1 Timothy 4:10

therefore we both labour In view of this, namely, our hope fixed on the fulness of the blessing of life from the livingGod, a present and a future salvation, -goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all men, creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life," enjoyed to the full only by the faithful, and above all -the redemption of the world, the means of grace, and the hope of glory" realised with -a due sense of the inestimable love" only by the faithful; in view of such a glorifying of our being, of all being, any amount of -toil and moil," any strain of keenest contest is worth while. We may render the whole -faithful saying" thus:

-Right well for such a wage and prize

We toil, we wrestle on

Till hope's far goal be won,

Love's full salvation, Life that lies

In God the Living One

For each created son

Full Life, where Faith to Love replies."

we both labour and suffer reproach The balance of ms. authority is for the omission of -both" and the substitution of -strive," -wrestle," for -suffer reproach." The internal appropriateness which has been thought to require the latter seems altogether from the foregoing paraphrase to suit the change: a superficial adaptation of this passage to the somewhat similar -faithful saying" of 2 Timothy 2:11-12 may have caused the reading -suffer reproach." But the tone here and in Ep. to Titus is -work," the buoyant tone of one who has been set free to -labour in the Lord:" in 2 Tim. the deeper shade of -suffering" has settled on the prison cell. Accordingly in his peroration in ch. 1 Timothy 6:12 St Paul takes up the word and metaphor, -Fight the good fight of the faith;" while in 2 Timothy 4:7 he looks back from the prison cell on his own strife as finished, -I have fought the good fight." The metaphor had long been a favourite with him, e.g. 1 Corinthians 9:25, where the word is translated in full by R.V., -Every man that striveth in the gamesis temperate in all things." See Appendix, E, and K.

we trust More correctly -we have hoped and still hope" the -larger hope," that God is

-love indeed

And love Creation's final law."

The perfect expresses a -Hope that never lost her youth." The aorist has less ms. authority.

the Saviour of all men In a lower sense; (1) for the body, in the supply of a present earthly care, and in the blessing of all earth's good gifts, through His living love, the curse being removed through Christ's coming; (2) for the soul, in the supply of the light of Christ to the conscience, such that where revelation has not come, the soul can still live, if it will, the life of God here through Christ unrecognised and hereafter through Christ revealed. -I am the light of the world," John 8:12; -That was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world," John 1:9.

specially of those that believe In a higher sense; (1) through the Christian's quickened enjoyment of all earth's beauties and happinesses, and the transmuting of earthly losses into gains; (2) through the Christian's response of Faith to Love. -That life which I nowlive in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me," Galatians 2:20; -He that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness but shall have the light of life," John 8:12. In both cases it is a present salvation that is chiefly in view, both of body and of soul; but in both cases the life that now is, of body and of soul, is only part of the whole life of which the living God is Saviour.

See Lange's and Bp Westcott's notes above. This one last word -the faithful," -baptized believers," -holders of the Christian faith," gathers up the great mystery of Creation, Incarnation, Redemption, From 1 Timothy 3:15 to 1 Timothy 4:11, and sets the great revelation of God in Christ the living Saviour against the -lies" and -fables" of men and devils.

-Strong Son of God, immortal Love,

Whom we that have not seen Thy Face

By faith and faith alone embrace,

Believing where we cannot prove,

Thine are these orbs of light and shade,

Thou madest Life in man and brute."

The more usual interpretation of the verse may be given in Bp Woodford's words: -God is the Saviour of all, because He willeth the salvation of all and delivered up His Son for us all (Romans 8:32). He is in a more complete sense the Saviour of His faithful, because in them His gracious will takes effect through the cooperation of their own freewill with His divine will." For extracts from Bp Barrow's famous sermons on the text, and for Prof. Birks's view of the passage giving a special aspect of the -larger hope," see Appendix, F.