On the Fulfillment of II Timothy 3:1-7 In the Counterculture and the II Timothy Church

Posted : 27 Mar, 2013 02:29 PM

On the Fulfillment of II Timothy 3:1-7 In the Counterculture and the

II Timothy Church



The text reads as follows:

"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters,

proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers,

incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from

such turn away.

6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive

silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,

7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."





Social scientists and others have tried to describe the selfishness

of the followers of the counterculture that emerged in the sixties. It is

interesting that the 17 personality traits listed in II Timothy 3:1-7

line up fairly well with many of their descriptions. The 17 traits are

listed below:





l. "Lovers of their own selves." In Verse 2 the Greek word translated

as lovers of their own selves is philautoi.

Social scientists Hendin,

Lasch and Yankelovich said that people in the New Culture show a great

deal of self-peoccupation. They also place much importance on

attaining self-esteem.

Herbert Hendin. The Age of Sensation, 1975.

Christopher Lasch. The Culture of Narcissism: American Life In An Age

of Diminishing Expectations, 1978.

Daniel Yankelovich. New Rules: Searching for Self-Fulfillment In A

World Turned Upside Down, 1981.

2. "Covetous." The three social scientists did not list this trait

for those in the New Culture, but many in that culture are covetous

and money loving.

3. "boasters, proud." In verse 2 alazones, or boasters, and

huperephanoi, or proud, both appear. Then in verse 4 we find

tetuphomenoi appears, meaning puffed up. These words suggest an

emphasis on mere appearance, on appearing to be better than others and

the desire to win out over others. "Lasch, the historian, described

people in the New Culture as worshipping image, and of being obsessed

with "mere packaging of people. Lash also identified the second trait

of pride. This can be stated as the goal of wanting to win over others

in games of social power disguised as love, friendship or business."

4. "Blasphemers." This can mean speaking evil of others or of

God."None of the descriptions of people in the New Culture by the

three social scientists are explicit in noting this trait. But the

tendency to verbally abuse others is common in the New Culture."

5. "Disobedient To Parents." Being disobedient to parents was

certainly a trait of the rebellious young people of the Me Generation

of the sixties.

6. "Unthankful." Or ungrateful. Again, although the three social

scientists seem to miss this trait in the Me Generation, it is

present. They were too obsessed with self to be thankful to parents

and others.

7. "Unholy." Being unholy toward the God of the Bible is an essential

trait in the counterculture people, though those who became caught up

in the New Age Occult Movement which more fully on the scene in the

early and mid seventies might be seen as having a "holy" attitude

toward their occult channeling or mystical experiencing or toward Far

Eastern religions.

8. "Without natural affection." Psychiatrist Herbert Hendin found that

many of the college students he studied of the early seventies showed

a lack of affection to close relatives, lovers and friends.

9. "Trucebreakers." Perhaps "irreconcilable." This trait could

describe people who are not willing to forgive others and to put a

stop of interpersonal strife. A trait in the New Culture people

identified by Lasch and Hendin comes close to this trait - they found

that New Culture people have a war-like approach to life.

10. "False Accusers." "Slanderers." The Greek word here in verse 3 is

"diaboloi," or diabolos , from Strong's 1225, to traduce, accuse, Satan, false

accuser, devil, slanderer. Webster's

New Collegiate Dictionary says "slander" means "a false report,

tending to injure the reputation of another." More generally, many New

Culture people are liars because they have lost Christian and common

morality. Many of these people may also make false accusations about

others.

11. "Incontinent." This characteristic, the lack of self-discipline,

corresponds exactly to a trait of New Culture followers found by

Lasch. The Me People lack the self-control of the many in the older

generations.

12. Fierce." Uncivilized, barbarian or beastly might be which is

being described here. This trait also describes many in the Me

Generation, and the

counterculture.

13. "Despisers of Those That Are Good." Lawlessness and rebellion

against people who follow an older decency might be what is involved

in "aphagathoi," not lovers of good." Many New Culture people despise

Christian morality and try to see how much lawlessness they can get by

with.

14. "Traitors." Or "those who betray others." Me People can become

nasty toward others when they don't get their way, their self-esteem,

they think is threatened, and others are not fulfilling their "needs."

15. "Headlong." Rash behavior can be acting in a too-hasty, reckless

way toward others without consideration of how that action will affect

others. Lack of self control, found by Lasch in the counterculture people

hits this general trait. In addition, the emphasis on

self-assertiveness in the self psychology and women's liberation

movements contributed to rash behavior.

16. "Lovers of Pleasure Rather Than Lovers of God." Hendin found that

his college student subjects of the early seventies sought after

momentary physical sensations of pleasure in sex, touch, taste, taking

drugs, more than in long term fulfillments.

17. "Having A Form of Godliness, But Denying the Power Thereof." This

trait describes many Christians under the spell of a new culture that began to

rise after the early fifties in America - and it is a characteristic of the II Timothy Church.



The Personality Traits, Assumptions and Goals of the new culture:



Very few involved in any of the core movements of the counterculture -

the drug and hippie movements - or of its allied movements like the

New Left, feminism, the New Age Occult movement, self psychology, the

sex lib movement on campus, and the homosexual and lesbian movements

ever realized that all this was not an accident of history. It was

part of what Antonio Gramsci, the "non-violent" Marxist from Italy

called "the long march through the institutions. "



The Long March

sought to diminish and eventually destroy the influence of Biblical

Christianity and the Father-Led Family on American and Western

society. The March of Transformational Marxism also invaded the

Christian seminaries and the denomination hierarchical structures of

the churches. In his 1950 book, The Authoritarian Personality,

Theodore W. Adorno said that Christianity and the strong family cause

the authoritarian personality and fascism, and therefore must be

destroyed.





There were academic intellectual movements outside of the

counterculture which helped prepare educated people for the change,

the shift in mental paradigms - which had its largest impact on the

Baby Boomer generation, though there were a few people born in the

thirties in the counterculture. The group dynamics movement in social

psychology was one thing that helped prepare for the group think

of the counterculture. Look at the imortance of the group event called

Woodstock, as an exercise in group dynamics to begin to change an entire society.





And the Hegelian-Marxist dialectic of attitude and belief change,

first developed in small face to face groups by the shrinks,

especially in California, changed the mental paradigm of an entire

generation - from the men being position oriented to being more like

women, who tend to be relationship oriented. If a facilitator in a

small group session can get the majority of the people in a small

group to dialog about their opinions and feelings (which Carl Rogers

taught were more important that knowing), then especially for young

people influenced a little by the counterculture, the facilitator can

move the group away from belief in absolute truths and absolute

morality, which are positions, to a relationship centered mentality in

which positions are sacrificed to maintain relationships (a feminine

thing).





That change in paradigm thinking happened rapidly in the sixties,

leading up to the 1973 Supreme Court decision making abortion legal.

What could be more evil than a doctor deliberately killing an innocent

unborn baby. The loss of absolute morality came very quickly. The old

men of the Supreme Court were not Baby Boomers in 1973, but they had

no absolute morals - however, they could not have gotten by with such

a decision on abortion ten years earlier.





In Transformational Marxism and the counterculture there are at least

four major strands of rebellion against the older culture of absolute

truth and morality, based on the patriarchal authority of God. These

are:





l. An Increase in Selfishness and Self-Preoccupation.





2. The Revolt Against Christianity, Especially Opposing Christian Morality





3. The Reduction of the Human To Desire, Feeling and Conditioning,

that is the "killing" of any development of man's third part, which is

his spirit, developed in him by the Holy Spirit..





4. The Denial of what George Orwell Called Objective Reality. The New

Culture of Transformational Marxism not only allows

for the telling of lies in certain circumstances. As a culture, it

also teaches that there may be no agreed upon reality outside your

individual mind against which your statements can be checked to see if

you are telling lies or not. In the drug movement the idea that one

creates his own reality was taught by Tim Leary, Ken Kesey, Richard

Alpert and other leaders.





So, as Benjamin Bloom, who wrote the two volume book on the Taxonomy

of Educational Goal Objectives, by which all teachers must be

certified, said "�We recognize the point of view that

truth and knowledge are only relative and that there are no hard and

fast truths which exist for all time and places.� (Benjamin Bloom, et

al., Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Book 1, Cognitive Domain)



Dean Gotcher found a footnote in Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational

Objectives Book 2, Affective Domain, on the "Weltanschaaung" or world

view Bloom was following. On

page 166 of this volume Bloom acknowledges the influence of Theodore W. Adorno

and Eric Fromm on the psychological theory, philosophy or ideology

contained in his two volumes, Educational Goal taxonomies. Book II

Affective Domain p. 166.

�1. Cf. Erich Fromm, 1941; T. W. Adorno et al., 1950� Benjamin Bloom,

Book II Affective Domain p. 166. This is Bloom's footnote

acknowledging the influence on his thinking from Erich Fromm and

Theodore W. Adorno. Adorno was an original Frankfurter Marxist who

posed as a personality and social psychologist in writing his 1950

book, The Authoritarian Personality, in which he claimed that the

authoritarian personality and fascism are caused by the family and

Christianity. Erich Fromm was a Transformational Marxist psychologist

and close associate of the Frankfurters.





"In the eyes of the dialectical philosophy, nothing is established for

all time, nothing is absolute or sacred." (Karl Marx)





Starting in about 1962 with the drug movement and going on through

the sixties and the arrival of the New Age Occult movement in the

early seventies, this New Culture taught many people to focus upon dreams,

fantasy, the occult and

especially on experiencing during LSD trips. All this emphasis moved

reality toward the subjective.





The drug movement taught a few thousand and later millions that you

can create your own reality in your mind. Truth is found in subjective

mystical experience, not in interpreting Scripture.

The create your own subjective reality idea was also taught in

psychology. Psychologist Randie L. Timpe says "Our constructions of

human nature and God are based on a philosophy of constructive

alternativism (Kelly, 1955) where the individual is free to formulate

new and alternative explanations."





Self psychologists Carl Rogers and A.H. Maslow said that the

expression of feelings and fulfillment of desires and "needs" come

first. They ignored intelligence and cognitive abilities, contributing

to the bent in the counterculture to reduce the person to his or her

feelings, desires and conditioning. Emphasis upon feelings rather than

cognitive clarity also made it much easier to see the idea that we

create our own reality, that we are free to construct our own

subjective view of external reality.



In the dialectic process, used to change beliefs and attitudes in

small groups, the thesis is often that which is fixed, or absolute

truth or absolute morality. The anti-thesis is the feelings of

people for their relationships - especially their relationship with

the present group. In the dialectic process moving to consensus and

synthesis, the outcome is a compromise of the absolute truth or

absolute moral. This process is helped along by making feelings,

desires and needs the most important thing for the person, as Rogers

and Maslow did for this new culture from Transformational Marxism.



The II Timothy Church - Having Only the Form of Godliness, and Ever

Learning But Never Arriving At the Truth



Paul in II Timothy 5, 7 says "This know also, that in the last

days perilous times shall come.........Having a form of godliness, but

denying the power thereof: from such turn away.........Ever learning,

and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."





In the midst of describing the personality traits of people in the

last days when perilous times will come Paul is suddenly talking about

the traits of people in the last days church. They will have a form,

or pretense of godliness, but they deny the spiritual power of God and

of having Christ and the Holy Spirit in them, and they are always

learning but never able to arrive at the truth from scripture.





There is also II Timothy 3: 8, which says "Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith."





Now, if Paul's prophecy in II Timothy 3:1-8 is only about the personality traits of people in the world during the last days of perilous times, why is he all of a sudden talking about these people being like Jannes and Jambres, who are of corrupt minds and reprobate concerning the faith? Remember that Paul also says these people in the last days have a form of godliness but the deny the power thereof, and are ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.





Paul was given this revelation by the risen Christ or by the Holy Spirit, a revelation which included these three verses, II Timothy 3: 5, 3: 7 and 3: 8, which are about Christians, or those who claim to be Christians in the last days. Many, or most, of the personality traits in verses 2 through 4 do agree with those traits of the Me Generation and the counterculture of the sixties and seventies seen by at least three observers, who are social scientists. But - this does not necessarily mean that Paul's prophecy is just about personality traits of people in the worldly culture. Since that worldly culture has invaded the Christian communities since the fifties or sixties and is part of the falling away of II Thessalonians 2: 3, then Paul's prophecy can be seen to be about the personality traits of people both in the worldly culture and in the churches.





I John 2:15-16 says "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."





A major reason why those in the churches in the last days have many of the personality traits described here by Paul is because the churches have incorporated much from the worldly culture surrounding them - and many in the churches are not born again or changed very much. This does not mean, however, that the Christian church after the seventies grew up out of the counterculture, as did the Jesus Freaks, or that the counterculture somehow gave birth to the end time church. Rather, some influences in the worldly culture inspired both the counterculture and the origin of the II Timothy church.





Does not end time Bible prophecy show that there will come a time when

those who claim to be Christians will follow false doctrines?





II Thessalonians 2: 3 says "Let no man deceive you by any means: for

that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and

that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;"





Luke 13: 21 on the leavening of the church says "It is like leaven,

which a woman took and hid

in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." The word till

indicates the leavening occurs over time.





Paul in I Corinthians 5:6-7 warns that "Know ye not that a little

leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

7. Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as

ye are unleavened."





He is warning that a little bit of false doctrine will grow and

contaminate the entire loaf, that is, a little bit of false doctrine

will increase over time and make an entire ministry impure in its

teachings.





"And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many." Matthew 24: 11



"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some

shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and

doctrines of devils;" I Timothy 4: 1





"But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and

being deceived." II Timothy 3: 13.





"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but

after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having

itching ears;" II Timothy 4: 3





Not only will the II Timothy church after the falling away of II

Thessalonians 2: 3-4 and the leavening of Luke 13: 21, till the whole

is leavened, claim that there are "non-essentials" of Biblical

doctrine that they do not have to follow, but they make up some of

their own doctrines, leaning to man's own understanding. When the New

Testament uses the word doctrine, it often means all the doctrines

given by Christ and through his Apostles. And Paul was given

revelation by the risen Christ (Acts 26:15-18) , which Paul wrote as

several doctrines in his letters.





And the II Timothy church will be like the church at Laodicea in

Revelation 3:15-16, "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor

hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

16. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I

will spue thee out of my mouth."





Most likely the II Timothy church teaches a false doctrine of easy

salvation, which lures its members into believing they are saved when

they have not been transformed (John 3:1-7) nor do they have the Holy

Spirit. There is a lot of reliance on the Alter Call begun by Charles

Finney in the early 19th century, in which people under the influence

of the group dynamic of preacher and congregation have an emotional

experience of coming to confess Christ, but is not a transformational

experience, as it often turns out

Post Reply