2 Timothy 3:1-9 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

2 Timothy 3:1 to 2 Timothy 4:8. Charge to Timothy concerning Future Error.

(a) 2 Timothy 3:1-9. Future Error and Its Present Germs. Timothy must consider future as well as present dangers. As the Second Advent (never believed by the apostles to be far distant) approaches, the Church will be threatened by men of outrageous life. These also Timothy must avoid. The germs of the evil, indeed, are already present (6), and the statement of its developed results (2 Timothy 3:2-5) will help him to detect its first beginning. For to this type belong such teachers as privately mislead sinful women who, with fickle curiosity, merely play at seeking instruction. Their forerunners were the magicians who opposed Moses (Exodus 7:11 ff.). But their further progress shall be arrested, like theirs, by open exposure of their folly.

2 Timothy 3:2. cf. Romans 1:29 ff. money: 1 Timothy 6:10; Titus 1:11.

2 Timothy 3:5. Titus 1:16.

2 Timothy 3:8. Jannes, Jambres: Origen believed that Paul obtained these names from an apocryphal book (lamnes et Mambres liber) no longer extant. Alternatively, their source may have been unwritten tradition (see Bernard in CGT).

2 Timothy 3:1-9

1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,

7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobatea concerning the faith.

9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.