Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Savior, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope;
All Commentaries on 1 Timothy 1:1 Go To 1 Timothy 1
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Mark well his reference to “my true child.” Timothy is not the biological son of Paul. So what kind of son was he? Does it even make sense to call him a “son”? Someone might say that if he was not the son of Paul, then he must be someone else’s son. What then? Was he of some other substance? Not so, for after saying “my own son,” he adds: “in the faith.” This shows that he was really his own son, and truly from him, there being no essential difference between father and son in the faith. The likeness he bore to him was in respect to his faith, just as in human births there is a substantive likeness. The son is like the father in human beings, but the analogy is even closer in the relation of human beings to God in faith. Though the father and the son may be of the same genetic strain, they may differ in many particulars, as in color, figure, understanding, age, bent of mind, endowments of soul and body, and in many other things they may be like or unlike. But in the relation of the divine Father and Son there is no such dissimilarity.
