Marsha's Musings at 4am: Wrangling About Words

Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. (2 Timothy 2:14 ESV)

 Remind them of what things?  Everything that he said earlier in the letter. It was full of doctrine. One example...

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, (2 Timothy 1:8, 9 ESV)

I am to remember what was said earlier in the letter.

Secondly, I am not to quarrel about words.  This reminds me of a small group Bible "study" I was part of once.  It was more a pooling of ignorance. One member started an argument about whether the man in the account had a staff or a stick because one Gospel account rendered it one way while another rendered it the other.  Really, it didn't matter. It was just two different ways of saying the same thing but the argument did nothing but cast doubt on the Scripture.

I guess the point being, when we wrangle about words, we need to be sure that it is important to the true meaning of Scripture, to the building up of the saints and not tearing down their faith by casting doubt on the truth of God's Word.