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9. Part IX: I Timothy 2 - Part I
             February, 2002 I Timothy 2 Part I Pertains to Worship " . . . I do 
not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent 
. . ." I Timothy 2:12 STATEMENT The arena to which Paul refers seems to be the 
church, since chapters 2 and 3 of I Timothy seem to be of one piece and Paul 
says (I Tim. 3:15) that these instructions are given so that "you will know how 
people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of 
the living God." (Agenda for Synod, 2000, pg. 359) Worship Services and More. It 
is true that what is being taught in this passage has application to all of 
Christian life. The headship principle is God's divine insight which helps 
define the roles of females and males in the Christian church and Christian life 
in general. Since this principle has a bearing on how the Christian family 
should function, it especially has a bearing on Christian worship services. The 
reason for this is the fact that it is when the Christian family is gathered in 
worship that it functions in a special way as the family of God. When family 
members are separated into a number of different places, they are still family. 
However, when they are in one place, then they function especially as a family 
as they interact with each other. In the same way, principles that define what 
it means to be members of the family of God apply to all of Christian life and 
especially to situations where the family of God is gathered together. In this 
way, what is taught in I Timothy 2 is especially true of Christian worship 
services. RESPONSE The Context The question that must be asked is was Paul in I 
Timothy 2 giving a narrow prohibition for all times or a broad prohibition for 
that time? The following point shows that the context indicates it was a broad 
prohibition not referring to worship services. A Broad Prohibition After 
outlining the appropriate qualifications for a bishop and for deacons, Paul 
states: "I am writing these instructions to you so that . . . you may know how 
to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the 
pillar and bulwark of the truth" (3:14-15). Paul obviously is not speaking about 
behavior in a certain building called the church, God's house. Nor is he 
speaking of the church in the limited institutional sense in which we use the 
term . . . Any Christian activity is church activity as Paul is here speaking. 
The church is the whole of Christian life. The bishop and the deacons function 
in the whole of Christian communal life, rather than being limited to some 
formal "ecclesiastical" area as defined in later times. Paul is not operating 
with that distinction made later in history between the ecclesiastical 
organization and other areas of Christian life. Christian life for him is church 
life. (Acts 1984, Minority Report II, pp. 362-63)




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"A Christian is never in a state of completion but always in the process of 
becoming."
Martin Luther

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