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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - 1 Timothy 6:20 - 6:20
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
That which is committed to thy trust (τὴν παραθήκην)
Only in Pastorals. Comp. 2Ti 1:12, 2Ti 1:14. From παρὰ beside or with, and τιθέναι to place. It may mean either something put beside another as an addition or appendix (so Mar 6:41; Act 16:34), or something put with or in the keeping of another as a trust or deposit. In the latter sense always in lxx. See Lev 6:2, Lev 6:4; Tob. 10:13; 2 Macc. 3:10, 15. Hdt. vi. 73, of giving hostages; ix. 45, of confidential words intrusted to the hearer's honor. The verb is a favorite with Luke. The meaning here is that teaching which Timothy had received from Paul; the “sound words” which he was to guard as a sacred trust, and communicate to others.
Vain babblings (κενοφωνίας)
Only in Pastorals. olxx, oClass. From κενός empty and φωνή voice.
Oppositions of science falsely so called (ἀνιθέσεις τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως)
Better, oppositions of the falsely-named knowledge. Ἁντίθεσις, N.T.o. olxx. Used here, in its simple sense, of the arguments and teachings of those who opposed the true Christian doctrine as intrusted to Timothy. Γνῶσις knowledge was the characteristic word of the Gnostic school, the most formidable enemy of the church of the second century. The Gnostics claimed a superior knowledge peculiar to an intellectual caste. According to them, it was by this philosophic insight, as opposed to faith, that humanity was to be regenerated. faith was suited only to the rude masses, the animal-men. The intellectual questions which occupied these teachers were two: to explain the work of creation, and to account for the existence of evil. Their ethical problem was how to develop the higher nature in the environment of matter which was essentially evil. In morals they ran to two opposite extremes - asceticism and licentiousness. The principal representatives of the school were Basilides, Valentinus, and Marcion. Although Gnosticism as a distinct system did not reach its full development until about the middle of the second century, foreshadowings of it appear in the heresy at which Paul's Colossian letter was aimed. It is not strange if we find in the Pastoral Epistles allusions pointing to Gnostic errors; but, as already remarked, it is impossible to refer these allusions to any one definite system of error. The word γνῶσις cannot therefore be interpreted to mean the Gnostic system; while it may properly be understood as referring to that conceit of knowledge which opposed itself to the Christian faith. Ψευδώνυμος falsely-named, N.T.o. olxx. It characterises the γνῶσις as claiming that name without warrant, and as being mere vain babbling. Comp. Col 2:8.