life (some evils are unrelated to love of money), but it should be read as a case of hyperbole (exaggeration to make a point more strongly).

[6:10]  ³⁰ tn Many translations render this “of all kinds of evil,” especially to allow for the translation “a root” along with it. But there is no parallel for taking a construction like this to mean “all kinds of” or “every kind of.” The normal sense is “all evils.”