In 2018, Liang-Shun Lim, known professionally as Shim Lim, was the first magician to win America’s Got Talent. Magicians are known for skillfully performing tricks of illusion and sleight of hand.
In our passage for this Sunday, Paul mentions the names of two magicians (Jannes and Jambres), who, by performing magic, tricked Pharaoh twice in the presence of Moses and Aaron (Exodus 7:11).
In the Sunday passage, Paul compares the magicians of the OT with the false teachers in Ephesus. What is the similarity between the two groups? Both made their living by skillfully misleading people with tricks and lies. Therefore, Timothy must turn away from them.
While outwardly, the false teachers displayed godliness and a measure of altruism, on the inside, they denied the power of truth by living lives that were marked by all kinds of vices (verses 2-5). The issue is not that they did not love but that their love was directed toward themselves and pleasure rather than God and others.
Hearts of Darkness is an accurate description of the false teachers in Ephesus and those who 1 followed them down through the centuries. The sad truth is that false teachers will continue to appear and draw many after them until the coming of Christ.
The good news is that their trickery will be exposed, just like Jannes and Jambres were exposed. As Jannes and Jambres recognized before Pharaoh that the signs done by Moses were by divine power, so will all those who set themselves on the path of trickery and false teaching. Their folly will be exposed to all, and in the end, they will have to bend their knees before the power of God.
Since the coming of Christ in the flesh, we have been living in the last days, times of great difficulty. Ours is the age of selfies and social media, the internet and globalization. Without a doubt, the trivialization of sin and the attempt to normalize the self as the center of our existence is dangerous. We must avoid it at all costs because, as a society, nothing could make us more shortsighted them the love of self.
Magicians are professional entertainers, and so are false teachers; entertainers who seek to please the crowd with trickery but will not get very far.
May the Lord help us love truth and Him above self and others more than money and pleasure for His glory and our good.