1 Timothy 2:8 Meaning I Desire Therefore That the Men

Sīla: Virtue Sīla is the training in harmless conduct. Hands are made holy long before they are raised, by all the days behind them: what they refused to strike, to take, to grab at. Lifting them is like showing washed hands at the table, where the washing was already done out of sight.

Byāpāda: Ill will Byāpāda is hostility toward a person. Anger sitting in the chest runs straight down the arms, and hands raised while it burns are asking for one thing while gripping another. The prayers being urged here go up for emperors and magistrates too, the very people easiest to resent, so the grudge has to be set down before the hands go up.

Mettā: Loving-kindness Mettā is the wish that beings be well. "Every place" is the direction goodwill travels: east and west, up and down, out over the whole city and the men who run it, the way heat from a stove fills a room without choosing a corner. Hands lifted out of that go up empty of grievance.

Vicikicchā: Doubt Vicikicchā is the wavering that will not commit. It behaves like a traveler at a fork who starts down one road, turns back, starts down the other: the hands come halfway up, drop, come up again. This kind of doubt is a hesitation more than a question, and it can live in a man who is sure of every doctrine he was taught.

Saddhā: Confidence Saddhā is trust placed where trust is warranted. It steadies the arms the way trusting a ladder lets you put your full weight on it. The hands then go all the way up, with no part of the mind hanging back to see first whether anything comes of it.