2 Timothy 2:16

Stay away from people that teach useless stories that give God no respect, because if somebody talks like that, they just push people away from God.

Plain English Version

In The King James Version

But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

In Context

15Try your best to be the sort of teacher that God likes. He likes teachers that teach the true message, and that help people understand it properly. That’s how you have to work for God.

17Their message is like a bad sore on a man that will not heal, and in the end it kills him. Those 2 men, Hymenayus and Filetus, they are bad teachers like that.

Read all of 2 Timothy 2

Cross References

1 Corinthians 5:6So stop telling everyone that you are properly good. It’s not true. Let me tell you a picture story about baking powder. We put a little bit of baking powder into the flour when we make damper. And that little bit of baking powder goes into all the flour in the bowl and makes all the dough swell up.

2 Thessalonians 2:7You know, there is a secret power already working in the world. It is trying to get people to go against God and to break his laws. But somebody is fighting against that power and stopping it from doing that, and he will keep stopping it until God takes him away.

1 Timothy 6:20All right, Timothy, God gave you his good message, so you have to look after it properly. Make sure nobody changes it around. There are some people that talk a lot in a stupid way, and they say bad things about God. Don’t listen to them. They might reckon they know all about it, and they might say that you are wrong, but really, they are the ones that are wrong.

2 Timothy 3:13And those bad liars will get worse and worse. They will go on tricking people, and just like that, other people will trick them too.

Titus 1:14They have to stop believing in the old stories that people made up. And they have to stop listening to rules from the Jewish people and rules from people that have stopped going God’s way. Those rules are just people’s rules. They are not God’s rules.

Matthew Henry on 2 Timothy 2:15-19

Cautions against Error. ( a. d. 66.) 14 Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. 15 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. 17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenæus and Philetus; 18 Who concerning the truth have… Read the whole commentary →

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Study 2 Timothy 2:16