Timothy & the early church: The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. Acts 16:2
Timothy, as recounted in the Book of Acts, was a disciple of Paul and one of his most important collaborators during his second and third missionary journeys. Furthermore, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, while he was in captivity in the city of Rome, dedicated two short letters to Timothy, which were probably the last ones he wrote.
The Book of Acts tells how the friendship between Timothy and Paul began: "Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek. The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him" Acts 16:1-3. From here, the Book of Acts relates that Timothy never separated from Paul again, until after finishing his third missionary journey was arrested in the city of Jerusalem, to be finally taken to the city of Rome to be judged by the emperor. Timothy is not mentioned during Paul's journey to Rome. However, it is known that epistolary communication between the two friends was very fluid while Paul lived.
It is important to highlight that Timothy accompanied the apostle Paul during many important events, helped Paul in the founding of the Church of Thessalonica, Corinth, and Ephesus, and also helped Paul write many of his New Testament epistles. It is very probable that Timothy brought to the Church of Corinth the first letter written by the apostle to that Christian community. Timothy's contribution to the spiritual growth of the early Church was exceptional. And this is confirmed when Paul, in his First Epistle to Timothy, affirmed his disciple as his true son in the faith (1 Timothy 1:2). Timothy was in every sense a God-fearing man and a faithful follower of the doctrine of the Kingdom of God, the dominion or empire of the divine perfections.
Although he did not specifically mention this fact in his letters to Timothy, it is certain that Timothy was appointed bishop of Ephesus by Paul himself, and this is the last thing known in the texts of the New Testament about this important Christian of the first century AD.
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