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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
16. ἔπεχε σεαυτῷ, take heed to thyself. ἐπέχειν is used in a somewhat similar way in Act 3:5. The warning is put impressively by Bishop Butler in a fragment found among his papers:—“Be more afraid of thyself than of the world.”
καὶ τῇ διδασκαλίᾳ, and to thy teaching; not ‘to the doctrine,’ sc. of the Apostles. It was his own presentation of truth, of which he was to be heedful.
ἐπίμενε αὐτοῖς, continue in them. In what? If the punctuation of the text be followed αὐτοῖς must refer to σεαυτῷ καὶ τῇ διδασκαλίᾳ, a somewhat harsh construction. But perhaps we should rather connect it with what follows, in which case we may take αὐτοῖς as having reference to the ταῦτα of 1Ti 4:15 and indeed to all the preceding injunctions.
τοῦτο γὰρ ποιῶν κ.τ.λ. In doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee. σώζειν is to be taken in its highest sense; the faithful pastor must save himself in saving others.
τοὺς ἀκούοντάς σου. ἀκούειν τινός is not found elsewhere in St Paul’s Epistles, but it is frequent in Luke. Compare Act 22:7 (in a speech of Paul’s) ἤκουσα φωνῆς with Act 9:4 (the direct narrative) ἤκουσεν φωνήν.
ADDITIONAL NOTE
The ‘Word of God’ in the New Testament
The growth in meaning of the phrase ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ is worthy of fuller investigation than it can receive here; but it may be useful to tabulate the instances (38 in all) of its occurrence in the N.T.
In the corresponding O.T. phrase ‘the Word of the Lord,’ ὁ λόγος τοῦ κυρίου (1Ch 17:3 &c.), the prominent idea is (a) the word which came from God (gen. subjecti) rather than the word which tells of God (gen. objecti); and in the N.T. also this is the primary sense, which, however, passed gradually, as the phrase became familiar, into the sense of the whole revealed message of God to the world (as distinguished from ῥῆμα θεοῦ, a special utterance for a special purpose, e.g. Luk 3:2; Eph 6:17; Heb 6:5). It is thus (b) a synonym for the Gospel, preached by Christ and His Apostles, which may, again, be conceived of as (c) embodied in the Person of Christ Himself. From another point of view God’s message to the world may be regarded as (d) recorded for man’s guidance in the Scriptures of the O.T. In each case the word, whether the Word spoken, the Word Incarnate, or the Word written, is God’s word (ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ).
(a) Joh 10:35 εἰ ἐκείνους εἶπεν θεοὺς πρὸς οὒς ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ἐγένετο κ.τ.λ.