2 Timothy 2:14

Ver. 14. There follow now a series of exhortations to Timothy, founded upon the important statements contained in the preceding verses, and bearing directly on the manner in which he should ply the work of the ministry, and withstand the errors which were already beginning to prevail in the church. Put them in mind of these things (ὑπομίμνῃσκε, sup. αὐτοὺς, which in a similar exhortation at Titus 3:1 is expressed). The things meant were, no doubt, those mentioned immediately before. Timothy was first rightly to apprehend and grasp them for himself, and then act as a faithful monitor in enforcing them upon others. Solemnly charging them (διαμαρτυρόμενος, the διὰ intensifying the meaning of the verb, and the verb, though primarily signifying to bear witness or testify, evidently meaning, in such a connection as this, to deliver a protest or charge, 1 Timothy 5:21) before God not to wrangle about words, a practice already mentioned in 1 Timothy 6:4, and warned against as characteristic of a class of persons who were unsound at the very core, and of itself fitted to produce much mischief. So here it is declared to be profitable for nothing (χρήσιμον having for its object λογομαχεῖν, the art or practice of mere word-fighting); no one is in a moral respect the better for it. And worse than that, it is upon the subversion of them that hear: an elliptical clause, but plainly meaning that the practice tends to this melancholy result. And the reason is obvious; it serves to beget and nourish a captious, sophistical state of mind, the reverse of that babe-like spirit which receives the sincere milk of the word, and rests with a firm trust in the testimony it brings. If the parties in question were deficient in this before, they were sure to depart further from it by listening to such teaching: it would lead them entirely off from the foundations. (There is some variation both in the reading and the po inting of this text. Instead of μη ̀ λογομαχεῖν, MSS. A, C have μη ̀ λογομα ́ ξει the imperative: Do not wrangle about words; and this forming a clause by itself, necessitates another distribution of the preceding words: Put them in mind of these things, solemnly charging them before God. But this is an unnatural sort of arrangement, and differs from the apostle's usual practice; for elsewhere διαμαρτυ ́ ρομαι precedes the exhortation to which it belongs: 1 Timothy 5:21; 2 Timothy 4:1. And though the reading above noticed must have early crept in, appearing as it does in the Latin versions, yet λογομαχεῖν is the text of א, D, F, K, L, and is exhibited in the Syr., Coptic, and Gothic versions.)