“Paul's First Letter to Timothy — Hope for Women, By Grace Through Faith, Even Through the Fall”

In chapter two of Paul’s first letter to Timothy, Paul wrote that for the sake of order in the churches, women should not follow the lead of some women in the Ephesian assembly who had taken over the teaching function from the ordained men who had been duly appointed to that function. In this section he begins the teaching regarding women teaching men by going all the way back to the book of Genesis and what occurred in the Garden of Eden so many years before. Those events revealed what was so relevant the circumstances in Ephesus.  We finish that teaching today with an emphasis on verse 15 where it says simply this: “… she shall be saved in [the] childbearing.”  The point here is that though childbearing had become a great burden for Eve and would be for all women to follow her, there would also be great blessing for her and all mankind.  So, he concludes, in the woman’s God-given nature as distinct from man’s, there would be even “deliverance” in the bearing and then raising up of the next generations. In this way, the burdens brought upon her by God in response to her transgression would be the very source of her “salvation” or “deliverance”.  He states it this way: “she shall be saved … if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”  All believing women would surely agree with the apostle.  But it is the women and not the men that are qualified by Almighty God for this most critical role — and privilege! Amen.