2 Timothy – Part 4

Exhortations to Timothy ~ Part 4

In today’s fast-paced work environment, you may encounter influences that lead you away from your faith and values. Sha’ul reminds us in 2 Timothy 3:6-17 that standing firm in the Scriptures empowers you to resist these pressures. This week, identify a challenge at work that tests your integrity or faith. Set aside time to pray and reflect on what the Bible says about it. Seek counsel from a trusted Christian coworker or mentor to gain a fresh perspective, and boldly implement what you feel God is calling you to do.

Evil Teachers to Be Exposed

3 ⁶ For some of them worm their way into homes and get control of weak-willed women who are heaped with sins and swayed by various impulses, ⁷ who are always learning but never able to come to full knowledge of the truth.

Always learning but never able to come to full knowledge of the truth (compare 4:3, Yochanan18:38a). A perfect description not only of weak-willed women (in today’s world I can hope he would have written, “weak-willed people”), but of professional skeptics and others who, under the guise of “seeking the truth,” keep avoiding it. The real reason they do this is that they are heaped with sins they do not want to give up and swayed by various impulses they do not want to face. See 1 Corinthians 2:6–16, which can be read as a commentary on these two verses, and 1 Timothy 4:1.

⁸ In the same way as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moshe, so also these people oppose the truth. They are people with corrupted minds, whose trust cannot pass the test. ⁹ However, they won’t get very far, because everyone will see how stupid they are, just as happened with those two.

Jannes and Jambres are not mentioned in the Tanakh, but they are identified in Targum Yonatan (Numbers 22:22) as sons of Balaam, and also as the magicians in Pharaoh’s court who tried to equal the feats of Moshe reported in Exodus 7:11–12; 8:3(7), 14–15(18–19); 9:11. They are described elsewhere as having been among the “mixed multitude” who followed the Israelites out of Egypt (Exodus 12:38), and as instigators of the golden calf debacle (Exodus 32:1). They appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the writings of the pagans Pliny and Apuleius, and in Christian Apocrypha.

Respect For Scripture

¹⁰ But you, you have closely followed my teaching, conduct, purpose in life, trust, steadfastness, love, and perseverance—

The words but you set verses 1–9 in contrast with verses 10–17. The false teachers lived and taught one way, but Sha’ul provided a totally different model for Timothy.

¹¹ as well as the persecutions and sufferings that came my way in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.

Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra were the cities that Sha’ul visited on his first missionary journey. Thus, when looking for examples of his sufferings, Sha’ul referred to his earliest mission work. Some have questioned why he would refer so far back, especially since this would have been before Timothy joined Sha’ul. But Lystra was Timothy’s hometown, so he was probably aware of what had happened to Sha’ul there. In effect, Sha’ul is saying: “Timothy, you have known from your earliest awareness of me that suffering is a part of the gospel work.”

¹² And indeed, all who want to live a godly life united with the Messiah Yeshua will be persecuted, ¹³ while evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived themselves.

Those who want to live a godly life are not a special kind of Messianics, but it should be true of every Believer. The false teachers, who were evil and impostors, were not being persecuted.

¹⁴ But you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, recalling the people from whom you learned it; ¹⁵ and recalling too how from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which can give you the wisdom that leads to deliverance through trusting in Yeshua the Messiah.

Timothy was guided toward trust in Yeshua the Messiah from childhood by Hs Messianic Jewish mother Eunice and grandmother Lois (1:5). What a blessing to have such a head start in life! How few Jewish Believers today have that advantage! Most of us discovered only as adults the unfortunately too-well-kept secret that the Holy Scriptures, which means, of course, the Tanakh, can give the wisdom that leads to deliverance through trusting in Yeshua the Messiah.

¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is valuable for teaching the truth, convicting of sin, correcting faults, and training in right living; ¹⁷ thus anyone who belongs to God may be fully equipped for every good work. [1]

All Scripture is God-breathed. Others have translated this, “All God-breathed Scripture is valuable.… ” As the Complete Jewish Bible has rendered it, we learn here that the entire Tanakh, every verse of it (all Scripture), is inspired by God. Because of this, the Bible is incomparably more authoritative than anything else ever written or spoken. Opinions come a dime a dozen and a mile a minute, but assured truth from God about Himself and humanity is found in the Tanakh and the Brit Hadashah, and nowhere else.

Because the Bible is God-breathed, it is valuable for the four pastoral purposes named. Anyone who belongs to God and who lets Scripture pastor him in all four of these ways (however, not apart from associating with the community of God’s people; see Messianic Jews 10:24–25) may be fully equipped for every good work.

In our next post, we will conclude our examination of Sha’ul’s Second Letter to Timothy.

Click here for the PDF version.

^[1] 2 Timothy 3:6-17.