1 Timothy 1:7

1 Timothy 1:7. Desiring (i.e. pretending) to be teachers of the law. The compound word used by St. Paul suggests (as in Luke 5:17; Acts 5:34) a more official title than the English. They claimed to be Rabbis or doctors of the law, such as Gamaliel. The word shews clearly that it was still the Jewish element of which St. Paul was most in dread, though the context indicates that it was a Judaism of a less strict and more corrupt kind than that against which he reasons in the Epistles to the Galatians and Romans. Elymas (Acts 13:8) or Sceva and his sons (Acts 19:14) may stand as the type of this newer form of error. They talked much, with a braggart confidence, of the law, and yet never dreamt of applying it as a rule of life in their own practice.