Paul rebukes certain teachers in 1 Timothy 6:4 as those who are 'puffed up with conceit and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy craving (νοσῶν) for controversy and quarrels about words.' The verb literally means 'to be sick' or 'to ail.' Classical usage applies it to bodily illness, mental disease, and even the sickness of a city during plague. Paul extends the medical metaphor to describe an obsessive, pathological fascination with debates and disputes. The false teachers don't just err; they're diseased in their thinking. Their craving for argument isn't intellectual rigor but spiritual sickness—a compulsion that produces envy, strife, and division rather than godliness. Sound doctrine, by contrast, promotes health and wholeness in the body of Christ.