1 Timothy 2:8-15 - Order in the Church Family

I pray that you would open our hearts and minds to know you more, to know who you are, and what you’ve done, and what you want for each of us in our lives.

Please use your Word through the power of your Spirit to transform our hearts to live and love like your Son, Jesus.

Father, I have no ability to do that with my words alone.

So, I pray that you would empower me as I preach, speak powerfully through me to work this miracle in each of our hearts this morning.

And soften each of our hearts to receive your Word as the truth and not fight against it.

I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Intro

We’re continuing our series through 1 Timothy.

And what we’ve sen so far in this letter is that Paul has entrusted Timothy with a charge to give to the false teachers in the church at Ephesus to stop teaching against the gospel.

He’s also encouraged Timothy to pursue peace in the church by cleaning up the leadership of the church.

And the first way Timothy was to clean up the leadership was to promote evangelistic prayer for all people from everyone in the church exampled by the leadership.

In the previous passage we looked at last week we saw that peace in the church is pursued by having a heart for the salvation of all people, the same heart that God has, and doing what we can to bring about their salvation through prayer and preaching the gospel to everyone.

In our passage, 1 Timothy 2:8-15, Paul explains another aspect of pursuing God’s peace in the church, and it has to do with the order we keep in the church.

Specifically order in our gender distinct behavior as God desires and our gender distinct roles as God has always intended.

When mankind fell into sin our godly behavior and our good, God-intended roles got messed up and now we have to push back against the curse of the Fall to work toward how God always intended for our behavior and roles to be.

We have a tendency to simply accept our curse from the Fall instead of fighting against it to get back to how God intended for us to be.

Accepting our curse instead of fighting back against it is a huge problem.

It usually sounds a bit like this.

“This is just how God made me.”

“It’s perfectly natural to want this or to be like this.”

The relational aspect of the curse is found in Genesis 3:16 where God told the woman that as a part of the consequences for her and Adam’s sin, “…Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.’”

Women, your fallen condition is that you are drawn in varying degrees and in varying ways to have your husband’s authority.

Men, our fallen condition is that we are drawn in varying degrees and in varying ways to use our authority over our wives abusively.

We all tend to seek out dominance in different ways and degrees using our bodies and our behavior as well as our status and relationships to do what God doesn’t want and to be what God never intended for us to be.

We manipulate each other in sinful ways.

There are plenty of jokes describing this sin to make it seem not so bad…

“If the husband is the head, then the wife is the neck turning the head where she wants him to go!”

“A woman’s place is barefoot in the kitchen!”

This is not right!

This tendency is sin!

And because of this tendency the church in Ephesus under Timothy’s care was struggling just like many of our churches struggle with behavioral issues and gender role reversal.

The men weren’t behaving like God wants men to behave.

The women weren’t behaving like God wants women to behave.

And both the men and the women weren’t content with their roles and caused a lot of strife in the home and in the church for simply not pushing back against the curse, specifically Genesis 3:16.

So, God, through Paul, addresses these issues here in 1 Timothy 2:8-15 to get us all back on track so the men and women each strive to behave like God wants, and both men and women pursue their good, God-given roles to his glory.

Our passage begins with the topic of orderly behavior in verses 8-10.

1 Timothy 2:8–10 ESV

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.

Here, Paul focuses on pursuing peace in the church family through…

Orderly Behavior (8-10)

Paul starts off describing something that he desires in light of what he had said previously.

Paul says this is his desire, but it’s really God’s desire spoken and written through Paul.

That’s what Scripture is, that’s what the Bible is.

Paul explained this in another letter, in 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

Paul’s words here, his written out desire is breathed out by God, as God’s own words.

Peter also explained this concept in terms of prophecy in 2 Peter 1:21 “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Paul’s words as prophecy are spoken from God as he was carried along by the Holy Spirit to write this letter to Timothy and the Ephesian church and to all believers including you and me.

So, when Paul says, “I desire,” understand that this is God saying this through Paul.

This is God’s desire and his authority backing what Paul says here.

Now, Paul had just urged us to pray for everyone so that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

And he also described how God desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth through our prayers and preaching the gospel to everyone.

His urging and God’s desire have been distilled into Paul’s desire and God’s desire here in verse 8 that…

Men in every place should pray and not fight (8)

Lifting holy hands in prayer rather than lifting worldly hands in anger and quarreling.

Pursuing peace through prayer rather than pursuing agitation through antagonism.

And he specifically targets men here because this is generally how men tend to deal with perceived problems.

Fight or flight, fix it or make it go away, deal with the problem in your own strength, don’t ask for help, don’t show weakness, don’t back down.

But that’s not how God wants us to deal with our problems.

He wants us to bring our problems to him and let him fix them for us.

Yes, we have some responsibility to manage and care for what God has entrusted to us.

But we have to realize that we can’t handle our responsibilities the way God wants without relying on him and his strength to do so.

He wants us to pray and rely on him rather than getting angry and quarreling because we think we have to do it all on our own.

He wants us to pray and do things according to his will rather than getting angry and asserting our own will on others.

I realize that this may not be a problem for all men, but we generally have this tendency.

So, men, if you feel tempted to fight and get angry because you aren’t getting your way, then please know that this is part of the curse of the Fall that you need to push back through prayer and relying on God and his strength to do his will.

Now, women, you have a slightly different tendency because God made you different from men.

Paul says in verses 9 and 10 that just like he and God desire men to pray instead of fight, he also desires that…

Women should do good works instead of manipulating people (9-10)

Adorning yourselves respectfully, modestly, and in self control rather than disrespectfully, immodestly, and out of control.

Pursuing peace through piety rather than pursing mayhem through manipulation.

Women are specifically in view here because this is generally how women tend to deal with problems.

Manipulate the circumstances or people to be the way you want them to be, bend them to your will, use your weakness or your need for help to get people to do what you want them to do.

Just like with the men, this is not how God wants us to deal with our problems.

He wants us to treat each other respectfully, and again, to rely on him and not our own effort, and he wants us to pursue his will for our circumstances and his will for the people in our lives, not our own will.

Paul mentions braided hair, gold, pearls, and costly attire as adornments women are to avoid.

He isn’t saying that women should never braid their hair, or that women should never wear gold or pearls or expensive outfits.

Those things are good when they are worn respectfully and modestly with self control.

But they are not good when they are worn as a distraction for yourselves or for others, distracting from the good works that are proper for all who profess godliness.

You say you want to be like God, so do what God wants you to do, and be who God wants you to be, and don’t distract yourself or others with what you wear.

Now, this distraction was particularly strong in Ephesus at that time because of the cult of Artemis that was so prevalent there.

The cult of Artemis was what I think Paul was referring to when he mentioned myths back in chapter 1, the myths the bad leaders were wrongfully teaching in the church.

They had allowed aspects of the cult of Artemis to infiltrate the church, and one of those aspects was the common attire worn by women, the focus on exterior beauty rather than interior beauty.

Artemis was supposedly the goddess of fertility, and feminism and a focus on exterior beauty was rampant in that cult and leaking into the church.

This is the sinful tendency women have because of the curse of the Fall, and the cult of Artemis fully embraced that curse, but God wants us to push back against the curse.

God wants us to focus on being like him, not being like the world.

He doesn’t want us to distract ourselves or others or manipulate others to our will, he wants us to point people to him and his glory and sufficiency, to do his will.

So, our orderly behavior in the church family includes both men and women pushing back against our sinful tendencies to solve our problems.

Men are to pray and rely on God’s strength rather than getting angry and fighting in our own strength.

Women are to focus on God and his glory and will rather than manipulating others to your will and distracting people from God with your external beauty.

God made men and women different, and the curse of the Fall brought different sinful tendencies to each gender.

And you have to recognize those tendencies in your heart.

Remember these are general tendencies to sin, but you have specific tendencies in your heart.

So, use this as a guide to figure out what your specific tendency is, and push back against it to rely on God and his strength and to be like God in faith, and love and holiness with self-control.

Next, were going to move to the topic of orderly roles in verses 11-15.

1 Timothy 2:11–15 ESV

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

Here, Paul focuses on pursuing peace in the church family through…

Orderly Roles (11-15)

In this section Paul gives a command and then explains the Old Testament biblical basis for that command.

The command is in verses 11 and 12 where Paul commands that women in the church be allowed to learn in a specific context respecting our good, God-given gender roles.

Then in verses 13 through 15 Paul explains exactly where those good, God-given gender roles came from, what happened to them, and what God has done and will do to get us back to them.

So, in verses 11 and 12 we see…

Our perversion of our gender roles (11-12)

Men have perverted their role throughout history by abusing their authority over their wives.

The situation in Ephesus and in much of the world at that time and in a lot of different places and times, really…

The situation was that men prevented women from learning.

Women weren’t allowed in secular universities.

Women weren’t allowed in religious learning institutions like Rabbi school.

Women were largely illiterate and expected to stay home and perhaps be taught some small things by their husband if he deemed it appropriate.

Thankfully, that situation has been pushed back in our culture, but it’s still a tendency for husbands to keep their wives in the dark.

There are many husbands who insist that their wives care for the home and the children 24/7 so that they never have a chance to sit and learn.

And God, through Paul, here, commands us to allow women to learn.

But there is a proper order, a proper way to allow women to learn to maintain order in the church family.

Women are commanded to be allowed to learn quietly and with all submissiveness.

Men, we need to allow our wives to learn, but that doesn’t give them free reign to go against their role of submission and help for their husbands.

The proper context for wives to learn is remaining in all submissiveness to their husbands.

Now, I want to mention a word that Paul uses here, and he uses the same word in the next verse.

It’s the word translated as “quietly, or quiet.”

This is actually a noun that directly corresponds to an adjective that Paul used back in 1 Timothy 2:2 how we are all to pray“for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”

This word in this context doesn’t mean silence, instead it’s more like tranquility, like a still and quiet pond rather than rough and loud rapids.

It doesn’t mean that we never speak up against our leaders, and only pray for them.

It doesn’t mean that women never get to say anything in church.

What it does mean, is that when we pray for our leaders instead of fighting against them we are doing life the way God intended, in his perfect peace.

And when women remain in submission to their husbands they are doing life the way God intended, in his perfect peace.

So, men, we need to allow women to learn in the church, but we all need to make sure that their role of submission to their husbands is not thrown by the wayside.

But Paul also has something to say to the women, how…

Women have perverted their role throughout history by usurping their husband’s authority.

Again, the situation at Ephesus was unique, but it shows a tendency that is prevalent in every culture and every era.

The cult of Artemis produced a lot of feminist thought among women, and those thoughts had creeped into the church through the false teachers referred to back in chapter 1.

Even though women were prevented from learning, they fought against that and tried to go beyond that to not only learn, but to become teachers and wield authority over men.

And God through Paul says that that should not be allowed.

Why not?

Why can’t women teach men, or exercise authority over men?

I mean, our gender roles are only applicable in the marriage context, right?

So, why are marriage gender roles being foisted upon the church?

There are plenty of women who have gifts and abilities and a knack for teaching and leading.

So, why is God stifling them in the church?

Well, the church is made up of many marriages.

And each husband and wife are called to exercise their gender roles within their marriage.

So, when their marriage interacts with other marriages in the church, those roles need to be upheld.

And if a woman is allowed to teach and have authority over a man in the church, then the church is not upholding those roles.

The church needs to uphold gender roles in the marriage context by adopting similar roles in the church context.

The role of teacher, leader, shepherd, with responsibility before God for how the church functions according to God’s will.

That role is so similar to the role of a husband in marriage that only men ought to have that role in the church so that the marriages in the church aren’t strained by an opposite role structure.

Does this mean that women can’t teach at all?

No.

The context is referring to a heart of wanting to subvert the authority structure God intends for us.

Women are allowed to teach, women are commanded to teach, women have a vital role in the teaching that happens in the church.

But what Paul is saying here is that for a woman to teach a man or exercise authority over a man subverts God’s intended roles for men and women in marriage.

So, the only thing God is forbidding here is the subversion of marriage gender roles by women teaching men in the church.

Women are called and commanded to teach other women like Paul wrote in Titus chapter 2.

Women are called and commanded to teach children alongside their husband as Moses wrote in Deuteronomy 6:6–7 “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

Now, what about unmarried men and women?

The principle is the same, do your best to uphold these good, God-intended marriage roles in the marriages of those around you in the church.

An unmarried man can be just as likely to abuse whatever authority he has as a married man is likely to do that in his marriage.

An unmarried woman can be just as likely to usurp whatever authority she is under as a married woman is likely to do that in her marriage.

Because this is the relational curse we are all in whether we are married or not.

So whatever relational circumstance you are in, push back against the curse and do what you can to uphold the role God has given you and the roles God has given others in the church and in marriage.

This is how all of us strive for peace in the church and peace in our marriages.

Quietness, tranquility in married life and in church life.

Being what God has always intended for us to be.

Now, Paul makes sure to root his command in Scripture.

This is not just some idea he came up with, it’s not out of left field, and it’s not specific for only the culture Paul is writing in and to.

This is God’s intention from the moment mankind was formed.

This is God’s intention which we broke in sin.

This is God’s intention that he worked through his Son, Jesus to fix.

This is…

God’s plan for our gender roles (13-15)

Paul uses the word translated as “for” to indicate the basis, the reason for his command about gender roles.

And he immediately brings up the creation account.

I’m going to read some portions of that account to understand exactly what he’s getting at.

Genesis 2:7 “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

Genesis 2:15–17 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.””

Genesis 2:18 “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.””

Genesis 2:21–22 “So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.”

God’s intention from the beginning what that the man, the husband would be the authority in the relationship by creating Adam first, by giving Adam the responsibility to tend the garden and obey the one command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and by making a helper for him, a helper fit for him, someone specifically designed to help him with his responsibility.

That’s what Paul means when he says that Adam was formed first and then Eve in verse 13 of our passage.

That whole scene of Adam being given authority and responsibility simply by being formed first.

That’s the first reason husbands are to be in authority over their wives, and wives are to submit to their husbands.

Because that’s the way God intended for it to be from the moment he made Adam, the very first man, and then made Eve, the very first wife.

It’s the plan God started, and it’s the pattern we should follow.

But something happened that messed this pattern up.

Paul mentions it in verse 14 as a reference to what happened at the beginning of Genesis chapter 3.

Again, I’m going to read a bit of that account to fully understand what Paul is getting at.

Genesis 3:1–7 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.”

God confronted them with their sin, and significantly, God went to Adam, the authority responsible for this, and Adam responded by shirking his responsibility and blame shifting.

Genesis 3:12–13 “The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.””

Adam wasn’t deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor, but Adam was still held responsible for all of their sin.

The point Paul is making is not to blame Eve for sin entering the world.

He’s highlighting the fact that the whole reason they sinned was because their roles got reversed.

This is also not to speculate what if’s, but to show what actually happened.

The serpent, the adversary, Satan, went to Eve and deceived her instead of going to her husband.

The whole situation is topsy-turvy as Eve assumes responsibility for obeying God’s one command, and Adam let’s her do that.

She gave some of the forbidden fruit to her husband who was with her.

Adam was there, he probably heard the serpent’s lies and how his wife assumed his role and responsibility, and he let it happen.

Then when God confronted him, he wielded his authority like a weapon and threw his wife under the bus instead of taking responsibility like God had intended for him.

That situation is exactly what has perpetuated from the curse of the Fall as God said in Genesis 3:16 “…Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.””

This is the situation we all face, and God wants us all to push back against that curse, push back to what God intended from the beginning, strive for peace in our marriages and in the church by upholding our gender roles.

But we can only truly have peace in our gender roles in the family and in the church family through Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman, who defeated the enemy and the curse at the cross, and he will completely remove the enemy and the curse when he returns to make all things new.

That’s what verse 15 in our passage is about.

It’s a hotly debated verse because it’s so convoluted in its grammar and ambiguous in what exactly Paul is getting at.

But it makes the most sense to me, to be a reference to how we can even begin to effectively push back against the curse and return to the gender roles God has always intended for us to have in our marriages and upheld in the church.

Salvation, and a return to the good, God-intended roles in marriage, can only happen through Jesus.

When Paul says “Yet she will be saved,” the “she” he’s referring to is Eve as a representative of the human race similar to how Adam is referred to as a representative of the human race elsewhere.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

There, Paul names Adam as the representative for the death sentence for sin that all of humanity has, and he names Jesus Christ as the representative for the gift of life that all who put our faith in him have.

In our passage, “she,” Eve is the representative recipient of Satan’s lies, the representative of how we have all been deceived by sin and Satan, the representative of our need for a savior.

All of us have been deceived like Eve was, and all of us like her are saved by Jesus from the results of being deceived.

One of the most confusing parts of this verse is trying to figure out what exactly Paul meant by the word translated as “childbearing.”

He says that she will be saved through childbearing.

There are a lot of different ways people can and have interpreted this phrase.

But in context it makes the most sense to me as a reference to Genesis 3:15 where God tells the serpent, Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.””

Verses 13 and 14 have been references to creation and the fall, so why wouldn’t Paul continue that line of thinking and refer in verse 15 to how God mentioned the glimmer of hope and salvation in the midst the consequences for the Fall.

That enmity between offspring, and the specific offspring who would defeat Satan is what childbearing is referring to.

Eve, and all of humanity who have been deceived by Satan like her, will be saved through childbearing as God’s own Son was born into the world, the offspring of the woman who bruised the head of the serpent, who gave Satan a deathblow at the cross.

The salvation in view is salvation from sin and death because the Greek word Paul uses only ever refers to that kind of salvation throughout the New Testament.

But the aspect of salvation here is specifically focused on the intended roles for men and women and how they got messed up by sin and how we can return back to the roles God intended for us to have, through childbearing, through God’s Son born into the world to save us.

But this salvation is for those who put our faith in Jesus as our savior.

John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

God loved the world and gave his Son to save the world, but only those who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

Romans 10:9 “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Salvation comes only to those who submit to Jesus as Lord and believe in him, in what he did to pay for our sin and afford us eternal life.

This is why Paul ends verse 15 with a sort of odd conditional phrase, “if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

This phrase is not indicating the means of how we are saved, but the results of having been saved, the proof that we are saved.

That proof is continuing in faith and love and holiness with self control.

The word translated as “continue” is the Greek verb meno.

It means to remain, continue, or abide.

It’s the same word Jesus used in John 15 to describe how his disciples and all Christians need to abide, remain, or continue in him as the source of our love like a branch connected to the vine because apart from him we can do nothing.

If we remain, abide in faith and love and holiness with self control, it’s proof that we are abiding in Christ, that we’re truly saved because those things come from him, not us.

And those traits of faith and love and holiness with self control are tied to our roles, pursuing our good, God-given roles which Jesus redeemed and restored at the cross and the empty tomb.

Now, because of Christ and his work in our hearts and lives, we are able to pursue our roles as God has always intended.

Husbands, we can pursue our responsibility and authority in our marriages in faith and love and holiness with self control rather than abusing that authority.

Wives, you can pursue your submission and support in your marriages in faith and love and holiness with self control rather than usurping your husband’s authority.

And everyone in the church needs to uphold these roles that God intended, even though they were broken in the Fall, because Jesus has redeemed us back to those roles that God has always intended in faith and love and holiness with self-control.

Conclusion

So, we need to pursue orderly behavior in the church family, men praying instead of fighting, and women focusing on internal beauty of good works instead of external beauty.

And we also need to pursue orderly roles in the church to uphold the good, God-given roles in marriage.

God intended husbands to lead their wives, to have authority over their wives, and to be responsible before God for whatever happens in the marriage relationship.

And God intended wives to follow their husbands, to submit to their husband’s authority, and to help their husbands with their responsibilities before God.

But when mankind fell into sin, those roles got broken, turned on their head, so that now wives seek their husband’s authority, and husbands use their authority abusively.

So, we need to push back against that curse rather than simply accepting it.

We need to push back in our individual marriages, but also in the church which is made up of a lot of different marriages.

And if we don’t uphold those roles within the church, then we are subverting God’s intentions for every marriage within the church.

And when that happens, the result is not order, but chaos.

The result is not living in quietness and tranquility, but in conflict and agitation.

We should be striving to live and love like Jesus, in faith and love and holiness with self control, as a result of our salvation.

And we need to pursue that in our gender roles, men living and loving like Jesus by wielding authority gently and humbly like Jesus, women living and loving like Jesus by submitting willingly and faithfully like Jesus submitted to the Father.

It takes faith, and love, and holiness and self control to pursue our gender roles like Jesus.

And because he’s saved us and given us a new heart and a new spirit in the new covenant, we have him as our source of faith, and love, and holiness, and self control.

Now we can strive to be like Jesus in our marriages and in our churches because he’s saved us and empowered us to do so.

Now, if you haven’t been saved yet, if you’re still stuck in sin, then I beg you now to put your faith in Jesus and submit to him as Lord of your life.

He’s the only one that can save you, and he’s the only one that can redeem you back to the way God always intended for you to be.

Please, stop fighting against God, stop fighting against the way God intended for you to be, and start fighting against sin in the power of Christ by putting your faith in him and trusting his rule in your life.

Pray

Father, thank you for giving us clarity about how we can pursue your perfect peace.

Please help us, empower us through your Spirit to live and love like Jesus in our marriages and in our church family.

Help us stop fighting, and pray instead.

Help us stop focusing on our external beauty, and focus on our internal beauty as we do good works to your glory.

Help us as husbands to lead humbly and gently.

Help us as wives to follow helpfully and faithfully.

In your church, here at GBC, Lord, help us uphold the way you’ve designed marriage to be and not flip it on its head.

Lord, we want to do this because it’s what you want and we love you and we want what you want.

We want to live in your perfect peace, life as you created it to be.

Please help us remember the lengths you went to in order to redeem us back from sin and death, and in order to redeem the marriage relationship back from the curse of the fall.

Father, you sent your only Son, the offspring of the woman, to crush the head of the serpent, to fix the curse, to redeem us back to you, to save us from sin and death.

Help us remember that as the motivation to live the way you want us to live.

It’s that important to you, so it should be that important to us.

We pray all of this in the name of your Son, Jesus. Amen.

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