1 Timothy 6:20

20. O Timothy The final, most personal, most earnest address of all.

That which is committed to thy trust In Greek, a single word, the deposit, the intrusted thing. The duties in this epistle commended to him; his care of his own salvation and that of his hearers; his rebuke of errorists and firm maintenance of Christ’s gospel, through the apostle intrusted to him.

Vain babblings Rather, the profane empty-talkings. See note on 1 Timothy 1:6.

Oppositions of science A remarkable phrase. Literally, antitheses of gnosis. And gnosis (identical with the English word knowledge) is the word from which subsequently the Gnostics derived their proud title. Note, Acts 11:19. The word gnosis was for a while in good repute in the Church, (used Luke 1:77; Romans 2:20; Romans 11:13; and elsewhere,) embracing the settled truths of the gospel. But as used by the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 8:1, (where see notes,) it is apparently treated sarcastically by St. Paul, as it is here reprehendingly. As the Corinthian gnosis was a little pretentious, so this gnosis, being further advanced, is absolutely fictitious, being falsely so called. It had already begun to indicate that arrogance, based upon purely imaginary superiority, by which the Gnostics of the next century were distinguished. Note on 2 Thessalonians 2:7. What the oppositions, antitheses, were, is not clear. They may have been the points opposed to the gospel. More probably they were counter propositions, balances of phrases, within the gnosis itself. One is reminded of the antinomies in the Kant philosophy; consisting of a series of coupled prepositions seen by the mind to contradict each other, yet both sides of the contradiction seeming, and claimed by the philosophy, to be true.