Комментарии к Библии

1Ti 1:1,2 The salutation.

1Ti 1:3,4 Timothy is put in mind of the charge before given him by Paul.

1Ti 1:5-7 The end of the commandment is charity, from which

some had turned aside to teach the law, which they

understood not.

1Ti 1:8-11 The scope of the law was to condemn wickedness, which

is the design of the gospel also.

1Ti 1:12-17 Paul blesseth God for calling him to the ministry

notwithstanding his great demerit, whereby all

penitent sinners that believe are assured of mercy

through Christ.

1Ti 1:18-20 He urgeth Timothy to a due discharge of his trust,

warning him of some who had deserted the truth, of

whom Hymeneus and Alexander had been delivered by

him unto Satan.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ; one immediately sent by Jesus Christ, by his voice from heaven, Act 9:15, though not by his voice upon earth, as those, Mat 10:1-42.

By the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ:

through the will of God, 1Co 1:1, not his permissive, but preceptive will; and this is the same with his being called to be an apostle, Rom 1:1 1Co 1:1. By our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father not being excluded, but the Son only being named, to whom the mediatory kingdom was committed.

Which is our hope: our hope, there is no more in the Greek, that is, the object of our hope: as when it is said, Gen 31:53, that Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac, that is, by the Deity whom his father feared. This glorious eulogy belongs to our Saviour, in whom there is a concurrence of all that is requisite to free us from destructive evils, and to make us everlastingly happy: for he is wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Hence the Gentiles without Christ are said to be without hope, Eph 2:12. And from hence it is evident that Jesus Christ is the eternal God, for if he were only a man, though in excellence above all others, he could not be our hope, for cursed is he that trusteth in man, Jer 17:5.

He dignifies Timothy with the title of his Song of Solomon in the faith; that is, being converted by him to Christianity, and begat to the Divine life: and by styling Timothy his

own son, he signifies his piety and virtue, that rendered him a worthy son of such a father, whom he imitated and honoured, and with whom he corresponded in a grateful, obedient affection. Having thus designated the person to whom he writes, he expresses his ardent desires of his complete felicity; which is included in

grace, mercy, and peace. By grace he means the free favour and good will of God, with all the spiritual gifts that proceed from it, either requisite for salvation, or the great work of the evangelical ministry. By mercy, his compassionate tender love, pardoning, relieving, supporting, and assisting us in our Christian course. By peace he signifies, principally, the peace of God, that divine calm of conscience, that tranquillity and rest of soul, which proceeds from the assurance that God is reconciled to us in Christ, and our freedom by the sanctifying Spirit from the tyranny of carnal lusts: this peace can never be to the wicked. And besides this principal peace, we may understand peace with man, that is, a quiet state, exempt from hatred and persecutions, that Timothy might more comfortably and successfully perform the work of his ministry. He prays for these blessings from God, who is the original Fountain of all good: and from Jesus Christ as the channel, by which all the gifts of God are conveyed to us; for without his mediation the Deity is as a sealed fountain, no grace would flow to us. He styles God our Father, because he has adopted us in his Son, and in that quality he communicates his grace, mercy, and peace to us: he styles Christ our Lord, who hath supreme power over us, as well by the right of creation as of redemption.

Ephesus was a great city in Asia the Less, whither Paul came, Acts 19:1; where Demetrius raised a tumult against him, which the town clerk appeased, as we read there. From thence he

went into Macedonia, Acts 20:1-3. Upon this his motion into Macedonia (as divines judge) he left Timothy at Ephesus. The end of leaving him at Ephesus was, that he might

charge some that they preached no other doctrine, that is, none contrary to what he had preached, none contrary to the doctrine of the gospel, Galatians 1:8,9. What power was here committed to Timothy is by some questioned; supposing (which is very probable) there were a greater number of disciples than could meet in one assembly, his power was more than pastoral, for he had a power over the teachers. Whether this power was extraordinary, or ordinary, and what God intended ever to continue in the chnrch, is the question. Those who make it to be such, make it to be episcopal; those that make it extraordinary, say it was the work of an evangelist, 2 Timothy 4:5. That there was such an officer in the primitive church appears from Acts 21:8 Ephesians 4:11. That this was Timothy’s work appears from 2 Timothy 4:5. Nor is it a new thing, but very common in the settlement of all new governments, to authorize some special commissioners, and to give them an extraordinary power for a time, till the government can be settled and things brought into a fixed order. If we consider the words without prejudice:

I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, they seem to signify that Timothy was not the established bishop of Ephesus; for to what end should the apostle desire a bishop to reside in his own diocess, which he could not forsake without neglecting his duty, and the offence of God? This were a tacit reflection, as if he were careless of his duty. And the word abide, prosmeinai, does not necessarily import his constant residence there; for it is used to signify continuance for some time only; as it is said of the apostle, that he remained many days at Corinth, Acts 18:18, when his stay there was only for some months. The intention of the apostle seems to be that Timothy should continue for a while at Ephesus, and not accompany him in his voyage to Macedonia, as he was wont to do upon other occasions. And it is evident by the sacred history, that about six months after Timothy was with the apostle in Greece, that he went with him to Macedonia, and Troas, and Miletus, Acts 20:1,4, where the apostle sent for the elders or bishops of Ephesus, to leave his last solemn charge with them. In short, if Timothy had been appointed the bishop of Ephesus, the apostle would probably have given this title of honour to him in the inscription of his Epistle. Upon the impartial considering of the whole matter, though the passion of prelacy is so ingenious as to discover so many mysteries and mitres in a few plain words, (viz. that Timothy was bishop of that city, metropolitan of the province, and primate of all Asia), yet it is most likely that Timothy was left only for some time with a kind of apostolical power in the church of Ephesus; of which power this was one branch, authoritatively to command seducers not to teach another doctrine than what was taught by the apostles, who were Divinely illuminated: a Divine rule, and most worthy of perpetual observation by all in the office of the ministry. And this showeth the mighty proneness of men, as to deviate in their conversations, from the right ways, so in their judgments from the truths of God, otherwise Paul had no need to have left Timothy for that end in this church so newly planted.

Neither give heed to fables: by fables he probably meaneth the Jewish fables, and commandments of men, mentioned Titus 1:14; or more generally, all vain and idol speculations.

And endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying; whatsoever tendeth not to build men up in godliness, which is the end of preaching. The Jews had many unwritten fables, about what God did before he made the world, &c., and many unwritten endless genealogies, which were as so many labyrinths, intricate, without an issue out of them: and it is probable that some of them (converted to the Christian faith) still busied their heads about them, according to their education and the practice of the Jewish doctors, and made the subject of their sermons and discourses to the assemblies of Christians; which is the thing the apostle here declareth a corruption of the ordinances of preaching, and inveigheth against, 1 Timothy 6:4 2 Timothy 2:23 Titus 1:14 3:9; and willeth preachers to avoid, and people to give no heed to them, as nothing tending to the building Christians up in holiness, which he here calleth oikodomian yeou, the building up of God, either so objectively, or efficiently, or by his command, because it is in God, viz. in the knowledge of God, and an increase in the love of God, and other spiritual habits; or from God, being wrought by him, and serving for his honour and glory, or according to his will.

Which is in faith: he tells us this edifying can be no otherwise than in faith, preaching the doctrine of the gospel, and embracing that which is the doctrine of faith, a doctrine of Divine revelation, to which men must give their assent, because of the authority of God revealing it. So as no discourses which are not founded in a Divine revelation, and to be proved from thence, can possibly tend to any bnilding of God, which cannot stand in the wisdom of men, but must stand in the power of God. From this text we may observe the vanity and proneness of some persons, even from the infancy of the church, to make up what they call sermons of discourses about fables, idle questions, and speculations, and genealogies of which there is no end; the teachers being able to bring the minds of hearers to no rest about them, nor they tending to any good and saving use, but merely to show men’s wit and parts; and we may also learn, that this is no religious preaching or hearing, it being impossible men should be under any religious obligations to hear any but prophets, that is, such as reveal the Divine will. For other discourses, men in their seasons may hear them, or let them alone, and credit or not credit them as they see reason.

Ver. 5,6 Now the end of the commandment is charity: the word translated commandment here is paraggelia, which rather signifies a particular charge given by superiors as to some thing, than a general law, Acts 5:28 16:24; and so in this chapter, 1 Timothy 1:18; which inclineth me to think, that though the proposition be true of the whole law of God, (for love is the fulfilling of the law), and more eminently of the Divine doctrine in the gospel, for the end and perfection it aims at and produces is a pure, ardent love of God, and of men for his sake, and of the gospel, yet it is rather here to be restrained to the commandment relating to preaching, or discoursing the revealed will of God relating to men’s salvation, the end of which is doubtless charity, which ought to be finis operantis, the end of the workman, what he ought to intend and aim at; and is finis operis, the effect of the work, viz. the begetting in the souls of people love to God and their neighbour, neither of which can rationally be obtained by preachers telling people idle stories, and filling their heads with idle questions and speculations.

Out of a pure heart: which love to God and men must proceed from a clean, and holy, and sincere heart.

And of a good conscience; and a good and holy life, when conscience doth not sourly reflect upon men for presumptuous miscarriages.

And of faith unfeigned; which must all be rooted in and attended with a faith unfeigned; rooted in it, as faith signifies a steady assent to Divine revelation; attended with it, as it signifies the soul’s repose and rest upon Christ for the fulfilling of the promises annexed to him that believes and liveth up to such propositions. These are the noble ends of the whole law of God, and particularly of the charge or command God hath given ministers as to preaching, which can by no means be attained by teachers’ discoursing fables and endless genealogies to people, nor by people’s attendance to such discourses, for they can only fill people’s heads with notions and unprofitable questions, which serve to gender strife and contention amongst people, instead of love either to God or men, and so to defile instead of purifying the heart, and have no influence at all upon a holy life, all which can grow out of no root but an unfeigned faith.

From which; from which things (for the article is plural, wn); from which commandment, and from the end of which commandment, from which pure heart, good conscience, and faith unfeigned.

Some having swerved: astochsantev, the word signifies to wander from a scope or mark. Some men either propounding to themselves ends in their discourses to people different from the command concerning preaching, and the true end of that, or at least wandering from that true end, they have turned aside. To do an action well, two things are necessary:

1. The propounding to ourselves a right end;

2. A moving to it by due means and in right order: whoso faileth in either of these, can no more do an action well, than he can shoot an arrow well, that either eyeth no mark, or levelleth his arrow quite beside it.

The preachers reflected on by the apostle, either never considered the true end of preaching, or never regarded it in their action; this made them turn aside from theology to mataeology, from preaching to vain jangling; so we translate it, but the word signifieth foolish talking; so we translate the adjective: Titus 1:10, and so the word properly signifieth, any kind of foolish, impertinent discourse, either serving to no good end, or at least not that which the discourse pretendeth to. And indeed all discourses of fables, and unprofitable, idle questions, tending not to edifying, is no better than foolish talking.

See Poole on "1 Timothy 1:6"

Desiring to be teachers of the law; Nomodidaskaloi. This term lets us know, that the apostle reflecteth upon some who were or had been Jews, who either pressed the observance of the law in order to justification, or spent their time in pressing the traditions of the elders, and constitutions of the scribes, as sepimenta legis, hedges (as they called them) to the Divine law, though not of the letter of it; upon which there arose a great many questions as insignificant as their traditions themselves, which these vain preachers spent their time in speaking to.

Understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm; neither understanding the Divine law, nor the questions themselves started and spoke unto, yet ambitious to be accounted

teachers of the law. This vain desire of reputation, as persons of excellent skill in the land, was the cause of their erroneous, idle sermons: and their ignorance is aggravated and inexcusable, in that they with presumptuous boldness assert the things of which they are ignorant.

But we know that the law is good: not that I speak against the law of God, I know that it is holy, and spiritual, and just, and good, Romans 7:12,14. It is good, though not for justification, yet for conviction, to convince men of sin, and as a schoolmaster to lead men unto Christ, and to direct us in our walking with God; the equity and sanctity of its precepts are evident to the sincere and purified mind.

If a man use it lawfully: and as the law has an intrinsic goodness in its nature, so it is good to men when it is used for the end to which God gave it.