1 Timothy 1:3-7, 18-20

The setting of this epistle is built around the affairs of the church at Ephesus. The Apostle Paul had besought Timothy to remain there and "charge [or enjoin] some that they teach no other doctrine.”
The Apostle Paul had spent considerable time at Ephesus, and there had been much blessing as the result of his labors. Then, when he wrote the epistle to them a few years later, as another has said, "his heart was full of the immensity of grace, and nothing in the state of the Ephesian Christians required any particular remarks adapted to that state.”
Now reports had reached him that caused him to give us the warnings found in this epistle. In this first epistle to Timothy, the Church is seen in order as to its outward form. There are certain trends of declension as shown in verse 3 and later. But the Church, or assembly, is looked at as being able to deal with these problems. Here we have instructions to the man of God, on how to behave or conduct himself within the house of God.
If we turn to Rev. 2 and the address to the church at Ephesus, which was given a few years later, we hear the Lord's comments on their declension. There seems to be still an outward form of order, but what is put forth or done does not spring from that motive which He can value—love. They had left their first love.