하나님나라를 꿈꾸며(Kingdom of God)

3 gAs I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not hto teach any different doctrine, 4 nor ito devote themselves to myths and endless jgenealogies, which promote kspeculations rather than the stewardship1 from God that is by faith. 5 The aim of our charge is love lthat issues from a pure heart and ma good conscience and na sincere faith. 6 Certain persons, by oswerving from these, have wandered away into pvain discussion, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, qwithout understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

g [Titus 1:5]

h ch. 6:3; [Gal. 1:6, 7]

i ch. 4:7; 2 Tim. 4:4; Titus 1:14; 2 Pet. 1:16

j Titus 3:9

k ch. 6:4

1 Or good order

l 2 Tim. 2:22

m 1 Pet. 3:16, 21

n Rom. 12:9; 2 Tim. 1:5

o ch. 6:21

p Titus 1:10

q [ch. 6:4; Col. 2:18]

 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 딤전 1:3–7.

3 내가 마게도냐로 갈 때에 너를 권하여 에베소에 머물라 한 것은 어떤 사람들을 명하여 다른 교훈을 가르치지 말며

4 신화와 끝없는 족보에 몰두하지 말게 하려 함이라 이런 것은 믿음 안에 있는 하나님의 경륜을 이룸보다 도리어 변론을 내는 것이라

5 이 교훈의 목적은 청결한 마음과 선한 양심과 거짓이 없는 믿음에서 나오는 사랑이거늘

6 사람들이 이에서 벗어나 헛된 말에 빠져

7 율법의 선생이 되려 하나 자기가 말하는 것이나 자기가 확증하는 것도 깨닫지 못하는도다

 대한성서공회, 성경전서: 개역개정, 전자책. (서울시 서초구 남부순환로 2569: 대한성서공회, 1998), 딤전 1:3–7.

3절) 당시 바울은 로마의 감옥에서 석방된 후 에베소에서 마게도냐로 떠나면서 디모데로 하여금 에베소에 머물면서 자신의 대리자로 그곳에서 기승을 부리던 거짓 교사들을 물리치고 복음의 진리를 온전하게 지킬 것을 독려하고 있는 것이다. 

‘어떤 사람들을 명하여 다른 교훈을 가르치지 말며’, 3-4절은 ‘히나’ 가정법 구문이다. 명하여로 번역된 ‘파랑게일레스’는 ‘파라’와 ‘앙겔로’의 합성어이다. ‘파라’는 ‘~으로부터. ~곁에’라는 의미이고 ‘앙겔로’는 '소식을 가져오다’라는 의미의 동사이다. 문자적으로 ‘어떤 사람에게서 받은 메시지를 다른 사람에게 그대로 전하다’라는 의미이다. 이것은 권위자로부터 명령을 하달받아 지시하는 의미를 지닌다. 그렇다면 본문의 ‘어떤 사람들’은 누구인가? 이들은 20절에 언급된 후메내오와 알렉산더를 연상시킨다. 이들은 거짓된 가르침을 전하거나 이를 따르는 모든 이들을 포함한다. 결국 이들은 7절에서 말하는 대로 율법의 선생이 되려하지만 복음이 아니라 다른 교훈을 가르치는 자들이다. 

‘다른 교훈을 가르치지’로 번역된 ‘헤테로디다스칼레오’는 본절과 딤전 6:3에서만 등장하는 표현이다. 이는 ‘가르치다, 지도하다’라는 의미의 동사 ‘디다스코’와 ‘다른, 또하나의, 이종의’라는 의미의 ‘헤테로스’의 합성어로 ‘허용된 표준과 상반되게 교리를 가르치다’라는 의미를 지닌다. ‘디다케’는 ‘가르침, 교훈’이라는 의미이다. 

* 거짓 교사들의 거짓 가르침

6:10 믿음에서 떠남

6:20 망령되고 헛된 말과 거짓된 지식의 반론

6:21 믿음에서 벗어남

-  The historical scenario alluded to requires a situation in which Timothy has either already been dispatched on his own to Ephesus (from somewhere else on duty either with Paul or with others),11 or in which Paul left him there as he himself went on to Macedonia.12 The ambiguity of their relative locations here is similar to the command to Titus concerning Crete (cf. Titus 1:5). And any attempt to locate the place in Paul’s travels in which this assignment most likely occurred remains provisional.13 Barring the theory of a release from Roman imprisonment (cf. Introduction B.1.a), the sequence of Paul’s and his coworker’s movements reported in and around Acts 20:1–3 is perhaps most promising. At this point, in close connection with the Ephesian and ongoing Corinthian stages of Paul’s work, Paul is reported to have left Ephesus for Macedonia (Acts 20:1) after which he arrived in Greece and stayed for three months (20:2). Timothy’s location is not stated at this juncture, though in 19:22 Luke reports that he had been dispatched to Macedonia. If Timothy had returned, or was redirected by Paul back to Ephesus, the scenario assumed by the language of 1 Tim 1:3 of “remaining” on assignment in Ephesus just becomes a possibility during that brief period. After the brief stay in Greece, Paul then makes his way back to Asia Minor via Macedonia, and Timothy is reported to have accompanied Paul from Greece to Troas at this point, all of which assumes that Timothy again left Ephesus in order to return to Paul. As Johnson points out, “the window of opportunity for 1 Timothy” presented by the account of Acts is not substantial.14 But Paul’s frequent travels back and forth between Asia Minor, Achaia and Macedonia and his practice of dispatching delegates to churches are clear from his letters, so the kind of assignment envisioned here is not at all unlikely. If neither Acts nor Paul’s letters allow certainty in the question of the timing of such an assignment of personnel, the incompleteness of each source must also be recognized. We will assume that 1 Timothy addresses Timothy in his work at Ephesus some time during Paul’s active pre-imprisonment ministry in these regions.15

Timothy’s reason for staying in Ephesus emerges in the purpose clause (hina) that begins here and continues into the next verse. It is chiefly to confront the false teachers. First, the term, “command”16 (4:11; 5:7; 6:13, 17) belongs to the technical vocabulary of didactic and corrective activities associated with the apostolic mission and teaching within the church (see discussions 4:11; Titus 1:9, 13; 2:1; 15). The term implies the delegate’s authority to issue commands in behalf of Paul17 (the content of which follows) and equally that those being thus commanded are within the jurisdiction of this authority. This means that those referred to indirectly as “certain persons”18 most likely to demean them before the whole community, were members of the church and therefore accountable to Paul.19

The content of the command is expressed negatively as a prohibition by means of two parallel infinitive verbs. The first of these prohibits the activity of “teaching what is false,” before continuing to prohibit the useless speculation that lies behind and fuels the activity itself. The verb, “to teach what is false,” is rare, occurring in the NT only in this letter (6:3).20 The allegation closely parallels one made in Gal 1:6 (cf. 2 Cor 11:4), where opponents are identified with the same indirect demeaning tag (“some people,” Gal 1:7; cf. 2 Cor 10:2). Paul’s main concern at this point is less with the teaching style or methods of the opponents (i.e. some sort of speculation and perhaps argumentation, though elsewhere this too is specifically denounced; 6:4; 2 Tim 2:14; Titus 3:9),21 and mainly with the substandard content that is being taught. The choice of this devaluative verb sets the stage for the series of contrasts that will extol and endorse the apostolic gospel as the standard (“the gospel,” “the sound teaching,” “the sound words of our Lord,” etc.) and deprecate the message of the opponents as a counterfeit.

11 Variously, Simpson, 27.

12 See Dibelius and Conzelmann, 15; Fee, 39.

13 See Introduction B.1.

14 Johnson, 137.

15 The argument mounted by proponents of pseudonymity to the effect that the apostle’s “leaving behind” of coworkers (expressed differently in 1 Tim 1:3 and Titus 1:5), in contrast to the genuine Paul’s practice of first planting churches, then “sending” coworkers to further the work (e.g. 1 Cor 4:17; 16:10; 2 Cor 2:4–7), is a literary device that reveals the post-apostolic situation of these letters to Timothy and Titus (especially, Trummer, Paulustradition, 124; Wolter, Paulustradition, 180–84; see also discussion in Marshall, 364). While the Pauline strategy adduced from his letters to churches seems clear, the interpretation of 1 Tim 1:3 and Titus 1:5 on the basis of some sort of comparison with other letters to churches is obviously wholly dependent upon prior assumptions about the non-historical and inauthentic character of the letters. If one considers for a moment the possibility that these are in fact two of the only three letters (of the extant Pauline collection) that Paul addressed to individual coworkers (with the wider audience of the churches anticipated), and that Timothy and Titus were already in place as 1 Tim 1:3 and Titus 1:5 suggest (thus explaining the past tense), one has to ask how else Paul would have described their appointments that were in fact already in effect. The function of the instructions to Timothy and Titus not only reminded the coworkers of their task, but also the communities of the coworkers’ authority as apostolic delegates.

16 Gk παραγγέλλω; the term is used frequently of Paul’s authoritative teaching in the churches (1 Cor 7:10; 11:17; 1 Thess 4:11; 2 Thess 3:4, 6, 10, 12 (W. Radl, EDNT 3:16–17; Lips, Glaube, 130–31; Marshall, 364; Roloff, 63) and belongs to the didactic vocabulary by which this ministry is described.

17 Although Marshall, 364, makes the point that Timothy here is called on “to carry out the task of a church leader,” there seems little reason to think that the coworker has ceased to function in his capacity as an apostolic delegate, despite the fact that he is here ministering within a particular church.

18 Gk τινες (the plural indefinite pronoun from τις); this technique is intentional (1:6, 19; 4:1; 5:15, 24; 6:10; 21; 2 Tim 2:18), found also elsewhere in the Pauline letters (Rom 3:8; 1 Cor 4:18; 5:1; 2 Cor 3:1; 10:2; Gal 1:7; 2:12; Phil 1:15; see also Heb 10:25; Ignatius, Eph. 7:1; 9:1; 1 Clement 1:1), and in the letters to Timothy is used specifically for the opponents. See further Johnson, 162; Roloff, 71; Marshall, 365.

19 See Fee, 40, who suggests erring elders are specifically in mind; Towner, Goal, 24–27.

20 Gk ἑτεροδιδασκαλέω; see also Ignatius, To Polycarp 3.1. The term, and other hetero-combinations, occur more frequently in the Fathers, but first-century (and earlier) use of such compounds is also evident (Josephus, Antiquities 10.281; Jewish War, 2.129; Plato, Theaetetus 190E). For the combination of ἑτερο- (“different”) with other verbs to form similar compounds, see 1 Cor 14:21; 2 Cor 6:14.

21 As with the technical term, “the teaching” (διδασκαλία), as it occurs in these letters, either the activity or the content of “teaching” may be in view (cf. Lips, Glaube, 39, n. 39; Towner, Goal, 26–27).

 Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006), 106–109.

 

-  This phrase24 is problematic and resists precise interpretation. Nevertheless, there are certain precedents that allow us to close in on Paul’s sense. The term “myth”25 has a long history of use prior to the NT, through which it comes to mean a fable or far-fetched story often about the gods; most importantly, it can stand as a category meaning essentially falsehood.26 Here the term is in the plural, as throughout the NT, which contains a negative evaluative assessment in itself (namely, spurious, contradictory, human) in contrast to the divinely imbued singularity and unity of the gospel.27 Paul employs the plural term to label the teaching emphatically as falsehood. But the history of the term’s use goes another step: Plato, for one, used the term to denounce certain stories not simply as false but also deceptive, in that they were told so as to lend credence to immoral behavior or practices by linking them to ancient stories about the gods.28 The apparent link between certain extreme ascetic aspects of behavior and the false doctrines in Ephesus (1 Tim 4:1–3; cf. discussion at Titus 1:14–15) suggests that Paul also drew on this nuance of the term’s polemical use. Thus rather than identifying the content of the teaching, the term “myths” evaluates it as false and pernicious.

“Genealogies,” however, with the help of other contextual clues, takes us in the direction of actual content. This term also has a long history of use, describing lists of family names (family trees), and the process of constructing them, that served various purposes.29 Within Judaism, genealogies played the key role of establishing a person’s bloodline and link to a particular family and tribe: rights by birth determined in this way allowed, for example, entrance into the priesthood. As use in Philo demonstrates, the term could refer to the accounts of people in the early parts of Genesis.30 This usage especially opens up the possibility that Paul is identifying the practice among the false teachers of speculating on stories about the early biblical characters as well as actual genealogical lists such as occur there or in other more speculative non-canonical Jewish writings (e.g. Jubilees). Speculation fitting roughly into this category was known to have been practiced in Jewish communities,31 and the reference in 1:7 to the opponents’ aspirations to be “teachers of the law” helps to locate the sources of this practice within the repository of Jewish literature (cf. Titus 1:14 and the reference to “Jewish myths”).32

The adjective “endless” attached to “genealogies” might have been a literal reference to long drawn out speculations, or may be meant in the sense of “pointless,” “contradictory” or “inconclusive.”33 Its force is clearly polemical, meant to discredit the protracted arguments that go nowhere.

We can go little beyond deducing that these early stories were somehow mined for (or reshaped to yield) clues they contained about the deeper sort of piety the false teachers laid claim to.34 Nevertheless, it is clear that Paul regarded this teaching as deceptive and dangerous. Quite possibly the extreme practices alluded to in 4:1–3 (see discussion) were grounded in this speculative interpretation of Israel’s early history, all of which was being served up in the guise of authoritative doctrine (1:7).

In the next phrase, Paul supplies an important reason35 why Timothy is to prohibit this false teaching. It consists of a contrast between the wheel-spinning futility of the deceptive speculation and the direction of God’s mission. The first half of this reason is clear: the obsession with myths and genealogies “promotes controversial speculations.” The verb36 is neutral and also governs the positive side of the contrast to come. But the term that follows, “controversial [or useless]speculations,”37 is one of several that belongs to Paul’s polemical repertoire in these three letters to coworkers drawn on to discredit the opposing doctrines and behavior as being everything from foolish nonsense to disputatious and pernicious.38 It is clearly these latter characteristics and their danger to the church that most concern Paul as he writes (6:3–4).

In contrast,39 it is implied that correct and authoritative teaching will promote “God’s work.” However, the TNIV translation is questionable. The Greek term is oikonomia theou.40 It is translated in various ways in the versions: “the divine training”41 (NRSV); “God’s plan for us” (REB; cf. TEV); “God’s work” (TNIV; NIV); and there are numerous other variations.

Of these attempts to render the term, the first is unlikely. Most who propose the meaning “God’s plan” narrow the focus to salvation, and draw on the use of the term oikonomia in expanded phrases especially in Ephesians 1:10 and 3:9 (cf. 3:2).42 While this can be made to fit the present context, more or less,43 it is perhaps a better fit in Ephesians.

This menu of options suggests a continuing state of uncertainty. Johnson and Marshall have suggested that the key to interpreting oikonomia here lies in the household terminology, which Paul employed elsewhere and which is thematic in 1 Timothy. To begin with, oikonomia refers to the organization and ordering of a household or the responsibility of management that maintains the order. This is how Paul describes his mission to the Gentiles in 1 Cor 9:17: that is, he understands himself to have been entrusted with management of a household (presumably God’s; cf. 1 Cor 4:1). The description of his ministry in Col 1:25 follows the same line: “I have become a minister according to the responsibility to manage God’s house [oikonomia tou theou] that was given to me.” Within 1 Timothy household language links several things together into a whole pattern. Leaving 1:4 aside for the moment, in 3:15 the church is depicted as “God’s house” (oikos theou; cf. 2 Tim 2:20–21), and by derivation, overseers are to understand their task in terms of a stewardship (see 3:4–5; in Titus 1:7 the term oikonomos theou [“God’s steward”] is used).

This brings us back to the phrase oikonomia theou in 1:4. Surely it is correct to define the concept within the sphere of household management and duties from which the language emerged. At this point, we note the slight difference in the final results of Johnson and Marshall. Marshall focuses on the activity of management, which leads him to interpret the contrasting image as follows: “rather than [promoting] the performance of the duties of stewardship” (associated with God’s house).44 The duties envisioned include all those to be done by the leaders of the church.

In the absence in 1:4 of a direct statement by Paul to the effect that the oikonomia theou is that which has been entrusted or given to Paul (emphasizing specifically stewardship, responsibility and the activity of management; 1 Cor 9:17; Eph 3:2; Col 1:25), it seems best in this case to increase the emphasis on the pattern and order that is to be implemented. That is, the first thought is not of administration as ministry and responsibility, but of the shape of things and the ordering of life to be achieved through the various activities of ministry and service.

The attached comment about faith adds a crucial condition to the understanding of the divine pattern.46 Although it is rendered instrumentally by the TNIV: “which is by faith.” It may denote somewhat more broadly the sense of sphere: “in faith.” In either case, it says something more about “the way God has organized life.” To be “in faith” is to be in the sphere of authentic faith (see note on 1:2), and its attachment to the preceding phrase here will encompass the apprehension of God’s ways and patterns as well as any actions taken to implement them. The point Paul makes, however, is polemical. It is genuine faith, namely, that faith associated with his gospel, which has access to correct understanding of the will of God. The fundamental condition for understanding the way God has organized life (his oikonomia), and for carrying out the activities in the community and world that bring them into alignment, is adherence to genuine faith. As he is about to say, it is Timothy’s task of teaching what is true and correcting what is false that will give insight into the oikonomia of God.

24 For the whole phrase, μύθοις καὶ γενεαλογίαις ἀπεράντοις (“myths and endless genealogies”), cf. Polybius, Histories 9.2.1; Plato, Timaeus 22A, which show the linkage of these two terms to be traditional.

25 Gk μύθος; in the NT always in the plural (4:7; 2 Tim 4:4; Titus 1:14; 2 Pet 1:16; see also Sir 20:19; 2 Clement 13:3; cf. Bar 3:23; Ignatius, Magn. 8.1).

26 See e.g. Plato, Republic 376D–377A; Epictetus, Diss. 3.24.18 (also with the verb προσέχω); on the whole matter, see. Spicq, TLNT 2:528–33; G. Stählin, TDNT 4:762–95; F. F. Bruce, NIDNTT 2:643–47; Johnson, 162–63; Marshall, 206; Dibelius and Conzelmann, 16–17.

27 Cf. the plural descriptions “teachings of demons” (4:1; cf. the plural formulations in 6:20; 2 Tim 2:16; Titus 1:11, 14). References to the gospel or the teaching (in various terms) are consistently in the singular.

28 E.g. Plato, Laws 636C–D; 12.941B (ὑπό τινων μυθολόγων πλημμελῶν; “being led astray by certain tellers of myths”); Republic, 376E–383C; see also Quinn, 245; Marshall, 206.

29 Gk γενεαλογία; for the noun, as here, see Plato, Crat. 396C; Josephus, Antiquities 11.71; for the verb (to trace one’s ancestry”), see Herodotus 2.146; Plato, Timaeus 23B.

30 Philo, Life of Moses 2.47 (and Colson’s note in Loeb, VI, 606, which argues for the association of the term with persons in history as against impersonal aspects of history); see further Quinn, 245; Marshall, 335–36; Spicq, 93–104; F. Büchsel, TDNT 1:663–65; Schlarb, Die gesunde Lehre, 86–90;

31 E.g. 1QapGen; Pseudo-Philo; see also Schlarb, Die gesunde Lehre, 86–92; G. Kittel, “Genealogia des Pastoralbriefe,” ZNW 20 (1921) 49–69; Quinn, 245–46; Marshall, 335.

32 See Schlarb, Die gesunde Lehre, 83–93.

33 Gk ἀπέραντος; only here in the NT (in positive descriptions see LXX Job 36:26; 3 Macc 2:9); in a similar derogatory sense, see Philo, Cong. 53; Spicq, TLNT 1:159; Marshall, 366; Fee, 42.

34 Arguments to the effect that the false teachers were tampering with the lineage of Jesus (as given in Matthew; B. T. Viviano, “The Genre of Matt. 1–2: Light from 1 Tim. 1:4,” RB 97 [1990] 31–53) or sought by study of their own genealogies to place themselves well with Judaism (Schlatter, 34–35), or that Christ’s ancestry was being challenged to some end by them (so Quinn, 245–46, chiefly in reference to Titus 3:9) have little to commend them. Corroborating evidence is also lacking for the once popular (yet still influential) view that “myths and genealogies” (especially the latter term) refers to the systems of Gnostic emanations or aeons, documented only after the first century, that made some use of the biblical genealogies (see e.g. Irenaeus, AH 1 Praef; 1.30.9; Easton, 112–113; Dibelius and Conzelmann, 16–17; G. Haufe, “Gnostische Irrlehre und ihre Abwehr in den Pastoralbriefen,” in K.-W. Tröger (ed.), Gnosis und NT (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1973) 325–39 (see discussion in Towner, Goal, 28; Marshall, 336, 366; Johnson, 163); and most recently see Oberlinner, 14.

35 The indefinite relative, αἵτινες, refers to the preceding “myths and genealogies” (taking its gender from the feminine γενεαλογίαις) intending to categorize them by the result they produce (“of a kind which”; see BDF §293.2).

36 Gk παρέχω; 6:17; Titus 2:7.

37 Gk ἐκζήτησις; the variant, ζητήσεις, meaning “disputes,” appears in a majority of the mss. (see discussion in Metzger, 571; Elliott, 18; Marshall, 362), and it is indeed a word that Paul uses in each of these three letters (1 Tim 6:4; 2 Tim 2:23; Titus 3:9; cf. verb in 2 Tim 1:17), while ἐκζητήσεις (“speculations, investigations”) is extremely rare, limited to this instance in the NT and LXX (Johnson, 163, refers to 2 Kgs 4:11, but this appears to be in error) and infrequent in secular Greek (the related verb is common), the harder reading (“speculations”) is more likely the original, having been corrected to (“disputes”) to accord with what was thought to be the author’s vocabulary. Marshall, 362, suggests that ἐκζήτησις (“speculation”) may include the thought of disputation.

38 See the discussions of language at 2 Tim 2:23; Titus 3:9; see also Towner, Goal, 24–25; Schlarb, Die Gesunde Lehre, 59–73; Marshall, 334–35.

39 The combination μᾶλλον ἤ (2 Tim 3:4; Gal 4:27; Acts 4:19; 5:29) means “rather than.”

40 Gk οἰκονομία θεοῦ (Col 1:25; Eph 3:2).

41 See also Dibelius and Conzelmann, 17–18; Hanson, 57; Oberlinner, 14–15, for the sense “the training which leads to salvation.” This sense of the phrase is attested much later in Clement of Alexandria.

42 See Kelly, 45; Fee, 42; Arichea-Hatton, 17; Brox, 103.

43 But see Roloff, 65 and Marshall, 367, who maintain that within the contrast, “God’s plan of salvation” is an inapt counterpart to “useless speculations”; however, this may overstress the precision intended.

44 Marshall, 367. See Knight, 75–76, for the combination of this with the idea of God’s salvation plan: “the outworking, administration or stewardship of God’s plan of salvation through the gospel and its communication.”

45 This use of the term oikonomia seems closest to its use in Eph 1:10 (3:9) for God’s all encompassing plan. There, too, where a Christological perspective is of course dominant, oikonomia must be understood to refer not just to “salvation plan,” but rather to the implementation of the divine ordering of things/life/creation through the Christ event (i.e. of “salvation plan” in its widest sense).

46 The Greek phrase, τὴν ἐν πίστει, is an example of the attachment of a qualification to an anarthrous noun (οἰκονομίαν) by following it with the article and the qualifying phrase (see also 1:14; 3:13; 4:8; 6:3; 2 Tim 1:13, 2:10; 3:15; Titus 1:1); it makes the qualification somewhat emphatic (Marshall, 368); see further BDF §269.3.

 Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006), 109–114.

-  The Charge to Deal with False Teachers. At least one of Timothy’s purposes in Ephesus was to deal with false teaching that was troubling the church. Not enough information is given to determine exactly what the false teaching was. The concern here is not so much the identity of the false teachers but their effect, which was in direct contrast to the goal of apostolic instruction. The results of false teaching were “speculations” (v. 4) and “vain discussion” (v. 6) while the result of true teaching is “love” coming from “a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (v. 5). The focus of false teaching led to “swerving” and wandering (v. 6) while the focus of true teaching was a steadfast “aim” (v. 5). And regarding the law, the advocates of false teaching were “without understanding” (v. 7) while the advocates of true teaching had correct knowledge (vv. 8–11).

 Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 2325.