12-17-2007, 10:56 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by py3ak  Quote:
1 Timothy 2:15 (ESV)
Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
1 Timothy 4:16 (ESV)
Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
| Here is another possibility I have heard. Look at 1 Timothy 2:15: read it without "through childbearing". Yet she will be saved —if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. That sounds like the perseverance of the saints. Now add "through childbearing" back in and compare with 1 Timothy 4:16. It's rather similar. According to this reading, perseverance is not merely abstract: it's perseverance in Christian life in the responsibilities God has given you. So Timothy, a minister, cannot persevere without persevering in a close watch on himself and his teaching. So the typical woman who gets married and has children cannot persevere without persevering in the duties God has given her within the home. Perseverance in grace necessarily involves perseverance in vocation.
What do other people think of this? | 
I'd just be careful not to absolutise the means, since the apostle is only providing a remedy for a particular problem.
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"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."
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