from the truth
2 Timothy 4:4
4:4 from the truth. This is the last of eleven occurrences of “the truth” in Paul’s two letters to Timothy. It is a very important theme running through both. He first speaks of “the knowledge of the truth” as involved in salvation (I Timothy 2:4), then of his own teachings as “the truth in Christ” (I Timothy 2:7), of the church as “the pillar and ground[ing] of the truth” (I Timothy 3:15), of Christians as those who “believe and know the truth” (I Timothy 4:3), of covetous teachers as men who are “destitute of the truth” (I Timothy 6:5), of the Scriptures as “the Word of truth” (II Timothy 2:15), of false teachers as those “who concerning the truth have erred” (II Timothy 2:18), of repentance as leading “to the acknowledging of the truth” (II Timothy 2:25), of those who seem “never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (II Timothy 3:7), of the false prophets who “resist the truth” (II Timothy 3:8), and finally of those in the congregation who “turn away their ears from the truth” (II Timothy 4:4). “The truth” clearly refers to the whole body of doctrine contained in the Scriptures and centered in the Lord Jesus Christ.
