This article examines the Greco-Roman Household as the socio-cultural context and dominant metaphor for interpreting the Pastoral Epistles. It seeks to demonstrate that unwittingly reading these letters through the lens of the contemporary reader’s socio-cultural context, and without understanding the Greco-Roman Household context of the letters can lead to misunderstanding and misapplication of their texts. Conversely, reading the letters with an understanding of the Greco-Roman Household as their context will yield a deeper and more accurate understanding and more appropriate contemporary applications that are faithful to the text. 

This paper was written for and published in Teleios: A Journal to Promote Holistic Christian Spirituality, volume 3, no. 2 (Summer 2023): 23 – 41 by THE CROSSROAD PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC, 831 Chestnut Ridge Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977, which is the copyright holder.

This paper examines the question of the authorship of the Pastoral Epistles and considers the arguments for and against Pauline authorship, by considering the internal and external evidence and the scholarly literature on the subject. After an extensive examination of the evidence and the scholarly literature, it demonstrates that the pseudepigraphal theory of the authorship of the Pastoral Epistles is relatively late, having emerged in the nineteenth century, and can be effectively challenged on the basis of the evidence.