Act 18:15, 2Ti 2:17-18 | JFB | e4.org | 15. if it be a question of words and names, and of your law . . . I will be no judge, &c.—in this only laying down the proper limits of his office.

‏ Acts 18:15

15. if it be a question of words and names, and of your law . . . I will be no judge, &c.—in this only laying down the proper limits of his office.

‏ 2 Timothy 2:17-18

17. will eat—literally, "will have pasture." The consuming progress of mortification is the image. They pretend to give rich spiritual pasture to their disciples: the only pasture is that of a spiritual cancer feeding on their vitals.

canker—a "cancer" or "gangrene."

Hymenaeus—(See on 1Ti 1:20). After his excommunication he seems to have been readmitted into the Church and again to have troubled it.

18. erred—Greek, "missed the aim" (see 1Ti 6:21).

is past already—has already taken place. The beginnings of the subsequent Gnostic heresy already existed. They "wrested" (2Pe 3:16) Paul's own words (Ro 6:4; Eph 2:6; Col 2:12) "to their own destruction," as though the resurrection was merely the spiritual raising of souls from the death of sin. Compare 1Co 15:12, where he shows all our hopes of future glory rest on the literal reality of the resurrection. To believe it past (as the Seleucians or Hermians did, according to AUGUSTINE [Epistles, 119.55, To Januarius, 4]), is to deny it in its true sense.

overthrow—trying to subvert "the foundation" on which alone faith can rest secure (2Ti 2:19; compare Tit 1:11).