The Pastoral Epistles are the three letters that Paul wrote to Timothy, who had pastoral oversight of the church at Ephesus, and Titus, who had pastoral oversight of a new church on the island of Crete. In these letters, Paul discusses basic principles governing church life. W.E. Vine's commentary on these letters is particularly rich, first because of his own warm pastoral heart, and second because of his concern for missionaries. He says, "these letters are the oldest missionary correspondence of the Christian era, written by one of the earliest missionaries." All of Vine's commentaries excel in the rich tradition of careful, exegetical word studies and expository insight. These two commentaries use a word study approach that takes into consideration every reference to a particular word in the Bible as well as its use in contemporary and classic Greek.