I Timothy Chapter Two Lesson Four

What Women Should wear

1 Timothy 2:9-15 In the same way also, I desire that women adorn themselves in modest clothing, with (aidos – see Heb. 12:28 ) modesty/reverence/shamefaced/bashfulness/downcast eyes and (sophrosunē) sensibleness/soundness of mind/self-control/sobriety not adorned with braiding, or gold, or pearls, or costly clothing, (10) but with good works, which becomes/suitable women professing godliness.

“I desire that women adorn themselves in modest clothing” Look up the Greek word “Katastole” for the word modest. What does it mean? Question – Is verse nine and ten commanding women not to have braided hair, expensive clothing, jewelry consisting of gold and pearls or is it emphasizing outward adornment versus good works. What is the major point you think the Apostle Paul is making here? What are the good works she needs to be doing? How Christian Women Should learn

Paul disallows two things concerning a woman in the church in verse twelve, name them: 1.______2. ______Do you think Paul is saying that a woman isn’t allowed to teach at all in the church? There are no qualifiers in the verse concerning children, other women, or anybody else. Does this mean the Spirit would never give a woman the gift of teaching?

Look up the word the Greek word “αὐθεντειν (authentein) exercise/usurp of verse twelve. What does it mean? ______Do you think Paul is only disallowing women teaching and taking authority over men? What is the Greek word for woman in the New Testament? What is the Greek word for wife in the New Testament? What is the Greek word for man in verse twelve? What is the Greek word for Husband? (Compare I Cor. 11:3 with Eph. 5:23) There is a great controversy over verses eleven and twelve. Some say that it is dealing with a husband and wife relationship and others say is has to do with male authority over women in the church. What would be the ramifications of each interpretation within the church? What does it mean for the woman to be in silence? Some people teach this was only a cultural application for the women in Paul’s day because it was only lawful for men in public assemblies to ask questions, or even interrupt the speaker when there was any matter in his speech which they did not understand; but this liberty was not granted to women. As a result Paul put the same gag order on women in the church due to cultural conditions of that day. However, when one looks at Paul’s rational in verse thirteen which has no cultural bearing at all. Paul points to Adam and Eve as his rational. Paul gives two reasons in his statement concerning his view of women in the church concerning teaching and taking authority over men: 1. Created order – Adam was made first. What would created order have to do with anything? 2. Eve was deceived – Has the susceptibility of Eve been transferred to all women? Are women intrinsically susceptible to deception thus disqualified to teach? Is this to say that men can’t be misled or that men are not as easily misled as women? How A Woman is Saved Through Childbearing?

Can childless women be saved or Christian girls that haven’t grown up and died be saved? Below are several points of view through the ages that may add some insight: 1. A woman, by the proper training of her children, can obtain salvation as well as her husband, and that her appropriate duty is not public teaching, but the training of her family. 2. She shall be saved from the arts of impostors, and from the luxury and vice of the age, if, instead of wandering about, she remains at home, cultivates modesty, is subject to her husband, and engages carefully in the training of her children. 3. The apostle designed to comfort woman, or to alleviate the sadness of the picture which he had drawn respecting her condition. He had referred, incidentally, as a proof of the subordinate character of her station, to the first apostasy. This naturally suggested the sentence which was passed on her, and the condition of sorrow to which she was doomed, particularly in child-birth. That was the standing demonstration of her guilt; that the condition in which she suffered most; that the situation in which she was in greatest peril. Paul assures her, therefore, that though she must thus suffer, yet that she ought not to regard herself in her deep sorrows and dangers, though on account of sin, as necessarily under the divine displeasure, or as excluded from the hope of heaven. The way of salvation was open to her as well as to men, and was to be entered in the same manner. If she had faith and holiness, even in her condition of sorrow brought on by guilt, she might as well hope for eternal life as man. The object of the apostle seems to be to guard against a possible construction which might be put on his words, that he did not regard the woman as in circumstances as favorable for salvation as those of man, or as if he thought that salvation for her was more difficult, or perhaps that she could not be saved at all. 4. The general sentiments of It refers to the promise in Gen_3:15, and means that the woman shall be saved through, or by means of bearing a child, to wit, the Messiah; and that the apostle means to sustain the woman in her sorrows, and in her state of subordination and inferiority, by referring to the honor which has been put upon her by the fact that a woman gave birth to the Messiah.