Who is Timothy?

• Mid-30s to near 40?, Acts 16:1
• Perhaps shy or timid
• Likely had some physical infirmity

The purpose of the letter, 3:14; 4:13

Topics:

• The church's teaching
• The church's conduct
• The church's leadership

Recipients:

• Timothy
• The Ephesian church

Questions about chapter 2

• Is this chapter necessarily about the formal worship assembly? Why or why not?
• The importance of a higher priority on worship. Do we go to church for preaching or praise? If evangelism is our speciality rather than worship, what will happen? What is our emphasis? Worship easily becomes slovenly, perfunctory, mechanical, dull. The antidote is too often repetitive, unreflective, even flippant.

What follows considers a conceptual framework provided by John Stott.

2:1-7. The church's conduct should be informed by an attitude of global concern.

• The church's prayers should concern all people, 2:1-2
• God's desire concerns all people, 2:3-4
• Christ's death concerns all people, 2:5-6
• The church's proclamation must concern all people, 2:7

2:8-15. The church's conduct must be characterized by activities consistent with Christianity.

• Concern for men and prayer
• Concern for women and attire
• Concern for women in their relationship to men

Hermeneutical understandings

• Revelation and culture
• History and harmony
• Literalism (enthrone both) or liberalism (dismiss both)
• Cultural transposition, translation, transliteration, trajectory
• Ethical commands and cultural expressions
  • What is cultural concerning 2:8?
  • What is cultural concerning 2:9-10?
  • What is cultural concerning 2:11-15?

Summaries for discussion:

• Men should pray with certain attitudes but not necessarily with certain actions or postures.
• Women should adorn themselves modestly, but not necessarily abstain from all jewelry, hairdos, etc.
• Women should submit to headship without reversing sexual roles, but not necessarily to an absolute prohibition as is often seen in the modern world.

Interpreting 2:15:

• Women will come safely through childbirth
• Women will be saved through motherhood
• Women will be saved through the birth of the child, the Christ.