Letters to Timothy

[Searching4God]

I read through the letters to Timothy last night, and was amazed at how out of character they seemed to Paul. His quotes regarding women, bishops, sinners, and the organization of the church didn’t seem to come from the same man that wrote Galatians.

I get frustrated in a religious discussion when “Christians” quote Paul ad nauseum to justify judging their fellow man. It seems much of their justification can be traced to passages of Timothy and Leviticus. None of this seems to have much to do with Jesus or his clear commandment to “love thy neighbor”, other than some fetishized ideal of him that Paul concocted and many fundamentalists look to as a one stop shop for salvation.

Why does Timothy read like something that an Ephesian bishop wrote to address 2nd century gnostic dissent and not a divinely inspired articulation on what it means to follow Christ?

 

[CWBetts]

I read through the letters to Timothy last night, and was amazed at how out of character they seemed to Paul. His quotes regarding women, bishops, sinners, and the organization of the church didn’t seem to come from the same man that wrote Galatians.

I get frustrated in a religious discussion when “Christians” quote Paul ad nauseum to justify judging their fellow man. It seems much of their justification can be traced to passages of Timothy and Leviticus. None of this seems to have much to do with Jesus or his clear commandment to “love thy neighbor”, other than some fetishized ideal of him that Paul concocted and many fundamentalists look to as a one stop shop for salvation.

Why does Timothy read like something that an Ephesian bishop wrote to address 2nd century gnostic dissent and not a divinely inspired articulation on what it means to follow Christ?

So are you inferring that the Holy Spirit inspired error?

 

[CastingCrown]

Why does Timothy read like something that an Ephesian bishop wrote to address 2nd century gnostic dissent and not a divinely inspired articulation on what it means to follow Christ?

That sounds like rather a leading question, but I’d say that the root of the difference is that they were letters to two very different audiences - the first to Timothy, someone who he had mentored for a long time, and another to a large group of Christians living in a particular province.

If today the Pope were to write two letters: one to a protégé Bishop who he had known for a long time and another to all the Christians in, say, Sicily, one would hardly be surprised if the style and content of the two letters were markedly different.

I get frustrated in a religious discussion when “Christians” quote Paul ad nauseum to justify judging their fellow man.

Abuse does not not nullify legitimate use.

It seems much of their justification can be traced to passages of Timothy and Leviticus

…as well as many, many other parts of the Bible.

None of this seems to have much to do with Jesus…

Much of the content of the pastoral epistles is about the administration and care of the Body of Christ by those in authority - it therefore has a lot to do with Jesus: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me”

…or his clear commandment to “love thy neighbor”

…but surely not every sentence, passage or even letter has to had that as its primary subject?

other than some fetishized ideal of him that Paul concocted

Well, if it was some fetishized ideal then it was one that was accepted also by Peter and the other Apostles else they would have hardly accepted Paul and it must have been accepted by the Early Church due to the preservation of Paul’s writings and teaching.

 

[NotWorthy]

Why does Timothy read like something that an Ephesian bishop wrote to address 2nd century gnostic dissent and not a divinely inspired articulation on what it means to follow Christ?

Because the Letters to Timothy were to instruct a young disciple how to build the hierarchy of the Church.

Galatians was meant to instruct a young fledgling Church that was suffering from a little confusion.

 

[NoelFitz]

S4G

I am interested in the PEs, 1 & 2 Tim and Tit.

You raise interesting questions. Is the author of Galatians and the Letters to Timothy the same person? Some agree and some do not. I consider Paul wrote these Letters, Pastoral Epistless. I hope to post queries on these letters here in the near future. They may interest you.