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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 1 Timothy 1:6 - 1:6
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
6. ὧν, sc. the three above-mentioned sources of ἀγάπη. ὧν is apparently governed by ἀστοχήσαντες, not by ἐξετράπησαν.
τινές. Note the usual vague reference to the false teachers.
ἀστοχήσαντες. Having missed (their aim). ἀστοχεῖν is only used here and at 1Ti 6:21, 2Ti 2:18 in N.T. (cp. Sir 7:19; Sir 8:9), and, in each case, of the failure of the ἐτεροδιδάσκαλοι; they may have meant well, but through want of sound method they failed to reach their goal.
ἐξετράπησαν. Have swerved aside, as from the straight path. Being once in the right way, they did not keep to it. ἐκτρέπεσθαι occurs four times in the Pastorals, but not again in St Paul; cp. Amo 5:8 and Heb 12:13.
εἰς ματαιολογίαν. To vain talking. This was a special characteristic of the false teachers, who busied themselves unduly with vain and irrelevant questions; they are called ματαιολόγοι in the parallel passage Tit 1:10. The abstract word ματαιολογία does not occur again in the Greek Bible.
ματαιολογία, vaniloquium, has in many ages and countries, and not only at Ephesus in the days of Timothy, proved the bane of theology. The subtleties of the Talmud are not worse than the absurdities of speculation to be found in so great a book as the Summa Theologica of St Thomas Aquinas.