1:1-5 The promise of eternal life to believers in Christ Jesus, is the leading subject of ministers who are employed according to the will of God. The blessings here named, are the best we can ask for our beloved friends, that they may have peace with God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Whatever good we do, God must have the glory. True believers have in every age the same religion as to substance. Their faith is unfeigned; it will stand the trial, and it dwells in them as a living principle. Thus pious women may take encouragement from the success of Lois and Eunice with Timothy, who proved so excellent and useful a minister. Some of the most worthy and valuable ministers the church of Christ has been favoured with, have had to bless God for early religious impressions made upon their minds by the teaching of their mothers or other female relatives.

Verse 2. - Beloved child for dearly beloved son, A.V.; peace for and peace, A.V. My beloved child. In 1 Timothy 1:2 (as in Titus 1:4) it is "my true child," or "my own son," A.V. The idea broached by some commentators, that this variation in expression marks some change in St. Paul's confidence in Timothy, seems utterly unfounded. The exhortations to boldness and courage which follow were the natural results of the danger in which St. Paul's own life was, and the depression of spirits caused by the desertion of many friends (2 Timothy 4:10-16). St. Paul, too, knew that the time was close at hand when Timothy, still young, would no longer have him to lean upon and look up to, and therefore would prepare him for it; and possibly he may have seen some symptoms of weakness in Timothy's character, which made him anxious, as appears, indeed, in the course of this Epistle. Grace, etc. (so 1 Timothy 1:2; Titus 1:4, A.V.; 2 John 3). Jude has "mercy, peace, and love." The salutation in Ephesians 1:2 is "grace and peace," as also in Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:3, and elsewhere in St. Paul's Epistles, and in Revelation 1:4.

To Timothy, my dearly beloved son,.... Not in a natural, but in a spiritual sense; and not on account of his being an instrument of his conversion, but by reason of that instruction in the doctrines of the Gospel which he gave him, it being usual to call disciples children; and he calls him so, because as a son, he, being young in years, served with him, and under him, as a father, in the Gospel of Christ; for whom he had a very great affection, on account of his having been a companion with him in his travels, and very useful to him in the ministry, and because of his singular and eminent gifts, great grace, religion, and holiness: Grace, mercy, and peace, &c. See Gill on 1 Timothy 1:2.

2. my dearly beloved son—In 1Ti 1:2, and Tit 1:4, written at an earlier period than this Epistle, the expression used is in the Greek, "my genuine son." Alford sees in the change of expression an intimation of an altered tone as to Timothy, more of mere love, and less of confidence, as though Paul saw m him a want of firmness, whence arose the need of his stirring up afresh the faith and grace in Him (2Ti 1:6). But this seems to me not justified by the Greek word agapetos, which implies the attachment of reasoning and choice, on the ground of merit in the one "beloved," not of merely instinctive love. See Trench [Greek Synonyms of the New Testament].

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