1 Timothy 6

Doddridge, Flavel, and others, when they see, generation after generation, the results and marks of their own earthly labors, in souls that follow after them to glory? Not a cup of cold water given to a disciple, nor a widow’s mite put into Christ’s treasury, nor a penitent tear, nor a fervent, faithful prayer, nor any thought or deed of self-denying love, but is recorded in the book of life and sends on its witness for the great day. G. B. C.

1. Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all hon- 2 our, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and ex- 3 hort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of 4 our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, 5 strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. 6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, 7 and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be there- 8 with content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many 9 foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of 10 money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the 11 faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. 12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and 13 hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate wit- 14 nessed a good confession; that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, 15 until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in his times he shall shew, who is the 16 blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor 17 can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen. Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living 18 God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good 19 works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good 20 foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppo- 21 sitions of science falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.

The good fight is the fight with sin—sin within and sin without—whatever would overcome us or keep our souls from God. This implies opposition to all evils that come properly within the sphere of our effort—the chronic depravity of the world, the phases of iniquity which corrupt morals, and make gain godliness, and blight the influences of the gospel, and sometimes we must come to a hand-to-hand fight with these. And yet we are to fight our way through with the patience of Job and the charity of Jesus, so that abuse shall leave no scar on our even temper, and disappointment shall generate no bitterness of spirit, and our zeal shall not prove a sword on which we fall ourselves. The real battle of life is in a man’s own soul. There, with no eye on it but God’s, the fight begins and goes on. As there is success or defeat there, the issue of life itself is decided for good or evil. The conqueror within will be the conqueror without. Yet the revolution within that throws off the usurped authority of Satan and the powers of darkness can be carried forward only by a divine energy. He that would fight successfully the great conflict of life must first of all recognize his dependence on a higher power. He must place himself under the shadow of the Almighty. He must call mightily on him who by the gift of the Spirit can change the nature of the soul and transform it into his own image. E. H. G.

1. To an English reader the term servants may or may not mean bondmen. But in the Greek douloi there is no such ambiguity; its proper meaning was slave, and, as ordinarily used, the douloi were those under yoke. The tendency and purport of the exhortation manifestly is, to caution this part of the Christian community to beware of imagining that their spiritual, calling and privileges entitled them to spurn the outward restraints under which they lay, and disregard the duties of their station. They were rather, on this very account, to behave toward their masters with becoming regard and submission, lest otherwise, as Chrysostom puts it, “if the master should see them carrying themselves loftily because of their faith, he should blaspheme, as if the doctrine were the ground of their insubordination; whereas, if he should see them obedient, he may the more readily believe, and attend to the things that are spoken.” Hence the special reason given by the apostle for the dutiful behavior of the Christian bondmen is, that the name of God and his doctrine (or the teaching, namely, of the gospel) may not be blasphemed.

[It must be noted, however, that, while the meaning here and in many other passages is plain enough, the usage of the New Testament in regard to doulos is of some latitude. The usage, indeed, is derived from the Septuagint, in which the Hebrew word is sometimes rendered by doulos, even in the case of persons whose service was entirely free. It is, moreover, applied there to the relation and service of God’s more peculiar instruments of working, very often by David to himself with reference to God, to whom he felt bound to render the fullest obedience. This naturally led to a more extended and honorable use of the word by the New Testament writers than is found with classical. It is applied there to true Christians generally; to apostles, prophets, and ministers of the New Testament Church; to Moses, the highest authority in the old dispensation (Rev. 15: 3); and even to Christ, the highest in the new (Phil. 2: 7). In all such cases, the rendering slave, or bondman, would convey an entirely false impression; for, while there is implied in the relation a binding or constraining element, it is that of willing, devoted love, not of legal or outward compulsion. In some cases, also, when the relation is simply human, the term denotes plainly the higher class of dependents—stewards or overseers, not bondmen of any sort.]

5. Godliness is gain; not as our translators have put it, “that gain is godliness,” for no one scarcely would think of identifying gain absolutely with godliness. But there have never been wanting those who suppose godliness to be gain, consider it as a lucrative concern, and profess it only in so far as they find it serviceable to their worldly interests. P. F.

6. Devotion is the life of religion, the very soul of piety, the highest employment of grace, and no other than the prepossession of heaven by the saints of God here upon earth, every improvement whereof is of more advantage and value to the Christian than all the profit and contentment which this world can afford. Bp. H.

7. All that we receive in this world, from the hour of our birth to the hour of our death, in food, drink, raiment, and lodging, is the bread of grace and sorrow, and is necessary to life. But we must leave all behind us in the hour of death, and depart hence even poorer than when we came. For a man, when he cometh into the world, bringeth body and soul with him, and he hath forthwith his raiment, food, and lodging. But, when he dieth, he must leave not only these behind, but his body and life likewise. Who, then, is poorer than man is when he dieth? Arnd.

9. That will be rich. Preach to the conscience of a covetous person (if he may be said to have any) with the tongue of men and angels, and tell him of the vanity of the world, of treasure in heaven, and of the necessity of being “rich toward God” and liberal to his poor brother, and it is all but flat, insipid, and ridiculous stuff to him who neither sees, nor feels, nor suffers anything to pass into his heart but through his hands. R. S.—A covetous man serveth his riches, and not they him; and he is said to have goods as he hath a fever, which holdeth and tyrannizeth over a man, not he over it. Charron.—The price which the rich man pays for his wealth is the temptation to be selfish. If you will be rich, you must be content to pay the price of falling into temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts. If that price be too high to pay, then you must be content with the quiet valleys of existence, where alone it is well with us; kept out of an inheritance, but having instead God for your portion, peace and quietness, and rest with Christ. F. W. R.

Into many hurtful lusts. So hard is it for the corruption of man’s nature not to work where it has such plenty of materials to work upon. For who so strongly tempted to pride as he who has riches to bear it out? Who so prone to be luxurious as he who has wealth to feed and maintain his luxury? Who so apt to besot himself with idleness as he who can command and have all things, and yet do nothing? What sin so costly which the rich man may not venture upon, if he can but stretch his conscience to the measures of his purse? It is a miracle almost for a rich man not to be overrun with vice, having both such strong inclinations to it from within, and such inducements and opportunities to it from without. R. S.—And these are foolish lusts, too, unreasonable, childish desires; after one bargain, such another; and after one sin, another; to make even, and somewhat then to keep that whole; and so on without end. If their hearts are set upon purchase and land, still some house or neighbor-field, some Naboth-vineyard is in their eyes, and all the rest is nothing without that, which discovers the madness of this humor, this dropsy-thirst. L.

Drown men in perdition. When a man has no other object than simply to make money when he has more than he can or, which is the same thing, is willing to apply to useful purposes; when he has no ultimate purpose in view, but his desires terminate upon property for its own sake, it matters not who he may be, what his outward exhibitions of character, or what his visible relations, he is under the influence of the same spirit which, as it controlled a false disciple, led the Redeemer to the ignominy and death of the cross; and we can say of him without hesitation, if he lives and dies under its power, “it had been better for him if he had never been born.” E. M.—There is no sphere so humble and contracted as to secure a man against the intrusion of cupidity. He need not plunge into the ocean in order to drown himself—a very shallow stream will suffice, if he chooses to lie prostrate in it; and the desire of the smallest gain, if his heart be immersed in pursuit, will as certainly “drown him in perdition” as if the object of his cupidity were the wealth of a Cræsus. J. H.

10. For a root of all evils is the love of money. The sentiment is, that there is no kind of evil to which the love of money may not lead men, when it once fairly takes hold of them. The passion is obviously identified by the apostle with its object—money as a thing loved and sought after; and some, he says, reaching forth in their desires after this, made a twofold shipwreck: first, of their Christian principles, departing from the faith; and second, of their happiness, piercing themselves through (trans-fixed) with many pangs. P. F.—The passion (“the love of money”) exists under various modifications. In some few of its subjects, it appears to be pure, unmixed, exclusive; terminates and is concentrated upon just the money itself, the delight of being the owner of so much. The whole soul is absorbed in this one sentiment. This is plain, genuine idolatry. But, in much the greater number of instances, the passion involves a regard to some relative objects. In some it is combined with vanity; a stimulating desire of the reputation of being rich—to be talked of, admired, envied. We have even heard of such a thing as a desire of the fame of dying rich! In some it has very much a reference to that authority, weight, prevailing influence in society which property confers; here it is ambition rather than avarice. In some the passion has its incitement in an exorbitant calculation for competence. So much and so much they shall want; so much more they may want, for themselves or their descendants.

Root of all evil. One of the evil effects of this passion is that it tends to arrogate and narrow and impel the whole action and passion of the soul toward one exclusive object, and that an ignoble one. Almost every thought that starts is to go that way. This passion, too, when thus predominant, throws a mean character into the estimate of all things, as they are all estimated according to a standard of money-value and in reference to gain. It places a man in a very selfish relation to other men around him. He can not sell them, but the constant question in his mind is, “What and how can I gain by them?” When this principle has the full ascendancy, it creates a settled hardness of character. The man lives, as to the kinder affections, in the region of perpetual ice. He is little accessible to the touches and emotions of sympathy, can not give himself out in any generous expansion of the affections. And the disposition in question operates with a slow but continual effect to pervert the judgment and conscience. It is constantly pressing the line that divides right from wrong; it removes it, bends it away, by slight degrees. The distinction becomes less positive to the judgment. Self-interested casuistry is put in operation. Unsound pleas and reasons and excuses are called in. There is a constant tendency to equivocate with conscience, and this often ends in at once satisfying it and defrauding it. As a final point, we need not do more than advert to the enormous account of absolute and flagrant wrongs which have been perpetrated from the love of money—the frauds, the taking advantage of law in despite of moral justice, the plunders and murders, and the black list of other iniquitous expedients. What a legion of violences and villainies this passion can beast to have brought upon mankind! J. F.

Many sorrows. Sorrows not of the lighter and more transient sort, which give the mind but feeble touches and short visits, and quickly go off again; but they are such as enter into the innermost parts and powers of it, and, in a word, pierce it through and through, and draw out the very life and spirit through the wound they make. These are the peculiar and extraordinary sorrows which go before, accompany, and follow riches, thus “coveted after,” and there is no man, though in never so low a station, who sets his heart upon growing rich, but shall, in his proportion, be sure to have his share of them. R. S.

11. We hear the apostle Paul warning even Timothy. He had seen so many apparent proficients in piety drawn in by this moral maelstrom and “drowned in perdition,” that he called on his “dearly beloved Timothy, his own son in the faith”—called on him with more than his usual earnestness—to flee to the greatest distance from this fatal vortex. “O man of God,” said he, “flee these things.” As if, by a special appointment of Heaven, the monitory strain addressed to a man of God—to such a man of God—and echoing through the Church in all ages, should make it inexcusable for all inferior piety ever to doubt its liability to the sin. J. H.

Follow after. The two most general ideas go first—righteousness and godliness; then follow faith and love as the fundamental principles of the Christian life; and finally, patience and meekness of spirit, which denote the conduct proper to a Christian amid the enmity and opposition of the world to Christ’s gospel. Huther.

12. It is the good, literally the beautiful, fight to which the soldier of Christ addresses himself; beautiful and good, because it is not merely lawful but holy. The leader who summons us to fight, and who goes before us to battle, is no other than he who himself strove even unto blood, and dying overcame all the powers of hell, and who stands pledged for the victory of all who follow his triumphal car. The legion along with whom we fight are the noblest of our race in all ages and peoples; our companions in arms are the children of God, the redeemed of Christ, the temples of the Holy Ghost, spread everywhere over the earth; and never has any one had cause to regret who, with fixed choice, has joined the ever-growing camp. Van O.—There are difficulties placed in our path to give us opportunities of evincing what faith, courage, perseverance, wisdom, energy, prayerfulness, devotedness are in us. God withholds some things from us with a prohibition; it is treason to go on seeking them. He withholds other things by way of incitation; that we may be stirred up to engage with all faith and assiduity in the search for them, and that the conquest of them may be the reward of valiant endeavor. G. B.—Thy foils, through the wisdom and love of thy God, may be ordered to advance the victory; to put courage and holy anger into thee against thine enemies; to humble thee, and drive thee from thine own imagined strength to make use of his real strength. And be not hasty; think not at the very first to conquer; many a hard conflict must thou resolve upon, and often be brought very low, almost to a desperate point, that to thy sense it is past recovery; then it is his time to step in, even in the midst of their prevailing. Let God but arise, and his enemies shall be scattered. Thus the Church hath found it in her greatest extremities, and thus likewise the believing soul. L.

Lay hold on eternal life. Is it not as if we saw in these words before us the combatant putting forth his utmost energy to the last struggle, but now at the end of the course grasping the crown of honor? Eternal life, which completes all and compensates for all; the highest aim of such as are not yet deeply enough sunk to choose death rather than life; the end of all strife, the source of all peace: what can be imagined more sublime? Van O.

13,14. Not from beneath does Christ’s kingdom spring, but from above. The weapon of his kingdom is not the sword, but the word and the Holy Ghost, and his combatants conquer not by blows and violence, but by sufferings and endurance—even as he did; his kingdom’s palaces are no castles but the hearts of men, in whom he dwells through faith; the good things of his kingdom consist not of gold, nor of outward peace and prosperity, but of forgiveness of sins, of peace with God, of righteousness and eternal life. His kingdom embraces the whole circle of the world; its term of duration is not thousands of years, but to all eternity. When Paul is exhorting Timothy to fight the good fight of faith, and to hold fast by sound doctrine, he reminds him of the good confession which Jesus Christ witnessed before Pontius Pilate; with that confession shall Timothy comfort himself, and feel sure of victory in every conflict. Besser.

15. God’s eternal thought moves on, moves onward, and moves all, by the sweet impulses of that law, supreme, regulative, protecting, of which it hath been said that “her seat is the bosom of God and her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage; the very least as feeling her care, the greatest as not exempted from her power. Both angels and men, though each in different sort and manner, with uniform consent admire her as the mother of their peace and joy.” Much more might such words be used in relation to God himself. He sits enthroned on the riches of the universe; all holy and obedient natures adore and worship, ceaselessly hymning his infinite attributes, rejoicing that he lives and reigns. “Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty: just and true are all thy ways, thou King of saints.” And this anthem of adoration, perpetually rising toward the divine throne, expressive of the happiness he has imparted, is but the echo and reverberation of that which he possesses, as the “blessed and only potentate,” the holy and happy God. T. B.

17. God is no respecter of “them that are rich in this world.” He regards them as of the common material of humanity; does not mistake their wealth for a part of them; does not concentrate the cares

of his Providence peculiarly on them—not less requires a sense of entire dependence; does not, if they pray, give a precedence to their applications; does not hold them less guilty in their sins; does not give them sounder or more lasting bodies, or an exemption from the worst evils of the mortal state; does not adopt an instant change of sentiment respecting them if they fall from affluence to poverty; does not insure them that in the other world they shall be glad they have been rich in this! J. F.