Morning Moments

Produces Good Sailors Complete the Course

19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Figures of speech are an important part of the Word of God, and understanding them is essssential to rightly dividing the Word of Truth. As a diamond reflects the brightness of the sun from every angle, so the truth of God is a multi-faceted reflection of the God of truth.

An analogy can be a similarity between the features of unlike things. It is a figure of speech which God uses to show us things we do not understand by things we do. With that in mind, let's now consider the analogy of the seaman and the shipwreck.

The Port "The faith"
Imagine "faith" as the port. It is that place of safe harbor. It is where we are to dock (rest). It is the body of truth where that keeps us safe and secure.

The Pilot "good conscience"
Now imagine the pilot of the ship being a good conscience. The word literally means "co-perception". It denotes an abiding consciousness whose nature it is to bear inner witness to one's own conduct in a moral sense (Tit_1:15). It is self-awareness. It is that par of us that is quickened by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of distinguishing right from wrong; good from bad. This pilot knows the course that God has charted and keeps a steady course always toward the port (the faith). The pilot, quickened by the Spirit is trained to follow the course.

The Peril "shipwreck"
Here is how the shipwreck happens: Paul uses the phrase "put away", which implies a violent and deliberate rejection of one's personal conscience. "To him who knows to do good and does it not, to him that is sin." If one continues to harden the heart and reject the Holy Spirit's work, it will lead to a "shipwreck" faith.

The Proud and Profane "Hymenaeus"
We find another reference to him in 2 Tim 2:17. Allow me to quote from the JFB commentary regarding these men.

Verse 20. Hymenaeus -- There is no difficulty in supposing him to be the Hymenæus of 2Ti 2:17. Though "delivered over to Satan" (the lord of all outside the Church, Ac 26:18, and the executor of wrath, when judicially allowed by God, on the disobedient, 1Co 5:5 2Co 12:7), he probably was restored to the Church subsequently, and again troubled it. Paul, as an apostle, though distant at Rome pronounced the sentence to be executed at Ephesus, involving, probably, the excommunication of the offenders (Mt 18:17, 18). The sentence operated not only spiritually, but also physically, sickness, or some such visitation of God, falling on the person excommunicated, in order to bring him to repentance and salvation. Alexander here is probably "the coppersmith" who did Paul "much evil" when the latter visited Ephesus. The "delivering him to Satan" was probably the consequence of his withstanding the apostle (2Ti 4:14, 15); as the same sentence on Hymenæus was the consequence of "saying that the resurrection is past already" (2Ti 2:18; his putting away good conscience, naturally producing shipwreck concerning FAITH, 1Ti 1:19. If one's religion better not his morals, his moral deficiencies will corrupt his religion. The rain which falls pure from heaven will not continue pure if it be received in an unclean vessel [ARCHBISHOP WHATELY]). It is possible that he is the Alexander, then a Jew, put forward by the Jews, doubtless against Paul, at the riot in Ephesus (Ac 19:33).A Commentary: Critical, Experimental, and Practical on the Old and New Testaments.