Contemplative Bible Reading

2 Timothy 3:1-5 (New Living Translation)

1 You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. 3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. 5 They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!

What a list. It describes what people will do in the last days that will be very difficult times.

And who can argue with the acts in the list? My goodness.

Wait. In one of the early sentences is “disobedient to their parents.” Perhaps a mistake in translation or something. How does that rank down there with lovers of self, unloving, unforgiving, slander, cruel, hate, betrayal and all the other really bad things?

I mean, okay so we didn’t always obey our parents and we snuck around and fooled them (at least we thought we fooled them, ha!).

God wants us to respect those who have come before us. Not just love them—we are to love all, but respect and obey them. I often hear talk of, “When I was a kid, I was taught the wrong things at church and those older folks at church said one thing and did another and those older folks this and that and something else I didn’t like.”

Sorry. Wrong. Stop it. God puts that on this list. Go back in time and live the lives of those older folks and then judge them. Oh wait, I don’t have a time machine and a person transporting system or whatever it would take for me to go back and live their lives. And judging others is not my job. Hmmm.

Perhaps I should simply love, respect, and obey my predecessors in the faith. Please God, help me in my unbelief.