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When you look around, it surely looks as though narcissism* is on the rise. People seem to be increasingly selfish, self-centered, and arrogant, while common civility is on the decline. We can debate whether we are “in the last days”, but the description in 2 Timothy 3 appears very close to what is currently taking place…..
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2 Timothy 3
3 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these….
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……. 7 (they are) always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. (see Prov 14:6)
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8b so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. 9 But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all……..
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13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived……..
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If it sometimes seems as though things are getting worse, the Bible tells us that in the last days things actually will get worse – including from those pretending to be “religious”. But the writer Paul goes on to give some proscriptive advice to the young man he was mentoring (and through this to us) …..
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10 Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, 11 persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! 12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is]inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for [i]training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
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- Narcissism is the modern colloquial term for what the Bible calls “insolent pride” (see here)