"But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness" (II Timothy 2:16).
This picturesque phrase is found also in I Timothy 6:20, where it is used as a synonym, or description of the "oppositions of science falsely so-called," directed against true Christian theism by the philosophers of humanism and evolutionism, both in ancient times and modern times.
The original Greek words are equally pungent. "Profane" is the Greek, bebelos, meaning "sacrilegious," or "irreverent," or "vulgar." The term "vain babblings" is one Greek word, kenophonia, meaning "empty soundings." The admonition refers not so much to vulgar, street-corner conversations, however, but more to the irreverent metaphysical speculations and verbose meanderings of evolutionary humanists.
Christians who aspire to peer approval by the pseudo-intellectuals of the educational, scientific, or theological establishments, are especially in need of Paul's counsel on this topic. Christians should not enter into "dialogue" with those who engage in such profane and vain babblings. Rather, we are to shun such conversations; we are to avoid them (I Timothy 6:20) the latter term meaning to "turn them away," even to "refute" them.
Otherwise, Paul says, they will cause us to "progress" into a character of "more ungodliness." Some have even "erred concerning the faith" (I Timothy 6:21), because of the insidious influence of such philosophizing on their minds. "Foolish and unlearned questions avoid," he further warns, "knowing that they do gender strifes" (II Timothy 2:23).
Not only do the Scriptures tell us what not to talk or write about, but the verse immediately preceding tells us how to be pleasing to God: "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (II Timothy 2:15). HMM
