But foolish and unlearned questions avoid. — The Greek word translated “unlearned” is better rendered ignorant. These “questions” which, as we have seen above, the false teachers, with whom Timothy was so much thrown, loved to put forward for discussion, could hardly be termed “unlearned” — much useless learning being often thrown away in these disputing of the schools — but were rather “pointless,” “stupid,” as well as foolish. The nature of these questions of controversy has been discussed above.
Knowing that they do gender strifes. — Knowing — as thou dost — from sad and frequent experience, what conflicts, heart-burnings, estrangements, these abstract questions between rival teachers and rival sects engendered.