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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 1 Timothy 4:14 - 4:14
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Ver. 14. Neglect not the gift (the charism) that is in thee, which was given thee through (or by means of) prophecy, with laying on of the hands of the presbytery. There can be no reasonable doubt that this is the correct rendering, and that the attempts which have at various times been made to give another sense to the preposition ( äéὰ ) than that of expressing the medium or instrumental cause, have entirely failed. Prophecy and imposition of hands by the presbytery are represented as the concurrent means through which the gift in question came to Timothy: prophecy the first and highest—hence having the preposition of the instrument coupled with it; imposition of hands by the presbytery the secondary or subordinate—hence presented as an accompaniment of the other. But what is to be understood by the gift itself, which thus came to Timothy’s possession? The word ÷áñßóìá , which occurs altogether fourteen times in the writings of St. Paul, but nowhere else in the New Testament, except in 1Pe_4:10, always means an endowment or gift of grace, bestowed by the Holy Spirit for some special ministration or official service. Timothy had in tender youth been destined to peculiar evangelistic work under the direction and oversight of St. Paul, and he had received from above a measure of grace proportioned to his calling and responsibilities. This qualifying grace had somehow been indicated through the spirit of prophecy as a gift destined for him, authoritatively certified to be awaiting him—therefore in a sense conferred through that; and then, acting on this divine certification or assurance, the presbytery gave him the imposition of hands,—an act which always formed “an appropriation of the gift of the Spirit in prayer through the instrumentality of others for a definite object” (Wiesinger). The prophecy, therefore, is to be viewed as the distinct enunciation of God’s will in respect to Timothy’s qualifications—his spiritual as well as natural qualifications for the evangelistic office; and the formal designation of him by the presbytery was the church’s response to the declared mind of God, and appropriate action to carry it into effect. The presbytery is to be taken in the natural and obvious sense, for the body of presbyters or elders in the particular place where Timothy was set apart to the work of the Lord. It means bishops here, says Chrysostom, since only such could ordain by imposition of hands: true in one sense, but not certainly in that meant by Chrysostom; that is, not as denoting the presence and co-operation of officers of a higher grade than presbyters. The language of the apostle, neither here nor elsewhere, furnishes any warrant for such a supposition. Bengel’s explanation is still more arbitrary; he would couple ðñïöçôåßáò with ðñåóâõôåñßïí , and throw the intervening words into a parenthesis—thus: “which was given thee through the prophecy of the presbytery, with the laying on of hands.” And the hands laid on he would understand to be those of the apostle’s, on the supposed ground that imposition of hands was the act of one person, and that a person of higher dignity than he on whom the act was performed. Such, however, was not the case at Antioch, when Paul and Barnabas were by imposition of hands designated to special ministerial work (Act_13:1); nor have we any reason to think it was necessarily or even ordinarily so, except when the gift conferred had respect to the exhibition of miraculous agency. The conferring of this gift by imposition of hands belonged exclusively to an apostle. But in appointments to ministerial employ it was otherwise; and when, in another place (2Ti_1:6), the apostle speaks of this same gift having come to Timothy through the laying on of his hands, this no way prejudices the supposition of a more general concurrence in the act. The part taken by the apostle in the matter could not but be the most assuring circumstance to Timothy of an external kind, and a very special consideration prompting him to the exercise of the gift; but it did not preclude the official action of the presbytery, nor render this unimportant in its own place.