Lectionary Year C
September 16, 2001
1 Timothy 1:12-17

Composition

Step III - Composition

A. Immediate Context

(JFC) Pre - The first eleven verses of I Timothy 1 identify the author as Paul and the recipient as Timothy and send traditional greetings of grace, mercy and peace. Then the author encourages the recipient to continue instructing the people there, in Ephesus, in the orthodoxy earlier learned rather than the latter deviations from it. He then tells of the law and its proper uses for those needing it, the lawless and the disobedient.

Post - The last three verses of I Timothy again encourage the epistle's recipient to teach well and it names some of the false teachers whom the author claims to have assigned to Satan.

B. Organization of the Compositional Whole

(JFC) The author intends to exhort (Lewis Donelson's term), instruct and encourage the recipient, especially in the subjects of teaching the orthodoxy of the faith that differs from the false teachings currently going on in the recipient's environs. "The Pastorals view the impingement of this movement (Gnosticism) on the church as a severe threat to Christianity", says Eric Lane Titus' introductory article on I Timothy in The Interpreter's One Volume Commentary on the Bible. The writer wants to preserve the purity of the church there and, so, enumerates the qualifications of the officers to lead them. We might identify an outline of I Timothy as beginning with an accustomed greeting, 1:1f, followed by an explanation of the situation leading to declaring the purpose of writing, 1:3-11. Next, we find our text for this week, an autobiographical confession naming the wrongs committed and a profession of Christ's having saved and chosen the author for service, 1:12-17. Then, in chapter 2, we read generally of proper orders for prayer and rules for women's remaining silent. Chapter 3 tells mostly of required qualities for bishops and deacons and how they are to administer the system and structure of the local church. Chapter 4 addresses the urgent (Thomas Oden's term) challenge false teachers present. Chapter 5 gives guidance to the church's pastors and describes those they are to pastor. The final chapter of I Timothy offers several, many unrelated, directions for proper ecclesiastical conduct.

C. Issues of Authorship

(JFC) Much of the vocabulary is foreign to authentically Pauline compositions as are many of the standards and several structures mentioned in I Timothy. The style(s) of I Timothy differ(s) from genuine Paulinistic expressions in earlier recorded letters, too. Those who maintain Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles have to imagine further travels for Paul after his trip to Rome which ended in Acts and another imprisonment of which the New Testament knows nothing. Many commentaries accept as Pauline most of the thoughts, theology and morals expressed in I Timothy, and/or can readily suggest that the unknown author/compiler must have been of the Pauline school. Some propose that much of this letter is of fragments from Paul's pen and/or one of his followers', rather roughly joined together. Other theories include Paul's dictating an outline to a scribe and letting the scribe fill in the outline with his own vocabulary and style (Ralph P. Martin in Harper's Bible Commentary). The situation addressed in I Timothy is Gnostic judgmentalism and asceticitic tendencies, heresies the Pauline tradition opposed. Without any references to imprisonment and/or persecution, some see this letter being written before 64 CE, according to James L. Price's Interpreting the New Testament. Others, however, propose dates well into the second century, at least into the first half of it.

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