(6) В¶ If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. (7) But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. (8) For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. (9) This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
The Apostle's advice to Timothy, is in no small degree of correspondence to what I have on the preceding verses remarked. If it behoved this young man to put the brethren in mind of those great truths Paul had before been delivering to him, and if by doing so he would show himself to be a good minister of Jesus Christ, the same holds good of all the Lord's people, whether ministers or saints, in all ages of the Church. And if the Spirit hath spoken expressly of the latter-day heresies, it must be an awful thing in them who profess faith in the momentous truths of the Gospel, to be silent about them, when heresies appear!