1 Timothy 1:2

Paul may have led Timothy to faith in Christ personally, or Timothy may simply have been Paul’s "child in the faith" in that he was Paul’s protégé (cf. Acts 14:6; Acts 16:1). This is the first of 19 references to faith (Gr. pistis) in 1 Timothy. It is a key word in this epistle.

Paul added "mercy" to his customary benediction of grace and peace here and in 2 Timothy (cf. 2 John 1:3). He probably did so because the Jewish blessing "mercy and peace" was one that Paul could appropriately share with his half-Jewish child in the faith. [Note: See J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Pauline Epistles, p. 41.] However, "mercy" also reminds us that we need God not to give us what we deserve, namely, chastisement. These three words summarize all the Christian’s blessings.

"It is much more natural to think that the keen solicitude of the aged apostle for his young friend in his difficult position led him to insert the additional prayer for mercy as springing from his own enlarged experience of divine mercy." [Note: D. Edmond Hiebert, First Timothy, p. 24.]

"With these three terms, then, Paul greets Timothy and the church: charis [grace]-God’s ongoing forgiveness and enabling, eleos [mercy]-God’s sympathy and concern, eirene [peace]-God’s tranquility and stability within and among them as individuals and as a Christian community." [Note: George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text, p. 67.]

The two relationships with God that Paul cited, as our Father and our Lord, are especially significant in this letter. Timothy had a tendency to be fearful, so the reminder that God is our Father would have encouraged him. However, Paul eliminated the possibility of permissiveness implied in "Father" by using "Lord." Timothy needed to remember that the Lord had called him to serve a God who loved him as a father yet deserved complete obedience as his lord. We share Timothy’s need.

"Only fifteen times was God referred to as the Father in the Old Testament. Where it does occur, it is used of the nation Israel or to the king of Israel. Never was God called the Father of an individual or of human beings in general (though isolated instances occur in second temple Judaism, Sirach 51:10). In the New Testament numerous references to God as Father can be found." [Note: Mark L. Bailey, "A Biblical Theology of Paul’s Pastoral Epistles," in A Biblical Theology of the New Testament, p. 342. Cf. H. F. D. Sparks, "The Doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood of God in the Gospels," in Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of R. H. Lightfoot, pp. 241-62; and James Barr, "Abba Isn’t Daddy," Journal of Theological Studies 39 (1988):28-47.]