Skip to main content

1 Timothy 2:9&10 - Men and women in prayer - Day 297

Good morning beloved,

If God wills we will live and be on our way home a week from today,  Some wise men have said that context matters.  The passage for today certainly proves that point.

Blessings,

Jeff

So what does the way women dress have to do with prayer?  This chapter is about all Christians (men and women) praying for all people.  So this is not a male chauvinist giving his opinion of women's fashions.  It really is a remarkable statement about complementary role of the sexes in prayer.  Many sceptics point to passages like this and accuse Christians of oppressing women.  But nothing could be further from the truth.

Context

Contrast between Church and pagan culture.

In Roman world, women were generally no better than slaves.  But Paul sees women as having a vital part in the spiritual discipline of prayer.  We know that this is the case because v8 looks at men's role and v9 at women's role.  If Paul thought that only men were to pray, he would not say anything about women.

Prayer in a pagan world is essentially trying to get the gods to provide health and wealth.  Prayer for the church is for an orderly society so that all might be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.  

Complement each other not equal.  V8 and V9 complement or complete each other.  They are dependent on the other, neither by itself fulfills v1-4.

Roman world was all about power in every relationship.  For men, holy hands without anger or quarreling would be a sign of weakness.  Not unlike our world, women were primarily objects of sexual conquest.  Only beautiful women had any influence over a man.  Style of dress to capitalize on this.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leviticus 18:21 - Partial restoration of creation order

Dear Friends, Some times we forget that Moses wrote Genesis.  Obviously, he did not have first hand knowledge of the events of creation.  But God did and revealed them to Moses.  The "story arc" is clear to Moses despite the millenia of history between Genesis and Leviticus.  The plan for ultimate restoration is hazy, but God is at work repairing some of the damage. Blessings, Jeff What is the prohibition on child sacrifice doing in the list of prohibited sexual relations? Be fruitful and multiply - First commandment in Genesis.  God made the world to be inhabited.   Having children is how this  was to happen.  So child sacrifice was a direct violation of this first command to Adam and Eve. Marriage is one man and one woman is the creation order. Seems simple enough.  I can imagine men thinking, Yeah but God didn't say which woman.  I will do the one woman thing if she is my sister, or aunt or …..  So God gives all these examples of unlawful unions.  To this day, man stil
Post a Comment
Read more

1 Chronicles 24:1-6 How about those Levites! Day 332

Good morning friends, Good foundations are important.  Our author turns to the religious life of the returning exiles. Blessings, Jeff We have seen the emphasis on the Davidic line in the  political life of Israel.  The other area of emphasis is the Aaronic priesthood and Levitical workers. In this passage we have a quick review of the somewhat sanitized picture of the start of Aaron's line.  The returning exiles would have known that Nadab and Abihu did not just "die before their father without children".  They rebelled against God by offering unauthorized fire and were themselves consumed by fire from the Lord. Leviticus 10.  The case of Abiathar  son of Ahitub son of Ahimelech, who was faithful to David, but later rebelled with Adonijah is also not mentioned. But the passage points to the importance of the Aaronic line to the rebuilding of the temple by the exiles.  The history of the northern kingdom which was without the Levites from the beginning could not be repeat
Post a Comment
Read more

Revelation 22:3-5 Final and eternal restoration - Day 365

Dear saints in the Lord, Congratulations!  You made it.  We have been through much turmoil in the last year ('20-'21).  But God is faithful to His promises.  I trust that you have been blessed in your reading and have drawn closer to God.   Since we didn't get the blog up and running at the beginning of the challenge, I am going to go back and post entries to cover that first month or so.   Blessings, Jeff Nothing accursed in the city of God, the new Jerusalem.  The presence of sin will be gone.  I am working on memorizing Westminster Shorter Catechism and currently on question 82.  Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God but does daily break them in thought, word and deed. I think our passage today points to the truth of this question.  Do you notice how this answer is not exactly the same as the question. "Any man" becomes "no mere man since the fall
Post a Comment
Read more