Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Timothy · About this commentary
A Craving for Controversy
1 Timothy 6:3-5
3 If anyone teaches a different doctrine and doesn’t consent to sound words, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, · WEB
The false teacher is diagnosed as sick rather than merely wrong, and the symptom list ends in the letter's real quarry.
Verse 3 defines the offense by what it will not do: teaching differently, and not consenting to sound words. The standard named is the words of the Lord Jesus Christ and teaching that accords with godliness — a doctrinal test and a practical one, held together.
Verse 4 gives the diagnosis and its vocabulary is medical throughout. The man is puffed up, knowing nothing, and — the key phrase — sick with a craving for controversies and word battles. The letter has called its own teaching sound, meaning healthy 1 Timothy 1:10; here the opposite is not error but disease.
That framing explains why the letter so rarely argues with the content. What it treats as diagnostic is the appetite. A man who needs an argument will find one, and the four products listed — envy, strife, abusive speech, evil suspicions — are what the appetite generates rather than what the doctrine proves.
Verse 5 completes the list with constant friction between people of corrupt mind, and then names what the letter has been circling since chapter 3: they suppose godliness is a means of gain.
That is the sentence the section exists for. The doctrinal trouble at Ephesus and the money trouble are the same trouble. Religion has become a trade, and the endless disputes are what a trade in religion produces.
The instruction is one word in Greek and admits no negotiation: withdraw from such.
settled What this mark means