Abstract
Aída Spencer earlier wrote the commentary on 1 Timothy in the New Covenant Commentary Series (2013); there she defended the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles which is merely assumed in the present volume. Here the introductions are extremely brief: two pages for Titus, which is treated first, and four for 2 Timothy; they mainly offer outlines of the letters. Spencer assumes that Titus’s church consists of Jewish Christians. She provides her own translation into wooden English, adding Greek words in transcription and translation whenever relevant. Much of the comment takes the form of word studies, with copious references to parallels elsewhere in Paul and the rest of the NT. It is surprising that the lexicon of Thayer (1889) is often used as authoritative source. Spencer also provides much relevant historical information. Non-academics will struggle with the grammatical terms she uses and with the footnotes.
Characteristic of this volume is the almost complete absence of discussion with other commentators and of alternative interpretations; the focus is on the sacred text. In Titus 2.3 Spencer takes presbutis as ‘female elder’, and here she does briefly mention the alternative view. Throughout she pays attention to gender issues, but she does not offer much direct application. After five of the seven chapters there is a short section called ‘Fusing the horizons’. Several times she helpfully points out what the text does not say, e.g., that an elder has to be a free or wealthy person. This is a good commentary for students and ministers who receive much information in a concise volume. It gently draws these two Pastoral Epistles back into the collection of Pauline epistles.