Westminster Presbyterian Church, Alexandria Va

The texts of 1 and 2 Timothy reflect a time when Christianity had evolved from being a movement to being an organization: with standards and traditions and rules and regulations and offices and office-holders. In addition to being rather settled and mundane, they contain some very troubling passages. The people of these Pastoral Epistles, who lived a hundred or a hundred and fifty years after the death and resurrection of Christ, are actually closer to us in experience than those who lived in his immediate aftermath. We are settled into our life and our world, trying to make sense of events that happened eons ago, events that we have been told hold the key to life here and life in the world to come. And some issues we face – in daily life, in politics, in work – are not much different than the issues they faced. If we can work our way through these difficult passages in scripture – and in the way those passages have been used in church and society – we may be