PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Pastoral Epistles
Plummer, Alfred · 126,196 words · 173 reading sections
Footnotes:
In our own day there is danger of mistaking lazy or weak indifferentism for Christian charity. It is a convenient doctrine that the beliefs of our fellow-Christians are no concern of ours, even when they try to propagate what contradicts the creed. And, while emphasis is laid upon the responsibility of accepting articl…
305 wordsSECTION 122Chapter Xxvii.
_THE CHARACTER AND CONTENTS OF THE LAST EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL.--THE NEMESIS OF NEGLECTED GIFTS._ "For the which cause I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee through the laying on of my hands. For God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love and discipline."--2 …
858 wordsSECTION 123Chapter Xxvii.
The Second Epistle to Timothy is more personal than either of the other Pastoral Epistles. It is less official in tone and contents, and is addressed more directly to the recipient himself, than through him to others. Three main subjects are treated in the letter; and first and foremost of these is the conduct of Timot…
709 wordsSECTION 124Chapter Xxvii.
For all these reasons, therefore, the Apostle charges his disciple to "stir up the gift of God which is in him through the laying on of the Apostle's hands." And the fact that he uses so much argument and entreaty is evidence that he had grave anxiety about Timothy. Timothy's natural sensitiveness and tenderness of hea…
677 wordsSECTION 125Chapter Xxvii.
Lastly, the spirit with which we are endowed by God is a spirit of _discipline_. By discipline that cowardly indolence, which the spirit of fearfulness engenders, can be kept down and expelled. If it be asked, whether the discipline be that which Timothy is to enforce in ruling others, or that which he is to practise i…
633 wordsSECTION 126Chapter Xxviii.
[88] The assertion that this laying on of hands is a mark of an age subsequent to the Apostles, ignores the plain statements in Acts vi. 6 xiii. 3; comp. viii. 17; ix. 17; xix. 6; and Heb. vi. 2. _THE HEARTLESSNESS OF PHYGELUS AND HERMOGENES.--THE DEVOTION OF ONESIPHORUS.--PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD._ "This thou knowest, t…
1,378 wordsSECTION 127Chapter Xxviii.
Now let us turn to the case of Onesiphorus, whose conduct is such a marked contrast to these others. In the most natural way St. Paul first of all tells Timothy what he experienced from Onesiphorus in Rome; and then appeals to Timothy's own experience of him in Ephesus. In between these two passages there is a sentence…
680 wordsSECTION 128Chapter Xxviii.
Having thus concluded that, according to the more probable and reasonable view, the passage before us contains a prayer offered up by the Apostle on behalf of one who is dead, we seem to have obtained his sanction, and therefore the sanction of Scripture, for using similar prayers ourselves. But what is a similar praye…
679 wordsSECTION 129Chapter Xxviii.
If, then, the dead are conscious, and are not yet perfected, they are capable of progress. They may increase in happiness, and possibly in holiness. May we not go farther and say, that they _must_ be growing, _must_ be progressing towards a better state; for, so far as we have experience, there is no such thing as cons…
842 wordsSECTION 130Chapter Xxix.
All this seems to show that neither Scripture nor the English Church forbids prayer for the departed; that, on the contrary, both of them appear to give a certain amount of sanction to it: and that what they allow, reason commends, and tradition recommends most strongly. It is for each one of us to decide for himself w…
776 wordsSECTION 131Chapter Xxix.
For in the first place, such care was commanded from the outset. Christ has promised that His truth shall continue and shall prevail. But He has not exempted Christians from the duty of preserving and propagating it. He, Who is the Truth, has declared that He is ever with His Church, even unto the end of the world (Mat…
835 wordsSECTION 132Chapter Xxix.
Some expositors interpret the passage as referring, not to the Apostle's public teaching as a whole, but to the instructions which he gave to Timothy at his ordination respecting the proper discharge of his office; and the aorist tense =êkousas= favours the view that some definite occasion is intended (comp. 1 Tim. iv.…
1,330 wordsSECTION 133Chapter Xxix.
This evidence is quite sufficient to prove that what St. Paul charged Timothy to do at Ephesus was done not only there but at all the chief centres of the Christian Church: viz., that everywhere great care was taken to provide continuity of authoritative teaching respecting the articles of the faith. It indicates also …
637 wordsSECTION 134Chapter Xxx.
_THE CHRISTIAN'S LIFE AS MILITARY SERVICE; AS AN ATHLETIC CONTEST; AS HUSBANDRY._ "Suffer hardships with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life; that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier. And if also a man contend in the games, he is no…
683 wordsSECTION 135Chapter Xxx.
3. The Roman army was the one great organization of which it was still possible, in that age of boundless social corruption, to think and speak with right-minded admiration and respect. No doubt it was often the instrument of wholesale cruelties as it pushed forward its conquests, or strengthened its hold, over resisti…
680 wordsSECTION 136Chapter Xxx.
5. But military service implies, what athletic contests do not, vigilant, unwearying, and organized opposition to a vigilant, unwearying, and organized foe. In many athletic contests one's opponent is a rival rather than an enemy. He may defeat us; but he inflicts no injury. He may win the prizes; but he takes nothing …
796 wordsSECTION 137Chapter Xxx.
But this does not seem to be St Paul's meaning. In the first similitude he takes no account of the time which precedes the soldier's service, during which he may be supposed to be preparing himself for it. The Christian's life and the soldier's service are regarded as co-extensive, and there is no thought of any previo…
774 wordsSECTION 138Chapter Xxxi.
_THE POWER OF A BELIEF IN THE RESURRECTION AND THE INCARNATION.--THE GOSPEL OF ST. PAUL._ "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel: wherein I suffer hardship unto bonds, as a malefactor; but the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure all things for the elects' …
654 wordsSECTION 139Chapter Xxxi.
But merely to remember Jesus Christ as a Master Who has suffered, and Who has made suffering a condition of service, will not be a permanently sustaining or comforting thought, if it ends there. Therefore St. Paul says to his perplexed and desponding delegate, "Remember Jesus Christ as one _risen from the dead_." Jesus…
809 wordsSECTION 140Chapter Xxxi.
Once more, to "remember Jesus Christ as one risen from the dead," is to remember One Who claimed to be the promised Saviour of the world, and Who _proved His claim_. By its countless needs, by many centuries of yearning, by its consciousness of failure and of guilt, the whole human race had been led to look forward to …
666 wordsSECTION 141Chapter Xxxi.
This is the meaning of "according to my gospel." These are the truths which St. Paul has habitually preached, and of the value of which he can speak from full experience. He knows what he is talking about, when he affirms, that these things are worth remembering when one is in trouble. The Resurrection and the Incarnat…
721 wordsSECTION 142Chapter Xxxi.
"The word of God is not bound." The Apostle is imprisoned; but his tongue and his companion's pen are free. He can still teach those who come to him; can still dictate letters for others to Luke and the faithful few who visit him. He can still, as in his first Roman imprisonment, see that what has befallen him may "hav…
382 wordsSECTION 143Chapter Xxxii.
[92] It is not credible that a writer who was very familiar with the incidents and persons mentioned and alluded to in Gal. i. 17; ii. 1-5, 11-14; Rom. xv. 19, 28; xvi. 1-3, 23; 1 Cor. i. 11-16; v. 1; xi. 30; xvi. 15; 2 Cor. ii. 12; vii. 5; xi. 24; xii. 3, 7, 18, should make no mention of them or reference to them. The…
705 wordsSECTION 144Chapter Xxxii.
It has been debated whether St. Paul has in his mind those "faithful men" to whom Timothy is to commit the substance of the Apostle's teaching (ver. 2), or whether he is not now taking a wider view and including the whole of the disciple's flock. It is impossible to determine this with certainty; and it is not a questi…
733 wordsSECTION 145Chapter Xxxii.
"Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed." In the previous section St. Paul exhorted Timothy to be ready to suffer for Christ: here he charges him to work for Him; and in the language which he uses he indicates that such work is a serious matter;--"Give diligence." …
723 wordsSECTION 146Chapter Xxxii.
"Handling aright the word of truth," or "Rightly dividing the word of truth." There is some doubt here also as to the explanation of the word rendered "handling aright" or "rightly dividing" (=orthotomein=). Once more we have a word which occurs nowhere else in New Testament. Its radical meaning is to "cut aright" or "…
912 wordsSECTION 147Chapter Xxxii.
Of Hymenaeus and Philetus nothing further is known. Hymenaeus is probably the same person as is mentioned in the first Epistle with Alexander, as having made shipwreck of the faith, and been delivered unto Satan by the Apostle, to cure him of his blasphemies. We are told here that much mischief had been done by such te…
356 wordsSECTION 148Chapter Xxxiii.
_THE LAST DAYS.--THE BEARING OF THE MENTION OF JANNES AND JAMBRES ON THE QUESTION OF INSPIRATION AND THE ERRORS CURRENT IN EPHESUS._ "But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unhol…
650 wordsSECTION 149Chapter Xxxiii.
The meaning of the "last days" is uncertain. The two most important interpretations are: (1) the _whole_ time between Christ's first and second coming, and (2) the portion _immediately_ before Christ's second coming. Probability is greatly in favour of the latter; for the other makes the expression rather meaningless. …
934 wordsSECTION 150Chapter Xxxiii.
One of the ablest of English commentators on these Epistles remarks upon this passage, "It is probable that the Apostle derived these names from a current and (being quoted by him) _true_ tradition of the Jewish Church." And in a similar spirit a writer in the _Dictionary of the Bible_ thinks that it would be "inconsis…
813 wordsSECTION 151Chapter Xxxiii.
There is nothing improbable in the supposition that St. Paul mentions the magicians who withstood Moses as typical opponents of the truth, because the false teachers at Ephesus used magic arts; and the word which he uses for impostors (=goêtes=) in ver. 13 fits in very well with such a supposition, although it by no me…
334 wordsSECTION 152Chapter Xxxiv.
[93] Est et alia Magices factio a Moyse, et Janne, et Jotape Judaeis pendens (Plin. _Hist. Nat._, XXX. ii.). Si quamlibet emolumentum probaveritis, ego ille sim Carinondas, vel Damigeron, vel is Moses, vel Jannes [_al. l._ Johannes], vel Apollonius, vel ipse Dardanus, vel quieunque post Zoroastren et Hostanen inter Ma…
960 wordsSECTION 153Chapter Xxxiv.
Timothy is to abide in those things which he has "learned and been assured of." He has experienced the result which St. Luke wished to produce in Theophilus when he wrote his Gospel: he has attained to "full knowledge of the certainty concerning the things wherein he had been instructed" (Luke i. 4). And he is not to a…
778 wordsSECTION 154Chapter Xxxiv.
With the use of the substantive "writings" (=grammata=) in this passage, should be compared the use of the same word in Christ's discourse at Jerusalem after the miracle at the pool of Bethesda, where he shows the Jews how hopeless their unbelief is, and how vain their appeal to Moses, who is really their accuser. "But…
731 wordsSECTION 155Chapter Xxxiv.
"Every scripture inspired by God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for discipline (=paideia=) which is in righteousness:" _i.e._, is of use both for doctrinal and for practical purposes, for informing both faith and conduct. It is because it is "inspired by God," because God's Spirit breathe…
718 wordsSECTION 156Chapter Xxxiv.
3. Inspiration does not override and overwhelm the inspired writer's personal characteristics. There appears to be no such thing as an inspired style. The style of St. John is as different from that of St. Paul as the style of Bishop Butler is from that of Jeremy Taylor. Each inspired writer uses the language, and the …
319 wordsSECTION 157Chapter Xxxv.
[94] "Rationalism in Religion," in _Tracts for the Times_, republished in _Essays Critical and Historical_, vol. i. p. 32. [95] See the quotations given in Alford's note on =pasa oikodomê= in Eph. ii. 21, which might be increased, if necessary: _e.g._ =pan sôma=, in Arist., _Nic. Eth._, I. xiii. 7, which must = "the w…
836 wordsSECTION 158Chapter Xxxv.
But there is more in this passage than the desire to comfort Timothy for the approaching loss of his friend and instructor, and the desire to spur him on to greater usefulness, not merely in spite of, but because of, that loss. There is also the ecstatic joy of the great Apostle, as with the eye of faith he looks back …
801 wordsSECTION 159Chapter Xxxv.
In all this we see in miniature the history of Christendom since the Apostle's death. His career was a fore-shadowing of the career of the Christian Church. In both cases there appears to be only a handful of real disciples with a company of shallow and fickle followers, to set against the stolid, unmoved mass of the u…
805 wordsSECTION 160Chapter Xxxv.
"Who have loved and do love His appearing."[96] That is the full force of the Greek perfect (=tois êgapêkosin=), which expresses the present and permanent result of past action; and therein lies the test whereby to try the temper of our Christianity. St. Paul, who had long yearned to depart and be with Christ, could no…
273 wordsSECTION 161_The Personal Details A Guarantee Of Genuineness._
[96] The somewhat unusual word here used for Christ's second coming (=epiphaneia=) has been condemned as un-Pauline; but it occurs 2 Thess. ii. 8, and the cognate verb =phaneroun= is found Col. iii. 4. Cf. 2 Tim. i. 10; iv. 1; Tit. ii. 13; 1 Tim. vi. 14. "Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me: For Demas forsook me,…
799 wordsSECTION 162_The Personal Details A Guarantee Of Genuineness._
And he has not been caught tripping. Hostile writers have subjected these details to the most searching criticism; and the result, as we have seen, is that many of them are constrained to admit that these portions of the letter are genuine productions of the Apostle. That is, those portions of the Epistle which can be …
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"But Tychicus I sent to Ephesus." The meaning of the "but" is not quite clear. Perhaps the most probable supposition is that it indicates the reason why the Apostle needs a useful person like Mark. "I had such a person in Tychicus; but he is gone on a mission for me to Ephesus." How natural all this is! And what could …
780 wordsSECTION 164_The Personal Details A Guarantee Of Genuineness._
The reading, "The Lord _will_ render to him" (=apodôsei=), is shown by an overwhelming balance of evidence to be preferable to "The Lord reward him (=apodôê=) according to his works." There is no malediction. Just as in ver. 8 the Apostle expresses his conviction that the Lord will render (=apodôsei=) a crown of righte…
1,005 wordsSECTION 165Chapter Xxxvii.
The result of this investigation is greatly to increase our confidence in the genuineness of this letter and of all three Pastoral Epistles. We began by treating them as veritable writings of the great Apostle, and a closer acquaintance with them has justified this treatment. Doubts may be raised about everything; but …
694 wordsSECTION 166Chapter Xxxvii.
Another confirmation of the view of Eusebius is found in the statement respecting Trophimus, that Paul had left him sick at Miletus. It is impossible to place the Apostle at Miletus with Trophimus prior to the first imprisonment. Consequently some who deny the second imprisonment, and yet maintain the genuineness of th…
753 wordsSECTION 167Chapter Xxxvii.
Nor is there any contradiction between "Only Luke is with me," and the salutations sent by Eubulus and others. There were various members of the Church in Rome who occasionally visited St. Paul in his imprisonment, or at least kept up a certain amount of communication with him. But Luke was the only _outsider_ who was …
715 wordsSECTION 168Chapter Xxxvii.
The word for "strengthen" (=endynamoun=) means literally "to infuse power into" a person. It is one of which the Apostle is rather fond; and outside his writings it occurs in the New Testament only in the Acts and in Hebrews, once in each (Rom. iv. 20; Eph. vi. 10; Phil. iv. 13; 1 Tim. i. 12; 2 Tim. ii. 1). It is worth…
703 wordsSECTION 169Chapter Xxxvii.
To ask who is meant by the lion is a futile question. Whom did the Psalmist mean by the lion, when he prayed "Save me from the lion's mouth"? (Ps. xxii. 21.) He meant no one by the lion; but by the lion's mouth he meant some great and imminent danger. And that is what we must understand here. All kinds of gratuitous co…
831 wordsSECTION 170Chapter Xxxvii.
"To whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen." If what was said above about "the Lord" is correct, then here we have a doxology which manifestly is addressed to Christ. It is possible that in Rom. ix. 5 and xvi. 27 we have other examples, as also in Heb. xiii. 21; but in all these three cases the construction is open…
443 wordsSECTION 171Index.
[99] 1 Cor. xiii. 5; 2 Cor. v. 19. Abecedarians, 70. Acts of the Apostles not written by Titus, 207, nor by St. Paul, 360-362. Adornment, The nature of, 251, 252. Alexander, 75, 76, 373, 413. Ambrose, 230. Anacletus, 416. Ananias and Sapphira, 73, 75. Anarchy in the Church, 73, 271. Angels, 138. Antinomian d…
653 wordsSECTION 172Index.
Inspiration of Scripture, 381, 393-396. Intercession, 83, 86, 326. Irenaeus, 6, 112, 113, 294, 338, 373, 415. Jannes and Jambres, 379-383. Jerome, 230, 360. Jewish Gnosticism, 33, 34. Job, 76, 77, 192. Julian the Apostate, 230, 231. Justin Martyr, 6, 96, 119. Kölling, 8. Krenkel, 9, 207, 407. Lambeth Confere…
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