Notes taken from Word
Meanings in the New Testament by Ralph Earle:
"Crooked" is from the Greek word
skolios. Literally it means "curved, bent,
winding" (Luke 3:5). Metaphorically it
can be "crooked, perverse, unjust" (Acts
2:40; Philippians 2:15; 1 Peter
2:18) or "unscrupulous, dishonest."
"Perverse" ["depraved"--NIV] is
the perfect passive participle of the Greek word diastrepho,
which means "distort, twist, pervert." So it
signifies being in a perverted state--"perverse,
corrupt, wicked" (Thayer, p. 142). Arndt and Gingrich say it
means "perverted in the moral sense, depraved"
(p. 188). Lightfoot renders it "distorted" (p.
117).
"Generation" comes from the Greek word
genea. It means "race, stock, family," but
in the NT always "generation"....That is the
translation here in most modern versions. Arndt and Gingrich
note that the term means "literally, those descended from a
common ancestor," but "basically the sum total of those
born at the same time, expanded to include all those living at a
given time, generation, contemporaries...."
Jesus denounced His contemporaries as "a wicked and
adulterous generation" (Matthew 16:4), as a
"faithless and perverse generation" (Matthew
17:17). The passage in Philippians is an echo of
this. And how sadly true are these words as applied to our
generation!
Matthew 17:17: "'O
unbelieving and perverse generation,' Jesus replied,
'how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with
you?'"
Mark 8:38: [Jesus said,] "If anyone
is ashamed of Me and My Words in this adulterous and sinful
generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in
His Father's glory with the holy angels."
Acts 2:40: "With many other words
he [Peter] warned them; and he pleaded with them, 'Save
yourselves from this corrupt generation.'"
Romans 1:18-32: "The wrath of God
is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and
wickedness of men who suppress the Truth by their wickedness, since
what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made
it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's
invisible qualities--His eternal power and divine
nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has
been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they
knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him,
but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were
darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look
like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore
God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual
impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
They exchanged the Truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served
created things rather than the Creator--Who is forever
praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to
shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for
unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned
natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one
another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received
in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the
knowledge of God, He gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what
ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind
of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy,
murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers,
God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of
doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless,
faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous
decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only
continue to do these very things but also approve of those who
practice them."
2 Timothy 3:1-9: "But mark this:
There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be
lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive,
disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love,
unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers
of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure
rather than lovers of God--having a form of godliness but
denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. They are the
kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over
weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by
all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to
acknowledge the Truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed
Moses, so also these men oppose the Truth--men of depraved
minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected.
But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those
men, their folly will be clear to everyone."
Titus 1:10-16: "For there are many
rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of
the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they
are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to
teach--and that for the sake of dishonest gain. Even one
of their own prophets has said, 'Cretans are always liars,
evil brutes, lazy gluttons.' This testimony is true.
Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the
faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands
of those who reject the Truth. To the pure, all things are
pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is
pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are
corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they
deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing
anything good."
2 Peter 2:1-22: "But there were
also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false
teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive
heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord Who bought
them--bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many
will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of Truth
into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit
you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long
been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been
sleeping.
"For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but
sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for
judgment; if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the
flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of
righteousness, and seven others; if He condemned the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an
example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if He
rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy
lives of lawless men (for that righteous man, living among them day
after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds
he saw and heard)--if this is so, then the Lord knows how to
rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the
day of judgment, while continuing their punishment. This is
especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the
sinful nature and despise authority.
"Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander
celestial beings; yet even angels, although they are stronger and
more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such
beings in the presence of the Lord. But these men blaspheme
in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts,
creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and
like beasts they too will perish.
"They will be paid back with harm for the harm they
have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight.
They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while
they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never
stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in
greed--an accursed brood! They have left the Straight
Way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who
loved the wages of wickedness. But he was rebuked for his
wrongdoing by a donkey--a beast without speech--who spoke
with a man's voice and restrained the prophet's madness.
"These men are springs without water and mists driven
by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they
mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful
desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just
escaping from those who live in error. They promise them
freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity--for a
man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have
escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are
worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It
would have been better for them not to have known the way of
righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs
on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the
proverbs are true: 'A dog returns to its vomit,' and,
'A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the
mud.'"
