παραθήκη

Summary

παραθήκη ("deposit, trust") in 1 Timothy 6:20 is the apostolic gospel deposit Timothy is charged to guard against the false teachers of Ephesus. This reinforces the letter's controlling theme: Paul's instructions are remedial measures to protect sound doctrine from heterodidaskalia, not a universal church constitution. Every instruction in the letter, including 2:12, serves this protective purpose.

It comes from para (alongside) + tithenai (to place). In 1 Tim 6:20, Paul instructs Timothy to "guard what has been entrusted (tēn parathēkēn)" — the apostolic gospel deposit. The same concept appears in 2 Tim 1:12, 14. The parathēkē is the body of sound doctrine (1 Tim 1:10–11; 6:3) that Timothy is charged to preserve against the heterodidaskalos (false teachers) of Ephesus. In WIM-context article 341, parathēkē appears in a list of terms used in 1 Timothy whose referents have been misidentified by Winger's reading: the referent of parathēkē is not a deposit of gold in the Artemision (the great temple of Artemis in Ephesus), but the apostolic gospel entrusted to Timothy. This illustrates the broader hermeneutical point that Paul's language in 1 Timothy uses Ephesian cultural vocabulary (Artemis, astrology, household terminology) as a polemic backdrop without making direct reference to it. The egalitarian interpretation uses this to argue that authenteō's Ephesian cultural background shapes Paul's choice of the term but the referent is a specific teaching context, not a transfer of power theology. See also: heterodidaskaleo, epignosis aletheias.