1 Timothy 3

Or, Not ready to quarrel, and offer wrong, or one in wine. Or, one musty come to the faith.

— sober.] Governing his passions and appetites. Burkitt.

— given to hospitality.] Or the entertainment of strangers. Dr. Whitby. As there were then in the Eastern countries few houses of publick entertainment, hospitality was a virtue more peculiarly seasonable and necessary than among us; so far at least as it related to the accommodation of entire strangers on their travels. Dr. Doddridge.

1 Timothy 3:6

6. Not a novice, &c.] Not one that is but newly planted or instructed in the faith, lest so great a dignity, so suddenly bestowed on him, may tempt him so pride and vanity, and so bring the same ruin on him which fell upon the devil; who was tempted in like manner by that glorious condition wherein he was created, and for his pride was cast out of heaven into the torments of hell, 2 Pet. ii. 4. Dr. Hammond.

1 Timothy 3:7

7. — then which are without;] Namely, without the church; unbelieving Jews or Gentiles, with whom he formerly conversed. Burkitt.

— the snare of the devil.] That is, saith Theodoret, lest, being tempted by Satan, he relapse into his former sins; or, lest being reproached by those, whom he is set over, for his former life, he be tempted by Satan to apostasy, chap. v. 15. Dr. Whitby.

1 Timothy 3:8

8. Likewise must the deacons be grave.] Because the higher officers of the church were usually chosen out of the inferior, therefore also the qualifications of them all are for the greatest part the same both for bishops and deacons, both in this epistle, and in the epistle to Titus. For the clergy were to be educated in that holy discipline. Bp. Fell.

1 Timothy 3:9

9. A bishop then must be blameless.] A man of an inoffensive life. Bp. Hall. A person free from scandal, without any just ground of blame. Burkitt.

— the husband of one wife.] One that is not tainted with the common blemish of polygamy; that is, of having more wives at once than one, or, after an unjust repudiation of one wife, marrying another. Bp. Hall.

Polygamy had been permitted to the Jews by Moses, Deut. xxi. 15, on account of the hardness of their hearts; and it was generally practised by the Eastern nations as a matter of indifference. It was therefore to be corrected mildly and gradually, by example, rather than by express precept. And seeing reformation must begin somewhere, it was certainly fit to begin with the ministers of religion, that through the influence of their example the evil might be remedied by disuse, without occasioning those domestick troubles and easseless divorces, which must necessarily have ensued, if, by an express injunction of the Apostles, husbands, immediately on their becoming Christians, had been obliged to put away all their wives except one. Accordingly the example of the clergy, and of such of the brethren as were not married at their conversion, or who were married only to one woman, supported by the precepts of the Gospel, which enjoined temperance in the use of sensual pleasure, had in the fourth century effectually rooted out polygamy from the church. Dr. Macknight.

Among all the rules or qualifications of bishops or priests that are given in the New Testament, particularly in the epistles to Timothy and Titus, there is not a word of the celibacy of the clergy, but plain intimations to the contrary, that they were and might be married. That of being “the husband of one wife” is repeated in different places: mention is also made of the “wives” and “children” of the clergy, rules being given concerning them: and not a word is so much as insinuated, importing that this was only tolerated in the beginnings of Christianity, but that it was afterwards to cease. On the contrary, the “forbidding to marry” is given as a character of the apostasy of the latter times, 1 Tim. iv. 3. We find that Aquila, when he went about preaching the Gospel, was not only married to Priscilla, but that he carried her about with him: not to insist upon that privilege, which St. Paul thought he might have claimed, of carrying about with him “a sister, a wife, as well as other Apostles,” 1 Cor. ix. 5. Thus the doctrine of our own, in common with other Protestant churches, seems

9. Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.] Such as, being orthodox in point of faith, live pure and Christian lives according to the doctrine and directions thereof. Dr. Hammond. For when a good conscience is once put away, the loss of faith will follow, chap. i. 19. Dr. Whitby.

1 Timothy 3:10

10. And let these also first be proved.] By an examination of the soundness of their faith, and the purity of their former lives. Dr. Whitby.

1 Timothy 3:11

11. Even so must their wives be grave.] In the original it runs, ‘Let the women:’ by which are meant, either the deacons’ wives, or the deaconesses, who were appointed to take care of the poor women, as the deacons were of the men. Of whichever it be understood, the qualifications are very excellent and becoming. Burkitt.

1 Timothy 3:13

13. For they that have used the office of a deacon well &c.] For though the office of a deacon be an inferior degree, yet it is a step to a higher; and they who behave themselves well in it, are fit to be preferred to the higher offices in the church; and do by this means receive an increase of courage and holy boldness in the profession of the Gospel of Christ. Dr. Hammond, Bp. Hall.

1 Timothy 3:15

15. — how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, &c.] How thou oughtest to carry thyself in this great family of God, the church of the living God; which is, in respect of men, the pillar and ground of truth; so that it sustaineth and beareth up, by a faithful profession and maintenance thereof, the true religion of God. Bp. Hall.

Some difficulties have been raised respecting the precise meaning of the terms, “the pillar and ground of the truth.” The most obvious application of them to the universal church, administered under an external and visible form of government, best accords with the context, and is liable to no solid objections. The words immediately follow a series of instructions to Timothy, how he in the office of a bishop, and others in the inferior orders of the ministry, were to conduct themselves in the house of God, “which,” adds the Apostle, “is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” His design is evidently to give additional weight to those preceding instructions, by suggesting the high and important purpose for which the church was instituted: and thence to shew how necessary it was that they, who were ordained to the sacred office of her ministers, should “take heed unto themselves and unto the doctrine,” chap. vr. 16. In no other way can the passage be so easily and consistently explained. Dr. Van Milder.

1 Timothy 3:16

16. And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: &c.] As if he had said, The sum whereof, namely, of the true religion, is that undoubtedly great and wonderful mystery of godliness; God manifested in the flesh, &c. Bp. Hall.

St. Paul, unfolding the mystery of godliness, hath here delivered six propositions together, and the subject of all and each of them is God. And this God, which is the subject of all these propositions, must be understood of Christ, because of Him each one is true, and all are so of none but Him. He was the Word, which was God, and was made flesh; and consequently “God manifested in the flesh.” Upon Him the Spirit descended at His baptism, and after His ascension was poured upon His Apostles, ratifying His commission, and confirming the doctrine which they received from Him: wherefore He was “God justified in the Spirit.” His nativity the angels celebrated; in the discharge of His office they ministered unto Him; at His resurrection and ascension they were present, always ready to confess and adore Him: He was therefore “God seen of angels.” The Apostles preached unto all nations, and He whom they preached was Jesus Christ. The

Father separated St. Paul from his mother’s womb, and called him by His grace to reveal His Son unto him, that he might preach Him among the heathen: therefore He was “God preached unto the Gentiles.” John the Baptist spake unto the people, that they should believe on Him which should come after him; that is, on Christ Jesus. We have believed in Jesus Christ, saith St. Paul; who so taught the jailer trembling at his feet, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” He therefore was “God believed on in the world.” When he had been forty days on earth after His resurrection, He was taken visibly up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Father: wherefore He was “God received up into glory.” And thus all these six propositions, according to the plain and familiar language of the Scriptures, are infallibly true of Christ, and so of God, as He is taken by St. John, when He speaks those words, “the Word was God.” Bp. Pearson.

The Word came down from heaven to earth for us men and for our salvation, to the end that as body and soul are one man, so God and man might be one Christ, who was to live and to die for us; to suffer, and to save; as man to suffer, and as God to save. He could not have suffered, unless He had been man; He could not have saved by suffering, unless He had been God, “God manifest in the flesh.” By this amazing and most beneficial union, the law was kept, the ransom paid, sin done away, Satan overcome, death swallowed up, immortality brought to light, man redeemed, hell confounded, earth made to rejoice, and heaven peopled with glorified saints. Bp. Horne.

— God was manifest in the flesh.] When the scheme of man’s redemption was laid, it was not thought that an Apostle, a Prophet, a man like ourselves, no nor an Angel or Archangel, should be the instrument of it; but that the Word of God, the Son of God, may God Himself, (as He is elsewhere called,) should take this momentous office upon Him; that Heaven should stoop to earth, and that the Divine Nature should condescend to leave the mansions of glory, enshrine itself in a fleshly tabernacle, should be made man, should dwell among us, and die for us. Bp. Hurd.

— justified in the Spirit.] That is, by or through the Spirit, whose ministry was seen in directing the ancient Prophets to foretell the Redeemer’s coming, in accomplishing the miraculous conception, in assisting at His baptism, in conducting Him through His temptation, in giving Him the power to cast out devils, which is expressly said to be “by the Spirit of God;” in raising Him from the dead, by which event He was declared “the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness;” in descending on His disciples on the day of Pentecost; in bestowing diversities of miraculous gifts upon them for the confirmation of His doctrine, and the propagation of it through the world; and lastly, in sanctifying and illuminating the faithful of all times and places. Bp. Hurd.