Las Vegas, Nevada Church
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 Survey of the Letters of Paul:  1 Timothy 6:05  
  
                                                                                                                                                                                    
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1 Timothy 6:05
Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.
 
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Note:
before doing a study on any single verse, read all the verses from the beginning of the chapter to this point and maybe a verse or two beyond. Do this so you have the verse in context before you begin. click here
1 Timothy 6:3-5
3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;
4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,
5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.

Let us first look at the Barclay commentary on verses three through five:

FALSE TEACHERS AND FALSE TEACHING
1 Timothy 6:3–5

If any man offers a different kind of teaching, and does not apply himself to sound words (it is the words of our Lord Jesus Christ I mean) and to godly teaching, he has become inflated with pride. He is a man of no understanding; rather he has a diseased addiction to subtle speculations and battles of words, which can be only a source of envy, strife, the exchange of insults, evil suspicions, continual altercations of men whose minds are corrupt and who are destitute of the truth, men whose belief is that religion is a means of making gain.

THE circumstances of life in the ancient world presented the false teachers with an opportunity which they were not slow to take. On the Christian side, the Church was full of wandering prophets whose very way of life gave them a certain prestige. The Christian service was much more informal than it is now. Anyone who felt called to deliver a message was free to give it, and the door was wide open to those who were out to propagate a false and misleading message. On the non-Christian side, there were men called sophists, wise men, who made it their business to sell philosophy. They had two lines. They claimed – for a fee – to be able to teach people to argue cleverly; they were the men who with their smooth tongues and their adroit [skilful, quick in thought] minds were skilled in what John Milton refers to in Paradise Lost as ‘making the worse appear the better reason’. They had turned philosophy into a way of becoming rich. Their other line was to give demonstrations of public speaking. The Greeks had always been fascinated by the spoken word; they loved an orator; and these wandering sophists went from town to town, giving their demonstrations in the art of oratory. They went in for advertising on an intensive scale and even went as far as delivering by hand personal invitations to their displays. The most famous of them drew people literally by the thousand to their lectures; they were in their day the equivalent of the modern pop star. Philostratus, the Greek philosopher and teacher, tells us that Adrian, one of the most famous of them, had such a popular power that, when his messenger appeared with the news that he was to speak, even the senate and the circus emptied, and the whole population flocked to the Athenaeum to hear him. These sophists had three great faults.

Their speeches were quite unreal. They would offer to speak on any subject, however remote and obscure and unlikely, that any member of the audience might propose. This is the kind of question they would argue; it is an actual example. A man goes into the citadel of a town to kill a tyrant who has been grinding down the people; not finding the tyrant, he kills the tyrant’s son; the tyrant comes in and sees his dead son with the sword in his body, and in his grief kills himself; the man then claims the reward for killing the tyrant and liberating the people; should he receive it?

Their thirst was for applause. Competition between them was a bitter and cut-throat affair. Plutarch tells of a travelling sophist called Niger, who came to a town in Galatia where a prominent orator lived. A competition was immediately arranged. Niger had to compete or lose his reputation. He was suffering from a fishbone in his throat and had difficulty in speaking, but for the sake of his reputation he had to go on. Inflammation set in soon after, and in the end he died. Dio Chrysostom paints a picture of a public place in Corinth with all the different kinds of competitors in full blast: ‘You might hear many poor wretches of sophists shouting and abusing each other, and their disciples, as they call them, squabbling, and many writers of books reading their stupid compositions, and many poets singing their poems, and many jugglers exhibiting their marvels, and many soothsayers giving the meaning of prodigies, and 1,000 rhetoricians [ret-uh-rish-uhns] twisting lawsuits, and no small number of traders driving their several trades.’ There you have just that interchange of insults, that envy and strife, that constant wordy quarrelling of people with decadent minds that the writer of the Pastorals deplores. ‘A sophist’, wrote Philostratus, ‘is put out in an extempore speech by a serious-looking audience and tardy praise and no clapping.’ ‘They are all agape’, said Dio Chrysostom, ‘for the murmur of the crowd . . . Like men walking in the dark they move always in the direction of the clapping and the shouting.’ Lucian writes: ‘If your friends see you breaking down, let them pay the price of the suppers you give them by stretching out their arms and giving you a chance of thinking of something to say in the intervals between the rounds of applause.’ The ancient world was only too familiar with just the kind of false teacher who was invading the Church.

Their thirst was for praise, and their success was measured by numbers. The Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus [ep-ik-tee-tuhs] has some vivid pictures of the sophist talking to his disciples after his performance. ‘“Well, what did you think of me today?” “Upon my life, sir, I thought you were admirable.” “What did you think of my best passage?” “Which was that?” “Where I described Pan and the Nymphs.” “Oh, it was excessively well done.” “A much larger audience today, I think”, says the sophist. “Yes, much larger”, responds the disciple. “Five hundred, I should guess.” “O, nonsense! It could not have been less than 1,000.” “Why, that is more than Dio ever had. I wonder why it was? They appreciated what I said, too.” “Beauty, sir, can move a stone.”’ These performing sophists were ‘the pets of society’. They became senators, governors and ambassadors. When they died, monuments were erected to them, with inscriptions such as ‘The Queen of Cities to the King of Eloquence’.

The Greeks were intoxicated with the spoken word. Among them, if a man could speak, his fortune was made. It was against a background like that that the Church was growing up, and it is little wonder that this type of teacher invaded it. The Church gave such people a new area in which to show off their superficial gifts and to gain a cheap and showy fame and a not unprofitable following.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FALSE TEACHERS

HERE in this passage are set out the characteristics of the false teachers.

(1) Their first characteristic is conceit. Their desire is not to display Christ but to display themselves. There are still preachers and teachers who are more concerned to gain a following for themselves than for Jesus Christ, more concerned to press their own views than to bring to men and women the word of God. Great teachers do not offer people their own small spark of illumination; they offer them the light and the truth of God.

(2) Their concern is with remote and obscure speculations. There is a kind of Christianity which is more concerned with argument than with life. To be a member of a discussion circle or a Bible study group and to spend enjoyable hours in talk about doctrines does not necessarily make a Christian. J. S. Whale in his book Christian Doctrine has certain scathing things to say about this pleasant intellectualism: ‘We have, as Valentine said of Thurio, “an exchequer of words, but no other treasure”. Instead of putting off our shoes from our feet because the place whereon we stand is holy ground, we are taking nice photographs of the Burning Bush from suitable angles: we are chatting about theories of the Atonement with our feet on the mantelpiece, instead of kneeling down before the wounds of Christ.’ . If you want a man to change a piece of silver, he informs you wherein the Son differs from the Father; if you ask the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply that the Son is inferior to the Father; and if you inquire whether the bath is ready, the answer is that the Son is made out of nothing.’ Subtle argumentation and glib theological statements do not make a Christian. That kind of thing may well be nothing other than a mode of escape from the challenge of Christian living.

(3) The false teachers disturb the peace. They are instinctively competitive; they are suspicious of all who disagree with them; when they cannot win in an argument, they hurl insults at their opponents’ theological positions, and even at their character; in any argument, the tone of their voices is bitterness and not love. They have never learned to speak the truth in love. The source of their bitterness is the exaltation of self, for their tendency is to regard any difference from or any criticism of their views as a personal insult.

(4) The false teachers commercialize religion. They are out for profit. They look on their teaching and preaching not as a vocation but as a career. One thing is certain – there is no place for those who seek advancement in the ministry of any church. The Pastorals are quite clear that the labourer deserves to be paid; but the motive for work must be public service and not private gain. The passion of the one who labours for Christ is not to get, but to spend and be spent in the service of Christ and of others. ~Barclay commentaries

At this point I want to read the Matthew Henry Concise.

1 Timothy 6:3-5
We are not to consent to any words as wholesome, except the words of our Lord Jesus Christ; to these we must give unfeigned consent. Commonly those are most proud who know least; for they do not know themselves. Hence come envy, strife, railings, evil-surmisings, disputes that are all subtlety, and of no solidity, between men of corrupt and carnal minds, ignorant of the truth and its sanctifying power, and seeking their worldly advantage. ~Matthew Henry Concise

This verse can be broken out into four or five parts. Some commentaries split the first phrase into two parts.

1] Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds. Some split this to a) Perverse disputings and b) men of corrupt minds.
2] And destitute of the truth.
3] Supposing that gain is godliness
4] From such withdraw thyself.


1] Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds. Some split this to a) Perverse disputings and b) men of corrupt minds.

Perverse disputings - The meaning therefore is continued friction. Hence wearing discussion; protracted wrangling. ~Vincent's Word Studies

Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds - Disputations that cannot be settled, because their partisans will not listen to the truth; and they will not listen to the truth because their minds are corrupt. Both under the law and under the Gospel the true religion was: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength; and thy neighbor as thyself. Where, therefore, the love of God and man does not prevail, there is no religion. Such corrupt disputers are as destitute of the truth as they are of love to God and man. ~Adam Clarke

Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds - Who being corrupt in their principles, and corrupters of the word of God, dispute in a very froward and perverse way, rubbing and galling one another, and so provoke, to wrath and anger, and, every evil work. ~John Gill

Corrupt minds - More correctly, corrupted in mind. ~Vincent's Word Studies

Perverse disputings - The word which is here used in the Received Text - παραδιατρίβη paradiatribē - occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It properly means “mis-employment;” then “idle occupation.” (Robinson’s Lexicon) The verb from which this is derived means to “rub in pieces, to wear away;” and hence the word here used refers to what was a mere “wearing away” of time. The idea is that of employments that merely consumed time without any advantage. The notion of contention or dispute is not necessarily implied in this passage, but the allusion is to inquiries or discussions that were of no practical value, but; were a mere consumption of time. The reading in the margin is derived from the common usage of the verb “to rub,” and hence our translators attached the idea of “rubbing against” each other, or of “galling” each other, as by rubbing. This is not, however, the idea in the Greek word. The phrase “idle employments” would better suit the meaning of the Greek than either of the phrases which our translators have employed. ~Barnes Notes

Of men of corrupt minds - That is, of wicked hearts. ~Barnes Notes

2] And destitute of the truth.

And destitute of the truth [of Christ] - who is the truth, knowing nothing of him spiritually and savingly; and of the Gospel, the word of truth; and also of the truth of grace, being carnal, sensual, and having not the Spirit of God. ~John Gill

And destitute of the truth - Not knowing the truth; or not having just views of truth. They show that they have no correct acquaintance with the Christian system. ~Barnes Notes

And destitute of the truth - Bereft of the truth. The implication is that they once possessed the truth. They put it away from themselves (1Timothy 1:19; Titus 1:14).  Here it is represented as taken away from them. Compare Romans 1:8. ~Vincent's Word Studies

Quoted verses:
1 Timothy 1:19  [see lesson]
Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:

Titus 1:14
Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.

Romans 1:8
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.

3] Supposing that gain is godliness.

Supposing that gain is godliness - Professing religion only for the sake of secular profit; defending their own cause for the emoluments [profit] it produced; and having no respect to another world. ~Adam Clarke

Supposing that gain is godliness - such were Simon Magus and his followers, and other false teachers, who made merchandise of men, looked everyone for his gain from his quarter, and acted as if there was nothing in religion but worldly profit and gain; these served themselves, their own bellies, and selfish interests, and not the Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore the apostle gives the following advice to Timothy, and through him to all ministers and churches. ~John Gill

Supposing that gain is godliness - Thinking the best religion is the getting of money: a far more common case than is usually supposed. ~John Wesley Explanatory Notes

Supposing that gain is godliness - Men who have come into the church for gain and think that godliness is a source of gain. ~People's New Testament

Supposing that gain is godliness - Wrong. Rend. that godliness is a way (or source) of gain. Πορισμὸς, only here and 1Timothy 6:6, is a gain-making business. They make religion a means of livelihood. Compare Titus 1:11. ~Vincent's Word Studies

Quoted Scriptures:
1 Timothy 6:6 ...our next lesson
But godliness with contentment is great gain.

Titus 1:11
Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.

4] From such withdraw thyself.

From such withdraw thyself - Have no religions fellowship with such people. ~Adam Clarke

From such withdraw thyself - do not come near them; have nothing to do with them; do not lay hands on them, or admit them into the ministry; do not suffer them to preach, or encourage them by hearing them: if in the church, cast them out; have communion with them, neither in a civil nor in a religious way; avoid all conversation with them. The Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions omit this clause; it is wanting in the Alexandrian copy, and in Beza's Claromontane Exemplar, but is in other copies. ~John Gill

Note:
  At the current time I feel that this phrase was in the original text.  Regardless, when one takes in the admonition and description of verses 3-5, this would have to be the conclusion a firstfruit would have.  Surely this would be the unction from the Holy Spirit.  Notice some scriptures with some emphasis from me in red:

Romans 16:17-18
17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.

2 Thessalonians 3:6
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.

2 Timothy 3:5
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.



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Las Vegas Church of God - part of The Intercontinental Church of God and The Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association - Tyler, Texas