2 Timothy 1:13 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Hold fast the form The draught, pattern, or model; (so υποτυπωσις signifies;) of sound words Of pure and salutary doctrine; which thou hast heard of me Hast received repeatedly from my own lips: keep this, not merely in theory, and in thy memory, but in thy heart; in faith and love In that cordial faith and sincere love which are essentially necessary to our being in Christ Jesus, and which will ensure our being owned by him as his true disciples. Macknight thinks the phrase υγιαινοντων λογων, sound, wholesome, or salutary words, here used by the apostle, is an insinuation that the false teachers had introduced into their discourses a variety of high-sounding, mysterious words and phrases of their own invention, on a pretence that they expressed the Christian doctrines better than those used by the apostles; and that Timothy was hereby required to “resist this bad practice, by adhering closely to the words and phrases in which the apostle had taught him the doctrines of the gospel, and which he terms wholesome words, because, being dictated by the Spirit, (1 Corinthians 2:13,) they are more fit for expressing the doctrines of Christ than any words of human invention. The teachers in modern times, who, in explaining the articles of the Christian faith, use phrases different from the Scripture phraseology, would do well to attend to this apostolical injunction.” That good thing which was committed, &c. Greek, την καλην παρακαταθηκην, literally, the good deposite. “Our translators have added the words to thee, which are not in the original; and besides are unnecessary, because the apostle is speaking of a deposite committed in trust to himself, as well as to Timothy; as is plain from the last words of the verse, φυλαξον, guard by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.” Concerning this deposite, see on 1 Timothy 6:20. “As the form of sound words, mentioned in the preceding verse, was a part of this deposite, an exhortation to guard them was extremely necessary, before the writings of the apostles and evangelists were published, in which the doctrines of the gospel are expressed in words taught by the Holy Ghost. And now that these inspired writings are in our possession, this exhortation implies that we ought to preserve them pure, without any alteration; and that all the translations which are made of them ought to exhibit, as nearly as possible, the very words which were dictated to the inspired writers by the Spirit of God.”