What Does 1 Timothy 4:2 Mean?

(2) **Speaking lies in hypocrisy.**—The Greek words here should be translated, *through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies.* The lies that these men utter, refer to their teaching that it was pleasing to the eye of the All-seeing Creator for men and women to avoid certain meats, and to abstain from marriage. Their hypocrisy consisted in their assumption of a mask of holiness, which holiness they considered was derived from their false asceticism and their abstinence from things which the Apostle proceeded to show were lawful. **Having their conscience seared with a hot iron.**—Better rendered, *Branded in their own con-science as with a hot iron.* The image is drawn from the practice of branding slaves and certain criminals on their forehead with a mark. “*Qua nota turpitudinis* *non inusta tua vita est?” *(Cic. *Cat.* i. 6.) These men tried to teach the efficacy of a substitution of certain counsels of perfection in place of a faithful loving life. They based their teaching on wild Oriental speculations about the evil nature of all matter. They were often themselves evil-livers, who, conscious of their own stained, scarred lives, strove with a show of outward sanctity and hypocritical self-denial to beguile and to lead astray others, and in the end to make them as vile as themselves.