The Peculiarity of the Pastoral Epistles. The loss we have sustained by the sudden breaking off of Luke’s great historical work at the end of its Second Book is in part offset by the possession of the three letters which have for the last century been known, not inappropriately, as ‘the Pastoral Epistles.’ These letters, of course, do not supply a connected history of the Church or of the labours of Paul, after the release from his imprisonment at Rome which is implied in the closing verses of Acts. An attempt to construct from them even so simple a thing as a chronicle of Paul’s movements during the last year of his life brings keenly home to us our dependence on the Book of Acts for orderly knowledge of the course of events in the Apostolic age. But they throw a singularly searching light on a point of time four or five years after Paul’s release, from which we may learn with great distinctness the condition of the churches in those closing years of the Apostle’s oversight of them and the provision he was making for their permanent life in the world.
The brightness of the illumination which these epistles cast upon the conditions obtaining at the time when they were written is largely due to the peculiarity that has given them their current designation of ‘Pastoral Epistles.’ They are not, like the majority of Paul’s epistles, public letters addressed to congregations established by him. Nor are they, like the single precious example of his private correspondence that has come down to us—the exquisite letter to Philemon—personal letters addressed to private individuals. They are rather official letters, addressed by Paul the missionary to subordinates in his great enterprise, instructing them for the prosecution of their work. They thus give us an inside view of the plans and purposes, methods and arrangements, points of sight and outlook of the band of men who were regenerating the world. And this view is made the more complete and instructive because the Apostle, though writing with authority and obviously out of a habit of command, uses little formality in his address to his helpers in the Gospel, and speaks to them with an affectionate familiarity which affords a charming glimpse of the loving intimacy that reigned between them and him.
The Conditions out of which these Letters naturally sprang is revealed to us by the Book of Acts and the earlier epistles of Paul. From the very beginning of his missionary activities we see the Apostle gathering about him a company of fellow-workers, of whose labours he disposed with the utmost freedom, now retaining them at his side, now despatching them hither and thither with messages of more or less importance, or on missions of longer or shorter duration. It was thus that he sustained the care of all the churches, and kept, through his lieutenants, a directing hand upon the whole organism of the Church. We conceive far too lowly of Paul if we think of him as a wandering evangelist drifting about through the wide stretches of the Roman empire, a mere voice in this vast wilderness summoning men to repentance. He was rather a great general who had planned his campaign with consummate skill, who unerringly seized on the strategic points, and who never lost hold of a single post once occupied, but was ever consolidating as well as extending his conquests. Himself in a true sense the head of a new organism, he kept in contact with its remotest members by means of a multitude of helpers continually passing to and fro in obedience to his orders, and acting for him in every quarter of the rapidly-growing and compacting Church.
The names of a goodly number of these ‘companions,’ or, as they would better be called, ‘assistants’ of the Apostle, are preserved incidentally in the course of his epistles, as well as in the narrative of Acts. Among them an honourable place is held by the two to whom these unique ‘Pastoral Epistles’ are addressed. Titus, to be sure, does not happen to be mentioned in Acts; but he appears in the earlier epistles as one of Paul’s most trusted associates, about whose person, indeed, was fought out one of the severest conflicts of the Apostle’s life, and to whose discretion was committed one of the most delicate of the many delicate tasks that emerged in Paul’s government of the Churches. Timothy’s, on the other hand, is a frequently-occurring name, whether in Acts or in the epistles. Now he is found journeying or preaching with the Apostle; now he is left behind in Macedonia to complete the work there begun; now and again he is sent back thither or despatched to some other region on an errand of importance; and he accompanies Paul in his imprisonment at Rome.
In these ‘Pastoral Epistles’ these fellow-soldiers in the Apostle’s work are found still prosecuting precisely the same kind of work, under precisely the same general conditions, as in the earlier period described in Acts and illustrated in the earlier epistles. Paul had recently made a tour in the island of Crete, and not having been able to stay to put in order the very disorganised Churches there, he had left Titus behind to correct their obvious deficiencies and to organise them for their permanent work; thus doing in Crete, through the instrumentality of Titus, precisely what he and Barnabas had done in Asia Minor at the close of their first missionary journey. Passing over to Asia he had visited Ephesus, and had found it necessary to leave Timothy in that seething centre of teeming life to resist the evil influences that were rapidly growing up in the Church established there. To him he shortly afterwards wrote back in deep anxiety, instructing him as to his course of action should Paul not find it possible to return as soon as he hoped. To Titus he wrote similar instructions, providing at the same time for his release from the Cretan work by sending to him a substitute, on the arrival of whom he is directed to rejoin his chief at Nicopolis. Then came the Apostle’s apparently sudden arrest, and the consequent entire re-arrangement of the working forces under his command. A new letter was sent to Timothy from the prison in Rome, from which we learn incidentally some of the provisions the indefatigable missionary was making even from his cell for the care of the Churches. Titus had, as had been arranged for, left Crete, and was now at work in Dalmatia. Another of the Apostle’s helpers had been sent to Gaul—an indication, perhaps, that he had, after his release from his former imprisonment, taken opportunity from his presence in the West to fulfil his long-cherished desire to carry the Gospel to Spain and the intervening lands. Others had been stationed at various places. One, at least, moved by fear, had left him contrary to his wish, choosing to prosecute the common work in a safer locality. The result was that Paul was almost alone in Rome: a single one of his coadjutors only was with him, and the burden of the work was great. Accordingly, Timothy is summoned to his side and instructed to bring Mark with him, as well as certain books and clothing which the Apostle thinks himself likely to need. To facilitate his coming he is informed that Tychicus has been sent to take his place at Ephesus. We could not have a more vivid picture of the Apostolic band at its work. We see Paul plainly before us, surrounded by his company of trained assistants, holding the whole body of the Churches under his immediate control and directing the entire campaign to its minutest detail.