2 Timothy 3:2, commentary and pictures

The verse foretells perilous times in the last days marked by increasing wickedness, lawlessness and moral degeneracy, a prophecy now fulfilled word for word in the present state of the world and showing the nearness of Christ's return. At its root is love of self, which is self-idolatry and the foundation of all sin, setting human will and indulgence where God's law should be. It describes not merely the heathen but professed believers and churches in the last days who keep only the outward form of godliness while denying its power, their selfish, proud and pleasure-loving life belying their profession. Disobedience to parents with thanklessness and unholiness is a special sign that the end is near, fulfilled in youth who refuse subordination, follow inclination instead of duty, and rebel against parents and teachers. From such the command is to turn away and work entirely contrary to that selfish picture, with trembling, humbling of heart, confession and true conversion, for only those washed white in character will stand when Christ comes.

Perilous Last Days Foretold

The verse prophesies perilous times in the last days, and that prophecy is now present and fulfilled word for word in the days now being lived. It describes the character of many who have departed from the faith and who stumble and fall and are broken and snared and taken, as spoken of by Isaiah. It applies to all the churches and to all churches throughout the world, marking a class professing to love and obey God yet denying Him in daily life, whom God does not want youth to be found among. The condition of the world corresponded to that prophetic description, and its fulfillment is evidence that prophecy is being fulfilled and should strengthen faith in the final triumph of Christ's kingdom. The chapter is a warning against that departure, calling for continuing in the Holy Scriptures that make wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, for His word teaches how to shun these evils and in the end be overcomers. Every word of the chapter is applicable now and shows the darkness of the world and the need to wake out of lethargic slumber, trim lamps with grace, shine in clear bright rays to a world in darkness, and bear the message that fits up a people to stand in the day of the Lord and come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty.

Wickedness, sin, violence, crime, lawlessness, corruption and moral degeneracy, physical and mental as well as moral, will increase as Christ's coming approaches. The perilous moral condition is selfish, greedy, boastful, proud, blasphemous, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, and unholy, even among people who retain a form of godliness. It means men controlled by low passions who do not resist temptation, who in the face of light and evidence increase moral corruption by secret precept and practice, and who lead unsuspecting minds into confusion of ideas as to what constitutes sin. The rejection of obedience to God's requirements weakens moral duty and helps bring about a time of lawlessness, corruption, crime, and selfish indulgence. The present state of the world answers to that apostolic warning about grave conditions and shows the world fast falling into hopeless corruption, showing the nearness of Christ's return, while truth will triumph and God's work is to be carried forward under the influence of the Spirit.

The moral and religious decline before the Lord comes will resemble the apostasy of the early church and the corruption of the early centuries, with people self-loving, greedy, boastful, proud, blasphemous, irreverent, disobedient to parents, unthankful, ungrateful, and unholy. When that condition is reached, the same results will follow. That picture of increasing wickedness even among those retaining a form of godliness contradicts claims that the world will be converted before Christ comes. It warns Bible students not to be deceived by assurances of peace and safety.

The verse describes the corrupt state of the world that will exist when Christ shall appear the second time in the clouds of heaven with the angelic host to give life to the righteous dead and ransom them from their graves. It means there will then be a boastful, presumptuous, self-willed generation arrayed in rebellion against the law of God, denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ, trampling upon His blood, and despising His atonement. Then the righteous will be crowned with glory and honor, while the wicked of that generation will be separated from the presence of the Lord and consumed with fire. These selfish, unlovable, headstrong, disrespectful, unthankful, unholy, fierce, pleasure-loving traits that despise the good and resist control and instruction characterize the last days just previous to the pouring out of the vials of God's wrath. The verse is fulfilled in youth who have their own way and do as they please, who will not be subordinate to any authority, who reject sensible and improvable associates and choose inferior company while despising those willing to be controlled and instructed.

The verse belongs to a prophetic vision of what will exist near the close of time in perilous times of lukewarmness and apostasy, fulfilled in these last days, as an age of signal rejection of the grace God purposed to keep His people from being overcome by prevailing iniquity. That prevailing iniquity is far-spreading and manifest ungodliness appearing under a cloak of Christianity and sanctification, when iniquity will prevail even under that appearance and will prevail to a terrible degree until Christ comes to be glorified in all them that believe. It describes the state of a large share of those who have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof, whose daily life and unholy character belie their profession, applying personally to men and women who claim to have great light in advance of every other people yet show pride and selfishness in peevishness, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness, censoriousness, evil thinking and evil speaking of brethren, with no inward crucifixion of sin and without the mold of Christ upon them. Like the withered fig tree they bear leaves of profession to conceal deformity but no fruit, and there is more hope for the open sinner than for them. Even in the very courts of the temple scenes will be enacted that few realize, uniting with the hostility of the world against God's remnant people, while God's people will be proved and tested that He may discern between him that serves God and him that serves Him not, and vengeance will be executed against those who sit in the gate deciding what the people should have, who take away the key of knowledge, refuse to enter themselves and hinder those who would enter, who bear not the seal of the living God, and who as occupants of responsible positions are found as unfaithful stewards. The self-sufficiency and pride involved make people vulnerable to false plans and teachings, and the time brings deceptive spiritual manifestations that become more common, which may appear righteous and contain some truth but lead away from truth and are known by their fruit.

Self Love Root Evil

Selfishness is the root cause of the evil the verse describes, making perilous times come because people sacrifice to self as to a god and worship the reflection of their own image by putting their own practices and natural tendencies where God's law should be. Love of self in this sense becomes self-idolatry, the foundation of all sin. That self-love is prodigality in every stage and feature, shown in thousands and tens of thousands of selfish indulgences such as spending on costly monuments over the dead while widows and orphans suffer for food, when the Lord's goods so spent should be used to lessen the suffering of the living and show honor to God. This is the picture of the world and also the representation in the church, from which the command is to turn away by working entirely contrary to it.

Love of self puts personal interests above God's service and produces a selfish life that stores evil thoughts about others and speaks against those God uses. Without Christ's peace it becomes discontented, arbitrary, overbearing, malicious, hateful and discordant, bringing discord where a heart at peace with God and others would have no room for envy, suspicion or hatred. It leaves no love for anyone but self and no desire to change a debased course, treating one's own opinions as the only ones that matter and seeking to bring others into agreement. Though such selfishness gives ground for accusation, those who have not surrendered to evil may still put away their sins and seek the Lord with humility and repentance.

Lovers of themselves make personal pleasure and vanity the aim of life, cultivating superficial display instead of intellect and character and giving way to familiar flirting and licentious indulgence that God hates. This appears in youth's desire to have pictures taken repeatedly in hope of appearing more beautiful, wasting the Lord's money, and in luxurious living, extravagant dress and devotion to fashion that display the pride, greed, vanity and self-gratification of the last days. Satan works to the very close of time to obtain possession of human instrumentalities by leading men and women to love worldly pleasure and display, thereby charming the senses to the destruction of the soul. Such self-pleasing corruption weakens mind and body, brings disease and despair, and fills the world with Sodom-like uncleanness and flood-time crime from which only God can keep anyone, even while those unchanged may value and promote truth and appear religious without yielding to the Holy Spirit or learning to know and trust God.

Exalting self and human capabilities in the now-present perilous times is foolishness before the heavenly universe because it does not bear the sweet fragrance of the Holy Spirit. It is the opposite of learning meekness and lowliness from Christ and demonstrating that His yoke is easy and His burden light, and it requires constant guarding of mind and soul and words and spirit to avoid that spirit and reveal oneself as a child of God, since the greatest danger comes from those who have lifted up their souls unto vanity and choose their own way and mind. Self-love, vanity, pride and pursuit of pleasure mark a course leading away from goodness and holiness and fail to exert an ennobling Christian influence, where a humble Christian life could help others. The verse therefore warns against self-absorption, and children should be trained not to think they are the center of everything but to become thoughtful of others and turn to genuine godliness.

Other Listed Vices Explained

Self-love, covetousness, boasting, pride, blasphemy, disobedience to parents, ingratitude, and unholiness are marks of people in the last days, and they may appear separately in different people, with each one a danger to avoid and never to represent. Covetousness in the last days includes setting up one's own ideas and plans for the means lent to trade for God's glory, doing what is forbidden with entrusted talents instead of obeying the direction to return a tenth of all increase. It also appears even among those professing present truth with years of experience, who may become so avaricious that honest people despise them, which is inconsistent with their profession.

Being unthankful and unholy marks unconverted workers whose lustful practices bring reproach on God's cause. The same traits mark those whose conversion has not transformed character, whose words and conduct show they have not been born again. They include those who fail to make the preparation needed for faithful service and overcoming. Those not soundly converted still show self-centeredness, ingratitude, unholiness, bitterness, malice, and a downward tendency, and can spread dissension and strife. Physical infirmity and suffering do not excuse unthankful or unholy conduct, for grace is sufficient to overcome temptation and is not powerless against bodily weakness.

The verse portrays widespread disobedience and godlessness before Christ's advent, with people disobedient, unthankful, and unholy, having no respect for God or His law. The present condition includes ingratitude toward God and contempt for His law, while the faithful are called to remain firm against evil before Christ's second coming. Contempt for God's law is accompanied by pride, love of pleasure, disobedience to parents, and self-indulgence.

Misplaced, self-centered affections are a sign of the last days. A married man who gives first place in his affections to another man's wife and leaves his own wife in second place dishonors himself and God, and the woman receiving affection from another woman's husband needs repentance and conversion. Christ takes charge of the affections of those who love and honor God and centers them on proper objects, so a husband respects, cherishes, and loves his own wife as his wife and the mother of his children despite faults on both sides, and guards mind and heart carefully so impurity does not abide there.

The warning includes the self-sufficiency and pride that make people vulnerable to false plans and teachings. Those described accept error, including the practice of one mind exercising complete control over another. The self-loving, greedy, boastful, proud, blasphemous, disobedient, unthankful, unholy, and pleasure-loving wickedness predicted was displayed in San Francisco and Oakland, especially among corrupt, dishonest, and fraudulent officials, fulfilling the prediction that such wrongdoing would occur in every city. The earthquake calamity was a signal of God's displeasure and a warning against disregarding His authority and law, including His holy Sabbath, while lives were spared in mercy so people could repent.

Form Without Godly Power

The list does not describe only open heathen but people in the last days who profess to belong to God and to love and obey Him, including popular churches and all the churches, even those ministering in holy things, with the same selfish, greedy, boastful, proud, irreverent, disobedient, ungrateful and unholy character developing among God's professed people as well as in the world. They deny Him in daily life while claiming godliness, resisting truth, corrupt in mind and faith, pursuing worldly gain, honor and sensual pleasure, and not knowing Him by experience, so every ability must be used to honor God and uphold His truth and to magnify Him in the position where power is used for Him.

They keep only the outward form of godliness while denying its power, like leaves without fruit concealing deformity, for daily life and unholy character belie profession when pride and selfishness appear in peevishness, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness, censoriousness, and evil thinking and speaking of others. There is no inward crucifixion of sin and no mold of Christ upon them, like the withered fig tree bearing leaves of profession but no fruit, with more hope for the open sinner than for those with great light in advance of every other people who yet show such traits. Claiming to be righteous without manifesting the fruit of true conversion is utterly worthless, for outward forms are of no value unless accompanied by an inward work of cleansing, and only repentance and faith can make an impure heart pure. Remaining fruitless despite received truth, light, privileges and care does not satisfy God but brings condemnation.

These traits mark false teachers, false prophets and seducers who oppose God's work and mislead others, having departed from the faith and giving heed to seducing spirits, coming in sheep's clothing with fair words while watching for gain and misappropriating His goods, working at cross purposes with God. Their work is to tear down through falsehood and misrepresentation what God through His agencies is seeking to build up, and they will seek entrance into the church. They must be met with Scripture and with humility, love and labor for salvation, warring a good warfare by holding faith and a good conscience, with fruits as the deciding line between true conversion and worthless outward form.

Self-serving, disobedient, unthankful and unholy conduct marks those who hold sacred trusts yet oppose the Lord's work, revealing character through actions and forming destiny for the judgment. The description demands honest dealing with the soul and careful searching whether it fits, especially being a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God, and after faithful examination very few can look to heaven and say they are not among those described. The opposite of that state is being dead to the world, living by faith of the Son of God, with life hid with Christ in God, so as to appear with Him in glory when He who is the life appears.

The traits warn that people give themselves to worldly pursuits and lose sight of eternal interests, loving self and pleasure more than God amid covetousness, pride, boasting, blasphemy, disobedience to parents, ingratitude, unholiness and other evils. This marks a perilous crisis in which young people need help discerning true godliness and developing sanctified minds.

Youth Disobedience Foretold

Disobedience to parents joined with thanklessness and unholiness is a prophesied mark that the last days have arrived and the end is near. It shows disregard for the Bible command to honor and obey parents and for the sacred duty to love and cherish those who cared for children through childhood and may depend on them for peace and happiness. The description fits three younger children walking in the way of sinners, the youngest following his brother's example.

The prophecy is fulfilled in youth who treat independence and disrespect for authority as praiseworthy. They insist on having their own way and doing as they please, refusing to be subordinate to any authority. They show rebellion and defiance toward parents and teachers who seek to inculcate true principles and establish right habits. Lacking personal Christian experience, they follow inclination instead of duty and do not seek to live by principle. Their example and company harm other youth, rejecting sensible and improvable associates, choosing inferior company while despising those willing to be controlled and instructed, and drawing others toward moral and spiritual ruin.

A quarrelsome, disobedient, heady, high-minded, unthankful and unholy spirit at home is rebellion against God. It is joined with scorning religion, unbelief and skepticism, making sport of religious things, corrupt habits and secret iniquity under a fair exterior to keep favor, with no fear of God before the eyes and with dishonor to father and mother and contempt for restraint of home and parental authority, becoming as natural as breath. Such a character poisons Christian homes, disturbs peace, corrupts companions, exerts strong influence for evil over other young people and nearly ruins their principles and morals. Children who are fed and clothed but left uncorrected are emboldened to continue in a wicked, satanic, iniquitous course of evil, and parents or guardians who do not require obedience share responsibility and become partakers in their wicked deeds. Favoring such a spirit and letting affections go out after such a person brings great unhappiness and loss of eternal life, for one who will not respect and honor parents will not respect a companion and is unworthy of love. Safety lies in condemning the evil, standing firm against wayward actions and refusing to treat such youth as kind and obedient, stopping affection at once, severing all intimate and close connection, refusing to follow inclination, and giving self unreservedly to Christ.

These traits grow in children raised without faithful discipline and restraint. When appetites and desires are not denied and clamoring is gratified at the cost of health and good temper, children become selfish, demanding, disobedient, unthankful and unholy. Pride and personal wishes are indulged while some parents from fear of displeasing them yield instead of requiring obedience and respect for parental authority, reversing proper order. Schooling exposes them to vicious influences. Through such neglect they are found among the disobedient, which is belonging to Satan's kingdom, and that neglect is registered in heaven.

Children's disobedience and disrespect toward parents and the aged is specially noticed by God as a sign the end is near. It shows age is no longer respected and reveals Satan's power upon minds and his almost complete control of the minds of the young. He works most zealously to produce this condition, especially in ministers' children, to bring them into captivity to his will, imbue them with his evil propensities and work through them in his control. Where children refuse instruction, follow their own inclinations whatever happens, dishonor parents, destroy parental hope and comfort and leave continual sadness and discouragement, selfishness and sin have become sweeter to taste than the pure and holy things of God.

Want of respect for counsel of a godly parent is one of the marked sins of this degenerate age and transgresses the fifth commandment. One step taken in the dark, one act of disobedience to a God-fearing mother who would give her life for her children, can darken and make lives wretched, blight a youth's whole life, weigh a loving mother's heart with anguish, and leave the guilty not held guiltless by God, who go on without knowing where steps lead. Respect continues into adulthood in heeding counsel and honoring parents, including respecting their wishes in marriage unless those wishes conflict with duty to God. The ancient godly order is to be restored, where children respected the aged, sought parental counsel and consent before marriage, and avoided intermarriage with idolaters lest families be led away from God.

Parents must recognize this tendency of the age and labor untiringly to educate children away from it by teaching them to love and copy the life of Christ, so preparing them for a place in the future life of holiness. Children are to be trained not to think they are the center of everything but to become thoughtful of others, turned away from self-absorption. They are to be kept under home protection, care and instruction rather than leaving home to serve pleasure-loving, irreligious people where worldly influences put them in danger. Otherwise disorder and bad conduct from neglect of Bible-based family discipline and of home training in good behavior and piety undermines witness, for unbelieving neighbors notice the inconsistency between professed faith and family life and may reject truth.

The description applies to an indulged, vain daughter turned from goodness whose corrupt traits of disobedience, ingratitude and unholiness are fruits of corrupt character. It applies to a selfish, boastful young man who loves pleasure more than duty, showing a heart unchanged by God's Spirit and a course of self-love, vanity, pride and pursuit of pleasure leading away from goodness and holiness and failing to exert ennobling Christian influence. It applies to children at a gathering who needed conversion and were outside Christ. It is reflected in youth who disregard parental and church counsel, marry without seeking God's will and follow selfish passions and lusts, echoing sins of the people before the Flood that belong to sins bringing God's judgment.

Warning and Faithful Response

The verse commands turning away from such people and working entirely contrary to the selfish picture it gives, a picture seen both in the world and in the church. The selfishness it describes is prodigality at every stage, spending thousands on selfish indulgence and costly monuments over the dead while widows and orphans suffer for lack of food that the Lord's goods could supply to lessen suffering and honor God. It is sacrificing to self as a god, worshiping the reflection of one's own image, and setting human practices and natural tendencies where God's law should be. Those described have a form of godliness but deny its power, coming as false prophets in sheep's clothing with fair words while watching for gain, full of selfishness, working at cross purposes with God and misappropriating His goods. The deciding line is drawn by fruits, for claiming righteousness without manifesting the fruit of true conversion is utterly worthless, since outward forms are of no value unless accompanied by an inward work of cleansing, and only repentance and faith can make an impure heart pure.

The picture should cause trembling and anguish of soul. It describes near the close of time a condition of lukewarmness and apostasy fulfilled in these last days among a large share of those retaining outward godliness while daily life and unholy character belie profession. It fits those claiming great light in advance of every other people yet showing pride and selfishness in peevishness, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, uncharitableness, censoriousness, and evil thinking and speaking of brethren, with no inward crucifixion of sin and without the mold of Christ upon them. Like the withered fig tree they bear leaves of profession to conceal deformity but no fruit, and there is more hope for the open sinner than for them. The call is to zealous repentance, true contrition, humbling of heart, confession and conversion before it is forever too late, for only those who wash their robes of character white in the blood of the Lamb will stand when Christ comes.

God does not want youth to be found among this class of lovers of self, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, with the further evils joined to them, who profess to love and obey God yet deny Him in daily life in the perilous times now being lived in. His word teaches how to shun these evils and in the end be overcomers. Loving self and money more than God and truth dishonors the Christian name and brings reproach on Christ before unbelievers.

The verse applies word for word at the present time to all the churches and shows the darkness of the world. That condition requires brethren to wake out of lethargic slumber, trim their lamps with grace, and let them shine forth in clear, bright rays to a world in darkness. They are to bear the message that fits up a people to stand in the day of the Lord and to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty.

Fulfillment of the portrayal of wickedness and corruption to exist in the last days, including murders, thefts, crimes and lawlessness, is evidence that prophecy is being fulfilled. That fulfillment should strengthen faith in the final triumph of Christ's kingdom. It should encourage courage in doing the work God has appointed and in carrying forward God's work under the influence of the Spirit, for truth will triumph.