1 Timothy 2

Instruction on prayer (2:1–7)

Verse 1

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone.

Clare Drury reads this verse as meaning that prayer is to be "the first duty of a member of the community". Although four words, "supplication", "prayer", "intercession", and "thanksgiving", are used, "no distinction is made between them".

Verses 3–4

³For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

• "Savior" (Greek: Σωτῆρος, Sōtēros): The second of three times in this letter (others: 1:1; 4:10) where God is called "Savior", recalling the 'well-known appellation of Yahweh in the Greek Old Testament' (for examples, LXX Deuteronomy 32:15; Psalm 23:5; 24:5; 27:9; 41:6; Isaiah 12:2; 17:10; 43:3; 60:16).

Men and women at prayer (2:8–15; 3:1)

Verse 12

And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.

• "I do not permit a woman to teach" (KJV: "But I suffer not a woman to teach"): Baptist theologian John Gill interprets this in the sense that women may teach only in private, that is, in their own houses and families, to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, not to forsake the law or doctrine of a mother, any more than the instruction of a father (see Proverbs 1:8; 31:1–4), and they are to be teachers of good things (cf. Titus 2:3). Timothy surely received a lot of advantage from the private teachings and instructions of his mother Eunice, and grandmother Lois, but then women were not to teach in the church.

• "To have authority over a man" (KJV: "to usurp authority over the man"): Gill sees this as not to be done in civil and political things, or in things relating to civil government; and in things domestic, or the affairs of the family, therefore also not in ecclesiastical things, nor what relate to the church, for one part of rule is to feed the church with knowledge and understanding; and for a woman to do this, can be seen as to usurp an authority over the man.

• "To be in silence": according to Gill is "to sit and hear quietly", learning, not teaching, as in 1 Timothy 2:11.

Verse 13

For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

• "Was formed" (Greek: ἐπλάσθη): having the same root as the word used in the LXX in Genesis 2:7, Ἔπλασεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον, "The Lord God formed man...;" and in Genesis 2:19 of the beasts of the field, whereas in Romans 9:20 man is called τὸ πλάσμα, "the thing made;" and God is ὁ Πλάσας, "he that made it;" the words "plaster", "plastic", or "protoplasm" are also from the same root.

Verse 14

And it was not Adam who was deceived by Satan. The woman was deceived, and sin was the result.

Verse 15

But a woman will be saved through having children, if she perseveres in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

Chapter 3 opens with the words This is a faithful saying, The saying is sure, or The saying is commonly accepted. The words may refer back to the latter part of this chapter, including this verse, or they may be read as introductory to the material in chapter 3 about the office of a bishop.