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Evil in the Last Days
This letter warns that the last days will include grievous times recognised by destructive behaviour and a false appearance of godliness. The passage helps readers trace the warning, the command, the harm done, and the limit placed on such opposition.
Understanding the passage
The setting of these words
In these verses, the writer speaks in a teaching style within a letter. The passage moves from a warning about grievous times to a list of behaviours, then to a command to turn away, and finally to the activity and end of people who oppose the truth.
2 Timothy 3:1–9Main takeaway
This passage says that in the last days grievous times include selfish and corrupt behaviour, a form of godliness that denies its power, and opposition to the truth, and it gives the command, “Turn away from these, also.”
Follow the letter’s teaching
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01A warning about grievous timesThe passage begins with a command to understand something important: “know this”. The warning is that “in the last days, grievous times will come”.
Explanation
The passage begins with a command to understand something important: “know this”. The warning is that “in the last days, grievous times will come”. The next verses explain what makes those times grievous by listing the attitudes and actions that will mark them. The focus here is on the kind of people described in the passage.
02Disordered loves and damaged characterThe list starts with loves turned in the wrong direction: “lovers of self” and “lovers of money”.
Explanation
The list starts with loves turned in the wrong direction: “lovers of self” and “lovers of money”. It continues with boastfulness, arrogance, blasphemy, disobedience, thanklessness, lack of holiness, lack of natural affection, unforgiveness, slander, and no self-control. The list ends by contrasting “lovers of pleasure” with “lovers of God”.
03A form of godliness without its powerThese people may look religious because they are “holding a form of godliness”. Yet the passage says they have “denied its power”.
Explanation
These people may look religious because they are “holding a form of godliness”. Yet the passage says they have “denied its power”. The writer does not present this as harmless. A direct instruction follows: “Turn away from these, also.” The verse calls for recognising the difference between outward form and what the letter calls power.
04Deception, opposition, and an exposed endSome of these people “creep into houses” and “take captive gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts”.
Explanation
Some of these people “creep into houses” and “take captive gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts”. They are linked with people “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”. Like Jannes and Jambres who opposed Moses, they oppose the truth, yet their progress is limited and their folly will become evident.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01Which loves are contrasted in this passage, and how does that contrast shape the whole list?
Compare “lovers of self”, “lovers of money”, and “lovers of pleasure” with “lovers of God” and notice how the list describes lives directed by the wrong loves.
02What does the passage say about a “form of godliness”?
Read the whole verse carefully and explain both parts together: the outward form is present, but its power is denied, and the command is to “turn away”.
03How does the passage describe both the work and the limit of those who oppose the truth?
Use the verses that describe taking people captive, never reaching the knowledge of the truth, opposing the truth, and then going no further because their folly becomes evident.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
2 Timothy 3:1–9
1But know this: that in the last days, grievous times will come.
2For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3without natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, not lovers of good,
4traitors, headstrong, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5holding a form of godliness but having denied its power. Turn away from these, also.
6For some of these are people who creep into houses and take captive gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts,
7always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
8Even as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind, who concerning the faith are rejected.
9But they will proceed no further. For their folly will be evident to all men, as theirs also came to be.