This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 23, 1994.

We are reading this morning from 1 Timothy chapter 1, and we are beginning with verse 12. We will be reading into the second chapter. Give your attention now to the reading of God’s fully worthy. I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor.

And yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly and unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was more than abundant with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, in order that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life. Now, to the King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you. By them you might fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered over to Satan so that they may be taught not to blaspheme.

First of all, then, I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony born at the proper time. And for this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am telling the truth, I am not lying, as a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and dissension.

Help us, Father, as we consider your word for we are tempted to think of it as a distant word, a word that was written long ago, which demands of us some extraordinary activity of application to ourselves. We ask rather, that we would disregard the distance between ourselves and the text, and that we would understand better, O God, how we are taken up into it. As the word then is read for us and we hear, as the word is proclaimed and we trust properly, may we be edified and that in the knowledge that we are found even within the text of scripture and are directly addressed. We pray this for Jesus’ sake, who truly is alive and ministers to us presently. Amen.

The current pressing crisis faced by Timothy in the church at Ephesus is one of leadership. As this epistle First of Paul’s letters to Timothy opens, it is clear that this crisis over leadership has focused quite specifically on the issue of teaching. Who shall teach? Who shall teach? This question has become quite pressing for Timothy and for the Church at Ephesus for a number of reasons. One reason is given immediately by Paul as he opens this letter.

For some at Ephesus are teaching what he has described as strange doctrine. There were, then, at Ephesus, men who imagined themselves to be teachers, but they neither understand truly the things that they are speaking about, nor are they competent in the areas in which they claim even the greatest expertise. specifically in the matter of the law. You will note verse 7 of chapter 1. So the question, who shall teach, is pressing upon Timothy and this Church, because some at Ephesus insist that they are teachers when they are not teachers at all. because some are claiming to have a handle-on doctrine when they are doctrinally unfit. It is important to notice that as Paul begins his discussion of this matter at the opening of 1 Timothy, his concern is with doctrine.

In fact, personality and appearance and style don’t even enter into the discussion. Do you get my drift? I covet for you and for the Church of Christ an intense zeal for true doctrine. And may all of your teachers be doctrinally true. Another reason why this question is so pressing is because of defection from the faith of two teachers.

They are named by Paul. That’s noteworthy in itself. Paul is not above naming names. They are mentioned for you in the twentieth verse of that first chapter, Hymenaeus and Alexander, and it seems that they have been excommunicated from the Church through the efforts of the Apostle Paul, efforts which he has directed towards the Church at Ephesus.

Paul has considered necessary, makes it clear that there is indeed a great struggle going on in this congregation. But going even further, we might note that at the center of this struggle is the Apostle himself, a fact which has made it necessary for him to defend himself and his credentials. You might have noted his defense as we read through verses 12 through 17 in this first chapter, but you might also note the definitive claim that he makes for himself in the seventh verse of the second chapter, where he feels compelled to mention the fact that he is a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles. Now that statement might really catch you off guard.

These assertions by Paul may in fact appear to you to be quite superfluous, since he’s writing to his dear son in the faith, Timothy, who knows these things. Does he not? Why would Paul have to say such things to this young man? who knows him so well, whom we assume has no question about Paul’s credentials whatsoever.

But this question brings before us still another reason why the issue, who shall teach, is so critical. Paul’s authority in calling us a teacher hangs in the balance. This may in fact be because of the cloud that has now generally drifted over the congregation at Ephesus, where Timothy serves, but as much as that is true, the issue seems to be much more serious, not just the Church at Ephesus, then possibly having questions about Paul’s authority and apostolic claim, but Timothy as well. There are a number of texts throughout 1 Timothy that indicate that this young pastor may be wavering. He may be wavering in his commitment to Paul. So serious may it be, and this inflicted by a sense of guilt possibly, he seems to be wavering with respect to his own calling.

There is most certainly an edge to Paul’s entreaty in verses 18 and 19 of that first chapter, where he commands Timothy to fight the good fight, maintaining the faith and a good conscience, particularly in light of this young man’s calling and ordination. Finally, the question, who shall teach, is pressing in upon the Ephesian church because, as chapter 2, verse 12 makes clear, a verse which we did not read this morning, women are demanding positions at Ephesus as teachers and leaders, and even, it would seem, they are demanding positions of ordination. or at least such positions are being demanded for them. It is highly likely that the pressure to move in this direction towards female leadership and teachers in the Church, even towards female ordination, the pressure to move in that direction has come from the same source as the strange doctrines that Paul had spoken about in verse 3 of chapter 1. the same source as the attack, the open attack, upon Paul’s calling, which he is presently enduring. The push for women’s ordination, leadership, and teaching ministry in the Church of Ephesus therefore comes at the expense of apostolic authority.

Interestingly, the situation has not changed in twenty centuries. I will be perfectly blunt. You cannot have Paul in his biblical authority and female ordination. you must choose. If you choose female ordination, you must let the Apostle go. That is what is in the balance.

We see that the issue, who shall teach, is very much at the forefront of Paul’s mind as he writes this letter to Timothy. But I want you to notice now the way in which Paul goes about dealing with this crisis. For his method, you see, is as instructive to us as his message, a thought that is too often overlooked and ignored. His method is as instructive as his message, for his method will most certainly preach Christ as his message. Yes, to be sure, there are his specific directives to this young man, Timothy, that stand out, yes, at the end of chapter one and throughout the entirety of this epistle.

But I want you to observe the way in which Paul subordinates the question about teachers to the broader considerations that are opened up for us as he begins the second chapter. As we stated previously, even last week, the overarching theme of this first letter to Timothy is not found for us until we arrive at the fifteenth verse of the third chapter and what Paul says there specifically about conduct in the house of God. The question about teachings and the way in which Paul develops that question and his answer to it are subjected to an interesting metamorphosis as we move from his specific statements about teaching in the first chapter into the second chapter, where he speaks about the general topic of prayer. This metamorphosis, then, as we move from the one chapter to the other, plays out in the interest of the larger consideration of conduct in the house of God, a subject that concerns everyone, not just teachers, not just leaders.

Everyone. The whole of the assembly is brought into view, and the pressure of the assembly is brought to bear. Observe, then, the genius of the Holy Spirit. Paul then turns to the issue of prayer at the beginning of chapter 2, a matter, the obligation to which everyone, all, are summoned. Teachers are few and select. But those who are to be given to prayer, they are to be found everywhere in the people of God and within his household. Teachers are few and select. Prayers abound. But what about teachers who won’t pray? Are you beginning to feel the pressure of this? Certainly those who teach must feel the pressure of this. What if you are a teacher who will not pray?

What if you are a supposed shepherd who can’t give yourself to the common activities of the sheep? I understand that the best shepherd was also a sheep, the Lamb of God. What about teachers then, who see themselves perched on some sort of pedestal, separated from their people, and separated from the common activities of the children of God?

However, it will not be merely the activity of prayer that challenges the vain and pretentious leader. No, it will be the content of prayer as well. You see, Paul is very deliberate here, in the opening verses of this second chapter, to spell out the content of prayer, the prayer he has in mind, because he knows that the teachers that oppose him at Ephesus can’t pray prayers like this.

They won’t do it. It’s not a part of their religious repertoire. For instance, Paul’s enemies have no real true interest in all men. Verse 1. Prayers are to be made for all men. Paul’s enemies at Ephesus, these would-be teachers, these supposed experts in the law, have no interest in all men.

In fact, their own elitist views do not allow them to ascribe to God a desire that all men be saved. that theology does not recognize the single mediatorship of the one man Christ Jesus, verse 5, nor the conclusiveness of Christ’s ransoming death for all men, in verse 6. Now, these attitudes are held by the false teachers of Ephesus not because they are some sort of prototypical Calvinists who believe in the salvation of God elect from all the nations of humanity, but because they are prototypical Gnostics, particularly of a Jewish sort, who believe that salvation belongs alone to the higher class of the spiritually attuned, those initiated into the mysteries of religious truth not by prayer, but by mystical arts. To put it very simply, these would-be teachers and shepherds know nothing of the humility that places them in the setting of the common pursuits of the people of God, for the sake of a common salvation to be shared in by all of God’s elect, gathered out of the entirety of humanity.

But once more, as we look at the depth and the richness of this text, we are compelled to explain the genius of the Holy Spirit working through his servant, the Apostle Paul. the power and usefulness of the metamorphosis that we have spoken of as we move from chapter 1 to chapter 2.

From the narrow issue of teachers to the wider issue of life in the house of God is being brought home to us now in what we read in verses 1 through 15, the first eight verses of which we have read this morning. Specifically then, by what is being said to men and women generally, not only to those who lead, to men and women generally. In other words, you see, Paul’s interest here is not just a backdoor assault upon the leaders, there is also the double edge of his comment which brings the entirety of the congregation into view. They too are addressed, and that’s specifically about prayer and other things. It is marvelously complex, marvelously full, and wonderfully satisfying for those who understand not just the mind of Paul, but the mind of Jesus. If I start by speaking about leaders and about myself, I end by speaking about you. So we concentrate specifically on verse 8 of that second chapter.

The general obligation of prayer 1-7, now Paul has something to say specifically, yes, to the man. Are you listening? He has something specifically to say to the men. We cannot avoid the obvious and deliberate focus upon the men. They are clearly addressed over against the women who are themselves addressed, beginning in verse 9. So, yes, the men. Verse 8. Therefore I want men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and dissension.

But what is Paul’s intention here? What’s operating in his mind? What’s behind the scene here? Does he actually have in mind some continuation of the synagogue arrangement where the men are on one side and the women are on the other? Or the men are praying and the women are doing something else? What exactly is going on here?

Does he mean by this that he wants only men to pray? Well, such a position is blatantly absurd. Later in this very epistle, he will make specific reference to women who are called to prayer. Chapter 5, verse 5. Now, Paul does not mean that he wants only the men to pray any more than he means in verse 9 that he wants only women to dress modestly.

Rather, it is particularly human now, it is particularly in the manner of prayer that the men are faced with that which challenged them most basically in the interests of a common Christian humility. For in prayer, men are constrained to admit their weakness and their need. And it is here, you see, that Paul’s interests for leaders and his interests for the congregation, and particularly for the men, intersect. those interests intersect at the point of Christian humility, specifically in the humility that is found in Jesus Christ himself. It is particularly then here in prayer, in prayer, hear me men, that you are compelled to counter the accepted stereotypes of yourself through abject submission to God through Christ. I have no needs. I am perfectly self-sufficient. I am wholly confident within myself. I am a man of honor. What? Me, ask?

Is this why some of you men cannot and will not pray? Not just privately, not just before friends in the church, even before your wives and before your children. Because you have been convinced through some capitulation to the devil. That submissiveness and subordination in prayer are an attack upon your imagined identity. This business of prayer even constitutes an insult.

Paul addresses the men on prayer because it is in prayer that men are addressed with especially with what men need to hear in order that men might prove that they are submissive. Yes, I’m using that word in relationship with men. that they are submissive to the Lord. So we’re not going to get to verses 9 through 15, but I think you know where I’m headed. Such submissiveness now that is held out in front of us Yes, in front of us men cannot but put us in mind of our mediator, the Lord Jesus, whose mediatorship on our behalf includes his own submissiveness, he being a man, and that underscored by Paul in this very section of scripture. includes his own submissiveness, and that in prayer, a submissiveness that he even now continues to exhibit in heaven. What relationship can you claim with respect to him in heaven who prays if you will not pray? Truly, gentlemen, we must be like him. Truly, gentlemen, as your pastor and friend, I want to be like him. don’t you? Let’s pray.

Open, O God, the heavens before us that we may perceive, yes, with the eye of faith, the intercessions of our Savior and Mediator, Christ Jesus. Lord, help us all, as we, by faith, are instructed and even compelled by what we behold. And Lord, Help us manage, for it may be a very, very difficult thing for us to break past the stereotypical images that we have of ourselves in order to meet our true selves in the Word of God. And as it would be, Lord, by those who would lead, may it be of all of us, may we be found to be submissive servants, trained in humility. For Jesus said that you may be glorified and your church held in her great fight. which he wages for the Savior in this world.

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