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The Pastoral Epistles is unavailable, but you can change that!

These three letters, which form a distinct group in the Pauline corpus, claim to be dispatches of the great Apostle to two of his most trusted lieutenants. The Pastorals have a special interest and importance. As letters they differ from the majority of Pauline letters, being written for individuals rather than churches. They lift the curtain revealingly from aspects of the Apostle’s activities...

be denounced in 4:1 ff. What Paul is saying is that it is the function and responsibility of each congregation to support, bolster up, and thus safeguard the true teaching by its continuous witness. We should note (a) that buttress is probably a more accurate rendering of the Greek hedraiōma (nowhere else found) than ‘foundation’ or ‘ground’ (AV), and (b) that the local church is described as a pillar, etc., not ‘the pillar, etc.’, because there are many local churches throughout the world performing
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