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What are the Pastoral Epistles?

First and Second Timothy and Titus are usually described as “pastoral epistles.” The standard view of these three letters is that Paul is writing to individuals who he has placed in a leadership position overseeing churches. Paul Anton first called these three books as pastoral epistles by in 1726. The description has become so common that nearly every commentator on the books has described the letters as “church manuals” or “advice to young pastors.” This assumption is rarely questioned.

In the traditional view of these letters, young Timothy has taken on additional responsibilities as a superintendent over several churches planted by Paul. First Timothy is therefore letter is personal advice to Timothy on how to organize the church, as well as other ministry related issues.The second letter written to Timothy is to ask him to come to him in Rome, and to bring Mark with him, but the pastoral emphasis is still the main theme. In Titus, the content is very similar to First Timothy, elders are described, and various potential problems are addressed.

Gordon Fee, however, has called the description of these three letters as “Pastoral Epistles” into question. As Fee notes, if these are “church manuals” they are not particularly effective ones. We end up with far more questions about the church after reading them! It seems hard to believe that such a wide variety of church structures and styles would all call upon these letters to validate their own church practice, if in fact Paul intended them to be read as “manuals for doing church.” Furthermore, he states “It is a mistaken notion to view Timothy or Titus as model pastors for a local church. The letters simply have no such intent” (147)

The key, for Fee, is to read seriously what Paul about his reason for writing the letters in 1 Timothy 1:5 and 3:15. In the light of Paul’s speech to the elders from Ephesus in Acts 20:17-35, it would appear that the purpose of the letters might very well to be false teachers in the Ephesian community.

1 Timothy 1:3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer
1 Timothy 3:15 …if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.
Acts 20:30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.

These verses do not concern organizing the churches from scratch, as if Paul has done just a bit of church planting and Timothy is sent in to finish the job, like a modern evangelist with a followup team. There seems to be a serious false teaching that has caused the church at Ephesus serious problems. The problem is internal (Acts 20:30), people from the inside have begun to teach things opposed to Paul’s message. As Fee puts it, “What we learn about church order in 1 Timothy is not so much organizational as reformational” (146).

This observation may help with the most difficult problem of 1 Timothy. If Fee is correct and the problem is straying elders, does this effect the way we look at the list of qualifications for elders? What about the prohibition of woman teaching and exercising authority in 1 Timothy 2:11-12?

Bibliography: Gordon D. Fee, “Reflections On Church Order In The Pastoral Epistles, With Further Reflection On The Hermeneutics Of Ad Hoc Documents.” JETS 28 (1985): 141-151.

Robert W. Yarbrough, The Letters to Timothy and Titus (PNTC)

Yarbrough, Robert W. The Letters to Timothy and Titus. PNTC; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2018. xxxvi+604 pp. Hb; $50. Link to Eerdmans

This new contribution to the Pillar New Testament Commentary series by Robert Yarbrough offers an insightful exegesis of these three important but often overlooked letters. As he observes in his introduction, many readers approach the Pastoral Epistles for their detailed descriptions of church leaders. In fact, these letters do contain “valuable counsel not available elsewhere in the New Testament” (1). But the list of qualifications for elders and deacons in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 is only one aspect of these letters.

The ninety-page introduction to the Letters to Timothy and Titus begins with eight theses on the heritage of the Pastoral Epistles (PE). These eight statements were drawn from Thomas Oden’s Ministry through Word and Sacrament (Crossroad, 1989) and adapted to the content of the PE.

Any commentary on the PE must deal with the problem of authorship for 1-2 Timothy and Titus. As Yarbrough observes, according to the consensus opinion, the author and the audience are fictive. Paul did not write the letters, and the situation in Ephesus described in 1 Timothy and in Crete in Titus reflects the late first or early second century (11). He points out that authorship issues overshadow the substance of the Pastoral Epistles (69). Unfortunately, this may be the case for Yarbrough’s commentary since he accepts Pauline authorship and does not think the situation in Ephesus or Crete is fictional.

Yarbrough follows Adolf Schlatter’s 1936 German commentary on the PE. Since this work was not translated into English, it has been sadly ignored, but it does foreshadow what Yarbrough calls the “new look” on Paul’s authorship of these letters. This new look started with Luke Timothy Johnson’s acceptance of Pauline authorship in 1996. Yarbrough cites Johnson’s observation “that the expulsion of the Pastorals was the sacrifice required by intellectual self-respect if scholars were to claim critical integrity and still keep the Paul they wanted most—and needed.” (76). If one scans the Scripture index of a typical book on Pauline theology (Wright, Dunn, etc.), there are few, if any, references to the Pastoral Epistles.

The body of the commentary follows the pattern of other Pillar commentaries. After a short introduction to each pericope and the text of the NIV 2011, Yarbrough moves through the section verse-by-verse, commenting on key vocabulary to illuminate the text’s meaning. He intends to follow the discourse flow in order to follow the argument Paul is making and to explain the unusual words Paul uses in these letters. All Greek appears in transliteration with minimal in-text citations to standard biblical studies tools (BDAG, MM, etc.) Detailed footnotes interact with other literature on the passage. The result is a very readable commentary that is focused on the text of the Bible.

One of the most controversial passages in these letters is 1 Timothy 2:9-14, Paul’s instructions concerning women in worship. Yarbrough’s commentary devotes about 25 pages to these verses. By comparison, Tom Schreiner devotes 62 pages to these verses in Women in the Church (Third edition, Crossway, 2016) and the book has about thirty pages of bibliography. Yarbrough does not consider this a “sudden interjection of prudery” (165). Instead, it is an integral part of Paul’s instruction to Timothy on worship and church order.

By way of introduction to this problematic text, Yarbrough devotes a few pages to surveying the three main approaches, critical feminist, Evangelical feminist (egalitarian view), and Evangelical traditionalist (complementarian view). The first and second views do not think this passage limits women’s role in ministry. However, the first view does this by dismissing Paul’s views as misogynist (although they are probably not Paul’s views at all, they reflect the conditions of the much in a much later period). The second view wants to see the Bible as authoritative so Paul’s command that a woman ought not to exercise authority over a woman is referring to some real situation in Ephesus and was not intended as a command aimed at all women of all times. The third view also takes the Bible as authoritative. It considers Paul’s words as applicable to the present church and would therefore limit a woman’s role in ministry (usually as a pastor who has authority over men). Yarbrough approaches 1 Timothy 2:11-15 with this complementarian view. But Yarbrough is quick to point out he does not intend to prevent the flourishing and ministry of women” (143). He cites with approval N. T. Wright’s title for this section in his translation of 1 Timothy: “Women Must be Allowed to Be Learners” (170).

Concerning the historical situation in Ephesus, there certainly was some reason for Paul to prohibit women from teaching. But Yarbrough argues that 1 Timothy 2:12 is both distinctive to a particular situation and universal in scope (177). He rejects negative translations of αὐθεντέω (authenteō), such as the KJV “usurp authority,” preferring the ESV’s “exercise authority” (178). The study of this particular word has generated many articles. Yarbrough follows recent research by Al Wolters and Denny Burk, which argues the women in Ephesus were trying to gain an advantage over the men by teaching in a “dictatorial fashion” (180).

Conclusion. Like other volumes in the Pillar New Testament Commentary series, Robert Yarbrough has contributed a solid exegetical study of the Pastoral Epistles based on the English Bible, which is also faithful to the Greek text. Yarbrough’s acceptance of Pauline authorship and his approach to the controversial 1 Timothy 2:11-15 may cause some scholars to dismiss this excellent commentary.

Other volumes reviewed in this series:

James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Luke

Colin Kruse, The Letter to the Romans

Mark A. Seifrid, The Second Letter to the Corinthians

Constantine R. Campbell, The Letter to the Ephesians

Robert W. Yarbrough, The Letters to Timothy and Titus

Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Hebrews (No longer available from the publisher)

Sigurd Grindheim, The Letter to the Hebrews

Colin G. Kruse, The Letters of John (PNTC; Second Edition)

NB: Thanks to Eerdmans for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Pastoral Epistles?

First and Second Timothy and Titus are usually described as “pastoral epistles.” The standard view of these three letters is that Paul is writing to individuals who he has placed in a leadership position overseeing churches. The three books were first called “pastoral epistles” by Paul Anton in 1726. The description has become so common that nearly every commentator on the books has described the letters as “church manuals” or “advice to young pastors,” etc.

Timothy has taken on additional responsibilities as a superintendent over several churches planted by Paul. First Timothy is therefore letter is personal advice to Timothy on how to organize the church, as well as other ministry related issues. The second letter written to Timothy is to ask him to come to him in Rome, and to bring Mark with him, but the pastoral emphasis is still the main theme. In Titus, the content is very similar to First Timothy, elders are described, and various potential problems are addressed.

Gordon Fee, however, has called this description into question. As Fee notes, if these are “church manuals” they are not particularly effective ones. We end up with far more questions about the church after reading them! It seems hard to believe that such a wide variety of church structures and styles would all call upon these letters to validate their ecclesiology, if in fact Paul intended them to be read as “manuals for doing church.” Furthermore, he states “It is a mistaken notion to view Timothy or Titus as model pastors for a local church. The letters simply have no such intent” (147)

The key, for Fee, is to read seriously what Paul about his reason for writing the letters in 1 Tim 1:5 and 3:15. In the light of Paul’s speech to the elders from Ephesus in Acts 20:17-35, it would appear that the purpose of the letters might very well to be false teachers in the Ephesian community.

1 Timothy 1:3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer
1 Timothy 3:15 …if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.
Acts 20:30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.

This observation may help with the most difficult problem of 1 Timothy. If Fee is correct and the problem is straying elders, does this effect the way we look at the prohibition of woman teaching and exercising authority in 2:11-12?

Bibliography: Gordon D. Fee, “Reflections On Church Order In The Pastoral Epistles, With Further Reflection On The Hermeneutics Of Ad Hoc Documents” JETS 28:2 (June 1985) p. 141-151.