St. Matthew Lutheran Church

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 22, 2019

“One Mediator” (1 Timothy 2:1-15)

Our text this morning is a portion of the Epistle for this day, 1 Timothy 2, reading from verse 3 through verse 7, as follows: “God our Savior . . . desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. . . .”

This has to be one of the most hated passages in the Bible in our day. Think of it: It boldly proclaims that there is only one mediator between God and men, and that it is the man Christ Jesus. That is just unacceptable! It is way too narrow for most people today. “One Mediator”?

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Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 15, 2013

“Sound Doctrine: Law and Gospel” (1 Timothy 1:5-17)

Today begins a series of weeks in which the Epistle comes from Paul’s two letters to Timothy. Paul we know, but who is this Timothy? Timothy was Paul’s younger assistant who often traveled with him and whom Paul would sometimes have oversee things in places while Paul was off elsewhere. This is the case when Paul writes this first letter to Timothy. Paul had gone off to Macedonia, and he had Timothy remain in the big city of Ephesus, in western Asia Minor. Ephesus was a very important city for the whole region. Paul had spent a lot of time there, building up the church and training leaders. And now he has left Timothy there to carry on the work.

So that’s what these pastoral epistles to Timothy are about: Paul’s instructions to his assistant as to what needs to happen there, the doctrine that is to be taught, the practices that should be followed, the corrections that need to be made, the encouragement that Timothy himself needs in carrying on his pastoral work. There is a lot here for both pastors and congregations to learn from. And so today we will learn, from the opening of Paul’s first letter to Timothy, the importance of “Sound Doctrine: Law and Gospel.”

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