1 and 2 Timothy and Titus
in Belief: Theological Commentary on the Bible
Pages
329
Publisher
Westminster John Knox
Published
1/28/2016
ISBN-13
9780664232627
Thomas G. Long's insightful commentary on the Pastoral Epistles argues that these often-neglected letters are urgently important for readers today. Some of the issues faced by New Testament churches are ours as well: the lure and peril of "spirituality" for Christians, the character of authentic worship, the qualities needed for sound leadership, and the relationship between family life and the church. Long's interpretations of these books consider contemporary exegetical and theological outlooks and are presented through his seasoned homiletical and pastoral perspectives. Pastors will be strengthened by Long's view that the Pastoral Epistles can refresh our memory about what really counts in the Christian community and how important trustworthy leaders are.
Reviews
DavidH
July 10, 2026
July 10, 2026
Long’s Pastoral Epistles is engaging and often pastorally insightful, especially when he treats 1–2 Timothy and Titus as crisis letters rather than as a generic church manual. But the commentary is weakened by an overconfident assumption that the letters are post-Pauline and by a recurring tendency to let modern discomfort sit in judgment over the text. The difficult passages on women, childbearing, slavery, Cretan polemic, and household order are better understood as historically specific responses to false teaching, social disorder, and the need to guard the gospel’s witness—not simply as patriarchal embarrassment or bourgeois respectability. Long rightly refuses to sanitize hard texts, but he too often moves from difficulty to indictment, even suggesting that these letters may need to be preached against rather than from. The result is readable and thought-provoking, but it underplays the strength of historically grounded Pauline readings and risks teaching readers to distrust Scripture before they have fully heard its argument.