“STICK TO THE RECIPE” 2
TIMOTHY 3
Mark Kolbe
Are you someone
who grew up with a person in your family who was known for being a good cook,
or for making a delicious, signature dish of some kind? Throughout our lives, we’ve eaten food made in
various ways by various chefs, but there are many times when we realize that no
one’s recipe will ever be as good as mom’s or grandma’s.
Take my
grandmother’s rice pudding recipe for example.
Rice pudding is one of those dishes that not many people crave, and,
truthfully, I’m not really that big of a fan of either. However, if my grandmother was still alive
today, and she had made her version of rice pudding for you and me to share, there
wouldn’t be much leftover for you to eat after I was finished. The way she made rice pudding was so good,
that the sight, smell, and taste of it will forever hold a special place in my
mind. Some recipes should never be tinkered with, right?
As an
occasional cook myself, I’m sometimes tempted to alter the types or amounts of
ingredients in a recipe to see if I can make the food taste better than the
person who made it before me. Occasionally I’ve been pleasantly surprised
with the results of my culinary guess work, but normally it doesn’t turn out
too well. Once I start experimenting with
the ingredients, I usually end up with food that I’d be too embarrassed to
serve to anyone else. I’ve learned that any
recipe can be ruined by adding slightly too much of things like baking powder,
apple cider vinegar or liquid smoke flavoring.
While cooks
with more experience and talent than me know there are several tasteful ways to
make a particular dish, those of us who read the Bible closely understand there
is only one recipe for gaining true spiritual knowledge and becoming someone
who pleases God.
In the first
portion of 2 Timothy 3, Paul is going to warn Timothy about people who have
little concern whether their actions and beliefs align with God’s desires. We
are going to learn that when this kind of philosophy is brought into the church,
it doesn’t merely leave a bad taste, but actually makes people spiritually ill.
In the last portion of this chapter, Paul will make sure Timothy knows exactly
what this recipe is and how to stick to it.
EVIL WILL
ALWAYS EXIST ON THIS EARTH
3:1 But realize this, that in the last days difficult
times will come. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money,
boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3
unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal,
haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather
than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness although they have denied
its power; avoid such people as these.
Many people,
including myself, read these verses and immediately fast forward in their minds
to the time just before the tribulation when God begins judgement on the
earth. One reason we may do this is
because we are familiar with how Jesus and Paul describe the great evil that
will exist on a global scale during the end times (e.g.
Matthew 24:10-12, 37, 2 Thessalonians 2:3). However, while we can make a strong
case that mankind will indeed become more ungodly over time, we shouldn’t
restrict Paul’s declaration about what people will be like to the end times alone.
The sins
mentioned in these verses have existed since the beginning of time. The Old Testament contains examples of people
who had these characteristics. In fact,
God destroyed the earth with a flood because of it….“The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the
human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts
of the human heart was only evil all the time.” (Genesis 6:5). Jesus’
description of the Pharisees being “hypocrites” and a “brood of vipers” proves
sinful practices existed in the religious leaders of His day.
Even though
Paul begins this chapter with a reference to “the last days”, we learned from
our study of 1 Timothy 4, “the last days” includes the time in history after
Jesus lived on the earth. In other
words, Paul is describing behaviors of people that Timothy will encounter
during his ministry as a leader in the church of Ephesus. He is helping set Timothy’s expectations.
To get a
better understanding of how this ungodly behavior was going to affect Timothy’s
ministry we need to consider the nature of sin.
And to help us understand the nature of sin, let’s first compare it to
something different, which we call “bad habits.
Christians and non-Christians alike have bad habits and know what they
are. While bad habits can be sinful,
they don’t have to be. So, for the
purposes of this comparison, let’s simply assume bad habits are unconscious behaviors
that cause negative consequences in our earthly lives and are hard to stop. Habits in
this context have a couple key characteristics.
Ones deemed as bad are done so based upon the opinion of one or more people.
Once a person is tired of living with
the negative consequences of the bad habit, they use willpower (or sometimes medicine)
to conquer it. For example, I have a
habit of eating too fast and not chewing my food enough. That’s not a sin, but it looks unpleasant,
sounds irritating, and causes digestive issues.
To help overcome this bad habit I’ve been trying to remember to chew my
food around 30 times before swallowing.
Sin, on the
other hand, is a different animal. Without
getting into a deep theological discussion about sin, let’s differentiate it
from bad habits in a few ways. Sin is
typically an intentional behavior done for personal benefit. Sin includes some of the same negative
consequences as bad habits, but they are much more severe. The consequences of bad habits are limited to
the human and earthly realm, but sin exists because a Holy God exists, and it extends
out to man’s relationship with Him and the eternal realm. Since bad habits revolve around earthly
issues, a person can use willpower to stop them. However, because sin relates directly to the
supernatural, it is unnatural and impossible for natural man to overcome.
To conquer
sin apart from Christ, a person would need to acknowledge that their behavior
goes against God, then, become convinced that it is better to live without the
sin, and finally, they’d need to rely on willpower alone to conquer it. History and scripture prove that on his own, man
can overcome bad habits, but man on his own cannot overcome sin. How different is sin from bad habits? The existence and power of sin required Jesus
Christ to willingly be put to death on the cross, then to raise Himself from
the dead to defeat it.
In addition
to the work of Jesus, the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit plays a major
role helping to eliminate sin as well.
This way the Holy Spirit fulfills this role generally follows 3 steps:
1.
First, the Holy Spirit convicts
unbelievers from the “outside in”. He works on a person’s heart and mind,
bringing them to the realization that he is guilty, God is just, and that all
sinners are deserving of judgment (John 16:8).
2.
Once a sinner becomes aware in his soul of his
great need, the Holy Spirit will point him to Christ, the one and only Savior
and Refuge from judgment (John 16:14),
using the Word of God (Ephesians
6:17). The result is a
regenerated heart.
3.
The Holy Spirit then indwells the person and
continues to work from the inside out, helping the believer to overcome sin in
his life. This is what the Bible calls
as being filled with the Spirit.
Therefore, knowing
the nature of sin, Paul is warning Timothy that anyone who has not yet gotten
to step three is going to have the characteristics and behaviors listed at the
beginning of this chapter. Timothy is
going to (and likely already has) encounter these kinds of people during his
ministry and that will make it more challenging and may lead to frustration. Sinful people won’t want to hear what Timothy
has to say, but more than that they will attempt to stop the truth from being
preached and will even persecute those who have the nerve to point out their
guilt.
Even though
Paul uses numerous, critical words of the people, we shouldn’t assume that they
are entirely evil or sinful. Often when we hear the word, “evil” we picture
some kind of monstrous person who is crazed, out of control, and with no
conscience whatsoever. That radical
image might make us feel better about ourselves since not many of us fall into
that category. However, that isn’t the
kind of person Paul is talking about here. Paul tells Timothy that many of these sinful people
will have a “form of godliness (also see Romans 2). This means that while these people may have these
sinful characteristics, they will sometimes seem like good people with spiritual
qualities about them. Calling them Godly
wouldn’t be appropriate because they stop short of admitting their sin, believing
in the reality and sufficiency of the death and resurrection of Jesus, fearing God’s
judgement, and humbly applying God’s unchanging word.
EVIL OPPOSES
TRUTH, BUT CANNOT STAND AGAINST IT
6 For among them are those who slip into households
and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7
always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as
Jannes and Jambres opposed
Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, worthless in
regard to the faith. 9 But they will not make further progress; for their
foolishness will be obvious to all, just as was that also of Jannes and Jambres.
Out of this
group of ungodly people, comes a subset of them called false teachers. These would the ones Paul describes as “worming”
or “slipping” their way into households.
False teachers appeal to the ignorant or weak by saying things in a new
or interesting way. They use this strategy
to receive some kind of personal gain – like admiration, money, or power. As we saw Paul do in 1 Timothy 6:4, he also
calls people like this conceited in these passages. These are people who like to have their egos
stroked by their followers as they promote unique, personal beliefs over the
words of scripture.
Paul also tells
Timothy that the evil people he will encounter “will not make further progress”. What does that mean? We know that these people will have some
success in their efforts since they “captivate weak women” (v6) and “deceive”
(v13). So, he could mean that they won’t
make further progress towards Godliness.
However, since this phrase is sandwiched between phrases about truth and
faith in verse 8, and their foolishness being obvious at the end of verse 9, I
think it makes more sense that Paul is talking about their inability to deceive
those who know the truth of God’s word.
Since sin originates
in the mind and heart of man and because man cannot defeat it, it naturally
leads to failure and destruction. Therefore, without acceptance of the truth of
God’s word, it even causes the “good ambitions” of the false teachers to fall
short of their desired goal. On the
other hand, people who know the truth of God’s word can recognize the attempts of
those who only taking interest in them for personal gain or who are pushing philosophies
and priorities of this world rather than focusing on eternal issues.
To give an
example of what he is talking about, Paul mentions two men named Jannes and Jambres that were
familiar to Timothy in some way. We
don’t know for sure who these men are because 2 Timothy 3:8 is the only verse
in the Bible that mentions them. Long-standing
Jewish tradition says that Jannes and Jambres were the two chief magicians who stood against Moses
and Aaron in Exodus 7. These names are also
used in various places in the Jewish Talmud.
Regardless of who they were, Paul was referring to them to illustrate
that wickedness has and always will be opposed to the things of God.
TRUTH
TELLERS WILL BE PERSECUTED
So, in
verses 1-9, Paul is warning his younger and less spiritually mature friend that
there will be times when his message will fall on deaf or disagreeing ears. This may even result in persecution against him
and fellow believers. Since Paul doesn’t want Timothy to get overly
discouraged when other people don’t accept his teaching as true, Paul provides
strategies for dealing with these challenges beginning in verse 10.
10 Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose,
faith, patience, love, perseverance, 11 persecutions, and sufferings, such as
happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra; what persecutions I
endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! 12 Indeed, all who want to
live in a godly way in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
First, Paul
seeks to encourage Timothy by letting him know that he has witnessed his spiritual
progress. Approximately one year has passed since
Timothy was appointed as a leader in the church at Ephesus, and since Paul
wrote his first letter to Timothy. As we
learned from the book of Acts believers did a lot of travelling between cities
bringing and gathering news. Therefore,
Paul was likely aware of how Timothy was faring in Ephesus based upon news he
heard about him. But more importantly, since
Paul and Timothy had spent so much time together during their missionary
journeys, Paul had witnessed Timothy’s spiritual growth personally.
Second, Paul
attempts to encourage Timothy by using himself as an example of someone who has
endured the difficulties that come from being an outspoken follower of Jesus. During Paul’s first missionary journey he
went to the city of Lystra, which was Timothy’s hometown. That is the place in Acts 14 where Paul was
stoned at the hands of unbelievers. Things
were so bad that even people from the surrounding cities of Antioch and Iconium
had been stirring up trouble for Paul and chasing him around. Therefore, Timothy could be inspired because
he witnessed the persecution against Paul and his undeterred response.
EVIL ALWAYS
GETS WORSE
Beginning in
verse 13, Paul contrasts the strategies and outcomes of evil people with those
of followers of Christ.
13 But evil people and impostors will proceed from
bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
As we’ve
already learned, things don’t get better when sin exists – it leads to
destruction. But this is a reality that
unbelievers don’t want to admit to. The
world does not believe that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God.” The world dislikes some evil, but
not all of it, much of it they love. Consequently,
as they inherit a world filled with problems that exist because of sin, every
new generation attempts to apply their own set of strategies to deal with the
problems. But they prove they are not
sincere and would rather hold on to evil by scoffing at the warnings of
judgement and condemnation in God’s word.
What do
people do when they like sin, but dislike its consequences, and hate the truth?
Sometimes they use a low-key, passive strategy where they reinforce their
self-worth by pointing out others who they believe are morally inferior to
them. Some take a more aggressive
approach by blaming specific individuals or groups for societal issues and then
attacking them verbally and physically.
Through political influence old laws that get in the way of their
supposed evolved morals, can be struck down, and new ones can be created that
align with new beliefs. Their spiritual
deception also includes tricks like redefining words, squashing dialogue, or blaming
the inanimate objects by which evil is carried out. However, since unbelievers don’t consider sin
to be at the root of problems, they are merely inventing new ways to get around
it. Since sin is never acknowledged or
addressed, things just become more and more demented.
SCRIPTURE IS
THE ONLY RECIPE FOR CONQUERING EVIL
In contrast
to the natural downward spiral of sin that leads to condemnation and judgement,
Paul reminds Timothy that Godliness is an intentional pursuit that leads to
life. Next, Paul goes on to provide
Timothy two ways to accomplish this.
14 You, however, continue in the things you have
learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15
and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to
give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ
Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for
rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man or
woman of God may be fully capable, equipped for every good work.
When it
comes to spiritual truth, Paul first reminds Timothy to stick to the things he
has learned from spiritually credible men and women of God whom he has known personally. Paul doesn’t specifically name who these
people are that Timothy was to follow.
However, two people that fell into this category would have been the
women mentioned in 2 Timothy 1:5, Timothy’s mother, Eunice, and his grandmother,
Lois. Paul was also likely referring to
himself as an example of someone whose footsteps Timothy should follow. Throughout
the time they traveled together on missionary journeys, Paul had invested a
great deal in Timothy. Timothy had
witnessed Paul’s dedication and knew he was a friend who could be trusted in
both his words and deeds.
Even more
important than following what people said about God and scripture, Paul tells
Timothy to figure out what scripture says personally and make that the bedrock
of his life. As I was thinking about
this passage, I was reminded of how the reality show “Alone” was used to introduce
1 Timothy 6 a few weeks ago. That is the
show on television where people attempt to survive in the wilderness using only
the natural resources around them and ten carefully selected items. Throughout the nine seasons of this show, one
of every ten contestants survived long enough to be declared a winner. Even so, not once has any of those
contestants chosen to live alone in the wild permanently. They all come home in the end because they
realize surviving alone in the wilderness it isn’t fulfilling, and without the
necessary tools and supplies it is also impossible.
God didn’t
create people merely for them to survive, but to thrive. The Bible is the tool that enables us to do
that. As opposed to ideas formed in the
mind of man, scripture originated from God Himself. So as Timothy seeks to progress in his own
faith and encourage others to do the same, Paul reminds Timothy to use
scripture as his guide. Everything that
a follower of Christ needs for personal spiritual progress and for effective
ministry is in the Bible.
In Paul’s
letter to the Ephesians, he also called God’s word the “Sword of the Spirit”,
necessary for entering spiritual battle (Ephesians 6:1). But Paul wasn’t alone in this declaration
about the importance of scripture. Numerous authors of the Bible used terms and
phrases about its value. Moses wrote that the very essence of life is
determined by the words that come from God (Deuteronomy 8:3). Job treasured these words more than physical
needs (Job 23:12). David called God’s
words, “Sweeter than honey” and “a lamp unto his feet” (Psalm
119:103-105). Jeremiah said God’s word
was his “joy and heart’s delight” (Jeremiah 15:16). Peter described the need for God’s word like
a baby longing for milk (1 Peter 2:2).
SO WHAT
·
Believers
are to stand against evil by studying scripture and applying it our own lives.
Then we should speak this truth to non-believers in love without quarrelling. We should also expect and endure the
opposition we face because of it.
·
Being
in the world but not of it involves standing for truth and bringing it to those
who will listen. However, spending too
much time around people who love sin and falsehood can have a negative impact
on our spiritual growth. It can lead us
to question our faith and tempt us to sin.
Instead, surround yourself with Godly people who are trustworthy, whose
desire is to build you up, not to take something from you.
·
Believers
should go directly to scripture to learn how to live and stick to that. They do not need a middleman between them and
God, especially a false teaching one. In New Testament days the things of God
were learned through written words, and people speaking the words. Today, the search for spiritual truth
includes a greater array of methods like books, videos, seminars, counselling
sessions, podcasts, radio, TV, feelings, promptings, and callings. Those things are okay if they help us to
know the heart and mind of God by repeating what scripture says. But they are misleading and dangerous if they
do not.