Overview: 1 Timothy 2:9, 10

What is the Heart of Paul’s command regarding a Woman’s appearance? That a Christian woman’s appearance and conduct are to encourage Godliness as a manifestation of Holy Spirit’s work. We too often miss the larger connection between prayer and idolatry on one hand and male and female roles with the Trinity on the other. In addressing issues that Timothy had to deal with in the church at Ephesus, Paul deals with both simultaneously. The central theme of the passage is that Christians—men and women—should all take up Christ’s ministry of prayer and in so doing join with Him in making all things new. Prayer demands and reflects a person’s (and a church’s!) trust in the sovereign Triune God; is the ultimate embodiment of reliance on the Lord of the Impossible. Prayer is faithfulness to the First Word—“you shall have no other gods before Me.” When we get our heads and hearts around that then Paul’s call for men to pray without anger and quarreling (v. 8) and women with proper adornment (vv. 9, 10) make perfect Biblical sense. Whereas men break the First Word by depending on their own strength and rhetoric (or of other idols), women rely on their appearance and emotions to influence and control. Though physically weaker, women were created by God to be the embodiment of beauty by their male counterparts. That in itself is good, but when women use it to control—dressing immodestly, lavishly adorning themselves—they are unwittingly making themselves to be “goddesses”, the object of male desire and attention. In the same way, as an object of male desire, a woman’s emotions can be oppressive and even wielded as a weapon. Paul’s prohibition against this abuse of beauty and emotion conveys that it will hinder a woman’s prayers and undermines her calling to be a helper and comforter (i.e. Gen. 2), a special role that embodies the ministry of Holy Spirit (Jn. 16). Rather than use such feminine gifts for idolatry, Paul commands women to adorn themselves with “good works”, in other words, to manifest the work of the Spirit to those around her.

APPLICATION

1. Sisters, spend your time, energy, and resources beautifying yourselves with Proverbs 31 glory. And brothers, praise them for doing so.

2. Likewise, pray for Holy Spirit’s work to be emotionally well-ordered, so reflecting and embodying the inner life of Christ.