1 Timothy 4:1

τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα : The Apostle here passes to another theme, the manifestation of religion in daily life. The connexion between this section and the last is as indicated above. There is a slightly adversative force in the connecting δέ.

The Spirit is the Holy Spirit Who speaks through the prophets of the New Dispensation, of whom St. Paul was one. Here, if the following prophetical utterance be his own, he speaks as if Paul under the prophetic influence had an activity independent of Paul the apostle.

ἐν ὑστέροις καιροῖς : The latter times, of course, may be said to come before the last days, ἔσχαται ἡμέραι (Isaiah 2:2; Acts 2:17, James 5:3, 2 Peter 3:3; καιρὸς ἔσχατος, 1 Peter 1:5; ἔσχ. χρόνος, Jude 1:18).

But a comparison with 2 Timothy 3:1, a passage very similar in tone to this, favours the opinion that the terms were not so distinguished by the writers of the N.T. In this sort of prophetical warning or denunciation, we are not intended to take the future tense too strictly. Although the prophet intends to utter a warning concerning the future, yet we know that what he declares will be hereafter he believes to be already in active operation. It is a convention of prophetical utterance to denounce sins and sinners of one's own time (τινες) under the form of a predictive warning. Cf. 2 Timothy 4:3, ἔσται γὰρ καιρὸς, κ. τ. λ. It gives an additional impressiveness to the arraignment, to state that the guilty persons are partners in the great apostacy, the culmination of the world's revolt from God.

τινες is intentionally vague. See note on 1 Timothy 1:3. It is not used, as in Romans 3:3, of an indefinite number.

πνεύμασι πλάνοις : As the Church is guided aright by the Spirit of truth, He is opposed in His beneficent ministrations by the Spirit of error, τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης (1 John 4:6), who is τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ κόσμου, whose agents work through individuals, the “many false prophets who have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).

διδασκαλίαις δαιμονίων must be, in this context, doctrines taught by demons, a σοφία δαιμονιώδης (James 3:15). See Tert. de Praescr. Haeret. 7. The phrase does not here mean doctrines about demons, demonology. Still less are heresiarchs here called demons. This is the only occurrence of δαιμόνιον in the Pastorals. In Acts 17:18 the word has its neutral classical meaning, “a divine being,” see also Acts 17:22; but elsewhere in the N.T. it has the LXX reference to evil spirits. For διδασκ. see note on chap. 1 Timothy 1:10.