The Expositor's Bible: The Pastoral EpistlesPlummer, Alfred
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Pastoral Epistles
Plummer, Alfred
Bible. Pastoral Epistles -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Titus shares with Timothy the glory of having given up everything in
order to throw in his lot with St. Paul, and of being one of his most
trusted and efficient helpers. What that meant the Epistles of St. Paul
tell us:--ceaseless toil and anxiety, much shame and reproach, and not a
little peril to life itself. He also shares with Timothy the glory of
being willing, when the cause required such sacrifice, to separate from
the master to whom he had surrendered himself, and to work on by
himself in isolation and difficulty. The latter was possibly the more
trying sacrifice of the two. To give up all his earthly prospects and
all the sweetness of home life, in order to work for the spread of the
Gospel side by side with St. Paul, was no doubt a sacrifice that must
have cost those who made it a great deal. But it had its attractive
side. Quite independently of the beauty and majesty of the cause itself,
there was the delight of being associated with a leader so able, so
sagacious, so invigorating, and so affectionate as the Apostle who
"became all things to all men that he might by all means save some."
Hard work became light, and difficulties became smooth, under the
inspiriting sympathy of such a colleague. But it was quite another thing
to have given up everything for the sake of such companionship and
support, or at least in the full expectation of enjoying it, and then to
have to undergo the hard work and confront the difficulties without it.
The new dispensation in this respect repeats the old. Elisha leaves his
home and his inheritance to follow Elijah, and then Elijah is taken from
him. Timothy and Titus leave their homes and possessions to follow St.
Paul, and then St. Paul sends them away from him. And to this
arrangement they consented, Timothy (as we know) with tears, Titus (we
may be sure) with much regret. And what it cost the loving Apostle thus
to part with them and to pain them we see from the tone of affectionate
longing which pervades these letters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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