1 Timothy 4:13

Contextual Overview

⁶ Tell this to the brothers and sisters there. This will show that you are a good servant of Christ Jesus. You will show that you are made strong by the words of faith and good teaching you have followed. ⁶ If you put these instructions before the brethren, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the words of the faith and of the good doctrine which you have followed. ⁶ Yf thou shalt put the brethren in remembraunce of these thynges thou shalt be a good minister of Iesu Christ which hast bene norisshed vp in the wordes of the fayth and good doctryne which doctryne thou hast continually followed. ⁶ If you instruct the brothers of these things, you will be a good servant of Messiah Yeshua, nourished in the words of the faith, and of the good doctrine which you have followed. ⁶ In pointing out these things to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the good doctrine which you have been following. ⁶ By telling these things to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus. You will be made strong by the words of the faith and the good teaching which you have been following. ⁶ If you put the brothers in mind of these things, you shall be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished in the words of the faith, and of the good doctrine which you have followed [until now]: ⁶ If thou shalt put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou wilt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished by the words of faith and of good doctrine, to which thou hast attained. ⁶ If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. ⁶ If you instruct the brothers of these things, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished in the words of the faith, and of the good doctrine which you have followed.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

I come: 1 Timothy 3:14, 1 Timothy 3:15

to reading: Deuteronomy 17:19, Joshua 1:8, Psalms 1:2, Psalms 1:3, Psalms 119:97-104, Proverbs 2:4, Proverbs 2:5, Matthew 13:51, Matthew 13:52, John 5:39, Acts 6:4, Acts 17:11, 2 Timothy 2:15-17

to exhortation: Romans 12:8, 1 Corinthians 14:3, Titus 2:15

to doctrine: 1 Timothy 4:6, 1 Timothy 4:16, 1 Corinthians 14:6, 1 Corinthians 14:26, 2 Timothy 4:2

Reciprocal: Numbers 1:53 - shall pitch Daniel 9:2 - understood 2 Timothy 3:10 - my

Cross-References

Job 15:22
They dare not go out into the darkness for fear they will be murdered.

Job 15:22
He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword:

Job 15:22
He does not believe that he shall return out of darkness, And he is destined for the sword.

Job 15:22
Evil people give up trying to escape from the darkness; it has been decided that they will die by the sword.

Job 15:22
He does not expect to escape from darkness; he is marked for the sword;

Job 15:22
He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for by the sword.

Job 15:22
He doesn't believe that he shall return out of darkness, He is waited for by the sword.

Job 15:22
"He does not believe that he will return out of the darkness [for fear of being murdered], And he is destined for the sword [of God's vengeance].

Job 15:22
He does not believe that he will return out of darkness, and he is marked for the sword.

Job 15:22
He bileueth not that he may turne ayen fro derknessis to liyt; and biholdith aboute on ech side a swerd.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Till I come,.... To Ephesus; where the apostle hoped to be shortly, but was prevented; he afterwards came to Miletus, and sent for the elders of Ephesus thither, when he took his final leave of them. He mentions this circumstance, not as if Timothy was to attend to the following things no longer, but to quicken him to an attendance to them from the consideration of his being shortly with him.

Give attendance to reading; that is, of the Scriptures, which the Jews call מקרא, "reading". l

"Says R. Tanchum Bar Chanilai, for ever let a man divide his years or life into three parts; one third (let him spend) in the Mikra, (the Scriptures, and the reading of them,) another third in the Misna, and the other third in the Talmud.''

And this is to be understood, not of the reading of the Scriptures in public, for the advantage of others, a custom which obtained in the Jewish synagogues; see Acts 13:15 but in private, for his own use and service, that he might be more perfect, and more thoroughly furnished to the work and office to which he was called; for the Scriptures are the fund of spiritual knowledge, as well as the test and standard of doctrine, out of which all must be fetched, and by which it must be tried; and if Timothy, who had known the Scriptures from a child, had been trained up in them, and was always conversant with them, had need to give diligent attention to the reading of them, then much more others: as also

to exhortation, to doctrine; as he was privately to read the Scriptures, for his own benefit, he was publicly to expound them, or preach from them, to the advantage of others; for these two, exhortation and doctrine, are branches of the ministerial work, which reading furnishes and qualifies for. "Exhortation" intends the stirring up of believers to the exercise of grace, and the discharge of duty; and is a considerable part of the work of the ministry, and on which a minister of Christ should much insist; and it becomes the saints to suffer every word of exhortation from them, and receive it kindly, 2Ti 4:2 Ro 12:8. Heb 13:22. The word signifies also "consolation", and which is another branch of the ministry. Believers are oftentimes disconsolate through the prevalence of corruptions, the power of Satan's temptations, and the hidings of God's face, and need comfort; when the ministers of the Gospel should be Barnabases, sons of consolation, and should speak comfortably to them; for which they are qualified by the God of all comfort, who comforts them in all their tribulations, that they might be capable of speaking good and comfortable words to others. "Doctrine" designs the teaching and instructing of the church in the mysteries of the Gospel; opening and explaining the truths of it; defending them against all opposers, and refuting errors and heresies contrary to them. This is the evangelic Talmud; and these three, "reading", "exhortation", and "doctrine", may answer to the above three things the Jew advises men to divide their time among, the Mikra, Misna, and Talmud: reading answers to the Mikra, and indeed is no other; and exhortation to the Misna, or oral law; and doctrine to the Talmud, and which also that word signifies: but the apostle would have Timothy spend his time in, and give his attention to that which might be truly beneficial to himself, and profitable unto others.

l T. Bab. Avoda Zara, fol. 19. 2.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Till I come; - notes, 1 Timothy 3:14-15.

Give attendance to reading - The word here used may refer either to public or to private reading; see Act 13:15; 2 Corinthians 3:14; compare Esdr. 9:48. The more obvious interpretation here is to refer it to private reading, or to a careful perusal of those books which would qualify him for his public work. The then written portions of the sacred volume - the Old Testament - are doubtless specially intended here, but there is no reason to doubt that there were included also such other books as would be useful, to which Timothy might have access. Even those were then few in number, but Paul evidently meant that Timothy should, as far as practicable, become acquainted with them. The apostle himself, on more than one occasion, showed that he had some acquaintance with the classic writings of Greece; Acts 17:28; Titus 1:12.

To exhortation - see the notes on Romans 12:8.

To doctrine - To teaching - for so the word means; compare notes on Romans 12:7.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 13. Give attendance to reading — Timothy could easily comprehend the apostle's meaning; but at present this is not so easy. What books does the apostle mean? The books of the Old Testament were probably what he intended; these testified of Jesus, and by these he could either convince or confound the Jews. But, whether was the reading of these to be public or private? Probably both. It was customary to read the law and the prophets in the synagogue, and doubtless in the assemblies of the Christians; after which there was generally an exhortation founded upon the subject of the prophecy. Hence the apostle says: Give attendance to reading, to EXHORTATION, to DOCTRINE. Timothy was therefore to be diligent in reading the sacred writings at home, that he might be the better qualified to read and expound them in the public assemblies to the Christians, and to others who came to these public meetings.

As to other books, there were not many at that time that could be of much use to a Christian minister. In those days the great business of the preacher was to bring forward the grand facts of Christianity, to prove these, and to show that all had happened according to the prediction of the prophets; and from these to show the work of God in the heart, and the evidence of that work in a holy life.

At present the truth of God is not only to be proclaimed, but defended; and many customs or manners, and forms of speech, which are to us obsolete, must be explained from the writings of the ancients, and particularly from the works of those who lived about the same times, or nearest to them, and in the same or contiguous countries. This will require the knowledge of those languages in which those works have been composed, the chief of which are Hebrew and Greek, the languages in which the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments have been originally written.

Latin is certainly of the next consequence; a language in which some of the most early comments have been written; and it is worth the trouble of being learned, were it only for the sake of the works of St. Jerome, who translated and wrote a commentary on the whole of the Scriptures; though in many respects it is both erroneous and superficial.

Arabic and Syriac may be added with great advantage: the latter being in effect the language in which Christ and his apostles spoke and preached in Judea; and the former being radically the same with the Hebrew, and preserving many of the roots of that language, the derivatives of which often occur in the Hebrew Bible, but the roots never.

The works of various scholars prove of how much consequence even the writings of heathen authors, chiefly those of Greece and Italy, are to the illustration of the sacred writings. And he who is best acquainted with the sacred records will avail himself of such helps, with gratitude both to God and man. Though so many languages and so much reading are not absolutely necessary to form a minister of the Gospel, (for there are many eminent ministers who have not such advantages,) yet they are helps of the first magnitude to those who have them and know how to use them.