If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things. — The “things” of which he was to put the brethren in mind were those practices connected with that foolish, false asceticism alluded to in 1 Timothy 4:3-5. Not a few, probably, in that Ephesian flock had been won over by the persuasive words of the false teachers to attribute a peculiar virtue to such practices — practices which, if persevered in, St. Paul well knew would tend to set up for imitation in the Church an unreal, unhealthy standard of life.
Thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ. — A high title to honour, this, “a good minister of Jesus Christ,” and one Timothy would well earn if he would set himself in all earnestness to oppose and discredit the sickly teaching of the Ascetic school.
He would by such opposition, indeed, earn the “title to honour,” for St. Paul well knew how great was the danger of a comparatively young and ardent disciple like Timothy being attracted by such mistaken teachings of perfection. But “the good minister of Jesus Christ” must teach “a life” which may be led by all, not by a select few merely, of the believers on his Master. Asceticism is too often a winning and attractive school of teaching to ministers, as, at a comparatively easy price, they win a great, but at the same time thoroughly unhealthy, power over the souls of men and women who practise these austerities, which tend necessarily to remove them out of the stream of active life.
Nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine. — The Greek present participle rendered here “nourished up in,” marks a continuous and permanent process of self-education. It might be translated “ever training thyself” — a wise and never-to-be-forgotten precept of St. Paul’s, this reminder to his own dear son in the faith, Timothy — and through Timothy to all Christian ministers of every age — never to relax their efforts for self-improvement. The education of the good minister of Jesus Christ is never to be considered finished. He — the teacher of others — must ever be striving himself after a higher and a yet higher knowledge in things spiritual.
Whereunto thou hast attained. — More accurately translated, which thou hast closely followed. In the teaching respecting faith and practice which Timothy, as a disciple, has diligently followed out step by step — in that teaching he is to study to advance yet farther, so as to gain deeper and ever deeper knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom.