1 Timothy 2

    2:1-7.  This is one of those passages where the little word all causes all kinds of trouble, for it can be used in all kinds of ways.  It does not always mean all without exception.  If it did, when Jesus said that if he were lifted up, he would draw all men to himself (John 12:32), he would have been teaching something clearly not the case, and which he himself denied (John 10:14-16, 26-30).  The context of Jesus’ promise to draw all men to himself was that the Greeks were coming and asking to see him (John 12:20-21).  That is the context Paul speaks to here as well.  Since the man Christ Jesus is the only mediator between God and man (5), he must be the ransom for all who would be saved (6), and all (any) who come to him are welcome to him (cf. Acts 10:34-35).  He is not a God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles to whom Paul was appointed an apostle (7).  Thus the passage does not teach a universal atonement, but a universal gospel.  That is why endless genealogies are pointless (1:4).  Christ gave himself a ransom for all.  This means “that the Father laid on Christ the iniquities of all the spiritual Israel of God, of all nations, ranks, and conditions.”  He was a ransom “for all sorts of men, not for all of every sort”  (Thomas Boston, in the notes to The Marrow of Modern Divinity by Edward Fisher, p.103).  (Cf. Heb.2:9 and notes).

     2:8.  The word therefore connects this with the preceding.  Vv.1-2 call men to submission to superior authorities (cf.Ro.13:1).  Rather than a rebellious wrath and dissension, we are to pray for those in authority in order that we may live tranquil and quiet lives (as far as it depends on us, Ro.12:18).  The weapons of our warfare are not carnal (2 Cor.10:4), and the hands we lift to God in prayer must be holy.

     2:9-10.  Paul now turns to the part women are to play in the tranquility and peace of the church and home.  Just as it is improper for men to glory in and flaunt their strength and power to gain advantage (cf.Gen.4:23), likewise it is improper for women to use their bodies immodestly for the power it gives them (cf.1 Pet.3:1-7).  Her husband and children will not rise up and call her blessed for that (cf.Prov.31:28-31).

     2:11-12.  These verses apply at least in the setting of the church’s gathered worship.  It appears it does not prohibit all speech even there (e.g., note the praying and prophesying of women in 1 Cor.11:5, 13).  But it would exclude women from the sort of official teaching done from the pulpit, and public challenges to that teaching in the meetings by women.  Nowhere in the NT are there women elders.   There does seem to be a role for women deacons, but not in roles that would place them in authority over men.  What is called for is a noncontentious spirit in a submissive role (see notes on Biblical submission at 1 Cor.11:2-16; Eph.5:21-6:9).  (See how the same Greek word for quiet is used in Acts 21:14; 1 Thess. 4:11; 1 Pet.3:4; and as rendered rested, Luke 23:56).

     2:13-14.  To support the preceding, Paul does not rely on shifting cultural rules, such as might be seen in the issue of head covering or hair style (cf. 1 Cor.11:4-5).  He bases his argument on the unchanging realities of creation (13), and the subsequent fall and resulting curse (14), which involved a usurpation of authority, and a sinful surrender of it.  V.14 is not intended to shift blame from Adam, but to show the part Eve had in the fall of man (the KJV shows this better: the woman…was in the transgression).

     2:15.  Just as Adam is the federal head of the entire human race, so Eve is the head of her sex.  Thus, in referring to what is true of all women, Paul literally says, “But she [i.e., Eve] shall be saved through the bearing of children if they [i.e., woman kind] continue in faith” etc.

     The promise of redemption through the seed of the woman in Gen.3:15 is followed by a part of the curse that bears on the woman just at the point of childbearing (Gen.3:16).  Not only is there physical pain in child bearing, but there is the pain of seeing our children carry the sin nature inherited from their parents, as seen first in Cain.  Nevertheless, she is called Eve (life) because she is the mother of all the living (Gen.3:20).  The redeemer came into the world through her (Gen.3:15; Ruth 4:13-15; Luke 1:45-47; Gal.4:4; Rev.12:1-5.  See also my commentary on Song of Songs at 8:5).

“He comes to make His blessings flow 
Far as the curse is found.” 
(Joy to the World, third verse).