Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Timothy 4:3

"forbidding to marry, [and commanding] to abstain from meats, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by them that believe and know the truth." — 1 Timothy 4:3 (ASV)

Forbidding to marry.—This strange and unnatural “counsel of perfection,” St. Paul, thinking and writing in the Spirit, foresaw as a perilous delusion that would, as time went on, grow into the impious dogma of certain of the great Gnostic schools. This teaching was probably, even in those early days, creeping into the churches. The Jewish sects of Essenes and Therapeutae had already taught that “abstinence from marriage” was meritorious.

Men belonging to these sects doubtless were to be found in every populous centre where Jews congregated, and it was always in these centres of Judaism that Christianity at first found a home. St. Paul, however, saw no reason to dwell on this point at any length; the gross absurdity of such a “counsel” as a rule of life was too apparent; it was a plain contradiction of the order of Divine Providence. But the next question which presented itself in the teaching of these false ascetics, as we shall see, required more careful handling.

And commanding to abstain from meats.—Once more we must look to those famous Jewish religious communities of Egypt (the Essenes and Therapeutae), the precursors of the great monastic systems of Christianity, as the home from which these perverted ascetic tendencies issued. These precepts too, like the counsel respecting marriage, were adopted in later years by several of the principal Gnostic sects; and it was especially those times St. Paul foresaw, although, no doubt, the seeds of their false asceticism had already been sown broadcast in the principal Christian congregations.

It has been asked why, in these solemn warnings against a false asceticism which St. Paul foresaw might and would be substituted for a truly earnest God-fearing life, the question of celibacy was dismissed with one short sentence, while the apparently less-important question of abstaining from particular kinds of food was discussed in some detail. The reason is easily discoverable. The counsel to abstain from marriage was a strange and unnatural suggestion, one contrary to the plain scheme of creation.

Any teaching that taught that the celibate’s life was a life especially pleasing to God would, at the same time, throw a slur upon all home and family life, and the Apostle felt that men’s ordinary common sense would soon relegate any such strange teaching to obscurity. But the question of abstaining from meats—that was connected with the precepts of the Mosaic law, which dealt at some length (probably for reasons connected with public health) with these restrictions regarding meats.

These false teachers, while they urged such abstinence as a likely way to win God’s favour, would probably base, or in any case support, their arguments by reference to certain portions of the Mosaic law, whether rightly understood or wrongly understood.

These points, then, might have developed into a significant controversial question between the (Pauline) Gentile and the Jewish congregations. So St. Paul immediately moved it to a higher platform. All food was from the hand of one Maker—therefore, nothing could truly be considered common or unclean without throwing a slur upon the All-Creator.

Which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving.—God’s primeval intention is thus sharply contrasted with men’s arbitrary restrictions. This divine intention is repeated with still greater emphasis in 1 Timothy 4:4.

Of them which believe and know the truth.—The true “Gnostics,” in St. Paul’s eyes, were not those self-sufficient men who, from their own corrupt imagination, were devising these strange and unnatural methods of pleasing God, but those holy, humble men of heart who believed in His crucified Son and knew the truth of the glorious gospel.