How often do you sort of skip over the greetings found in the opening verses of the New Testament letters. I think most of us do. I mean, after all, it’s just a greeting, right? I’m not so sure.

Take a look at our passage for this week. It’s found in 1 Timothy 1:1-2. And it’s much more than just a greeting.

Paul packs a lot of doctrine and theology into these two simple, opening verses of his letter. Let’s take a brief look at a few of them.

Paul first introduces himself, and gives his qualification to write this letter. He is an apostle. Paul doesn’t always include this; sometimes he introduces himself as a “servant” (Philippians) or even as “prisoner” (Philemon). His claim to be an apostle is used only when there may be a challenge to his authority, such as there was in 1 Corinthians, or Galatians.

He then goes on to tell who gave him this apostleship: God our Savior. His authority is not self-acquired. It comes from God and Christ Jesus. And not just that, but God our Savior and Christ Jesus our hope. God is frequently referred to as Savior in the Old Testament, but rarely in the new. And outside of the Pastoral Epistles, Paul never calls God our Savior. He reserves this term for Christ alone.

And the description of Christ as our hope is packed full of meaning as well. Paul isn’t using hope as mere wishful thinking, but as something more. Christ as our hope is something to earnestly expect. This carries implications of Christ’s return for the completion of our salvation, just as God is described as Savior.

Paul leaves his worshipful description behind, and indicates his primary audience, Timothy, his true son in the faith. Whether this means that he led Timothy to Christ, or was something more like a legitimate adoptive father is unclear. Whichever the case, Paul’s words convey encouragement to Timothy, and sets the stage for his acceptance by the church at Ephesus, who may have questioned his authority due to his age. Paul dispels that question from the very start.

He then goes on to give a three fold salutation. And each of these three words carry a lot of meaning as well. Grace is the unmerited goodness of God. Mercy is God’s help to the discouraged, the destitute, sinners in need of Christ. And peace indicates the wholeness of the relationship between a person and God.

Grace and peace are typically included in Paul’s greetings, and were a pretty standard greeting, especially the idea of peace, “shalom.” Perhaps we would do well to add some more meaning to our greetings.

So you see, these two verses carry a lot more in them than just a “hello.” Paul is very intentional in every word he writes, keeping his letters relatively short and clear, so that there can be no confusion. Because of this, he seems to make every word count.

It’s a lot, isn’t it? And that’s just the greeting! Just think what we may gain from the rest of the letter this year!

There are a lot of ideas floating around in this passage. Did one of the really stand out to you? If so, which one? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below.