<p>1:3 <i>Stay at Ephesus</i>- From what we figure of Timothy later in the correspondence, the implication would be that Timothy wanted to give up in his work with the believers there because he was tired of the inter-personal tensions involved in confronting people and leading people to a better way.</p><p><i>Just as I urged you to do- </i>The Greek can stand the translation 'begged'. Timothy clearly needed to be persuaded and was weak from the start.</p><p><i>When I was going into Macedonia</i>- It seems this refers to the time of Acts 20:1: &quot;Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them he said farewell to Ephesus and departed for Macedonia&quot;. But soon afterwards we read that Timothy rejoined Paul (Acts 20:4); we could conclude that Timothy couldn't stick it for long. And now Paul is urging him again.</p><p><i>So that you might instruct certain men not to teach a different doctrine</i>- &ldquo;Instruct&rdquo; is to charge. This word is repeated three more times to Timothy; he was to charge others as to how to behave (1 Tim. 4:11; 5:7; 6:17). For a young, insecure man to charge others regarding their behaviour was of course very difficult. All teaching is difficult because the message we have is not acceptable to our audience, for the most part. This is why true teaching of God's word is not an easy work- if we do it properly. It is not entertainment; reasoning with folks about how to use their money (1 Tim. 6:17) is bound to be difficult and not something we naturally would prefer to do. The difficulty was worse because the Ephesian church had originally been formed out of the synagogue, and the false teaching in view in this verse was probably by Jews. And Timothy was born uncircumcised and probably not fluent in Hebrew. Yet he was to charge the Judaists with authority that they must not teach their false teaching further.</p>