What 1 Timothy 4 is Really All About

Introduction to 1 Timothy 4:1-8

This article was certainly not an academic exercise for me but was the fruit of various painful experiences with both Christians and Churches. 1 Timothy 4:1-8 often seems to be the last refuge for Christians seeking to condemn veganism; while other proof-texts are used to accuse Christian vegans of being ‘weak’, ignorant of God’s word, or simply disobedient, these verses are some of most condemnatory of all of the New Testament, and perhaps the whole Bible. After all what could be worse than being inspired by demons and evil spirits?

While my article seeks to interpret these verses within both their immediate context in the book of 1 Timothy and the New Testament more generally, it also attempts to link 1 Timothy 4 to the historical period of the early Church. Ultimately, the conclusions I reach are fairly unambiguous: what is being denounced by the apostle Paul in these verses has no real connection to contemporary veganism, but is rather a condemnation of a harsh asceticism and food restriction, what he calls ‘bodily exercise’ and ‘abstinence from food’, and something more akin to semi-anorexia and semi-starvation. This mortification of the body encompassed far more than just diet and was an overarching rejection of one’s embodied existence, and was linked to a dualistic view of creation which saw the material world as the fruit of an evil demiurge. While there is discussion on the exact nature of the groups involved, these ideas would come to be known as ‘proto-Gnosticism’, and later as ‘Gnosticism’.

Surprisingly, though, while much focus is placed on the verses at the beginning of 1 Timothy 4, the verses just before it are often ignored. 1 Timothy 3 ends with Paul underlining of the incarnation and resurrection of Christ and then continues in chapter 4 with his condemnation of the ascetics that rejected the fact that God became man in Jesus of Nazareth. This, then, is the true centre and meaning of Paul’s denunciation: that golden thread linking creation and redemption via the incarnation, a Docetic rejection of which risked to have disastrous consequences for the gospel message. As Oscar Cullmann sought to show in his seminal study Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? (1956), the essence of the Christian message is the hope for the resurrection of the body and the redemption of all creation, not an ethereal salvation of the soul liberated from the material creation. Ironically, then, we should see Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 4 as tenaciously fighting for what Christian vegans so deeply long for, the biblical hope for the redemption of the whole cosmos, including the animal kingdom, and the restoration of God’s good creation beyond all sin, death, and suffering. My prayer is that this article may help to inspire you to work towards that future.

To read the entire article, go here.

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