The three pastoral letters or epistles are books of the canonical New Testament: the First Epistle to Timothy (1 Timothy) the Second Epistle to Timothy (2 Timothy) and the Epistle to Titus. They are letters from Paul the Apostle to Timothy and to Titus. They are generally discussed as a group (sometimes with the addition of the Epistle to Philemon) and are given the title pastoral because they are addressed to individuals with pastoral oversight of churches and discuss issues of Christian living, doctrine and leadership. While the title is not technically quite correct in that the Epistles do not deal with pastoral duties in the sense of the cure of souls, yet it is popularly appropriate as denoting the essentially practical nature of the subject matter as distinguished from the other Epistles attributed to Paul. The term "pastorals" was popularised in 1703 by D. N. Berdot and in 1726 by Paul Anton.

1 Timothy 4:13 Devote yourself

1 Timothy 4:13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.
Among the things that Timothy was to focus on was "reading", chiefly the public reading of Scripture and preaching or exhorting and ... teaching. It would be tempting to think that reading is not as important now as it was when people didn't have their own copies of Scripture. However, the public reading of Scripture ought to be up there with preaching and teaching for faithful ministers of the Word. It is unlikely that Paul is imagining over sharp divisions among these three categories. In practice, teaching and preaching often intermingle and Scripture reading is always involved with that. There are times, however, when the focus is solely exhortation or teaching. What ever happens each minister needs to work out for himself, sometimes in consultation with others, how he can keep the focus on the public reading of Scripture ... preaching and ... teaching. This is what is best for churches in Christ.
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