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1 Tim. 2:1-8 "Prayer for All Men"
Last week we learned that Paul had given Timothy a charge to lead the church in Ephesus to focus on love, and building one another up, rather than being distracted by legalism and idle talk. So this week in chapter two Paul gives us two "therefores". Look with me at verse 18 of chapter 1, "This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck." Timothy has an important charge, a mission from not just Paul but God, and there are dangers involved, so Paul says "therefore."
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, [and] giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this [is] good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For [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, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle--I am speaking the truth in Christ [and] not lying--a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. (1 Tim. 2:1-8)
"First of all" Prayer is the beginning. It is
how we should start. Paul talks about three special kinds of prayer
here, supplications, intercessions and thanksgivings. But first we need
to know whom we are praying for. "All men", and especially
for kings and all who are in authority. He gives two reasons why we
should pray for all men. First, because if they are in authority over
us, and they do well, then we will also do well. If it goes badly with
them we also will be affected badly, because we are under them. But
a more basic reason is that God desires all men to be saved and to come
to the knowledge of the truth, that Jesus Christ died to ransom men
from hell, He paid the price for our sins on the cross so that all who
believe in Him can join Him in the kingdom of God. But what about Hun
Sen in Cambodia? What about the military dictators in Africa? What about
the Communist regime in North Korea? Surely Christians should not pray
that God would bless these men? But didn't Jesus tell us to pray for
our enemies? Paul takes it even further. The words that he uses here
for prayer are instructive.
"Supplication" means to plead their case before God. I am
afraid that I am guilty of cynicism when it comes to politicians. My
prayers have been half-hearted. While I will pray fervently for my wife
and children, or for my friends, I give a feeble, "God bless them"
for the men who are running the country. I think the best example of
pleading in the Bible is the story of Abraham. One day Abraham was sitting
in his tent door in the heat of the day, when he was visited by the
Lord. And as Abraham talked with the Lord, God revealed to him that
he was going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrrah because the
wickedness in them was so terrible. But Abraham approached God and said,
"Would you also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose
that there were 50 righteous among them?" And God said, "If
I find 50... I will spare all the place for their sakes." But then
Abraham spoke up again, "But God what if there were 5 less than
50?" And God again promised to spare them all for the sake of 45.
The story continues and Moses pleads for 40, then 30, then 20 and finally
10 with God agreeing each time to spare the whole of the city if He
could find only a few righteous men there. Sure, there is a lot of wickedness
that goes on in high places, corruption, greed, ambition for power,
but for the sake of the righteous we need to plead with God on their
behalf.
"Intercession" means to "throw yourself in with someone".
It means that you are no longer a neutral party. You are not standing
over to the side like a tv reporter, objectively announcing the facts,
instead you are fighting for the cause. When you intercede you are making
their battle your own. If they win, you win. If they lose, you lose.
Perhaps you have seen instances when the television reporters are not
totally objective? Think about Japanese coverage of the Olympics! These
guys aren't simply reporting the news, they are cheering on the home
team! I remember back in the 80's when Corazon Aquino led the revolt
against Marcos in the Philipines. It was obvious that the American press
loved Corazon Aquino and hated Marcos. They were not objective, they
were interceeding, throwing themselves in with the revolution. Moses
was the great interceeder in the Old Testament. In fact Moses interceeded
with God for Pharaoh when God was sending plagues upon Egypt. Later
when the people rose up in rebellion against Moses in the wilderness.
God had had enough. God made Moses an offer, "Moses, I am going
to destroy these people, but you I will keep. We will go find another
people, these one's are just too stubborn" What did Moses do? He
got down on his knees and threw himself in with the rest of the people.
He even said to God, "Destroy me instead of them, but just have
mercy on them." That is intercession. What a comfort to know that
our Lord Jesus Christ, is at the right hand of the Father, interceeding
for us! He has made our case, His case. He has thrown Himself in with
us. Praise God!
"Giving thanks." We need to be so serious about praying for
all men that when God answers our prayers and blesses them we are sincerely
thankful for it. We need to be looking for the answers to our prayers.
Many times we miss the answers to prayer that God has given to us because
we haven't taken the time to give thanks for them. My wife and I are
in the midst of the process of writing thank you cards to all the people
who sent us presents for Gracie. I realized that this simple act of
giving thanks, caused me to enjoy each one of the gifts again. Because
I had to think back, "Oh, who was it who gave us that gift?"
Last week we prayed for the next Prime Minister of Japan. This week
we have found that it will be Mr. Obuchi. Thank God for Mr. Obuchi and
for his finance minister Mr. Miyazawa, that God has chosen to place
these men in this difficult position at this time. The decisions that
these men will make will affect millions of people in this country and
many many more abroad. Let us give thanks to God for them, throw ourselves
in with them, interceeding for them as for ourselves, pleading with
God for this nation, Japan.
1 Timothy 2:9-15 "Intimacy With God"
I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting; in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works. Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control. (1 Timothy 2:9-15)
The first "therefore" told us to pray, for all
men, especially our rulers because God wants to save them all. The second
"therefore" tells us how to pray, so that we can avoid making
a shipwreck of our faith. How then should we pray. First we must consider
the word, "everywhere". There is no place that prayer cannot
penetrate. There is no place where prayer is not appropriate. I believe
that we should be known as a people of prayer. I would like for strangers
to refer to me as "that guy who prays". Our prayer needs to
be obvious reliance on God, not muttered formalities for starting meals.
We need to pray publicly at our places of work, at the restaurants that
we eat in and the places that go to play at. The world needs to know
that we are trusting in our heavenly Father. The world needs to know
that we are praying for them. The world needs to know where to turn
when they are in trouble and need prayer themselves. Pray "everywhere".
But then Paul starts to talk about men and women. I think this is very
interesting because prayer is different for men than for women and strangely
enough it has a lot to do with sexuality. We have all heard before the
physical differences between men and women. Being married is a daily
education in the differences between men and women. Men are motivated
quite differently than women are. Things that make me excited, fast
computers and powertools don't interest my wife in the least and the
pretty decoration for the room that my wife has spent hours making doesn't
even register to me until she points it out a week later. Prayer is
affected by the difference in men and women because it has to do with
intimacy. Intimacy is when we share our innermost thoughts with someone
else, the things that we don't show to anyone else. One kind of intimacy
is the kind that happens in a marriage. But prayer is another kind of
intimacy with God.
Paul says that men, should lift up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.
I find it amazing that these three things are parallel to the most common
problems have in their marriage lives. First, is holy hands. You cannot
have intimacy with your wife if you are hiding something. You cannot
share all of your secrets if your hands have been somewhere they should
not have been. The same applies to our prayer life. We need to make
sure that we do not divide our lives into two separate arenas, the things
of the heart which we take to God, and the things of the hands that
we conveniently hide behind our backs when we go to pray. We need to
be able to hold out our hands for God to see when we pray. Without this
kind of openness we cannot hope for intimacy with God.
Wrath, anger, is probably the second most common problem that men face
in their marriages. Our nature is to use our superior strength to push
through things that get in our way. When our wives don't do what we
want it is always a temptation to get angry. I think that this is part
of the curse in Genesis on women where God said to Eve, "Your desire
shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." I think
that there is a Godly design for the man to have authority over the
family, but the consequences of sin have often made this a terrible
thing for women. Sadly most men do not lead their their households in
wisdom, but rather bully their families into submission, using fear
and physical force to rule. Have you ever seen an angry prayer? Sometimes
this goes under the guise of spiritual warfare, shouting and screaming
to God. Have you ever prayed a grudging prayer. "Dear God, bless
so and so even though he is so selfish and greedy and doesn't deserve
to be be blessed at all. Oh God, change this terrible man and humble
him with your power..." Actually the word that Paul uses here means
a "righteous anger". But Paul says that it has no part in
our intimate conversations with God.
The last one that Paul addresses to men is "doubting". Again
I think that this is probably high on the list of problems that men
have in their marriages. We feel insecure, unsure of whether our wives
really love us. Many times this is acted out by men in the form of jealousy.
We can't bear the thought of our wives even smiling at somebody else.
We take a little thing and because of our doubt, blow it up into something
big. In prayer this insecurity often leads us question whether God still
loves us. Whether He will answer our prayer. In our minds we tend to
link together our performance and God's love for us. We think that if
we are doing poorly, God will love us less. The next step in this is
that we start to ask for less, because we don't believe that God would
give us more. With God, what counts is intimacy. Anything that would
inhibit that intimacy has no place in our prayer lives.
Paul says for the women, "in like manner also". When women
pray they also are looking for intimacy with God. I think that the main
danger that women have is of settling for a superficial intimacy when
they could have much more. Paul talks about clothing and fashion commanding
that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation.
The greek word he uses here for "adorn" is "kosmeo"
which is the root from which we get our word "cosmetics".
It means to arrange or put in order, to prepare. Let me ask you women,
how much time do you spend arranging your outward appearance before
you leave your house in the morning? Now, honestly, how much time do
you spend arranging your inward appearance before God each morning?
Which is more important to you? Paul gives some guidelines so that fashion
won't become a distraction, pulling you away from intimacy with God.
First, wear modest clothing. I realize that church is a social event.
It is a chance for men and women to meet and therefore we tend to dress
up for the occasion, especially if we are single. But if you are distracting
a man's attention away from God, simply by your outward appearance,
then you have gone too far. And it goes both ways, if someone is distracted
by you, then you are distracted by their distraction. One purpose of
fashion is to attract the opposite sex. Paul gives a list of things
that did that in his culture. I read a 4th century preacher give another
list, and John Wesley in the 18th century give another list. If I gave
you a list for our times it would be different still. Let your conscience
be your guide, if your outfit is going to be hook in some guy's mouth,
don't wear it to church.
The next thing that Paul says is to dress with propriety. Another purpose
of fashion is to be a kind of uniform expressing what group you belong
to. When I go to the Westin Hotel I feel very uncomfortable unless I
am wearing a suit and tie. Likewise when I am handing out tracts to
the young kids around Machida station I feel very uncomfortable wearing
my suit and tie. There is a live house across the street from the church
in Machida where young kids come and hang out on weekends. All these
kids are wearing clothes and hairstyles that tell us very clearly who
they are, and if you are not wearing that kind of clothing you cannot
be accepted into their society. How about church. What kind of uniform
should we wear? I am puzzled about this, because I hope that we can
be open to everyone. Paul says that he is all things to all people in
order that he might save some. If we all wear the same kind of "church"
outfit. It becomes a barrier to people trying to join us. They think
subconsciously that unless they wear the same kind of clothes that they
won't fit in. You may have noticed that in many churches women all tend
to dress a certain way. There is no reason to do this and I think it
actually hurts the church. Propriety does not need to mean conformity,
it only means that we wear clothing that is appropriate for worshiping
God.
The third thing that Paul commands concerning fashion is that we use
moderation. I believe that one of the main purposes of fashion is to
create a market for goods that people do not really need. Obviously
we all own clothes that are perfectly good but that we never wear anymore
because it has gone out of style. We hang on to it because we hope that
if we wait long enough it will come back into style. If we only bought
the clothes that we really needed the department stores would all go
out of business. But because of fashion we need to have winter coats
of three different colors and lengths and different boots to wear with
pants and skirts. Fashion is also for many people really a hobby. A
hobby is an activity that we use for recreation. I use my computer for
work, but I also use it as a hobby. I read magazines about computers
and buy new software and upgrades and tinker with this program or that
program. In the same way it is relaxing and fun for women to read fashion
magazines and go shopping and spend time dressing up. But it is possible
for a hobby to go overboard. When I first got the Internet, I was spending
so much time with my computer that my wife complained of being a computer
widow. There is nothing wrong with fashion being your hobby, but find
the right balance. Let it be fun and relaxing without becoming enslaved
to it.
True intimacy comes from the inside. Paul says that a godly woman will
adorn herself with good works. Instead of arranging and ordering things
so that she gets attention, she will direct people's attention to the
glory of God. Another obstacle to intimacy with God is this desire to
get attention. To have people listen to you. Scientific studies have
shown that women on average use far many more words a day than men do.
In marriage, men usually have problems expressing themselves, women
have the opposite problem of not being able to listen. It is common
in counseling situations for a wife to answer questions for her husband.
"How do you feel about your home?, Sir" "Oh, he loves
it, don't you Henry, that's why he always is sitting in his chair watching
the tv." I have found that in prayer times, groups of only women
take much longer to share their prayer requests than groups that are
made up of men. In fact sometimes it takes so long to share the requests
that they don't have time to pray. I think that many times people get
more out of sharing their prayer request and having people listen to
them, than they get out of the actual prayer. And this is the problem,
because it means that we have substituted intimacy with other people
in the group for intimacy with God.
The key for women in intimacy then is to stop talking and start listening.
For men it is vital that they stop hiding their hands behind their back
and start to open up. For women it is vital that they stop talking long
enough to listen, to realize that the communication is really going
both ways. You need to know that as you sit there pouring out your heart
that God is there, catching all of it, and that He cares and has things
that He wants to say back to you. Women are naturally verbal. I have
been reading up on child development and it says that little girls make
words and sentences far faster than little boys do. While the boys are
making "Vroom Vroom" noises for their cars, the little girls
are already discussing the menu for tea with their dollies. If we are
going to have intimacy we have to do the opposite of what our inclination
is. For men that requires talking about what they feel with God, opening
up to God with everything that is inside them. For women it requires
that they spend time listening to God and allowing Him to lead them.
Paul has been talking about prayer and the different needs of men and
women in having an intimate relationship with God. But at the end of
chapter 2 he touches briefly on another issue, that of women teaching
in the church and being in authority over men. First, I want you to
notice the words, "I do not permit". I think that this helps
us because Paul did not say that this is a command of God but a command
of Paul. But he does support his view with Scripture and so we have
to take it seriously. What does he say? He says, "For Adam was
formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being
deceived, fell into transgression." The point here is that Eve
was tricked into believing that what God said wasn't true. But Adam
knew what God had said, and chose to disobey, to receive the fruit from
Eve. Eve fell into transgression, but Adam jumped in after her. Eve
was mistaken and then led her husband Adam into the same sin. I have
to say that this was the beginning of men doing stupid things because
of a woman and they have been repeating it ever since. I think the reason
for Paul's rule of not letting women teach was because women are smarter
than men. If a man who is leading is about to do something dumb, usually
the woman is smart enough not to do the same stupid thing. But in the
rare event that a woman does something dumb, a man will follow right
along. Something short-circuits men's brains when they get around women.
So Paul tries to get around this by prohibiting women from teaching
or having authority. But there is an exception, women can be "saved"
from this prohibition by teaching their own children so that they will
continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.
This is a difficult teaching for us today. Let me help you in how to
understand the Bible. When we study the Bible there are three things
we look for; the situation in which it was written, including the history
and culture of the time. This helps us to understand the truth that
the writer was trying to communicate. But we also look for the timeless
truths that we can apply to any time or culture. When we look back at
Paul's time we have to realize that women were counted as third class
and had no education to speak of. Considering the danger that the church
in Ephesus was in of straying from the gospel through idle talk and
fables it made sense for Paul to limit teaching to men who could read
the scriptures for themselves. In our culture today, women are just
as well educated as men and there are women who are Bible scholars and
professors in seminaries. This passage is difficult for us to apply
to our world, but what are timeless truths? I think that we need to
focus in on the need for intimacy in our prayer lives and the different
obstacles that men and women have in obtaining that intimacy. We need
to be aware that men are more easily persuaded by outward appearances
and can be distracted away from God by a woman. And we need to be parents
who are faithful to train up their children to continue in faith, love,
and holiness, with self-control.
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