Final Exhortation to Timothy

The preceding paragraph, with its final indictment of the false teachers, was the third such exposure of these teachers in 1 Timothy (cf. 1:3–7, 18–20 and 4:1–5). In the two preceding instances, the direct word against the false teachers was accompanied by a corresponding personal word to Timothy to resist them and to be their antithesis in the church in Ephesus (cf. 1:3, 18–19; 4:6–16). In each case that charge included an appeal to Timothy’s spiritual beginnings (1:18; 4:14). That pattern is what we meet again in this paragraph. Even though Paul has yet a further word on riches, to the already wealthy (vv. 17–19), the final exposure and indictment of the false teachers calls forth an immediate final exhortation to Timothy.

Even though it is not altogether clear…