Fathers

2 Timothy 3

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But know this: that in the last days, grievous times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, not lovers of good, traitors, headstrong, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding a form of godliness, but having denied its power. Turn away from these, also. For some of these are people who creep into houses and take captive gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Even as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind, who concerning the faith are rejected. But they will proceed no further. For their folly will be evident to all men, as theirs also came to be. But you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, steadfastness, persecutions, and sufferings: those things that happened to me at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. I endured those persecutions. The Lord delivered me out of them all. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you remain in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. From infancy, you have known the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

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What the Fathers say

2 Timothy 3:1

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

He had said in the former Epistle, that "the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith" (1 Tim. iv. 1, 1 Tim. iv. 2.); and elsewhere in this Epistle he foretells that something of this kind will afterwards happen; and here again he does the same thing: "This know, that in the last days perilous times shall come." And this he pronounces not only from the future, but from the past; "As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses." And again from reasoning; "In a great house there are not only vessels …

Homily on 2 Timothy 7 ↗

Theophylact of Ohrid

Since in those times there were many evil people, so that Timothy would not be troubled by this, the apostle first said to him: "in a great house" and so on, and now says that evil people will exist afterward as well. Even in the time of Moses there were Jannes and Jambres. Consequently, this phenomenon is not new and it will not continue only until your time. Therefore do not be indignant. The times will be perilous, that is, very bad. …

Commentary on 2 Timothy ↗

Oecumenius

Even in the days of Moses, there were Jannes and Jambres (Ex. 7; 2 Tim. 3:8), as he says: for this is what the words about the golden and pottery vessels signify. Therefore, these types always exist, but especially in the last times. difficult times. It is not the times or the days that are to blame, but the wicked people living in them. For we call times good or bad based on what happens in them.

Commentary On 2 Timothy ↗

Western Saints

Thomas Aquinas

Above, he instructed him how to handle present tribulations and dangers; here he shows him how to stand against future ones: first, he predicts some dangers that are to come; second, he shows his fitness to resist them, at but you have fully known my doctrine (2 Tim 3:10); third, how to resist, at I charge you before God (2 Tim 4:1). In regard to the first he does two things: first, he foretells the dangers that will come in the last days; second, he shows that their vices are even now to be avoided, at now these avoid. …

Commentary on 2 Timothy ↗

Hippolytus of Rome

As these things, then, are in the future, and as the ten toes of the image are equivalent to (so many) democracies, and the ten horns of the fourth beast are distributed over ten kingdoms, let us look at the subject a little more closely, and consider these matters as in the clear light of a personal survey. …

Fragments - Dogmatical and Historical ↗