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 allow the wild teaching of his opponents, thoroughly discredited as it is and will be by equally wild conduct, to shake his security. Not everything that is disputed is disputable, nor everything that is doubted doubtful. And if the fruits of the two kinds of teaching do not fully convince him of the necessity of abiding by the old truths rather than by the suggestions of these innovators, let him remember those from whom he first learnt the truths of the Gospel,--his grandmother Lois, his mother Eunice, and the Apostle himself. When it comes to a question of the authority of the teachers, which group will he choose? Those who established him in the faith, or those who are trying to seduce men away from it?
There is a little doubt about the word "of _whom_ thou hast learned them." The "whom" is probably plural (=para tinôn=); but a reading which makes it singular (=para tinos=) is strongly supported. The plural must include all Timothy's chief instructors in the faith, especially the earliest, as is clear from the nature of the case and from what follows. If the singular is adopted, we must refer it to St. Paul, in accordance with "the things which thou hast heard from me ... the same commit thou to faithful men" (ii. 2). It is possible that the words just quoted have influenced the reading in the passage under consideration, and have caused the substitution of the singular for the plural.
But there is a further consideration. There is not only the _character_ of the doctrine on each side, and the _fruits_ of the doctrine on each side, and the _teachers_ of whom Timothy has had personal experience, and about whose knowledge and trustworthiness he can judge; there is also the fact that from his tenderest infancy he has had the blessing of being in contact with the truth, first as it is revealed in the Old Testament, and then as it is still further revealed in the Gospel. The responsibilities of those who from their earliest days have been allowed to grow in the knowledge of God and of His government of the world, are far greater than the responsibilities of those who have had no opportunity of acquiring this knowledge until late in life. Old habits of thought and conduct are not extinguished by baptism; and the false opinion and vicious behaviour of many of those who are vexing, or will hereafter vex, the Church in Ephesus, may be traced to influences which had become dominant in them long before they came into contact with God's revealed law. No such allowance can be made for Timothy. He has had the inestimable privilege of knowing the sacred writings from his earliest childhood. It will be his own fault if they do not "make him wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."
The expression "sacred writings" (=hiera grammata=) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. The usual expression is "the scriptures" (=hai graphai=); and once (Rom. i. 2) we have "holy scriptures" (=graphai hagiai=). Here both substantive and adjective are unusual. The adjective occurs in only one other passage in the New Testament, a passage which throws light upon this one. "Know ye not that they who perform the sacred rites, from the sacred place get their food?" (_Speaker's Commentary_, on 1 Cor. ix. 13.) And just as in that passage "the sacred rites" are the Jewish sacrifices, and "the sacred place" the Jewish Temple, so here "the sacred writings" are the Jewish Scriptures. It is utterly improbable that any Christian writings are included. How could Timothy have known any of these from infancy? Even at the time when St. Paul wrote this farewell letter, there was little Christian literature, excepting his own Epistles; and he was not likely to speak of them as "sacred writings," or to include them under one expression with the Old Testament Scriptures. The suggestion that Christian writings are included, or are mainly intended, seems to be made with the intention of insinuating that this letter cannot have been written by the Apostle, but by some one of a later age. But would even a writer of the second century have made such a blunder as to represent Timothy as knowing Christian literature from his childhood?