1 Timothy 1:4

1:4 nor to occupy themselves with myths and interminable genealogies. ¹  Such things promote useless speculations rather than God’s redemptive plan ²  that operates by faith.

1 Timothy 2:10

2:10 but with good deeds, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God.

1 Timothy 3:16

3:16 And we all agree, ³  our religion contains amazing revelation: ⁴ 

He ⁵  was revealed in the flesh,

vindicated by the Spirit, ⁶ 

seen by angels,

proclaimed among Gentiles,

believed on in the world,

taken up in glory.

1 Timothy 6:11

6:11 But you, as a person dedicated to God, ⁷  keep away from all that. ⁸  Instead pursue righteousness, godliness, faithfulness, love, endurance, and gentleness.

Acts 24:16

24:16 This is the reason ⁹  I do my best to always ¹⁰  have a clear ¹¹  conscience toward God and toward people. ¹² 

Acts 24:2

24:2 When Paul ¹³  had been summoned, Tertullus began to accuse him, ¹⁴  saying, “We have experienced a lengthy time ¹⁵  of peace through your rule, ¹⁶  and reforms ¹⁷  are being made in this nation ¹⁸  through your foresight. ¹⁹ 

Acts 3:12

3:12 When Peter saw this, he declared to the people, “Men of Israel, ²⁰  why are you amazed at this? Why ²¹  do you stare at us as if we had made this man ²²  walk by our own power or piety?

Titus 2:12

2:12 It trains us ²³  to reject godless ways ²⁴  and worldly desires and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,

Hebrews 5:14

5:14 But solid food is for the mature, whose perceptions are trained by practice to discern both good and evil.

Hebrews 5:2

5:2 He is able to deal compassionately with those who are ignorant and erring, since he also is subject to weakness,

Hebrews 1:5-8

The Son Is Superior to Angels

1:5 For to which of the angels did God ²⁵  ever say, “You are my son! Today I have fathered you”? ²⁶  And in another place ²⁷  he says, ²⁸  “I will be his father and he will be my son.” ²⁹  1:6 But when he again brings ³⁰  his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all the angels of God worship him!” ³¹  1:7 And he says ³²  of the angels, “He makes ³³  his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire,” ³⁴  1:8 but of ³⁵  the Son he says, ³⁶ 

“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, ³⁷ 

and a righteous scepter ³⁸  is the scepter of your kingdom.

¹ sn Myths and interminable genealogies. These myths were legendary tales characteristic of the false teachers in Ephesus and Crete. See parallels in 1 Tim 4:7; 2 Tim 4:4; and Titus 1:14. They were perhaps built by speculation from the patriarchal narratives in the OT; hence the connection with genealogies and with wanting to be teachers of the law (v. 7).

² tc A few Western mss (D* latt Ir) read οἰκοδομήν (oikodomhn, “[God’s] edification”) rather than οἰκονομίαν (oikonomian, “[God’s] redemptive plan”), which is read by the earliest and best witnesses.

³ tn Grk “confessedly, admittedly, most certainly.”

⁴ tn Grk “great is the mystery of [our] religion,” or “great is the mystery of godliness.” The word “mystery” denotes a secret previously hidden in God, but now revealed and made widely known (cf. Rom 16:25; 1 Cor 2:7; 4:1; Eph 1:9; 3:3, 4, 9; 6:19; Col 1:26-27; 4:3). “Religion” (εὐσέβεια, eusebeia) is a word used frequently in the pastorals with a range of meanings: (1) a certain attitude toward God – “devotion, reverence”; (2) the conduct that befits that attitude – “godliness, piety”; and (3) the whole system of belief and approach to God that forms the basis for such attitude and conduct – “religion, creed.” See BDAG 412-13 s.v.; 2 Tim 3:5; 4 Macc 9:6-7, 29-30; 15:1-3; 17:7. So the following creedal statements are illustrations of the great truths that the church is charged with protecting (v. 15).

⁵ tc The Byzantine text along with a few other witnesses (א^c A^c C² D² Ψ [88 pc] 1739 1881 Ï vg^ms) read θεός (qeos, “God”) for ὅς (Jos, “who”). Most significant among these witnesses is 1739; the second correctors of some of the other mss tend to conform to the medieval standard, the Byzantine text, and add no independent voice to the discussion. A few mss have ὁ θεός (so 88 pc), a reading that is a correction on the anarthrous θεός. On the other side, the masculine relative pronoun ὅς is strongly supported by א* A* C* F G 33 365 pc Did Epiph. Significantly, D* and virtually the entire Latin tradition read the neuter relative pronoun, ὅ (Jo, “which”), a reading that indirectly supports ὅς since it could not easily have been generated if θεός had been in the text. Thus, externally, there is no question as to what should be considered original: The Alexandrian and Western traditions are decidedly in favor of ὅς. Internally, the evidence is even stronger. What scribe would change θεός to ὅς intentionally? “Who” is not only a theologically pale reading by comparison; it also is much harder (since the relative pronoun has no obvious antecedent, probably the reason for the neuter pronoun of the Western tradition). Intrinsically, the rest of 3:16, beginning with ὅς, appears to form a six-strophed hymn. As such, it is a text that is seemingly incorporated into the letter without syntactical connection. Hence, not only should we not look for an antecedent for ὅς (as is often done by commentators), but the relative pronoun thus is not too hard a reading (or impossible, as Dean Burgon believed). Once the genre is taken into account, the relative pronoun fits neatly into the author’s style (cf. also Col 1:15; Phil 2:6 for other places in which the relative pronoun begins a hymn, as was often the case in poetry of the day). On the other hand, with θεός written as a nomen sacrum, it would have looked very much like the relative pronoun: q-=s vs. os. Thus, it may have been easy to confuse one for the other. This, of course, does not solve which direction the scribes would go, although given their generally high Christology and the bland and ambiguous relative pronoun, it is doubtful that they would have replaced θεός with ὅς. How then should we account for θεός? It appears that sometime after the 2nd century the θεός reading came into existence, either via confusion with ὅς or as an intentional alteration to magnify Christ and clear up the syntax at the same time. Once it got in, this theologically rich reading was easily able to influence all the rest of the mss it came in contact with (including mss already written, such as א A C D). That this reading did not arise until after the 2nd century is evident from the Western reading, ὅ. The neuter relative pronoun is certainly a “correction” of ὅς, conforming the gender to that of the neuter μυστήριον (musthrion, “mystery”). What is significant in this reading is (1) since virtually all the Western witnesses have either the masculine or neuter relative pronoun, the θεός reading was apparently unknown to them in the 2nd century (when the “Western” text seems to have originated, though its place of origination was most likely in the east); they thus supply strong indirect evidence of ὅς outside of Egypt in the 2nd century; (2) even 2nd century scribes were liable to misunderstand the genre, feeling compelled to alter the masculine relative pronoun because it appeared to them to be too harsh. The evidence, therefore, for ὅς is quite compelling, both externally and internally. As TCGNT 574 notes, “no uncial (in the first hand) earlier than the eighth or ninth century (Ψ) supports θεός; all ancient versions presuppose ὅς or ὅ; and no patristic writer prior to the last third of the fourth century testifies to the reading θεός.” Thus, the cries of certain groups that θεός has to be original must be seen as special pleading in this case. To argue that heretics tampered with the text here is self-defeating, for most of the Western fathers who quoted the verse with the relative pronoun were quite orthodox, strongly affirming the deity of Christ. They would have dearly loved such a reading as θεός. Further, had heretics introduced a variant to θεός, a far more natural choice would have been Χριστός (Cristos, “Christ”) or κύριος (kurios, “Lord”), since the text is self-evidently about Christ, but it is not self-evidently a proclamation of his deity. (See ExSyn 341-42, for a summary discussion on this issue and additional bibliographic references.)

⁶ tn Or “in spirit.”

⁷ tn Grk “O man of God.”

⁸ tn Grk “flee these things.”

⁹ tn BDAG 329 s.v. ἐν 9.a, “ἐν τούτῳ πιστεύομεν this is the reason why we believe Jn 16:30; cp. Ac 24:16.”

¹⁰ tn BDAG 224 s.v. διά 2.a, “διὰ παντός…always, continually, constantly…Ac 2:25 (Ps 15:8); 10:2; 24:16.” However, the positioning of the adverb “always” in the English translation is difficult; the position used is one of the least awkward.

¹¹ tn BDAG 125 s.v. ἀπρόσκοπος 1 has “ἀ. συνείδησις a clear conscience Ac 24:16.”

¹² tn Grk “men,” but this is a generic use (Paul does not have only males in view).

¹³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Paul) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹⁴ tn Or “began to bring charges, saying.”

¹⁵ tn Grk “experienced much peace.”

¹⁶ tn Grk “through you” (“rule” is implied).

¹⁷ tn This term is used only once in the NT (a hapax legomenon). It refers to improvements in internal administration (BDAG 251 s.v. διόρθωμα).

¹⁸ tn Or “being made for this people.”

¹⁹ sn References to peaceful rule, reforms, and the governor’s foresight in the opening address by Tertullus represent an attempt to praise the governor and thus make him favorable to the case. Actual descriptions of his rule portray him as inept (Tacitus, Annals 12.54; Josephus, J. W. 2.13.2-7 [2.253-270]).

²⁰ tn Or perhaps “People of Israel,” since this was taking place in Solomon’s Portico and women may have been present. The Greek ἄνδρες ᾿Ισραηλῖται (andre" Israhlitai) used in the plural would normally mean “men, gentlemen” (BDAG 79 s.v. ἀνήρ 1.a).

²¹ tn Grk “or why.”

²² tn Grk “him”; the referent (the man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

²³ tn Grk “training us” (as a continuation of the previous clause). Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 12 by translating the participle παιδεύουσα (paideuousa) as a finite verb and supplying the pronoun “it” as subject.

²⁴ tn Grk “ungodliness.”

²⁵ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

²⁶ tn Grk “I have begotten you.”

²⁷ tn Grk “And again,” quoting another OT passage.

²⁸ tn The words “he says” are not in the Greek text but are supplied to make a complete English sentence. In the Greek text this is a continuation of the previous sentence, but English does not normally employ such long and complex sentences.

²⁹ tn Grk “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me.”

³⁰ tn Or “And again when he brings.” The translation adopted in the text looks forward to Christ’s second coming to earth. Some take “again” to introduce the quotation (as in 1:5) and understand this as Christ’s first coming, but this view does not fit well with Heb 2:7. Others understand it as his exaltation/ascension to heaven, but this takes the phrase “into the world” in an unlikely way.

³¹ sn A quotation combining themes from Deut 32:43 and Ps 97:7.

³² sn The Greek correlative conjunctions μέν and δέ (men and de) emphasize the contrastive parallelism of vs. 7 (what God says about the angels) over against vv. 8-9 and vv. 10-12 (what God says about the son).

³³ tn Grk “He who makes.”

³⁴ sn A quotation from Ps 104:4.

³⁵ tn Or “to.”

³⁶ tn The verb “he says” (λέγει, legei) is implied from the λέγει of v. 7.

³⁷ tn Or possibly, “Your throne is God forever and ever.” This translation is quite doubtful, however, since (1) in the context the Son is being contrasted to the angels and is presented as far better than they. The imagery of God being the Son’s throne would seem to be of God being his authority. If so, in what sense could this not be said of the angels? In what sense is the Son thus contrasted with the angels? (2) The μέν…δέ (men…de) construction that connects v. 7 with v. 8 clearly lays out this contrast: “On the one hand, he says of the angels…on the other hand, he says of the Son.” Thus, although it is grammatically possible that θεός (qeos) in v. 8 should be taken as a predicate nominative, the context and the correlative conjunctions are decidedly against it. Hebrews 1:8 is thus a strong affirmation of the deity of Christ.

³⁸ tn Grk “the righteous scepter,” but used generically.