Sinless Perfection

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,  2 Timothy 3:2 NASB Unholy – Describe the unholy person. Write down his character traits (or flaws). What you will end up with is a list of culturally conditioned spiritual and behavioral attributes. And you won’t come…

Life Without Joy

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,  2 Timothy 3:2 NASB Ungrateful – One day quite a few years ago my wife remarked about the joylessness of my life. “Why are you so down all the time? Why don’t you just take one of…

Parental Controls

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,  2 Timothy 3:2 NASB Disobedient to parents – “Honor your father and mother” says the Law. But sometimes we need a word like goneusin to remind us why respect and deference are required. Goneusin is the Greek…

What Did You Say?

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,  2 Timothy 3:2 NASB Revilers – Once you read the Greek, you have no doubt about the meaning of this word, but in English translations the true intent will escape you. The word is blasphemoi. Ah, now…

Limelight

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,  2 Timothy 3:2 NASB Arrogant – Aristotle invented the “Golden Mean.” But God gave him the idea. Like most things in life, extremes lead to sin. Standing on the middle ground is often the way to avoid…

Rare but Potent

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,  2 Timothy 3:2 NASB Boastful – Not exactly! The NASB translation of alazon doesn’t quite capture the idea Paul has in mind. That’s because in the Tanakh and the LXX, alazon points us to yahir, a Hebrew…

A Little Dab’ll Do Ya

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,  2 Timothy 3:2 NASB Lovers of Money – I’m guessing that most of you are too young to remember the punch line of the advertisement, “A little dab’ll do ya.” The message was clear. You just need…

Implosion

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,  2 Timothy 3:2 NASB Lovers of self – How do you make an atomic bomb? One of the important steps is to build a core that implodes in order to create enough energy to set off the…