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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - 1 Timothy 6:12 - 6:12
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Fight the good fight - Birks thinks this Epistle was written from Corinth, where contests in the national games recurred at stated seasons, which will account for the allusion here as in 1Co 9:24-26. Contrast “strifes of words” (1Ti 6:4). Compare 1Ti 1:18; 2Ti 4:7. The “good profession” is connected with the good fight (Psa 60:4).
lay hold on eternal life - the crown, or garland, the prize of victory, laid hold of by the winner in the “good fight” (2Ti 4:7, 2Ti 4:8; Phi 3:12-14). “Fight (literally, ‘strive’) with such striving earnestness as to lay hold on the prize, eternal life.”
also - not in the oldest manuscripts.
professed a good profession - Greek, “didst confess THE good confession,” namely, the Christian confession (as the Greek word is the same in this verse as that for “confession” in 1Ti 6:13, probably the profession here is the confession that Christ’s kingdom is the kingdom of the truth, Joh 18:36, Joh 18:37), at thy being set apart to thy ministerial function (whether in general, or as overseer at Ephesus): the same occasion as is referred to in 1Ti 1:18; 1Ti 4:14; 2Ti 1:4.
before many witnesses - who would testify against thee if thou shouldest fall away [Bengel].