10.09 | Tidying Up
1 Timothy 2-3
‘First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people’
1 Timothy 2:1
Our daughter Eeva is a creative and a visionary.
And those things, in the world of a seven year old, leads to a very messy bedroom. Periodically (weekly) we ask Eeva to tidy up, and up she goes to get started. And then, an hour later, we find her, happily distracted by a new game amidst the carnage of her room.
Tidying up a mess is the restoration of order. It is things returning to their proper place. It is putting stuff in a rubbish bag or back on the shelf. Tidying up reestablishes things as they were meant to be.
Paul asks Timothy to begin the tidying up job in our passage today. He tackles three massive issues.
Prayer. Gender. Leadership.
First, prayer.
The life of the Church always begins in prayer. It is not an afterthought, amendment, or crisis response. It is the most foundational practice of creating and restoring order—for it roots the Church again in our most essential relationship and our power source. Without prayer, we are not the Church.
Gender.
Gender is among the most confused and controversial subjects of our age. Questions of gender go deep into our experiences of pain and power, exclusion and emotion, identity and belonging. Gender has been wielded as a tool of oppression and has been deconstructed as a societal myth.
And yet, Paul goes here today, and his words collide with our cultural moment.1
Be encouraged. Understanding the context is the key to unlocking these words. Let me give us some pointers.
Ephesus was the global centre for the worship of Artemis—goddess of the hunt, and goddess of childbirth. The worship and prayer life that surrounded Artemis was largely undertaken by priestesses, with men broadly sidelined. The religious world of Ephesus knew a spiritually disempowered and disengaged masculinity. Alongside this backdrop, the false teachers of Ephesus seems to have focused on spreading their ideas particularly among vulnerable younger widows.
Paul’s themes are looking to bring correction into this context. He pursues the mobilisation of prayerful masculinity—for men who reclaim their created identity of authority and purpose and protection. He wants men who lift their hands in earnest prayer—prayers of courage, of ferocity, of love, of tears. He wants a masculinity that prays and prays and prays until the walls of hell fall and the Kingdom of Jesus is established. God desired the mobilisation of prayerful masculinity in Ephesus, and He desires it in our day too. We greatly need it.
His words to women are also a corrective in this context. But we have to hold them alongside the rest of the New Testament—where women prophesy,2 deliver and expound epistles,3 host churches,4 are named among apostles,5 and (in today’s reading) may be named as deacons.6 The Church was birthed in the prophesy that ‘Your sons and daughters shall prophesy’7—a promise not here forgotten. Paul calls them back to the humility that gives honour, to doing (and not just talking), and to their true place of safety in childbirth8—who is God, not Artemis.9 He wants them not to dominate or exclude the men in their lives, but to see them empowered into all they could be.
And leaders.
Those who, in Paul’s language, ‘over-see’—taking a high vantage point from which they direct and govern the community. Much could be said, but simply here we capture the essential theme: Paul desires leaders of integrity over performance, whose credentials come from lives lived beautifully in secret and in the home before they are impressive in public. The stability of the community is built from deep character.
Ancient themes, and an ancient context.
And yet, somehow, strikingly familiar areas of chaos and confusion in our own moment too.
The tidying up has begun.
Spirit of God, so lead us your Church today.
Reflect:
Which of these three areas most stirs me right now?
Seek the Father. Seek His heart. Turn this to intercession over the Church of Jesus today.
Pray:
Holy Spirit,
It’s messy out there.
The world is so confused,
And the clashing ideologies
Seem to simply create
Chaos.
Holy Spirit,
It’s messy in here too.
The confusions of the world
Have seeped into the Church,
And we no longer stand with clarity
Upon what is good.
And so, Spirit of God,
Would you come and restore us.
Clarify our minds;
Restore our vision;
Charge our hearts with compassion;
Fill our ways with power—
That Your Church may bring
Clarity;
Order;
Beauty;
Healing;
And peace
To our confused world.
Holy Spirit,
Begin with me.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Ecclesiastes 7:1-9:10 | Proverbs 23:10-14
Tom Wright, arguably the leading New Testament scholar of our age, writes that “Few passages have so vexed and affronted modern interpreters as this one, partly because of very rare Greek words at the crucial point.” Tom Wright: The New Testament in its World, p.544
Acts 21:9
Romans 16:1-2. Those who delivered letters would usually expound the contents for the listeners.
Early churches met in Lydia’s house (Acts 16:40), Priscilla and Aquila’s house (Romans 16:5), and Nympha’s house (Colossians 4:15)
Romans 16:7, Although note that there remains disagreement among scholars about how to translate this verse. The simpler reading, however, does imply that Junia was considered an apostle alongside Andronicus, and thus many scholars and translations adopt this reading.
1 Timothy 3:11. Note the word for ‘wife’ and ‘woman’ are the same in the Greek, and thus we have to imply which meaning is intended through the context of the sentence.
Acts 2:17
The word ‘saved’ can mean, ‘kept safe during’
Remember, she was the goddess of childbirth, to who many across the world looked for safety through childbirth.
Thank you!