Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Timothy · About this commentary
Wage the Good Warfare
1 Timothy 1:18-20
18 I commit this instruction to you, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies which were given to you before, that by them you may wage the good warfare, · WEB
The chapter ends by naming two men and describing a discipline whose stated purpose is instruction rather than punishment.
Verse 18 returns to the commission after the interruption and gives it a second ground. Timothy is to wage the good warfare according to the prophecies previously made about him. The letter does not describe them, and mentions the same event again later as a gift given through prophecy with the laying on of hands 1 Timothy 4:14. Whatever they were, they function here as something Timothy can lean on when the assignment is hard.
Verse 19 names the two things to hold: faith, and a good conscience. The pairing has already appeared 1 Timothy 1:5, and here the second is treated as the load-bearing one — some have thrust away the conscience, an active shove rather than a drift, and the wreck follows.
The image is a shipwreck concerning the faith, and its order is worth stating plainly: the conscience is pushed aside first, and the doctrine breaks up afterward.
Verse 20 names Hymenaeus and Alexander and says they were delivered to Satan. The letter gives no procedure and no explanation of what the phrase involved, and none can be built without going past it.
What it does state is the purpose, and the purpose is the whole character of the act: that they may be taught not to blaspheme. The verb is the one for training or correcting a child. Whatever the severity, the stated aim is that they learn, not that they be removed.
held with reason What this mark means