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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 1 Timothy 5:22 - 5:22
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Ver. 22. Lay hands on no one hastily: with what design? Was it for ordination to ecclesiastical offices? or absolution from scandalous offences? The latter view has found not a few supporters both in former and present times; it is advocated at great length by Hammond, who adduces quotations from the Fathers to show how common the practice was, on receiving offenders back into church communion, to grant them absolution by the imposition of the bishop’s hands; so, too, De Wette, Wiesinger, Ellicott. But the evidence is of too late a kind: it altogether fails for the apostolic age, or even the generations immediately subsequent to it. Nor, when the practice had come in, were the better patristic commentators influenced by it in their interpretation of the passage: Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, all understand the apostle to refer to imposition of hands as connected with ordinations. Thus, Theodoret briefly notes, as if there were no proper room for difference of opinion: “For one ought first to inquire into the life of him on whom hands are to be laid (or who is ordained), and so to invoke on him the grace of the Spirit.” Besides, as a man’s own writings are our safest guide to a correct understanding of his expressions, we have two other passages in these Pastoral epistles which make mention of the laying on of hands (1Ti_4:14; 2Ti_1:7), and they both refer to the matter of ordination. In both, indeed, Timothy himself was the subject, having been by imposition of hands set apart to special service in the gospel, and entitled to look for corresponding endowments of the Spirit to qualify him for it. With these examples before us, it would obviously be quite arbitrary here to suppose the apostle starting off to matters of an entirely different kind, without the slightest intimation that he was now using the expression in another sense than he elsewhere employed it. It is true he had just been speaking of offences, and of the importance of dealing with them in an impartial and faithful manner. But it was in perfect keeping with this, that an exhortation should be given Timothy to beware of making rash appointments to the ministerial office—to take pains beforehand to ascertain the godly life of the persons who should receive the appointment, lest he should be found stamping with his formal approval, and raising to the government of the church, men who were themselves, perhaps, of doubtful character, or amenable to discipline. Hence it is added: neither participate in other men’s sins. He would virtually have done so, if he was remiss in his appointments to the higher offices in the church, and did not carefully distinguish between the worthy and the unworthy. And further: keep THYSELF pure. The emphasis is on thyself, which is hence placed first in the original. Not only beware, by hasty ordinations or otherwise, of coming into improper alliance with the sins of others, but see that thine own conduct is free from any marked blemishes, and that no one may have occasion to take up against thee the taunt, “Physician, heal thyself.” The epithet pure ( á ̔ ãíï ́ ò ), therefore, should be taken in its general sense of blameless, or holy (2Co_7:11; Php_4:8; 1Jn_3:3), not in the specific sense of chaste, to which there is nothing in the context to limit it. At the same time, there can be no doubt that impurity of this description, or even any approach to it, would of all things be the most fatal to Timothy’s character and usefulness.