Good. There is no part of John's doctrine more strikingly characteristic than life in Christ. But you see, if you start whacking away at the story of Jonah, and say, oh, I can't really buy that. But then another thing. THE DUTIES AND THE QUALITIES OF AN APOSTLE ( 2 Timothy 3:10-13 ). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. Now, it is doubtless as true as it ever was, that a man who will live as the Saviour did, will, like him, be subjected to some such injury or disadvantage. His own desire after going to the Lord did not prevent this, but the reverse: "that I may be filled with joy: when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also." And in the end they shall perish together with them." Includes questions, verse by verse commentary, and applications on 2 Timothy 1 for life transformation. Each one of these words in the Greek is an interesting word study. The Greek is hupomone ( G5281) , which means not a passive sitting down and bearing things but a triumphant facing of them so that even out of evil there can come good. What is the excellency of the scripture. Regardless of the persecution, it is our duty to live in such a way that the world will know that we are Christians. Godly = adv. The Jewish Rabbis ranked high in the list of sins what they called the sin of insult. Men will be thankless (acharistos, G884) . How is a man to walk in such a state of things as this? The essence of Christianity is not the enthronement but the obliteration of self. The braggart is a swaggering creature, who tries to bluster his way into power and eminence. It is beyond argument that the Scriptures can convict a man of his error and convince him of the power of Christ. But we have also been supplied with many precious promises which reassure us that His grace is sufficient, His strength is perfected in our weakness, that suffering for Christ's sake is a privilege for the child of God, and that no amount of trials, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or the sword, is able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.May we grasp this truth in His strength, and remember that in this world we will have tribulation but that if we fellowship in the suffering of Christ, we will also be glorified with Him Who loved us so much that He died for us, that we might live for Him forever. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work." The world is full of these braggarts to this day; the clever know-all's who deceive people into thinking that they are wise, the politicians who claim that their parties have a program which will bring in the Utopia and that they alone are born to be leaders of men, the people who crowd the advertisement columns with claims to give beauty, knowledge or health by their system, the people in the Church who have a kind of ostentatious goodness. Let me remark, that there are comparatively few indeed that receive truth without help of others directly from God. Narcissism is at an all-time peak, but with lovers of yourself comes. And come up a hundred days later and be deposited at a port. The apostle had a particular reference, doubtless, to his own times; but he has put his remark into the most general form, as applicable to all periods. What I believe, I believe because God has said it. This was to reverse the lesson of a risen Christ, and to open the way for all laxity. It is easy for a professed Christian to avoid persecution, if he yields every point in which religion is opposed to the world. And so Paul is warning Timothy of certain things that will be transpiring in the last days. They will be inflated with a sense of their own importance. Now here observe. The Greek word (prodotes, G4273) means nothing less than a traitor. We should not be any more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive,Ephesians 4:14. for it is evident that there have been many godly persons who have never suffered banishment, or imprisonment, or flight, or any kind of persecution. All that will live godly So opposite to the spirit and practice of the world is the whole of Christianity, that he who gives himself entirely up to God, making the Holy Scriptures the rule of his words and actions, will be less or more reviled and persecuted. (2.) With his or her commitment to follow Christ faithfully the Christian sets the course of his or her life directly opposite to the course of the world system. Timothy fully knew what was the great thing that Paul had in view, both in his preaching and in his conversation: "Thou hast known my purpose, what I drive at, how far it is from any worldly, carnal, secular design, and how sincerely I aim at the glory of God and the good of the souls of men." The world just exists, no real goal, no real meaning; you're just existing. "Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things. You can you see what's happened even in the last twenty-five years. He tells him further to "hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. In 2 Timothy 3:13 he meant that evil becomes more intensive as time goes on. It can mean that a man is so bitter in his hatred that he will never come to terms with the man with whom he has quarrelled. As Shakespeare had it: "Good name in man and woman, dear my lord. Why does the world hate Christians? Men will be lovers of their own selves ( 2 Timothy 3:2 ). he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and found me." The essence of persecution consists in subjecting a person to injury or disadvantage on account of his opinions. It is something more than meeting his opinions by argument, which is always right and proper; it is inflicting some injury on him; depriving him of some privilege, or right; subjecting him to some disadvantage, or placing him in less favorable circumstances, on account of his sentiments. In the second chapter he turns to another theme, he instructs and exhorts Timothy as to communicating (not authority, or status, or gift, but) truth to others. So don't expect the world to speak well of you or to applaud you for your living a godly life and taking a righteous stand. THE QUALITIES OF GODLESSNESS ( 2 Timothy 3:2-5 continued). The insult which comes from anger is bad but it is forgivable, for it is launched in the heat of the moment; but the cold insult which comes from arrogant pride is an ugly and an unforgivable thing. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, (3) If we are persecuted, we should carefully inquire, before we avail ourselves of this consolation, whether we are persecuted because we live godly in Christ Jesus, or for some other reason. "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." That the man of God may be perfect,2 Timothy 3:17; 2 Timothy 3:17. I have many scriptures that I don't understand yet. It is a duty in the present state of confusion to use scriptural means; and here we have our warrant, as in the epistles we find more. But yet it is absolutely unavoidable that all of them shall have the world for their enemy in some form or other, that their faith may be tried and their steadfastness proved; for Satan, who is the continual enemy of Christ, will never suffer any one to be at peace during his whole life; and there will always be wicked men that are thorns in our sides. In the light of this warning from the Saviour, no Christian should be surprised at persecution. Assuredly he would rejoice to scare Timothy from the field of serving Christ, and would shrink from no means to secure it. I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers," what singular language this from Paul! At the same time there is the carrying on his full notice of everything found here below that would be a source of comfort to one who anticipated the ruin of Christendom. If a man's goods are stolen, he can set to and build up his fortunes again; but if his good name is taken away, irreparable damage has been done. He had fought the good fight of faith. Matthew 10:22-23; Luke 21:12; John 15:20; Acts 14:22; 1 Thessalonians 3:4). "Reprobate concerning the faith.". The final condemnation of these people is that they retain the outward form of religion but deny its power. Those who would acquaint themselves with the things of God, and be assured of them, must know the holy scriptures, for these are the summary of divine revelation. He said, "A wicked and an adulterous generation seeks after a sign; but no sign will be given it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah: For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" ( Matthew 12:38-40 ). A. M. Chirgwin has story after story of how the Scriptures came by chance into the hands of men and changed their lives. That Day of the Lord was to be preceded by a time of terror, when evil would gather itself for its final assault and the world would be shaken to its moral and physical foundations. In the last days there would come times which would menace the very existence of the Christian Church and of goodness itself, a kind of last tremendous assault of evil before its final defeat. It would not burn. Every man doing his own thing or every man believing as he wants. Paul completes the story of the things in which Timothy has shared, and must share, with him, by speaking of the experiences of an apostle; and he prefaces that list of experiences by setting down the quality of endurance. 2 Timothy 3:12 - Bible Verse Meaning and Commentary - Bible Study Tools YEA, AND - an additional consideration. It imagines "the faith" as something to be guarded (see 2 Timothy 1:14), lest it become corrupted or . Acts 13:50; Acts 14:5-6,Acts 14:19; Acts 16:1-2). There are persons who think that the approach of death is intended to blot out everything here. Now are you going to, you know, take the word of Jesus? The words that finally decided me were those in John 18:37: 'For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Why cannot a man be as simple now as in apostolic times? I've never found that in one of those little Bible promise books, I mean, promise things yet. "Beloved, consider it not strange concerning the fiery trials which are to try you, as though some strange thing has happened to you" ( 1 Peter 4:12 ). Seeking the Gospel in Malachi, the Last Book of the Old Testament. What does 2 Timothy 3:13 mean? And so there comes that point where they will proceed no further: "their folly becomes manifest to all men", as Jannes and Jambres also was. What does 2 Timothy 3:13 mean? | BibleRef.com The reason is obvious. "Trucebreakers". Death and resurrection, then, are thus put before this servant of God; the more remarkably, because the point here is a practical and not a doctrinal question. Storge is the word used especially of family love, the love of child for parent and parent for child. And a servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, forbearing, in meekness correcting those that oppose, if perhaps God may give them repentance for acknowledgment of the truth, and they may for his will wake up out of the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him." Thus he looks not to the coming of the Lord to receive him to Himself, but to the "appearing of the Lord," which is the usual side of the truth taken in these epistles. That is to say, they go through all the correct movements and maintain all the external forms of religion; but they know nothing of Christianity as a dynamic power which changes the lives of men. The Holy Spirit would make it to be most practical and precious. Difficult is the Greek word chalepos ( G5467) . Don't start messing with it. But, says the apostle, "be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." 2 Timothy 3:12-13 Commentary | Precept Austin In English we usually associate it with insult against God, but in Greek it means insult against man and God alike. As I read the things that are happening in our modern-cultured Orange County, as I read the reports from the social department on the child abuse, I just shake my head in disbelief because a person could not possibly do these things unless they were without natural affection. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." In 2 Timothy 3:9, he says that that apostasy would not always continue; but would be at some time arrested, and so arrested as to show to all men the . It was not then an indifferent matter to God. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: they are men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith ( 2 Timothy 3:8 ). No man is saved unless he is on fire to save his fellow-men. Though his life was a life of great usefulness, yet it was a life of great sufferings; and none, I believe, came nearer to their great Master for eminent services and great sufferings than Paul: he suffered almost in every place; the Holy Ghost witnessed that bonds and afflictions did abide him, Acts 20:23.