The Word Is Alive 2 Timothy

1. The Word Is Alive2 Timothy Chapter Three Narrated by Tony Gillon

2. Chapter Three • 2 Timothy 2:14–3:9 – Dealing with False Teachers (continues/concludes)

3. Dealing with False Teachers • Summary of Chapter Three • A degenerate period of history.

4. Dealing with False Teachers • Summary of Chapter Three • A degenerate period of history. • Reasons why Timothy and disciples of Christ will be different to others.

5. Dealing with False Teachers • 2 Timothy 3:1–9 - Godlessness in the Last Days

6. Dealing with False Teachers • 2 Timothy 3:1–9 - Godlessness in the Last Days • This section opens by signalling a contrast from the previous paragraph. Although Paul hopes that some false teachers will repent, he does not want to give an unrealistic picture of the situation. While God may grant repentance to some, it is also clear that opposition to the faith will continue.

7. Dealing with False Teachers • 1You must understand this, that in the last daysdistressing times will come.

8. Dealing with False Teachers • 1You must understand this, that in the last daysdistressing times will come. • You must understand this is a clear imperative, showing that what Paul is saying is certain and that it is something that will definitely occur, probably in multiple instances, a fact that history has borne out.

9. Dealing with False Teachers • Paul’s reference to the last days, the Greek phrase eschataishēmerais, puts the present evil situation in solemn eschatological, or end times, perspective.

10. Dealing with False Teachers • In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams (Acts 2:17).

11. Dealing with False Teachers • The last days began with the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. • Thus Paul’s prediction distressing times that will occur in the last days is already beginning to be fulfilled, even in their present situation.

12. Dealing with False Teachers • 2 For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them!

13. Dealing with False Teachers • This list of vices vividly describes the negative impact of those who were opposing Paul and Timothy. • The list begins and ends with references to misplaced love — i.e. people who are lovers of themselves, lovers of money (v.2), and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (v.4).

14. Dealing with False Teachers • The first one, lovers of themselves, primarily refers to being lovers of their carnal selves, whereas believers should care more for their spiritual self and wellbeing.

15. Dealing with False Teachers • Being lovers of money refers to wealth for the sake of wealth and being prepared to do almost anything to attain wealth and the status it so often provides, no matter what the cost may be to others.

16. Dealing with False Teachers • For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. • (1 Timothy 6:10).

17. Dealing with False Teachers • Paul uses a common technique, emphasising an item in a list by placing it either first or last and expanding upon it more than the other items in the list. • While Paul and Timothy’s opponents have the outward form of godliness, they do not have its real essence.

18. Dealing with False Teachers • Disobedient to their parents is the only personal characteristic listed that directly opposes God’s Law.

19. Dealing with False Teachers • Disobedient to their parents is the only personal characteristic listed that directly opposes God’s Law. • Honour your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you (Deuteronomy 5:16).

20. Dealing with False Teachers • Lovers of money could be considered to be covetousness: • You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour. (Exodus 20:17).

21. Dealing with False Teachers • Godliness, Greek eusebeia, means genuine piety, including holiness, reverence, faith, love and devotion to God.

22. Dealing with False Teachers • The people referenced in vv.1–9 claim to know God, i.e. holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power, but their lives are devoid of the work of the Spirit, which would have resulted in holiness, perseverance, and effectiveness in advancing God’s Kingdom. • Instead, they choose to be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

23. Dealing with False Teachers • Power means the present, effective working of God in and through believers’ lives, something that was announced beforehand by Jesus.

24. Dealing with False Teachers • Power means the present, effective working of God in and through believers’ lives, something that was announced beforehand by Jesus. • But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judæa and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. • (Acts 1:8).

25. Dealing with False Teachers • This powerful new work of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost brought several beneficial results: more effectiveness in witness and ministry, effective proclamation of the Gospel, power for victory over sin, power for victory over Satan and demonic forces, and a wide distribution of gifts for ministry.

26. Dealing with False Teachers • The apostles likely understood power in the context of Jesus’ announcement to include both the power to preach the Gospel effectively and also the power, through the Holy Spirit, to work miracles confirming the message.

27. Dealing with False Teachers • The same word, Greek dynamis, is used on at least eight occasions in the Book of Acts to refer to enabling power to work miracles in connection with Gospel proclamation.

28. Dealing with False Teachers • For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7).

29. Dealing with False Teachers • For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7). • Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God (2 Timothy 1:8).

30. Dealing with False Teachers • Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us. (2 Timothy 1:14).

31. Dealing with False Teachers • The two great commandments. • Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ (Continued).

32. Dealing with False Teachers • He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live’. • (Luke 10:25-28).

33. Dealing with False Teachers • Then they said, ‘What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips!’ (Luke 22:71).

34. Dealing with False Teachers • Avoid them! • This is the only command in vv.1–9. • This avoidance most likely involves excommunication.

35. Dealing with False Teachers • And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will (2 Timothy 2:24–26).

36. Dealing with False Teachers • Paul envisions those who remain obstinate and states clearly that there comes a time when such people must be excluded from Christian fellowship. • That is a tough call for leaders but is necessary for the greater good, which was the viewpoint of the high priest Caiaphas in his prophecy over Jesus.

37. Dealing with False Teachers • You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed. • (John 11:50).

38. Dealing with False Teachers • There are good and bad people in the world, irrespective of their faith or belief. • The church is called to stand firm on its message, continue to proclaim the Gospel and live their own lives according to its teaching.

39. Dealing with False Teachers • 6For among them are those who make their way into households and captivate silly women, overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires, 7 who are always being instructed and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

40. Dealing with False Teachers • For among them refers to a sub-group of the false teachers who make their way into households and captivate silly women.

41. Dealing with False Teachers • For among them refers to a sub-group of the false teachers who make their way into households and captivate silly women. • For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed (John 3:20).

42. Dealing with False Teachers • At that time women were taught to respect the authority of men, they made an easy target for these false teachers. • They would have known that some of these women would have had all kinds of natural desires, including a wish to have a wider role in society.

43. Dealing with False Teachers • For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law (Matthew 10:35).

44. Dealing with False Teachers • The twisted truth of the Gospel that was portrayed to these women by the false teachers no doubt played to all kinds of desires that would sway the women into their way of thinking, thus making them easy prey to become their disciples.

45. Dealing with False Teachers • Women, overwhelmed by their sins: • Due to their guilt from the past, which they had no way of repenting of, these women were particularly susceptible to both the asceticism, promoting artificial self-denial.

46. Dealing with False Teachers • Asceticism, i.e. self-denial: • They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth (1 Timothy 4:3).

47. Dealing with False Teachers • Antinomianism, i.e. teaching that all kinds of desires, are actually acceptable: • Those who say, ‘With our tongues we will prevail; our lips are our own — who is our master?’ (Psalm 12:4).

48. Dealing with False Teachers • Always being instructed, never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. • Even those who regularly attend a good teaching church and hear the Gospel being explained in ways that most would understand, some people just seem to be blind to the truth.

49. Dealing with False Teachers • Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind’ (John 9:39).

50. Dealing with False Teachers • 8 As Jannes and Jambresopposed Moses, so these people, of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith, also oppose the truth.