<p>3:2 <i>For men shall be lovers of self</i>- These &quot;men&quot; were within the church, for :5 speaks of them having the form of Godliness. The list of sins here recalls that in Rom. 1:29, which appears to be about the spirit of the unbelieving world. The point being that the spirit of the age shall affect the church. We note that these bad characteristics all arose from the false teachings which Timothy had been called upon to stamp out in Ephesus (1 Tim. 1:3,4). False teaching without doubt brings forth bad fruit, and thus a teacher or teaching is to be known by its fruit. Perhaps Paul is telling Timothy that such things will be found within the church because Timothy was somehow shocked and disappointed that they were present. We note that he was not called to isolate the guilty individuals and cast them out by some formal process of disfellowship; but rather to always seek to turn things around. </p><p><i>Lovers of money, boastful, proud, argumentative, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy</i>- &ldquo;Argumentative&rdquo; is really &ldquo;blasphemers&rdquo;. Paul himself had been one of them (see on 1 Tim. 1:13) but had turned around; likewise the predictions here are not to be read as an inevitable tide. Timothy was called to fight against them; just as Nineveh was to be destroyed after 40 days, and yet that prophetic word was annulled by their repentance.</p><p>It's possible to understand 3:1-3 as specifically talking about our last days: &ldquo;In the last days,&nbsp;fierce (Gk.) times shall come. For men (in an ecclesial context) shall be lovers of their own selves... proud... without natural affection... despisers of those that are good, traitors (cp. Mt. 24:10)... highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God (implying they <i>do</i> love God); having a form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof&quot;. The spirit of fierce aggressiveness which is increasingly seen in the world will enter the ecclesias; brethren will become proud, argumentative, materialistic, despising the truly righteous, disregarding the needs of the household. And there are other NT passages which suggest that this was indeed the ecclesial situation in the prelude to AD70. The increasing bitterness and subdivision amongst us indicates this will all be seen in the latter day body. Ultimately, human relationships within the ecclesia will go crazy; brethren will hate and betray each other. There will be little real spiritual mindedness; the power of Godliness, the spirit / mind of Christ, will be denied, and only the outward form of Godliness remain (cp. Eph. 3:20; 6:10; Col. 1:11). The abounding wickedness of the world will so permeate the ecclesia that true agape-love will grow cold amongst us (Mt. 24:12). The antidote to this is offered in 2 Tim. 3:14 - 4:3: Love the word, hold on to the doctrine you were taught by faithful brethren, study the word, make it your life, challenge the apostate majority of the ecclesia with no fear of the result, preach to the world, look to the blessed day of Christ's coming.</p><p>The Old Testament as well as New is written in such a way as to encourage memorization, although this is often masked by the translation. There are several devices commonly used to assist in this. Not least is alliteration, i.e. similarly sounding syllables. In 2 Tim. 3:2,3 nearly all words end in (-<i>oi</i>), the masculine plural case termination- when it would surely have been possible to construct the sentence in another way.</p>