This may be either an injury done to his feelings, his family, his reputation, his property, his liberty, his influence; it may be by depriving him of an office which he held, or preventing him from obtaining one to which he is eligible; it may be by subjecting him to fine or imprisonment, to banishment, torture, or death. And how profitable is the word of God to us today! He must study the Scriptures to make himself useful to God and to his fellow-men. But now before his heart just as in principle before the dying Lord Himself, wonderful to say two things come together: a deeper sense of what is in God, as revealed in Christ Himself, before there was any creation at all; and on the other hand so much the deeper sense also of what could be owned in nature. my doctrine, and my manner of life, my purpose, my faith, my longsuffering, my love, and my patience, [you know the] persecutions, and the afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, and Iconium, and Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me ( 2 Timothy 3:10-11 ). e Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.. Guard the Deposit Entrusted to You. The Christian leader will never lack his opponents. My wife and I eat out quite a bit. He says: "Open thy mouth, speak whatsoever occurs to thee, and thou shalt prophesy." and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution ( 2 Timothy 3:12 ). Whether Timothy made it to Rome before Paul's execution is not known. Afterwards he also speaks of his own work and of that which he was suffering. There would come a kind of terrible flowering of evil, when the moral foundations seemed to be shaken. Observe, As good men, by the grace of God, grow better and better, so bad men, through the subtlety of Satan and the power of their own corruptions, grow worse and worse. That which finishes a man of God in this world is the scripture. Abandoned by virtually all of those close to him for fear of persecution (cf. He tells him further to "hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. The man who is huperephanos ( G5244) , said Theophrastus, has a kind of contempt for everyone except himself. They said, Wait a minute, this is the hand of God, we can't, we can't touch this. Christianity was cradled in Judaism and very naturally thought largely in Jewish terms and pictures. Who is talking all these words without knowledge? And a servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, forbearing, in meekness correcting those that oppose, if perhaps God may give them repentance for acknowledgment of the truth, and they may for his will wake up out of the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him." "All scripture is given by inspiration of God. (2.) And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men." He was to communicate the things he had learnt of Paul, that they might be able to teach others also. Rather they are minimum requirements that otherwise suitable people must fulfil if the church is to recognize them as elders or deacons. Storge is the word used especially of family love, the love of child for parent and parent for child. Men will be without human affection (astorgos, G794) . There is nothing that more shows God than His ability to combine that which is eternal with care for the smallest things of this life. One of my most unfavorite promises in the Bible. That Day of the Lord was to be preceded by a time of terror, when evil would gather itself for its final assault and the world would be shaken to its moral and physical foundations. At the same time he shows also his sense of the kindness of a particular individual and his family. Trench, Richard Chenevix, D.D. There is no godliness (Greek, "piously") or piety out of Christ. You've made a covenant and there are so many broken covenants. But the apostle at the same time owns, and loves to own, that which another might perhaps despise. When children are disobedient to their parents, and break through the obligations which they lie under to them both in duty and gratitude, and frequently in interest, having their dependence upon them and their expectation from them, they make the times perilous; for what wickedness will those stick at who will be abusive to their own parents and Paul goes on to other qualities of an apostle. The more the person who lives godly and righteous in Christ stands out. It is perfectly true--as we have so often said--that Christianity is not founded on a printed book but on a living person. Well, Jesus has and He told us what to, what it's about in Luke, the sixteenth chapter. 2 Timothy 3:12 (NASB) Verse Thoughts We live in a fallen world, and there are many challenges that face the believer who has not only trusted Christ for salvation, but is also ready and willing to deny self, take up his cross, follow Christ's example, and say without compromise - Thy will, not mine, be done. Vincent, Marvin R., D.D. 9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was. The term "godly" (eusebos) means "piously" (Thayer 262-2-2153). Then the apostle puts before them a blessed model of that which he had before his own soul. Or life, or death, or life after death? It means to follow a person spiritually, not only to understand what he says, but also to carry out his ideas and be the kind of person he wishes us to be. Whatever duty we have to do, whatever service is required from us, we may find enough in the scriptures to furnish us for it. There is slander enough in many a church to make the recording angel weep as he records it. So I listened to that voice, and heard the truth, and found my Saviour.". When the Lord was entering on His ministry He says, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" This might deter a sensitive saint from his duty. Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:2, "But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every mans conscience in the sight of God." [ See verse text ] Persecution against godly people is to be expected in this world; it's one of the few constants in life (2 Timothy 3:12). Matthew 10:22-23; Luke 21:12; John 15:20; Acts 14:22; 1 Thessalonians 3:4). But the condition of the believers had deteriorated. VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. For all scripture is given by inspiration of God ( 2 Timothy 3:16 ), Not as some would lead you to believe, some scriptures are given by inspiration of God. Get out your pen and take out the red, put the blue one. YEA, AND - an additional consideration. Paul concludes this section with an appeal to Timothy to remain loyal to all the teaching he had received. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. There is teaching. Men will be disobedient to their parents. The woman protests that she has never done so and cannot do so. It has been pointed out that the writer of Revelation may well have been thinking of Ephesus when he wrote that haunting passage which describes the merchandise of men: "The cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all articles of ivory, all articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls" ( Revelation 18:12-13). The first is the moral character of the source or channel whence Timothy had derived what he knew. "But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. Surely if it is an urgent call to convey what we know of Christ and the truth to those that know nothing, it is a great privilege to help to contribute a greater knowledge of the truth to those that know little. It answers not a little to the kind of thing ,;et forth here. Christianity changed all that and a new set of problems arose. As Shakespeare had it: "Good name in man and woman, dear my lord. 2. But let him not infer, "therefore," that he is to be enrolled among the martyrs, and that he is certainly a real Christian. The Jewish Rabbis ranked high in the list of sins what they called the sin of insult. He was driven from Antioch in Pisidia ( Acts 13:50); he had to flee from Iconium to avoid lynching ( Acts 14:5-6); in Lystra he was stoned and left for dead ( Acts 14:19). We must remember that the scripture of which Paul is writing is the Old Testament; as yet the New Testament had not come into being. The Greek verb kratein ( G2902) means to control. It may well be a proof of Timothy's courage and consecration that he had seen very clearly what could happen to an apostle and had yet not hesitated to cast in his lot with Paul. That's not the kind of promises we really enjoy, is it? Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution - Paul takes occasion from the reference to his own persecutions, to say that his case was not unique. For he does not say Jesus Christ simply in. It imagines "the faith" as something to be guarded (see 2 Timothy 1:14), lest it become corrupted or . Vincente Quiroga of Chile found a few pages of a book washed up on the seashore by a tidal wave following an earthquake. Ephesus was the town of a prosperous, materialistic civilization; it was the kind of town where a man could so easily lose his soul. Men will be ungovernable in their desires (akrates, G193) . Nowadays we have to restate these old pictures in modern terms. For, if we do not believe their truth and goodness, they will do us no good. Accordingly the apostle reminds Timothy of this. So don't expect the world to speak well of you or to applaud you for your living a godly life and taking a righteous stand. The fact is that God loves to make His children mutually dependent; and if we are only humble, there are very few saints from whom we may not derive some good, though not always in the same way. The woman, thrilled to the heart, does so and is deluded into thinking that she can prophesy. This of itself indicates that the epistle provides for a time when it is no longer simply a question of recognising persons coming out of the world. Now you'd think that the world would treat a person like that very cordially. The oldest Greek laws disfranchised the man who struck his parents; to strike a father was in Roman law as bad as murder; in the Jewish law honour for father and mother comes high in the list of the Ten Commandments. Things will get worse as people turn away from those who teach the Scriptures, and listen to those who teach their own theories. Still the man has become crude, blasphemous, ranting and raving, a disgrace to Jesus Christ who said, "By this sign shall men know that you are my disciples, that you love one another" ( John 13:34 ). They love pleasure more than they love God; that's the indictment. Thus the apostle comes to the close of his ministry, and touches upon the line of St. John. It should be considered as one of the proper qualifications for membership in the church, to be willing to bear persecution, and to resolve not to shrink from any duty in order to avoid it. Regardless of the persecution, it is our duty to live in such a way that the world will know that we are Christians. Those who would acquaint themselves with the things of God, and be assured of them, must know the holy scriptures, for these are the summary of divine revelation. of Closely allied with the braggart, but--as we shall see--even worse, is the man who is arrogant.