9. avoid--stand aloof from. Same Greek, as in 2Ti 2:16; see on 2Ti 2:16.
      foolish--Greek, "insipid"; producing no moral fruit. "Vain talkers."
      genealogies--akin to the "fables" (see on 1Ti 1:4). Not so much direct heresy as yet is here referred to, as profitless discussions about genealogies of aeons, &c., which ultimately led to Gnosticism. Synagogue discourses were termed daraschoth, that is, "discussions." Compare "disputer of this world (Greek, 'dispensation')."
      strivings about the law--about the authority of the "commandments of men," which they sought to confirm by the law (Tit 1:14; see on 1Ti 1:7), and about the mystical meaning of the various parts of the law in connection with the "genealogies."

JFB.