Remind the believers of these things, charging them before God to avoid quarreling over words, which succeeds only in leading the listeners to ruin.
Of these things put [them] in remembrance, charging [them] before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, [but] to the subverting of the hearers. (d) Call God to witness, or as a Judge: as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and Paul himself did, in Acts 13.
Observe here, 1. The excellent advice which St. Paul gives to Timothy, to all the ministers of the church, and to all the Christian churches far and near, that they spend not their time in disputes, that they contend not about words, which have no tendency to make men either wiser or better, but serve only to violate the laws of charity, and cause men...
Charge your people to stop striving about words, for such quarrels destroy souls and lead hearers away from the great things of God. Those who contend over trifles rarely consider how useless these disputes are; they are not merely profitless but deeply harmful.
AI summary
Commenting on 2 Timothy 2:14-18