1 Timothy 3:16

3:16 And we all agree, ¹  our religion contains amazing revelation: ² 

He ³  was revealed in the flesh,

vindicated by the Spirit, ⁴ 

seen by angels,

proclaimed among Gentiles,

believed on in the world,

taken up in glory.

1 Timothy 6:3

6:3 If someone spreads false teachings ⁵  and does not agree with sound words (that is, those of our Lord Jesus Christ) and with the teaching that accords with godliness,

1 Timothy 6:11

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

1 Timothy 6:2

6:2 But those who have believing masters must not show them less respect ⁸  because they are brothers. Instead they are to serve all the more, because those who benefit from their service are believers and dearly loved. ⁹ 

Summary of Timothy’s Duties

Teach them and exhort them about these things. ¹⁰ 

Colossians 1:12

1:12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share ¹¹  in the saints’ ¹²  inheritance in the light.

Colossians 1:9-10

Paul’s Prayer for the Growth of the Church

1:9 For this reason we also, from the day we heard about you, ¹³  have not ceased praying for you and asking God ¹⁴  to fill ¹⁵  you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 1:10 so that you may live ¹⁶  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ¹⁷  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God,

Ephesians 4:12-16

4:12 to equip ¹⁸  the saints for the work of ministry, that is, ¹⁹  to build up the body of Christ, 4:13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God – a mature person, attaining to ²⁰  the measure of Christ’s full stature. ²¹  4:14 So ²²  we are no longer to be children, tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes. ²³  4:15 But practicing the truth in love, ²⁴  we will in all things grow up into Christ, who is the head. 4:16 From him the whole body grows, fitted and held together ²⁵  through every supporting ligament. ²⁶  As each one does its part, the body grows in love.

Titus 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ²⁷  a slave ²⁸  of God and apostle of Jesus Christ, to further the faith ²⁹  of God’s chosen ones and the knowledge of the truth that is in keeping with godliness,

Hebrews 13:9

13:9 Do not be carried away by all sorts of strange teachings. ³⁰  For it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not ritual meals, ³¹  which have never benefited those who participated in them.

¹ tn Grk “confessedly, admittedly, most certainly.”

² 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).

³ 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.)

⁴ tn Or “in spirit.”

⁵ tn Grk “teaches other doctrines,” (different from apostolic teaching, cf. 1 Tim 1:3).

⁶ tn Grk “O man of God.”

⁷ tn Grk “flee these things.”

⁸ tn Or “think the less of them”; Grk “despise them,” “look down on them.”

⁹ tn Or “those who devote themselves to service are faithful and dearly loved” (referring to slaves who serve them).

¹⁰ tn Grk “these things teach and exhort.”

¹¹ tn BDAG 473 s.v. ἱκανόω states, “τινὰ εἴς τι someone for someth. Col 1:12.” The point of the text is that God has qualified the saints for a “share” or “portion” in the inheritance of the saints.

¹² tn Grk “the inheritance of the saints.” The genitive noun τῶν ἁγίων (twn Jagiwn) is a possessive genitive: “the saints’ inheritance.”

¹³ tn Or “heard about it”; Grk “heard.” There is no direct object stated in the Greek (direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context). A direct object is expected by an English reader, however, so most translations supply one. Here, however, it is not entirely clear what the author “heard”: a number of translations supply “it” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV; NAB “this”), but this could refer back either to (1) “your love in the Spirit” at the end of v. 8, or (2) “your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints” (v. 4). In light of this uncertainty, other translations supply “about you” (TEV, NIV, CEV, NLT). This is preferred by the present translation since, while it does not resolve the ambiguity entirely, it does make it less easy for the English reader to limit the reference only to “your love in the Spirit” at the end of v. 8.

¹⁴ tn The term “God” does not appear in the Greek text, but the following reference to “the knowledge of his will” makes it clear that “God” is in view as the object of the “praying and asking,” and should therefore be included in the English translation for clarity.

¹⁵ tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause has been translated as substantival, indicating the content of the prayer and asking. The idea of purpose may also be present in this clause.

¹⁶ tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

¹⁷ tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”

¹⁸ tn On the translation of πρὸς τὸν καταρτισμὸν τῶν ἁγίων (pro" ton katartismon twn Jagiwn) as “to equip the saints” see BDAG 526 s.v. καταρτισμός. In this case the genitive is taken as objective and the direct object of the verbal idea implied in καταρτισμός (katartismo").

¹⁹ tn The εἰς (eis) clause is taken as epexegetical to the previous εἰς clause, namely, εἰς ἔργον διακονίας (ei" ergon diakonia").

²⁰ tn The words “attaining to” were supplied in the translation to pick up the καταντήσωμεν (katanthswmen) mentioned earlier in the sentence and the εἰς (eis) which heads up this clause.

²¹ tn Grk “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” On this translation of ἡλικία (Jhlikia, “stature”) see BDAG 436 s.v. 3.

²² tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

²³ tn While the sense of the passage is clear enough, translation in English is somewhat difficult. The Greek says: “by the trickery of men, by craftiness with the scheme of deceit.” The point is that the author is concerned about Christians growing into maturity. He is fearful that certain kinds of very cunning people, who are skilled at deceitful scheming, should come in and teach false doctrines which would in turn stunt the growth of the believers.

²⁴ tn The meaning of the participle ἀληθεύοντες (alhqeuonte"; from the verb ἀληθεύω [alhqeuw]) is debated. In classical times the verb could mean “to speak the truth,” or “to be true, to prove true.” In the LXX it appears five times (Gen 20:16; 42:16; Prov 21:3; Isa 44:26; Sir 34:4) and translates four different Hebrew words; there it is an ethical term used of proving or being true, not with the idea of speaking the truth. In the NT the only other place the verb appears is in Gal 4:16 where it means “to speak the truth.” However, in Ephesians the concept of “being truthful” is the best sense of the word. In contrast to the preceding verse, where there are three prepositional phrases to denote falsehood and deceit, the present word speaks of being real or truthful in both conduct and speech. Their deceit was not only in their words but also in their conduct. In other words, the believers’ conduct should be transparent, revealing the real state of affairs, as opposed to hiding or suppressing the truth through cunning and deceit. See H. W. Hoehner, Ephesians, 564-65, and R. Bultmann, TDNT 1:251.

²⁵ tn The Greek participle συμβιβαζόμενον (sumbibazomenon) translated “held together” also has in different contexts, the idea of teaching implied in it.

²⁶ tn Grk “joint of supply.”

²⁷ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

²⁸ tn Traditionally, “servant” or “bondservant.” Though δοῦλος (doulos) is normally translated “servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. BDAG notes that “‘servant’ for ‘slave’ is largely confined to Biblical transl. and early American times…in normal usage at the present time the two words are carefully distinguished” (BDAG 260 s.v.). The most accurate translation is “bondservant” (sometimes found in the ASV for δοῦλος), in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force.

²⁹ tn Grk “for the faith,” possibly, “in accordance with the faith.”

³⁰ tn Grk “by diverse and strange teachings.”

³¹ tn Grk “foods,” referring to the meals associated with the OT sacrifices (see the contrast with the next verse; also 9:9-10; 10:1, 4, 11).