2 Timothy 2:23-25

But foolish and unlearned questions Or unimportant subjects of inquiry and debate; avoid, knowing that they gender strifes Or contentions in the church; and certainly it is a most important part of the duty of a Christian minister to guard against all occasions of offence and mischief. For the servant of the Lord must not strive Or contend eagerly and passionately, as do the vain wranglers spoken of in the preceding verse; but be gentle Or mild, forbearing, and long-suffering; unto all men; apt to teach Chiefly by patience and unwearied assiduity. In meekness Of which he has always need; instructing those who oppose themselves Or who set themselves in opposition to the doctrines of the gospel; if peradventure Or by any means; God may give them repentance to the acknowledgment The belief and profession; of the truth In these verses, “the apostle seems to have had Christ's example as a teacher in his eye, proposing it as a model to all who are employed in teaching. The virtues here mentioned, our Lord generally exercised in teaching. Yet, on some occasions, he departed from his usual mildness, and with great severity reproved notorious sinners; such as the scribes and Pharisees. In the same manner, the prophets and apostles used strong speech in checking obstinate offenders; while those who showed any candour and honesty in their opposition to the truth, they instructed with the greatest meekness.” Macknight. That they may recover themselves Or rather, may awake, and deliver themselves; out of the snare of the devil In which they have lain sleeping, and, as it were, intoxicated. “In order to understand this beautiful image,” says Doddridge,” it is proper to observe, that the word ανανηψωσιν properly signifies to awake from a deep sleep, or from a fit of intoxication, and refers to an artifice of fowlers to scatter seeds impregnated with some drugs intended to lay birds asleep, that they may draw the net over them with the greater security.” Who are taken captive by him Greek, εζωγρημενοι, caught alive. The word denotes the action of a fisher, or hunter, who takes his prey alive in order to kill it; which is properly applied to Satan's insnaring men in order to destroy them. And the snares in which he takes them are those prejudices, errors, lusts, and vices, in which he entangles, and by which he detains them his captives, in the most shameful bondage, danger, and misery, while they have been dreaming, perhaps, of liberty and happiness.