CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
1 Timothy 2:9. That women adorn themselves in modest apparel.—“In seemly guise.” The word for “apparel” includes more than dress—taking in the whole deportment, whether manifest in manners or dress. “Do not people speak of ‘loud dress’? I suppose that by this is meant a discord in shape, a shock in colours, a flashy advertisement, to say the wearer is very foolish, but with a kind of folly that is not very innocent” (Bishop Alexander). With shamefastness.—The innate shrinking from anything unbecoming. And sobriety.—The well-balanced state of mind resulting from habitual self-restraint. Not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array.—“The saints in all ages have allowed themselves to be sarcastic about dress. Isaiah was so (1 Timothy 3:16), and Paul and Peter. Jerome is angrier and fiercer. To Lœta he writes, ‘Load not your child’s hair with gems, nor sprinkle on her young head some of the red fire of hell’ ” (Alexander). Let those who do not fear the red fire smile at the narrowness.
1 Timothy 2:11. Let the woman learn.—The apostle speaks with the assurance of one who has the fitness of things on his side. It would be interesting to have St. Paul’s judgment on certain developments of our own times.
1 Timothy 2:12. Nor to usurp authority over the man.—It is very certain the translators of 1611 held the supremacy of the man, as this phrase shows. The R.V. says, “to have dominion over.”
1 Timothy 2:13. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.—An important reason St. Paul thinks why man should take the headship. Its force would be more evident to Jews than to our own day. The same reasoning, it might be said, would show Adam inferior to the brutes.
1 Timothy 2:14. And Adam was not deceived.—But the woman was not only later than man in point of creation—she was earlier in sin than he.
1 Timothy 2:15. But she shall be saved in child-bearing.—There are two most reasonable explanations of this difficult expression. (a) “She shall be saved by fulfilling her proper destiny and acquiescing in all the conditions of woman’s life”; and (b) “by the child-bearing, i.e. by the relation in which woman stood to the Messiah.” Bishop Ellicott argues strenuously for the latter.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 1 Timothy 2:9-15
The Place of Woman in Church Life.
I. To be modest in dress and moral deportment.—“In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety … with good works” (1 Timothy 2:9-10). The allusion is primarily to the behaviour of women in public worship, though generally applicable to the dress and conduct of “women professing godliness.” A lady once asked the Rev. John Newton what was the best rule for female dress and behaviour. “Madam,” said he, “so dress and so conduct yourself that persons who have been in your company shall not recollect what you had on.” Modesty and simplicity are the adornment of Christian women. The caution against display in dress and ornaments was no doubt necessary in writing to Ephesus, where wealthy ladies dressed extravagantly. St. Paul might say: “You are Christian women, and the profession you have adopted is reverence towards God. This profession you have made known to the world. It is necessary therefore that those externals of which the world takes cognisance should not give the lie to your profession. And how is unseemly attire, paraded at the very time of public worship, compatible with the reverence which you have professed? Reverence God by reverencing yourselves, by guarding with jealous care the dignities of those bodies with which He has endowed you. Reverence God by coming before Him clothed both in body and soul in fitting attire. Let your bodies be free from meretricious decoration. Let your souls be adorned with abundance of good works” (Plummer).
II. Not to be a public teacher, but a submissive learner.—“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man” (1 Timothy 2:11-12). The prohibition refers to taking the lead in the public teaching of the sanctuary. There was a tendency among the women at Ephesus to put themselves forward more than was seemly. “Woman’s sphere in the law of God, without doubt, is home; her noblest attraction, devotedness to those with whom she is thrown in daily intercourse. Some women there are who find not only duty, but pleasure there—not only love, but safety. Others again, restless and discontented, fancy that they should be happier and better and more useful anywhere but where they are, and gladly seize the first pretence to turn aside. Woman’s guide in general is feeling; she is a creature of impulse, ever likely, unless strongly yet tenderly restrained, to turn aside from the safer and less excitable path of daily duty, wherever the affections or the enthusiasm of the moment may lead. More especially is she likely to fall into this temptation when first awakened to the claims and beauty and comfort of religion. The simple duties of home then seem little worth compared to the service of heaven. She cannot realise that the unfatiguing, unexciting duties of domestic usefulness, infused with thoughts of God and of His word, is the path most acceptable to Him” (Grace Aguilar, on “Women of Israel”).
III. Not to assume imperious authority over man.—“Nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” (1 Timothy 2:12).
1. Because man was first in the order of creation. “For Adam was first formed, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:13). It was God’s law from the beginning that woman should be subject to the man, and it may be supposed that this authority suffered by the Fall, yet in the ruin that followed there remained so much of the Divine blessing as would make it seem improper that woman, by her own fault, should make her condition better than before.
2. Because woman was first in the transgression. “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Timothy 2:14). Being more easily deceived, she more easily deceives. Last in being, she was first in sin—indeed, she alone was deceived. The subtle serpent knew she was the weaker vessel. He therefore tempted her, not him. She yielded to the temptations of sense and the deceits of Satan; he to conjugal love. Hence in the order of God’s judicial sentence the serpent, the prime offender, stands first; the woman who was deceived next; and the man, persuaded by his wife, last. Hence the woman’s subjection is represented as the consequence of her being deceived (Fausset).
3. Though the first in the transgression and suffering her part in its punishment, she shall be saved on the same terms as others. “Notwithstanding she shall be saved in child-bearing, if they [the women] continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety” (1 Timothy 2:15). The curse will be turned into a condition favourable to her salvation by her faithfully performing her part in doing and suffering what God has assigned her—child-bearing, rearing of children, and home duties—her sphere, as distinguished from public teaching, which is not hers, but man’s. In this home sphere, not ordinarily in one of active duty for advancing the kingdom of God, which contradicts the position assigned to her by God, she will be saved on the same terms as all others—by faith, and bringing forth the fruits of faith in a holy and consistent life, in which godly women should excel, that they may differ from irreligious women. Many who have children are lost: many who are childless are saved. The woman is blessed as a mother when she cares for the good Christian nurture of her children.
Lessons.—
1. Woman should be a pattern of neatness and modesty.
2. The subjection of woman is not that of a servant, but of an equal.
3. The place of woman in the Church is one of great power and usefulness.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1 Timothy 2:9-10. A Woman’s True Adornment—
I. Is not in dress or costly trinkets.
II. But in modesty and self-restrained behaviour.
III. In works of charity.
1 Timothy 2:11-15. Womanly Modesty—
I. Shrinks from the display of imperious authority (1 Timothy 2:12).
II. Does not aspire to be a public Church teacher (1 Timothy 2:12).
III. Is often most eloquent in silent submission (1 Timothy 2:11-12).
IV. Remembers her part in the first transgression (1 Timothy 2:13-14).
V. Is becoming in one who suffers (1 Timothy 2:15).