Very Bad, and Very Normal

Last week we spoke about the temptations of a crisis. Remember Timothy? He might grow angry with the false teachers — people like Hymenaeus and Philetus, who used to be his friends and are now his opponents. He might become like them: argumentative, unkind, resentful. And his church might want him to go on the attack, to "get the boot in." But Paul said, No. Stay gentle and hopeful. Continue to believe that God may bring them back. Continue to treat them as people you love, people God might yet restore.

Tonight we reach what I think is the lowest point of the whole letter. The reading is really just a list — a list of how bad these false teachers have become. Chapter 3, verses 1 to 9. How bad have they become? Very bad. But Paul also wants us to know something else: this is normal. Very bad, and very normal.

Paul is still helping Timothy not to give up. And can you see how this works? Timothy probably remembers Paul warning him that there would be splits, wrong ideas, false teachers. Paul, Peter, John, and Jesus all warned clearly that this was coming. I imagine Timothy had signed on for a certain amount of that — "All right, I'll expect a bit of that, up to a point."

But here in 2 Timothy, Paul says that every church in his city and region, every one of his close colleagues and friends, has gone. Can you hear Timothy thinking, "Are you sure? Are you sure it was meant to get this bad?" Maybe something has gone really wrong. Maybe Jesus has lost control. Maybe it's you and me who are in the wrong, Paul, not everybody else.

The Tipping Point

I've seen this dynamic again and again in the 21st century. We know you don't decide theology by democracy — but there does seem to be a tipping point. If it's 20% of people who have moved away from the Bible, we're comfortable saying, "We're staying right here, thank you very much." But there's something almost magic about 50%. When it reaches 50%, we begin to think, maybe Jesus and his apostles were wrong all along.

Or think of it this way. We know that someone doesn't become right just because they hold their position fiercely and loudly. And yet, again and again over the last decades, I've watched people retreat and fall silent when the other side simply turns up the volume — shouts louder, gets more outraged, more accusing.

There seems to be a natural human tendency to want to live in the middle ground. That is what most of us want. So if that's what most people want, then all you need to do to move 90% of people is to get 10% of people to charge off into the distance and do something outrageous and wild. Then the middle shifts. It's the persuasive power not of good reasons, but of facts on the ground — and the more shocking the better.

How I React to the List

I don't know how you reacted as the list was read. I would have thought Paul was exaggerating — if I had not met people who fit this description. I've said before that many of my stories are simply too strong to tell in a sermon. If I told you the things vicars really do and say, you wouldn't think about anything else for the rest of the sermon. So I won't. Come and ask me afterwards.

The stories don't matter. What matters is that we understand, for the rest of our lives, that something like chapter 3:1–9 is normal.

One of my teachers at school was Australian — and this only works properly in the accent. He'd come round the corner, catch us doing something wrong, look at you deadpan, and say, "How boringly predictable, Mr. Skrine." That's all he needed to say. It didn't matter what you were doing; he'd seen it before. You were boringly predictable.

That is what Paul is saying about the teachers Timothy is so troubled and afraid of.

Why This Passage on Thanksgiving and Gift Sunday?

You may wonder why I've chosen this passage for Thanksgiving and Gift Sunday. The honest answer is that I hadn't — I'd planned a more cheerful passage two weeks from now. But I hope in this reading we'll still find reasons to thank God, and reasons to give.

So thank God for over 100 years of faithful Bible teaching in this room. We are not perfect; we get things wrong. But there has been more than a century of sticking to the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. And that is not normal. Chapter 3 is normal. It would be a mistake to experience life at a church like this one — where the apostles' teaching has been kept year after year — and think that is somehow the ordinary state of things.

And in terms of giving: Paul wants everyone listening to this letter to get behind Timothy, behind Paul, and behind the defence of the gospel. It's a bit like a letter from the President of the USA to Winston Churchill in the middle of World War II. At that point everybody had a role. My mum was growing rabbits, my granddad was doing spreadsheets, my uncle was jumping out of planes, someone else was building Spitfires. It doesn't matter what you're building — rabbits, spreadsheets, or Spitfires. The question is: are you all committed to the struggle?

That's where the gift of money comes in. To do 2 Timothy 2:2 — to find, grow, and train people to teach the gospel to others full-time all over the world — costs money. Discipleship costs money. Evangelism costs money. And the reality of these verses is serious, which makes asking for money tonight a bit like asking for disaster relief. People are kidnapped, trapped, and lost in teaching that ruins lives. Are you in the struggle? Are you committed to making sure the gospel goes on to the next generation?

"In the Last Days" (v.1)

Paul thinks Christians live in the last days — which means he thinks the return of Jesus is the very next event on God's calendar. The whole of creation is poised, waiting for Jesus to come back.

And in the rest of the letter, this is a deeply hopeful thought:

• 1:12 — Paul trusts God to guard the church until that day.
• 2:10 — Paul endures everything so that the elect can obtain salvation and eternal glory on that day. Push through to that day, and it is worth it — the way a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer push through hard times to their reward.
• 4:8 — Facing execution, Paul is optimistic, because death means a crown of righteousness on that day — and not just for him, but for all who long for Jesus' appearing.

We live in the last days, and those are days full of hope.

But those same days are also, verse one, full of terrible times.

But mark this, there will be terrible times in the last days. (2 Timothy 3:1)

Notice: he's not saying every false teacher will be as bad as these particular people. He's not saying things will be like this everywhere, all the time, without exception. He's saying this is normal if you live in the days before Jesus returns. And we need to understand that if we're to have any chance of keeping going.

That's why we asked Solomon to read Jesus' parable of the wheat and the weeds. It is normal for the church to be a total mixed-up mess. In the parable, an enemy has deliberately sown trouble in the midst of the precious growing crop — which is exactly what it feels like most of the time when you look across the world church. And Jesus deliberately leaves it that way until the last day, until harvest.

Terrible times are normal. You do not decide whether to give up based on theological democracy. At the time of Paul's letter, 95% or more had given up the gospel — and Timothy is told to change nothing. Nor do you decide how to live based on how outrageously others behave. If everyone else buys private jets, that doesn't make it okay for the rest of us to overspend on our smaller luxuries. You don't decide by asking, "Where's the middle?"

How Bad It Has Got (vv.2–8)

It's quite a list, and I suspect you began to feel glum as it was read. But let me start in the middle, at verse 5 — the part I think we most struggle to believe.

These are teachers who appear godly.

Having a form of godliness but denying its power. (v.5)

They look godly, but they are boastful, proud, and abusive — I think that means verbally abusive. They are brutal, treacherous, rash, and conceited. Remember what we said: these people claim to be more godly than Timothy and Paul — better at following God. And they have taken in nearly everybody in the region. People believe them. It's working.

Their outward appearance is convincing. They seem to know the Old Testament laws thoroughly. They look better at church and ceremonies than Timothy and Paul. From 1 Timothy we know they were very strict about food. But when you actually look at how they treat other people — which is what these verses do — they deny the power of godliness. None of their knowledge, none of their arguments, none of their impressive religiosity touches the way they actually live.

Loving the Wrong Things

Did you see the emphasis on love? Apparently godly — but they love all the wrong things.

Look at what they love:

• They love themselves (v.2)
• They love money (v.2)
• They love pleasure rather than God (v.4)

Look at what they don't love:

• They are without love — heartless (v.3)
• They do not love good (v.3)

The middle of the list is almost all good things with the Greek equivalent of "un-" stuck on the front: ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, uncontrolled, untamed, un-lovers-of-good. Take anything good, and they are against it — even parents. They are terrible with their money, with their mouths, and with their hearts. Yet they've fooled everyone into thinking they are better at church than Timothy. The outward form is working. Wolves come in sheep's clothing — otherwise they'd be far too easy to spot.

Creepy and Miserable (vv.6–7)

Look at verse 6. The translation has made a significant decision for us with the phrase "gullible women." There is only one word in the original, and "gullible" is not there at all. It's a diminutive word for women — like turning "dog" into "doggie," or "cigar" into "cigarette."

I don't think it says anything about women being more likely to be gullible. I don't think it even carries that sense about these individuals. I think the diminutive is there to make us horrified at what these teachers have done. If I told you I drove off a pack of dogs, you'd think me brave. But if I told you I found a little doggie and kicked it in the head — that sounds very different, doesn't it? The diminutive emphasizes not gullibility but vulnerability. They did this to vulnerable people in the church. They wormed their way into homes with their talk of being experts in the law, better at church than boring old Timothy.

And what caused the vulnerability? A toxic combination:

1. Guilt — they were "loaded down with sins." They felt terrible about what they'd done.
2. Temptation — they were "swayed by all kinds of evil desires."

Isn't that a very normal human experience? I want to sin, I sin, I feel terrible. I want to sin, I sin, I feel terrible. And here come Hymenaeus and Philetus, with a suitcase full of Old Testament tricks to make you feel better about your guilt, and at the same time clever reasons to give you permission to live out exactly what your heart wants. They make all these promises — but it only spins the cycle harder, because the heart is not actually fooled by their arguments. So the guilt and the desire and the temptation go round and round. Come and be like me, they say. It's okay to love yourself, love money, love pleasure.

Verse 7 — I think this is about the teachers, not the victims (though I wouldn't fall out with anyone over it). They make a great play of how clever they are, always learning, always into the latest idea, always able to tell you what a Bible verse "really" means. But they never arrive at a destination. They can't afford to — because then they'd have to put it into practice. So much easier to be permanently on the quest, living as you please along the way.

He compares them to the two pagan magicians at Pharaoh's court — unnamed in Exodus, but who stood up to Moses. These people oppose God's truth. Their minds are depraved, and God has rejected them.

Not "Stop Doing This," but "This Is Normal"

Reading a list like this, every one of us sees places where our own hearts look exactly like it. We think, I wonder if this is me. Timothy would be the same.

But Paul is not writing to say, "Timothy, stop worming your way into people's homes." That's not his worry. His worry (chapter 1) was that Timothy might find the suffering too much and give up entirely — or that he'd grow harsh and angry with these people. This list describes people who have pushed right out of the boundaries, living wildly — nothing like Timothy.

The list is here to help Timothy see that these people are normal. Nothing has gone wrong with the plan of Jesus when you see them in the church. God's field is just like this until the day of harvest — weeds growing among the wheat.

A few examples:

• Nothing has gone wrong with the message of Jesus if there are preachers with private jets, paid millions a year. There are. It's wild and terrible — a sign that something has gone badly wrong for them, not that something has gone wrong with Jesus. This is exactly what he told us to expect.
• The same is true if ministry training colleges are full of alcohol, slander, and sex, even when those are the people who look most serious about church and society. It's terrible; pray for their rescue — but realize this is normal in the last days.
• And to come closer to home: even when the evil desires of teachers are forced onto vulnerable people — think of the abuse scandals in recent years, even in churches like ours — that is terrible. Something has gone badly wrong with them. But this too is normal in the last days.

This doesn't mean we don't work to make it harder. Here at All Souls we do build fences; we do call out bad behaviour. But nothing has gone wrong with Jesus. This is how he told us his church would be.

And in particular: there is no reason to accommodate our godliness to the practices of those people. No reason to lower the standards of Jesus and his apostles. No reason to think Jesus has abandoned us or that we should give up on his gospel.

An Attitude for Life: Never Knowingly Cheerful

Before we reach verse 9, let me share an attitude to life that I think is really the main point of these verses. It was given to me 28 years ago on the Cornhill training course — the same course some of our ministry trainees do now. (If you've been reading 2 Timothy 2:2 and wondering whether it should be you, see if your boss will give you one day a week to go and taste what it is to be a Bible teacher.)

One of my teachers was Chris Green, now the vicar in Muswell Hill. Week by week he taught us 2 Timothy, paragraph by paragraph. And he told us: if you teach the Bible, everyone will hate you. No one will listen. Everyone will turn away. You'll be surrounded by opposition, and false teachers will be everywhere. That's roughly what I remember him saying, week after week after week. We called him "Chris Green, Never Knowingly Cheerful." It's written at the top of all my lecture notes.

And nothing has kept me going more, in the 28 years since, than that attitude hammered into me at the start. As I've seen bits of 2 Timothy happen again and again — not always, not everywhere, not as much as it could, in God's kindness, but repeatedly and boringly predictably — each time I think, Well, that's what Chris told me to expect. So keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

They Will Not Get Very Far (v.9)

But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone. (v.9)

They are like Jannes and Jambres — not only in how they behave, but in their scope. Don't let this trouble you too much, Paul says, because these people will not keep succeeding forever.

Right now Timothy is in the worst possible part of the crisis. Everyone has deserted; it looks as though this will just be the church from now on. But Paul says that is never going to be the case.

Go back to Exodus and read the story. Jannes and Jambres stood beside Pharaoh when Moses came to ask him to let God's people go. Moses did eleven miracles in Egypt as reasons why Pharaoh should take him seriously. And the first three times, these two magicians stepped forward and did exactly the same miracle.

So for the first three, it looks disastrous — everything's going well for Jannes and Jambres. They're the ones in the fancy robes, rich and successful, standing next to the emperor, welcomed in society. Moses is off with the slaves, in trouble, and nothing is working. And that hardens Pharaoh's heart.

You can hear Timothy saying the same, can't you? The households ruined by these teachers, who are getting rich, avoiding persecution, undoing everything Timothy has tried to do — and everyone is listening to them, hardening their hearts, and will never listen to him.

But then:

1. Miracles one, two, three — the magicians match Moses. Doing really well.
2. Miracle four — they simply can't do it. A bit embarrassing.
3. Miracles five and six — they arrange not to be there. Off on a cruise, perhaps, or something to do at home.
4. Miracle seven — the plague of boils. Scripture says the magicians were so covered in boils they could not even stand before Moses. They run off screaming and are never heard from again.

Just like those men, these teachers are normal. It is terrible, but it is not really a threat. God's house is not at risk.

The Right Response

So the right response, as throughout 2 Timothy, is not to panic. It is simply to step around them.

Have nothing to do with such people. (v.5)

This may carry a technical, church-discipline sense. In 1 Timothy 1:20 Paul says he had reached that stage with Hymenaeus. That means withdrawing the reassurance church gives that you are one of Jesus' people. If someone's life is persistently, publicly, and unrepentantly at odds with what Jesus teaches, you withdraw that reassurance. You stop saying, "Don't worry, Jesus forgives you; come and preach; be in good fellowship with us." You withdraw it — which is actually a kindness to them. What they need is to come to their senses and repent (2:25–26).

Notice what this is not. It's not about refusing ever to have coffee with someone. It's certainly not about refusing to let your daughter eat in your house because she's had a wobble about her faith. This is about terrible false teachers with utterly degraded lives, whom you can no longer treat as though nothing has changed. It's not kind to them, and it's dangerous for the church, to pretend otherwise.

Here at All Souls, we express this by not taking communion with leaders who have publicly walked away from the faith. To give an example: over the last four years, at every ordination of a new member of clergy joining All Souls, I have declined to take communion with the others in the room. Once it was awkward — two bishops had to step over me to reach communion. I do it because that is what the global archbishops decided to do: a way of saying, we can no longer treat you as if nothing has gone wrong. I wouldn't invite people in this category to preach here, wouldn't encourage you to buy their books, wouldn't encourage you to let them into your home (v.6–7).

But do you see — all these verses say we shouldn't be obsessed with these people. We don't need to attend every debate they hold, respond to every tweet and blog, or be as quarrelsome as they are. We don't need to find a perfect denomination with none of them in it. Jesus said this is what the field is like: wheat and weeds together until harvest. These people are boringly predictable, normal in the last days — and they will not get very far.

I'm no good at predicting the future, but it may be that we're reaching the point in the Church of England where "they will not get very far" is beginning to kick in. For ages the teaching that abandoned the Bible was simply more popular; everyone who got promoted, appeared on TV, or filled churches seemed to be leaving the teaching of Jesus — and carrying whole churches with them. But it's becoming obvious that such teaching empties churches in the end and closes them. It certainly has no children. Why give your life and sacrifice for something almost identical to what you can find on Sunday-morning TV or in the Sunday papers?

Cautious, Courageous, and Committed

So all this leaves us with an attitude of heart and mind — never knowingly cheerful. Though I actually hope you're encouraged tonight, even stirred up to rejoin the fight: a room full of people committed to passing the gospel on to the next generation, willing to give our lives, time, sacrifice, reputation, money, effort, and Friday evenings — whatever it takes.

It should make us rightly cautious. If this is normal, you can't assume the local church nearest you will always have a good teacher. You can't let every YouTube channel worm its way into your house. You should be suspicious about the lifestyle of those you listen to. (My lifestyle is somewhat open to you, because we're local. On YouTube, you have no idea.)

But at the same time this should make us courageous and determined — which is what Paul wants it to do in Timothy. God's church is not at risk. Harvest day is coming. And we are growing as the wheat in God's field, with the help of the Lord God.

Let me pray.

Heavenly Father, in many ways we don't understand why you have ordered the world as you have — why the Lord Jesus is not back now, why you do not save us from terrible times. And yet, Heavenly Father, we trust you. We trust your word. We trust your call to endure until the day we see you. And we ask, Father, that you would lift our hearts, and enable us to press on, following and serving our Lord and Redeemer. In his name we pray. Amen.