Page 38 - Pastoral Epistles student textbook

Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will
save both yourself and your hearers.

Timothy did not need to be saved in the sense of regeneration because he was already saved. Nor
could his hearers be saved by Timothy's obedience to the faith, because that would be salvation by
works. That cannot be the meaning here.

Here the word saved means "fulfilled," "to find significance." When used in that same sense, in this
word about women, it makes perfect sense. Paul is saying to women, "The role God has given you is
not the be the final, authoritative teachers in a church" (that is clear), "but that does not mean you
cannot find great significance as Christian women. Your significance, your sense of fulfillment, will
come as you bear children and they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty."

How does this apply to women with no children?

The impact of the church upon the world comes about when men and women walk
in the character and in the conduct that God has prescribed for them.

God desires order, peace and holiness in His church. When we live and act this way
God is revealed and people will embrace Him as Savior.

5.4 Let’s Practice…

1. Summarize what Paul is saying about how women should dress for church:

2. According to I Timothy 2:3-4, who does God want to be saved and come to the
knowledge of the truth?

3. The way a woman dresses in church should reflect what?

4. Paul wrote that a woman should not teach or assume authority over a man. What does this mean
when we apply this teaching to the church?

5. The reason Paul supported the teaching about a woman’s role in the church was not based on
culture, but was based on what?

6. What does I Timothy 2:15 mean when it says that women are saved through childbearing?

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