The circumcision of Timothy

Timothy a Jew in everything except circumcision

It was under the new and encouraging sanction afforded by the ratification of Gentile freedom at Jerusalem that what is called the second missionary journey of St Paul was undertaken. With most of its details we are not now concerned. But it is of special interest to note that at Lystra he caused Timothy to be circumcised. The statement has been much questioned as at variance with St Paul's conduct as regards Titus, for which (however we understand it) we have his own authority. But in truth the difference of the two cases admirably illustrates the precise position of things. Titus was wholly a Gentile: to circumcise him would not have been to follow any principle, but merely to accept what if allowable at all would have been nothing better than a prudential concession to temporary difficulties. But what was Timothy? He was notoriously the son of a Gentile father: everyone would therefore know that he had not been circumcised in childhood: the father would never have tolerated what would have been in his eyes such a degradation as that. But except in this physical sense Timothy was not a Gentile at all. His mother was a Jewess, and this of itself made it impossible for Jews to regard him as falling under a rule laid down for pure Gentiles.