1 Timothy 2:1-15 - God is Working His Purpose Out!
As we approach this passage, let’s not forget two things about the context:
· Emperor Nero’s persecution of so-called atheists (that is, people who did not worship the ‘gods’, especially the emperor) reached its height in AD64. The strongest evidence available is that the Pastoral Epistles were written during that period. Nero was the emperor who burned Christians (atheists!) as torches to light up an imperial celebration in Rome.
· There is no doubt that one of the main reasons why these letters were written was to combat the false teaching that was rife in Ephesus at the time. I Timothy 1 encourages Timothy not to allow ‘certain persons…to teach other doctrine, nor to spend time in speculative discussion based on myths and interminable genealogies’. Paul warns in I Timothy 4 of ‘doctrines of demons’. Such teaching was not only wrong, it was a huge time-waster when it came to focussing on God’s primary purpose. I wonder what our own greatest time-wasters are when it comes to focussing on God’s primary purpose?
This is a three point sermon!
God is an inclusive God!
Paul makes this very clear, and it is in fact the very core of the passage today – the KEY that helps to unlock the meaning of the difficult parts of the passage. The word ALL is primary. V.4 tells us that God ‘wants ALL people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.’ It continues immediately with what that core truth – the GOSPEL – is: For there is one God and one mediator between God and human beings, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for ALL.’ That word again! The same word is used by Paul in Romans 3:21-24 (listen out for it!): But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to ALL who believe. There is no difference, for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ.’ So – we are ALL equal in having sinned – male or female, adult or child, and so on. That equality is reinforced by Paul in Galatians 3:26-29 (notice the word ALL again!): ‘You are ALL children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for ALL or you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are ALL one in Christ Jesus.’
That is the core truth that Paul does not want compromised. And if we begin with the assumption that Paul is not likely to contradict himself, it helps us to understand the ‘apparent’ contradictions in a different light.
This may seem like a repeat of the first point! But it is different in that I want to focus on the outworking of that purpose – how His purpose becomes possible. How can we help to make God’s purpose that ALL should be SAVED come to pass? Not long ago we were reflecting on what God did to release the Israelites from slavery in Egypt – and it was not very nice for the Egyptians, because they did not believe God! But the important point is that God’s purpose was not in the release itself – God’s purpose was in the goal - that His people would be able to worship God freely in their own land. He was taking them to a place where that worship would be possible.
When Paul says that God’s purpose is that ALL should be SAVED, it means the same thing – the goal is that ALL people be able to worship God freely. But that freedom (as with the Exodus) is only possible if we believe the truth about God. Hence Paul’s concern that false teachers not be allowed to turn people from the truth about Jesus, in vv.5-6. That is why Paul insists in v.7: ‘And for this PURPOSE (there is the word ‘purpose’ again!) I was appointed a herald and an apostle – I am telling the truth, I am not lying – and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.’ The truth is important!
Some things are inexplicable unless there is an underlying purpose. It is in the context of God’s primary purpose that we come to understand the ‘difficult’ parts of II Timothy 2. Often as Christians we need to adjust our outward appearance or be careful of how we behave, so as to make it possible for God’s central purpose of saving all people to freely worship Him to be fulfilled.
· In vv.9-10, Paul is concerned with the way women in the church should dress – not necessarily because there were many women dressing in a particular way. Prostitutes in Ephesus would ‘dress up’ and make their occupation obvious to everyone in that way. Above all, Paul did not want people outside the church to misunderstand the activities that people ‘who professed to worship God’ were involved in – especially since in the Ancient Near Eastern and Greek traditions prostitution was often connected with the worship of other Gods.
Today such a commentary on women’s dress would have to be applied in a more nuanced way, and the fact that I wear earrings and lipstick would no longer give an indication that I might be a prostitute, and would have nothing to do with what god or gods I worshipped. It is now ‘appropriate’ or ‘fitting’ (to use Paul’s words) to do so, in a way it would not have been then.
On the other hand, the playgroup I attended in Hampstead with my son Matthew included a prostitute. She was an ordinary woman in every way, and in fact hardly every wore lipstick and very little, if any jewellery. She was also militant in her fight for various legal rights for prostitutes, something I heartily supported. And what about the fact that Jesus consorted with women who the Pharisees considered questionable? Paul is pointing the finger here at people who already profess to be believers, not those outside the church. This gives us absolutely NO reason to judge others!
When we went to Papua New Guinea as missionaries, I seldom wore trousers because of the cultural assumptions about women who did. And yet the local dress for women was a grass skirt and nothing much else. But as a ‘white-skin’ (that’s what we were called) I would have given people entirely the wrong idea of the kind of person I was if I hadn’t followed certain acceptable norms. And when people go to some Muslim countries, it is only right to follow the norms there so as not to be misunderstood. It is about communicating to others and being heard. When we were studying homiletics (how to preach a good sermon!) at theological college, one of the bits of advice we were given was to always find out how the preacher was expected to dress. That was so that the congregation had nothing to distract them from hearing the message that we had prepared for them! If I wore robes when it wasn’t expected, or vice versa, more time might be spent by the congregation wondering why I was dressed that way than on what I was saying!
· Vv.11-15 are perhaps the most difficult. Many have made a travesty of the interpretation of v.15: ‘But women will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.’ A friend of ours in Peru could not have children. She loved children, and ran a large nursery. In one of the churches people were getting the wrong teaching, so being Latins and therefore fairly direct, some women asked her, ‘What is it that you have done wrong that God won’t allow you to have children – since that is how we are saved?’ Needless to say, she was very hurt!
If any of you has ever been in an orthodox synagogue service, even today, you know that the women are separated from the men. But they can listen in on what is going on during the worship – both teaching and prayers, habitually running into one another. In the patriarchal society of Paul’s time, it would have been unseemly for a woman to suddenly start teaching – especially from an awkward peripheral position in the assembly. That is not to say that women did not at times hold positions of great responsibility. There is both archaeological and biblical evidence for that. But it is likely that some of the false teaching extended to women who were deceived by it.
The fact that Paul himself draws our attention to the godly nature of Timothy’s mother and grandmother, and their consequent good influence on him makes it unlikely that Paul thought all women would be deceived. He says in II Timothy 1:5 – ‘I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.’ If Timothy’s faith is that of the women in his life, it follows that their teaching of him was correct and not a deception. So the deceived woman or women in I Timothy 2 were a case particular to that assembly in Ephesus at the time. Paul had been trained in methods of pharisaic rabbinical argument for the teaching of the Torah, so although it may seem strange to us, his references to Adam and Eve are meant to bolster up his argument in that particular case. It may even be that he was talking about one person, because the Greek at the beginning of v.15 should be translated ‘she’. Perhaps Paul thought that it was a female weakness to accept false teaching, but having a weakness does not mean that all people of a particular gender will succumb to that weakness!
The ‘they’ of the second half of v.15 refers to the children that woman will have. Jewish identity is passed on through the mother, just as Arab identity is passed on through the father – which incidentally caused a huge problem for one friend of ours whose mother was Arab and whose father was Jewish. He was nothing! But he became a Christian – that solved his identity crisis! Jewish mothers were acknowledged to be the primary teachers of their children. Paul did not overlook that important role, as he directed Timothy not to permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man in that context.
I am glad that today it is accepted that women are able to teach and to have authority, if that is their gifting and they are not deceived – and the same criteria goes for men! I believe that equality has come about in our western world largely because of the possibilities available within a culture based largely on Christian values, even today. We should be grateful for that and cherish it.
I want to finish by going back to the beginning. Within worship Paul makes prayer the #1 priority. He says, ‘I urge you, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone –‘ I want to call these the 4 ‘p’s, although there is an obvious overlap.
· Requests = please, God!
· Prayers = prayers
· Intercessions = pleading for others
· Thanksgiving = praise
Eugene Peterson, the author of The Message once said in the context of conversation about prayer, ‘Busyness is the enemy of spirituality. It is essentially laziness. It is doing the easy thing instead of the hard thing. It is filling our time with our own actions instead of paying attention to God’s actions. It is taking charge.’ Prayer is the hard work. When we pray we tune into God’s action – what is on His heart and mind!
God’s will is that ALL people should be saved, and His every action is directed with that in mind. So we are to pray for everyone, and specifically those in authority over us. In the context of Nero’s persecution, where Christians could not openly worship, but instead had to hide in places such as the catacombs, Paul asks that people pray for those in authority so that ‘we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.' There is such a thing as apparent peace and quiet that can hide a multitude of sins behind closed doors! What Paul means here is that Hebrew ‘shalom’ – that peace that means wholeness of body, mind, heart and spirit – an integration of all we are as human beings, within ourselves, in relation to others and in relation to God. That peace is what communicates to others what it means to be saved and therefore to begin to be everything that God ever created us to be. For that peace we are forgiven. For that peace God wants ALL to be saved! AMEN.