“Paul's First Letter to Timothy — Giving Respect to Authority Where Authority is Due”

The principles governing the church meetings are addressed with firstly an exhortation to the men regarding prayer: it should be without doubt and wrath controlling.  Secondly, the women, instead of using the meetings to show off superficial and worldly adornments should reveal their inner godliness by good works.  In addition, there was a serious issue at Ephesus with some women trying to take control of the teaching from the appointed men.  Paul goes to Genesis 3 for his main point that the men should be leading in the teaching and the women were not to interfere.  He shows how God made the first couple different from each other in essential ways.  The man Adam was made as head over the creation and also over Eve when she was formed from his side.  The woman, Eve, was made explicitly to complement the first man.  So their natures being so different but complementary, their functions must also be different.  The man is the “head” as it were and the woman is the “heart”.  The hierarchical structure of authority in the created world is necessarily to be reflected also here in the church order. Next time we will finish the teaching by looking more deeply into the subject of how God has used women and uses them today.