The Message of 2 Timothy by John Stott

Author:John Stott [Stott, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Reference, Christian
ISBN: 9780851115931
Publisher: IVP Academic
Published: 1973-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

9. Metaphor VI: The Lord’s Servant (verses 23–26)

The metaphor changes yet again. The vessel in the house becomes a slave in the household. The skeuos is transformed into a doulos. But before outlining the kind of behaviour fitting to the Lord’s servant, Paul sets the context in which he has to live and work. He reverts to the ‘wordy debates’ of verse 14 and the ‘godless chatter’ of verse 16.

The word translated ‘controversies’ (23) (zētēsis, a singular noun) is normally used in one of two senses. It means either an ‘investigation’, like the legal enquiry into charges against Paul which Festus told King Agrippa he was at a loss to know how to make (Acts 25:20), or a ‘discussion’ like the debate between the apostles and the Judaizers over circumcision (Acts 15:2, 7). If it is used here in the former sense, it will refer to some kind of philosophical investigation and could be translated ‘speculation’. But if it is used in the latter sense, the allusion will be to a ‘controversy’.

The word occurs three times in the Pastoral Epistles, once in each letter (1 Tim. 6:4; 2 Tim. 2:23; Tit. 3:9), or four times if the slightly stronger word ekzētēsis is added (1 Tim. 1:4). This latter word certainly seems to mean a ‘useless speculation’ (AG). In the context it is the fruit of a preoccupation with ‘myths and endless genealogies’. At the end of the same letter, however, the word zētēseis (plural) is coupled with logomachiai, meaning ‘word-battles’, both of which are said to ‘produce envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions and wrangling’ (1 Tim. 6:4, 5a). So there the emphasis is rather upon heated controversy.

Perhaps there is no need to choose between the two meanings. They certainly appear to be combined in Titus 3:9 where Titus is told to avoid four things—‘controversies (zētēseis), genealogies (the speculative idea again), dissensions (ereis) and quarrels (machas, ‘battles’) over the law’. This last word is prominent in 2 Timothy 2 also, for in verse 23 Paul warns that zētēseis ‘breed quarrels’ (machas again), and forbids people, in verse 14, logomachein (to dispute about words; cf. 1 Tim. 6:4) or in verse 24 machesthai (to quarrel or fight). Calvin’s expression ‘quarrelsome speculation’20 neatly unites both emphases.

What, then, is being prohibited to Timothy, and through him to all the Lord’s servants and ministers today? We cannot conclude that this is a prohibition of all controversy. For when the truth of the gospel was at stake Paul himself had been an ardent controversialist, even to the extent of opposing the apostle Peter to his face in public (Gal. 2:11–14). Besides, in these very Pastoral Epistles he is urging Timothy and Titus to guard the sacred deposit of the truth and contend for it. Every Christian must in some sense ‘fight the good fight of the faith’ (1 Tim. 6:12; 2 Tim. 4:7), seeking to defend and preserve it. What is forbidden us is controversies which in themselves are ‘stupid and senseless’ and in their effect ‘breed quarrels’.

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