The laying on of hands and ordination: what the New Testament shows, and how the churches read it

Second Timothy is the last of Paul's letters in the traditional order of his life. Paul writes from prison in Rome (1:8, 16-17) and expects to die (4:6-8). He addresses Timothy, who is working in Ephesus (1:18; 4:19). Timothy came from Lystra, the son of a Jewish believing mother, Eunice, and a Greek father (Acts 16:1-3). Paul took him on his second journey, about AD 49 or 50, and named him as co-sender of six letters. This class follows the traditional view that Paul wrote the letter, perhaps about AD 64 to 67 after a release from his first Roman custody. Many critical scholars judge the three Pastoral Letters (1-2 Timothy and Titus) to be written by a later follower in Paul's name, in the late first or early second century, because of their vocabulary and their picture of church order. Defenders of Pauline authorship answer that a personal, final letter would differ in style, and that Luke was with Paul (4:11) and may have helped him write.

This class is not a study of 2 Timothy 1 alone. The chapter contains one of the few New Testament statements about the laying on of hands in ministry, and the class gathers the others around it: Acts 6:6, Acts 13:1-3, 1 Timothy 4:14 and 5:22, with the wider uses of the gesture. Then it sets out what the later churches built on these verses.

The backdrop is the Old Testament pattern. Moses laid his hand on Joshua before the congregation to give him some of his authority (Numbers 27:18-23), and Joshua was afterward 'filled with the spirit of wisdom' (Deuteronomy 34:9). The gesture was familiar to Jews as a sign of identification, blessing and handing over.

Second Timothy is a personal letter from an older minister to a younger one. It is sometimes called a farewell testament, and it mixes memory, command and warning. Its statements about ministry are given in passing. Paul is not writing a manual on ordination. He reminds Timothy of something that happened, in order to encourage him. The reader must therefore be careful not to ask the text for more than it says.

The narrative passages (Acts 6, 8, 13, 19) raise another rule. Luke describes what happened. He does not always say that it must happen the same way again. A doctrine of ordination can be drawn from description only by adding premises, and those premises are exactly what the traditions dispute. The class therefore first lists what the verses say, then sets out the arguments built on them. It also guards against reading later words back into the first century. 'Priest', 'sacrament' and 'character' belong to later theology, and none of them appears in these verses.

2 Timothy 1:1–5

Paul calls himself an apostle 'by the will of God' and Timothy 'my beloved child' (teknon agapeto). He recalls Timothy's tears, probably at their last parting, and his 'sincere faith' (anupokritos pistis), which first lived in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. Timothy's faith has a family history. The ministry that follows grows out of faith received, not out of position.

2 Timothy 1:6

'For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.' The verb anazopureo means to rekindle a fire or keep it burning. The 'gift' is charisma, a grace-gift. The phrase 'through the laying on of my hands' uses dia with the genitive, which marks the means. The gift is God's. The hands are the occasion or instrument. The verse does not say what the gift is. The context points to the ministry of the gospel and its courage: power, love and self-control (1:7), speaking the testimony (1:8), guarding the teaching (1:13-14). The command 'fan into flame' also shows that a gift given can burn low. It is not a switch turned on once.

1 Timothy 4:14

Paul tells Timothy not to neglect the gift in him, given through prophecy together with the laying on of hands of the presbytery (presbyterion). The word for 'presbytery' is the council of elders. Luke uses it of the Jewish council (Luke 22:66; Acts 22:5), and this is its only use for a Christian body. Two things appear. A prophecy marked Timothy out (compare 1 Timothy 1:18), as the Spirit spoke at Antioch about Barnabas and Saul (Acts 13:2). And a body of elders laid on hands, with prayer, presumably. How does this fit with 2 Timothy 1:6, where the hands are Paul's? Interpreters offer three answers: Paul laid on hands with the elders on one occasion, with dia naming his leading part and meta ('with') naming the elders' company; or there were two occasions; or the hands in 2 Timothy 1:6 are Paul's as a member of the presbytery. The text does not settle it.

1 Timothy 5:22

Paul warns Timothy not to be hasty in laying on hands against quick recognition of leaders, and the next clause speaks of sharing in others' sins. Some interpreters take the verse as about appointing elders, which follows the discussion of elders in 5:17-21. Others, from the early church onward, have taken it of restoring penitents. The context favours the first reading, though it is not certain.

2 Timothy 1:8–14

The gift is for courage and custody. Timothy is not to be ashamed (epaischunomai, vv. 8, 12, 16) of the testimony or of the prisoner. God has saved and called 'to a holy calling' not because of works but by his purpose and grace (1:9). He is to 'guard the treasure entrusted to you' (kalen paratheken, the good deposit), 'with the help of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us' (1:14). The deposit is the apostolic teaching (1:13), and 2:2 says Timothy must entrust it to faithful people who will teach others. Ministry here is the guarding and handing on of what was given.

Acts 6:1–6

The congregation of disciples chose seven men full of the Spirit and wisdom (6:3, 5). They were set before the apostles, the apostles prayed and laid their hands on them (6:6). The grammar makes the apostles the likely subject, though some argue the whole body took part. The people choose, the apostles pray and lay on hands. The Seven serve (diakonein) in the daily distribution, though Stephen and Philip also preach (6:8-10; 8:5).

Acts 13:1–3

Five prophets and teachers at Antioch worship and fast. The Holy Spirit says to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which he has called them. After fasting and prayer the others lay hands on them and send them off. Barnabas and Saul were already believers and teachers, and Paul insists that his apostleship came from Christ and God the Father and not from any human source (Galatians 1:1). The act is therefore a commissioning and a blessing for a task, and it was done by men who were not apostles. It created no new rank.

Adjacent uses. Jesus laid hands on children in blessing (Mark 10:16) and on the sick (Mark 6:5; Luke 4:40; 13:13). Ananias laid hands on Saul for sight and the Spirit (Acts 9:12, 17). Peter and John laid hands on the Samaritans, who received the Spirit (Acts 8:14-19), and Paul did so at Ephesus (Acts 19:6). Paul healed Publius's father the same way (Acts 28:8). Hebrews 6:2 lists the laying on of hands among elementary teachings. In Acts 14:23 Paul and Barnabas 'appointed' elders (cheirotoneo) with prayer and fasting, and no hands are mentioned. In Titus 1:5 Titus is to 'appoint' (kathistemi) elders.

The New Testament places the source of ministry in God. Christ, ascended, 'gave' apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:7-11). The Spirit calls and sends (Acts 13:2) and 'made you overseers' (Acts 20:28). The church then recognizes and sets men apart, through choice (Acts 6:5), prayer and fasting (13:3; 14:23) and the laying on of hands. All three stages appear: call from God, gift from the Spirit, recognition by the church. The traditions differ on how much weight each carries.

The gesture has a background in the Old Testament in which a leader hands over responsibility publicly (Numbers 27:18-23) and a people identifies with those set apart (Numbers 8:10). It also has a New Testament range wider than ministry: blessing, healing, the Spirit. The hands in ministry are one use among many, and the verses that name the gesture do not describe a fixed liturgy or require a particular minister.

The pattern of ministry is also one of handing on. Paul received the gospel and entrusted it to Timothy, who is to entrust it to faithful people (2 Timothy 2:2). Qualifications are listed (1 Timothy 3:1-13; Titus 1:5-9), and haste is warned against (5:22). Against any view in which the church's ministers hold a different spiritual status, 1 Peter 2:5, 9 calls the whole people a holy and royal priesthood. How that fits with a separate ministry is taken up in classes 25 and 26.

Christ is the source and pattern of the ministry the church recognizes. He appointed the Twelve to be with him and to be sent out (Mark 3:14), and after his resurrection he said, 'As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you' (John 20:21). He gives the gifts for ministry from his ascension (Ephesians 4:8-11). Hebrews 5:4-5 says no one takes the honour of priesthood for himself, but is called by God as Aaron was, and Christ too did not glorify himself but was appointed. Calling comes from God, and the church's act answers it.

Christ is also the great one who laid on hands. He blessed the children (Mark 10:16) and healed with his touch (Luke 4:40; 13:13). Peter and John's hands in Samaria and Ananias's hands on Saul continue his work by his Spirit. The Old Testament connection is Moses and Joshua (Numbers 27:18-23). Joshua (the Hebrew name is the same as Jesus) leads Israel across the Jordan, and that handing-over is an echo, not a prophecy, of the greater leader who brings his people into rest (Hebrews 4:8-9).

The 'treasure' Timothy guards is the gospel of Christ Jesus, 'who has abolished death and illuminated the way to life and immortality' (2 Timothy 1:10). The minister is a steward of this message and not its owner. The true shepherd (John 10:11), the apostle and high priest whom Hebrews 3:1 tells believers to consider and the chief shepherd (1 Peter 5:4) stands behind every human minister.