Bible Commentaries
1 Timothy 4

Verses 1-16

IV: 1. ’The Spirit saith’—What follows (1-3) was made known by the Holy Spirit through one of the early Christian prophets. ’In the last times’—in later times,i.e. in the future, in this Messianic era.

2. ’Having their conscience seared’—grown callous in conscience like flesh seared with a hot iron. Though fully conscious of bearing guilty marks they persist in misleading others. /par/par3. ’Forbidding others to marry’—behind these prohibitions there may lie the dualistic principles which were already apparent in Asia Minor when this epistle was written and which were part of the Gnostic heresy. St Paul objects to these prohibitions when they are the outcome of false principles which would regard marriage and certain foods as impure, but he has no objection to abstaining from marriage or to fasting when properly understood and based on sound Principles; cf.1 Corinthians 7:8ff.; 2 Corinthians 6:5; 2 Corinthians 11:27; 1 Corinthians 9:27. When the Church bids us fast and abstain she does so, not because she regards certain foods as evil, but to help us to mortify our appetites, to conquer self and so to make spiritual progress.

4. cf.Genesis 1:315. ’Sanctified by the word of God’— blessed by a blessing scriptural in form, a scriptural grace. 7. cf. 1:4.

8. ’Bodily exercise’—Mere training of the body profits but little. ’Profitable to all things’—Holiness is all availing, i.e. for this life and the next.

9. ’A faithful saying’—This assertion regarding the good effects of true piety is worthy of full and unqualified acceptance.

12. ’Let no man despise thy youth’— At the time Timothy was between thirty and forty, and so comparatively young for his position, especially in comparison with Paul and the presbyters. Personal virtue and edifying conduct had to supply lack of years In conversation’—behaviour.

13. ’Attend unto reading’—public reading and instruction.

14. ’Grace’—charisma; here it refers to the sacramental grace of the priesthood bestowed on Timothy. ’Given thee by prophecy’—the phrase d?? p??Fðteía? is ambiguous. It may be an accusative plural, on account of prophecies made by those faithful present at the ordination of Timothy who were endowed with the gift of prophecy, cf.1 Timothy 1:18. Alternatively it is genitive singular, in which case the prophetic utterance is regarded as the cause of the promotion of Timothy. A further suggestion is that the phrase may refer to some form of prophetic prayer uttered by the Apostle over Timothy; a sort of form of ordination. ’With the imposition of the hands of the priesthood’—cf.2 Timothy 1:6, whence it appears that both Paul and the local presbyters imposed hands upon Timothy, the former bestowing, the sacrament, the latter accompanying or co-operating thus making the ceremony a common liturgical act. ’The use of the preposition µet? (used here) instead of d?? (2 Timothy 1:6) leads us not to attribute to the imposition of hands on the part of the presbyterate the same value as to the laying on of Paul’s hands; the latter is active and produces the effect (d??), while the former is only concomitant (µet?); one is essential to the rite, the other enhances its brilliancy’, Prat II, 270.