PAUL urges Timothy to present himself, amid the false teachers, as a real teacher of the truth. The word he uses for to present is paraste¯sai, which characteristically means to present oneself for service. The following words and phrases all develop this idea of usefulness for service.

The Greek for one who has stood the test is dokimos, which describes anything which has been tested and is fit for service.  For instance, it describes gold or silver which has been purified of all alloy in the fire. It is therefore the word for money which is genuine, or, as we would say, sterling. It is the word used for a stone which is fit to be slotted into its place in a building. A stone with a flaw in it was marked with a capital A, standing for adokimastos, which means tested and found wanting. Timothy was to be tested to be sure that he was suitable for the work of Christ and was therefore a worker who had no need to be ashamed.

Further, Timothy is urged in a famous phrase rightly to divide the word of truth. The Greek word translated as to divide rightly is interesting. It is orthotomein, which literally means to cut rightly. It is a word containing many pictures. The reformer John Calvin connected it with a father dividing out the food at a meal and cutting it up so that each member of the family received the right portion. The sixteenth-century Calvinist theologian Theodore Beza connected it with the cutting up of sacrificial victims so that each part was correctly apportioned to the altar or to the priest. The Greeks themselves used the word in three different contexts. They used it for driving a straight road across country, for ploughing a straight furrow across a field, and for the work of a mason in cutting and squaring a stone so that it fitted into its correct place in the structure of the building. So, the person who rightly divides the word of truth drives a straight road through the truth and refuses to be lured down pleasant but irrelevant byways; such a person ploughs a straight furrow across the field of truth or takes each section of the truth and fits it into its correct position, as a mason does a stone, allowing no part to take an inappropriate place and so knock the whole structure out of balance.

On the other hand, the false teacher engages in what Paul would call ‘godless chatterings’. Then Paul uses a vivid phrase. The Greeks had a favorite word for making progress (prokoptein). It literally means to cut down in front; to remove the obstacles from a road so that straight and uninterrupted progress is possible. Paul says of these senseless talkers that they progress further and further into ungodliness. They progress in reverse. The more they talk, the further they get from God. Here then is the test. If at the end of our talk we are closer to one another and to God, then all is well; but if we have put up barriers between one another and have left God more distant, then all is not well. The aim of all Christian discussion and of all Christian action is to bring people nearer to one another and to God.

THE LOST RESURRECTION
AMONG the false teachers, Paul numbers especially Hymenaeus [Hi may nay us] and Philetus [Phi-le-tus]. Who these men were, we do not know.  But we get a brief glimpse of their teaching in at least one of its aspects. They said that the resurrection had already happened. This of course does not refer to the resurrection of Jesus; it refers to the resurrection of Christians after death.  We do know of two false views of the resurrection of Christians which had some influence in the early Church.

(1) It was claimed that the real resurrection of Christians took place at baptism. It is true that, in Romans 6, Paul had written vividly about how the Christian dies in the moment of baptism and rises to new life. There were those who taught that the resurrection happened in that moment of baptism and that it was resurrection to new life in Christ here and now, not after death.

(2) There were those who taught that the meaning of individual resurrection was nothing more than that people lived on in their children.

The trouble was that this kind of teaching found an echo in both the Jewish and the Greek side of the Church. On the Jewish side, the Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the body but the Sadducees did not. Any teaching which did away with the concept of life after death would appeal to the Sadducees; the trouble with the Pharisees was that they were wealthy materialists who had so big a stake in this world that they were not interested in any world to come.

On the Greek side, the trouble was much greater. In the early days of Christianity, the Greeks, generally speaking, believed in immortality but not in the resurrection of the body.  The highest belief was that of the Stoics. They believed that God was what might be called fiery spirit. The life in human beings was a spark of that spirit, a spark of God himself, a scintilla – a hint – of deity. But they believed that, when someone died, that spark went back to God and was reabsorbed in him. That is a noble belief, but it clearly does away with personal survival after death. Further, the Greeks believed that the body was entirely evil. They had their play on words as a slogan: ‘So¯ma Se¯ma’, ‘The body is a tomb.’  The last thing they wanted or believed in was the resurrection of the body, and therefore they, too, were open to receive any teaching about the resurrection which fitted their beliefs.

It is obvious that Christians do not believe in the resurrection of this body. No one could conceive of someone smashed in an accident or dying of cancer reawakening in [The Kingdom] with the same body. But Christians do believe in the survival of personal identity; they believe most strenuously that after death you will still be you and I will still be I. Any teaching which removes that certainty of the personal survival of each individual person strikes at the very root of Christian belief.

When Hymenaeus [Hi may nay us] and Philetus [Phi-le-tus]. and others like them taught that the resurrection had already happened, either at the moment of baptism or in a person’s children, they were teaching something which Sadducean Jews and philosophic Greeks would be by no means averse to accepting, but they were also teaching something which undermined one of the central beliefs of the Christian faith. ~Barclay commentary

Now to the other commentaries. We will begin with the general and go to the specific.

We will begin the F. B. Meyer. The commentary covers verses 14-18.

The workman [verse 15], 2 Timothy 2:14-18 : The one anxiety with us all should be to stand approved before God. As the r.v. margin suggests, we must hold a straight course in the word of truth. Our testimony should resemble an undeviating furrow. Let us construct in our life something which will be a permanent addition to the well-being of the world, so that at the last the Master may say that He is satisfied. ~F. B. Meyer

Now to the Matthew Henry Concise which covers verses 14-21:

Those disposed to strive, commonly strive about matters of small moment. But strifes of words destroy the things of God. The apostle mentions some who erred. They did not deny the resurrection, but they corrupted that true doctrine. Yet nothing can be so foolish or erroneous, but it will overturn the temporary faith of some professors. This foundation has two writings on it. One speaks our comfort. None can overthrow the faith of any whom God hath chosen. The other speaks our duty. Those who would have the comfort of the privilege, must make conscience of the duty Christ gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, Titus 2:14. The church of Christ is like a dwelling: some furniture is of great value; some of smaller value, and put to meaner uses. Some professors of religion are like vessels of wood and earth. When the vessels of dishonour are cast out to be destroyed, the others will be filled with all the fulness of God. We must see to it that we are holy vessels. Every one in the church whom God approves, will be devoted to his Master's service, and thus fitted for his use. ~Matthew Henry Concise

Quoted verse:
Titus 2:14
Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Now the Matthew Henry Main for verse 17.

The way of error is down-hill; one absurdity being granted or contended for, a thousand follow: Their word will eat as doth a canker, or gangrene; when errors or heresies come into the church, the infecting of one often proves the infecting of many, or the infecting of the same person with one error often proves the infecting of him with many errors. Upon this occasion the apostle mentions some who had lately advanced erroneous doctrines: Hymenaeus [Hi may nay us] and Philetus [Phi-le-tus]. He names these corrupt teachers, by which he sets a brand upon them, to their perpetual infamy, and warns all people against hearkening to them. They have erred concerning the truth, or concerning one of the fundamental articles of the Christian religion, which is truth. ~Matthew Henry Main

Now to the specific commentaries.

The commentaries generally have this verse in two parts:

1] And their word will eat as doth a canker.
2] Of whom is Hymenaeus [Hi may nay us] and Philetus [Phi-le-tus].

1] And their word will eat as doth a canker.

And their word - The word, or the discourses of those who love vain and idle disputations. ~Barnes Notes

Will eat as doth a canker - Margin, “gangrene.” This word - γάγγραινα gangraina - occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It is derived from γραιω graiō, γραινω grainō, to devour, corrode,” and means “gangrene” or “mortification” - the death of a part, spreading, unless arrested, by degrees over the whole body. The words rendered “will eat,” mean “will have nutriment;” that is, will spread over and consume the healthful parts. It will not merely destroy the parts immediately affected, but will extend into the surrounding healthy parts and destroy them also. So it is with erroneous doctrines. They will not merely eat out the truth in the particular matter to which they refer, but they will also spread over and corrupt other truths. The doctrines of religion are closely connected, and are dependent on each other - like the different parts of the human body. One cannot be corrupted without affecting those adjacent to it, and unless checked, the corruption will soon spread over the whole. ~Barnes Notes

Their word will eat as doth a canker:
Gangrene: The substitution of “gangrene” for “cancer” is an improvement, as giving the exact word used in the original, which expresses the meaning more forcibly than “cancer.” Cancer is sometimes very slow in its ravages, and may go on for years without causing serious harm. Gangrene poisons the whole frame, and quickly becomes fatal. The apostle foresees that doctrines, which really ate out the very heart of Christianity, were likely to become very popular in Ephesus, and would do incalculable mischief. The nature of these doctrines we gather from what follows. ~Biblical Illustrator

Their word will eat as doth a canker - Ὡς γαγγραινα· As a gangrene; i.e. as a mortification in the flesh, where the circulation is entirely stopped, and putrefaction takes place, which continues to corrupt all the circumjacent flesh, spreading more and more till death takes place, unless stopped by a timely and judicious application of medicine. Such is the influence of false doctrine; it fixes its mortal seed in the soul, which continues to corrupt and assimilate every thing to itself, till, if not prevented by a timely application of the word of life, under the direction of the heavenly Physician, it terminates in the bitter pains of an eternal death. To such a gangrene the apostle compares the corrupt doctrines of Hymenaeus [Hi may nay us] and Philetus [Phi-le-tus]. ~Adam Clarke

And their word will eat as doth a cancer - Or "gangrene", which gnaws and feeds upon the flesh, inflames and mortifies as it goes, and spreads swiftly, and endangers the whole body; and is therefore to be speedily taken notice of, and stopped. It is better rendered "gangrene", as in the marginal reading, than "cancer".

"The word "gangrene" is Greek, and is derived by some authors from the Paphlagonian "gangra", a goat; it being the character of a goat to browse the grass all around without shifting. It is more correct, perhaps, to derive it from the Greek word γραω, γραινω, "manduco", "consumo", I eat, I consume. The "gangrene" is a disease in the flesh of the part which it corrupts, consumes, and turns black, spreading and seizing itself of the adjoining parts, and is rarely cured without amputation. By the microscope, a gangrene has been discovered to contain an infinite number of little worms engendered in the morbid flesh; and which continually producing new broods, they swarm, and overrun the adjacent parts: if the gangrene proceed to an utter sphacelation (or mortification), and be seated in any of the limbs, or extreme parts, recourse must be had to the operation of amputation''

And so the errors and heresies of false teachers worm and spread, and feed upon the souls of men, and eat up the vitals of religion, or what seemed to be such, and even destroy the very form of godliness; and bring destruction and death, wherever they come; and when they get into Christian churches, threaten the ruin of them; and therefore are to be opposed in time, and those infected with them to be cut off. ~John Gill

Now from the JFB for a specific phrase and one separate word:

Will eat — literally, “will have pasture.” The consuming progress of mortification is the image. They pretend to give rich spiritual pasture to their disciples: the only pasture is that of a spiritual cancer feeding on their vitals.

Canker — a “cancer” or “gangrene.” ~Jamieson, Fausset, Brown

Canker - Another medical word-Literally ‘gangrene,’ the state between inflammation and entire mortification. The word is used by Hippocrates sometimes in this special sense, sometimes of cancer. ~Popular Commentary

The Vincent's Word Studies says something interesting for the phrase, "Will eat" that we can add to the JFB rendering ["will have pasture"]:

Will eat - Literally, will have pasturage, and so grow. Νομὴ πυρός a spreading of fire. ~Vincent's Word Studies

So does the People's New Testament:

Eat as doth a canker - Eat deeper and deeper, like a gangrene. ~People's New Testament


2] Of whom is Hymenaeus [Hi may nay us] and Philetus [Phi-le-tus].

Of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus - In regard to Hymenaeus, see the notes at 1 Timothy 1:20. Of Philetus nothing more is known. They have gained an undesirable immortality, destined to be known to the end of time only as the advocates of error. ~Barnes Notes

Quoted verse:
1 Timothy 1:20 [See Lesson]
Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Here is that excerpt from our lesson on 1 Timothy 1:20 regarding Hymenaeus [Hi may nay us]:

Now back to the second part of the verse for today:

Of whom is Hymenaeus [Hi may nay us] and Philetus [Phi-le-tus] - these were some of the principal among the false teachers, the chief authors and spreaders of error and heresy: the former of these is mentioned before in 1 Timothy 1:20 [mentioned above] along with Alexander, as guilty of blasphemy, and as delivered up to Satan for it. Philetus [Phi-le-tus] is a Greek name as well as the other, though it is sometimes found in Roman inscriptions: it is very likely that these were both in Asia, and probably in Ephesus, or near to it, since the apostle mentions them by name to Timothy, that he might beware of them. ~John Gill

Hymenaeus [Hi may nay us] — After his excommunication he seems to have been readmitted into the Church and again to have troubled it. ~Jamieson, Fausset, Brown