Tag: Alexander

Worship, Women, And The Wrong Idea

Worship, Women, And The Wrong Idea

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Gary Pollard

Chapter two is what we’re probably most familiar with when we study I Timothy. Here are the highlights:
1 — God expects us to pray for everyone, specifically that God will do good things for them and give them what they need. “All people” includes people who hate us and want to harm us.
2 — God expects us to pray for anyone who has authority over us. This is for the specific purpose of living quiet and peaceful lives.
3 — This makes God happy, and he’s the one who will save us in the end.
8 — Anywhere Christians are together and worship is being offered to God in some way, he expects godly men to lead that worship. This goes back to 1.4 and the word usually translated “administration” or “stewardship”. The word is οικονομια (oikonomia), and would be best translated “house-law” in this context. The church is God’s house, so he expects us to follow his rules.
This is a difficult passage for many to accept because it contradicts our culture’s view of equality. Many in the world think this passage is misogynistic, but it isn’t. When it comes to worship — and because the church is God’s house, not ours — he wants godly men to lead. Notice that not just any man can lead! Hymenaus and Alexander were men, but they weren’t qualified. Men who lead can’t have anger issues and can’t be argumentative. If a man who has those issues leads a prayer or any other act of worship, according to I Tim 2.8 it’s just as sinful as if a woman did the same.
9-15 lists some of the reasons that this is the case, but I want to focus on the most difficult verse in this section (15 — “…but women will be saved through having children, if they continue to live in faith, love, and holiness with self-control”). On its face, this is a weird verse. What’s going on here?
Men have the responsibility of leading worship and leading their families. We’re told that this is because Eve sinned first, then Adam (14). Maybe Paul doesn’t want Christian women to get the wrong idea, thinking there’s no hope for them because of something someone did thousands of years before. Women are the only people who can bring new life into the world. The church is made up of people, and only because of mothers. This could be an encouragement — “Women, we’re only here because of you. This is so important that if you live faithfully, you have just as much a claim to salvation as your male counterparts”. This is echoed in I Pt 3.7. But it may also be a call to avoid the lifestyles of the women in II Tim 3.6-7, who may have been former employees at the Temple of Artemis.

Handed Over To Satan?

Handed Over To Satan?

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Gary Pollard

I Timothy one ends with 19, “Continue to trust God and do what you know is right. Some people haven’t done this and their faith is now in ruins. Hymenaeus and Alexander are men like that. I have given them to Satan so they will learn not to speak against God.” 

This is a difficult passage, but not the only time Paul has used the phrase “given them to Satan.” He also said this in I Corinthians 5.5, which gives us more insight into what this might mean. 

The member in I Corinthians 5 was handed over to Satan for physical punishment so that he could be saved at the end. This appears to be very similar to what Satan was allowed to do in the book of Job — though in these situations, it appears that he has the power to punish Christians physically when they have one foot in the world and one in Christianity, but with a lot more weight on the foot that’s in the world. 

This obviously doesn’t happen to every — or probably even most — Christians who fall away, but I Corinthians 5.5 gives us at least some hope for those who end up in Satan’s hands. This passage uses a phrase that likely means, “I have given Satan permission to kill this person.” But it doesn’t end there: “…so that their spirit will be rescued in the day of the Lord.” The original word used here (ινα or hina) means, “Resulting in,” or, “So that”. It’s used to describe the purpose or intended result of something. 

Perhaps this means that God’s grace will allow some Christians’ physical lives to be lost before they reach the point of no return, ultimately saving their soul. After all, God doesn’t want anyone to die spiritually, but for everyone to be converted (II Pt 3.9), something repeated by Paul in I Timothy 2.4. Even in judgment God shows mercy! 

A Tale Of Two Crosses

A Tale Of Two Crosses

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Neal Pollard

“Tell us father, were you really there that day?

Did they make you take His burden the rest of the way?”

“Son, I stood in the crowd when I got my painful commission,

And they thrust it on me without asking my permission.

He was staggering and bloody and gripped by exhaustion

I was pressed into service, whether expediency or precaution.

The skull-shaped brow scowled back from a distance,

As I offered that Sufferer my lowly assistance

I was far from the lush valley that cradled my idyllic town

In the bustling, boisterous crowd full of heckles and frowns

Taking outside of Jerusalem this rough-hewn beam

Accompanied by His friends and more foes, what a curious team

Every step in the cacophony of the heckling hateful

When I got to the spot, I was wearily grateful

To cease my assignment and be through with this affront

But I stayed long enough to see men with a malice so blunt

Take the man I relieved and affix Him securely

To the implement I’d carried so slowly but surely

With frightening precision they attached Him with nails

To the cross which they lifted, oblivious to any wails

For the pain, sons, I know must have been unrelenting

As I watched this plain gentleman hang, with no champions dissenting.

No, the crowd with their clamors. bloodthirsty and wild

Made a contrast with this Man, His face loving and mild.

He hung for six hours, and during that ordeal,

Things happened that day, both incredible and surreal.

At the end, after the torture and the mockery were through,

He’d said, “Father, forgive these who know not what they do.”

Now He offered the Father Himself, His own spirit,

I wonder how many of the rabble there could hear it.”

Alexander and Rufus, the sons of this infamous servant

Had a father involved in a task he did, whether feckless or fervent.

We know him today, though we know not what became of the man.

Did it cause him to follow or, like Pilate, to wash his hands.

Was the Rufus of Romans Simon’s son, whom Paul adored?

Was Alexander the villain Paul scornfully deplored?

We won’t know on this earth just who all these men were,

Though we’d like a clear picture in place of the blur,

But we know on that morning, when we gained by Christ’s loss,

That this Simon of Cyrene carried Jesus’ cross.

Today we are called to assume a great load,

Not His cross, but ours, is the burden that’s bestowed.

The cross of self-denial, we must kill our self-rule

And be His, day by day, until our journey is through.

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