1 Timothy 2:8-10

Hey, everybody.
Welcome back.
Happy Wednesday.
Hope you’re doing well.
Thanks for being with us as we continue through First Letter of Timothy.
Into the second chapter today,
we pick up in verse 8.
And the next two days,
actually in the broader context,
the next couple several days,
maybe the rest of this week and part of next week,
we’ll have a lot of interesting stuff in it.
We are just beginning a section that has raised lots of questions and lots of issues in the church in different ways.
In the next two days,
today and tomorrow I think,
depending on how we pace this,
we will see those questions particularly related to gender and
not exclusively, but primarily questions over the role of women in the church and what these verses
have meant.
We won’t solve anything,
but we will try to share with you some of both the negative
and positive that these kind of verses have inspired or occasioned in the church.
Then as we move on,
we’ll have two sections on leadership in the church,
and there’ll be some
overlap in that, but also raises lots of questions historically.
So, we jump in today and remember,
yesterday we saw Paul sort of talk about society at large,
a very long sustained
commentary on prayer and praying for leaders,
praying for a peaceable society.
Now we begin to turn that focus down and we begin to look within the church or you could even say the household.
And so, let me just start here.
I’m just going to read a sentence and then we’ll get
into more of it.
Verse 8, “I desire then that in every place men should pray,
lifting up holy hands
without anger or argument.” Now,
we’ve said this as we’ve gone through this book.
We know that there
were problems in the church community that Timothy serves.
What we don’t know is exactly
what they were, and so we have to take some guesses based on what Paul writes to Timothy.
And based on this verse,
it would appear as though there’s some conflict in the men of the church.
“I desire that in every place men should pray,
lifting up holy hands without argument or anger.”
And the idea here,
if you can imagine that if to pray,
to worship without stretched hands,
what does this prevent?
It prevents lashing out.
It prevents fists.
It prevents anger and fighting.
And that’s the idea here,
that the church should be a place.
And interestingly enough, we’ll talk about this a lot in a moment.
Interestingly enough, this is addressed to
men because Paul, following the culture of his day,
assumes that it is most often men
who participate in conflicts,
particularly violent conflicts.
And so he says here,
and it’s easy to miss this with what’s coming,
but this is a challenging word to the men of that community,
that they should rather than fight with one another,
rather than be angry or argue with one another.
They should pray together,
lifting up holy hands in prayer, in service,
in relationship.
And that this is Paul’s idea not only for this church,
but in every place.
And again, Michael, we have to kind of take some guesses that Paul says this because it would make sense that it’s
the remedy to what he knows is happening in that community.
Yeah, right.
I do think it’s helpful to
point out the very particular nature of the beginning of the text here.
I think that’s very helpful, Clint.
I would also note here this,
a very key word that we have very early on in verse eight,
I guess it’s more closer to the middle,
where Paul says that we are here lifting up
holy hands.
Notice that word holy.
I think that is a critical adjective in this particular verse,
because though Paul is going to spend a lot of time in the verses to follow addressing women in particular,
here as he addresses men,
I think he very much is setting out the kind of overarching
theme that he’s going to then apply as he begins talking about women.
And I think we need to hold
on to that because this idea of holy hands has a substantial connection to where we’ve already
been in the text.
Don’t forget, if you missed yesterday’s study,
I do think it is relevant.
Once again, this idea that we are lifting up in prayer,
those leaders and those people in our
society who are high and lifted up,
this idea that we should live peaceable lives,
lives that are well
suited to godliness, here we begin to see Paul honing that he’s going from that larger vision
down to a more particular kind of exhortation for the men.
And if we’re willing to see that,
then I think holiness is an important theme.
The idea that there should be character,
there should be a set of partness,
that in one’s praying and one’s lifting up holy hands,
one is
in that act doing so as one of good,
a good Christian repute.
And that is absolutely essential
to this idea that worship and the Christian community is animated by honesty and by real
transformation into the image of Jesus Christ.
Now,
he spends a few scant words here in verse 8,
addressing men in particular,
but I think we need to hold on to that because I think
that theme does matter,
Clint, as we turn our attention to what he has to say about the women.
Yeah, and as we do that,
just an introductory word,
we’re not going to try and soften these
words.
Some of these words are difficult.
I do want to remind us though that these are not
exclusively Christian words.
And what I mean by that is it’s not just people of the faith,
of Christian faith in Paul’s day who are asking questions about proper behavior for men and specifically women.
That’s part of a larger conversation that’s happening.
The Romans,
the philosophers of the Greeks and the Romans had ideas about gender,
about how men and women should conduct themselves.
The Jews certainly brought a lot to that conversation.
So,
we read these few verses and they seem very pointed to us,
but we have to remember
that they are a snapshot of a bigger landscape.
And Paul,
or the writer in this case,
adopts some of those larger assumptions about what it means for women to be women.
And so, as we move into this,
I do think that’s helpful.
These are not
particular
to the Christian faith.
These ideas of modesty,
these ideas of
proper adornment,
they exist outside of the church.
And I think that’s helpful to know that.
So, let me read it,
then we can do more with it.
“Also, that the women should dress themselves modestly
and decently in suitable clothing,
not with their hair braided or with gold pearls or expensive
clothes, but with good works as is proper for women who profess reverence for God.”
Now,
there are several ways that you can get here.
By and large, historically,
this has been translated as a woman’s attempt to kind of
present herself in a sexualized way,
in an attractive way,
bordering on taking that too far,
a kind of upfrontness,
a showiness that Paul feels is out of character for the Christian church and the Christian faith.
That has probably been,
Michael, I would say, the driving interpretation that
there are some women
in that community who wear what they shouldn’t wear,
and they sort of take
some measure of
pleasure, I suppose,
in displaying themselves improperly,
and obviously that causes
some problems.
And historically, that’s where this verse has been taken.
Yeah, so we’ve got to be upfront here that there is also some scholarly speculation,
I mean, quite frankly, that we don’t know the exact nature of what’s happening in this
particular Christian community.
Though,
let’s remember that humanity hasn’t changed that much, really,
I mean, our innate sort of propensities.
And at this time,
one of the commentators that
I was looking at today for the study made the point that as the Roman Empire really continued
to have its cultural influence throughout its geographic bounds,
this movement towards high
apparel and beautiful dress really came down from some of the emperor’s wives’
clothing, some of the ostentatiousness of Roman culture,
that some cultures that had not had that intrinsically
in their lived experience began to see that sort of seeping down from the top a little bit and
becoming something that people really sought after and valued.
So not to take that too far,
but I do think there is to say,
wherever we see Paul,
even apart from issues like this,
wherever we see Paul noticing that people in the church are drawing attention to themselves
or making it about their own ministry and their own sort of benefit and not the sake of their fellow believers,
that Paul becomes very suspicious.
And if we’re willing to get there,
I think we could maybe understand a little bit more contextually why Paul would say these words
to the women in this community.
From his vantage,
he may have been talking something about
keeping Jesus Christ at the center and not using any form of physical display to distract from
the gathered purpose of that community.
Now,
what that particularly looks like and certainly what
its interpretation by Christians seeking to live out the faith today,
that’s, I think, should generate a robust conversation.
But I think as best as we can,
we should try to put ourselves in
the shoes of what’s intended here.
And that’s not always easy, Clint,
but maybe that helps us get started at least.
Yeah, and I think by and large,
Michael, I suspect that these verses are not
terribly offensive to most people,
particularly if people have raised children,
especially girls.
I mean, if you’ve had daughters,
the idea of wearing appropriate clothing has almost certainly
come up at some point in your parenting experience.
You’re going to wear that outside,
or maybe shouldn’t, maybe you should do this,
or we live in the area where in the summer,
there’s a high comfort level with not wearing a lot to the lake.
And again, if you’ve parented, I think you’ve probably had some of those conversations with your young women in your family.
Hey, keep in mind that there is a sort of standard that makes some sense.
There is a kind of an appropriateness.
Some of that is cultural.
I’ve been struck when we’ve traveled to Mexico with mission teams.
They tell the men,
“Don’t wear shorts.” They tell the women,
“Don’t wear tank tops.” Sometimes people are offended by that,
but it is the standard of that culture.
It doesn’t make it right.
It just means that you draw undue attention to yourself,
and you draw some negative
attention to yourself by going against the grain.
And that could be at work here too.
It also should be noted this becomes,
I think, more important again tomorrow.
The word “women”
can easily be translated “wives.” And if so,
this could be saying,
“Wives should dress themselves modestly.
Wives should not be trying to capture the attention
of the men around them.
They have a husband.
It’s possible that something like that is happening.
We laugh about braided hair because in our culture that doesn’t mean anything,
but in Paul’s day it would have sent a message,
and Paul—and not Paul’s not alone here—many
others thought it was an inappropriate message.
We can feel that maybe we don’t agree with their
standards, but they are the standards.
Paul, I think, is encouraging Timothy to encourage these women,
whoever they are and for whatever reasons they’re doing it,
to tone it down a
little bit because it seems as though they’ve become a distraction.
You know, I think that we could really be honest here and say that there are some who are going to
be comfortable by the base idea,
which I think Paul is making the case that there are some things
that the Christian gives up for the sake of discipleship,
for the sake of seeking to live
in the midst of Christian community.
And as he applies that to the needs that he knows
specifically and we can only speculate towards in this particular community,
what we discover is,
while we may be a little uncomfortable with these words—you know,
I think the braided
here is a great example of that,
Clint—I do think the general theme of what does it look like
to be willing to put down our own privilege or our own assumptions or our own opinions
for the sake of living in Christian community.
And if you’ve been Christian for any period of time,
you know that there’s times in the Christian life where that does look like accommodation
for the sake of our neighbor.
And we see Paul making that case not just for women in particular.
We see him make that case for Christians in Corinth.
We see him make that case,
I would argue, for Christians in Rome.
I think the reality is that here we may find some of
these particulars to cut against our experience,
but I think the major force of it,
Clint, is deeply embedded in the Christian faith.
That question,
“What can I give so that Jesus Christ might be
glorified in the community?” While that cuts against some of our American value of self-determination,
personal freedom,
you know,
there’s always been a challenge to find the intersection of that in American Christianity.
And I just think Paul’s words challenges us.
However we end up,
they challenge us to ask,
“What can I do to be a brother in Christ,
to be a sister in Christ in the midst
of a meaningful Christian community?” That’s what Paul’s striking at, I think.
Yeah, I agree.
There is one other possibility that some
Bible scholars,
some commentators have raised,
and that is that with
these mentions of things like gold and pearls and expensive clothing,
this is perhaps less about kind of wanting attention and more about classism.
The idea that there were some very wealthy women who wanted to establish the idea that they were above
some of the people who didn’t share their income and didn’t share their
fashion sense.
So, I mean, again,
it’s hard to translate some of these things,
but imagine the couple who comes to church in a
way, “What is going on?
Why the need to be so ostentatious?
Why bring that stuff to church?” And
you would begin to suspect that maybe they wanted to be seen,
maybe they wanted to be appreciated
for having a lot of money,
that maybe there was something else going on other than they wanted to
come and experience true and humble worship.
The other thing that I think is helpful,
remember that when we talk church in Timothy,
we’re talking about a series of house churches.
So, we’re talking about a few families getting together in multiple locations,
and in those locations,
it may have turned into a fashion show.
It may have turned into a competition.
It may have turned into who knows what,
and Paul wants to assert that if that happens,
then it’s not worship.
We’re not there for the right reasons,
and we’re not doing the right
things while we’re there.
I
just think historically,
and again, I’m certainly not trying to be sexist here,
questions of dress and glamour have generally applied to females more than males
through the year.
Yes,
there are men who dress up in very fancy clothes.
Yes, that happens, but questions of modesty have either fairly or unfairly tended to live on the conversation.
I suspect if people have raised daughters and sons,
they’ve probably had to have that
conversation more often with their daughters,
and that could be the way that we socialize
young women.
It could be the messages they see,
but if it bothers you that Paul isn’t saying these
same things to the men,
sorry about that.
That’s just tended to be the way it goes.
So, I want to just very quickly point out in verse 10.
I think this really,
really matters.
I don’t want to rush past this.
He says, “But with good works
as is proper for women who profess reverence
for God.” We are very,
very tempted, and I’m not saying without reason,
to focus in on the
“proper for women” part of that phrase,
but I want to just submit to you for a moment
that this “but with good works,” right?
Not the adornment,
not the exterior signs,
but rather, the good works.
This connects, I think, directly to that language about living peaceably.
I think it connects directly to what we’ve had in the first chapter,
that language about how we are
called to be people who know the law but don’t interpret the law wrongly,
right?
There’s this idea that he said that the law shows us what’s wrong,
and we had this extensive conversation of
how that connects to his much more fleshed out work in Romans.
If you’re willing to go with me
down that road, then I put to you this,
that there’s a sense in which I think we can read
this as Paul’s saying,
that the things that we do should reflect the substance of the faith,
that the works of the faith should be seen in the actual way that we live our life.
I think that illustration that you give there,
Clint, is helpful in that if we show up to church in an ostentatious
display of wealth,
then we are, in some ways, theologically displaying a commitment to the body.
And to the opinion of others.
Yeah,
absolutely. And from a reform perspective,
which is what we’re going to bring to this conversation,
anything that distracts from
the might of God in the gathered community,
anything that distracts us from the worship
of the honorable one,
the one who is worthy of
worship, is something that needs rooted out of the community.
Now, we do not have all of the backstory to why Paul addresses this,
both in his culture, nor how we would translate the exact cultural framework into our own culture.
That’s where we,
as a church,
and by the church,
I mean the big church,
have had extensive conversation.
We’re not going to solve that as you led the conversation.
What we can say is,
wherever you find yourself,
and this is two men having a conversation about what Paul said
to this community,
and in particular, the women in it,
I think whether you’re a woman or whether you’re a man,
however you are seeking to live out the faith,
have you asked the question,
what can I do to remove barriers for myself and for others to encounter the living God?
That seems to me to be the force of this particular text.
And as we try to work out its
force in our own communities,
that’s important work,
but we need to engage in that work out of
that deeper reality, that deeper spiritual truth.
Yeah, and this text has some potholes in it,
probably nothing compared to tomorrow’s text,
but there are some bumps here.
But I don’t think it
should completely lead us to miss the point,
because we don’t live in a culture that I think
you could reasonably call modest.
We live in a culture where every day people post pictures of themselves,
and some of those pictures are racy,
some of those pictures are provocative.
We live in a culture where very young girls can have access to clothing that is probably far
beyond their age range for most of us.
And we sort of live with that idea that,
well, if you think you look good and you like it,
you should wear it,
and it’s not really about
how it looks to other people.
And there’s some wisdom in that,
but there’s also some wisdom in
the idea of modesty,
of humility,
of not seeking to present myself for the approval of others,
particularly the kind of sexualized or wealth-based or shallow approval of others.
Be approved for the way you live.
Be approved for the work you do in the name of Jesus Christ,
not for the brand
of earrings you wear,
not for the kind of tuxedo you have.
I think, you know,
this maybe isn’t the
best place to have the conversation,
because this is a challenging section of this letter.
But modesty is not an unimportant topic for the church to be aware of.
And I think, again,
if you’ve had the parenting experience,
I think, you know,
you’ve probably found yourself having
that discussion once or twice.
That’s really helpful.
I’m aware of the time,
and I’ll be very brief.
I just want to say,
I think that that is a very helpful comment,
and I’m going to take a
step outside of what Paul was saying.
This is not what Paul was intending in this letter.
But I do think, as we,
as Christians, read this and seek to live this out in our community,
I do think
we should be mindful that much of the clothing that we wear has symbols on it.
Many of us wear
the logos of companies.
Many of us wear brands.
And
this applies to men just as much as women.
I think this is where this conversation is very helpful when we brand ourselves and allow that to mean something.
Because, hey, listen, I’ve got kids.
I grew up, you know, in a school with other people.
When you wear one thing,
it means one thing.
When you wear another thing,
it means another thing.
And if what you wear makes you feel like you’re not enough,
if you’re not wearing that
brand or that thing,
then as a Christian church,
I do think we need to push back on the kind of
identity making that that does for us.
Now, once again, I want to be very clear.
I’m not pretending here that Paul’s talking about our sort of version of American consumerism and the brand identity.
I am saying, though, that if you are willing to have that conversation,
that steps it out of
what may be that conversation about,
you know, women and dress that the church has had over and
over again.
That applies to every single one of us.
And so if that’s your point of entry,
you know, that may be a place that’s worth considering.
Yeah, and the church has used these verses and the verses we’ll look at tomorrow as a club.
The church has, you know, the church has done some damage with these verses and these ideas by
turning them into rules,
by turning them into rigid guidelines and telling young women or
telling women in general what it meant for them.
And we have to own up to that.
We have to be
serious about that.
We have to discuss that.
But underneath that, I do think there is some
conversation that is helpful as we think about how
it is that what we wear and how we conduct
ourselves speaks to the outside world.
And I think when you simplify it,
Paul is saying, would you rather be known for dressing nice or for being an authentic Christian,
for being a disciple,
and for Paul, the answer is clear.
And I think that’s a worthwhile conversation.
Yeah, absolutely.
Hope there’s been something encouraging,
maybe challenging in this today.
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We’ve got some stuff to work through.
Thanks, everybody.