• “Prisoners of Hope”, this is how the prophet Zechariah described the often downtrodden and persecuted people of his select nation of Israel.  Today we continue a mini-series on the work of God through believing women in the Old Testament.  We have seen and will continue to see today how women were absolutely central to God’s developing plan of redemption.  From Sarah to Rahab to Ruth and then finally Jehosheba God worked miracles through these women to deliver ultimately the fulfillment of the Gen. 3:15-16 promises regarding “the seed of the woman”, Israel’s coming Messiah.  This all illustrates so well how Paul’s teaching regarding women in 1 Tim. 2:15 would be brought to pass.  This is not a dispensational teaching but is true for all times and dispensations.  Indeed, as the apostle has written, “she shall be saved in [THE] childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”  And so be it!

• We will now enter into a multi-part series on the hope Paul expresses in 1 Tim. 2:15.  He refers to Gen. 3:15-16 but now adds, as an interpretation and application, that women may be “saved in (lit. “through”) childbearing IF they continue in faith …”  There is much discussion among commentators regarding the meaning of this as on the face of it there is a perceived offense against women in general here.  Contemporary views would cast these verses that way, but, as we will attempt to show here today and in the next two studies, the Old Testament and the New Testament including Paul in his various letters are quite clear on the many blessings attending to women even in this fallen world.  Indeed, as we shall see, God’s perspective on the relationship between men and women emphasizes that marriage is ordained for blessing and not for curses.  Today, we introduce this great subject with our introduction to “Prisoners of Hope”, Part 1.

• 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.

The principles governing the church meetings are addressed with firstly an exhortation to the men regarding prayer: it should be without doubt and wrath controlling.  Secondly, the women, instead of using the meetings to show off superficial and worldly adornments should reveal their inner godliness by good works.  In addition, there was a serious issue at Ephesus with some women trying to take control of the teaching from the appointed men.  Paul goes to Genesis 3 for his main point that the men should be leading in the teaching and the women were not to interfere.  He shows how God made the first couple different from each other in essential ways.  The man Adam was made as head over the creation and also over Eve when she was formed from his side.  The woman, Eve, was made explicitly to complement the first man.  So their natures being so different but complementary, their functions must also be different.  The man is the “head” as it were and the woman is the “heart”.  The hierarchical structure of authority in the created world is necessarily to be reflected also here in the church order. Next time we will finish the teaching by looking more deeply into the subject of how God has used women and uses them today.

• In verse 17 of chapter 1 of Paul’s first letter to Timothy, Paul writes: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, [be] honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”  This verse contains the “context” for the rest of the letter.  All else will be in the light of God’s glory as exclaimed here to son Timothy.  Several times he then expands on this statement, for example in chapter 2 verses 5 & 6: “For [there is] one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”  In the light of this he commands Timothy to fight a good fight against the forces of evil, the false teachers being right in the middle of that battle.  That prophecies were given at Timothy’s commissioning sanctions his ministry in a special way: “This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare.”  It was clearly Paul’s hope and expectation that  by the power and support of Almighty God Timothy would prove himself well on the battlefield.

• Continuing on today in the first chapter of this wonderful first epistle to Timothy, we see something of great importance.  Paul makes a statement in verses 15 and 16 that has significant dispensational importance.  He calls himself the chief of sinners and then the first in the line of recipients of God’s grace through Christ’s “longsuffering”.  In each case, whether regarding himself as ”chief” or “first” in a series, it is exactly the same Greek word used even though the translation in the KJV is different.  But the meaning is clear and it is exceedingly critical for us to understand it.  Paul, apostle of the Gentiles, and minister of “the dispensation of God, the one which is in faith” as verse 4 reveals, is first in the long line of those that would believe his precious good news summarized in verse 15 with these words: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”  May we take this teaching to heart and follow faithfully in his footsteps as he exhorts Timothy.  For indeed, as he writes in verse 17, “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, [be] honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

• We introduce our studies today in Paul’s first letter to Timothy by looking at his introduction to the letter, his statement of apostleship and his very personal reference to the recipient of the letter, his very dear and precious Timothy.  The special place brother Timothy had for Paul is well summarized by this expression, my “own son in the faith”.  Paul had it seemed been the one who led Timothy to saving faith and not his mother or grandmother who are said elsewhere to be believers as well.  But the letter is written to encourage Timothy to wage warfare against the false teachers who had been so successful at Ephesus.  They were legalists of a sort and so that is his main emphasis in this chapter.  The pure and effective teaching would be concerning grace as indeed this is a special dispensation directed to that abundance of grace and the faith that engenders it as verse 4 indicates.  The best manuscripts of that verse read “the dispensation of God, the one which is of faith”!  I wish the translators of the KJV had had those manuscripts available to them, but it seems they did not.

• Paul’s teaching in his church epistles often present a series of great contrasts.  Each chapter of these two letters has the singular focus of just that, the pre-Tribulational Rapture of the Body of Christ.  This is Paul’s central focus in each of these chapters and the main teaching of these letters.  The exhortations all revolve around the way of life of believers with this heavenly hope.  The two letters to the Thessalonians present the contrasts between the hope and expectation (as God sees it) of believers living under the grace rule and those that reject the gospel of the grace of God.  For the one there is waiting for them the Rapture with all the blessings of a heavenly inheritance.  For those still living when the calling is brought to fulfillment only a transformation in needed.  For the others who have died, the glorious resurrection is assured.  

We will close our study in the apostle Paul’s letters to the Thessalonian believers with two studies, this one on the overriding theme of the second letter, and the second on an overview of Paul’s pre-Tribulational, Rapture teaching. In the second letter, the apostle reasserts the graphic and eternal difference between our revealed inheritance and that of the unbeliever.  But the focus is also on how the Lord will BOTH provide those future and eternal blessings and current blessings in this life.  The grace poured out then is pre-figured, as it were, by pouring out blessings in this life, by his grace.  In one expression, “Grace Unto Grace, Both Then and Now”, which is the title of that study.  We should be encouraged to know through this letter that God’s promised mighty working on our behalf in eternity future will always be matched in our lives now by a mighty working of grace even today.  Enjoy!

Today we finish our verse by verse study of Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians.  In these final verses, the apostle first asks the believers to pray for him, and that is significant.  He asks for their respect and honor and then goes on to a long section (10 verses!) where he strongly exhorts all to be self-sufficient like he was himself.  He was a tentmaker while on his missionary journeys and that was his “testimony” underscoring this critically important point.  They are also to support themselves and to be independent so that they may be able to help others who are in need.  Separation from those who are disobedient is “commanded” with those that will not follow his lead being publicly set aside.   He concludes the letter with a particularly touching reference to his own salutation in his own hand.  That would have been so precious for those in this fellowship as only they would possess that actual autograph. His final words, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ [be] with you all” matches what he closed with in the first letter.  Praise God for such grace!  Amen.