Strive diligently to present thyself approved to God, a workman that has not to be ashamed, cutting in a straight line the word of truth.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
But profane, vain babblings shun, for they will advance to greater impiety,
Paul has just told Timothy to handle the word of truth well. Now he names the opposite activity and tells him to keep away from it. The warning comes with its own reason: this talk does not stay still. It moves, and it moves one way only.
The ESV calls this "irreverent babble." Older translations say "profane and vain babblings," and each of those words does its own job. One names an attitude to holy things. The other names the content:
Babblings that are profane treat divine things as if they were common, because they make light of what is sacred. They are "vain" because the arguments used have no substance.
The word also fits a familiar habit today — religious talk that leaves God out:
"Profane" here means purely secular, with no real reference to God. It drags everything down to a level where only reason and matter count. This is empty vanity, and it drags souls into deeper ungodliness.
The verse ties this talk to ungodliness. One writer shows how the first produces the second:
Scripture warns us that as profane and vain babblings increase, ungodly conduct will increase with them. Profane talk leads to an ungodly walk. Holding or spreading error will, as always, lower outward conduct. Laxity of doctrine leads to laxity of morals.
Paul tells Timothy to avoid this talk, not to refute it. The problem lies deeper than the ideas themselves:
This proves how useless it is to meddle with talk that is not only empty but profane. There was no fear of God in those who indulged in it, and the fear of God is the beginning of everything good for fallen man. Until the truth reaches the conscience, we cannot expect such people to stop misusing the precious revelations of God. They are guilty of profanity. They do not need arguments; they need repentance. Discussion would only flatter their self-importance. It could never stop such a destructive evil.
Gifted people feel this pull most. The damage runs two ways — to the debater, and to those watching him:
Some know their own ability to take evil apart and answer it, and so they are prone to meddle with these empty profanities. This does them no good. It may also harm believers, who value such workers and may soak their minds in these dreary efforts. As a rule these efforts puff up the guilty parties instead of convincing them. Time is too precious for anything but what builds up. The man who sets out to argue with every empty dreamer may win, but he is in real danger of serious harm to himself.
Shunning is not silence. Standing for the truth is still a duty. What Paul rules out is the slide from truth into arguments about words:
Satan has no more successful trap than luring the Lord's servants into foolish controversies. When people are turning away from the truth, contending for it is one of the servant's first responsibilities. But that is very different from turning aside to arguments about words — or, as the Apostle puts it here, "empty voices": words or sounds that carry no meaning for the believer. We cannot say too often that the best way to refute error is to state the truth. Controversy carried on this way builds up both speaker and hearers. Profane and empty babblings only produce more impiety, because they harden the heart and the conscience.
This is not a one-off instruction. The same letter gives the same command again and again, in different words:
Separation from evil is the first step in God's path. If I cannot reform the evils of Christendom, I am responsible to be right myself... Notice how many times, in different terms and different ways, this letter urges separation from evil. The Apostle says:
- "Shun profane and vain babblings" — 2 Timothy 2:16 - "Depart from iniquity" — 2 Timothy 2:19 - "Purge himself from these" — 2 Timothy 2:21 - "Flee also youthful lusts" — 2 Timothy 2:22 - "Foolish and senseless questionings avoid" — 2 Timothy 2:23 - "From such turn away" — 2 Timothy 3:5
- Empty — the talk is "profane" because it treats sacred things as common. It is "vain" because its arguments have nothing behind them.
- Moving — empty talk never stays put. Loose doctrine loosens conduct, so profane talk ends in an ungodly walk.
- Useless — where there is no fear of God, debate only flatters the talker. Such people need repentance, not better arguments.
- Costly — you may win the argument with an empty dreamer and still come away damaged. Onlookers soak up the dreariness too.
- Replaced — the cure is not silence but substance. State the truth; it builds up speaker and hearer alike. Then follow the letter's steady call — shun, depart, flee, avoid, turn away.
and their word will spread as a gangrene; of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
[men] who as to the truth have gone astray, saying that the resurrection has taken place already; and overthrow the faith of some.
Paul names two men whose teaching had gone wrong: they did not deny the resurrection, but said it was already past. How far can an error like that reach into a believer's life, and where does it stop?
These were not outsiders attacking from a distance. The verb Paul uses for going wrong carries the idea of an archer's shot falling wide.
The apostle points out that this dreadful evil among the saints — once, if not any longer — was no imaginary danger to haunt souls, but a fact calling for healthy fear and horror: "Of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, who as to the truth went astray," or literally, missed the mark, saying that "the resurrection had taken place already, and overthrow the faith of some."
Commentators agree the error was subtle rather than blunt, and that its attraction was its air of deeper insight. One writer suggests where they may have found their proof-text.
These men, it seems, held the place of teachers. They fell into a serious error: they did not deny the resurrection, but said it was already past. This subtle form of false teaching is worth special attention. Many believers today could be caught by a seeming super-spirituality that sounds plausible. The teaching of Hymenaeus and Philetus had exactly that pretentious character, for they made the resurrection a spiritual thing. It is quite possible they based their argument on Ephesians 2, where we read that God has made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up together. But "concerning the truth" they erred — literally, they missed the mark. The effect was to overthrow the faith of some.
The danger was not too little interest in truth but too much confidence about it. That makes the warning land closest to the people who care most.
It is deeply interesting to weigh the character of this error. It was not ignorance of the truth so much as exaggeration. It was the exalting of present privilege to the denial of our hope at Christ's coming. No doubt they prided themselves on higher truth than others taught, and on superior intelligence. This is an extreme danger for people who truly thirst for the truth of God and value it. If they are not watchful, they fall into the trap most easily.
Our Lord calls us to share His sufferings now and to be glorified later. This error cuts the waiting short.
But the error that the resurrection is already past is fatal to this endurance in the meantime. If it were true, it would entitle us to reign as kings now, to take our ease, to enjoy present honour and glory. The enemy framed and calculated it for one purpose: to thwart the will of our Lord, who calls us to share His sufferings until we are glorified together. So it is false as a doctrine and ruinous in practice. It also destroys all communion with Christ, which means sharing His affections in separation from the world.
The error changed whole churches, not only individuals. Take away the future, and the people of God stop travelling.
I think I see the form of the church settling down into the world in the doctrine of Hymenaeus and Philetus: if the resurrection is already past, then here we are, settled in our final state. No one had yet formed it into a system. It simply took away the expectation of the Lord and heavenly hopes. For if the resurrection was past, then Christ had freed His people spiritually and left them here, content in their worldly home. The church was no longer a stranger and a pilgrim, a bride waiting for the Bridegroom. She had settled into a permanent, accepted place on the earth.
Paul says the faith "of some" was upset. One writer explains what "the faith" means here.
"The faith" here means the thing believed. These false teachers really turned souls aside from the truth and led them away from what they had said they believed. It is not a question of salvation, but for the time, at least, these misguided people gave up the truth.
The loss was real. It also had a limit.
In teaching this they tampered with the very foundations of the faith of the gospel. They overthrew the personal faith of anyone who came under their power. They could not, of course, overthrow the faith of Christianity. That was a divine foundation, and whatever God founds always stands firm as a rock. Nor could they overthrow anything God had founded in the hearts of His people. That always remains, come what may, and "the Lord knows those who are His" — even if false teaching had misled them, so that others could no longer tell them apart.
- Missed — "swerved" means missing the mark. These two men taught inside the church, and they shot wide of the truth.
- Stretched — the error was exaggeration, not ignorance. They pushed present privilege so far that it denied the hope of Christ's coming.
- Flattered — it looked like deeper insight. That is why people who value truth most fall into this trap most easily.
- Settled — if the end has come, endurance and suffering with Christ end too. The bride stops waiting and makes a home in the world.
- Bounded — the damage is real but limited. False teaching can upset "the faith of some," but it cannot touch what God has founded, either in Christianity or in His people's hearts.