Book of 1 Timothy - Ch. 2, v. 1

If I were a betting man, I would have lost a lot of money this last week. So the

Lord protected me there, keeping me from that ever being a temptation. Because if you had asked me this time last week,

I was 100 % sure that that baby would be born before today, and yet here

I am. And so there's that. And the Lord has a sense of humor in the sense that I was just thrilled that we got to a really good stopping point last week at the end of chapter one.

I was like, this is a good kind of short term closure. And all the ashes now taking the blame.

And now here we are going to open up chapter two and and then most likely take a break.

Although I'm I'm holding my money at this point. Yeah, I know.

It does it to me too. I forget that I can't use that app at church.

My phone is possessed. It's hard to turn it off.

Here, you can bring it to me or Maddie. Okay. Doesn't want to turn it off. Yeah. I only use

Blue Letter at church because that happens. Holy Ghost possessions.

All righty. Well, we begin a new section today in First Timothy, and it will the section as a whole will be comprised of the entirety of the second chapter.

And that is essentially exhortations to elders. So the Apostle Paul throughout this chapter will be giving specific things for all elders to keep in mind so that they can then exhort their congregations and so on and so forth.

But there will be some some subsections throughout the chapter, as you'll see just a minute. So as we segue into a new chapter here in our study of First Timothy, we're going to find a tremendous amount of deep theological truths.

And they will unfold as Paul once more exhorts the elders on how to conduct themselves first and foremost, as well as the congregation.

And how to teach their congregation and what to teach their congregation and how to remain faithful through the toil that is

Christian living. And all of that will continue all the way through chapter three.

But chapter two is where it begins to unfold. And yet within this chapter alone, as practical as it is, as straightforward as it is, we find this particular chapter replete with quote unquote controversial passages that have been made into such distractions.

By teachers that are commonly more distracted or more concerned rather with their own appeal to the masses than they are the actual teaching of the text, what it means, what the plain reading is, what the authorial intent is and all these things.

There's so much distractions created by these quote unquote controversies that the practical nature of this whole chapter has essentially lost its force in the lives of millions of Christians today.

Now, when I say lost its force, of course, I don't mean the scripture itself lost anything. I simply mean the application of it is not present in the lives of millions of Christians because of the distractions caused by the, again, so -called controversial passages that we'll eventually get into.

Now, the opening verses of this chapter have been debated between Calvinist and Arminian theologians ad nauseam for centuries and centuries at this point.

While the lengthier passage from around verses 9 through 15, those verses have been the target of more liberal and egalitarian quote unquote theologians in recent decades as they strive very hard to reinterpret

Paul through a completely novel lens. It was never considered by nearly 2 ,000 years of church history up until about three, four, maybe five decades ago.

So, again, we're going to run into a number of these controversies so -called as we go throughout the passage, throughout the whole chapter together.

And yet, as you move through it, keeping in mind what does

Paul mean, what does he intend, what is he saying, you keep it plain. It's really not all that difficult at all as long as your appeal is to the text of scripture over against what anyone else might think.

Yet, regardless of all that, regardless of what offense this particular chapter may bring to any particular person, again, whether it's on a theological basis, whether it's on a practical living basis, whatever it may be, by the end of this chapter, when we get to the end of chapter 2, we're going to find that when

Paul's words are applied in the very practical sense in which it was delivered and in which

Paul intended by him in this particular writing, once it's applied, the result of it is a return to the

Garden of Eden, the dominion of pleasure that our first parents found themselves in, in their original state.

And we will find ourselves a return to that place in a very unique way in this life, in the present tense.

And we'll get there when we get there. For the time being, let's take a look at chapter 2, and I just want to begin by reading the entirety of it.

And then we'll start breaking it down verse by verse over the next good number of weeks and months.

1 Timothy chapter 2 says, 2

For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man

Jesus Christ, or Christ Jesus rather, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.

3 Whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle, I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not.

4 A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.

5 And like man are also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broided hair or gold or pearls or costly array, but which becometh women professing godliness with good works.

6 Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. 7 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

8 For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 9 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

10 Notwithstanding, she shall be saved and childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

Now, like I mentioned, the entirety of the chapter is made up of exhortations from Paul to the elders so that they can then go and equip their congregations on how to live peaceably and all of these things.

But we will find a number of subsections within this chapter. And the first one is about prayer and a specific type of prayer with a very specific intention behind it.

And so that's where we will begin as we move through this verse by verse. So take a look back at the top with me one more time.

First couple of verses of chapter 2 begin, I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

So first and foremost, before we start breaking this down a little bit, we have to take note of that very important word that we see pop up quite often.

And that is the word, therefore, right there at the beginning of verse 1. So what does that mean?

It is a callback to the preceding information that we just received.

So all of these specific touch points that Paul hits as we progress through this chapter, they're intended to strengthen

God's people. And in light of that strengthening, to lead us to a sincere worship of God and to a sincere fear of God as well.

So it begins with a strengthening, which leads to the sincere worship and fear of the

Lord. And so the therefore here at the beginning of chapter 2 verse 1, it's pointing us back to that faith and that good conscience that he was just imploring

Timothy to hold fast at the very end of chapter 1.

If you look back at verse 19, he's telling Timothy, he says, to war good warfare in verse 18, followed up immediately with holding faith and a good conscience.

And then he goes in there and he shows them the example of what it looks like when you don't do that. He talks about Himenaeus and Alexander, the apostates, the shipwreck of the faith and all this type of stuff.

So because of this reminder of holding fast the faith, holding a good conscience, a blameless conscience, and all of these types of things,

I exhort therefore because of that. And then he goes in from that point.

So all of the following instructions throughout chapter 2 on practical

Christian living, they depend upon all of us holding fast the faith and maintaining a good or a blameless conscience.

And of course, obedience to all of the specific commands that were about to be given throughout this chapter will contribute to that clear conscience.

And so you have this kind of beautiful life cycle, if you will, of faithfulness, good conscience, that giving us boldness and leading us to obedience in God's Word and His instruction,

His commands that we're about to get from the Apostle Paul, which then contributes to a further clear conscience, a further blameless conscience.

And it's a really amazing thing. This is where strength, this is where boldness comes from in the life of the

Christian. And so what he does here is after linking the preceding verses of chapter 1 to his next exhortation at the beginning of chapter 2,

Paul begins with a very specific call to Christians and elders in particular.

He has Timothy directly in his sights, wanting to equip him, wanting to remind him of what the main things are so that he can then be an effective pastor himself, so that he can then lead well.

And of course, by virtue of the elders being equipped with this information, the congregations then become equipped with it as well.

And so he's making a specific call to Christians, elders in particular, and he's doing so to remember the power of prayer over all the people that affect us in our daily lives without discrimination.

Now, we know that there is a place for something that you might call imprecatory prayers.

This is something that King David himself taught us in a number of places in the Psalms. A few examples would be

Psalm 35, Psalm 59, Psalm 69. There's a number of what we would refer to as imprecatory psalms, which are essentially the prayers of David toward the enemies of God.

They're prayers of judgment toward the enemies of God. And there will come times where we very well may find ourselves in a place where we will be praying to God, God, break their teeth in their mouths, referring to the evildoers around us, the wickedness around us, the enemies of God, those that are martyring

His people and bringing terror upon His people and things like that. So there's a place for that.

There's a place for imprecatory prayers. But what Paul is talking about at the opening of this chapter is the normative dynamic between God's people in the world around them.

And, of course, I'm referring to the lost world around them, outside of their immediate

Christian community, outside of the brotherhood of believers around the country and around the world.

That is the main focus of Paul's instructions here. Because one of the greatest temptations that any

Christian can have—and this is throughout all of time. It's not unique to us because the

Apostle Paul here is addressing it for the same reason the people, the Christians at his time, may have a tendency to fall for this particular temptation.

So it transcends time in that regard. But one of the greatest temptations is for Christians to narrow the scope of their prayer life, to really bring it close to home and kind of keep it there.

In other words, it's easy for Christians to kind of aim their prayers at the places that most naturally appeal to our self -interests, just to kind of put it broadly.

But for specific examples, it's very easy for Christians to pray for their family.

It's very easy for them to pray for their church family, for close friends, even for some of their greatest influences.

In some cases, those great influences may have somewhat of a celebrity status where they don't even know them.

But because of the influence they have in their lives, they will pray for that person. It's even easy for Christians to pray for their favorite politicians.

And we know that it's kind of hard to be in the political sphere at all, at least in this day and age, without some form of compromise happening somewhere.

And yet we know that they're for us and they're our spokesperson, all these types of things. And it can be easy for Christians to pray for them, too.

But what Paul is doing here is he essentially calls us out for doing that, for narrowing that scope, like I mentioned before.

And naturally, what's interesting about it is the Apostle Paul is giving us this exhortation for our own good.

He's not doing it just to slap us on the wrist and say, you need to be more pious in this particular area.

Here's what's interesting about it. You can become a pious person through the obedience of God's word, but the initial intent behind the commandments in the first place, the instruction from the apostles and things like that, aren't just for you to be a pious person.

They're for you to be a better person. They're for you to actually make your life better. For you, it's for your own good, spiritually and physically.

And then what flows from that, of course, is, again, the good works and the things that can make you a legitimately pious person in the biblical sense.

And so what he's doing here is he's giving us this exhortation for our own good, but also he does so for the sake of other eternal souls that are around us.

In other words, the people that we should be praying for that we aren't typically on fire to pray for so often.

Again, that's where that temptation comes into play. Because human beings have a tendency to be so self -focused,

Paul gives this exhortation, and he does so in a very exhaustive manner to make a point, to emphasize something.

Look at the verse one more time in its entirety. I exhort, therefore, calling back to that good conscience, calling back to holding the faith, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men.

That's four very specific things that he lays out all in one breath that we are to keep in mind and to do on behalf of all the men around us.

So again, he lists four specific things. These four things must, quote -unquote, be made for all men in his words.

And so let's take a look at a couple of these really quick. So first of all, he says we need to make supplications.

Now, the Greek term for this particular word, it essentially refers to kind of a definite request that's being asked.

In other words, something that's specific. That is what this Greek term typically would refer to, is a very specific prayer for a very specific purpose.

So he mentioned supplications first. We're to offer supplications for all men. Now, the next thing he mentions is prayers.

So supplications and then prayers in the Greek term for that particular word is more general.

So in other words, any kind of prayer that could be offered to God, we are to offer those on behalf of all men as well.

Not just ourselves, not just our immediate circle of very close people in our lives, but general prayers.

Prayers of any kind that we can offer to God are to be made for all men. So he mentions supplications, the prayers, and then after that, he mentions intercessions.

And this is an interesting one, because it's the Greek term that Paul often uses throughout the New Testament to signify the prayers that are offered toward one another.

So they're very personal. In other words, I am praying on behalf of my brother or sister over here that's really being put through the ringer.

I am offering an intercessory prayer on their behalf. Of course, Jesus gave us the ultimate model of this in John 17.

That is the Lord's intercessory prayer for his disciples to the

Father. But we can do the same thing on a smaller scale. And I say smaller because, of course, we're not

Jesus. It's not that they aren't impactful, but he set the model, and we can now follow that model by offering prayers of intercession for our brothers and sisters around us.

And that's the normal context where Paul would use this term. But here, he uses the term in the context of intercessions being made for all men.

So these are specific. They're personal. They're toward other people.

They're fervent. They are usually urgent. There is something underneath these prayers that are really, again, bringing a fervency along with it as we go to God and plead with him to be there for this particular purpose in this particular person.

So the Apostle Paul goes on, and he makes these three very specific distinctions of things or types of prayer that we need to be offering for the benefit of all men or on behalf of all men.

Now, you can absolutely go through, look at the individual words, kind of like we just did, somewhat briefly.

But you could go in, and you could do deep word studies on this. You can take note of the fact that the

Apostle Paul made these distinctions all the way down, perhaps contemplate

Paul's choice of using so many terms in one context, talking about really one specific exhortation.

In each word, they carry their own connotations and things like that. You can absolutely do that. I don't believe the

Holy Spirit would have moved Paul to approach this exhortation in this way if there wasn't some meaning and some good to be had in breaking all of that down.

But with that being said, because this is a common kind of literary device, if you will, that we see throughout both

Testaments, I do believe that the main thrust of Paul doing this, of using, kind of exhausting his vocabulary, using all of these terms, talking about these specific forms of prayer,

I think the main reason he does it is simply to emphasize the importance of keeping all men in our prayers just as much as we are to keep our own self -concerns in our prayers.

So, as easy as it is to pray for our family, our loved ones, our church family, those closest to us, our good friends and things like that, and even our favorite politicians, like I mentioned earlier, it is just as important, as we will see when we get into verse 2, for us to keep our other politicians in our prayers as well, to pray for maybe our local civil magistrates that we may not be on very good terms with.

They may be espousing a completely antithetical platform to the

Word of God and to our own morality, to our own beliefs, our own convictions, and things like that.

And yet, there is a worthiness, if you will, behind praying for these people as well.

And so, when you have a very diligent and disciplined prayer life, there are a lot of blessings that come from it, because this is one of the great struggles of the

Christian faith, that being a disciplined and very diligent, robust prayer life.

It's one of the great struggles for us because of the weakness of our flesh. You recall, when

Jesus is going into the Garden, into His agony, His disciples are with Him, but they're not going into the deepest part of the

Garden where Jesus went. They were left back, but still in the vicinity, to what? To pray, to avoid temptation.

And what were they doing? They were sleeping. And Jesus goes back, and He points out the weakness of their flesh and says,

Can you not pray with me for a little while? Can you not stay yourselves from the temptations that are to come and these types of things?

And He leaves, and He prays to the Father a second time. He comes back. They're sleeping again. And so, that's an example of, again, kind of the weakness of our flesh warring against or presenting the struggle of that diligent and disciplined prayer life for the believers, generally speaking.

Yes, Robert? So, what's cool, I'm thinking from that, is out of the

Sermon on the Mount, if you're the light of the world. Consider at a concert, if everyone's lighting their individual lighters and all praying at the same time, but you don't cover those up.

You're set on a hill, and it's the original salt light, like you're the salt of the earth.

So, you're supposed to be praying so that other people will see your light.

And take any parallels of light and spirit, and exactly how you said, spirit is willing, flesh is weak.

You've got to continually do your praying, that it's rising all the way up, not just encapsulated to, well, the close friends and family that I like, versus everyone that loves everyone.

Well, we can make prayer a superstitious thing really easily, and almost as if it's magic.

And we can do the same thing with Scripture reading, by the way. You can do that with anything. The means of grace that God gives

His people to absolutely revel in all the time, prayer, the Word of God that we can study, the communion that we have, one with another, fellowship, all these types of things.

Any given one of those things can be exploited to kind of give us these feel -good moments of, well,

I'm saying the thing, I'm doing the thing, and so blessing should follow. And it's almost a coping mechanism versus a relationship with your

Savior. And so I think to Robert's point there, prayer can quickly become superstitious, and we do know, and this is laid out blatantly in the

Old Testament, but even in John's writings in the New, we know that prayer outside of the will of God, prayer outside of that desire to be with Him and talking with Him can be a prayer that falls on deaf ears, the proverbial deaf ears of the

Father. He uses that particular analogy, in fact, in Isaiah. He doesn't hear everything we say just because we begin the address with dear

Lord, because if we ask, there are times when we may ask amiss, which, of course,

John tells us about in his epistle. And so, yeah, there is certainly a piece to this,

Robert, I believe, with this exhortation where Paul is bringing us above that while simultaneously reminding us of the power that our prayers have for everybody around us, even those that are seemingly lost for good.

We don't know the end game for everybody. People can change drastically and quickly.

And while there are times where because we are creatures, people living in time, we may see someone engaging in gross wickedness that we pray, like I mentioned earlier, maybe one of those imprecatory prayers toward them,

Lord, judge them, bring your wrath down upon this wickedness. There may be times when we can justly do that, and God may very well do that in a way that ultimately brings them to a saving faith.

It's just the dynamics here are incredible, and we don't have full knowledge of what's happening.

What's happening in the spiritual realm, certainly, but with all these people and all of the various places that the

Lord put them, so what do we do? With the extremely limited knowledge that we have, we pray.

We lift up our prayers, our intercessions, our supplications for all men.

And it gets more specific than that in a minute, but we're not there yet, but we lift up these prayers. And so to Pop Pop's credit and to Brother Ron's credit,

I can't remember ever a time when we were together that they didn't remind everyone around them to pray for our leaders, to pray for our country.

And they mean all of our leaders, not just the ones we like. And that is a holy thing.

That is a biblical desire, a holy desire to have, and this is the text that we receive that instruction from, ultimately.

So the great thoughts there, Robert. Does anyone have anything else they'd like to share at this particular point? We're doing pretty good on time today.

Okay, well, okay, so think about that. Three specific types of prayer that Paul gives us.

We can look at them. They each carry their own connotation. We can dive into it. For me, I do believe that it is more of an emphasis than it is really trying to get into the weeds on what exactly does it mean?

How do we do these specific types of prayer properly for all men? That's pretty ambiguous. I believe

Paul is emphasizing the instruction here by doing this. And so the spirit is he moved

Paul to pull out essentially every nuance of prayer that Paul's vocabulary could offer to make this point.

That's kind of what I believe is going on here contextually. But that's not all. He gives these three specific types of prayer, if you will, or dimensions of prayer, and he offers a fourth thing that he says need to happen on behalf of all men.

And this one's fascinating. Look at it. He adds, lastly, that we need to be giving.

He adds the giving of thanks for all men. The giving of thanks for all men.

Now, you can skim over that, and it fits well with the other pieces to this.

And so you're like, okay, sounds lovely. We keep going. But what on earth does it mean to give thanks for all men, all men around us?

Perhaps even those that are not currently living within the, let me put it this way, the revealed will of God.

And you know what I mean. Everyone is moving according to the Lord's will. But as far as what he has prescribed for us to do, the revealed will of God, as it's laid out in Scripture, not everybody is, quote unquote, in the will of God in that sense.

So what do you do about that? How can you give thanks for men that are blatantly not doing that?

What does Paul mean? What does this look like? How does it work? And one piece to this, and maybe this is one of a few pieces, a few angles you could take.

But I'm reminded of one of Brother Otis's famed teachings that was impressed upon our minds many times, and which apparently, as we found out recently, actually may have come from Brother Raymond's own observations as he was traveling the continental

U .S. and observing the way that the economy worked and the very diverse spectrum of people that he came across that are doing all of these things that are what?

Making the economy work. Putting things on the shelves for God's people. This was how

Brother Otis put it. The lost world is there to put things on the shelves for God's people.

And there are a number of dimensions even to that. You could break it down and think, okay, what are the implications of that and things of that sort?

But I believe that this teaching of Paul here with regard to giving of thanks for all men comes into play.

Because when Brother Otis says something like that, that God would do something like bring the lost into the world, that the lost could exist even in their pervasive wickedness in order so that there could be things on the shelves for his people, that creates a little bit of a paradox for us.

But it's not really. The reason it feels like a paradox is because God always does things differently than how we would do it.

And so we would sit here and think, why not just have this perfect economy of righteous people and leave it at that?

Why do we need the wicked in order to make this work? Well, two reasons. Number one, because sin entered the world by our own will.

And so it's part of getting what we asked for. That's the first part. The second part is that God's ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts higher than our thoughts.

There will come a day where there will be a perfect government, a perfect economic structure based solely upon the righteousness of Christ and nothing else.

But for the time being, here's where we're at. We have the wicked around us. We have the lost world around us that are putting things on the shelves for God's people.

But as if that didn't seem like a paradox enough, the means that he uses to make that happen in time,

I say make that happen because I am speaking as a man here. The means that God uses to make that happen for the lost world to put things on the shelf for God's people is by blessing the lost world.

By blessing the lost world, the wicked doers of the world with his common grace.

And I want to emphasize that for a second. Common grace. That's not the same as his effectual grace that he sheds upon the lives of his people that have yielded their lives and submitted to his kingship, his lordship, his savior, all of these things.

It's not the same as that. It's common grace. And if you will, speaking of the

Sermon on the Mount, turn with me to Matthew chapter 5 for just a second and I'll show you what on earth

I'm talking about. Because, like I mentioned, this sounds paradoxical in our minds.

Number one, why would God use the wicked at all? They're the wicked. But secondly, it appears, and King David brought this forth in a number of places in the

Psalms, it appears, Lord, that the wicked are actually prospering.

What is that about? Why is that happening? King David himself struggled with that question, and he,

I believe, did receive answers. I believe he did have some enlightenment on how that worked himself, but it didn't stop him from asking the question every now and then.

And he did more than once. And so what do I mean when I say that the lost world is blessed by God so as to put things on the shelves for his people by his common grace?

Look at Matthew chapter 5. This is the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon preached in human history.

And take a look all the way down at verse 45. So this is the very end of chapter 5.

This is Jesus talking. And he says, That's what

I'm talking about. But keep reading for a second. And if you salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?

Do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your

Father which is in heaven is perfect. And you can now see that the Apostle Paul in 1

Timothy chapter 2 is actually building upon this principle in the Sermon on the Mount. Because what is he saying?

He's saying don't exclude your prayers to your people only. Because even the publicans could do that.

If you were to put Paul's teaching in Jesus' words, you see the parallel there.

If you love them which love you, what reward do you have? That's easy. A fallen nature can do that.

You don't need the supernatural love of the living God living within you in order to do that. And so he's going on and showing the higher standard of the righteousness of Christ compared to the righteousness of the

Pharisees so called and things of that sort. But the key thing here is in verse 45 where he says,

So that is God blessing via his common grace the lost world, the wicked doers.

He allows their crops to be watered, to be blessed. And yes, they make a killing.

They make a profit. They are prosperous. They're successful. They are reveling in their success.

And of course then take that success, take that wealth, and they use it in direct rebellion against God.

But that's not the point. That's not why they are blessed ultimately.

The goodness that God shows even to our enemies every day through their prosperity, through their success, it is worthy of being praised by us.

It is worthy of us praying for that to happen. Why? Because the goodness that he shows them ultimately trickles down to his people by means of goods and services, military protection, law enforcement, entertainment, art, music.

It's all for us. It's all for us to enjoy. And so we can with a good conscience pray for all of those around us, pray for all men to prosper and to succeed.

And of course, ultimately to come to a saving faith, we can pray that too, and we should. But we do this because that prosperity and that success is

God's. It's not theirs. And it trickles down to his people in some way, shape, or form.

Now, really quick, just in our final couple of minutes here, and I think we'll have enough time if anyone has a thought.

But as a final note, and this is very important as we move into verse 2 the next time we're together.

Is I'd like to point out a very important detail that actually shapes this very important passage all the way through verse 6.

And this is something that we're all familiar with. This particular example is something that we're very familiar with at this church.

But it's worth being reminded of because it's also a really good lesson in contextualizing the words of Scripture.

Taking the words of Scripture as they are given, rather than nitpicking or cherry -picking verses and shoehorning them into our own pet doctrine.

Anyone can do that with any portion of Scripture. But always remember this. The Scriptures being abused is not in any way a negation of the infallibility of Scripture.

Every person on planet Earth and that has ever lived throughout time will all be judged by their use of the same standard, the same objective standard across the board, and that is

God's Word. Whether they handled it well or whether they mishandled it. They'll all be judged for the same thing.

And so this can actually, interestingly enough, be a peace to God's people as they look around and say, why are there a million denominations?

Why isn't there one church? Why isn't there a unified body? Why is this? Well, once more, it's because of sin, and it's because we're getting what we asked for.

We always have to remember that. But secondly, it's because any text of any genre of literature from any point in time, but not the least of which

God's Word itself is abused, can be abused, and is abused at every point.

And so we have to learn these methods of interpretation, of reading the

Scriptures as they are given, and not cherry -picking. And right now, we're presented with a very good example of how to do that.

We're presented with a good example of how to contextualize the words. So here's a brief lesson, and then we'll apply it to the text before us.

All words in all languages. It doesn't matter if you're looking at the Greek, the Hebrew, the

Latin, the English, the Old Saxon, the Spanish. Regardless of the language, all words in all languages have what you would call a semantic domain, or another phrase you could use is a range of use.

So it's one word that can be used across, in some cases, a very broad range.

Depending on the context, it could mean one thing or another. And so, with very, very few exceptions, because there are some, but with very, very few exceptions, if a person ever says, this word means this, that's usually just a cheat to give themselves a little bit of leverage in the particular argument that they are given.

It's a fallacy within their argument. And the reason is because the large majority of words have a range of use.

Sometimes it's a wide range, sometimes it's a more narrow range. But almost always, there is a range.

There is a domain of use for that particular word. So that right there, if you can remember that in your personal

Bible study, as you read and as you put everything in context, that is a very significant fallacy that can be avoided by understanding that this word has a range of use.

How is the apostle using it? How is the author of this letter using it? How is Jesus using it in this context?

Now, what about this? Look at verse 1 one more time. We've been looking at this. We've been breaking everything down.

But the very last phrase of verse 1 is interesting because it could seem somewhat ambiguous just on its face, certainly in the

English. And it's like, okay, how exactly do I make this work?

Well, look at it one more time. I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men.

Okay, so can I just say, Lord, be with all men, and then I've covered my basis here? Or is there more to it?

Is there something that the apostle Paul is trying to make very practical? And not just this, again, just this kind of vague, pious thing that we can do, this motion we can go through, but rather something specific, something practical, something that can sanctify us in time.

In verse 1 here, Paul wants us praying and giving thanks for all men. Now, here's the

Greek phrase underneath the English translation there. It's the Greek phrase, pos anthropos.

And we know, again, this particular example we know really well in this church because we've talked about it many times before, but pos, or the

English word all, has two main uses throughout the New Testament. Its range of use throughout the

New Testament typically falls into one of two categories, and it's a somewhat equally weighted range with regard to how it's used.

The first use of that Greek term can mean all of a whole. So in the context of what

Paul is saying here, could he mean we are praying for all of the whole of humanity?

You know, again, totally without distinction, just a broad, somewhat pious prayer for all of humanity, and then we keep going?

So that's the first thing it can mean is all of a whole. But the second New Testament use that we see almost as often, if not just as often, is all sorts of.

So it's like a piece from a whole, and you are praying for a part or a piece.

Let me put it this way. You are praying for a part of every piece of the whole. That could be another way that it is used.

So the question now, because if you read verse 1 in isolation, you don't know.

You might not understand which one Paul meant, because he just says pos anthropos, all men.

Which one could it mean? How do you know which meaning the author intends? And the answer for that here, and the answer for that in every other case throughout

Scripture, is the context. And the context is always king.

You can do word studies, and word studies are a massive blessing. We should when we can. The favorite thing that for me comes from doing a word study isn't so much a wooden definition of a word, but rather the color that that word study brings.

In other words, like when you see that the Apostle Paul talks about false teachers as kind of wandering stars.

And you look at the Greek, and you see that the term, or I take it back, he didn't use the word stars.

He just says they are wanderers. And you look at the Greek term, and it's the Greek term planeo, which is where we get the word planet from.

It adds some color to it, because the Greek mind, when he hears that word, he pictures the stars, or not necessarily the stars, but the moving celestial bodies that are kind of wandering around the darkness of space.

So doing a word study can add some color like that, and it's wonderful. But the word study absolutely never triumphs over the context.

Never without exception. Context is always king. And in this case, it's an incredibly easy thing to determine which range of use

Paul is talking about when he uses this phrase, because in verse 2, he tells us exactly what he means.

And we'll end here. We'll actually look at verse 2 the next time we're together. But what does he say? For kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

And so he doesn't want us just praying for our families. He doesn't want us just praying for our church families and for our close friends and those that we love the most.

But he wants us praying also for our civil magistrates, a particular type of humanity, a group, if you will.

And we will see that his use of pass here is going to be very important as it's carried over into the following verses throughout this portion of 1

Timothy. Remember at the beginning, this chapter is a controversial chapter, not because of the scripture, but because of mankind's inability to find unity in what the apostle said and what the apostle meant.

And so we will find eventually some quote -unquote proof texts that are thrown around without any care in the world for what

Paul is actually talking about, what he is actually trying to get across, the very practical nature of all this.

And so you have the theological battles between the Calvinists and the Armenians, ad nauseum for centuries, all the way back to the

Reformation, all the way to today. And I would imagine that when you see these proof texts thrown around, that very rarely could the person on the spot tell you what

Paul is even talking about in the particular context he is using his phrasing in.

And so verse 1 is key in understanding his use in these terms in following verses that are within the same breadth of his argument here in verses 1 and 2.

And so there's that. So we'll end there. We'll get into verse 2 the next time we're together.

And does anyone have any thoughts or anything before we close out today? Yes, ma 'am. Just like we are to pray for all men, those who are being blessed, we may see them as being not a

Christian or an evil person. They're being blessed, and that trickles down to us.

The same thing happens when God judges a nation for their wickedness.

We may be collateral damage. We need to be praying for them. We need to be praying for all of them. That's actually a wonderful point.

You make there, Mimi. What you just described should be a motivating factor for why we should obey

Paul's words here. And, in fact, I can't remember if it was

Calvin or Gil or Henry. One of the commentaries in this particular section used the exact same example that you used for why we should heed this exhortation from Paul to such a degree.

Because if we get lax in this area from the human viewpoint, what's the result? Well, this actually ties into what

Dad has been preaching on with regard to the judgment of Israel in the Old Testament with the hooks in the chest and the

Babylonians hauling them off. Well, what if the people of God at that time, all of those within the covenant bond between them and God at that time had been fervently praying, lifting up supplications and prayers and intercessions and giving thanks for the leaders at that time?

What difference could that have made? And in hindsight, we know God had a plan and He worked it all out exactly as He wanted to.

But imagine you are in the moment. Imagine you're in the moment we are in with the foundations cracking around us and with all of the uncertainties and all of the things that are happening.

We're not sure quite what the future holds. Well, we are responsible for dealing with the moment we're in. So what do we do?

We can pray. We can be obedient to this passage. Pray for the leaders. Hope that hearts are turned, they're softened, that they are blessed for our sake.

Because to your point, you're exactly right. When the judgment comes, it does have a trickle -down effect as well for the people of God.

The prophets were just as much judged as the rest of the collective at that time.

I say just as much judged. I mean by that they were moving as a group. It doesn't mean that their relationship of the prophet and God was necessarily fractured, but it sure felt like it.

Lamentations, the book of Lamentations is the prophet Jeremiah asking the

Lord why He has left him. And eventually in Lamentations 3 is where we get the beautiful, your mercies are new every morning.

It's in that context. And so he understood what was happening, but he still was dealing with his emotions at the time.

So we should obey this exhortation so that we don't have to go through collective judgment. We want to go through collective blessing, prosperity, and success, which is very much on the table if we're obedient.

Any other thoughts? Yes, Ash? Like the means of grace, whether or not it changes anything.

The person with the hook in their chest that is praying has a very different experience. Working through Lamentations means grace.

That's a great point. So let's say the common grace is removed from the collective nation.

The common grace of the rain, because sometimes it was literally famine. Sometimes it was literally rainless years.

So let's say the common grace is removed as an act of judgment. No more rain. No more common grace.

It's removed. Everyone's being judged for their egregious wickedness. Ashton's point is that what if you're the remnant in that context?

And in that context, the means of grace for the believer doesn't go away. So the prayer of that person with the hook in their chest, of the believer with the hook in their chest, the prayer in that moment is still a means of grace that is effectual, that makes a difference for them, that reminds them that they are not being forsaken, that though they are going through a great fall, they are not utterly being cast down.

And in praying to God in that context in and of itself is a means of grace effectual for them on the individual basis, even if the collective common grace was removed.

Yes, Robert. So very close to exactly that. If we don't have a righteous remnant entering

Babylon, you don't have Daniel. You don't have a Daniel. You don't have Nehemiah. You don't have Nezra. You don't have

Nestor. You don't have Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. They had to be there. That's right.

Even when your back is up against the Red Sea, it can always be parted, and it takes a little bit of some scary moments in order for that to manifest.

Let's pray, and we'll dismiss because we are a few minutes over at this point. Heavenly Father, thank You so much for this wonderful day, for bringing us together and giving us yet another opportunity to be with one another and to be edified by Your Word and to see the absolute practicality of it even two millennia after the

Apostle penned these words under Your inspiration. We thank You so much for that. We thank You that it is effective, that it is living, and that it is active, and we ask that it continues to press itself upon our lives as we dive into it together.