2 Timothy 3
2 Timothy 3 is the third chapter of the Second Epistle to Timothy in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The letter is traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle, the last one written in Rome before his death, addressed to Timothy. However, most biblical scholars believe that it and the other Pastoral Epistles are the work of an anonymous follower, writing after Paul's death in the first century AD. This chapter contains a charge to Timothy to keep away from heterodoxy, and use Paul's steadfast faith under persecution as an example to contrast the opponents' characters, while continuing to follow the teachings of the Scriptures.
Text
The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 17 verses.Textual witnesses
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:The heresy in Ephesus in prophetic perspective (verses 1–9)
Paul paints a picture of the false teachers as 'actual deviants from the norm established by his gospel' who, as a result, endanger the faith of themselves and their followers. A lengthy list of their vices spans verses 2-4. Among the terms listed is, translated in some places as "blasphemers", but also as "abusive".Verse 5
This verse makes clear that the listed vices "belong to heterodox Christians", given the directive that Timothy and his congregation are to keep away from them.The way of following Paul (verses 10–17)
In this section Paul instructs Timothy to commit to Paul's teaching, as Timothy already shared many experiences with Paul, and urge him to 'accept the mantle of the Pauline mission'.Verse 16
"God-breathed" can be rendered as "given by inspiration of God". The Syriac version renders it "written by the Spirit", the Ethiopian version: "by the Spirit of God". For "all Scripture" (πᾶσα γραφὴ,, Towner renders this as "every Scripture".This verse is quoted by official Catholic Church teachings affirming that "the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself.