<p>3:7 <i>Ever learning</i>- I have shown in commentary so far in this chapter that the persons referred to were within the church. They continued learning, attending teaching sessions; but could never acknowledge &quot;the truth&quot;. The reference is not to people who hear the Gospel but fail to come to &quot;the truth&quot; by some intellectual refusal to accept it. Rather the &quot;learning&quot; must refer to Timothy's teaching of the church, and the fact that some 'learned' but never came to the repentance which is signified by &quot;the knowledge of the truth&quot;. This would have been comfort to Timothy lest he get discouraged by the apparent failure of his teaching ministry with these individuals.</p><p><i>And never able to come to the knowledge of the truth- </i>Jer. 5:1 says that &ldquo;if ye can find a man&hellip; that seeketh the truth&hellip; I will pardon it&rdquo;. To seek truth is therefore to repent. Those moments of realization of our sinfulness, of accurately perceiving the gap between the personas we act out and the real, Christ-self within us- in those moments, we have come to truth. And this is the repentance that leads to true, authentic pardon. There is a moral link between any falsehood and an unspiritual life. And so repentance is an acknowledgment of the truth (2 Tim. 2:25). A person can learn the theory of God&rsquo;s truth but never come to acknowledge it- i.e. to repent and life the life of the truth (2 Tim. 3:7), never being transparent before God and brutally honest with oneself. However, as noted on 1 Tim. 2:4, &quot;the knowledge of the truth&quot; is a phrase also used there, but referring to final salvation. God wills &quot;all men&quot; to come to this &quot;knowledge of the truth&quot;. Their inability to &quot;learn&quot; is therefore a wilful rejection of God's attempts to bring them to His great salvation. Their inability to convert 'learning' to &quot;the knowledge of the truth&quot; is therefore due to their own moral failure, and not simply some intellectual barrier, an honest failure to connect ideas together as they should be.</p><p>The parallel is with those having the form of Godliness cp. &quot;ever learning&quot; but denying the power thereof cp. &quot;never able to came to the knowledge of the truth&quot; (3:5). I explained that &quot;the power thereof&quot; referred to internal strengthening by the Holy Spirit. It could be argued that the 'true knowledge' here also refers to the knowing of God, in terms of relationship, which is made possible by correct response to the gift of the Spirit in human hearts. For this is how &quot;knowledge&quot; is used in Eph. 1:17; 4:13; Phil. 1:9; Col. 1:9,10; 2:2; 3:10).</p>