New Testament in a Year

Footnotes

1. 2 Timothy 3:1 For the last times, Jesus had already announced somber perspectives: false messiahs would be preached to mislead people into doctrines of perversion (see Mt 24:4-5, 24). For his part, Paul, too, has evoked this revival of evil for the end of history (see 2 Thes 2:3-12; see also 1 Jn 2:18-24; 4:3; 2 Jn 7). Undoubtedly, magicians practiced their wiles at Ephesus; in fact, according to Jewish legend, Jannes and Jambres were leading sorcerers who opposed Moses before Pharaoh (see Ex 7:8ff). Like Paul, everyone who announces the Gospel must accept persecution (see Mt 5:10-11; 10:22; Jn 15:19-20; Acts 13:1—14:28). It is a call for strength and firmness.
   The important thing for the envoy of God and the Church is to remain faithful to the word of God as reported in Scripture. He is assured of finding therein nourishment for his faith and help for his ministry. This text is often referred to as bearing witness to the inspiration of Scripture.
2. 2 Timothy 3:5 Godliness: i.e., true religion (see 1 Tim 4:7).
3. 2 Timothy 3:11 Lystra was Timothy’s native place; for the persecutions, see Acts 13:50; 14:5-19.
4. 2 Timothy 3:14 From whom you have learned it: Timothy had been instructed by his Jewish grandmother and mother (see 1 Tim 1:5).
5. 2 Timothy 3:16 The verse gives clear witness to the inspiration of Scripture. The Jews of that day believed in the inspiration of the three parts of the Old Testament. However, they ascribed the highest type of inspiration to the Pentateuch or Five Books attributed to Moses (also known as the “Torah” or Law), a lower type to the Prophets, and an even lower one to the Writings.
   The sacred writers of the New Testament cited the Old Testament about 350 times in such a way as to show that Christians shared the belief of the Jews in the divine origin of the sacred books. In addition, the New Testament speaks of inspiration in the Old Testament Scriptures explicitly here and in 2 Pet 1:19-21, and of the New Testament writings implicitly in 2 Pet 3:14-16.
   In the Constitution on Divine Revelation, Vatican II says: “Holy Mother Church, relying on the belief of the apostles, holds that the Books of both the Old and the New Testament in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their Author” (no. 11).
   However, this does not mean that God used the sacred author as a secretary to whom he dictated. Nor did he simply reveal to the human author the contents of the Book and the way in which this should be expressed. Rather, the human author is a living instrument endowed with reason who under the divine impulse brings his faculties and powers into play in such a way that all can easily gather from the Book produced by his work his distinctive genius and his individual characteristics and features. In other words, the sacred author, like every author, makes use of all his faculties—intellect, imagination, and will—to consign to writing whatever God wanted written, and no more.
   By virtue of the divine condescension, things are presented to us in the Bible in a manner that is in common use among human beings. For as the substantial Word of God made himself like human beings in all things except sin (see Heb 4:15), so God’s words, spoken by human tongues, have taken on all the qualities of human language except error.