1 Timothy 4:13

Till I come,.... To Ephesus; where the apostle hoped to be shortly, but was prevented; he afterwards came to Miletus, and sent for the elders of Ephesus thither, when he took his final leave of them.

Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Till I come - when Timothy's commission would be superseded by the presence of the apostle (1 Timothy 1:3; 1 Timothy 3:14).

Till I come, and after that time too, but then I will further instruct thee. Give attendance to reading; be diligent in reading the Holy Scriptures, both for thine own instruction and for the edification of others. To exhortation; to exhort others to their duty there described, or to comfort others from arguments fetched thence. To doctrine; to instruct others in the principles of religion.

13 Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Ver. 13. Give attendance to reading] First to reading, and then to exhortation; bringing as a good scribe, out of a good treasure, new and old. Father Latimer, notwithstanding both his years and constant pains in preaching, was at his book most diligently about two of the clock every morning. A rare example.

(13) Till I come, give attendance to reading.—The words evidently imply a hope, perhaps even an expectation, on the part of St. Paul, that he would one day be enabled once more to visit the Church of Ephesus; but so long as that absence lasted, Timothy was to attend carefully to three special points in the public ministry in which he was, in the Apostle’s absence, the chief officer. The “reading” was that public reading of Scripture in the congregation—a practice borrowed from the synagogue service, when publicly the Law and the Prophets were read to the people assembled. (See Luke 4:16; Acts 13:15.) In these early Christian assemblies, about the year 66-67, the question arises, Were any Scriptures read in public besides the books of the Old Testament? No certain reply can be given: it is, however, probable, even at this very early date, that one at least of the older Gospels (probably St. Mark) was already known and used in the Christian churches, and read along with the Scriptures of the old covenant. That the reading of the “Gospels” very soon became a part of the regular service in the congregations of Christians is evident from the words of Justin Martyr, Apologia, i. 67, written in the first half of the first century. To exhortation, to doctrine.—These both most probably refer to the public ministry in the congregation. The first, “exhortation,” particularly applies to the feelings. The reading of the Scriptures must be followed by an earnest practical application of their teaching to the affairs of that life in the midst of which the Christian listener was living. The word “doctrine” suggests a public teaching directed rather to the understanding of the hearers. The idea of exposition, or even of dogmatic teaching, seems here included.

Verse 13. 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 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. The works of various scholars prove of how much consequence even the writings of heathen authors, chiefly those of Greece and Italy, are to the illustration of the sacred writings. And he who is best acquainted with the sacred records will avail himself of such helps, with gratitude both to God and man.

13. Till I come] The present indic, (instead of future indic. or aorist subjunctive) is found Luke 19:13, ‘trade ye herewith till I come;’ John 21:22, ‘if I will that he tarry till I come.’ The right reading in the former passage, dative of relative with preposition (instead of conjunction), shews how the usage has come; ‘during the time in which I am on my way,’ ‘whilst I am a-coming.’to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine] The ‘public reading’ as in the other two places where the noun occurs, Acts 13:15, ‘after the reading of the law;’ 2 Corinthians 3:14 ‘at the reading of the old covenant;’ and similarly ‘public exhortation’ as in the same verse of the Acts, Acts 13:15, ‘if ye have any word of exhortation,’ cf. also Acts 15:31-32; and similarly public teaching,’ A.V. ‘doctrine’ in its old sense; cf. Romans 12:7-8, where ‘teaching’ and ‘exhorting’ are joined; ‘he that teacheth, to his teaching, or he that exhorteth, to his exhorting;’ the three parts of the public ‘ministry of the Word,’ reading, expounding, enforcing. The Bishop’s charge in the Ordering of Priests in our Prayer-Book clearly quotes the verse in this sense, ‘with doctrine and exhortation taken out of the Holy Scriptures; and with a life agreeable to the same.’

Till I come; - notes, 1 Timothy 3:14-15. Give attendance to reading - The word here used may refer either to public or to private reading; see Acts 13:15; 2 Corinthians 3:14; compare Esdr. 9:48.

13. Till I come—The Greek present indicative implies here a confident expectation. But when Paul came, what then? To reading… exhortation… doctrine—That is, teaching. All three appear to be named as public exercises.