1 Timothy 6:4

1 Timothy 6:4. He is proud. The same Greek word as in 1 Timothy 3:6, ‘He has been and is under the stupefying influence of a fever.' The word is thus brought into the sharpest possible contrast with the ‘healthy words' of the previous verse.

Doting. Here again the term is strictly medical: ‘ raving' mad after, morbidly dwelling on.

Strifes of words. The Greek word (λογομαχι ́ ας) is not classical, and was probably one of those coined by St. Paul. The precise nature of the logomachies in question must remain in doubt, but the context would lead us to think of debates in which high-sounding words, ‘knowledge,' ‘freedom,' ‘power,' ‘right,' were used, such as were in use at Corinth, and have been always the watchwords of revolutionary leaders in ecclesiastical or social life.

Railings. The Greek word is ‘blasphemies,' but the English Version is right in confining it to words of reviling from man to man. So, in like manner, the ‘evil surmisings ‘are men's suspicions of each other.

1 Timothy 6:5. Perverse disputings. There are two different readings of the Greek words, each giving a distinct meaning (1) διαπαρατριβαὶ, continued quarrels; (2) παραδιατριβαί (as in the English Version), perverse disputings. Of these the first is best supported.

Man of corrupt mind. Literally ‘ corrupted as to their mind,' the word used being that which implies, in St. Paul's psychology, the higher intellect or spiritual part of man, including will and conscience.

Destitute of the truth. The English ‘destitute,' which has come to have a simply negative meaning, is hardly adequate for the Greek, ‘ men who have lost the truth, ' bereaved of it, as of a treasure.

Thinking that gain is godliness. The English Version exactly inverts the right order of the words, ‘ thinking that godliness' (better perhaps ‘religion' or ‘piety') ‘is a means of mining money.' The words carry us back to the disturbing anti-social teaching against which the apostle had protested in 1 Timothy 6:1-2. To such men the new religion seemed, as it were, a new business, an investment, a means of getting on in life, and so they made themselves and others discontented with their station and their work.