Preface to First and Second Timothy

We have just returned from another four and a half month season away from home, helping out at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem and then serving alongside the staff at Zaporozhe Bible College and Seminary in Ukraine.  Our teaching responsibilities at the College involved a two-week class on the Pastoral Epistles.  

It was a bit of an accident that I was assigned these books.  I had mistakenly suggested Pastoral when I meant to say Prison epistles, a class I had taught several times previously.  But when the Academic Dean seemed happy to have us teach First and Second Timothy and Titus we decided that was the Lord’s work.  It required more prep work but we cannot do anything but thank the Lord for the opportunity.  I taught 1 Timothy to a church group in Montana, aiming my preparation with the future class in mind.  Titus I had taught several years ago and had put such work into it that I felt confident that what I had taught then would be useful for students in Ukraine.  As for 2 Timothy I must say that I am still doing preparation work, and the class was finished a month ago.  It has been such a blessing digging deeper even after the class was over and finding it to be far richer for me personally than I ever imagined.

These three letters of Paul are specially designed for the Body of Christ and its leaders.  To understand the relationship of these letters I like to refer to Jesus’ teaching in the Upper Room Discourse (John 13-17) on the three great relationships of the Christian.

·        John 15:1-8 stresses our relationship with Christ, one of abiding in Him.  2 Timothy is strong on this relationship as Paul leaves with Timothy some great encouragements that will help us to be faithful to Christ.

·        John 15:9-17 stresses our relationship with other Christians, one of love for one another.  1 Timothy is strong on this relationship as Paul gives Timothy needed advice in dealing with numerous aspects of life in the family of God.

·        John 15:18-16:4 stresses our relationship with the world, one of bearing witness.  Paul writes to Titus about some of the same things he tells Timothy in 1 Timothy but in the context of our testimony to the world.  The repeated focus is on living lives that do not blaspheme our doctrine before the world.

In our teaching at the Bible College we taught the letters in the order they were written: 1 Timothy, Titus and 2 Timothy.  This booklet deals with 1 and 2 Timothy as we have previously written on Titus (these are available online on our blog http://ronandcindy.blogspot.com/ from Sept. 6 through Nov. 7, 2016).

How we pray that God will use these studies and devotional thoughts to spur each of us on to love and good works (Heb. 10:24-25).

Ron Youde, Lewistown, MT May 23, 2017