Notes on 1 Timothy

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Notes from 1 Timothy. (These are not doctrine or anything close. They're just notes from my devotional reading. But I love this stuff! And I thought it'd be fun to share.  

Oh, and all questions are real questions. Not rhetorical.) 

-Paul wants Timothy to keep on as he’s been doing; the first instruction of the letter is just confirming Timothy’s vocation and mission.

-Everyone sins, and if Paul can be redeemed, anyone can. Paul points out that the law isn’t for good people, it’s for people who break it. Good people don’t need the law. (And there aren’t any good people.)

-It’s good to pray for those in authority, that we might have peace and, in that peace, the freedom to share the gospel.

-Women are supposed to learn (yay! Not necessarily typical in those times), but not to exercise authority over men or to teach them. And Paul cites creation reasons for this. So it’s something truly in our nature?

-“preserved through bearing of children” – okay, I’m still working on that one – but only if we “continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint”.  And that makes me think that what he’s saying is that our normal works as women – bearing & raising children  - are acceptable to God, if done in obedience and love. I.e., the “good works” we do by nature – becoming mothers and wives – aren’t unacceptable. We’re included too, and our daily work can also be done to the glory of God.

            This is actually good news.

            (Also, not that “good works” save us . . . I’m assuming here the normal theology that we can only do good through the regeneration given us in Christ, and that fruit is proof of his saving love in us, etc. Not going for heresy here!)

-Faith, love, sanctity, and self-restraint. I’ll have to remember those and meditate on them more.

-more for the women – this time the deaconesses or deacons’ wives – they are to be “dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things”.  (Yes, I kind of want to make a list of all these things I should be aspiring to be. Because, well, I do want to be a mature Christian woman. I really do!)

-Paul is writing all these things so that Timothy has a guide to how the church should run. It really is a handbook of sorts! Paul would say all these things in person, but he’s not sure how soon he’ll be able to visit.

-beginning of ch. 4: no Gnosticism!  Marry and have babies!  Eat meat with thanksgiving to God!  “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.”

            (Y’know, this makes me think that I should NOT partake of anything that I can’t, in good conscience, thank God for. Not a bad litmus test for what I ought and ought not to do, y’know? A good check for the conscience . . .)

-Teach these things, Timothy, teach these things. This is Paul’s constant repetition.

-Fellow Christians ought to be treated as family members.

-a woman who is deserving, who has done “good works”, is someone who has been a good wife and mother, who has practiced hospitality and helped those who needed help.

-so, in 5:11-12, it sounds like young widows who were helped by the church had promised not to get married again? Maybe? I really want a commentary here . . .

-also, in vs. 13, it sounds like one of the big problems is that young widows have nothing to do. In these times, no family (for a woman) equaled no work. So . . . so it’s really not okay to be idle. It’s really not okay to have no work. Huh.