Focus On Women
FOCUS ON WOMEN
1 TIMOTHY 2:8-15
The most obvious things about a woman, writes Paul, should not be her fashion sense but her good deeds.
The respective places of the sexes have been a problem from the very beginning. It is clear that in the early church there were some women who felt that the fact that “there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28) abolished all distinctions between the sexes. They were emancipated, and could do anything at all that men could do. Paul deals with the topic more than once. He maintains that before God there is no room for a superior sex. All are equal in his sight. But that does not mean that the functions to be fulfilled by the two are identical. The sexes are made for different roles, and, while full allowance should be made for exceptional cases, neither should try to usurp the functions of the other.
On this occasion his subject is public worship. Men should pray everywhere, he says. “Lifting holy hands” reminds us that posture for prayer is not without significance. The Bible does not prescribe any one position, but as we pray we should be aware that physical posture has some influence on our mental attitude. “Without anger or quarreling” spells out the importance of right inward attitudes. We cannot pray effectively when filled with concern for our own petty vindication. It is likely that we should take the sense of 2:9 from the previous verse, “that women likewise should pray, dressed in respectable clothes.” Paul’s first point is that women should set more store by their way of life than their dress code (2:9f.; this does not mean that they should not dress attractively, it is an insistence that the priorities should be right). His second point is that a woman should not take a place of superiority over her husband (2:12: “a man” is the usual word for “husband,” though it can on occasion mean “man”). He drives this home by an appeal to the case of Adam who was “not deceived” by Satan in the way Eve was. He simply followed her, but her fall came about through assuming an unjustified place of leadership. 2:15 might mean that women will be “brought safely through childbirth,” or “saved” in the sense of finding fulfillment and a proper place in life through bearing children. The man who has just written 2:5f. cannot be held to mean that eternal salvation is gained by childbirth.
Thought The conditions of effective praying are purity (toward our selves), peace (toward other people), faith (toward God) (A.M. Stibbs on 2:8).