Lifting Holy Hands
8 I desire therefore that the men in every place pray, lifting up holy hands without anger and doubting. 9 In the same way, that women also adorn themselves in decent clothing, with modesty and propriety, not with braided hair, gold, pearls, or expensive clothing, 10 but with good works, which is appropriate for women professing godliness.
Two instructions are given, one to men and one to women, and both name a disposition rather than a posture.
Verse 8 returns to the prayer with which the chapter opened and adds a condition. The men are to pray in every place, lifting holy hands — an ordinary posture in that world, and not the instruction's content. The content is in what follows: without anger and doubting.
Those two words are aimed. The letter has already described teaching that produces disputes 1 Timothy 1:4 and will describe men obsessed with word battles 1 Timothy 6:4. Men arriving to pray straight from an argument are the case in view, and the letter says the hands are the easy part.
Verse 9 turns to the women with in the same way, which ties the two instructions together rather than separating them. The list — braided hair, gold, pearls, costly clothing — describes conspicuous expenditure rather than ornament as such.
What makes the instruction consistent with verse 8 is that both address the same disease. The men's fault is bringing rivalry into the assembly through argument; the women's is bringing it in through display. In a congregation where some suppose godliness is a means of gain 1 Timothy 6:5, both are the same problem wearing different clothes.
Verse 10 supplies the replacement, and it is not plainness but activity: adorned with good works, which the letter treats as what a profession of godliness ought to look like from outside.
settled What this mark means