2 Timothy 3:1-13 • Staying Faithful through Grasping Truth

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What takes women captive to spiritual error? Can you recognize the deceptions of influential fakers or the symptoms that you have been taken captive by them? Paul taught in 2 Timothy that you can not only recognize influential fakers but also stop their snares meant to capture you. In the last article, we looked at how to stay faithful to God through our words. This is post #7 in the 2 Timothy blog series. In this post, we will look at how to grasp God’s truth to protect ourselves from being taken captive by spiritual error.

Listen to this post as a similar podcast from our To Be Found Faithful Bible Study covering the book of 2 Timothy in the New Testament.

A “Church” Taken Captive

One summer, we were in Colorado conducting summer camps for our wilderness-based camp ministry. A church youth group rented our camp facility for a week. I was in charge of providing meals. As my husband Ron was about to leave town, he said to me, “This group is not your typical church youth group.” Hmmm. What does that mean?I knew that our senior staff members were on 21-day backpacking trips in the nearby mountains. They would not be around to assist. I sent up a quick prayer, “Lord, please help us!”

The group that came looked like typical high school kids and adult counselors but were very different from the typical youth groups that came to our camp. We welcomed and served them.

During that week, I realized that we served prisoners, people who had been taken captive. They were taken captive by the philosophy that God is an impersonal energy field, an “it”—something that binds the universe together. They sought God while staring at a candle for an hour. They were taken captive by the concept that good and bad are relative. Since each person is part of the god-force of the universe, each one determines what is good or bad. They meditated upon the god being created in each of them. The message portrayed was this: salvation comes through uniting one’s personal spiritual energy with the other-god-energy of the universe.

Though this group came from what was called a church, they had rejected Jesus Christ as their head and substituted other things for Him. Sadly, most of them were females—either as teenage girls or as adult counselors. What takes women captive to such spiritual error?

Read the blog, “Flee the Spiritual Substitutes Infection.”

How Captivity Happens

Influential fakers creep in

In 2 Timothy chapter 3, Paul described the characteristics of false teachers. After using such words as “lovers of themselves, abusive, unholy, without love, and treacherous,” Paul finished by saying this scary statement about them:

“having a form of godliness but denying its power.” (2 Timothy 3:5)

Even though they are very ungodly, such people may look good on the outside but have no spiritual power on the inside. They are influential fakers.

Paul continued by describing how these influential fakers get women to follow them,

“They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (2 Timothy 3:6-7)

Influential fakers worm their way into homes. What a word picture! Another translation says, “They creep into homes” like slimy, creepy-crawly creatures. Once inside, they gain control over the gullible, weak-willed women.

Leaving the door open

Who or what leaves the door open? Well, we can do that. A lot of us are pretty strong-willed. Just ask my husband. The idea here is that of undisciplined, unsatisfied, and therefore unstable women.

Women become especially vulnerable to influential fakers when they are loaded down with guilt from their sins. Or they open the door when they are on the constant search for the latest new thing to satisfy the restlessness in their hearts. Various lusts feed their discontentment. Out of a so-called openness to learn, they embrace whatever flashy teachings that come along rather than going to the source of established truth.

Women who never recognize and grasp biblical truth will be taken captive by whatever flashy teachings that come along and live unsatisfied, unstable lives. We see this in our world today.

Let us grasp truth that answers those conditions that can leave the door open for influential fakers to take us captive.

In Christ, Complete Forgiveness

Grasp this truth: By faith in Jesus Christ, your sin and guilt is taken away. You are completely forgiven.

The web of cult promises

Through the years, I have met several women who had been freed from the brainwashing associated with various cults claiming to be Christian. From a Christian perspective, a cult is a religious group that denies one or more of the fundamentals of biblical truth.

When you read history, it seems that women are more drawn to religious cults than men. Cult leaders are usually charismatic and persuasive, inviting women to follow them. A cult may promise to satisfy her heart needs through community and a sense of controlled boundaries. Women like community and a controlled environment. But cult leaders then control an individual’s associations, deliberately withhold or distort information, discourage critical thinking, and manipulate their followers through fear and especially guilt. Women caught in this web can never get rid of the guilt of their sin or the guilt of not doing enough good works to achieve salvation and release.

Loaded down with sins

Paul was concerned about the women who were “loaded down with sins.” That is not restrictive to the first century AD, is it?

Many of us carry the guilt of our sins like a heavy burden, weighing us down. All of our debt of sin before God is enormous. We could never pay for it all. But God stepped in and did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He transferred our sin to a substitute, Jesus, and it was taken away. Paul describes this so beautifully in Colossians chapter 2,

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14)

Here is the truth for you to grasp: Once you place your faith in Jesus Christ, whatever you have done that was wrong in God’s eyes from the time you were born through the time of your death has been canceled. Taken away. All of it. Past, present and future. Nailed to the cross.

Forgiveness—complete and continual

At the moment of your salvation, forgiveness is complete and continual. In Christ, you possess forgiveness. That is clearly taught in the New Testament.

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14)

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” (Ephesians 1:7)

It is a done deal for us!

Yet, as long as you live in your earthly body, you will be tempted to sin. Sin will happen—whether intentionally or unintentionally. As an already forgiven Christian, there’s a biblical process for dealing with recognized sin. That process is to remember first your identity as child of God, then agree with God that you’ve sinned against Him, mourn your sin and depend on the Holy Spirit to help you obey God in the future. Then, trust in Him to help you overcome the consequences of any sinful choices you’ve made in a way that brings glory to Him.

Dear Christian, here’s the truth for you to grasp: By your faith in Jesus Christ, you can live with confidence that you have been forgiven. You are no longer burdened by your sin and guilt.

For a more detailed explanation, read the blog, “Forgiven…No Longer Burdened by Guilt.”

Redeemed in Christ, No Longer in Bondage to Sin

By faith in Jesus Christ, you are redeemed, no longer in bondage to sin and lusts.

In 2 Timothy chapter 3, Paul said that women who are vulnerable to being taken captive by influential fakers are not only burdened by their sins but also “swayed by all kinds of evil desires.” Another translation says they are feasting on various lusts.

Feasting on lusts

What are lusts? The dictionary defines lust as a passionate or overmastering desire or craving for something. That something is often an uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite. But a lust doesn’t have to be sexual. It is any desire, craving, or longing for what is generally forbidden or not good for you. That can be seizing power, stealing, or cheating to attain something that doesn’t rightfully belong to you.

Any woman who allows herself to feast on her lusts increases her discontentment with life as well as increases her guilt when she acts on that lust. The Bible describes that as being in bondage. Every human born on this planet is born into bondage to sin. The Bible describes sin as a slave master. I think we have all studied history enough to have a concept of what slavery is. If you know anything about slavery, there are only two ways out. Either you die, or you are bought by someone who then sets you free.

Released from bondage

In Mark chapter 10, Jesus declared this,

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)

Jesus came to give His life as a ransom for many. On the cross, Jesus paid the purchase price out of our slavery to sin with His blood. But, more than that, we have been released into freedom to serve God with our bodies and souls in obedience to Him. The Bible calls this whole process “redemption.”

Redemption means you become the possession of a loving, merciful God and can live in the security of your freedom from bondage to sin. Why is that? It’s because a greater power than sin moves in—the Holy Spirit. He sets you free from the power of that old slave master to become what God intended you to be. But you have to claim that freedom.

Are you a Christian and find yourself swayed by evil desires, fed by various lusts? Whenever you get signals from your body or mind saying, “I want to do what I want to do,” stop right away. Recognize that voice is the old slave master sin calling your name, trying to get you to listen.

That old slave master is present in us until the day we leave this mortal body. But he does not reform or go to sleep during the intervening time. In fact, he yells pretty loudly sometimes. And doggone it, don’t we listen?!

Stop listening to sin

But you don’t have to listen! The moment you trusted in Christ as your Savior, you were set free from being a slave to sin in your life. Christ’s blood set you free. God’s Holy Spirit lives in you and makes it possible for you to say “no” to any sinful thoughts and behaviors. God’s Spirit inside you gives you the freedom to serve God with your body, mind, tongue, eyes, and hands. You are no longer a slave to sin. It has lost its grip on you. Turn to God’s power within you to resist that old slave master calling on you.

Dear Christian, here’s the truth for you to grasp: By your faith in Jesus Christ, you have been released from your bondage to sin and lusts. You now have the freedom to live a life that pleases God in every way.

For more understanding of redemption, read the blog, “Redemption: Released…No Longer in Bondage.”

Grasping God’s Truth of God Protects You

Dwelling in the truth of God protects you from being taken captive by influential fakers. Here’s how:

Danger of fad teaching

In 2 Timothy chapter 3, Paul described the vulnerable women this way:

“always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (2 Timothy 3:7)

 Always learning. Never settled on the truth. The NLT puts it this way, “Such women are forever following new teachings, but they are never able to understand the truth.”

Out of a so-called “openness to learn,” such women embrace as a fad whatever new junk teaching that comes along. Their problem is that they can not recognize the truth when they see it.

The words paint a sad picture of hypnotized women, powerless to cut through the fog of words. Though always learning scraps of things, they never come into the full knowledge of the truth of Christ. They cannot understand it because of the fog. We see this in our world today.

Willing participants in being deceived

In 2 Timothy chapter 4, Paul described what happens when this “openness to learn” continues. He said,  

“For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

We can become willing participants in our own deception when we become bored by, apathetic to, or annoyed by established Christian truth—what is known as sound doctrine. You can recognize this if you constantly have itching ears that need to be scratched.

Guess what. When people reject sound doctrine, they are really rejecting God!

Grasp God’s truth

We as women need to not only be exposed to truth but to grasp it and hold vigorously to it so we won’t be taken captive by the enemy’s schemes. Grasp it. Cling to it. I covered this in an earlier blog, “Staying Faithful to God’s Truth.” The basic process to help you grasp God’s truth is this:

• Dwell in the truth of God you can know.
• Humbly accept what you don’t know or understand.
• Discern any teaching that you read or hear through the complete revelation of God’s Word.

When you do all of this, you shut the door to any influential fakers who are trying to slither their way into your heart, mind, and home to gain their influence over you.

I read this quote from a book called Mama Bear Apologetics,

The more we choose God’s truth and God’s way, the easier it becomes to resist the lies of the enemy and turn away from the temptations of the flesh. (Teasi Cannon, Mama Bear Apologetics, p. 91)

Staying faithful to Christ requires grasping His truth and holding onto it with determination so that you will not be taken captive by anyone who is not serving Him in truth.

In the next post, we will look at what it means to stay faithful through the gift of people.

Let Jesus satisfy your heart with His faithfulness. Then, make the choice to stay faithful to Him for the rest of your life.

All of the above information is covered in the To Be Found Faithful Bible Study covering the book of 2 Timothy in the New Testament.

Related Resources:

• 2 Timothy blog series
• Flee the Spiritual Substitutes Infection
• Forgiven…No Longer Burdened by Guilt
• Redemption: Released…No Longer in Bondage
• TRUTH Is the Prescription for Healthy Living

AI was not used to generate this post.