1 Timothy 2
1. Called to pray for the world
Paul urges – and that word at root means calls – the Church to prayer for or world. It is part of our calling as Christians. Peter says we are a kingdom of priests (1 Pet 2. 9). We think we understand in Baptist Churches the idea of the “priesthood of all believers”: we don't need someone to stand between us and God – because Jesus our Great High priest has offered his own life for us – and we are therefore all priests who can approach God. Every believer is a priest. But who are we priests for? We often think we are simply or own priests: but I believe we are meant to be priests for one another, and for the world.
All sorts of prayers: pleas, prayers, petitions and thanksgiving be made for our world. It's difficult to discover quite what Paul meant by these words. Pleas suggest specific requests in times of need; petitions is a difficult word to translate but the root idea is of meeting together to have a conversation; and of course there is thanksgiving (the word that soon came to refer to the Communion service!) You may not feel you are great at praying a long prayer but you can be part of the conversation.
For all sorts of people especially those in authority. Do you pray for all sorts? I challenge us:
1. pick our least liked politician and pray for him or her – not that they will get elected or win in the referendum but for blessing and encounter with God.
2. When you watch the news on TV, instead of sitting there like Victor Meldrew saying “How awful” or “What rubbish,” pray blessing on them.
The outcome of our prayers is that we live in a world where we can be gentle and peaceful not just quiet uncomfortable at but at peace with what is going on. A world where there is space for reverence and solemnity or dignity. In other words we pray for our world so that we may live in a world that where there are
1. Righteousness and justice. A fairer, purer world
2. opportunities for others to receive God's salvation
2. Centring our prayer on the will of God
It's easy to pray our prayers to be focussed on the Church's internal affairs: for “revival” or for “Missionaries” or for our own sick folk. We need to pray these things. But we need to pray for our world: it particularly pleases our heavenly Father when we pray for our world. We are praying within the will of God because God loves the world.
"God desires everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth"
There are two errors that quench our prayers and our witness.
Our history of Calvinism that thinks God has determined who gets saved – and who doesn't. " God desires everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth"
Modern universalism that thinks everyone is going to be saved anyway. Paul says there is one God and one mediator who can fix our relationship with God, Jesus who died for us.
Everyone needs to be saved and to know of the truth; but God wants everyone to be saved.
So we need to pray and we need to take action. According to Alan Donaldson, the average church member never shares their faith.
3 .Character of the prayer warrior
In v. 8 to 14, superficially it looks as if Paul is saying "men have to pray, and women have to dress modestly, keep quiet and have babies." And yes, the the “men” in v 8 means adult males, not mankind. We need to unpack the bit about women: then we'll come back to the men.
We have 3 choices in dealing with this passage
1. Throw it out because it doesn't fit in our world.
2. Take it literally and at face value for today, or
3. Interpreted carefully and find out what it really means. I believe that's what we need to do.
Paul wasn't laying down a rule for for all time. I say that for a number of reasons...
1. The example of Jesus: Mary sat at Jesus feet as a student with a Rabbi (Lk 10. 39) , and Mary Magdalene was the first witness to the risen Jesus (Jn 20. 17).
2. The clear teaching of Paul, for example in Gal 3.28.
3. The example of Paul who in Romans 16, refers to a number of women who had leadership gifts and responsibilities: Phoebe (v. 1) was a servant of the Church who travelled far afield on its behalf; Priscilla was one of his fellow-workers (v. 3); Mary (v. 6) and Tryphena and Tryphosa (v. 12) worked hard; and Junia (v. 7) was outstanding among the apostles.
4. The passage itself: it does temporarily restrain women but contains the seeds of liberation. Let's look a bit closer at it...
Look at the contrasting verbs inverse 11f;
1. “Let a woman learn” (v. 11) is a continuous command. The very idea of “letting women learn” was extremely radical at a time, when it was often considered a dangerous waste of money to teach a girl to read.
2. "I do not permit” by contrast, is a simple present tense. "I am not permitting..."
Paul has reasons in the first century why he needs to restrain women form “cashing in” too quickly on their freedom in Christ. But the fact that they are learning implies that they will be able to use what they have learned.
Paul uses a teaching method that anchors ideas to three known points: creation fall and redemption
1. Creation : Man was made first. This implies headship. Where my head goes my body usually goes too. In birth, the head comes first, but the body follows behind.
2. Fall: Eve was deceived. Adam wasn't. He just disobeyed. Whose sin was greater?
3. Redemption. “Women shall be saved through childbearing.” This has embarrassed the church since at least 370 a.d. Clearly Paul doesn't mean having babies saves women. That would be tough on those who have never had children. Some people suggest that “childbearing” means the birth of Jesus. I think they are wrong. The key to the text is the meaning of the word “through”. In Greek as in English it can refer to cause and effect: “through no fault of your own.” But the primary meaning is passage in space or time. “Pushing through the crowd.” We should use “through” in this way here. Women will be saved, in the midst of pregnancy, morning sickness, broken nights and all the other things that crowd into their lives, if they hold on to Jesus. In other words, womanhood is no obstacle to salvation. Women are saved in exactly the same way men are.
In Ephesus, there were people who were messing up their own faith and the faith of others (1. 3ff, 20) It is possible that some of these were pushing women forward despite their lack of knowledge. Could it be that some of the men were too ready to take a back seat and let the women get on with things. Often the intercessors in the Church today are women. However, we are all prayer warriors. Men should play their part. Many years ago we had ornaments Pam had brought back from Africa, that we suspected may have had occult connections, and we felt we had to break them up and burn them. Pam hit them with the axe, but made no impression. The I had a go and broke them. Pam saw an acted parable in that: men need to exercise spiritual authority in prayer and warfare. Men and women are different. Even a skinny guy like me, has a bit of muscle. Men, we need to learn hwo to use that spiritual muscle God has given us.
All are called to be holy, distinctive, and united. Our prayers flow from being what we long to see in our world. And especially, men are to “man up”, flex their muscle, exercise headship, and pray.
© Gilmour Lilly September 2014
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