1 and 2 Timothy, Titus

Fee’s commentary is much shorter than most of the major technical works, but its influence has been disproportionate to its size. Its great contribution is the sustained argument that the Pastorals—especially 1 Timothy—must be read as genuinely occasional letters addressing concrete historical crises, particularly false teaching, rather than primarily as timeless manuals of church order. Fee lets 1 Timothy 1:3 govern his reading of much of the letter and consequently interprets worship, leadership, widows, wealth, and disputed instructions about women within the Ephesian situation. William Mounce later acknowledged that his much larger WBC commentary was, in important respects, an expansion of the road Fee had paved. Fee also distinguishes the very different purposes of Titus and 2 Timothy rather than imposing one reconstruction upon all three letters. Some details of his reconstruction of the false teaching are more plausible than demonstrable, and later commentaries provide much fuller lexical and historical evidence, but Fee fundamentally changed the questions many subsequent interpreters ask of these letters. That combination of genuine originality and continuing usefulness earns the volume a clear 5 stars.

This is a very short volume, but in spite of its modest size it contains Fee’s typical energetic style. I find myself returning to this commentary often for sensible exposition of the Pauline text. [Full Review]

Fee does an excellent job explaining the Pastoral Epistles in his commentary. He deals with all the pertinent issues in an intelligent and concise manner.