PRAYING MEN WITH PEACEFUL HEARTS
INTRODUCTION:
OVERVIEW OF I TIMOTHY 1:1-20 to 2:15
1:1-2 – Overview of Christian Faith based on names for
God and the blessings He bestows on His people.
1:3-4a False teaching in Ephesian Church and how humanistic philosophy effects us today.
1:4b-6 – The goal of the command is love. (Loving God, fellow Christians, the non-Christian world)
1:7-8 – The law is good if used properly. (The law’s deterrent, punitive and educative purposes)
1:8-11 – “Whatever else …” The Gospel Ethic. (Law-Philia University)
1:11 – “The Blessed God” and our Relationship with Him. (We can fill God’s heart with pain or joy and happiness)
1:12-16 Why Paul considered himself the worst of sinners.
1:12-16 Conversion of the apostle Paul.
1:12-16 Paul’s call to ministry.
1:17 Paul’s doxology of praise for his conversion.
1:18-20 How to avoid shipwrecking our faith.
2:1-3 The Christian is to pray for all men.
2:4,6 Comparison of Calvinism & Armenianism.
2:5-6 The man, Christ Jesus, the only mediator.
2:1-7 The vision, the message, the means.
2:8-15 Treatment of women in the ancient world, the early church and the Bible.
2:8-15 Three key principles of hermeneutics to keep in mind when studying the Bible.
2:8 Praying Men with Peaceful Hearts
PRAYING MEN WITH PEACEFUL HEARTS
I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing. 9I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. 11A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15But women [she] will be saved [restored] through childbearing–if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. (I Tim. 2:15-18).
INTRODUCTION:
1. Hermeneutics: The principles, rules or methodology of interpretation of the Scriptures, the science of Biblical interpretation.
2. Five Hermeneutical Principles: (1) The Principle of Original Intent, (2) The Principle of Precedent, (3) The Principle of Context; (4) The Principle of Harmony; (5) The Principle of History.
REVIEW OF THE FIVE HERMENUTIC PRINCIPLES
IN THE STUDY OF I TIM. 2:8
“ I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing.”
1. THE PRINCIPLE OF ORGINAL INTENT
1.1. We can gain glimpses of what God intended life to be like now by looking at the Edenic world but like Jerry Neild said
several weeks ago, it doesn’t apply to all human situations.
1.2. What could we glean from the relationship of God with Adam and Eve that might relate to our passage?
Answer: Certainly anger and disputing would not have been acceptable.
2. THE PRINCIPLE OF PRECEDENT
2.1. Lifting up of hands in prayer.
“I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands” (Ps. 63:4).
“Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord” (Ps.134:2).
“When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them” (Lk. 24:50).
The frescoes in the Roman catacombs provide vivid illustrations from the life of the early church [of people praying with hands uplifted]. This posture was the general demeanor of prayer in the ancient world for Jews, Christians, pagans.
Tertullian said that the lifted up hands was a depicting of the attitude Jesus had on the Cross … but it was really adopting the Jewish attitude of prayer.
2.2 Prostrating self in prayer
39Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Mt. 26:39)
2.3 Kneeling
“When Solomon had finished all these prayers and supplications to the LORD, he rose from before the altar of the LORD, where he had been kneeling, with his hands spread out towards heaven” (I Kings 8:54).
“… three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before” (Dan.
6:10).
“All the disciples and their wives and children accompanied us out of the city [Tyre] and there on the beach we knelt to
pray” (Acts 21:5).
2.4 Standing
Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it
the people all stood up …. Instructed the people in the Law while the people were standing there … He read [the law]
from daybreak till noon … (Neh. 8:5,7,3).
2.5 Bowing of Head
18 Jehoshaphat bowed with his face to the ground, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem fell down in worship before the LORD (II Chron. 20:18).
QUESTION: WHAT DO DIFFERENT POSTURES INDICATE
AS TO THE SPIRITUAL STATE OF OUR
HEARTS? WHAT DOES BODY LANGAUGE
TELEGRAPH AS TO OUR HEART ATTITUDE TO
GOD? DOES OUR PHYSICAL POSTURE
IMPACT OUR EMOTIONAL AND DEVOTIONAL
STATE OF MIND?
QUESTION: CAN WE DRAW A PRINCIPLE FROM I TIM 2:8
BASED ON HISTORICAL PRECENDENT
SAYING MEN SHOULD ALWAYS RAISE THEIR
HANDS IN PRAYER? WHY NOT?
3. THE PRINCIPLE OF CONTEXT
“It shall greatly help ye to understand Scripture,
If thou Mark
Not only what is spoken or written,
But of whom,
And to whom,
With what words,
At what time,
Where,
To what intent,
With what circumstances,
Considering what goeth before
And what followeth. (John Wycliffe 1324-84)
3.1. What was the situation in Ephesus that would cause Paul to add “without anger or disputing” in his summons to prayer?
Read and seek discover one of the major relational problems in the Ephesian church:
I Tim 1:4, I Tim 2:8, I Tim 3:3, I Tim 3:11, I Tim 6:4-5, I Tim 6:20
II Tim 2:14, II Tim 2:24
They were quarreling, arguing about myths and genealogies.
3.2. Can we fall into that trap? Quarreling about Calvinism or women’s ministry in the church etc?
4. THE PRINCIPLE OF HARMONY
4.1. When God speaks he does not contradict himself so we expect the Bible to contain an underlying consistency. If we find some verses that seem to go against the flow of the general stream of Scripture we will try to see how they harmonize (without hammering them into place) with the whole.
4.2 How does the “Principle of Harmony” apply to our text, II Tim. 2:8?
4.3 There are several postures for prayer recorded in the Bible. If we insisted on only one we could be neglecting the others.
4.4 We have many verses in Scripture that indicate that “anger and disputing” are alien attitudes for a devout Christian mindset.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Mt. 5:5)
“But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (Mt. 5:22).
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift” (Mt. 5:23-24).
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22).
“… being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves” (Phil. 2:2-3).
5. THE PRINCIPLE OF HISTORY
5.1. God always spoke his word in particular historical and cultural settings, specially of the ancient Near East (the Old Testament), Palestinian Judaism (the Gospels) and the Graeco-Roman world (the rest of the New Testament). No word of God was spoken in a cultural vacuum; every word was spoken in a cultural context. It is, in fact, the glory of divine revelation that, in order to commun-icate with his people, God did not shout culture-free maxims at them from a distance. Instead, he stooped to their level, entered their history, assumed their culture and spoke their language. Yet this divine condescension also creates acute problems on interpretation for us. For Scripture is an amalgam of substance and form, of eternal truth which transcends culture and its transient cultural presentation. The former is universal and normative; the latter is local and changeable. (John Stott on I Timothy, pg. 74-5).
5.2. Three options in interpreting cultural expressions in Scripture.
5.2.1. Enthrone the cultural form with a rigid literalism equating it with eternal truth.
5.2.1. Dismiss the cultural form entirely thus downgrading the eternal truth included in the text to the level of cultural expression.
5.2.3. Separate the eternal from the cultural – Cultural Transposition: Discerning between God’s essential revelation (which is changeless) and its cultural expression (which is changeable). We preserve the eternal truth and accept the changeable in contemporary cultural terms.
5.3. Looking at the three options of interpreting cultural expressions in the light of I Tim. 2:8.
“ I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing” (I Tim. 2:8)
5.3.1. If we enthrone the cultural form of this text with rigid literalism, what do we get?
MEN MUST ALWAYS RAISE THEIR HANDS IN THE CHURCH WHEN IN PRAYER.
5.3.2. If we dismiss the whole passage as cultural expression only relevant in the Palestinian Judaism of the Gospels,what do we lose?
WE LOSE THE CONCEPT OF PRAYING WHILE HAVE PEACEFUL INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS.
5.3.3. If we separate the eternal from the cultural (CulturalTransposition) what do we preserve as eternal and what
do we accept as cultural expression?
WE AGREE THAT IT IS ALRIGHT TO RAISE OUR HANDS IN PRAYER BUT IT IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL TO NEVER COME TO GOD WHEN ANGRY WITH A BROTHER.
5.4. What are the weaknesses of each methodology?
5.4.1. Enthroning the Culture: If we enthrone cultural form, we end up like Islam, and try to bring first century culture into the twenty-first century.
5.4.2. Dismissing the Text because of a Cultural Setting: If we dismiss every concept because of the cultural form it is
presented in, we end up with no objective, eternal truth in the Bible because all of the Bible is couched in cultural settings.
5.4.3. If we use “Cultural Transposition” to solve these problems, we won’t force everyone to raise their hands in prayer but we will insist that a disposition of anger inhibits communion with God.
SO WHAT?
1. By neglecting these basic principles of hermeneutics, (The Principle of Original Intent, The Principle of Historic Precedent, The Principle of Context, The Principle of Harmony, The Principle of History) we distort the teaching of Scripture.
2. Without following these principles we end up supporting by Scripture concepts and ideas that are non-Biblical and living out a lifestyle that is very un-Christian.
3. We need to consistently follow these principles when studying all of Scripture, just not when it satisfies our whims. Consistency is key!
4. Our prayer posture can impact our emotional and devotional state ofmind.
5. Never enter God’s presence until you have dealt with a conflict and anger.