Havasu Christian Church
Sept. 28, 2025
Series in I Timothy
I Timothy 2:8-15
“Speaking truth, even when it isn’t popular.”
INTRO: When you read the word “therefore,” you know that you’ve come to the idea that what you just read was supporting.
323 times in the Old and New Testaments
Claud Bulger, when he preached here was known for saying “What’s the therefore there for?”
The therefore relates back to what we studied last week…. The importance of prayer…. Praying for everyone, but especially for people in authority who can make it easier or harder to live a Christian life.
This week we’ll be looking at some specific instructions for men and women.
Many commentators say that these verses are referring to conduct in the worship service. Maybe I’m just not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I don’t see that.
8 Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.
9 Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments,
10 but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness.
11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.
12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.
13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.
14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.
15 But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.
- Paul first tells Timothy to remind men of some things.
- Things to have.
- Holy hands to raise in prayer.
- Our hands are to be doing holy (set apart for God’s use) things.
- Then we can raise them in prayer without shame.
- I suspect that any posture you are in when you pray is fine with God.
- Don’t “raise holy hands” when you are driving.
- Things not to have.
- Wrath
- A state of strong displeasure, with a focus on the emotional aspect.
- “I’ve had enough!”
- This is not something that helps our prayer life.
- God can have wrath correctly.
- It’s not so often that we can truly have wrath like God does.
- Ours tends to get messed up!It gets mixed up with other emotions, like hurt feelings and loneliness.
- Dissension
- verbal exchange that takes place when conflicting ideas are expressed, dispute, argument.
- Often, dissension is more what happens after losing the argument.
- Trying to gain allies against the other person and their ideas, usually behind their back.
- This is usually done without sharing the other person’s ideas in an honest manner.
- Women
- Things to have.
- “Proper” clothing
From a Greek English lexicon:
Proper = To have characteristics or qualities that evoke admiration or delight, that lead to an expression of high regard for the person. Being respectable, honorable, and being appropriate for winning approval, appropriate. Being in accord with accepted standards of propriety, modestly, decorously, observing decorum, of self-adornment. The opposite of conspicuous consumption.
- Clothed in a modest way.
- Having self-respect.
- Realizing that you don’t have to be “on display” to be attractive.
- Clothed in discretion.
- The practice of prudence, good judgment, moderation, self-control as exercise of care and intelligence appropriate to circumstances
- Thinking about what you are about to do.
- Being clothed with beauty on the inside.
- Adorn yourself with good works.
- Things not to have.
- Exterior decoration that masks a lack of inner beauty, good works, and godliness.
- Braids, gold, pearls and costly clothes.
- People will go to great lengths to show off.
- Part of this particular saying may be because of the “Virgin Priestesses” in Ephesus.
- Only the daughters of the wealthy could ever hope to do this, because their clothing and hairdo’s were so expensive.
- Coming out of that culture, if you were a wealthy woman, you might want to show off just how wealthy you were.
- I don’t think Paul was saying that a woman couldn’t “dress up,” but rather that the emphasis should be on inner beauty… being the woman God wants you to be.
- That woman is appealing to everyone, not just God.
- That beauty is attainable whether you were born with pretty features or not.
- You can have inner beauty, even if you can’t afford to string pearls on gold wire in your braids.
- We all need to have a proper relationship.
- The passage says “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.
- This only works if men do their job and lead.
- As Elders in the Church.
- Men and women are all to submit.
- As husbands in their homes.
- A wife is to ALLOW her husband to lead.
- In godliness.
- As a teacher and an example.
- For her, and their family.
- It is hard for a woman to submit, if there is no one to submit to.
- Submission does not mean inferior.
- Submission does not mean a doormat.
- Submission means allowing someone else to lead.
- WHY?
- Two leaders will only lead to heartache.
- They will “lead” in different directions.
- It probably takes more character to submit than to lead.
- “A woman is also not supposed to teach or exercise authority over a man.”
- Again, for this to work, men have to be willing to teach!
- Women have plenty of people to teach too!
- Other women.
- Kids.
- Is this just a rule for Ephesus, or is this a universal rule for the Church?
- “For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.”
- This order of responsibility came about in the garden of Eden.
- It was Adam’s responsibility to teach Eve what she needed to know.
- Tend the garden.
- Don’t eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
- Apparently, Adam didn’t do his job very well.
- That leads to reason #2
- “And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.”
- Eve was fooled.
- Adam is the one blamed for bringing sin into the world.
- Even though Eve sinned first, Adam didn’t do his job of leading properly, and then when his wife sinned, he dove into disobedience head first.
- What do we do with verse 15?
15 But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.
- I absolutely HATE to admit it, but I’m not really sure!
- I’m sure it made sense to Paul.
- I’m sure it made sense to Timothy.
- I’m sure it made sense when Timothy taught it to the Church in Ephesus.
- It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me!
- Nobody else seems to really understand it either.
- 5 commentaries on my desk,
- 4 or 5 more on my computer.
- No one has a definitive answer.
- But here are a couple of guesses.
From: The Enduring Word Bible commentary:
She will be saved in childbearing: Some say that Paul “Has mostly in mind that child-bearing, not public teaching, is the peculiar function of woman, with a glory and dignity all its own.” The idea is that one should let the men teach in church and let the women have the babies and teach the the next generation.
She will be saved in childbearing: Another way to approach this passage is based on the grammar in the original Greek language. In the original, it says she will be saved “in the childbirth.” This has the sense, “Even though women were deceived, and fell into transgression starting with Eve, women can be saved by the Messiah – whom a woman brought into the world.”
i. Probably, the idea here is that even though Eve did something bad in the garden by being deceived and falling into transgression, God still used a woman to do something far greater. God used a woman, Mary, to bring the saving Messiah into the world.
ii. The summary is this: Don’t blame women for the fall of the human race; the Bible doesn’t. Instead, thank women for bringing the Messiah to us.
Conclusion: What should we take home with us from I Timothy today?
- We still need to keep praying!
- Men especially, are to lead in this!
- To truly be effective in prayer, he’s got to be HOLY!
- His life must be lived for Jesus!
- His prayer will be hampered if he allows wrath and dissension to be a regular part of his life.
- Men must lead.
- You can’t follow someone who doesn’t lead.
- Women must allow leaders to lead.
- The leadership in their church.
- Men need to follow these leaders as well.
- The leadership in their homes.
- 2 leaders leads to disaster. Be the smart one who allows him to lead.
- A smart husband encourages his wife to do whatever she is capable of doing.
- Women should make sure to be more concerned about the beauty coming from the inside than the beauty on the outside.
- None of us will stay beautiful forever!
- “There’s no such thing as a pretty corpse!”
- Don’t worry ladies, there’s plenty to do even if you aren’t leading.
- “Why don’t we have women Elders?” “If we did, the men wouldn’t do anything!
- From:CBMW.org
Say what Paul? Six more Things 1 Timothy 2:8–15 Does Not Mean by David Schrock
(There is also an article titled “Say what Paul? Six things I Timothy 2:8-15 does not mean.” By the same author, David Schrock.)
As with all of Scripture, the goal of God’s word is human flourishing. Situated in 1 Timothy, these verses are just one of the places Paul is instructing women how to walk in faith, love, and holiness. Indeed, the overarching purpose of these verses are meant to include women in the gathered church. They emphasize the positive good works that women contribute to the church. And they esteem the place for women to learn and serve in the body of Christ.
Though Paul’s words stand outside and against the egalitarian promises of women’s liberation, they offer a greater kind of liberation. Namely, they encourage women to celebrate what makes them women; they validate the life-giving bodies that God has them; they esteem the roles women often have in the home; and they free women from the burden of having to lead the household of God.
Certainly, to those who have a vision of human flourishing cultivated by an egalitarian culture, these words will sound oppressive. But to those whose minds have been formed by the story of Scripture and the goodness of being made in God’s image as a female, these words should be incredibly encouraging. Men and women are called to be servants in God’s house; men and women are invited to pray, learn, and worship in God’s house; men and women will have places to teach in the body of Christ—though only some men (elders) will teach and have authority in the local church; and women who spend years bearing and rearing children should not feel second-class citizens of God’s kingdom.
Paul’s concluding words esteem women who are unable to serve in the church because life circumstances (having children) make it impossible. Service to their children is a vital part of God’s kingdom purposes, and as Paul will say later to older women, their years of obscurity serving their children and helping their husbands will actually prepare them for valuable service in God’s household when their children are grown.
In this way, Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 2 provide a compelling vision for women to follow Christ and to do so as women who embrace their God-given role as daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers. For these reasons and more, we should not shy away from Paul’s words. We should rightly understand them and apply them, for in them we find life-giving words for women and men.
