The Pastoral Epistles, first published in 1874, is the last commentary written by Patrick Fairbairn, but his first on any of the books of the New Testament.

It grew out of Fairbairn’s lectures on pastoral theology to students at the Free Church College, Glasgow, where he served both as Principal and as Professor of Divinity. His purposes in publishing his material were twofold; to benefit students of the Bible, especially ministers and ministerial students, in their grasp and application of the text, and to defend the divine inspiration and apostolic authority of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus against attacks made by contemporary scholarship. In both aims he succeeds admirably.