1 Timothy 2: The Prayer Comes First and Verse 15 Stays Open

Verse 3 of 1 Timothy 2 is thirteen words long, and almost everyone who opens the chapter walks straight past it on the way to verse 11. It says "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour." The word to look at is "this." It points back at verses 1 and 2, and those verses are about prayer.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 2:3-4

So the chapter opens with an instruction, and then it tells you what the instruction rests on. Paul exhorts "that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men" (verse 1). Then he narrows it to "kings, and for all that are in authority." The reason he gives is practical: "that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty" (verse 2). Then comes verse 3, and the whole thing is set on God's character instead of on anybody's convenience.

On Friday I wrote about how Paul, in the first chapter, calls the law good and then says how to use it. The habit shows up again here. He says what to do, then says why it fits who God is.

What "will" is doing in verse 4

Verse 4 says God "will have all men to be saved." That "will" is the old sense of the word, the same one in verse 8, where Paul says "I will therefore that men pray every where." It means want. God wants it. The verse doesn't say everyone will be saved, and it joins the wanting to something with two parts: to be saved, "and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."

Verses 5 and 6 say how that is supposed to work. "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." I keep stopping on "in due time." Paul's sentence puts a timing on the testimony, and it doesn't say the timing is over.

Then verse 7, which is a strange verse to find in the middle of this. Paul interrupts himself. "Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity." A man who has just said something fairly gentle stops to swear he isn't lying. I take that as a sign that what follows is going to be harder to hear, and that he knows it.

Verses 8 through 10, before the hard ones

Verse 8 is the only verse in the chapter that speaks to men's practice: "I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting." Wrath and doubting are what he names. Verse 9 then begins "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety." The phrase "in like manner" ties the two verses together. Paul seems to have one scene in his head, a congregation at prayer. He is saying what the men and the women each need to watch. Men are told about temper and doubt. Women are told about display: "not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works."

The next two verses are the ones people quote.

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

1 Timothy 2:11-12

For a long time what I did with these two verses was nothing. I knew what some people did with them. I also knew what happens in the building I walk to every Sunday, where women pray in sacrament meeting, speak from the pulpit, teach classes of men and women and sit in councils where decisions get made. I let the two sit apart.

On the last Sunday of September, before sacrament meeting, Melissa had the ward standing to learn the new setting of the rest hymn. She is the ward music chair and she doesn't wait for a room to get comfortable. Partway through the second verse she stopped us and said the baritones were a beat late. I sing baritone and I was a beat late, and we sang it again on time while I stood there thinking that this was a woman directing the men of the ward in the chapel and nobody had so much as shifted in a seat. Those are the verses I have to read next to that.

What the Church's own help says, and where Corinthians comes in

The Student Manual says outright that some people read verses 11 and 12 as meaning women could not speak in church in Paul's day. It offers a second reading: that Paul may have been correcting one particular problem, women taking authority that belonged to the Church's leaders. It also points the reader to its note on 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 35, which is where I went next, because it's the other place Paul says something like this.

In 1 Corinthians 14 the words are harder: "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak." But the paragraphs before it matter. Verse 26 has Paul saying "every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation." Everybody has something to say, and it's a crowded room. The man who speaks in tongues with no interpreter present is told to "keep silence in the church" (verse 28). A prophet who is interrupted by a revelation to someone sitting by is told to "hold his peace" (verse 30). So in that one chapter Paul hands out silence to the tongue-speaker, to the prophet and to the women, all within a meeting that sounds disorderly. Verse 33 gives the reason: "God is not the author of confusion, but of peace." And the chapter ends with "Let all things be done decently and in order."

That doesn't prove what verses 34 and 35 meant. It does show that "silence" in that chapter is something Paul asks of several groups for one purpose, and that neither case reads like a policy written for every century.

Back in 1 Timothy 2, Paul's reason for verse 12 is in the next two verses: "For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." The Student Manual, in its material on Eve, treats her part in the Fall as a necessary step toward mortality and says it ought to be honored. That sits a long way from reading verses 13 and 14 as a verdict against her, but how the two fit together I haven't worked out, and these verses are where I stopped trying to.

And then verse 15

Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

1 Timothy 2:15

This is the last verse of the chapter, and the hardest one in it. The subject changes in the middle of the sentence, from "she" to "they," and the verse never says who "they" are. It makes a promise, then attaches a condition to the promise before the sentence is over. The "if" is the part I'm sure of: faith, charity, holiness and sobriety are what has to continue. Whatever "saved in childbearing" means, it can't mean childbearing does the saving by itself, because the sentence won't let it.

What it does mean, I don't know.

I'd refuse to teach the reading where the verse becomes a rule about what a woman has to do to be saved, and the "if" is my reason. Past that I'd rather leave the verse standing as the last thing the chapter says than hand you a tidy answer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does 1 Timothy 2:12 mean women can't teach or speak in church?

Not in the Church I attend, where women pray, speak and teach in our meetings every week. The Student Manual says some read the verse as a ban in Paul's day and offers another reading, that Paul was correcting a specific problem. It doesn't say either way how far the instruction reaches today. Read the verse with that in front of you.

What does "saved in childbearing" mean?

The verse doesn't explain itself, and I'd be wary of anyone who says they have it figured out in one breath. What it does say is that the promise comes with an "if": continuing in faith, charity, holiness and sobriety. Start there and not with the childbearing.

Does verse 4 mean everyone will be saved?

It says God "will have all men to be saved," and I read that as what he wants, not a forecast. The next two verses say Christ is the one mediator and gave himself "a ransom for all." The verse also adds "and to come unto the knowledge of the truth," which is part of the sentence and can't be dropped.

Why pray for kings?

Paul gives his reason in the verse itself. It's so that "we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty." He doesn't ask Timothy to like the kings. He asks him to pray for them.

I'm going to read 1 Corinthians 14 from verse 26 to the end this week, front to back with a pencil, and mark each place Paul tells somebody to be quiet and who it is. I think that chapter and this one belong side by side, and I haven't done that carefully.

— D.