1 Timothy 4:10 - Exposition

To this end for therefore , A.V.; labor and strive for both labor and suffer reproach , A.V. and T.R.; have our hope set on for trust in , A.V.; them for those , A.V. For to this end ; or, with this in view . He thus justifies his assertion that the saying he had quoted is a faithful one, by showing that the promise and all that it contained was the ground of all his labors and those of his fellow-laborers in the gospel. Strive ( ἀγωνιζόμεθα ); so many good manuscripts, instead of T.R. ὀνειδιζόμεθα ; but the reading is doubtful. The sense of the T.R., "suffer reproach," seems preferable, and the expression more forcible, as conveying something more than mere labor—the bitter reproaches and persecutions which he endured ( 2 Timothy 3:11 ; 1 Corinthians 4:9-13 ; 2 Corinthians 11:23-27 ); and all because of his firm trust in the promises of the living God. Our hope set on. Rather a clumsy phrase, though it expresses accurately the ἠλπίκαμεν ἐπὶ θεῷ ζῶντι ; but it was hardly worth altering the A.V., "we trust in the living God." In 1 Timothy 5:5 we have ἤλπικεν ἐπὶ θεόν , with no appreciable difference of sense. Specially of them that believe ; and therefore we who believe have special cause to hope in him, and to trust his promises.