1 First of all I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for everyone,
2 for rulers of states and all in authority, that we may enjoy a quiet and peaceful life in godliness and respect.
3 This is good and pleases God.
4 For he wants all to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth.
5 As there is one God, there is one mediator between God and human kind, Christ Jesus, himself human,
6 who gave his life for the redemption of all. This is the testimony, given in its proper time,
7 and of this, God has made me apostle and herald. I am not lying, I am tell ing the truth: He made me teacher of the nations regarding faith and truth.
8 I want the men in every place to lift pure hands in prayer to heaven without anger and dissension.
9 Let women dress with simplicity and modesty, not adorned with fancy hairstyles, gold, jewels and expensive clothes,
10 but with good works, as is fitting for women serving God.
11 Let a woman quietly receive instruction and be submissive.
12 I allow no woman to teach or to have authority over men. Let them be quiet.
13 For Adam was created first and then Eve.
14 Adam was not deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and fell into sin.
15 But she will be saved through motherhood, provided that her life be orderly and holy, in faith and love.
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Comments 1 Letter to Timothy, Chapter 2
• 2.1 Heading the rules for every category of believers, we find rules for the community assemblies with two outstanding points:
– praying for rulers;
– the behavior of women in church.
I urge that petitions be made (v. 1). Paul wants Christians to be in solidarity with their compatriots, loyal toward their nation and praying for them. In spite of its sins and superstitions, the pagan world was religious. Religion accompanied their every action. This explains why, some years later, Christians were persecuted as rebels and traitors because they did not worship the emperor, nor his gods. Perhaps this insist ence on prayer for rulers is due to the fact that the paragraph was written when there already was some suspicion about Christians: it was necessary to remove these suspicions.
Faithfulness to Christ does not prevent loyalty to the nation unless the nation becomes an idol, and this happens when, in the name of the nation, people are asked to obey its rulers blindly. We cannot give up criticizing their errors, nor stop considering as our brothers and sisters those who do not agree with us.
We should pray for rulers. Does that mean that we cannot look for more honest and better rulers? Of course, we can: see Romans 13.
Verses 9-14 concern women, and to understand why the letter is so strict, we must recall that there was a lot of talk about freedom in the Church, and there were abuses.
On the other hand, we always have a hard time accepting the demands of the Gospel when society teaches us something different. Jesus’ attitude regarding women was revolutionary and liberating, and at the beginning, the Church followed his example (see 1 Cor 7). Before long, they went back to the usual way of giving a very limited place in society to women and that applied also in their religious assemblies.
In the whole history of the Church there was a great respect for the dignity of women and there were many initiatives favoring them; yet there were few periods when women enjoyed equality with men. In many places women were more emancipated during the Middle Ages than closer to our times, in the 19th century. Likewise, in urban societies dealing with busi ness, in the world and in the Church, women occupied a place very different from that granted them in more closed societies.
In fact, the Church alone does not change the world and society until people have learned to know the human reality better.
This passage, reminding us of 1 Cor 11:1-10 and 14:34, opposes women’s emancipation with the same biblical arguments commonly used by the Jewish masters.
God wants all to be saved. Paul repeats in his own way the passage from the last words of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel: the Gospel must be preached to everyone, to all the nations. Perhaps only a minority will believe but this evangelization is necessary so that all humanity may reach the goal fixed by God.