The Aim of Our Charge Is Love

In one paragraph

This message came from 1 Timothy 2, part of an ongoing series working through Paul's letters in the order he wrote them. Pastor Ray worked through a genuinely difficult passage about how men and women are to conduct themselves in the household of God, and he was honest from the start that he found it the hardest text he has preached since coming to the church. The overarching aim he kept returning...

Read together

1. 1 Timothy 1:5 stated as the overarching aim of the letter: love from a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith
2. 1 Timothy 3:14-15 Paul explains he wrote so Timothy would know how to behave in the household of God, which is a pillar and buttress of the truth
3. 1 Timothy 2:1-7 urging prayers for all people including kings, and Paul's appointment as preacher to the Gentiles
4. 1 Timothy 2:8 desire that men pray lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling
5. 1 Timothy 2:9-10 women to adorn themselves with respectable apparel, modesty, and good works rather than braided hair, gold, or costly attire
6. 1 Timothy 2:11-12 let a woman learn quietly with submissiveness; not permitting a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man
7. 1 Timothy 2:13-15 Adam formed first then Eve; Eve was deceived; she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness
8. Galatians 3 neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, all one in Christ Jesus
9. 1 Corinthians 11 cited to show women praying and prophesying is not forbidden
10. Psalm 24 who shall ascend the hill of the Lord; he who has clean hands and a pure heart
11. Matthew 5:21-24 Jesus on anger: anyone angry with his brother liable to judgment; reconcile before offering your gift at the altar
12. Colossians 3 putting off anger, wrath, malice and putting on compassion, kindness, humility, love
13. Genesis 3 enmity between the serpent and the woman; the seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head
14. James 3:1 let not many be teachers because they incur a harsher judgment
15. Isaiah 1:18 though your sins be scarlet they shall be as white as snow, referenced in discussing God purifying hearts

Talk about it

1. Pastor Ray described the aim of the entire letter as 'love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.' What does it look like practically to pursue those three things in your own life right now?
2. Pastor Ray said that when we gather as a church we hold 'the truth that the whole rest of the world does not have,' and that how we behave inside the household of God authenticates that truth. Where have you seen church behavior either support or undermine that witness?
3. Pastor Ray pointed to Jesus's words in Matthew that anger toward a brother puts us in the same moral territory as murder, and he connected that to the way polarized media feeds our anger. How honestly do you evaluate your own anger, and what habits might be feeding it?
4. On the question of men's and women's roles, Pastor Ray resisted landing hard on either the complementarian or egalitarian position and said 'the truth is nuanced.' Where do you find yourself in that conversation, and what has shaped your thinking most?
5. Pastor Ray closed by saying that holding too tightly to either side of the debate may mean we are doing violence to the text. What would it look like for you personally to hold a theological position firmly while still remaining genuinely open to the full weight of scripture?