I have been studying the Books of Timothy and wow, this guy is all in! He doesn’t hold back, and when he commits to something, he does it with all his heart. In these books we get to hear about what Timothy is battling with and we will have a chat about that in our next Dive, but when I read the Books of Timothy and about the life of Timothy, I am ashamed of how laid-back I am when it comes to my Christianity.

The Book of 1 Timothy contains some heavy-hitting content by Paul; arguably the most enduring part of this corpus (body of work) are Paul’s comments in Chapter 2. The Apostle Paul is not afraid to speak to these matters of doctrine and gender, in particular, the role of women and men in practical ecclesiology (the practices within church communities). Therefore, we in turn should not be afraid to engage with this ancient text.

The Books of 1 & 2 Timothy tell us more about Timothy than he probably wanted to share with the whole world; imagine a letter from your pastor being put on display for all to read… Now that’s embarrassing!

The notion of sound doctrine or correct teaching, as this week’s Deep Dive endeavours to convey, is an issue that is dear to Paul’s heart, and lies at the center of the Christian life. The Books of Timothy and all their socio-historical context feed into this one idea: whatever the Church believes, it lives. Within Timothy’s commission in the opening chapter, the word ‘didaskalos’ appears.

This is it; after 13 letters, beatings, stoning, shipwrecks, walking over thousands of miles, churches planted, thousands of messages preached, whole regions and areas impacted for Christ, Gentiles included, the gospel protected, a life lived to the fullness for the gospel of God, Paul is done and he is writing his final letter to his son of the faith, Timothy.

2 Timothy is such an intriguing book to read through and study. Although it’s intention was to encourage and guide Timothy as he led the church at Ephesus, there is so much to be gained from this book as readers today. It is just a small letter that consists of 4 chapters and may at times seem as though it is jumping from one topic to another.