Paul's Reflection on a Confrontation betwixt Hebrew Deliverers and Egyptian Deceivers
There is no denying the tremendous power power superstition wields over people. Those who surrender to it become its slaves, and they live in a depth of fear that is hard to comprehend by those free of it.
The Dutch philosopher
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) observed, "Superstition is engendered,
preserved, and fostered by fear."
Voltaire (1694-1778)
stated, "The superstitious man is to the rascal what the slave is to the
tyrant."
There are always those
of evil nature who are more than willing to enslave and tyrannize others
through mysticism and superstitious religious ritualism. These are powerful
deceptions, and are often, strangely enough, equally loved and feared. Little
wonder, therefore, that Mark Twain (1835-1910) should declare, "Let me
make the superstitions of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."
Clearly, the former hold far more sway over men than the latter, and most men never
truly become free of these fears that enslave them.
So, what exactly is
superstition?
Notice a couple of
definitions:
"A belief or
practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or
chance, or a false conception of causation; an irrational abject attitude of
mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God; a notion maintained despite
evidence to the contrary" [Merriam-Webster Dictionary].
"Any belief that is
inconsistent with known facts or rational thought, especially such a belief in
omens, the supernatural, etc.; any action or practice based on such a
belief" [Webster's New World Dictionary and Thesaurus]. Its primary
synonym is "fear."
Within any religion, whether
primitive or modern, Christian or non-Christian, one will find a number of
powerful superstitions, as well as those whose lives are negatively impacted by
them. When a people live in fear of their religion and its leaders, one can be
sure that superstitions of one sort or another are involved, for it is often by
these that the few exercise power over the many.
As Paul prepared himself
for his imminent execution, he sought to prepare others for the difficult times
that were coming upon them. People were turning away from "sound/healthy
doctrine/teaching" and from "Truth," and were seeking out
teachers who would cater to their personal desires and fill their minds with
"myths" (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Such persons were "lovers of
self" and of personal gain and pleasure, rather than lovers of God, and
their "form of godliness" was devoid of any power from above (2
Timothy 3:1-5).
Such persons, who should
be avoided at all cost, would utilize any tool (including superstition) to
manipulate the people of God into serving them, rather than
serving God. "For of this sort are they which creep into
houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers
lusts" (vs. 6).
I like the way The
Message renders verses 6-8: "These are the kind of people who smooth-talk
themselves into the homes of unstable and needy women and take advantage of
them; women who, depressed by their sinfulness, take up with every new
religious fad that calls itself 'truth.' They get exploited every time and
never really learn. These men are like those old Egyptian frauds Jannes and
Jambres, who challenged Moses. They were rejects from the faith, twisted in
their thinking, defying truth itself."
There are many things in
these passages by the apostle Paul that are most certainly worthy of further
examination, and I have addressed a number of them in my following studies: "Self-Inflicted Blindness: Our
Lord Reflects upon Those Who Refuse to See and Hear" (Reflections #381) ... "Atrophied Power of Comprehension: Always
Learning, But Never Understanding" (Reflections #774) ... "'Beloved, Test the Spirits': Distinguishing
Deceivers from Disciples" (Reflections #137) ... "The Figureheads of Falsehood: Hymenaeus,
Philetus, and Alexander" (Reflections #599) ... "'Sound Doctrine' Sectarianism: Perverting
Paul's Pastoral Perspective with Unhealthy 'Uncertain Soundism'" (Reflections #700).
In this current issue of
my Reflections, however, I want to focus on a couple of individuals
whose names appear nowhere else in all of Scripture.
Paul mentions two men by James and Jambres, and he indicates that these men are the perfect types of the scoundrels of which he speaks in his letter to
Timothy. He further indicates that these two men "opposed Moses" (2
Timothy 3:8).
Although most English
translations use the word "opposed," others say these men
"withstood," "resisted," "fought against,"
"were hostile to," "rose up against," and
"challenged" Moses. This is the Greek verb "anthistemi,"
which simply means "to stand against." We find it again in Acts 13:8,
"But Elymas the magician was opposing them,
seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith." In 2 Timothy 4:14-15,
Paul says, "Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm, ... for he
vigorously opposed our teaching."
As noted in 2 Timothy
3:8, Paul tells Timothy that these two men (Jannes and Jambres)
stood up against Moses, seeking to defy and/or defeat him in some way. Paul
goes into no detail on this charge against these two men, thus leading us to
assume that Timothy knew who they were and knew what they had done.
Our problem is that these two names never
appear anywhere else in the Bible. Nowhere in Scripture do we find them
mentioned by name as being opponents of Moses. So, who were
they? What did they do? And just where did Paul get his
information? Clearly, he did not get it from the OT writings.
Thus, it must have come from a source outside of, or other than,
the known Scriptures of that time, which raises the question in the minds of
some scholars: How reliable is the information obtained from extra-biblical sources,
and why would Paul, or any other "inspired"
writer, utilized such an "uninspired" source?! Such usage by
Paul and other biblical writers has proved problematic to some over the
centuries, although I personally don't believe it should.
I dealt with this matter
in a couple of articles titled, "Quoting Non-Canonical Texts: Is it a Sin to use
Extra-Biblical Texts in our Preaching and Teaching?" (Reflections #575) and "From Biblicism to Bibliolatry: Have We Made
the Bible an Idol?" (Reflections #829).
As for Paul's knowledge
personally, most feel it came through his studies at the feet of Gamaliel. Paul
was an exceptional student, and many feel he was likely being groomed to become
one of the leading rabbis of his day (perhaps even, one day, Gamaliel's
successor). "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in
this city (i.e., Jerusalem), educated under Gamaliel, strictly
according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God" (Acts
22:3). "I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries
among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral
traditions" (Galatians 1:14). As part of that Jewish tradition, he
would have learned that it was believed that Jannes and Jambres were two of the
magicians, wise men, and sorcerers of Pharaoh who were summoned to oppose Moses
and Aaron when they came to request the release of the Israelites from their
Egyptian bondage (Exodus 7:11; cf. Genesis 41:8, 24).
Although none of these men summoned by Pharaoh are named in
Scripture, yet Jewish tradition declares the two leading men among them to be
Jannes and Jambres, a tradition with which Paul would have been very familiar
(and with which many of his fellow Jews would have been as well).
"Although the names James and Jambrew do not occur in the OT, Philo, or Josephus,
they are common in late Jewish rabbinical traditions" [The
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 2, p. 966]. These were men
skilled in the use of sorcery, drugs, charms, magic, and religious superstitions.
They were called on frequently by the Egyptian pharaoh to interpret dreams,
predict future events, deal with medical ailments, provide advice and guidance,
and to represent the Egyptian gods in conflict with opposing gods. It was
primarily in the latter case that they were summoned to go
"head-to-head" with Moses and Aaron, trying to match them
miracle-for-miracle (Exodus 7f) - Egypt's gods against Israel's God.
The Pythagorean
philosopher Numenius, as quoted by Eusebius, wrote, "Jannes and Jambres
were sacred scribes, deemed inferior to none in magic." "The Damascus" Document from the Qumran Sect describes the two as brothers raised up
by Belial, the evil one" [Holman Bible Dictionary, p. 746].
In some legends, they
are said to be the sons of Balaam; other traditions say they later converted
and left Egypt with the Israelites, only to die in the wilderness. Some say
they perished with the forces of Pharaoh when the waters of the Red Sea came
together over the Egyptian army. Other legends say it was these two who
insisted on making the golden calf while Moses was on the mountain. Needless to
say, such legends abound with regard to these men, some too ridiculous to even
mention.
"The licentious
play of fancy which meets us everywhere in the superstitions about magicians
throughout the two centuries before and the two centuries after the Messiah Jesus, is responsible for the variegated and
contradictory legends about Jannes and Jambres. ...All these legends are in
the style of the Midrash, pious but groundless, and serve only to illustrate
the mind of the period in which they rose and took form. ...We can only
conclude, therefore, that all that is certain about Jannes and Jambres is that
they were the names of two men who were believed in the Apostolic Age to have
been the leaders of the magicians who withstood Moses, and that they have been
made the center of pious legends and the cause of much critical ingenuity"
[Dr. James Hastings, Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, vol. 1, p.
633].
I agree. Some scholars,
however, refuse to dismiss these various and varied legends as
"untruths." Indeed, they insist that many of them constitute
absolute fact. "This tradition preserved a number of correct
facts that were not embodied in the Old Testament record. ...The
Holy Spirit governed the New Testament writers so that they took only
facts from this source and no fictions"
[R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy,
p. 828]. Dr. Paul E. Kretzmann agrees: "By inspiration of the Spirit, St.
Paul here changed tradition into history, thus supplementing
the Old Testament account" [Popular Commentary of the Bible: The
NT, vol. 2, p. 411]. I personally do not favor this view of
biblical inspiration and inerrancy, but I will leave it to the reader to make
his/her own determination on the matter.
In the end, whether
Jannes and Jambres were actual historical figures, or whether they were simply
the product of speculation and legend, is really not that important. It is what they represent in the context of Paul's teaching that is
spiritually significant.
Drs. Jamieson, Fausset,
and Brown quote the English theologian and Greek scholar Henry Alford
(1810-1871), who pointed out that Jannes and Jambres were "the prototypes
in ancient times" of all subsequent "opponents to the Truth" [Commentary
Practical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, p. 1379].
Whether real or
fictional, they represent those persons who employ deception,
superstition, false piety, and flattery to gain power over others so as to
further their own perverse agendas. Jannes and Jambres "opposed"
Moses and Aaron by seeking to imitate the miraculous acts of
the latter two men, who were representatives of the one true God. Through
trickery, or sleight of hand, or some form of magic, or even by tapping into
demonic powers, they hoped to defeat not only Moses and Aaron,
but the God of Israel. They were ambassadors of darkness rather than of the
Light.
The English pastor
Frederick Brotherton Meyer (1847-1929), a good friend of D.L. Moody, wrote,
"The devil has always set himself to counterfeit God's handiwork. ...Thus, the Egyptian conjurers repeated the miracles of Moses by resorting to
sleight of hand. So there is a pure gospel and a specious mimicry of it" [Through
the Bible Commentary, e-Sword]. "It is the ambition of false teachers
today to imitate and if possible outrival the preacher of the gospel" [The
Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary, e-Sword].
Paul speaks of
"false apostles and deceitful workers" (2 Corinthians 11:13) who seek
to capture and enslave others. J. B. Phillips, in his translation of the text,
has Paul declaring that these persons are "those who profess to
be God’s messengers on the same terms as I am," yet "they are
counterfeits of the real thing, dishonest practitioners."
Jannes and Jambres
sought to present themselves before Moses and Aaron as being on equal terms
with them: as genuine representatives of Deity, yet every aspect of their work,
as well as their motivation, was false; a deceitful imitation.
Paul warns of "the
coming of the lawless one," which will be "according to the working
of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with unrighteous
deception" (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10).
Yes, Paul warned Timothy
of those who were "slithering and creeping and worming their way into
households" of God's people, especially those who were gullible, and
captivating them by their many deceptions (2 Timothy 3:6). These men were not
different, Paul says, than Jannes and Jambres, who sought to keep the people of
Israel enslaved in Egypt, when God sought, through Moses and Aaron, to bring
them into a state of freedom! These were no different, says Paul, than the
"false brethren (those people masquerading as Christians) who had been
secretly smuggled in (to the community of believers); they had slipped in to
spy on our liberty and the freedom which we have in the Messiah Jesus, that they might again bring us into
bondage" unto law and religious regulation (Galatians 2:4, Amplified
Bible).
Paul's point is that the
teaching of such men enslaves; such teaching never sets men
free! "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which the Messiah has made us free, and do not be entangled again
with a yoke of bondage" (Galatians 5:1, NKJV). J.B. Phillips'
translation renders it this way: "Plant your feet firmly therefore within
the freedom that the Messiah has won for us, and do not let yourselves be
caught again in the shackles of slavery."
We must always guard
ourselves and others against those who seek, in the spirit of Jannes and
Jambres, to keep us under the yoke of bondage to religious regulation. Legalism
is an institutional curse with deadly consequences. We are free, and we
must never surrender it to "false brethren" and "deceitful
workers" who slither and creep in among us to bind us to their many rigid
sectarian dogmas.
Martin Luther
(1483-1546) wrote, "For, where God would build a church, there the devil
would also build a chapel, ...In such sort is the devil always God's
ape." Wherever freedom loving disciples of the Messiah gather, one can be sure that legalists are never far away!! Just as enemies sow tares
among wheat (Matthew 13:24f), so does our enemy sow imitation disciples among
genuine disciples.
One of the greatest
threats to true faith is fake faith, and the latter abounds
among us. Paul told Timothy (and by extension us as well),
"Even though they will make a show of being religious, their religion
won't be real. Don't have anything to do with such people" (2 Timothy
3:5, CEV).
These
"Jannes-and-Jambres" types love to argue and debate and engage true
believers in endless sectarian wranglings. Don't fall for it. I agree
completely with Dr. Gary W. Demarest, who wrote, "It appears that Paul is
willing to conclude that it's best to direct one's energies elsewhere than in
endless arguments with such folks. ... It's possible to take some people and
things much too seriously. To spend too much time and energy contending with
those I believe to be false teachers may give them more credibility than they
deserve. The folly of their teaching will sooner or later become clear. In the
meantime, I choose to pursue the truth that centers in Jesus Himself" [The
Communicator's Commentary - 1 & 2 Timothy, p. 278-279].
The apostle Paul says
that the "folly" of these "Jannes-and-Jambres" type
imposters will soon become evident to all (2 Timothy 3:9). The word that is
translated "folly" in several versions is actually a much stronger
word; a word that only appears twice in the NT - here and in Luke 6:11. It is
the Greek word "anoia," which actually refers to "madness;
mindless rashness; deprived of reason."
Drs. Jamieson, Fausset,
and Brown write that this word is "literally: dementation," from
which we get our word "dementia" [Commentary Practical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible,
p. 1379].
When Jesus healed a man
on the Sabbath, the Jewish legalists lost their minds!! "They were
filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might
do to Jesus" (Luke 6:11, KJV).
When you break the
rules, legalists literally become demented, which can quickly lead
to acts of violence against those they dementedly deem to be
"digressive." These demented fake disciples, these men "who
resist the truth, who are corrupt in mind, worthless in regard to the
faith" (2 Timothy 3:8, HCSB), are nothing but a grating noise in
the midst of a beautiful symphony, seeking to drown out the grandeur of the
latter. In his Table Talk, Martin Luther spoke of hearing a
nightingale singing sweetly near a pond full of frogs, who, by their constant
croaking, seemed as though they wanted to silence the melodious bird. Luther
wrote, "Thus, 'tis in the world; Jesus the Messiah is the nightingale, making the gospel to be heard; the heretics
and false prophets are the frogs, trying to prevent His being heard" [The
Biblical Illustrator Commentary, e-Sword].
May God preserve us from
the incessant croaking of the "Jannes-and-Jambres" bullfrogs that
have hopped in among us, for their demented croaking diminishes the beauty of
the Gospel message of our freedom in the Messiah Jesus!
Written
by Al Maxey and edited by Bruce Lyon
Look up the Reflections mentioned in the article at: https://www.zianet.com/maxey/reflx862.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment