For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers--The conjunction “for” showeth that the words following contain a reason of the matter preceding, viz.
, why the minister should be a man so qualified with able parts, both to maintain the truth and censure the falsehood. The reason is drawn from the description
1. Of teachers, in these two verses; and
2. Of hearers, in the twelfth.
The teachers are described by three arguments.
1. From their indefinite number, there are many, not two or three, who are easily set down, but many.
2. By their adjuncts, which are two.
1. They are disobedient or refractory, such as will not submit themselves to the true doctrine and discipline of the Church.
2. They are vain talkers; that is, such as being given to ostentation and vanity, contemn the study and delivery of sound and profitable doctrine, and search out words and matters of wit and applause, both of them of more sweetness unto the flesh than soundness unto the soul and spirit.
3. By their most dangerous effects, and these also are two.
1. Their deceiving of minds; for which ungodly practice he especially brandeth them of the circumcision; that is, either by metonymy, the Jews themselves circumcised, or else Gentiles Judaising, embracing Jewish opinions, mixing the law and gospel, Moses and Christ, circumcision and baptism together, making indeed an hotchpotch of religion by confounding things that can never stand together. The second effect of them is their subversion of whole houses; that is, they poison and infect whole houses, yea, and where the grounds and foundation of religion hath been laid they overturn and overthrow all. This last effect is declared by two arguments.
1. From the instrumental cause of it, and that is by their false doctrine, teaching things which they ought not.
2. From the final cause of it, that is, covetousness, for filthy lucre sake. Now these teachers being so many, so dangerous and hurtful, their mouths must needs be stopped. Which is a common conclusion set between the two verses, as having reference unto them both, as a common remedy against all the mischief which anyway may be let in by them, and therefore those that are to be admitted into the ministry must be of ability to stop their mouths. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Hindrances to religion
I. The chief hindrances to religion are often in the church itself. The persons alluded to were members and professed teachers.
1. Words without sincerity are “vain.”
2. Great attention may be paid to the letter of the law, while its spirit is violated--“they of the circumcision.”
3. The distinction between good and bad preachers--the former live to preach, while the latter preach to live.
II. Hindrances in the church must be removed. “Whose mouths must be stopped.”
1. Discipline must be exercised in love.
2. The prosperity of the Church of God must be considered before that of individuals.
3. Every age has its own obstructions to the truth--intemperance, covetousness, selfishness, the chief hindrances of the present.
III. Communities are affected by the conduct of individuals. The characters of men are transferred to their country; here the Cretians became a byword. So, drunken Englishmen abroad, compromise the character of their fellow countrymen. Four vices
1. Untruthfulness.
2. Passion--“evil beasts.”
3. Sensuality.
4. Slothfulness. (F. Wagstaff.)
The characteristics of false teachers
1. In that the first thing taxed in these false teachers by the apostle is disobedience, we learn that disobedience commonly is the ground of false doctrine. For
1. It is just with God to give up those to errors and delusion that receive not the truth in the love of it, for wheresoever it is received in love obedience cannot but be yielded unto it.
2. The nature of sin is ever to be excusing itself, and is loath to be crossed, although never so justly, but studieth how to defend itself as long as it can, even by wresting the Scriptures, and by taking up one error for the maintenance of another.
3. The tenor of Scripture joineth these two together (2 Peter 2:1; 2Pe 2:10; 2 Peter 2:12; Acts 13:8; Acts 13:10; 3 John 1:9).
II. Preachers who themselves are disobedient unto the word, for most part become in their ministry no better than vain talkers.
1. In regard of themselves, being vain glorious persons, affect applause rather than godly edifying, which is a most vain thing.
2. In respect of their labour, which is all in vain, never attaining the end and right scope of the preaching of the gospel unto salvation; for he that soweth vanity what else can he look to reap?
3. In regard of the hearers, who also spend their pains in vain: they hear a great noise and pomp of words, and a glorious show of human wisdom, which may wrap the simple into admiration, but they are left without reformation; their ear is perhaps a little tickled, but their hearts remain untouched; neither are their souls soundly instructed nor fed with knowledge, but they go away as wise as they came.
These Paul calleth vain talkers and vain janglers (1 Timothy 1:6), and again, profane and vain babblers, and that justly.
1. Because their puffed discourses proceed from the profanity of their hearts.
2. They are as strange fire from the Lord’s altar, opposed to that which the Lord hath sanctified to the salvation of His people.
3. They are so far from the edifying of the Church that they cause men to increase unto more ungodliness and profaneness.
III. How did these false teachers deceive men’s minds?
1. By suppressing the truth; for by their vain jangling and speaking, liker poets, philosophers, historians, than prophets, apostles, or any successors of theirs, they made a cleanly conveyance of the light from the people, and, withholding the truth and light, they led them from Christ, from the right knowledge of the Scriptures, from sound godliness and religion in judgment and practice, and so they remained as dark in their understanding, as erroneous in their judgments, as froward in their affections, and as wicked in their lives as ever before.
2. By flattery; for they would not deal directly against the sins of the age, as godly ministers do, but deceitfully, that they might not displease; herein imitating Satan himself, who was wont of old to answer in riddles, as he answered Cresus, that if he would transport himself over the river Halys he should overthrow a most mighty kingdom, namely, his own. But Micaiah will not deceive nor flatter with Ahab, although it stand upon his life.
3. By letting men see their estate in false glasses, so as they never see the truth of it, for people taught by fables and novelties think, and are borne in hand, that they are in heaven’s highway; their souls are brought on sleep, and coming from such frothy discourses, they sit down and please themselves in that they have done their task required, especially if they can bring home a jest or some witty sentence, when perhaps they scarce heard a word of Christ, of their justification, of their mortification, or of their glory.
4. By placing religion in bodily exercises, not in matters of spirit and truth (Colossians 2:20); thus did the Pharisees in their times, the Papists in these, and whosoever urge the decrees of men more than the commandments of God.
IV. But whose minds are deceived.
1. First their own and then others, for they are blind leaders of the blind, deceiving, and being deceived, and although our apostle expresseth not here who they be that are deceived, yet elsewhere he doth, as Romans 16:18, “they deceive the hearts of the simple,” and 2 Timothy 3:6, “they lead captive simple women,” and 2 Peter 2:14, “they beguile unstable souls,” whence we see that ignorant, inconstant, and unsettled souls, which hand over head receive any doctrine without examination or trial, whose simplicity disableth them to judge between truth and falsehood, and whose levity makes them like shaken reeds, these are the carouses on which such vultures do seize. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Danger from false teachers
Herodotus tells of a Scythian river having marvellous sweetness till a little bitter mingles with it, and gives it ever after an uncommon bitterness. So evil counsel, in some emergencies of the soul, will poison the whole current of its existence. You may poison a well from which a neighbourhood drinks, and yet be less guilty than to contaminate the flow of eternal thought. There are times when the greatest trust which one human being can repose in another is the confidence of wise direction. Confiding in the integrity of others, men sometimes commit their credit, their wives and children, to their keeping, and are guided by them through fiery coursers over the land, or by steam vessels over the seas; but when a man goes with his soul, and trusts that to what a fellow being may direct, the trust is as momentous as eternity itself. Yet this is done, for as by man came death, so by man comes life. Oh, ye who watch for souls, as every Christian should, see to it that you ask of God that which is profitable to direct, before you point out the way for a deathless mind to travel in. Example is said to speak louder than words. Whose mouths must be stopped
Faithful teachers must oppose seducers
The duty of every faithful minister is, when occasion is offered, timely to oppose himself against seducers, and stop the mouths of false teachers, wherein also the Church ought to back and strengthen him. For
1. The example of Christ must be our precedent, who most bodily and freely vindicated the law from the corrupt glosses and expositions of the Pharisees, and that in His first sermon.
2. In regard of the particular members of the Church, that they may be preserved in soundness from starting away and forsaking of the truth. And this is made one end of the precept; the madness of the false apostles must be made manifest, that they may prevail no longer.
3. In regard of the false teachers themselves; fools, saith Solomon, must be answered, lest they be wise in their own conceit; neither shall the labour be wholly lost upon them, for it shall be a means either to convert them and bring them to the knowledge of the truth, or else so to convince them as they shall be made excuseless. And further, the Church must strengthen every minister’s hands in this contending for the faith, and so manifest herself to be the ground and pillar of truth, which is committed to her trust and safe keeping, against all gainsayers. This ministerial duty requireth a great measure of knowledge, and a man furnished with gifts of variety of reading and soundness of judgment.
(1) He must be well read and skilful in the Scriptures, that by them in the first place he may be able to shut the mouth of the adversary.
(2) To all this knowledge is required a sound judgment, that he may be able to infer good and necessary consequence upon the granting of the truth he standeth for, and on the contrary, the absurdities and inconveniences which necessarily follow his adversaries’ false positions. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
The silencing of evil talkers
Whose mouths must be stopped, does not mean that you are to throw them into an inquisition and gag their mouths, as was, and is, the practice of the Papacy. The heathen persecutors adopted the same method of dealing with the faithful martyrs of the Lord; for, in order to prevent them speaking of His grace, they cut out their tongues. The Moslems have the same bloody principle from their Koran; so that the Pope, the heathen, the grand Turk, are, on principle, persecutors. This is neither taught in our text, nor in any other part of the New Testament. On the contrary, the saints are persecuted, but they never persecute; they are to follow their Lord and Master to the cross, not the example of those who crucified Him. But their mouths must be stopped in a quite different manner from gagging; they must be opposed by reason, faithfulness, and love; their influence must be destroyed by the faithful preaching of the gospel; and if they be members of the Church, they must be silenced by discipline, and if still refractory, cast out of the communion of the faithful. (W. Graham, D. D.)
Stopping foolish speech
The heights and recesses of Mount Taurus are said to be much infested with eagles, who are never better pleased than when they pick the bones of a crane. Cranes are prone to cackle and make a noise (Isaiah 38:14), and particularly so while they are flying. The sound of their voices arouses the eagles, who spring up at the signal and often make the talkative travellers pay dearly for their impudent chattering. The older and more experienced cranes, sensible of their besetting foible and the peril to which it exposes them, take care before venturing on the wing to pick up a stone large enough to fill the cavity of their mouths, and consequently to impose unavoidable silence on their tongues, and thus they escape the danger. Persons troubled with unruly tongues may learn a lesson from the elder cranes. All Christians ought to bridle their tongues by watchfulness and prayer. The Psalmist formed a noble resolution: “I said, I will take heed to my way, that I sin not with my tongue.”