I want to take a moment to recap the work we (myself and guest bloggers) have done on the blog and explain my plans for the future. I have shown that inmillennialism1 (my prophetic model) arises from an exposition of the Olivet Discourse and 1 Corinthians 15 (here). My follow-on projects applied this model to books in the Bible. So far, I’ve covered Matthew, Mark, Acts, 1 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Hebrews, James, and Revelation. A Questions and Answers format allowed me to address various topics of interest. Other subjects were themes for guest bloggers: Baptists and Optimism, The New Heavens and Earth, etc. A few miscellaneous posts complete the list.
I plan to continue applying inmillennialism to the New Testament books. I will follow the chronological order in which they were written per John A. T. Robinson.2 So, the next book to review is Paul’s first letter to Timothy, composed in the autumn of AD 55.3
Commentators classify this work as a pastoral epistle because it furnishes “worth-while directions for pastors.”4 Because of this purpose, it contains few direct references to prophecy. However, Paul and Timothy were preparing their churches for life in the soon-coming messianic (kingdom) age in which we now live. So, prophetic themes lie just beneath the surface of Paul’s reasoning, and he occasionally makes them explicit.
For example, in his first paragraph, the Apostle exhorts his protégée to oppose “fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith” (1 Tim 1:4). These two hindrances to messianic-age life played significant roles in the Mosaic age that was passing away. John Gill says they were
Jewish fables, Tit. 1:14 the traditions of the elders; any thing that was not true; or if it was, yet idle, vain, trifling, and unprofitable: and endless genealogies … both the public and private genealogies of the Jews, which they kept to shew of what tribe they were, or to prove themselves priests and Levites, and the like; of which there was no end, and which often produced questions and debates. By reason of their captivities and dispersions, they were much at a loss to distinguish their tribes and families. Some care Ezra took of this matter, when the Jews returned from the Babylonish captivity. It is said, that … “ten genealogies (or ten sorts of persons genealogized) came out of Babylon; priests, Levites, Israelites, profane (or unfit for the priesthood, though they sprung from priests) proselytes, freemen (servants made free), bastards, Nethinim or Gibeonites, such whose father was not known, and those that were took up in the streets.” These Ezra brought up to Jerusalem thus distinguished, that they might be taken care of by the sanhedrim, and kept distinct; but these would often intermix and cause disputes; and sometimes these mixtures were connived at through partiality or fear. “Says R. Jochanan, by the temple, it is in our hands, (the gloss adds, to discover the illegitimate families of the land of Israel,) but what shall I do? for lo, the great men of this age [i.e., the Mosaic age—MR] are hid (or impure): in which he agreed with R. Isaac, who said, the family that is hid, let it be hid. Abai also saith, we have learned this by tradition, there was a family of the house of Tzeriphah, beyond Jordan, and a son of Zion, (a famous man, a man of authority,) set it at a distance, (proclaimed it illegitimate,) by his authority. And again, there was another, and he made it near (or pronounced it right) by his power.—Again, there was another family, and the wise men would not discover it.” By which we may see what management there was in these things, and what a foundation was laid for questions and debates.… R. Benjamin says of some Jews in his time, who were the Rechabites, and were very numerous … had a prince over them of the house of David; and, adds he, they have a genealogical book, … and extracts of questions, which I should be tempted to render clusters of questions, which are with the head of the captivity; and this comes very near to what our apostle here says. And when it is observed, that Herod, that he might hide the meanness of his descent and birth, burnt all the genealogical writings in the public archives, it must be still more difficult to fix the true account of things; and for the loss of the genealogical book, the public one, the Jews express a very great concern: for they say, that “from the time the book of genealogies was hid, the strength of the wise men was weakened, and the light of their eyes grew dim.…” So intricate an affair, and such an endless business was this. And this affair of genealogies might be now the more the subject of inquiry among judaizing Christians, since there was, and still is, an expectation among the Jews, that in the times of the Messiah these things will be set aright. Says Maimonides, “in the days of the King Messiah, when his kingdom shall be settled, and all Israel shall be gathered to him … they shall all of them be genealogized, according to his word, by the Holy Ghost, as it is said, Mal. 3:3 he shall purify the sons of Levi, and say, this is a genealogized priest, and this is a genealogized Levite; and shall drive them away who are not genealogized (or related) to Israel, as it is said, Ezra 2:63. Hence you learn, that by the Holy Ghost they shall be genealogized, those that arrogate and proclaim their genealogy; and he shall not genealogize Israel but by their tribes, for he shall make known that this is of such a tribe, and this is of such a tribe, but he shall not say concerning such an one he is a bastard, and this is a servant; for so shall it be, that the family that is obscure shall be obscure.” Or else the genealogical account of their traditions may be meant, which they trace from Moses to Joshua, from Joshua to the elders, from the elders to the prophets, from the prophets to the men of the great synagogue, and from one doctor to another, which to pursue is endless, tedious, and tiresome: which minister questions; as the traditions of the elders, and the genealogical account of them did; the Talmud is full of the questions, debates, contentions, and decisions of the doctors about them.5
Paul contrasts this wrangling over fables and genealogies to life in the new messianic age, which would be in “godly edification which is in faith” (1 Tim 1:4b). Paul sometimes equates “faith” to the kingdom age, as when he says,
Before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. (Gal 3:23–25)
Gill says that in some copies of this letter, verse 4 ends with these words: rather than godly edifying in “the dispensation of God, which is in faith.”6
In this soon-coming (for Paul) faith-dispensation, genealogies would be useless. In it, people “become the sons of God” by being “born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13). For us, the all-important spiritual and eternal genealogy reaches back only one generation—to God Himself. The Messiah has “genealogized” all His people and is gathering them to himself.
Conclusion
Paul is not writing to Timothy about prophetic topics, but his pastoral concern is for churches that would soon experience the messianic-to-Mosaic age transition. Jesus had said it would occur when the temple fell in his generation (Matt 24:1–3, 34). We now know that event happened in AD 70, about fifteen years after the Apostle wrote this letter. This context generated prophetic undertones, one of which was the need to abandon Jewish fables and genealogies, together with the questions they generated.
I hope to show other prophetic themes embedded in this pastoral letter in future posts.
Footnotes
- For a full-length account of this prophetic model, see Michael A. Rogers, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days (Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing House, 2020). It is available here. For a summary, see the free PDF here.
- John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Pub, 2000), 352.
- The image in this post is Timothy with his Grandmother Lois by Rembrandt (1650 or 1654), but experts have challenged both the artist attribution and the theme. This file (here) is in the public domain (PD-US).
- William Hendriksen, Exposition of the Pastoral Epistles, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1957), 4.
- John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 9 vols. (1809–10; repr., Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 9:272.
- Gill, “Exposition,” 9:272.
