1 Timothy 6:20

1 Timothy 6:20. O Timothy. The letter is coming to its close, and the feelings of the writer grow more intense.

That which is committed to thy trust. The Greek has one word with the sense of ‘deposit.' Taken by itself, it is general in its meaning, and may refer either (1) to the faith committed to him, (2) to the Church entrusted to his charge, or (3) to the spiritual gifts bestowed on him. Looking to the antithesis with ‘profane babblings' here, to the use of the cognate verb in 1 Timothy 1:18 and 2 Timothy 2:2, to its connexion with ‘the form of sound words' in 2 Timothy 1:12-13, there can be little hesitation in accepting (1) as the most probable.

Vain babblings. A various reading, differing only in two vowels, gives ‘ new phrases,' but the text is preferable.

Oppositions of science falsely so called. There is not much difficulty as to the ‘ science' thus spoken of. ‘ Knowledge,' the familiar rendering in other passages, as 1 Corinthians 8:1; 1 Corinthians 12:8; 1 Corinthians 13:2, would be far better here also. The dreamy fantastic gnosis of the Apostolic Age was as remote as possible in its character and tendencies from the ‘science' of modern culture. We know from the passages referred to that there were some in St. Paul's time at Corinth' who boasted of a gnosis which he did not recognise as worthy of the name. In the second century, what was then seen in germ had developed into a swarm of fantastic heresies, each claiming ‘ gnosis ' as their special glory. The Pastoral Epistles represent an intermediate stage. What precise meaning is to be attached to the ‘ oppositions of science,' it is not so easy to say. Those who deny St. Paul's authorship refer it to the ‘antitheses' or ‘contrasts' which Marcion drew out between the theology of the Old and New Covenants. It is possible that such contrasts may have been familiar at a much earlier date, and 1 Corinthians 8:1 seems to indicate that the claim to gnosis was allied with an anti-Jewish tendency, with the claim of a right to eat things sacrificed to idols or to indulge in sensual lusts. Teaching of this type, in which such words as ‘knowledge,' ‘power,' ‘freedom,' were set up against faith, love, obedience, might well be said, without assuming a full-blown Marcionite heresy, to be fruitful in the ‘antitheses' of a falsely-called knowledge.