Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 57:4 (Dec 2014)
Article: Let No One Despise Your Youth: Church And The World In The Pastoral Epistles
Author: David W. Pao

JETS 57:4 (December 2014) p. 743

Let No One Despise Your Youth:
Church And The World In The Pastoral Epistles

David W. Pao*

* David W. Pao is professor of NT at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2065 Half Day Road, Deerfield, IL 60015.

I. Introduction

The Pastoral Epistles have often been considered as presenting “the ideal of Christian citizenship” that is characterized by a “peaceful life” in the present existence, an ideal that loses “the dialectic of the eschatological existence” found in the earlier Pauline writings.1 Many consider such an attempt to accommodate to the accepted norms of the wider society as a “canonical betrayal” of the Pauline understanding of the spirit of justice and equity.2 The transformative power of the gospel that challenges the oppressive structures of society is replaced by the concern to maintain the survival of a community bound by the traditions of the apostles, and the early charismatic leadership is replaced by a rigid structure that regulates the life of this community.

To those who adopt this reading of the Pastoral Epistles, this “domestication” of both the gospel and the structure of this gospel community is best symbolized by the unique power attributed to the paterfamilias of the patriarchal household.3 As the household of God, the church “has become stratified according to the age/gender divisions of the patriarchal household,” and “ministry and leadership are dependent upon age/gender qualifications, not primarily upon one’s spiritual or organizational resources of giftedness.”4 This model of the Christian community is rooted neither in God’s plan for humanity nor in the gospel of the cross, but is “defined according to the patriarchal standards of Greco-Roman society.”5

In response to such a portrayal of the vision of the church embedded in the Pastoral Epistles, much attention has been paid to the issue of gender roles. Among those who accept the Pauline authorship of these epistles,6 many “egalitarians”7 and

JETS 57:4 (December 2014) p. 744

“complementarians” alike agree in their dissatisfaction with this reading.8 The issue of age has, however, largely been ignored. This brief study will attempt to begin to fill this lacuna by examining the most expl...