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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 2 Timothy 2:23 - 2:23
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Ver. 23. But foolish and ignorant questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes. The same advice substantially was given to Titus (Tit_3:9); and the tendency of discussions about questions of the kind here indicated to give rise to fruitless contention, is distinctly stated at 1Ti_6:4. The only point which calls for explanation is the precise meaning of the second epithet applied to the questions— ἀðáéäåýôïõò . Our translators have rendered it unlearned, which may be said to express the etymological sense, like the Vulgate’s sine disciplina, or Alford’s undisciplined. But to proscribe unlearned or undisciplined questions, with an implied sanction of such as could fitly be called learned or disciplined, is certainly not what the apostle meant, in the ordinary sense of such expressions. The Greek word nowhere else occurs in the New Testament; but in the Septuagint it is employed in a considerable variety of significations (if we may judge from the Hebrew terms it is taken to represent)—not only untaught or undisciplined (Pro_5:23), but worthless (1Sa_1:16), senseless or foolish (Pro_8:5, Pro_15:13, Pro_15:15), etc. (See Schleusner, Lex., on the word.) Ignorant is probably as good a secondary meaning, and as suitable to the connection here, as any that can be employed,—understanding thereby something closely allied to the other epithet, foolish, with which it is conjoined—senseless, stupid; such questions as might be raised by persons who had undergone no proper instruction or training in the things of God. Questions of that description the thoughtful and earnest minister of God’s word will do well to eschew: he should feel like one that has no heart or time for them; and a little observation will soon convince him that they are, when entertained, as the apostle intimates, a fruitful source of strife.