First Letter to Timothy written

Timothy has been left at Ephesus to deal with a situation Paul thought urgent, and the letter tells him how.

It belongs to a group of three, along with the letters to Titus and the second to Timothy, known since the eighteenth century as the pastoral letters because they are addressed to individuals about running churches rather than to congregations.

Their authorship is the most disputed question about any letters attributed to Paul, apart from those nobody disputes. The arguments against are that their vocabulary differs substantially from the other letters, with well over a hundred words not used elsewhere; that the church structure they describe looks more developed; and that the travels they assume do not fit anywhere in the record of Paul's known movements. The arguments for are that a different secretary, a different subject and a gap of some years account for the style, and that the movements fit if Paul was released after the two years at Rome and travelled again before a second arrest, which early tradition asserts.

The problem at Ephesus is teachers devoting themselves to myths and endless genealogies, wanting to be teachers of the law without understanding what they are saying, and forbidding people to marry and ordering them to abstain from certain foods.

Against that, the instructions are relentlessly ordinary. Qualifications for overseers and deacons are given, and they are almost entirely about character rather than ability: above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, managing his own household well.

There are instructions about supporting widows, with a careful distinction between those with families who can provide and those genuinely alone. There is advice about how a young man should handle older members of the congregation. And there is a line to Timothy about his health: stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.

The letter also contains the sentence most often misquoted in English: for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Not money, and not all evil.

The three pastoral letters were not grouped or named as a set until the eighteenth century, and their disputed status is a modern development; the early church accepted them without much argument, and the Muratorian list of about AD 180 includes all three.

What is not in dispute is their effect. The qualifications they give for church leaders have shaped how congregations of almost every tradition appoint people ever since.

Church structure in these letters involves overseers, elders and deacons, and whether overseer and elder describe the same office or two is one of the oldest questions in the discussion of church government. Episcopal, presbyterian and congregational systems all appeal to the same short list of words.

A passage about women teaching sits in the middle of the letter and is among the most disputed in the New Testament, argued over as to whether it addresses a local situation at Ephesus or states a general rule.

The letter opens with Paul reminding Timothy why he was left at Ephesus, which means the letter was written to be shown to other people as well as read by him.