Cheryl

Charis,

“Circumcision of the heart” refers to the cleansing of sin. Do a word search on circumcision and you will find an amazing thing showing what God actually means by this.

What you need to get your head around is that “the childbearing” is not about giving birth. It is about the Messiah.

Paul’s whole letter to Timothy is filled with references to deception. There are false teachers who are deceived, there is false doctrine being taught, and there is one particular deceived teacher who is stopped. Now the Pharisees questioned whether a woman could even be saved and here we have a case of a woman spreading and believing false doctrine. Can she be saved? Paul answers in the most ingenious way possible. He links her to the first deceived woman. Paul then says that she can be saved through the Messiah just as the first deceived woman (Eve) was promised that through her would come the Redeemer. You see the one whom Satan deceived would produce the Messiah who would destroy the deceiver. Do you see the connection? The deceiver is destroyed through the woman that he deceived. Her seed (the childbearing – the Messiah) destroys the destroyer.

Now back to the situation. The woman is deceived and her husband isn’t helping, but Paul is having Timothy take control of the situation. He wants both the wife and the husband involved. The wife is involved by learning the truth. The husband is involved by encouraging her and supporting her and standing by her side so she does learn the truth. Instead of being silent, he participates as “they” (both husband and the wife) are walking together to be sure she unlearns the false doctrine and learns the truth. In that way he is helping her to find the Savior and be saved!

In any situation where a wife is a Jehovah’s Witness, what her husband does or doesn’t do will be key to helping her come out of her deception. If he does not, she will continue in error. If he takes the lead in righteous, she will be encouraged to follow.

I hope that this is starting to click a little. Take your mind off of having babies (I can’t believe you lived through having eight!) and the garden and sanctification. Think on “deception”. Now read through this passage thinking how the passage all relates to deception. Keep reading it until it starts making sense. If you leave out deception, the passage cannot make sense as it was inspired to do.