The Expositor's Bible: The Pastoral EpistlesPlummer, Alfred
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Pastoral Epistles
Plummer, Alfred
Bible. Pastoral Epistles -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
We have not exhausted the teaching of the Apostles respecting this
plague of self-assertion and independent teaching, which even in their
time began to afflict the infant Church, when we have considered all the
passages in which the words "heresy" and "heretical" occur. There are
other passages, in which the thing is plainly mentioned, although this
name for it is not used. It has been said that "the Apostles, though
they claimed disciplinary authority, had evidently no thought of
claiming infallibility for any utterances of theirs."[86] But they
certainly treated opposition to their teaching, or deviations from it,
as a very serious matter. St. Paul speaks of those who opposed him in
the Church of Corinth as "false apostles, deceitful workers" and
"ministers of Satan" (2 Cor. xi. 13-15). He speaks of the Galatians as
"bewitched" by those who would pervert the Gospel of Christ, and
pronounces an anathema on those who should "preach any gospel other than
that which he preached" (Gal. i. 7, 8; iii. 1). Of the same class of
teachers at Philippi he writes: "Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil
workers, beware of the concision" (iii. 2). He warns the Colossians
against any one who may "make spoil of them through his philosophy and
vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the
world, and not after Christ" (ii. 8); just as he warned the elders of
the Church at Ephesus that after his departure "grievous wolves would
enter in among them, not sparing the flock; and that from among
themselves men would arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the
disciples after them" (Acts xx. 29, 30). And in the Pastoral Epistles we
have several utterances of the same kind, including the one before us (1
Tim. i. 3-7, 19, 20; iv. 1-3; vi. 3, 4, 20, 21; Tit. i. 10-16; iii.
8-11; 2 Tim. ii. 16-18; iii. 8, 13).
Nor is St. Paul the only writer in the New Testament who feels bound to
write in this strain. The same kind of language fills no inconsiderable
portion of the Second Epistle of Peter and the Epistle of Jude (2 Pet.
ii.; Jude 8-16). More remarkable still, we find even the Apostle of Love
speaking in tones not less severe. The Epistles to the Seven Churches of
Asia abound in such things (Rev. ii.; iii). In his General Epistle he
asks, "Who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?
This is the antichrist, even he that denieth the Father and the Son" (1
John ii. 22: comp. ii. 26; iv. 1, 3). In his letter to "the elect lady
and her children" he speaks of the "many deceivers" who "confess not
that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh." And, in a passage not unlike the
direction to Titus which we are now considering, he says: "If any one
cometh unto you, and bringeth not this teaching, receive him not into
your house, and give him no greeting: for he that giveth him greeting
partaketh in his evil works."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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