Mark

Cheryl,
Paul is addressing a church in 1 Cor and the pastor of the church in 1 Tim. 1 Timothy is a pastoral epistle not an epistle addressed to a church like 1 Cor. Therefore there is no need to find evidence in Tim to show that it is addressed to a church because that is not what i believe. Maybe i should have been a bit clearer, sorry.

That said, this is what i understand about Paul’s 3 pastoral epistles (1,2 Timothy, Titus). They were all written toward the end of his life. They are called ‘pastoral’ because both Timothy and Titus were co-workers with Paul in his ministry. At the time of writing, Timothy served in Ephesus and Titus in Crete.

Timothy was now the pastor representing Paul in the large church of Ephesus, constituting many congregations. Timothy was young and probably felt some reluctance to lead the church (1Tim 4:12, 15-16). In addition there were potential problems with false doctrine and superstition coming into the church ( 1Tim 1:19,4:1-3,5:15,6:20 and Acts 20:28-30). Note the ONLY false teachers we know of are Hymenaius and Alexander, both men. Timothy’s role included instructing the elders and deacons, guarding against false teachers, caring for the widows and importantly 4:13- “devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to preaching and to teaching”.

If this is not a description or ‘role’ of a pastor/presbyter/overseer i will be astonished. Timothy should most definitely be described as the ‘pastor’ of the Ephesian Church when Paul wrote this letter. Any attempt to say otherwise is really just ignorance of the facts.