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.

If you’ve been around JeffRandleman.com much, you know that I post a weekly passage that I’m memorizing. Over the past couple of years, I’ve issued a challenge to memorize with me. In 2011, it was the Sermon on the Mount. For 2012, it was various passages from all over the Bible. Many of these had been previously memorized, and were refreshed. Others were newly added to my memory.

I’ve had several people tell me that they are challenged by that, and many have taken that challenge and excelled in it, memorizing Scripture weekly. A few have told me that they’ve never realized the benefits of Scripture memory until they actually did it, and had a few passages committed to memory.

In 2013, my goal is to memorize the entire letter of 1 Timothy. This letter was written by Paul to a young man, who he called his “son in the faith,” Timothy. Together with 2 Timothy and Titus, these three letters are often referred to as The Pastoral Epistles, because they contain so much pertinent information about life, faith and ministry.

This year, though, I’m adding a bit of a twist. Instead of just posting the passage and a brief though about it each week, I’ll be adding some commentary and devotional thoughts to each section of Scripture. I think this will help keep things in context as we work our way though a significant section of Paul’s writings over the course of a year.

By way of a brief introduction, 1 Timothy was written by Paul, as mentioned above, to Timothy. Based on the information we know about Paul and the early church, the best date for the authorship of 1 Timothy was somewhere between 63 and 66 AD, although a few have placed it as early as 55 AD.

While it is primarily written to young Timothy, there are some indicators in the text that suggest that Paul intended for it to be read and heeded by the entire congregation, most likely the one at Ephesus.

1 Timothy gives some good insight into Paul’s own ministry, as well as instructing Timothy, the early church, as well as the church of today on issues such as church leadership, living in godliness, and resisting false teachings and doctrines.

1 Timothy is well suited to give some incredible input into our daily spiritual lives, as well as our corporate church life.

And it’s well worth memorizing.

I hope you’ll join me in committing this significant letter to memory throughout 2013.

Will you join me in memorizing 1 Timothy in 2013? If not, what do you intend to memorize this year? You can share your thoughts in the comments section below.