Vincent Word Studies - 1 Timothy 4:3 - 4:3

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Vincent Word Studies - 1 Timothy 4:3 - 4:3


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats (κωλυόντων γαμεῖν, ἀπέχεσθαι βρωμάτων)

Κωλύειν, properly to hinder or check. Ἁπέχεσθαι to hold one's self off. In Paul, 1Th 4:3; 1Th 5:22; Phm 1:15. Commanding is not expressed, but is implied in forbidding; “Bidding not to marry and (bidding) to abstain from meats.” The ascetic tendencies indicated by these prohibitions developed earlier than these Epistles among the Essenes, an ascetic Jewish brotherhood on the shores of the Dead Sea, who repudiated marriage except as a necessity for preserving the race, and allowed it only under protest and under stringent regulations. They also abstained strictly from wine and animal food. This sect was in existence in the lifetime of our Lord. Strong traces of its influence appear in the heresy assailed in Paul's Epistle to the Colossians. The Christian body received large accessions from it after the destruction of Jerusalem (70 a.d.). The prohibitions above named were imposed by the later Gnosticism of the second century.

Hath created (ἔκτισεν)

A common Pauline word. Only here in the Pastorals.

To be received (εἰς μετάλημψιν)

Lit. for participation. N.T. olxx. It occurs in Plato and Aristotle.

Of them which believe and know the truth (τοῖς πιστοῖς καὶ ἐπεγνωκόσι τὴν ἀλήθειαν)

The dative depends on created for participation, and should be rendered; “for them which believe,” etc., marking those for whom the food was created. The A.V. misses this by the rendering to be received of (by). Πιστοῖς and ἐπεγκνωκόσι do not denote two classes, but one. Those who believe are described as those who have full knowledge of the truth.