Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Timothy · About this commentary
Always Learning
2 Timothy 3:6-9
6 For some of these are people who creep into houses and take captive gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, · WEB
The method is domestic infiltration, the target is chosen for vulnerability, and the precedent named is two magicians.
Some of these creep into houses. The verb is furtive, and the setting is where the churches met and where a woman burdened with guilt could be reached without witnesses.
The description of the targets is unflattering to the predators rather than to them: loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts. These are people already carrying something, approached precisely because they are.
Verse 7 gives the tragic phrase: perpetually learning, and never arriving at any knowledge of the truth. The failure is not intellectual, since the learning is continuous. It never arrives because what is being supplied is not the truth, and constant study can be a way of avoiding a conclusion.
Verse 8 names the precedent: Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses. Exodus records magicians who matched the first signs and then failed Exodus 7:11 Exodus 8:18 without naming them; Scripture gives their names only here, and a record that size holds exactly what it holds. The comparison is apt because those men did not deny Moses — they imitated him.
Verse 9 sets the limit: they will proceed no further, for their folly will become evident to all, as theirs did.
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