2 Timothy 3:1-9

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is a duck….beware. There are those who seek nothing more than to devour you and take away your very soul if you let them. Read God’s word and listen to the Holy Spirit who was given to you to guide you into all truth. The truth of Jesus Christ will set you free not hold you in bondage to the false gods of this world.


To endure hardship, be diligent, rightly divide the Word, and be a vessel fit for the Master’s use are given in the context of difficult, even perilous times. The last days includes the whole time from the writing of this letter until the return of Christ. A form of godliness is an outward appearance of reverence for God. Denying its power describes religious activity that is not connected to a living relationship with Jesus Christ. As time progresses, people would begin to participate in religious activities that are empty. Their activities have nothing to do with a true relationship with God or with individual faith in Jesus Christ. This kind of religion provokes God’s anger. Paul gives a specific example of two men who resisted truth in Moses’ time. Jannes and Jambres are not named in the OT, but according to Jewish tradition, they were two of the Egyptian magicians who opposed Moses. Men of corrupt minds resist the truth because it unveils their shameful thinking and behavior. The character and empty religion of false teachers will ultimately be exposed

2 Timothy 3:1-9

3 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; 9 but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.