2 Timothy 3:14 - Exposition

Abide for continue , A.V. Abide thou , etc. Be not like these juggling heretics, blown about by every wind of doctrine, and always seeking some new thing, but abide in the old truths which thou hast learnt from thy childhood. Hast been assured of ( ἐπιστώθης ); only here in the New Testament, but found in 2Ma 7:24 and 1 Kings 1:36 . In classical Greek it has the same sense as here (among others), "to be made sure of a thing." Of whom thou hast learned them ( παρὰ τίνος ἔμαθες , or, according to another reading of nearly equal authority, παρὰ τίνων ). If τίνος is the right reading, it must refer either to God or to St. Paul. In favour of its referring to God is the expression in the Prophet Isaiah commented upon by our Lord in John 6:45 , where παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς answers to παρὰ τίνος ; the promise concerning the Comforter, "He shall teach you all things" ( John 14:26 , etc.); and the very similar reasoning of St. John, when he is exhorting his "little children" to stand fast in the faith, in spite of those that seduced them: "Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning;" for "the anointing which ye have received of him, abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things,…and even as it hath taught yon, abide in him" ( 1 John 2:24-28 ); and other similar passages. There would obviously be great force in reminding Timothy that he had received the gospel under the immediate teaching of the Holy Spirit, and that it would be a shameful thing for him to turn aside under the influence of those impostors. If τίνων does not refer to God, it must refer to St. Paul. If, on the other hand, τίνων is the true reading (which is less probable), it must refer to Lois and Eunice, which seems rather feeble.