The Pastoral Letters
The pastoral epistles are a group of three books of the acknowledged New Testament: the First Epistle to Timothy (1 Timothy), the Second Epistle to Timothy (2 Timothy), and the Epistle to Titus. They are presented as letters from Paul the Apostle to Timothy and to Titus. They are generally discussed as a group (sometimes with the addition of the Epistle to Philemon). They are given the title pastoral because they are addressed to individuals with pastoral oversight of churches and discuss Christian living, doctrine, and leadership issues. The term "pastorals" was popularized in 1703 by D. N. Bardot and in 1726 by Paul Anton. Alternate nomenclature for the cluster of three letters has been proposed: "Corpus Pastorale," meant to highlight the intentional forgery of the letters as a three-part corpus (collection, compilation, body), and "Letters to Timothy and Titus," meant to emphasize the individuality of the letters.
Timothy consists mainly of counsels (directions) to Timothy regarding the church's forms of worship and organization and the responsibilities resting on its various members, including 'overseers,' traditionally translated as 'bishops'). Furthermore, diákonoi ('deacons'); and secondly exhortation to faithfulness in maintaining the truth amid surrounding errors (4:1ff)[2], presented as a prophecy of erring teachers to come. The epistle's "irregular character, abrupt connexions, and loose transitions" have led critics to distinguish later interpolations, such as the epistle-concluding 6:20–21[3], read as a reference to Marcion of Sinope, and lines that appear to be marginal glosses that have been copied into the body of the text.
2 Timothy
The author (who identifies himself as Paul the Apostle) entreats (emplores) Timothy to come to him before winter and to bring Mark with him. He was anticipating that "the time of his departure was at hand" (4:6), and he exhorts (urges) his "son Timothy" to all diligence and steadfastness in the face of false teachings, with advice about combating them concerning the teachings of the past, and to patience under persecution (1:6–15), and a faithful discharge of all the duties of his office (4:1–5), with all the solemnity of one who was about to appear before the Judge of the living and the dead.
Titus
This short letter is addressed to Titus, a Christian worker in Crete. Titus is traditionally divided into three chapters. It includes advice on the character and conduct required of Church leaders (chapter 1), a structure and hierarchy for Christian teaching within the church (chapter 2), and the kind of godly conduct and moral action required of Christians in response to God's grace and the gift of the Holy Spirit (chapter 3). It includes the line quoted by the author from a Cretan source: "Cretans are always liars, wicked beasts, and lazy gluttons" (Titus 1:12).
Authorship
Authorship of the Pauline epistles & Pastoral epistles
The letters are written in Paul's name and have traditionally been accepted as authentic. Since the 1700s, however, experts have increasingly come to see them as the work of someone writing after Paul's death.
Critical view: rejecting Pauline authorship
Based on their language, content, and other factors, the pastoral epistles are considered by many as not having been written by Paul but after his death. (The Second Epistle to Timothy is sometimes thought to be more likely than Paul's other two to have been written by him.) Beginning with Friedrich Schleiermacher in a letter published in 1807, biblical textual critics and scholars examining the texts fail to find their vocabulary and literary style similar to Paul's unquestionably authentic letters and fail to fit the life situation of Paul in the epistles into Paul's reconstructed biography and identify principles of the emerging Christian church rather than those of the apostolic generation.
As an example of qualitative (of, relating to, or involving quality or kind) style arguments, in the First Epistle to Timothy, the task of preserving the tradition is entrusted to ordained presbyters; the unmistakable sense of presbýteros (lit.?'elder') as an indication of an office is a sense that to these scholars seems alien to Paul and the apostolic generation. Presbýteros is sometimes translated as an elder; via Ecclesiastical Latin, it is also the Greek root for the English word priest. (The office of a presbyter is also mentioned in James chapter 5.)
A second example would be gender roles depicted in the letters, which proscribe roles for women that deviate from Paul's more democratic teaching that there is neither male nor female in Christ. However, separate male and female roles were not foreign to the authentic Pauline epistles; the First Letter to the Corinthians (14:34–35) commands silence from women during church services, stating that "it is a shame for women to speak in the church." Father Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, "agrees with many other commentators on this passage over the last hundred years in recognizing it to be an interpolation by a later editor of 1 Corinthians of a passage from 1 Timothy 2:11–15 that states a similar 'women should be silent in churches". This made 1 Corinthians more widely acceptable to church leaders in later times. If verses before or after 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 are read, it is reasonably clear that verses 34 and 35 seem out of place.
Scholars refer to the anonymous author as "the Pastor."
What is the purpose of pastoral letters?
The pastoral letters emphasize two duties that are incumbent on all Christians: to believe certain things and to do certain things. However, how these duties are related is not outlined in how Paul so clearly made in his letters to the churches.
What can we learn from the pastoral epistles?
The Apostle Paul wrote the Pastoral Epistles specifically to help leaders become transformational leaders (and workers) who continually grow in God's grace and lead others to do the same. If that is your desire, God can use you. He will strengthen you and others through you.
Attempts have been made to apply statistical analysis tools in comparing these disputed letters to the rest of the New Testament (mainly the Pauline letters to establish authorship. The studies, utilizing computer technology, point toward non-Pauline authorship with similarities to language and style of a later, possibly 2nd-century, date. More refined and complex analyses, however, are still needed.
Faithful is the word:
If we have died with him, we shall also live with him;
if we endure, we shall also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, He remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself
(II Tim. 2:11–13)
Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion:
He who was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels;
who was proclaimed among the nations,
believed in throughout the world,
glorified in high heaven
(I Tim. 3:16)
Those who persevere in their reading of the letters of Paul as they are presented in the New Testament eventually arrive at three, which are addressed to individuals rather than communities. These are known as the First and Second Letters to Timothy and the Letter to Titus; they are often referred to as the 'Pastoral Letters.' In our Sunday Liturgy, we hear extracts from the two letters to Timothy as 'second readings' towards the end of the third year of the lectionary cycle (Sundays 24-30 C); we listen to the letter to Titus at Midnight Mass on Christmas Day and again on Christmas morning, and both of these passages are also read on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. We have met Timothy and Titus before in significant letters of Paul; for example, Timothy was noted as Paul's co-writer of the First letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:1), and he had paid a visit to Thessalonica on Paul's behalf (1 Thessalonians 3:1). Titus played a crucial role in Paul's relationships with the Corinthians; the apparent success of his mission there had brought Paul encouragement (2 Corinthians 7:15).
However, when we turn to the letters addressed to them, Timothy and Titus have lost their character as mature partners in Paul's missionary team. They are addressed as persons recently ordained in sore need of guidance and instruction for dealing with new pastoral responsibilities (2 Timothy 1:6) now that the first generation of missionaries, like Paul himself and other apostles who had known Jesus Christ in his earthly life, have passed on. Taken together as a whole, these three letters stress the importance of sound leadership, the need to hold on to sound doctrine, and to behave appropriately in a world in which the Christians formed a small minority.
In our reading of Paul, we have noticed that his letters become shorter in length as we move forward through the New Testament. It will not surprise us if we find that the Letter to Titus reads better if we place it before the letters to Timothy. An elaborate greeting, twice the length of those that mark the start of the letters to Timothy, may be taken as an introduction to all three Pastoral Letters (Titus 1:1-4). This article will confine our attention to the passages from these letters, which are read every year at Christmas and on the concluding Sundays of the Year. In the six weeks these letters occur in our liturgy, there will surely be time for private reading and studying those parts that are not read publicly.
Titus
Christmas [Titus 2:11-14; 3:4-7]
The passages from Titus read at Christmas provide a remarkably full summary of Christian belief in language special to these letters. Jesus Christ is mentioned but once. He is personified as the grace of God that has appeared. This Christ is called God and Saviour. The word 'savior' is rare in the New Testament as applied to Christ (examples are Luke 2:11; John 4:42), and Christ is identified with God even more rarely (a possible instance is Romans 9:5). Such language suggests that in this letter, we are well advanced in the growth of the New Testament and already on the road to Chalcedon, which will recognize Christ as true God and true man. This Saviour has given himself for us to purify us from iniquity, to form a people for himself, and is destined to return.
Meanwhile, we must respond to this grace of God by living lives that are godly and upright. We hear this summary of the mystery of our faith at Midnight Mass (Titus 2:11-14). On Christmas morning, we have a second dense passage reflecting on God's mercy. In baptism, we have rebirth (only here in the New Testament is baptism described as such), receive the Holy Spirit, and become heirs to eternal life (Titus 3:4-7). These two readings are put together to make up the second reading for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Anyone who masters the content of these two brief Christmas readings has made good progress in understanding what it means to be a Christian.
1 TIMOTHY
Suppose we are correct in suggesting that these three letters are to be read together and are introduced by the letter to Titus. In that case, we presume that hearers of the letters to Timothy were already familiar with the contents of Titus. So we move on to the three extracts we hear from the First Letter to Timothy.
Penitential Rite [Sunday 24 C; 1 Timothy 1:12-17]
The first offers us a sort of penitential rite. Paul describes in lively, detailed language his own sinful life. There is some tension here with what he writes in Philippians about his life before his conversion being blameless, but he does refer to his sin of persecuting the Church of Christ (Philippians 3:6; Galatians 1:13). In this letter, he identifies himself with those of his hearers who have come to Christianity from paganism. However, as in every good prayer about sin, he concludes with thankfulness for the mercy he has received and praise for the Christ who came into the world to save us from sin. The paragraph ends with elaborate praise for the king of the ages, the only God, and it is not impossible that here again, as in Titus 2:13, he speaks of Christ as God.
Prayer [Sunday 25 C; 1 Timothy 2:1-8]
Meditations on sin and gratitude for the mercy of God in Christ that deals with it must bear fruit in prayer, and this is the topic of our second reading from Timothy. Prayer is mentioned at the beginning and end of our passage. Prayer is for everyone and is to be made in every place. The paragraph encloses what looks like a short hymn about God and Christ, one far briefer than the more familiar example we find in Philippians (2:6-11): God wants all to be saved, and Christ is the one who gave himself as a ransom for all – not, as in Mark's Gospel, as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). This Christ is the 'mediator' between God and humankind, a word used three times in the letter to the Hebrews regarding the priesthood of Christ (8:6; 9:16; 12:24). The point of this prayer is that we may live quiet and peaceable lives. It is presumed that there is no fierce persecution going on from state authorities, as in the book of Revelation (2:10), or from religious authorities, such as in Acts when Peter has to say that we must obey God rather than human authority (Acts 5:29). It is not said that we must withdraw from the world, but we are to be a mature and edifying presence in it.
Pontius Pilate [Sunday 26 C; 1 Timothy 6:11-16]
We now jump in our Sunday readings to the final chapter of this short letter. Paul had the habit of concluding his letters with down-to-earth ethical advice, urging believers to respond in practical, active terms to the doctrine which has been the subject of previous chapters (e.g., Romans 12:1). Likewise, here, we are given a list of the virtues that Christians are to pursue and value. The list might sound familiar to those who know the writings and teachings of the better Roman philosophers of the time. However, it stands out in including a mention of Christ and Pontius Pilate before whom Christ Jesus 'made his excellent confession' (John 18:33). The quiet and peaceable lives we heard about last Sunday must include the readiness to witness, and that witness might well be before a hostile audience. We also note more titles for Christ; he is King of kings and Lord of lords, titles somewhat risky in an age when they were claimed by the emperor in Rome, whose predecessor, Nero, had condemned many to death, including Peter and Paul.
2 TIMOTHY
The atmosphere becomes more personal when we turn to the Second Letter to Timothy. Individuals are named, and the author gives details of his situation. The letter has been described as Paul's last will, a more extended version of his farewell speech in Acts to the elders of the church at Ephesus (Acts 20:18-25). Four extracts from it are chosen for public reading this year.
Mother and Grandmother [Sunday 27 C; 2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14]
The first passage concentrates on the person and background of Timothy. In the verse before our reading begins (1:5), we learn about his mother, Eunice, and Lois's grandmother. Their sound piety was to be a model for his.
The Faithful Christ [Sunday 28 C; 2 Timothy 2:8-13]
In his major letters, Paul never tired of mentioning Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:20).
The Good Fight [Sunday 30 C; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18]
He has fought the good fight. He has kept the faith, just as he urges Timothy to do. He speaks of Christ as the Lord. Even if others deserted him, the Lord stood by him, as we hear him doing at Corinth in the Acts (19:9-10). The Lord does not condemn but one who rescues, and to him, as to God, there is to be glory forever.
Our prayer is that, through these Pastoral Letters and in company with their original recipients, we will raise the quality of our response to the gospel and learn how to cope better with the crises we meet as individuals and as members of 'the church of the living God, which our author describes as 'the pillar and bulwark of the truth' (1 Timothy 3:15).
Why Study the Books of 1–2 Timothy and Titus?
1–2 Timothy and Titus are among the most personal and practical books in the New Testament. The apostle Paul writes to instruct and encourage his faithful comrades Timothy and Titus, who are in the trenches of gospel ministry. These letters are often called the "Pastoral Epistles," but they are relevant for all Christians, not just pastors. They address numerous vital topics, including:
• the difference between true and false teaching (1 Tim. 1:3–11)
• the stunning truth that Jesus came to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:12–16; Titus 3:4–7)
• the need for proper conduct and order in the church (1 Tim. 2:8–12; 3:14–15)
• the qualifications and responsibilities of church leaders (1 Tim. 3:1–13; Titus 1:5–9)
• the goodness of God's creation (1 Tim. 4:4)
• the dangers of pride and the love of money (1 Tim. 6:4–10)
• the call to endure suffering by God's power (2 Tim. 1:8)
• the strategic priority of biblical discipleship (2 Tim. 2:2)
• the divine quality and effectiveness of the Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:15–17)
• the vital importance of good works in the Christian life (Titus 2:14; 3:14)
The gospel is not an abstract proposition but a personal reality.
I invite you to study Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus so that you might celebrate gospel grace, demonstrate gospel fruit in godly living, and protect and pass on the gospel through intentional discipleship.
Gospel Grace through Jesus Christ
The gospel is not an abstract proposition but a personal reality for the apostle Paul: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, whom I am the foremost" (1 Tim. 1:15). He remembers ardently persecuting Christians and opposing Jesus, yet God inexplicably showed him mercy and grace (1 Tim. 1:13–14). Paul celebrates his savior Jesus Christ, who came to rescue, redeem, and purify sinners from lawlessness and for his good purposes (1 Tim. 1:15; Titus 2:14). Christ has risen from the dead and will return to consummate his saving work (2 Tim. 2:8–10). These truths fuel our worship and serve as the standard for sound doctrine (1 Tim. 1:10b–11; 6:3).
This study shows how the books of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus exhort all Christians to pass on the true gospel of Jesus Christ, which has the power to save sinners.
Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus celebrate the glorious gospel message that Jesus saves sinners, stress the need for godly living as the fruit of gospel grace, and call us to preserve and pass on the good deposit of the gospel through deliberate discipleship.
General Notes:
[1] "f" and "ff." "f" is still used to refer to the next page or pages in a citation. Hornblower 258 f. would refer to pages 258–259, whereas 258 ff. would refer to an undetermined number of pages following page 258.
[2] "The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons." (1 Timothy 4:1)
[3] "Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith. "(1 Timothy 6:20-21).
