1 Timothy 4:11-16
11 These things command and teach.
12 Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an
example of the believers, in word, in conversation,
in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
13 Till I come, give attendance to reading, to
exhortation, to doctrine.
14 Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was
given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the
hands of the presbytery.
15 Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly
to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.
16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine;
continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both
save thyself, and them that hear thee.
THE DUTIES OF THE CHRISTIAN LEADER WITHIN THE CHURCH
CERTAIN duties are laid upon Timothy, the young
leader designate of the Church. He is to devote
himself to the public reading of Scripture, to
exhortation and to teaching. Here we have the
pattern of the Christian church service. In the
pattern of any Christian service, there should be
four things.
(1) There should be the reading and exposition of
Scripture. People ultimately do not gather together
to hear the opinions of a preacher; they gather
together to hear the word of God. The Christian
service is Bible-centered.
(2) There should be teaching. The Bible is a
difficult book, and therefore it has to be
explained. Christian doctrine is not easy to
understand, but Christians must be able to give a
reason for the hope that is in them. There is little
use in exhorting people to be Christians if they do
not know what being a Christian is. Christian
preachers have given many years of their lives to
gain the necessary equipment to explain the faith to
others. They have been released from the ordinary
duties of life in order to think, to study and to
pray so that they may better expound the word of
God. There can be no lasting Christian faith in any
church without a teaching ministry.
(3) There should be exhortation. The Christian
message must always end in Christian action. Someone
has said that every sermon should end with the
challenge: ‘What about it, then?’ It is not enough
to present the Christian message as something to be
studied and understood; it has to be presented as
something to be done. Christianity is truth, but it
is truth in action.
(4) There should be prayer. The gathering meets in
the presence of God; it thinks in the Spirit of God;
it goes out in the strength of God. Neither the
preaching nor the listening during the service, nor
the consequent action in the world, is possible
without the help of the Spirit of God. It would do
us no harm sometimes to test our modern services
against the pattern of the first services of the
Christian Church. ~Barclay
Commentary
Now to the commentaries...
Till I come - notes, 1
Timothy 3:14-15.
1 Timothy 3:14-15
14 These things write I unto thee, hoping to come
unto thee shortly:
15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how
thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God,
which is the church of the living God, the pillar
and ground of the truth.
These things write
I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee
shortly - That is, he hoped to come
there to give instructions personally, or to
finish, himself, the work which he had
commenced in Ephesus, and which had been
interrupted by his being driven so
unexpectedly away. This verse proves that
the apostle Paul did not regard Timothy as
the permanent diocesan bishop of Ephesus.
Would any Episcopal bishop write this to
another bishop? If Timothy were the
permanent prelate of Ephesus, would Paul
have intimated that he expected soon to come
and take the work of completing the
arrangements there into his own hands?.
~Barnes Notes
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Give attendance to reading
- The word here used may refer either to public or
to private reading; see Acts 13:15. The more obvious
interpretation here is to refer it to private
reading, or to a careful perusal of those books
which would qualify him for his public work. The
then written portions of the sacred volume - the Old
Testament - are doubtless specially intended here,
but there is no reason to doubt that there were
included also such other books as would be useful,
to which Timothy might have access. Even those were
then few in number, but Paul evidently meant that
Timothy should, as far as practicable, become
acquainted with them. The apostle himself, on more
than one occasion, showed that he had some
acquaintance with the classic writings of Greece;
Acts 17:28; Titus 1:12.
Quoted verse on public and/or private reading:
Acts 13:15
And after the reading of the law and the prophets
the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying,
Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of
exhortation for the people, say on.
Note: the
following verses I searched out speak to the same
admonition.
Deuteronomy 17:19
And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein
all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear
the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law
and these statutes, to do them:
Joshua1:8
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy
mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and
night, that thou mayest observe to do according to
all that is written therein: for then thou shalt
make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have
good success.
Psalm 1:2-3
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in
his law doth he meditate day and night.
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers
of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his
season; his leaf also shall not wither; and
whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
Psalm 119:97-104
97 MEM. O how love I thy law! it is my meditation
all the day.
98 Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser
than mine enemies: for they are ever with me.
99 I have more understanding than all my teachers:
for thy testimonies are my meditation.
100 I understand more than the ancients, because I
keep thy precepts.
101 I have refrained my feet from every evil way,
that I might keep thy word.
102 I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou
hast taught me.
103 How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
104 Through thy precepts I get understanding:
therefore I hate every false way.
Proverbs 2:4-5
4 If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for
her as for hid treasures;
5 Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD,
and find the knowledge of God.
Matthew 13:51-52
51 Jesus saith unto them, Have ye understood all
these things? They say unto him, Yea, Lord.
52 Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe
which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is
like unto a man that is an householder, which
bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and
old.
John 5:39
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have
eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
Acts 6:4
But we will give ourselves continually to prayer,
and to the ministry of the word.
Acts 17:11
...speaking of the Bereans
These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in
that they received the word with all readiness of
mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether
those things were so.
2 Timothy 2:15-17
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a
workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly
dividing the word of truth.
16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they
will increase unto more ungodliness.
17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom
is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
To exhortation - see
the notes on Romans 12:8.
Romans 12:8
Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that
giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that
ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with
cheerfulness.
The commentary from Barnes Notes...
He that exhorteth
- This word properly denotes one who urges
to the practical duties of religion, in
distinction from one who teaches its
doctrines. One who presents the warnings and
the promises of God to excite men to the
discharge of their duty. It is clear that
there were persons who were recognized as
engaging especially in this duty, and who
were known by this appellation, as
distinguished from prophets and teachers.
How long this was continued, there is no
means of ascertaining; but it cannot be
doubted that it may still be expedient, in
many times and places, to have persons
designated to this work. In most churches
this duty is now blended with the other
functions of the ministry.
~Barnes Notes
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To doctrine - To
teaching - for so the word means; compare notes on
Romans 12:7.
Romans 12:7
Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he
that teacheth, on teaching;
Let us look at the commentary on teaching...
or he that
teacheth, on teaching - The gift of
prophesying or preaching is subdivided into
"teaching" and "exhorting"; the one belongs
to "teachers" or doctors, the other to
"pastors"; as the distinction is in
Ephesians 4:11, not that different officers
and offices are intended, but different
branches of the same office; and one man's
talent may lie more in the one, and another
man's in the other; and accordingly each
should in his preaching attend to the gift
which is most peculiar to him: if his gift
lies in teaching, let him constantly employ
himself in that with all sobriety and
"teaching" does not design an office in the
school, but in the church; it is not
teaching divinity as men teach logic,
rhetoric, and other arts and sciences, in
the schools; but an instructing of churches
and the members thereof in the doctrines of
the Gospel, in order to establish and build
them up in their most holy faith; it chiefly lies in a
doctrinal way of preaching, in opening,
explaining, and defending the doctrines of
Christ, as distinct from the practical part
of the ministry of the word, and the
administration of ordinances, in which the
pastor is employed as well as in this.
~John Gill
Quoted
verse:
Ephesians 4:11-12
11 And he gave some, apostles; and some,
prophets; and some, evangelists; and some,
pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the
work of the ministry, for the edifying of
the body of Christ:
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Now to the Adam Clarke for its commentary on the
phrase, "Give attendance to reading"...
Give attendance to reading
- Timothy could easily comprehend the
apostle’s meaning; but at present this is not so
easy. What books does the apostle mean? The books of
the Old Testament were probably what he intended;
these testified of Jesus, and by these he could
either convince or confound the Jews. But, whether
was the reading of these to be public or private?
Probably both. It was customary to read the law and
the prophets in the synagogue, and doubtless in the
assemblies of the Christians; after which there was
generally an exhortation founded upon the subject of
the prophecy. Hence the apostle says: Give
attendance to reading, to Exhortation, to Doctrine.
Timothy was therefore to be diligent in reading the
sacred writings at home, that he might be the better
qualified to read and expound them in the public
assemblies to the Christians, and to others who came
to these public meetings.
As to other books, there were not many at that time
that could be of much use to a Christian minister.
In those days the great business of the preacher was
to bring forward the grand facts of Christianity, to
prove these, and to show that all had happened
according to the prediction of the prophets; and
from these to show the work of God in the heart, and
the evidence of that work in a holy life.
At present the truth of God is not only to be
proclaimed, but defended; and many customs or
manners, and forms of speech, which are to us
obsolete, must be explained from the writings of the
ancients, and particularly from the works of those
who lived about the same times, or nearest to them,
and in the same or contiguous countries. This will
require the knowledge of those languages in which
those works have been composed, the chief of which
are Hebrew and Greek, the languages in which the
Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments have
been originally written.
Latin is certainly of the next consequence; a
language in which some of the most early comments
have been written; and it is worth the trouble of
being learned, were it only for the sake of the
works of St. Jerome, who translated and wrote a
commentary on the whole of the Scriptures; though in
many respects it is both erroneous and superficial.
Arabic and Syriac (sîr'ē-ăk')
may be added with great advantage: the latter being
in effect the language in which Christ and his
apostles spoke and preached in Judea; and the former
being radically the same with the Hebrew, and
preserving many of the roots of that language, the
derivatives of which often occur in the Hebrew
Bible, but the roots never.
~Adam Clarke
Now notice this from Robertson's Word Pictures...
Till I come (heōs
erchomai). “While I am coming” (present indicative
with heōs), not “till I come” (heōs elthō).
Give heed [give
attendance to] (proseche). Present active
imperative, supply ton noun, “keep on putting thy
mind on.”
The reading (tēi
anagnōsei). Old word from anaginōskō. Probably in
particular the public reading of the Scriptures
(Acts 13:15-see above),
though surely private reading is not to be excluded.
To exhortation (tēi
paraklēsei), to teaching (tēi didaskaliāi). Two
other public functions of the minister. Probably
Paul does not mean for the exhortation to precede
the instruction, but the reverse in actual public
work. Exhortation needs teaching to rest it upon, a
hint for preachers today.
~Robertson's Word Pictures
Let us look at a recap of tonight's lesson.
1] Paul's is writing a letter to Timothy. God is
writing a letter to us.
2] Paul tells Timothy, "While I am on my way to you,
Timothy, see to certain tasks." Christ is saying the
same to us.
3] Keep on putting thy mind on God's Word, His
concepts, His ways and His doctrine.
4] Give attendance to reading; uh, immerse yourself
into the Word of God.
5] As the commentary on Romans 12:8 says, constantly
urge yourself to practical duties of religion.
Exhort yourself.
6] Give yourself to doctrine. As we saw in the
commentary, "Give yourself to teaching." Timothy is
being exhorted to teach. Clearly you and I are to
give ourselves to that teaching. Doing so will
establish and build you up in this most holy faith.
---end---
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