TIMOTHY
Verse 11. These things command and teach.— Let it be the sum and substance of thy preaching, that true religion is profitable for both worlds;
that vice destroys both body and soul; that Christ tasted death for every man; and that he saves to the uttermost all them that believe in his name.
Verse 12. Let no man despise thy youth— Act with all the gravity and decorum which become thy situation in the Church. As thou art in the place of an elder, act as an elder. Boyish playfulness ill becomes a minister of the Gospel, whatever his age may be. Concerning Timothy’s age see the conclusion of the preface to this epistle.
Be thou an example of the believers— It is natural for the flock to follow the shepherd; if he go wrong, they will go wrong also.
“Himself a wanderer from the narrow way, His silly sheep, no wonder if they stray.”
Though, according to the just judgement of God, they who die in their sins have their blood on their own head; yet, if they have either gone into sin or continued in it through the watchman’s fault, their blood will God require at his hand. How many have endeavored to excuse their transgressions by alleging, in vindication of their conduct, “Our minister does so, and he is more wise and learned than we.” What an awful account must such have to give to the Head of the Church when he appears!
In word— en logw? In doctrine; teach nothing but the truth of God, because nothing but that will save souls.
In conversation— en anastrofh? In the whole of thy conduct in every department which thou fillest in all thy domestic as well as public relations, behave thyself well.
In charity— en agaph? In love to God and man; show that this is the principle and motive of all thy conduct.
In spirit— en pneumati? In the manner and disposition in which thou dost all things. How often is a holy or charitable work done in an unholy, uncharitable, and peevish spirit! To the doer, such work is unfruitful.
These words are wanting in ACDFG, and several others; both the Syriac, Erpen’s Arabic, AEthiopic, Armenian, Vulgate, and Itala, and many of the fathers. Griesbach leaves them out of the text. They have in all probability been added by a later hand.
In faith— en pistei? This word pistiv is probably taken here for fidelity, a sense which it often bears in the New Testament. It cannot mean
doctrine, for that has been referred to before. Be faithful to thy trust, to thy flock, to thy domestics, to the public, to thy GOD. Fidelity consists in honestly keeping, preserving, and delivering up when required, whatever is intrusted to our care; as also in improving whatever is delivered in trust for that purpose. Lose nothing that God gives, and improve every gift that he bestows.
In purity.— en agneia? Chastity of body and mind; a direction peculiarly necessary for a young minister, who has more temptations to break its
rules than perhaps any other person. “Converse sparingly with women, and especially with young women,” was the advice of a very holy and experienced minister of Christ.
Verse 13. Give attendance to reading— Timothy could easily comprehend the apostle’s meaning; but at present this is not so easy. What books does the apostle mean? The books of the Old Testament were probably what he intended; these testified of Jesus, and by these he could either convince or confound the Jews. But, whether was the reading of these to be public or private? Probably both. It was customary to read the law and the prophets in the synagogue, and doubtless in the assemblies of the Christians; after which there was generally an exhortation founded upon the subject of the prophecy. Hence the apostle says: Give attendance to reading, to
EXHORTATION, to DOCTRINE. Timothy was therefore to be diligent in reading the sacred writings at home, that he might be the better qualified to read and expound them in the public assemblies to the Christians, and to others who came to these public meetings.
As to other books, there were not many at that time that could be of much use to a Christian minister. In those days the great business of the preacher was to bring forward the grand facts of Christianity, to prove these, and to show that all had happened according to the prediction of the prophets;
and from these to show the work of God in the heart, and the evidence of that work in a holy life.
At present the truth of God is not only to be proclaimed, but defended;
and many customs or manners, and forms of speech, which are to us obsolete, must be explained from the writings of the ancients, and particularly from the works of those who lived about the same times, or nearest to them, and in the same or contiguous countries. This will require the knowledge of those languages in which those works have been
composed, the chief of which are Hebrew and Greek, the languages in which the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments have been originally written.
Latin is certainly of the next consequence; a language in which some of the most early comments have been written; and it is worth the trouble of being learned, were it only for the sake of the works of St. Jerome, who
translated and wrote a commentary on the whole of the Scriptures; though in many respects it is both erroneous and superficial.
Arabic and Syriac may be added with great advantage: the latter being in effect the language in which Christ and his apostles spoke and preached in Judea; and the former being radically the same with the Hebrew, and preserving many of the roots of that language, the derivatives of which often occur in the Hebrew Bible, but the roots never.
The works of various scholars prove of how much consequence even the writings of heathen authors, chiefly those of Greece and Italy, are to the illustration of the sacred writings. And he who is best acquainted with the sacred records will avail himself of such helps, with gratitude both to God and man. Though so many languages and so much reading are not
absolutely necessary to form a minister of the Gospel, (for there are many eminent ministers who have not such advantages,) yet they are helps of the first magnitude to those who have them and know how to use them.
Verse 14. Neglect not the gift that is in thee— The word carisma here