2 Timothy chapter 3

vs 1

So even though Paul has spoken about being gentle to these people who aren't on the right track, he wants us (and possibly them) to be very aware of what the truth is.

vs 2-4

Isn't it funny how disobeying your parents always pops up. The concept of love and where your love is directed is very important in this passage. If you're curious, it's "phila" every time. The word for lacking self control literally means "incontinent" which I thought was funny. Heh.

vs 5

These people pretend to act in a godly way (perhaps on meeting days?) but in reality are denying the need to do so or the power of doing so (very gnostic). You're not meant to hang around with heretics and false teachers.

vs 6-7

Another list of what they do. In the greek they only creep into houses and capture silly women. Now here the NASB infers by its punctuation that it's these women who are weighed down with sins, and I thought the NIV punctuation more accurately gives the flow of the verse by putting the false teachers as those who are loaded with sin and so on. But in the greek, weighed down (lit. heaped up), swayed (lit. being led), and learning and never able are all agreeing with "silly women". So these verses are describing the women whom these guys worm their way into the houses of. I guess then that this is a warning as much about the fact that there are people who do the worming, as to look out for the ones with whom they will worm.

vs 8

Back to the men now. The use of Jannes and Jambres in this example points to the fact that even though the church Timothy is working in is mainly (probably almost entirely) greek, they still had an understanding of the OT. Many were probably God-fearers. We have to be wary here - the people Paul is talking about are rejected from the faith. We can't apply these verses to anyone - they are actually not faithful Christians who have gone astray. They are faithless people who may still be in the church, but are not believers.

vs 9

Thankfully, says Paul, such folly is clear and it should be easy to spot them, so people shouldn't fall for their facades (except silly women of course, who it turns out are like a litmus test for heretics).