Summary of 2 Timothy, Chapter 3

In the last days there will be difficult times, for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, speaking evil against others, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, impious, lacking love, implacable, slanderers, profligates, inhuman, not loving good, betrayers, reckless, inflated with pride, loving pleasure rather than God, having the outward appearance of piety, but lacking its power. Timothy should avoid these. Some of these are men who worm their way into homes, and take captive silly women, weighed down with sins, led by manifold desires, always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of truth. As Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so too these resist the truth, for they are men corrupted in their minds, reprobate in regard to the faith. But they will not get far, for their mindlessness will be evident to all, just as it was in the case of Jannes and Jambres.

But Timothy has followed Paul's teaching, his conduct, his resolution, his faith, his long-suffering, his love, his patience, and the persecutions, the sufferings that came to him in Antioch, in Iconium, in Lystra -- such persecutions Paul bore, and the Lord delivered him out of all of them.

All who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

But evil men and charlatans will go on to the worse, deceiving and being deceived. But Timothy should hold to the things he has learned and believed, and remember how from childhood he has known the sacred writings which can give wisdom for salvation, through the faith that is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture inspired by God is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, so that the man of God may be proficient and equipped for every good work.

Comments on Chapter 3

"In the last days" can mean either all the time from the ascension to the return of Christ, or, more specially, the period just before His return at the end. Times then will be hard. Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 had predicted a great apostasy before the end. Jesus Himself said the same in Luke 18:8. Matthew 24:12 spoke similarly. How completely opposite this picture is to that foolish one drawn by Teilhard de Chardin, who held that just before the end, many or most people will be closely joined in love -- and perhaps even in telepathy!

Some of these evil men will be false teachers, who will worm themselves into the homes of silly women who are loaded with sins. They will be always learning, yet never reaching the truth. It reminds us of some today who say: "Don't give me pat answers -- just questions!"

Jannes and Jambres were traditional Jewish names for the magicians at the court of Pharaoh. (They are mentioned in the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 1:15; 7:11; Numbers 22:22).

The prophecy that all who want to live religiously in Christ will encounter persecution is still true basically today (We may allow for a bit of Semitic exaggeration).

In speaking of all Scripture as inspired, Paul does not give us a list. Surely, he refers only to the Old Testament, for most of the New Testament was not written at this time (probably 65 A.D.).