to Timotheus, [my] true child in faith grace, mercy, peace, from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul opens his first letter to Timothy not with orders but with a name and a blessing. He calls Timothy his own child in the faith and asks God for grace, mercy and peace for him — and that middle word is one he drops when he writes to a whole church.
The word Paul chooses points to how Timothy came to God, not to how much he resembled his teacher.
Timothy was Paul's "true child in the faith," a real convert of his. So Paul trusted him enough to speak his heart with no evident reservation. The word here is "child," not "son." It speaks of actual spiritual birth, not the dignity of a position. Timothy had not merely copied Paul's character. "In Christ Jesus" Paul had given him birth through the gospel.
This warmth is not Paul's usual manner, and the reason lies in the moment he was writing.
We can easily see how such circumstances were bound to draw out a love that was always there. At such a moment that love would come out in a more fitting way. We find this in these letters. He writes to Timothy as his genuine child; it is not at all the usual way in the earlier letters. Here and now was the opening of that long pent-up heart. At the same time he was laying an important commission on a man God had raised up for the purpose. Timothy was still fairly young. Soon he would have to fight his way without the sympathy and support of one who had been such a blessing to him.
Each of the three words meets the same circumstances from a different side.
Paul wishes Timothy "grace," the divine favour that is enough to lift a person above whatever the circumstances may be. He wishes him "mercy," God showing compassion inside those circumstances. And he wishes him "peace," the calm of soul God gives, so that we pass through all circumstances in unbroken, unruffled communion with the Lord Jesus. Such blessing rests on the unity of the Father and the Son. It is found from no other source, but perfectly there.
Paul greets churches with grace and peace. To Timothy and to Titus he adds a word — and the difference is deliberate.
He does not say "mercy" to the assemblies. They stand before God as assemblies because of the mercy already shown them. However low their condition might be, God views them according to the nature in which they live by the Spirit. In that nature there is no question of mercy, because the nature is itself of God. Grace and peace are what they are to enjoy from God. But an individual is another matter. However godly or faithful he may be, he is both flesh and spirit. Part of his road still lies ahead and has to be provided for, so he always needs mercy. That is why the apostle wishes it to Timothy and to Titus. He knew how much they needed mercy. It was his own resource, what he had experienced for the comfort of his own soul.
The word matches what Timothy faced in Ephesus, where the pressure came from two directions.
It supposes the need, the constant wants, the difficulties, the trials and the dangers of individual believers. Timothy was in Ephesus. Fierce wolves came from the outside and false teachers from the inside. He needed mercy, so that he would be kept. The days grow darker. The departure from the faith becomes more pronounced. Individual believers need mercy upon mercy to stand and to withstand.
The names Paul uses for God and for Christ put teacher and pupil on the same ground. (The ESV reads "God the Father"; older translations read "God our Father".)
Turning to Timothy, as his own child in the faith, the Apostle desires grace, mercy, and peace for him. But he is thinking of Timothy as a believer, so he now says, "from God our Father" and Christ Jesus "our Lord".
If these three are already the believer's, why pray for them at all?
In the fullest sense the believer already owns God's grace, mercy, and peace for ever. They are his because Christ died for him. Yet Paul still wishes these things to Timothy, his child in the faith. Does this not teach us something? The believer constantly needs to take hold in practice of what is already truly his in principle. Take one example. We may know how precious peace with God is. That does not guarantee that we enjoy "the peace of God" all the time.
- Child. Paul calls Timothy a true child. The word marks real spiritual birth through the gospel, not a character copied from Paul.
- Need. Because an individual is still flesh as well as spirit, with a road still ahead, he always needs mercy.
- Supply. Grace lifts us above our circumstances. Mercy meets us inside them. Peace carries us through them.
- Source. All three come from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, and from nowhere else.
- Practice. We must still take hold each day of what is ours for ever. Having peace with God is not the same as enjoying the peace of God.
Even as I begged thee to remain in Ephesus, [when I was] going to Macedonia, that thou mightest enjoin some not to teach other doctrines,
Paul opens this letter by reminding Timothy why he is still in Ephesus: to guard what gets taught there. Behind that short appeal stand an old warning and one hard question — can a church with the best teaching still go wrong?
Paul had warned the Ephesian elders years before. Gaebelein traces what happened next.
Timothy was to remain behind to charge some that they teach no other doctrine. When Paul had met the elders of Ephesus at Miletus he had made this prediction: "For I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them" (Acts 20:29-30). Then he went to Jerusalem, where he was taken prisoner and sent to Rome. After his release he must have visited Ephesus once more. There he found the very things the Holy Spirit had warned against. Timothy was with him on that visit, between his first and second imprisonment.
Paul urged Timothy to stay. He did not order him.
We see the love that even an apostle adopts towards his child in faith. It was not at all a domineering word, though full of earnest desire for the work of the Lord.
Kelly explains what makes someone a strange teacher, and where the line runs.
To teach things different from the word of God is to be a strange teacher. What guesses are to a scientist, speculations are to the teacher: traps that pull us away from the revealed truth God has entrusted to us. True science bows to facts. It looks for the general principles or connections behind them, and calls these laws. The believer and the teacher do the same. To go beyond the written word is to stray and mislead.
Ephesus sat under the highest ministry. The danger came from inside anyway.
The Apostle realised that "some" were ready to teach "other doctrines". This was true even among those who had the greatest light. The natural pride of the heart may think that much light is a safeguard against error. The Ephesian assembly teaches us a lesson worth learning. A company rich in truth, enjoying the highest ministry, still has no guarantee against false doctrine. Timothy, then, was to charge some that they teach no other doctrine than the great doctrines of the grace of God.
The remedy was not cleverness, and not fresh material.
Paul was sure that the state of the Ephesians' souls needed Timothy's ministry to work against the sad drift away from the truth that was already there. There were "some" at least who leaned toward teaching doctrine other than the truth of God. Countering this did not need superior intellect. It needed the faithfulness that honours God. It did not need new truth either, but the truth already given, pressed home to heart and conscience.
Timothy's stay at Ephesus has raised a question about his standing there.
From this some have thought that Timothy was a bishop, left there to appoint elders. But in Acts 20 we see all the elders already doing their work at Ephesus, five years before Paul wrote to Timothy. So that theory will not hold good.
The later record of Ephesus shows how this danger played out.
In 2 Timothy 1:15 comes the sad news that "all who are in Asia" (which must have included Ephesus) had "turned away from" Paul. This surely means they gave up the truth as Paul taught it, and settled down with a lower standard... Revelation 2:1-7 gives the address to this church. Much in it speaks in their favour. Yet it also had to bring the solemn charge that they had left their first love, and the warning that if they did not repent their lampstand would be removed.
- Occasion — Paul had predicted wolves from outside and twisted teaching from inside. He came back to Ephesus, found it starting, and left Timothy there.
- Tone — He does not command his younger co-worker. He urges him, and authority speaks in the language of love.
- Charge — "No other doctrine" means no teaching beyond the written word. To add speculation is to mislead.
- Danger — Even the best-taught church had "some" who wanted to teach otherwise. Rich truth is no immunity.
- Outcome — Timothy needed faithfulness, not brilliance. Where that guard slipped, Asia turned away, and the warning came that Ephesus could lose its lampstand.