Thomas Aquinas, on 1Tim 4:9

“A faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.”

“Then when he says, a faithful saying, he shows that a future life is promised us: first, he shows this from the labor of the saints; second, from their hope, at because we hope; third, from God's benignity, at who is the Savior. He says, therefore: the saying that godliness has a promise is faithful. Why? Because in this we labor, i.e., to reach eternal life: the farmer who labors must first partake of the fruits (2 Tim 2:6); and also to do good, even though we suffer evil; hence he says, we labor and are reviled: patience has a good work (Jas 1:4); patience works trial (Rom 5:4).”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.