The Pastoral Epistles - Print

The Pastoral Epistles

(New Cambridge Bible Commentary series)

Scot McKnight

Soft cover 360pp
ISBN 9781316503591
Cambridge University Press (2023)

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The Pastoral Epistles, are unlike any other letters attributed to Paul. They are written to two of his closest companions, Timothy and Titus, and they instruct those two leaders how to lead gathered Christians in Ephesus and in Crete.

The letters contain plenty of instruction for how church leaders at that time, and in those places, were to function.

McKnight explains the major themes of the Pastoral Epistles – church order, false teaching, and failing Christians – and their foundational vision for how Christians could make a good impression in public life.

These three brief letters express a view of how Christians were to live in the Roman empire in a way that does not offend public sensibilities. They prescribe a way of public behaviour best translated as ‘civilized religion.’