2 Timothy 3:1 - Forerunner Commentary

2 Timothy 3:1

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Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy 3:1:

II Timothy 3:1-5
Excerpted from: Handwriting on the Wall (2025): Brutality

What is brutal? Let us define our terms here. In English, the word's synonyms are savagery, barbarism, viciousness, cruelty, bloodthirstiness, and inhumane violence. I think you probably knew that. It is pretty easy. In Greek the word under brutal is anémeros. It is Strong's 434 if you want to look it up. It probably will not do you any good. It is a hapax legomenon, which is another word that Charles Whittaker taught us. It means that it only occurs once. But it also means savage, fierce, ferocious, unmerciful. It has a very interesting sense though. It has the sense of feral, like a feral cat; wild, untamed, like a beast, with the connotation of being menacing and threatening and dangerous and even having an evil, predatory intent.

Now the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo, uses this word to identify the opposite of phileo love. You know, phileo is the love we would give to, let us say, a friend, a very close friend. As such, as the opposite of phileo, brutal or anémeros, is the outward expression of extreme hatred toward those who are considered enemies. So if you get on somebody's bad list and they are of this brutal temperament, they are going to take it to the extreme. And that hatred produces savage violence that goes beyond the pale of even normal violence between enemies. This is the stuff of things that slide into the territory of war crimes, inhumane torture, and other inhumane abhorrent acts of evil.

Note the word inhumane because it is very essential to both sides of this subject. The perpetrator is on the one side, the brutal person, and the victim that he expresses his hate upon. The brutal person behaves like a wild beast, seemingly out of some sort of emotional instinct, we could maybe call it the "law of the jungle," rather than out of any kind of reason. On the other side, the perpetrator dehumanizes the victim.

Understand this. The perpetrator himself acts like a wild beast, inhumane in himself, but he has to make his victim not human in his own mind. So what he does is he reduces him or her to something lesser, something beneath him, something that he considers contemptible, something he could really hate with all his being. This is why we hear of such brutal murderers calling their victims abusive names like Nazi. We hear that all the time because most everybody in the Western world considers Nazis to be other. But other bad, really bad. They are not even human, they are monsters, right? So they call them a name like this.

Now let us look back into II Timothy 3, verse 3 and look at the two words that flank brutal. "Without self-control" is the one that comes first, and then after it, "despisers of good." And both of these feed into the brutality. The first, without self-control, points out that such people cannot govern their emotions. They cannot govern their passions. They just act on what they feel at any given time. They lack restraint. They have nothing inside them that will stop them from doing what they are thinking of doing. And so they just do it. At some point, their reason and even their drive to preserve their own lives becomes overwhelmed by their emotions and they act irrationally, fanatically, like a predatory beast following its urges to kill. And sometimes, if they live after committing their crimes, they will admit to the police that they could not stop themselves. It is like something else took over and they acted. They did what they were thinking about. And this is why I think many of them commit suicide, because at some point they wake up from this attitude, this brutal attitude, and they suddenly realized with a more rational mind what they have done and they cannot live with it. Of course there is also police shooting back at them.

The second trait, the one that comes after brutal, is "despisers of good." And this is the word aphilagathos, Strong's 865. It literally means not loving good. The A at the beginning of this word is a … . . .

II Timothy 3:1-5
Excerpted from: Endure as a Good Soldier

This is exactly where our society, our culture, has fallen down. Now it is everybody doing his own thing! And you know what it says in II Timothy 3:1-5. I do not have to go there. "But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come." And the apostle Paul vividly gives us a description of the character and personality of people who are going to be living in the last days. Brethren, this is what we grew up in. It is also what we have to deal with, fight, and overcome.

Endangering Our Children

Articles
America's Mercenary Culture
Are These the Last Days? (Part 2)
Countering the Culture
Economics in Prophecy
Is the Christian Required To Do Works? (Part Two)
Kid Kid-Killers
Living By Faith and God's Sovereignty
Rivet Your Eyes on the Destination
The Duality of Prophecy
The Elements of Motivation (Part Four): Obligation
The Fruit of the Spirit: Faithfulness
The Gift of Discernment and Godly Love

Bible Studies
Pagan Holidays
Parable of the Good Samaritan
Self-Control

Essays
Above the Fray
At Least Say, 'Thanks!'
Be Vigilant!
Benefits of Thanksgiving
Thankful Forever
The Elijah Syndrome (Part Three)
Vision of America's Future?

Sermons
Malachi's Appeal to Backsliders (Part One)
Foundations
Darts
The March Toward Globalism (Part 4)
The March Toward Globalism (Part 6)
Hands That Hang Low
We Must Learn to Fly
Living by Faith: God's Sovereignty
Take Heed to Yourselves
Dystopia? Utopia?
What's So Bad About Babylon? (2013) (Part Three)
The Book of Daniel (Part Eight)
Death, or Not A Hair of Your Head?
Without Natural Affection
God's Perseverance With His Saints (Part Two)
Themes of Ruth (Part Four): Kindness and Faith
Human Will
A Light To The World
Our Part in the Sanctification Process (Part Three): Cultivating Joy
Handwriting Is On The Wall (2019)
Without Restraint
What Makes Generation "Me" Tick?
Handwriting on the Wall (2020)
Who Were Jannes and Jambres?
The Household of God and Truth
Jude and the Glorious Power of God
Handwriting on the Wall: Cultural Christianity
Handwriting on the Wall: Without Natural Affection
Prosperity's Consequences
Elements of Motivation (Part 4)
Be Thankful!
Civility and Courtesy
Keeping God's Standards
The Consequences of Affluence
To Whom Honor Is Due
Moral Sympathy and Spiritual Confusion
Enduring as a Good Soldier
Trumpets: Soon To Be Fulfilled?
Christ Our Wisdom
Building the Wall (Part One)
The Essence of Self-Control
Anointing Our Eyes
Does Doctrine Really Matter? (Part 5)
Are You Looking for Some New Thing? (Part 1)
When the Trumpet Blows
The Heart's Self-Absorption
The Heart's Self-Absorption

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