 |  |
suggests that the class of women here referred to were buried beneath a weight of sin.
Their burdened conscience made them only too ready to grasp at any offer of easement.
We have already referred to the word "lust" when dealing with II Tim. 2: 22 and 4: 3.
In the phrase "led away with diverse lusts" with which II Tim. 3: 6 ends, we need not
think that further and fuller participation in sensuality was the attraction that induced
these silly women to become such slaves, it may mean by epithumiais poikilais, that these
poor creatures would clutch at any straw that might ease their burden, but alas they found
no ease for they were blind and deaf to the appeal of the gospel.
"Evershifting passion for change in doctrine, running after fashionable men and
fashionable tenets, which draw them (agousi) in flocks in the most opposite and
inconsistent directions, evermore learning, always with some new point absorbing them,
which seems to them the most important, to the depreciation of what they held or seemed
to know before" (Alford in loco).
Doubtless we all have met persons who manifest some of these traits. If we meet
them this week, their enthusiasm for some new doctrine knows no bounds, if, however,
accident postponed our meeting of them for a week we should have found them
advocating with the same hysterical enthusiasm some other equally futile innovation. It
is comforting with these things in mind to note that the apostle says at the end of this
passage "they shall proceed no further".
We saw, earlier, that the language of the apostle in II Tim. 3: 1-4 linked the apostasy
of the last days with the paganism of ancient Rome. He now established another link
with the past by introducing the magicians who withstood Moses:
"Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth" (8).
Apart from any other source of information, the fact that the apostle gives the names
of Jannes and Jambres to these two men of ancient times, would be sufficient for us. It is
however interesting to know that Jonathan, who wrote a paraphrase of the law, (the
Targum) says that these men were two sons of Balaam. They have various names in
different translations, which is not surprising. Hilary speaks of a book "Jannes and
Mambres", and the Talmud speaks of "Juhanni and Mamre, chief of Pharaoh's
physicians". Numenius, cited by Aristobolus, says "Jannes and Jambres were sacred
rabbis of the Egyptians"; Pliny speaks of a sect of magicians, of whom he says "Moses,
Jannes and Jocabel at Jotapa were heads". While therefore we do not take our doctrine
from tradition, we must not allow ourselves to become unreasonable and reject every
traditional statement simply because it is traditional. It may also be the truth as well, and
sometimes an ancient tradition will help to confirm or illuminate an otherwise obscure
item of inspired truth. These magicians Jannes and Jambres were no ordinary men, they
were inspired by Satan and worked actual miracles, even as the false prophets will at the
time of the end (II Thess. 2:). This fact makes Paul's introduction of them all the more
pointed, for we have seen from I Tim. 4: and II Tim. 3: 1 that demonic influence will
be at work in the last days. We shall not only be resisted by ordinary sinful and darkened
men, we must expect to be opposed by those who consciously or unconsciously are the
instruments of the Devil. Our warfare is spiritual, and our foes are "spiritual
wickednesses". Eph. 6: 13 speaks of the "evil day" that was to come, and II Tim. 3:,