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exaggerated asceticism of local heretics whose theosophic fancies were already prevalent.
In these epistles (to Timothy and Titus) he merely touches on them, because in private
letters to beloved fellow-workers there was no need to enter into direct controversy with
their erroneous teachings" (Farrar, Life and Work of St. Paul).
Much has been written setting out the errors of Gnosticism and other heresies, but
while it stands written, "avoid", "shun", "turn away", there is no call to the believer to
cumber his mind with a load of error or to occupy his time in pursuing fantastic
speculations. Sufficient for him is the positive teaching concerning the "ages", and that
sacred secret which was hidden from the "generations". To Timothy, as to ourselves, the
positive injunctions are sufficient:
"Give heed . . . . . to a *dispensation of God" (I Tim. 1: 4).
"Consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus, and the doctrine
which is according to godliness" (I Tim. 6: 3).
"Keep that which is committed to thy trust" (I Tim. 6: 20).
"Hold fast the pattern of sound words, which thou hast heard of me in faith and love
which is in Christ Jesus" (II Tim. 1: 13).
[NOTE: * - The A.V. reads "godly edifying", the word which the translators had
before them being oikodome, meaning "to build or edify". Whilst a few texts read
oikonomia, authorities are unanimous that the true reading should be oikonomia,
"dispensation". A somewhat similar scribal error is found in Eph. 3: 9, where the
texts read oikonomia, "dispensation", instead koinomia, "fellowship".]
Here is the work that should claim all our time, energy and thought. We may know
the errors we are to avoid by their fruits: They "minister questions", "vain jangling",
"make shipwreck of faith", "suppose gain to be godliness", cause those who hold such
teaching to "err concerning the faith", "overthrow the faith" and "lead captive" those who
follow these pernicious doctrines and ways. Error and heresy are as old as man. So far
as man is concerned, all error goes back for its origin to the garden of Eden. No error
published to-day, with all the fervour of a new discovery, is really modern, it is but a new
edition of an ancient lie.
We come back to II Tim. 2: 14 to re-read its exhortation in the fuller light we have
received by this digression:
"Of these things"--namely the teaching of verses 11-13, and, in particular, the
emphasis upon the "good deposit"--"put them in remembrance, charging them before the
Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers".
Two words used by the Apostle in this exhortation call for a little expansion. The
word "profit" (chresimon) actually means "use", and inasmuch as it is by our fruits that
we are known, so all true doctrine will conform to the test of Matt. 7: 15-20.
Chresimon, "profit" should be read with II Tim. 2: 21, "meet for the Master's use", the
word translated "use" being euchreston. The profitless fables which the Apostle exposes
in I Tim. 1: 5 are put over against "the end of the commandment" which is "love out of a
pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned".