1 Timothy

First Timothy is a veteran apostle's counsel to a young delegate left in charge of the influential church at Ephesus. False teachers were trading in myths, genealogies, and ascetic rules, and Paul charges Timothy to silence them with sound doctrine and a pure heart. The letter is intensely practical: how the church should pray, who may serve as overseers and deacons, how to honor widows and elders, how to regard wealth. Woven through the instructions are gleaming fragments of early confession, above all the trustworthy saying that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom Paul calls himself foremost.