2 Timothy 3:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

This know also,— What follows is thought by some to contain part of the prophesy concerning the grand apostacy which was to happen in the latter times. If we keep our eye too closely upon the place, and consider what is here said alone, and without comparing it with what St. Paul had said and written to Timothy before, we shall perhaps doubt whether this refers to any other time than that in which the apostle wrote; or, at the furthest, to the time which was immediately to succeed. But if we enlarge our view, and take in the whole compass of what he has said about the great apostacy, and endeavour to put ourselves in the situation in which the apostle and the evangelist then were, we shall probably see things ina very different light: see 2 Thessalonians 2:7. 1 Timothy 4:1; 1 Timothy 4:16 from a comparison of which places it will appear, that he is here prophesying of the same grand apostacy as was there foretold. Besides, he never says that this prophesy concerning the dreadful times which were to come, was then fulfilled; but on the contrary, 2 Timothy 3:13.—he shews that the mystery of iniquity was then only beginning to work, and these wicked men and impostors would grow still worse, deceiving others as well asthemselves: and in Ch. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 after he had bid Timothyuse his utmost diligence, he intimates, that there was still a future time, when men would not endure sound doctrine; and charges Timothy to do what he could to prevent any steps toward that amazing scene of wickedness.