CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
1 Timothy 6:3. Teach otherwise.—R.V. “teacheth a different doctrine.” Wholesome words.—R.V. “sound [margin, Gr. healthful] words.”
1 Timothy 6:4. Doting about questions.—R.V. margin, “sick”—in contrast to the healthful words of the Lord Jesus.
1 Timothy 6:5. Perverse disputings.—A. V. margin, “gallings one of another.” R.V. “wranglings.” Supposing that gain is godliness.—Men may choose mammon rather than God, but we can hardly suppose they mistake one for the other, as this translation says. R.V. corrects this—“supposing that godliness is a way of gain.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 1 Timothy 6:3-5
The Vagaries of False Teachers—
I. Ignore the wholesome doctrines of the Divine Teacher (1 Timothy 6:3).—There is no possible folly that the unregenerate mind will not adopt and eagerly champion as if it were the soberest truth. Christ is Himself the Truth in its highest and most complete embodiment, and His words are full of invigorating moral health. The teacher who has no regard for the teachings of Christ, but is carried away with the crude, unshapen fancies of his own brain, deceives others and is himself deceived. No wonder that the mind that cherishes unwholesome doctrines becomes itself diseased, and its high-flown theories are but the ravings of a fanatic.
II. Are a compound of pride and ignorance.—“He is proud, knowing nothing” (1 Timothy 6:4). He is wrapt in smoke, darkened with the fumes of his inordinate self-conceit. The man who boasts of superior knowledge betrays his utter ignorance; and ignorance is the foster-parent of pride. True knowledge makes a man modest and humble. The wisest men feel that they know nothing compared with what they are capable of knowing. A man who was regarded as a marvel of learning once said: “I seem to myself like a basket in which are being carried away the fragments of a hotel—a bit of this, the fag-end of that, and all sorts of things jumbled up together. I do not know anything except little fragmentary parts of this, that, and the other.”
III. Are the occasion of meaningless controversy and quarrelsomeness.—“Doting about questions and strifes of words … perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth” (1 Timothy 6:4-5). Controversy is valueless where there is a lack of knowledge and exact definition. Words are but wind, unless there is the clear recognition of substantial and unvarying truth. Reckless controversy raises more disputes than it settles, and generally intensifies the quarrel. A corrupt heart reappears in corrupt speech. A question of mere words creates endless confusion, envyings, and strife.
IV. Are the prolific offspring of an utterly false conception of godliness.—“Supposing that gain is godliness” (1 Timothy 6:5). Godliness was espoused and advocated by the false teachers as a means of gain. There is nothing more despicable than to make money out of religion, or to be religious because of the gains it brings. The love of gain endangers righteous principles. An old Elector of Brandenburg once said to the Duke of Saxony, “How do you manage to coin so much money, you princes of Saxony?” “Oh,” replied he, “we make money by it.” And so they did, by the quantity of alloy they put into their coin. Godliness is gain; but gain is not godliness.
V. Are to be deliberately shunned.—“From such withdraw thyself” (1 Timothy 6:5). To be associated with tricksters, whether in religion or commerce is to lose caste. We are to “avoid the appearance of evil,” and “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.”
Lessons.—
1. Error is a wicked caricature of truth.
2. Ignorance may be detected by its proud pretensions.
3. Godliness and false doctrine are antagonistic.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1 Timothy 6:3-5. The Provision made in the Plan of Salvation by the Free Grace of God through Faith to secure the Interests of Morality and promote Holiness of Life.
I. The state of mind of any man and also his outward conduct are necessarily influenced by what he believes, so far as it may be of a nature fitted to influence him, and all the doctrines revealed in Scripture are fitted by their nature to produce each its own specific effect on his heart and conduct; and if these doctrines were clearly understood, firmly believed, and at liberty to produce their full effects upon his soul, the result would be a character similar in all respects to the character of our Lord Jesus Christ.
II. In the plan of redemption provision is made for enlisting the powerfully operative affections of love and gratitude on the side of holiness.
III. The scheme of redemption unites us to Christ in several relations which contain in them the basis of certain combinations of affections and principles which are most operative in human affairs.—
1. Christ’s redeemed people stand related to Him as children to their parents, and thereby a foundation is laid for their being animated by the spirit of children.
2. Are united to Him on the footing on which a wife is united to her husband.
3. In the relation of soldiers to their general and sovereign.—Anonymous.