2 Timothy 3: Eighteen Vices, Then Paul Tells Timothy to Stay

I don't think 2 Timothy 3 is mostly about the bad men in it. They get nine verses, and in those nine verses Paul tells Timothy to do one thing about them, which is in verse 5: "from such turn away." Everything else from verse 1 through verse 9 describes them.

I counted the vices in verses 2 through 4 on the back of a Sunday program and got eighteen. The first is "lovers of their own selves" and the last is "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God," so the first item and the last both begin with the same word. It gets read aloud at church the way a weather report gets read, quickly and with a kind of grim satisfaction, and the person reading is almost never one of the eighteen.

Look at how the chapter is built. Verses 1 through 9 are about them. Verse 10 begins "But thou" and turns to Timothy, verse 13 goes back to the evil men for a single verse, and verse 14 begins "But continue thou" and stays with Timothy to the end. Them, you, them, you. The verb in that last turn is "continue," and the book is the holy scriptures of verse 15. I'll get to both.

What the "form of godliness" is being charged with

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

2 Timothy 3:5

People quote this to say that ritual is empty, and the verse doesn't say that. It says these men have the form. What they do is deny the power of it. Those are two different complaints, and the second one is harder to catch, because from the outside the form looks fine.

D&C 84 uses the phrase "power of godliness" from the other side. It is talking about priesthood and ordinances when it says, "Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest." The next verse adds that without the ordinances and the authority of the priesthood, "the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh" (D&C 84:20-21). So the form and the power aren't rivals. The power is supposed to show up inside the form. The men in verse 5 keep the one and shut out the other, and I'd say that is why Paul's instruction is to turn away from them. A form can't produce what its owner has refused.

Of this sort, says verse 6, are those who "creep into houses," and by verse 7 they are "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." I'll come back to verse 7.

Jannes and Jambres, and where Exodus stops them

The two names come in verse 8: "Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth." The magicians in Exodus 7 and 8 are never named. Pharaoh calls "the wise men and the sorcerers" in Exodus 7:11, and after that they are just "the magicians." I can't tell you where Paul got the two names. They aren't in the chapters he would have pointed at.

Exodus does show how far the magicians got, and it's farther than I'd have guessed. They matched Aaron's rod in 7:11, the river turned to blood in 7:22 and the frogs in 8:7. Then in 8:18 they tried to bring forth lice "but they could not." In 8:19 they say to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God," and the same verse goes on, "and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them."

Now put that beside verse 9: "But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was." The lice are the closest thing Exodus has to that.

Their limit was plain in front of Pharaoh, and they said as much themselves.

Then verse 13 seems at first to take verse 9 back. Four verses after "proceed no further," Paul says "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." Here's how I square them, and it's my reading, nothing the text says outright. Verse 9 puts a limit on what the men can accomplish against the truth. Verse 13 says what happens to the men. They can be stopped and still go downhill. And the lice case fits, since the magicians were stopped in 8:18 and the very next verse has Pharaoh's heart hardening anyway. I'd also note "and being deceived," since the people leading others astray aren't described as standing outside the thing.

On Monday I wrote about how 2 Timothy 2 measures a quarrel by what it does to the hearers (2 Timothy 2: Verse 14 Names the Harm, Not the Argument). Verse 9 does something similar here, in that it judges these men by how far they get.

Seven things Timothy has fully known

The chapter turns at verse 10, with a list of its own: "But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience." That's seven. The verse ends on a comma, and the sentence keeps going into verse 11 with "Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra." So Paul puts persecutions on the same list as charity and patience. They're part of what Timothy saw him do.

Acts gives the three cities one at a time, if you want them. In Antioch the Jews "raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts" (Acts 13:50). In Iconium there was an assault, and they were "ware of it, and fled" (Acts 14:5-6). In Lystra certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium persuaded the people, and "having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead" (Acts 14:19). Then comes Acts 14:21, which says Paul and Barnabas "returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch." They went back to the same three towns in reverse order, and 14:22 says they were "exhorting them to continue in the faith." That's the word Paul uses to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:14, "But continue thou." He is handing Timothy the same line he gave to people who had watched him get thrown out.

"Out of them all the Lord delivered me" ends verse 11, and right behind it comes verse 12: "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." I've never seen verse 12 on a bookmark.

Nowhere in the chapter does Paul tell Timothy the climate is about to improve. What he has to offer is that the Lord delivered him out of persecutions already behind them both. The word in verse 10 is "fully known," which is more than heard about. Paul isn't asking Timothy to take a stranger's word that the thing can be survived.

From a child

"But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." That's verse 14, and verse 15 adds, "And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

Two things hold Timothy up here, what he learned and who he learned it from. Chapter 1 already named the family behind that, his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, and I wrote about that chapter on November 4 (2 Timothy 1: Be Not Ashamed, and Two Men Who Weren't). I'll only add what verse 15 says about the scriptures. They are "able to make thee wise unto salvation," and then there's a qualifier, "through faith which is in Christ Jesus." The scriptures are able to make him wise, and the verse puts faith in Christ in between the reading and the wisdom.

What verse 16 says scripture is for

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

2 Timothy 3:16

This is the verse most people came for, and I think it gets asked to do something it never says it does. It says where scripture comes from and what it's good for. It doesn't list books, and it doesn't say how many there are or that there can't be more. Timothy had known "the holy scriptures" from a child, and the verse never inventories what he had.

For what "given by inspiration of God" can mean, D&C 68 is the nearest thing in the Restoration scriptures. In verse 3 the Lord says elders "shall speak as they are moved upon by the Holy Ghost," and in verse 4 he says "whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord." That's a statement about source, where Paul's is a statement about source and use together, and neither one is a catalog.

The use list has an order, or I read it as having one. Doctrine comes first, which is what you teach. Reproof and correction are in the middle, and they're two words, so the verse isn't repeating itself: reproof tells you where you're wrong and correction puts you right. "Instruction in righteousness" is last, the training that comes after the fixing. Four steps, and most of us would happily take the first and the last.

The reason comes in verse 17: "That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." Go back to verse 7 and the men who are "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." Their learning doesn't arrive anywhere, and the scripture in verse 17 is meant to end in good works.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who were Jannes and Jambres?

Paul names them in verse 8 as men who withstood Moses. Exodus 7 and 8 give the Egyptian magicians no names, so Paul is the one who supplies them in the Bible text we have. I don't know his source.

Does verse 1 give a date for the last days?

No. It says "in the last days perilous times shall come" and goes straight into a description of people. If someone hands you a date or a list of events from 2 Timothy 3, they got it from somewhere else, and I'd ask where.

Does 2 Timothy 3:16 mean the Bible is the only scripture?

The verse says "All scripture is given by inspiration of God" and says what it is good for. It doesn't say there is no more. D&C 68:4, which I quoted above, goes at the same subject from the Restoration side, and the two read fine together.

Does verse 12 mean everyone who's trying to live right gets persecuted?

It says "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution," and Paul gives no softer version. I'd measure it by the examples he has just given, which are expulsion, an assault and a stoning.

— D.