False Teaching, Opportunists, and Chaos

What did Hymenaeus and Alexander do wrong? In 1 Timothy 1:20, the author of this letter specifically names these two as people who have been turned over to Satan. That sounds extremely harsh. It probably refers to them being excommunicated, which is still bad but doesn’t appear quite as dramatic. But what did they do to get in so much trouble?

The letter doesn’t elaborate specifically on their problems, but if you read 1 Timothy in its entirety, you will get the impression that the community receiving this was in chaos. The author of this letter addresses several problems—even the author himself may be a bit of a problem, but we can come back to that.

The first problem identified is people teaching different doctrines (1:3). While the “endless genealogies” (1:4) may be referring to Gnostic teachings about several levels of divine beings, there also appears to be a different teaching on “the law” that the author disagrees with (1:7). The concern with false teachings goes dormant for a couple chapters until it emerges again in chapter 4. Apparently some are teaching that people shouldn’t get married and are demanding that people refrain from certain foods. It isn’t clear whether this is related to the earlier two false teachings or if there are actually three different false teachings present in the community that the author needs to address. Finally, in chapter 6 we get a general dismissal of false teachers, even claiming that they are “imagining that godliness is a means of gain,” which we can probably assume means that they are charlatans taking advantage of believers. So, were Hymenaeus and Alexander spreading false teachings? Perhaps, but there are other problems in 1 Timothy.

The end of chapter 2 and most of chapter 3 engages with what the Christian community should look like. The author forbids women from speaking in church and demands that they dress modestly, then goes on to establish qualifications for bishops and deacons. While this may seem unnecessarily restrictive, and frankly sexist, this may indicate the problems the community faced. There wasn’t clarity about who could fill these roles. If no one knows what makes a good leader, bad leaders can slip through the cracks and hurt people. I don’t want to defend the instructions about women here, but this does give us a glimpse into the world as the author saw it. The fact that this needed to be included meant that there was a strong disagreement on this issue. The author is worried that the community will unravel as numerous questions are answered by even more numerous and widely varied responses. They need clear rules and structure, so they don’t fall apart. In addition to people teaching false doctrine, the community was faced with the challenge of not even knowing who was qualified to talk about correct doctrine.

We could probably create a long list of problems this community faced, but there is one other issue that gets repeated throughout the letter. The first hint we get of this issue is when the author says that Bishops should not be lovers of money (3:3). Then in chapter six we get one of the most famous quotes about money in the Bible. “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (6:10). In fact, chapter 6 is filled with encouragements to be content with what one has and not strive for riches, and aside from personal instructions to the recipient, the letter ends on this note. The author is firmly opposed to the arrogance of the rich. They should be generous and humble, so that they may have a treasure for themselves in heaven.

From all of this, we may get a clearer sense of the story behind this letter. It sounds like the community was uncertain about who should lead. Different people had different understandings of how to discern what was or was not sound doctrine. As a result of this disorder, false teachers worked their way into positions of power in the community and used it for their own personal gain. They taught things that were interesting or comforting, so that people would give them more money. This led some faction to oppose the very notion of paying leaders, which the author also disagrees with (5:17-18). The author is writing to a community in chaos, taken in by cash-grabbing false teachers. Of course, this explanation isn’t certain. It’s a hypothetical scenario that seems to fit the data, but other explanations could work as well. But there is one final twist.

You may notice that I have been referring to the person who wrote this letter as “the author” rather than “Paul” even though the first verse identifies the author as Paul. Unfortunately, despite the author’s insistence, most scholars have doubted the veracity of this claim for generations. The linguistic style is very different from the letters of Paul that are considered authentic. Furthermore, some theological concepts are treated very differently. Consider what the author says about the law. “It is good, if one uses it legitimately,” (1:8) and “the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient.” Compare that to Romans 3:23, where Paul is very clear that no one is innocent, or Galatians 3:10, where Paul says that all who rely on the Law are under a curse. Of course, these ideas could be reconciled, but it doesn’t sound like Paul when you read them together. Furthermore, one of the false teachings that the author is concerned with is opposition to marriage (4:3), but Paul encourages people to not get married (1 Corinthians 7:8). Again, these could be reconciled if your goal is to reconcile them, but at face value they seem opposed to each other. These are only two examples, but scholars have identified more. There is good reason to believe that this person was not Paul.

If that is the case, the author’s insistence on being Paul is almost disturbing. The author explicitly says that they are not lying (2:7), which may be a fine example of protesting too much. They even include something that is supposed to be private advice to Timothy (5:23) for the sake of selling the deception. That brings a powerful measure of irony to the entire letter. The author is opposing false teachers, while falsely claiming to be Paul. The author is concerned with proper church order and discerning who is worthy of paying attention to, while lying about their own identity. 

If this is all true, it is difficult to find some encouraging lesson to walk away from this meta-narrative with. However, there is perhaps some hope for us. The author here may have been wrong to deceive people, but they were doing it for what they saw as a good purpose. The church was in chaos. Someone needed to step in and give it a sense of order. Many mistakes were made in this process, even the composition of the letter itself may have been an error. However, that reflects our reality today as well. The power and presence of sin is all around us. Sometimes there is no path forward that is free from sin. We can’t be perfect. Even when we try to do good, some people will suffer for it. We find ourselves deciding between the lesser of two evils frequently. The encouraging news is that even if speaking through deception, the author of 1 Timothy took action. Fear of making a mistake or committing a sin can reduce our ability to serve our neighbor. We can take courage that God has saved us from our sins, even the sins we commit in attempting to serve. While we should always strive to serve ethically in all cases, we can rest assured that we need not fear the possibility of making mistakes. God has already saved us. We can walk forward through the valley of sin, stumbling and falling, but always being raised again to keep following the light.