1 Timothy 2 - Introduction

That it is meet to pray and give thanks for all men, and the reason why. How women should be attired: they are not permitted to teach: they shall be saved notwithstanding the testimonies of God's wrath in child-birth, if they continue in faith.

Anno Domini 58.

IN this chapter, the apostle first of all gave Timothy a rule according to which the public worship of God was to be performed in the church of Ephesus. And in delivering that rule, he shewed an example of great faithfulness to the cause of divine truth. For without fearing the rage of the Jewish zealots, who contended that no person could be saved who did not embrace the institutions of Moses, he ordered public prayers to be made for men of all nations and religions, 1 Timothy 2:1.—for kings, and for all in authority, notwithstanding they were heathens, that the disciples of Christ, shewing themselves good subjects by praying for the Roman magistrates, might be allowed in peace to worship the only true God according to their conscience, 1 Timothy 2:2.—Thus to pray for all men, the apostle assured Timothy is acceptable to God our Saviour, 1 Timothy 2:3.—Who hath provided the means of salvation for all men, 1 Timothy 2:4 and is equally related to all men, as their Creator and Governor, and as the object of their worship; and is also related to all men, as their Mediator and Saviour, according to their dispensations, 1 Timothy 2:15.—having offered himself a ransom for all: a doctrine, the proof of which, the apostle told Timothy, was now in its clearest light set before the world in its proper season, 1 Timothy 2:6.—by many preachers, and especially by Paul himself, who was appointed a herald, to proclaim, and to prove, that joyful doctrine, 1 Timothy 2:7.

But because the Jews fancied that prayers offered up in the Jewish synagogues and prayer-houses, but especially in the temple at Jerusalem, were more acceptable to God, than prayers offered up any where else; also because the heathens were tinctured with the same superstition concerning prayers offered in their temples, the apostle ordered that prayers should be made by men in every place, from a pure heart, without wrath, and without disputings about the seasons and places of prayer, 1 Timothy 2:8. From which it is plain, that not the time when, nor the place where, prayers are made, but the dispositions of mind with which they are made, render them, through Christ, acceptable to God.—Next, he ordered women, when joining in the public worship of God, to appear in decent apparel, adorned with the ornaments of modesty and purity of manners, and not with gold and silver and costly raiment, 1 Timothy 2:9.—It seems there were in Ephesus some ladies, who had embraced the gospel, to whom this injunction was necessary. These were to adorn themselves with good works, 1 Timothy 2:10.—And, because some of the Ephesian women preached and prayed in the public assemblies in presence of the men, the apostle strictly forbade that practice, as inconsistent with the subordinate state of women, who are not to usurp authority over men, 1 Timothy 2:11.—For the inferiority of the woman to the man, God shewed, by creating the man before the woman, 1 Timothy 2:13.—Besides, that women should not teach men, but be taught by them, is, in the general suitable to that inferiority of understandingin this present life, of which their mother Eve gave a melancholy proof, when she was deceived by the devil into transgression, 1 Timothy 2:14.—Nevertheless, for the comfort of pious women, the apostle observed, that as a woman brought ruin upon mankind by yielding to the temptation of the devil; so a woman, by bringing forth the Saviour, has been the occasion of the salvation of mankind, 1 Timothy 2:15.