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"boasters, proud . . . . . heady, highminded". Where first Timothy tells us that the
doctrine of demons leads to "forbidding to marry", the present passage reveals that men
will be "incontinent" and "without natural affection". Where the early departure was
marked by a specious sanctity, in the last days no such pretence will be made, they will
be "unholy".
The most marked characteristic of this departure however, is its relation to "love".
The word philos (love) appears at the beginning and the close of this long and terrible
list.
Men shall be Philautos (lovers of their own selves);
Philarguria (lovers of money);
Philedonos (lovers of pleasures); rather than
Philotheos (lovers of God).
The warning against "the love of money" as a root of all evil, is sounded in
I Tim. 6: 10 which, by coveting, some "have erred from the faith". In the parallel
passage in Colossians, the apostle warns against "a vain deceitful philosophy" (Col. 2: 8),
which introduces many features that are similar to those given in I Tim. 3: The epistles
to Timothy and Titus are not without the corrective to this false and selfish love, as the
following series of seven references will show. We have no knowledge of the exact
chronological relationship of these two epistles but we place all the references in Titus
first because of the greater number.
A | Titus 1: 8. Lover of hospitality, philoxenos.
B | Titus 1: 8. Lover of the good, philagathos.
C | Titus 2: 4. Lover of husband, philandros.
D | Titus 2: 4. Lover of children, philoteknos.
C | Titus 3: 4. Lover of mankind, philanthropia.
B | Titus 3: 15. Lover of those in the faith, phileo . . . en pistei.
A | I Tim. 3: 2. Lover of hospitality, philoxenos.
Is it accidental that the apostasy of I Tim. 4: is associated with forbidding marriage,
and commanding to abstain from meats, and the antidote to the false love of the last days,
should stress hospitality, husband and child, and link such homely love with the love that
embraces "the good" and "the faith", and which reaches up to the majestic philanthropy
of God Himself? The root of true doctrine thrives in the home life of the believer, and
where the home is a place of light and love, the church will thrive, but when ever
church going, church meetings, or that which can be comprised under the term
"churchianity", takes the place of home there the rot sets in, and the root withers. Such
will have exchanged "the mystery of godliness" (I Tim. 3: 16) for "the form of
godliness" (II Tim. 3: 5). But the fact that a form is retained is an indication that
professing believers are still before us.
In the first epistle to Timothy, the safeguard on either side of the mystery of godliness
is expressed thus: