Primary Scriptures: Acts 15-18
Story Summary: Timothy’s story
Location: Roman Empire; Galatia, Macedonia, Greece
Time: AD 30 Jesus crucified and resurrected; Pentecost; Holy Spirit arrives AD 46 Paul’s “famine visit” to Jerusalem; First Missionary Journey starts AD 48 Council at Jerusalem; Start of Second Missionary Journey AD 51 End of Second Missionary Journey
From the beginning, Paul followed the pattern that he had learned as a Jew – the older men needed to train the younger men to take their place. Paul’s first successful trainee was likely Titus, and his second was Timothy. We don’t know how Paul met Titus, but it is likely he met Timothy or his family on the First Missionary Journey.
Timothy was a perfect example of the way Christianity conflicted with other cultures and religions. He was convinced that he wanted to evangelize the Jews, and he knew he could be effective doing that only if he qualified to enter the synagogues. Since his mother was Jewish, Timothy would qualify to do that once he was circumcised.
In the Greek culture, however, it was considered abhorrent to disfigure your body in any way, and circumcision was one of the worst disfigurements a man could have. Timothy’s father was Greek and would not allow his son to be circumcised at birth. Scripture indicates that Timothy’s father was not in the picture, but we don’t know whether he died or lived somewhere else.
Timothy had a choice to make, and the overtones of that choice were much more important than the immense pain he would suffer. If he chose to be circumcised, he could more easily evangelize the Jews, but he would dishonor his father. If he chose to remain uncircumcised, he would honor his father, but would be hampered in his evangelistic efforts. Timothy chose to be circumcised.
As the Second Missionary Journey progressed, Timothy was entrusted several times with helping young churches grow and quickly became like a son to Paul.
Although Timothy has a reputation for being young when he joined Paul and Silas, we do not have a way to know his age definitively. This episode portrays him as a young man with a sensitive stomach, a description derived from 1 Timothy 5:23 where Paul instructs Timothy to stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of his stomach and frequent illnesses. We do not have any guidance on when Timothy began having those health issues.
Eyewitness Bible Series
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