I was a baby believer in Christ when the power of these words first impressed themselves on my spirit. It must have been around 1976. There was a rumor going around, against the fraternity I was a part of, and some of the brothers were laughing about it. These were serious allegations and I thought their laughter was inappropriate. If they were true, they were horrific and damning. The day before, I had been reading the book of 2 Timothy, and felt that the third chapter spoke to the situation. At a chapter meeting, I stood up and said something like, “Brothers, the accusations are serious, I don’t know what happened, but laughing at these things is not appropriate.” And then I read these words from the apostle Paul.
2 Timothy 3:1-9 (ESV)
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. 6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, 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, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.
The translation I read then was the New American Standard Version. The first two words in verse 3 in that translation “unloving, irreconcilable,” are rendered in the ESV with the words “heartless, unappeasable (see above). The Greek words are ἄστοργος (astorgos) and ἄσπονδος (aspondos). The word rendered “unappeasable” in the ESV strictly means “unwilling to make a treaty.” It strikes me that “unappeasable” is a a very good translation and a perfect description of most people on the left and too many people on the right of the political divide.
What it should never be is a description of a follower of Jesus Christ.
We are to be peace-makers. Let’s remember that and demonstrate to the world that Jesus makes a real difference in our lives.
I remember the night I read these words to my fraternity brothers. It was a “mic-drop” moment. There was nervous silence before another brother spoke about 5-10 seconds later. Being a peace-maker and standing up for truth are not mutually exclusive. Let’s do both.
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