e. Respecting the exact position of those who were
enrolled in the class of widows there have been different
opinions. One is that this class consisted of those who were to
receive relief from the funds of the church; another, that they
were matrons set apart for special service in the church,
performing for their own sex duties analogous to those which the
presbyters performed for the church generally. The latter
opinion is the more probable of the two, as it explains the
conditions insisted on by the apostle. But according to either
view there is no difficulty in admitting the existence in
apostolic times of such an arrangement.

38. In these pastoral epistles we have the affectionate counsels of the
great apostle to the Gentiles, when he was now ripe in years and
Christian experience and about to close his earthly ministry, addressed
to two young men whom the Holy Ghost had made overseers of the churches.
They are a rich storehouse of instruction for all to whom God has
committed the ministry of reconciliation. Let them, as they hope at last
to render up an account of their stewardship with joy and not with
grief, prayerfully study and reduce to daily practice these precepts of
heavenly wisdom given by the Holy Spirit through the pen of "Paul the
aged."

39. THE FIRST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY.--The _time_ of this epistle lies, as
we have seen, beyond the recorded history of the apostle, and before his
second and final imprisonment at Rome, perhaps about A.D. 65 or 66. It
was addressed to Timothy at Ephesus not long after the apostle had left
that city to go into Macedonia (chap. 1:3), but whether from Macedonia
or some other province of the Roman empire cannot be determined. The
_occasion_ we learn from the epistle. Paul had left Timothy in charge of
the Ephesian church, and, being apprehensive of a protracted absence, he
sends him these written instructions relating partly to his own personal
demeanor as a Christian minister, but chiefly to his office as the
overseer of the Ephesian church. In the discharge of this office he is
(1) to withstand and keep down the growing heresies of the day; (2) to
superintend the government of the church in various particulars which
the apostle specifies.

The _contents_ of the epistle though not arranged in systematic order,
are in harmony with its occasion and design. Into the first chapter,
which is of an introductory character, the apostle, i