Scripture Daily

Context No. 808 of 4322 · 2 Timothy

Context · Reflection

2 Timothy 3:1-9: in context

1But know this: that in the last days, grievous times will come. 2For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3without natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, not lovers of good, 4traitors, headstrong, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5holding a form of godliness but having denied its power. Turn away from these, also. 6For some of these are people who creep into houses and take captive gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8Even as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind, who concerning the faith are rejected. 9But they will proceed no further. For their folly will be evident to all men, as theirs also came to be.

Paul warns Timothy that in the last days hard times will come, and then he lists what people will be like, and it is a long, ugly catalog: lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, ungrateful, heartless, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, treacherous, reckless, conceited. Notice how it opens and closes. It begins with lovers of self and lovers of money and ends with lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. The whole rotten list is really a story about misplaced love, a heart that loves itself and its comforts where it was made to love God.

But the phrase that should make any religious person pause comes in the middle. These people, Paul says, will be holding to a form of godliness but denying its power. That is the frightening one, because it is not describing the obviously wicked out in the world. It is describing people who keep the shape of faith, the vocabulary, the appearances, the outward motions, while quietly refusing the one thing that makes it real, its power to actually change them. They are always learning, Paul adds, and never able to arrive at the truth. A shell of devotion with the living center hollowed out. Paul does not tell Timothy to argue such people into shape; he tells him to turn away from them, and assures him that in the end the emptiness will show, because a godliness with no power in it cannot hide forever what it lacks.

Paul warns of people who keep the form of godliness while denying the power that would actually change them. Where am I holding onto the shape of faith, the words and the motions, while quietly refusing to let it have the power to change me?

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