Whenever we dare to read 2 Timothy 3:14-17, we would do well to fasten our seat belts in anticipation of the road that lay ahead, a journey in which Paul I sable to vividly describe the times in which we live. He holds back nothing as he chronicles the option of what happens to an individual and to entire societies in their free-fall, the downward spiral of lives cut off from truth and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He also describes a second option: a life and community of faith that spirals upward in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, one that follows the truth found in the Scriptures.
Option #1: The downward spiral of life lived without the truth found in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Contextually, Paul is writing about the last days as well as to those of us who are currently living in the last days. Reread his inspired description and see how accurate it is to our world today. Although we are separated from his time of writing by some 2,000 years, it would appear that he has a pretty good take on the world in which we live. And while he describes and discusses such aspects as lifestyles that are characterized by godlessness, self-centeredness and superficial religion, the part that ought to intrigue us this morning is his examination of intellectual relativism (2 Timothy 3:7).
What Paul is describing here is an individual who has no other sense of foundational truth. Remember: intelligence is not the exclusive possession of either believers or nonbelievers. All of us are called to use the intelligence we have. By the same token, Paul is not calling for us as Christians to have closed minds. How sad it is when a person becomes so fixed in their opinions and even in their belief system that they cannot stop and understand why others may not think the way they do or believe the way they do. Equally sad is the person whose mind is not inquisitive and not continually learning.
Paul is describing a person who is so fixed and focused in their determination to always be learning that they eventually go in descending circles, unwilling to live their lives fixed on some basic absolute truths. Or, to put is another way: their basic foundational truth is “all is relative except the fact that all is relative, and that is the only absolute.” How tragic is the person’s life that is always learning and never arriving at the knowledge of the truth.
To illustrate his point, Paul mentions in :8-9 Jannes and Jambres. Jannes and Jambres were the names given to the court magicians of Pharaoh who opposed Moses and Aaron. At first, they were able to match the wonders which Moses and Aaron did, but, in the end, they were defeated and discredited. They are not mentioned by name in the Old Testament, but an entire collection of stories and legends gathered around their names.
The fact is, Jannes and Jambres became legendary figures representing all those who opposed and sought to frustrate the purposes of God and his true leaders. They became representative of the downward spiral Paul is writing about in 2 Timothy. No room for truth. No tolerance for the absolute. Is it possible to imagine anything more tragic than someone who is not only a deceiver themselves, but who ends up self-deceived in the process? When the truth sets us free, it is then that we are free indeed.
