Ladies, Stop Being Gullible

Ladies, Stop Being Gullible

2 Timothy 3:1-7 – But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. ² People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, ⁴ treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

⁶ 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, ⁷ always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

Today, we look at some pretty dark verses in Scripture.  I can already hear some of you ladies getting indignant that Paul is singling out women as being gullible and swayed by evil desires.  But hang in there with me!!

There is probably nothing in Scripture that fascinates people more than the end times.  When is Jesus coming back?  What will happen when He does?  Answers to these two questions would require a heck of a lot more than a single blog, so we won’t be answering them today.  Sorry! (Maybe that will be our next book!)  For today’s purpose, we need to understand that the end times began the moment Jesus ascended into heaven.  So, when you hear people say we are in the end times, they are correct.  We have been living in the end times for over 2,000 years.  And while that may seem like a long time, in light of eternity, it is a blink of an eye.

So now that we have established we are in the end times, we can say that these verses Paul wrote to Timothy apply to us!  On the surface, verses 1 – 5 appear pretty self-explanatory.  We may immediately think Paul is talking about the Neros, Hitlers, and Bin Ladens of the world.  Or maybe, we think Paul is showing the condition of the world of unbelievers outside of the church.  But then we get to verse 5  . . .   “a form of godliness?!”  Could it be Paul is talking about people inside the church?!  YES!  HE IS!  As Paul, Peter, and Jesus tell us several times, the biggest threat to Christians does not come from the outside, but from within.  Those in our church who claim to be believers, but aren’t.  Hence, why they do not have the power of God. (verse 5).  We won’t expand more on these first five verses today, except to say these are people within the church who are professing Christians, but their religion is empty.  They offer only lip service to Jesus, there is no heart change nor transformation going on in them.

In verse 6, Paul transitions from describing what these people are like to what they do.  They will gain control over gullible women.  We, as women, can be offended by Paul’s words, but history is not on our side.  Who did Satan tempt in the garden?  He gained control of Eve, and through her, he also was able to get to Adam.  When confronting Judah about their sin, God makes it a point, through Jeremiah, to say that it was the Jewish women’s idol worship that influenced their husbands and led them astray.  The same principle is at work here.  Some false teachers will first get to the women, and through them, corrupt the men.  Why is that?  It absolutely should not be seen that we, as women, are not as intelligent as men.  There are many examples in Scripture where men are deceived directly.  While we are not given an exact answer as to why God warns of women leading their husbands astray, I would like to offer my opinion.  Even when our marriages operate under the Biblical principle of the husband being the head of the household, wives have a tremendous amount of influence over their husbands.  Being married over 31 years, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard my husband give his opinion on a matter that was a repeat of what I had said to him.  I am sure that the reverse is true, also.  This is not a bad thing when both husband and wife are walking with the Lord.

We should clarify that the phrase “within the church” does not necessarily mean in your church building (although it may be!)  The phrase “within the church” means within the body of professing Christians throughout the world.  And if you are wondering if there really are false teachers trying to gain control of gullible women today, I challenge you to go to Amazon or even a Christian Book store and search for Women’s Bible Studies.  You will probably get hundreds of results.  Sadly, a good portion of these are not just garbage, they are heresy (false teaching).  Even sadder, many of these studies are being taught in our churches and at national conferences.  I will not name names, but there are many female and male authors / speakers posing as Christians when in fact, what they are pedaling is completely contrary to Scripture.  They are banking on women being taken in by studies that are all self-centered.  Instead of teaching the truths and doctrine of God, they are centered on our feelings, our experiences, our fears, our victories.  “I am woman, hear me roar,” may be a line from the 60’s women’s movement, but it is being regurgitated today under the guise of Bible Study.  You may ask what’s wrong with being centered on celebrating us as women?  Glad you asked!  There are several problems, in fact:

1. This genre is not a Bible Study. It is a thinly veiled “self-help” study.  This completely contradicts Scripture that says, apart from God, we can do nothing to help ourselves. (John 15:5)
2. When the focus is on you and not on God, it deflates the holiness, majesty and worth of God and inflates your holiness, majesty and worth. The Bible warns us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. (Romans 12:3)
3. Rarely (in fact I have yet to see even one) are these studies based on the inerrancy and authority of Scripture. They play “loosy goosy” with verses in the Bible; pulling them out of context, discounting historical application, and / or not interpreting the entire passage.  God gives us warnings against this in Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18
4. The objective with these kinds of studies / teaching is to sell books, book speaking engagements, etc., not communicate truth. They do this by presenting a “new angle” on Scripture. This approach has been around for centuries, believe it or not.  Throughout history, people have popped up claiming to have a new revelation about Scripture.  All have and can be refuted by examining the Bible as a whole.  One of the first rules studying and interpreting Scripture is that your interpretation must be backed up by other verses of Scripture.  The Bible does not contradict itself.  Therefore, if someone is interpreting a verse that is contrary to a another verse in the Bible, it cannot be true.  2 Timothy 2:16-17
5. These teachers present a Jesus that is of their / our own making. It is the “docile, shampoo model” Jesus who is holding and petting His lamb giving His nodding approval to all we do.  Not only is this NOT the Jesus of Scripture, it is also not the Jesus who can sanctify us.  A Jesus of our own making has no power to transform us.  (Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:22-24)
6. Finally, we go back to our text for today. When we are spending our time, energy and resources on these “feel good” studies / conferences, we are neglecting studying the Word of the Almighty God.  We may know how to declare ourselves victorious over a fear in the name of Jesus, but we will have no idea about what we actually believe or why we believe it.  We will have no knowledge of theology, doctrine or truth.  This makes us gullible to false teachings.  The people whose job it is to spot counterfeit money, don’t study counterfeit money.  They study real money so closely that when they see a fake bill, they recognize it immediately.  The more we study the truth contained in Scripture, the quicker we will spot false teaching and heresy.  Ladies (and men), stop buying the into the lie that it is all about you!  Study, learn, and extol the truths of God, not of man! Instead of being the “gullible woman” of 2 Timothy 3:6, you will be the woman of Proverbs 31:25 – 30 – ²⁶ She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.  ²⁷ She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.  ²⁸ Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:
   ²⁹ “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.”  ³⁰ Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.