I’m convinced that Paul foresaw the West in some sense. I believe he and other apostles could discern the dark plans of Satan and his allies to create a culture that would pervert the gospel and mask his evil work. The most dangerous lie is the one that stands very close to the truth and makes them difficult to distinguish yet changes one critical important part.
He refers to “last days” not so much as a portion of time but is pointing to a condition. After the final revelation in Christ, we enter a situation in which the forces of Darkness realize what they are up against, having finally understood the Lord’s plan. Their actions will be aimed at keeping everyone out of the Covenant. Thus, they will work overtime tempting people in ways they never did before.
Paul describes what kind of society our Enemy wants to create. It turns out that such people had already begun to show up around churches. They were of a type, predators who took advantage of primary charitable nature of Christian communities. A mainstay of faith community from before the time of Jesus were women of means, such as the one who funded the ministry of Jesus and the first century churches. This is what the predators considered the easiest prey, using appeals to vanity and offering them privileged insider knowledge in return for a share of that funding that supported churches.
These women existed because in that world, the average woman was a decade or two younger than her husband. It was entirely natural that there should be widows everywhere, and a significant number were left wealthy and alone. They would often go looking for some charitable cause to support, and no one was surprised that they would support churches, even when they never really understood the gospel message. That they were willing to follow an apostle’s teaching also made them vulnerable to false teaching, particularly the kind of garbage the Judaizers and Gnostics cooked up.
These men were in the same class as two mythical Egyptian magicians alleged to have opposed Moses during his visit to Pharaoh’s courts. Second Temple literature refers to them and it was common knowledge among Jews and many in the early churches. The tales indicate they were fully aware of the prophecies about Israel and were determined to prevent God’s promises by plotting to attack the human frailties of Moses and Aaron, having consulted with demons. Paul is suggesting that the Judaizers, at least, were plotting to keep the Christians enslaved to the Talmud just as the Egyptians sought to keep Israel enslaved to Pharaoh. Their motives and methods are just as transparent.
By contrast, Timothy was there to witness Paul’s endurance in faith against all the attacks. Recall that Timothy was from Lystra, where Paul was stoned and presumed dead. Persecution is the native element of those who follow Christ, since it was His final victory.
Furthermore, Timothy knew the truth of the Hebrew Scriptures as Jesus taught them. The basic principle by which one judges what constitutes Scripture was the ultimate source. God raised up men who would be able to hear His Word of truth and communicate that to those seeking to receive it. Such revelation was the standard for everyone seeking peace with God and would be the test of who should be granted a hearing in the churches.
