Devotional: 1 Timothy 2:8-15

Today’s passage: 1 Timothy 2:8-15

Helpful thoughts:

• In these verses, Paul continues to give instruction for the ministry of the gathered church.
• Men and women are made in the image of God and equal in worth.  God has given them complementary roles in their marriages and in the church.
  • Women ought to be learners, never forbidden from pursuing great knowledge and growth, and they can be gifted to teach and ought to teach in different ministries in the church (e.g. Titus 2:3-4)
  • When men and women are gathered together, God has called on men to teach and lead.
    • Remember, Paul was writing this letter to the church at Ephesus, so there very likely was a woman or women who were desiring to teach or preach, to lead in some way, and Paul spoke to the issue directly.
• Verse 13 reminds us that the roles of men and women were not started after the fall.  To allow women to lead and to preach is not going back to pre-fall conditions.  The battle for leadership is in fact a consequence of the fall.  Hatred of submission and chauvinistic leadership, or even men being prone to abandon the responsibility and weight of loving leadership are consequences of the fall.
  • Women are not “saved” (Eternal salvation) through child-bearing, but rather “saved” (Preserved and doing great work) through child-bearing.
    • Mothers have the amazing task and responsibility to pour into the lives of children!  The role of the mother in the home and in the spiritual life of the next generation is invaluable and is to be celebrated.  It is not second-class work.

Questions to consider:

1. Why is it important that we pray for the lost without anger and quarreling?  If the lost cause us to be angry, what might we be forgetting about our own salvation?  If we are quarreling as a church, what might we have forgotten about our purpose?
2. What seems to be the heart of Paul’s command for women in verses 9-10?  Is jewelry intrinsically evil?  If there are women in the church who are poor and women in the church who are rich, how might the rich women need to consider how to best love the others without flaunting their worldly possessions?  How does our humility and unity in Christ help us to think about ways we can be sensitive towards others in a way that keeps us focused on what’s most important?
3. Why do passage like this cause people to grit their teeth and look for explanations out of what it is obviously saying?  How does the fall and the curse make it this way (Genesis 3:16)?  For the Christian man and woman, why should the words, “leadership” and “submission” be beautiful things that we strive for in faith and love?