O Timotheus, keep the entrusted deposit, avoiding profane, vain babblings, and oppositions of false-named knowledge,
Paul ends his first letter to Timothy with a personal cry and a charge. God has placed a treasure in Timothy's hands to guard. Timothy must also turn away from a counterfeit — a "knowledge" that only sounds like knowledge.
What is this deposit? One writer says plainly what it is and what it is not:
"The deposit" here, as in 2 Tim. 1:14, means the truth God entrusted through His chosen instruments. It is divine revelation given in words taught by the Holy Spirit. It is the pattern of sound words which Timothy heard from Paul among many witnesses. It is not the soul or its salvation. It is not the ministerial office. It is not even the grace of the Spirit. It is the perfect communication of what God is in nature, ways, relationship, and counsels.
Timothy held a place no one else held. But the charge does not die with him:
We may not overstep our measure or take up the special duties of that honoured colleague of the apostle. But we are just as bound, in our own place, to guard the truth now entrusted to our keeping. In these last days of deception and self-will, one thing is declared to be the tower of safety: to acknowledge and receive every scripture as inspired by God.
A deposit implies a day of reckoning, and one writer finds the picture in Ezra:
The treasures brought from Babylon were weighed both before and after the journey to Jerusalem (Ezra 8:24-34), so that nothing would be missing. In the same way, we must expect a close check of everything entrusted to us. We must guard with zeal, and keep pure, what really belongs to God.
Why does Paul call this empty talk "irreverent" or "profane"? The word points back to a threshold:
The word is linked to a word meaning "a threshold," which anyone may tread on and make unclean. It stands in contrast to a holy place or shrine, which is fenced in and guarded from defilement. In the New Testament older translations always render it "profane." Three times it describes babblings or empty talk (1 Tim. 4:7; 1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:16).
Older translations read "science falsely so called." One group had already taken that title for themselves:
As soon as God revealed the true knowledge of Himself, the adversary began working to corrupt it... The Greek word translated "science" here is the usual word for "knowledge." The earliest corrupters of the faith were known as the Gnostics, which means "the knowing ones." They took their title from this word. The Apostle John referred to them in particular in his letters.
The same writer draws out what "falsely called" implies, and applies it to our own day:
These words imply that a true science exists, in full harmony with revelation. They also state plainly that even 2000 years ago there was a wrongly-named science which opposed revelation. It was largely made up of the speculations of the philosophers. The wrongly-named science of today is much the same: partial knowledge, based on imperfect or inaccurate observations, mixed with a great deal of speculation, often of the wildest kind.
Such teaching is not dull. It flatters man, and it turns him away from ruin and grace:
Nothing undermines the power of the truth we confess more than allowing theories which flatter man and keep the creature busy. Such theories ignore or degrade God and His Son, and in the end they will be found to deny both... This falsely-named knowledge tries to fill the emptiness that unbelief always feels, because it does not really know God and His Son. It fills that space only with its profane ramblings and contradictions. It cannot face the hard fact that sin has ruined man completely. So it avoids the revelation of pure grace, and of a righteousness which is God's own and which can justify the ungodly.
There is a cost, and it falls hardest on people who once looked strong in the faith:
It is sad to know men loving darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. But there is a deeper sorrow over those who once seemed to run well, and then went fatally wrong about the faith. They are not only the victims of folly and evil. They also blindly dishonour the Name which is above every name.
The instruction itself is simple, and the letter's last line supplies the strength for it:
Avoid the babblings, and AVOID the wrongly-named science just as much as the babblings. We shall need grace from God to do this. So the letter closes with the words, "Grace be with you."
- Deposit — What Timothy holds is not his salvation or his office. It is God's own revealed truth, handed to him to keep safe.
- Weighed — Temple treasure carried out of Babylon was weighed at both ends of the journey. Our trust will be checked in the same way, and nothing may go missing.
- Common — "Profane" means ground anyone may walk on, the opposite of a guarded holy place. Empty talk drags holy things down to that level.
- Misnamed — The word here is just "knowledge." True knowledge agrees with revelation. What Paul warns against wears the name without the substance.
- Missed — Theories that flatter man cannot face ruin by sin, so they never reach grace. Some who once seemed to run well went fatally wrong about the faith. God's grace is what keeps the rest of us.
of which some having made profession, have missed the faith. Grace [be] with thee.
Paul's first letter to Timothy ends without ceremony. He gives a last warning, a sad note about people who went wrong, and a short blessing. The close raises the question the whole letter circles: how do you hold on to the truth in a world full of clever alternatives?
Through this letter Paul keeps returning to the same word: "some." Each time the cause is different. The last one is speculation.
Now the Spirit expressly warns that, in the later times of the Christian profession, some will depart, or fall away, from the faith. Later, the Apostle gives more warnings. Some, by their practice, will deny the faith (v. 8). Some, by covetousness, will wander from the faith (1 Timothy 6:10). And some, by speculation, will miss the faith (1 Timothy 6:21).
Paul's phrase describes a knowledge that carries the wrong name. What makes it false is not its subject but its stance. It puts God's word on trial and man on the judge's seat.
"The falsely-named knowledge" always subjects God and His revelation to the mind of man. In this way man takes the place of judge, as far as he can. That role always suits his self-importance. He also needs it, to hide from himself his own guilty and ruined state in the sight of God. What is more, in the fullness of his presumption, he uses the human writers to deny inspiration in any real sense. So he sits in judgment on that word which, our Lord declares, will judge him at the last day (John 12:48).
Miss what man really is, and the true picture of God goes missing too.
Everything must be false where man does not feel his true state. Where that happens, people leave out the real character of God, and the way He steps in because of that state.
The word behind "swerved" carries the idea of aiming and missing. These people were not open enemies of the truth. They professed it.
Here the apostle touches briefly on the effect of this false knowledge: "in professing which some missed the mark [or erred] concerning the faith." It is sad to know that men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. But there is a deeper sorrow over those who once seemed to run well, and then went fatally wrong about the faith. They are not only the victims of folly and evil. They also blindly dishonour the Name which is above every name.
Paul's target is a counterfeit. Naming a counterfeit implies there is something genuine. The verse is not an attack on learning itself.
These words imply that a true science exists which is in complete harmony with revelation. They also state plainly that even 2,000 years ago there was a wrongly-named science which opposed revelation. It was largely made up of the speculations of the philosophers. The wrongly-named science of today is also made up of partial knowledge, based on imperfect or inaccurate observation. It mixes in a great deal of speculation, often of the wildest kind. Whoever professes that sort of "science" misses the faith altogether.
The danger is not knowing things; it is letting them take a place they were never meant to hold.
It is not that any kind of knowledge which is true can be without its value. Christianity does not force us to reject any part of it. But how easily people lift these things into a place they should not hold, and turn them into real opposition to the truth. In that role they must be false.
The closing blessing is not a throwaway. It is the sign Paul used to mark his letters as his own — here in its shortest form.
The apostle wanted to prove that his letters were his own, and to keep believers from being taken in by forged letters. Someone seems to have tried that at Thessalonica. So early in his written ministry he chose a token that would mark his genuine writings. "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you" (20). He perhaps wrote it with his own hand, as he did in his second letter to the Thessalonians (2 Thess. 3:17). We find this greeting attached to all his letters, either in its longest form (2 Cor. 13:14) or in its shortest (1 Tim. 6:21).
The warning is not the last thing Timothy hears.
Yet the last word is beautifully positive: "Grace be with you." Grace is the pure favour of God. In it lies the power to meet and rise above all the opposition that may ever come. And it is there for the personal joy, blessing and strength of the individual — not only, as in other letters, for the whole company of the saints.
- Faith. Paul treats "the faith" as a settled body of truth. A person can hold it or miss it.
- Threat. The danger is "falsely called knowledge." It puts God's revelation on trial before the mind of man.
- Drift. In this one letter Paul names four ways people leave the faith: falling away, practice, money, and speculation.
- Balance. True knowledge is not the rival. The danger is lifting it above the truth.
- Grace. The letter's last word is the blessing, not the warning. God's favour is the power to stand against all that the warning describes.