Passage

1 Timothy 6.21

Book: 1 Timothy · NASB95

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

19. laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on the life which is life indeed. 20. O Timothy, guard that which is committed unto thee, turning away from the profane babblings and oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called;

21. which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with you. (1 Timothy 6:19-21, ASV)

WEB

19. laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold of eternal life. 20. Timothy, guard that which is committed to you, turning away from the empty chatter and oppositions of what is falsely called knowledge;

21. which some profess, and thus have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:19-21, WEB)

KJV

19. Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. 20. O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: ^{science: Gr. knowledge}

21. Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen. ^{The first to Timothy was written from Laodicea, which is the chiefest city of Phrygia Pacatiana.} (1 Timothy 6:19-21, KJV)

YLT

19. treasuring up to themselves a right foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on the life age-during. 20. O Timotheus, the thing entrusted guard thou, avoiding the profane vain-words and opposition of the falsely-named knowledge,

21. which certain professing, concerning the faith did swerve; the grace [is] with you. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:19-21, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: Paul, who names himself in the opening line (1:1) and writes in the first person throughout. Authorship of the three Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus) is disputed. Many critical scholars hold that a later follower wrote them in Paul's name, pointing to differences of vocabulary and style from the undisputed letters and to a more settled church order. Others defend Paul's authorship, among them Luke Timothy Johnson (Anchor Bible, 2001), William Mounce (Word Biblical Commentary, 2000) and Philip Towner (NICNT, 2006), citing the letter's personal details and its acceptance in the second-century church.
Audience: Timothy, Paul's "true child in faith" (1:2), whom Paul had urged to stay on at Ephesus to stop certain men from teaching "a different doctrine" (1:3). Timothy came from Lystra, the son of a believing Jewish mother and a Greek father, and had travelled with Paul since the second missionary journey (Acts 16:1-3). The letter is addressed to him, but its directions on prayer, worship, overseers, deacons and widows are meant to order the church at Ephesus as a whole (3:14-15).
Location: not stated. Paul says he left Timothy at Ephesus "when I was going into Macedonia" (1:3) and hopes to rejoin him soon (3:14; 4:13), so Macedonia is the usual suggestion for where the letter was written.
Time period: on Pauline authorship, usually c. AD 62-65, after Paul's release from the Roman imprisonment that ends Acts, since the journey in 1:3 is hard to fit into the Acts narrative. Scholars who regard the letter as pseudonymous usually place it late in the first century or early in the second. The reading below does not depend on the choice.
Literary context: the last verse of the letter: a final warning about those who professed the false "knowledge" of 6:20, and the benediction.

Theological reading

"which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with you." (1 Timothy 6:21, ASV)

Professing and erring. "Erred" (astocheō) means to miss the mark. The same verb describes those who "swerved" from love and a good conscience (1:6) and Hymenaeus and Philetus, who "concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already" (2 Timothy 2:18). The letter began with men who had turned aside (1:6) and some who "made shipwreck concerning the faith" (1:19); it ends on the same warning. Profession of knowledge is no guarantee of faith.

Grace be with you. In the Greek text followed by the ASV the "you" is plural, so the letter closes by addressing the whole church that would hear it read. The KJV, following later manuscripts, reads "Grace be with thee. Amen." The KJV also prints a note that the letter "was written from Laodicea"; such subscriptions were added by later scribes, are not part of the text, and this one does not fit 1:3, which places Paul on his way to Macedonia.

Grace as the last word. After commands and warnings, the letter ends as Paul's letters do, with grace. The charge to guard the faith rests on the grace that first gave it. See 1 Timothy 6.20-21 and 1 Timothy 6.20.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

G5485 - charis, charis, Strong's G5485
G4102 - pistis, pistis, Strong's G4102
G4314 - pros, pros, Strong's G4314

Quoted in

Passages:

1 Timothy 6.20-21

Notes

Your annotations.

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.