Keep reminding God’s people of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.  Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have departed from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some.  Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”

2 Timothy 3:14 – 18

The Apostle Paul and his little team, including young Timothy, spent over two years establishing the church in Ephesus. The fellowships there seem to have succeeded in bringing Jewish and Greek believers in Jesus together.

The fellowships there were now facing new challenges – heresies among themselves.  The most damaging one held to the fact that Jesus did not rise from the dead physically but spiritually.  These people found it difficult to believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead and appeared among people for forty days, even at times, eating with them.

I do not know why some believers were pulled away from the doctrine that Jesus was raised from the dead and appeared as Jesus Christ of Nazareth, just like he always was! It could be that in their evangelism these people soft-pedaled this doctrine to win more Greeks to Christ because the view that Jesus had a physical body after his resurrection was philosophically unbelievable by rational Greeks. Or maybe they themselves reinterpreted the post-resurrections of Jesus in such a way that they did not have to deal with the issue.

Whatever, Paul encouraged Timothy to deal with this heresy that was dangerous, indeed. He even mentioned the names of the leading promoters of the heresy.

To be a leader of Jesus’ flock is demanding. I know that quite well. There are always ideas swirling about that, if believed, will produce a “different” Gospel than that handed down to us through the ages.  Paul’s advice to Timothy was to live like Jesus and testify to the truth of the doctrines that lift him up in all his glory.

I might add that we believe that Paul wrote this letter about AD 68, just two years before the Romans bit the bullet, so to speak, and destroyed the Temple, bringing to a halt Jewish aspiration to have their own nation.