Equal But Different - Men and Women in Ministry

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn to 1 Timothy chapter 2 and find your place at verse 7.
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1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 7 through verse 15 will be our text for the morning.
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And the title of today's message is Equal but Different.
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Equal but Different Men and Women in Ministry.
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I have been teaching for the last few weeks, actually for many months now, on the subject of the Biblically Functioning Church.
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And by its very title, it should make sense that the Biblically Functioning Church is a church that functions well biblically.
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It's simple, really.
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We seek to do what the Bible says, especially in regard to how we manage the church that deals with leadership, that deals with membership, that deals with ministry and how services are rendered one to the other within the body, how people are to be treated, how people are to behave.
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We've looked at the leadership structure of the church, we've looked at the expectations which should be present in the church, there are things that members should expect from the church, there are things that the church should expect from the members.
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And today we're going to begin the process of sort of wrapping up the series because over the next few weeks we're going to be sort of hitting some important areas that didn't really have a category.
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It's Biblically Functioning Church, that's the overarching category, but these are things that just need to be said and things that need to be understood, but they didn't fall in under like expectations and things like that.
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We had the little series on what the church should expect, what members should expect.
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So in the weeks to come we're going to look at how the family functions within the church and how the church functions in regard to the family, the role of the father, the role of the mother, and those things, we're going to talk about those in the weeks ahead.
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We're going to talk about things like youth ministry and what that is and why we don't necessarily have a quote unquote youth minister.
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We're going to talk about that in the weeks to come.
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But today we're going to talk about the differences between men and women and how those differences are to play out in the life of the church.
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And I know that this is not a popular subject.
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When you stand up before a group of people in 2016 and you say, you ask the question if you're able even to ask the question, is there a difference in what men and women should be able to do? The world just emphatically, no! There is no difference.
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There's absolute equality and we stand on that absolute equality.
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And of course where has that led us? Well it has led us to a blurring of the lines between men and women.
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It's led us to a blurring of the lines of even in our society, what is expected of men and women and how they are to behave.
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It's led to crazy things like people who now deny even the distinction of gender.
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They call themselves things like gender fluid, meaning they go back and forth between being a masculine and a feminine behavior.
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Or something like the one person that says, I don't want a label so the classrooms in certain schools and colleges are now not able to use gender specific pronouns.
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Can't use she or he or him or her because some people don't identify as masculine or feminine.
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As him or her and to identify him as a him or her as a her is offensive.
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And thus, now they have to come up with other creative ways of expressing the pronoun that no longer identify boys and girls.
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And what's amazing is, you know, we trial these social engineering things.
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And yet at the most basic level, when the baby comes out, it's a boy.
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It's a girl.
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Nobody stands there and says, I wonder what it is.
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You know, we know that this stuff that has been happening in our world is absolutely foolish.
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And yet it is happening.
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Just in my heart, I'm asking you to give me your attention because no matter where you're background is, whether you've been in a situation where, yeah, men and women shared equal positions in the church and I had female pastors and whatever, okay, you come out of that situation and if I say something that offends you, I hope that you understand I'm coming from the word of God.
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I'm not just up here trying to kick anyone in the teeth.
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Likewise, if you understand these things from scripture and I'm just telling you something you already know and you already understand, you might say, well, this is kind of boring.
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I shouldn't even have come today.
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I'm just sort of hearing things I already knew.
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You need to listen too because you might believe things that are true for the wrong reasons.
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You understand that, that you can believe something that's right, but you can believe it for the wrong reason? There are people that believe that homosexuality is wrong, but not because it's the Bible, what the Bible teaches.
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There are people who believe homosexuality is wrong because they think gay people are icky.
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That's not the reason why we believe homosexuality is wrong.
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We believe homosexuality is wrong because it's in the Bible and because of what the Bible says.
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If you are just physically repulsed by homosexuality because it personally offends you, that's not the reason why you should have an issue with it.
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You should have an issue with it if you have an issue with it because of what the Bible says.
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You understand? The same way with this issue.
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If you believe that women shouldn't preach, which is what the Bible says, and we're going to talk about that, if you believe that women shouldn't preach in the church because it's what the Bible says, that's true.
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But if you believe that women shouldn't preach in the church because you somehow believe that inherently men are somehow smarter, better, more intelligent, or whatever, that's not what the Bible says.
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The Bible says that the reason why men are to preach in the church and that women aren't, we're going to talk about this in a minute, because that's the way God ordered it.
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And I've got to tell you, I know women who are smarter than men, some men, and if you think that it's all about intelligence, it's not, it's the way God ordered the church.
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So my point is simply to say, you need to understand that I'm going to be coming at everybody today.
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And I'm going to be coming at it, what I hope is from a biblical perspective and from a biblical truth position, and I hope that you're all listening as we do.
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So let's read the text.
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We'll stand, give God's word, honor, as we try to do.
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First, Timothy 2, verse 7, and I'm starting at verse 7, which actually kind of comes in a little bit before the subject matter, because I want to show you something Paul says in verse 7, which I think is very important.
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He says in verse 7, For this, I was appointed a preacher and an apostle.
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I am telling the truth.
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I am not lying, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
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I desire then that in every place that men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling, likewise so that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel and modesty and self-control, not with braided hair, gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness.
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With good works, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.
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I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.
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Rather, she is to remain quiet.
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For Adam was formed first and Eve and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
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Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth.
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I pray, Lord, that you would keep me from error, as I know I am a fallible man and capable of preaching error.
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Especially on this subject, Lord, I pray for grace from you.
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I pray for grace from the congregation as they listen, that their hearts would understand.
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My own heart on this issue is not one of chauvinism.
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It's not one of male pride or masculinity.
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But it's simply one seeking to obey what the word of God says.
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And if there is to be an offense today, Lord, let it come from your word and not from me.
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And if I make an offense that is unfounded in the word, Lord, may it be wiped from their minds.
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I thank you, Lord, for your word.
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May we be faithful to it in Jesus name.
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Amen.
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As I said earlier, the title of the message is equal, but different.
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And there are those who accuse the Bible.
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Of being ambiguous in the area of the distinction between roles which are given to men and roles which are given to women in the local church.
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And others who say, well, the Bible is not ambiguous, it's just wrong.
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I don't know if you deal with people who don't believe the Bible very much, but I tend to deal with them quite a bit in my own life, whether it be through social media or through my own experiences with family members.
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But I deal with a lot of people who just don't believe the Bible.
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And so when someone sees our family, for instance, and, you know, for many years, my wife worked from home, didn't work outside the home.
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She now has a little part time thing that she does with a homeschool group, which is still very much a home job.
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But it pretty much, you know, working at home and people saw that as as almost like she'd given up on on any attempt at success.
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You know, well, now you're just a mom, you know, if you've ever had anyone say that or heard anyone say that.
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Well, and in fact, we've got, you know, young girls and people ask them outside, well, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a mother, a wife and a mother.
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Well, what else? You can't just want to be a wife and a mother.
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You know, that can't be.
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And so when we look to the scriptures and we see God's design for men and women and the equality, the difference between men and women that's found in the Bible, people look at that in the 21st century and they just laugh and they find great just attack against it.
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And again, as I said, over the years, I've been I've been called many names, some some that can't be repeated from the pulpit.
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But one of the things I was called very early on was a sexist.
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I was called a sexist and a chauvinist.
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And I thought it was unfair, but I hearing what the person had to say, and it was over the issue of female eldership.
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Because I did not believe that a person who is an elder should be a woman.
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We're going to talk about this in a little while as to why.
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But whenever I made that, it was actually part of my ordination, because at the time that I was ordained in the church, there was a female elder.
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And so I was brought before an ordaining board.
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Of five men and one woman who were who were essentially establishing for me my ordination to ministry.
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And so the question was asked, do you believe.
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That women should be put in the position of elder now, she's sitting right there.
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And I said no, and they said, OK, and that was it.
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There's no argument, there was no debate, the only thing that was said was, I think, I think someone said, well, how do you take the Galatians passage where it says in Christ there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, but we are all one in Christ Jesus.
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How do you take that? And I said, well, that passage speaks of position in Christ, but not of authority because if that passage means what you're trying to make it mean, then my son and my daughter and me, if we are all in Christ, are all equal and I can't exercise any authority as their father, if it's meaning what you're trying to make it mean, which is that there's equality, but no difference.
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So it's not what that passage means when people come into Christ, we are all equal at the foot of the cross, every man and every woman who stands at the foot of the cross stands as a broken sinner who deserves nothing but the wrath of God and having received his grace.
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There are now equal offenders and equally justified, and in Christ there's no slave or free and there's no male or female, but we're all one in Christ.
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But that doesn't mean that when my wife and I are saved, that I don't exercise any husbandly authority over my wife and likewise that my wife doesn't exercise any motherly authority over our children.
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That would be anarchy in the home and it would be foolish.
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Equality doesn't mean there can't be differences.
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God has made women and men different, and if you have children and you have more than one child and your children happen to have differing chromosomes, you have boys and girls, you know they're different.
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Right, you know, boys and girls are different, and if you don't, I'll send you a couple.
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You can have them for a whole day, and when it's all done, you will learn.
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I tell you what, I've got an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old, about to be 16, so line the roads with mattresses and tires, here we come.
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But at 18 and 16, and you know, we've adopted them when they're four and six years old, so for the last 12 years or so, 10 to 12 years, we've had them in our home.
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I have seen the vast difference in boys and girls.
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And you know what, science doesn't deny this.
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Science affirms the differences.
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In fact, there was a book written by a lady, it was called The Real Difference Between Men and Women, and this is what she wrote.
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This is not biblical, this is not Christian, this is a secular scientist writing this.
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I just brought this quote in because I thought it was helpful in helping understand that even the world recognizes the difference.
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It says, men are different from women.
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They are equal only in their common membership in the same species, which is humankind.
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To maintain that they are the same, an aptitude skill or behavior is to build society based on a biological and scientific lie.
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The sexes are different because their brains are different.
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The brain, the chief administration and emotional organ of life, is differently constructed in man and in woman.
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It processes information in a different way, which results in different perceptions, priorities and behavior.
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End quote.
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Again, that didn't come out of, you know, first Thessalonians or something like that.
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That wasn't biblical.
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But it's recognized.
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It's the true fool who says there's no difference because he has to deny so much.
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He has to deny the obvious.
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It amazes me that there's even a debate.
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But as I said earlier, differences do not denote inferiority.
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They allow for the proper maintaining of God's design down throughout the ages.
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So as we look at the scripture today, I want to give a clear, contextual, concise exegesis of this passage, which I think is one of the most relevant passages on this issue.
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And I want us to consider just the simple teaching of Paul.
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And the first thing I want you to notice, verse seven, I mentioned this earlier, so we can go ahead and start going through the text.
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The first thing I want you to notice in verse seven is that Paul establishes his authority.
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Again, if you go to the first part of all of Paul's letters, you'll notice that he always establishes his position as who he is.
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Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, or in this book, he says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by command of God, our Savior and of Christ Jesus, our hope.
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He always establishes who he is, because you remember where Paul came from.
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Paul was a Pharisee.
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Paul hated Christians.
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Paul was a man who was out to enslave and imprison Christians and even see them killed, as he saw Stephen killed.
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Paul is a man who is called by Jesus Christ directly.
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He's an apostle directly assigned by Jesus Christ.
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And so in his letters, he makes that point.
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I am Paul, the apostle, and my apostleship is from Jesus.
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And the reason why I'm pointing this out is because I remember very clearly a person looking me right in my eye and saying to me, but Pastor Keith, Paul didn't like women.
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And they said it with no fear.
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And no shame, Pastor Keith, Paul just didn't like women.
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What are you nuts? That's the argument you're going to bring to such an important conversation, is that Paul was just a sexist, the greatest apostle and evangelist in the history of the Christian church, just couldn't get past his own masculine favoritism.
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That's your argument.
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And really, but I digress.
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He establishes who he is in verse one, but in chapter two, verse seven, he establishes it again.
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And I point this out only to remind the fact that he's about to say something that is controversial.
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And so he says, remember who's talking.
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He says, I was appointed a preacher and an apostle, I am telling the truth, I am not lying.
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It's Paul's way of saying, listen, there's going to be argument about this.
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There's going to be debate about this.
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And right now in the church, there is debate.
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There are complementarians and egalitarians.
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That's the two positions, if you want to the technical term, complementarian is the position that God makes men equal, but different is the position I'm essentially teaching.
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God makes women and men equal, but different.
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They are meant to complement each other and that their roles are different in the church.
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Egalitarian is the opposite position that God not only made them equal, but he made them without a difference.
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And men and women can have the exact same rules and those rules can flow back and forth man to woman and there be no difference.
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So that's the two positions.
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And Paul says, I was appointed a preacher and an apostle, I'm telling you the truth, I'm not lying.
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I'm a teacher to the Gentiles in faith and in truth, I have authority to say these things.
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See, people sometimes they'll say, because he's going to say later, he's going to say, I do not permit.
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And somebody will say, well, that's Paul.
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That's not God, that's not Jesus, that's Paul.
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That's why I started verse 7, because Paul's making a point in verse 7.
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Remember who's speaking? I, yes, I'm Paul, but I have been given by God a command to be able to say these things and I have the authority whereby to say them.
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There's something called apostolic authority and Paul was ate up with it.
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Meaning he was given this authority under the inspiration of God to write his word down.
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When you read what Paul had to say and it's in scripturated word, you are reading the word of God.
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Beloved, don't forget that.
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Because somebody will come along and say, that's just Paul, that's just nonsense.
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When you say, that's just Paul.
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Would you say that's just Moses? Would you say that's just Luke? Because guess what? Jesus didn't write nothing.
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Everything that you read that Jesus wrote, or said, was written by someone else.
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Jesus never penned anything that we know of and we have no record of anything that he wrote.
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We have the writings of Matthew, we have the writings of Mark, Matthew, an apostle.
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Mark, a student of an apostle, would have been the student of the apostle Peter.
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Luke, the physician who attended the missionary journeys of Paul.
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And John, the beloved apostle.
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So if you can't trust Paul, why do you trust Matthew? If you can't trust Paul, why do you trust Luke? He was Paul's assistant.
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So make sure your head's right before you say, well, that's just Paul.
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All right, we on the same page now? Can we go on? There's verse 8.
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I desire that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger and quarreling.
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Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair, and I think the King James says plaited hair, and gold or pearls or costly attire.
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Now, very quickly, I just want to make the distinction between verses 8 and verse 9, and what I believe is the reason why Paul is saying what he's saying.
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He's about to make a distinction between men and women, and he deals with two issues that tend to face men and women differently.
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For men, he deals with the issue of aggressiveness, and with men he deals, or with women, he deals with the issue of attire.
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On men, he says, look, I, my desire is that men be prayer warriors.
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My desire is that men are led by their prayers, and not by their anger.
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Do men have issues with allowing ourselves to become, at times, aggressive? If you had to make a decision as to which was the more aggressive gender, and you were honest, would you say that it might be men? Now, I know women can be aggressive too, and I'm not denying the possibility thereof.
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But men tend to solve problems with what? The sword.
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That's the way we see problems, as how deep can we cut it, and how fast can we get the blade.
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So, Paul addresses men with an issue that they deal with.
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He says, you know what, I desire, and again, who's speaking? Paul, the apostle.
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The man speaking for God desires that men would pray, lifting holy hands, not hands of war.
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That's the desire, that I would see men who were not led by their aggressive emotional behavior, but they were led by the love of God through Christ Jesus, lifting holy hands.
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That's my desire, is to see men do that.
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Rather than seeing men who are led by their natural, brute masculinity.
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Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with being masculine, and I want to clear that up very quickly.
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That's one thing that our society's really messed up, is we've given up that masculine can be good.
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Masculinity can be a good thing.
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By the way, I'm not a feminist, I'm not a masculinist either, but I do think that there's, you know, the whole idea that feminism is great, masculine is bad, is wrong.
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There's good in both.
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There's good in the feminine, there's good in the masculine.
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And there are some masculine tendencies that we should bring out in our young boys.
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For instance, we often downplay a boy's desire to stand up and make a stand for stuff.
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Oh, you don't want to be too, you don't ever want to fight.
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Well, sometimes there's a reason to stand up for things.
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Sometimes there's a reason to stand between.
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Stand up to the bully, stand up to the aggressor, stand up and be a protector.
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Your wife should know that you're going to protect her.
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Your children should know that you're going to protect them.
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So there's nothing wrong in that regard.
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But Paul is saying we're not supposed to just be living our lives as aggressive, animalistic men.
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We should be men who lift up holy hands rather than hands of war.
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So he deals with men on that issue, but then he looks at women and he looks at an entirely different issue.
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And for some, this is off the rails, because Paul's going to deal with something that a lot of ladies would prefer he not address, and that was how they dress.
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Because he says, as much as I want men to be men of prayer and not of quarreling, men of prayer, lifting holy hands, not hands of war, I want to also see women who adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with plaited hair, braided hair, with gold and pearls and costly attire.
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Now, time will not permit me to go into all, because I do eventually need to get to verse 12.
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This is all contextual, but the reality is Paul is addressing an issue that in his day was a severe issue and continues to this day, and that is there are those who dress so as to allure.
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There are those who dress for the purpose of looking like a certain type of person.
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In his day, to wear plaited hair meant to braid the hair with gold and pearls and different ornaments, and that was what the prostitutes would do so as to demonstrate their willingness to be that type of a person.
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And so Paul is using a contemporary example that has an eternal significance, because today the example might be something to the effect of a person who is dressing so as to show off her body, in a way that might appear to be, and I'm trying to be very gracious, and I know we have children here, so I'm trying to be very, I don't have to go too far on this, I don't think, we know what I'm saying, and Paul is addressing the issue of attire, and how does a woman, according to Scripture, how does a woman demonstrate her godliness? Is through her attire? Is how that she demonstrates her godliness is through, if you want to know what I'm talking about, go to 1 Peter chapter 3.
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Let's go there very quickly, I just want to show you what I'm talking about, because he said in 1 Peter 3, verse 1, 1 Peter 3, 1, it says, Wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.
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Verse 3, Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, the putting on of gold jewelry, the clothing you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.
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For this is how the women, the holy women who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands.
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So, essentially what he's saying is, what you wear is a product of your heart, and how we adorn ourselves is a product of our heart, and a person who is adorning themselves as to allure, for the purpose of that, just to allure, is expressing something that is not to be done, especially in the congregation of God's people.
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That is not to say, ladies, and I want to be very clear, because I'm trying to be very careful how I word things, that is not to say that you cannot dress nicely.
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And honestly, I don't even think that Paul is really denying the ability to wear like a ring, like a wedding ring.
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I don't think a wedding ring is wrong.
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I don't think a necklace is wrong.
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I think the issue here is, in his day, to plate the hair or to braid the hair with gold was a symbol of something.
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It was a symbol of something that was ungodly, and to wear that in the public, or to wear that in God's house, among God's people, was not the right thing to do, and that we should consider how we present ourselves when we're in God's house.
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And essentially, I think that this is a very simple issue, but it's one that's fraught with danger, because it always comes back to, well, does that mean I can't wear this, or does that mean I can't wear this? And it has led to some major extremes in certain places, certain denominations, where if a woman wears pants, it becomes an absolute sin.
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And I don't think Paul is making that argument, that pants are sinful.
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And there are some places that do require head coverings.
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And I want to just briefly mention, because Paul does mention in 1 Corinthians 7, the issue of women covering their heads.
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Paul does, at times, use contemporary examples to explain eternal truths, and what I mean by contemporary is contemporary to him.
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The contemporary example in 1 Corinthians 7 was that a woman was to cover her head when she was in the Lord's house.
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And he said, if a woman comes in not doing that, then what is she doing? She's reversing the roles.
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She's usurping the position that her husband is in by not covering her head.
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She's essentially switching.
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And if you read through chapter 7, 1 Corinthians, he really does address that.
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He says, a man who dresses like a woman is doing wrong, and a woman who is doing what the man does is doing wrong.
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So by flipping that around, it wasn't so much the head covering, as much as it was that in the contemporary day of Paul, a woman who went uncovered was a woman who was attempting to dress like a man.
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So you could say the same thing today, but in a different context.
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You could say, a woman who behaves in her house like her husband, and exercises authority like her husband, dresses like a man, behaves like a man, and does the masculine role is, in a sense, disobeying that chapter.
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She's going against what the role there Paul is talking about.
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And so getting back to 1 Timothy, if you want to turn back with me to 1 Timothy 2, he's dealing with issues that face men and women.
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And you notice the issues are different.
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He's saying, okay, men, you got your own problems.
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Here's the problem you need to deal with.
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Women, here's the problem, and here's what you need to deal with.
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But then in verse 11, he says something that is very important for us to understand.
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He says, let a woman learn.
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Now stop right there, because it goes on to say quietly with submissiveness and not permitting a woman to teach.
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But I want you to just remember something.
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If you leave thinking Paul was a chauvinist, or I am a chauvinist or a sexist, you need to understand that this is revolutionary.
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Because Paul says, let a woman learn.
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At this particular time in history, that's a very big deal.
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Because women were not allowed to be a part of the learning experience of the men.
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And yet Paul says, let a woman learn.
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You realize today in Muslim countries, women are not part of that.
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The learning, the men do their thing, the women do their thing.
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And oftentimes, in fact recently, I think a presidential candidate compared Christians who believe this to Muslims.
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There's no comparison.
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There is no comparison of the biblical differentiation between men and women to what Islam does to women.
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Islam, not only is it about hibjab and the head coverings and all those things, which in and of itself is a part of the subjection, but the mistreatment of women that happens in Islam is beyond compare.
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And to compare that to what Paul is saying here is an absolute fallacy.
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Paul is making a distinction between men and women, but one of the things that he is doing is he is raising women to a level that up until this point was not normal.
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He was saying women are to learn.
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And women are to be learners in the assembly.
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Women are to be part of the learning experience in the assembly.
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That's right.
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We don't have a men's sanctuary and a women's sanctuary.
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We don't say, okay, men, you come in, and ladies, you stay out there, and you cook, and you clean, and you do that, and we're going to come in here and learn theology, and y'all don't need to know that.
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No, we bring, man, we bring everybody.
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We bring the little babies in.
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We say bring everybody in and learn.
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And that's something I think is often missed when people are claiming Paul's chauvinism or whatever.
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He says, let a woman learn.
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We have women's group that meets for the very purpose of learning what? Things that deal specifically to women and their lives.
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We have men that meet that deal specifically, and men can be honest with men about the things that are related to their sins and their issues, and the women can be honest about things that are related to their issues.
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So we understand the distinction and the difference, and we all learn, you see.
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But he does add the qualifier.
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Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness because of verse 12.
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Because in verse 12, he adds the qualifier.
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He says, I do not permit, and in King James, I suffer not, means I don't allow or don't permit, a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.
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Rather, she is to remain quiet.
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Boy, if there's a passage that is hated by modern feminism, it's that one.
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And some guys won't even touch that with a ten-foot pole.
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But if I just tell you what it means, and you have an issue with it, I would say you really need to check your heart because it's God's Word.
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If it means what it says, it's not that hard.
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I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but she is to remain quiet.
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The context here is in the assembly.
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The context here is in the assembly.
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Because he just said, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.
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The context here is in the assembly.
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You go back up, how she adorns herself in the assembly.
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The men raising holy hands and not quarreling.
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It's in the assembly.
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The whole address here is what happens in the body.
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Does this mean women can't teach one another? No.
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In fact, they must teach one another according to Titus 2.
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The old women are to teach the younger women.
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That's part of the church model.
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It's that women are to teach women.
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Absolutely.
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Now, the structure of that, how that works itself out, is different in different churches.
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But no one is denying that women can be gifted teachers.
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Johnny Erickson Tata is an absolutely gifted teacher.
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She was a young woman.
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As a young woman, she dove into a swimming pool and broke her neck.
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And she is now a quadriplegic.
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Has been ever since her youth.
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And she's now a lady, an older lady.
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And she is a fantastic teacher of God's Word.
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And she teaches women and is beautiful.
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But she will tell you, I am not an elder.
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And she believes this passage, I am not an elder in the church.
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And I don't speak with the authority of an elder or the authority of a pastor.
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I speak as a woman who God has saved from a tremendously difficult situation.
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And I speak to give encouragement and to share God's Word.
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And she does so all over.
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And she's a good example of somebody who doesn't deny this passage.
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And she has, I think, Johnny and Friends is the name of their ministry.
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And they go out helping people with handicaps and things like that.
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And she has a ministry that God's given her because of her, the problem that she has.
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So, very quickly, just understand.
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I'm not denying that a woman can be gifted by God to do things.
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But I'm saying this.
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I believe that verse 12, and I think I can demonstrate this, especially with what comes after this.
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Because the direct context in chapter 3, which is just a few verses away, is eldership.
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Look at chapter 3, verse 1.
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If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, that word is episkopos.
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It's one of the two words that are used for the word elder.
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Episkopos and presbyteros, both together, are synonymous for the overseer, the elder of the church.
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So, four verses before that, we have him talking about how a woman is to behave in the church.
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And I do believe that those two things go together.
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I think the context is the issue here.
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And the context is eldership.
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Because he uses two things.
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He says teaching and authority.
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What body in the church is commissioned to teach and exercise authority? The elders.
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That's the body in the church that are scripturally commissioned to teach and to have authority.
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By the way, I'm an elder.
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I'm not that elder yet.
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But I'm getting there.
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I feel it.
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But what I mean is an elder is not just an old person.
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For those of you who are relatively new to our church, an elder is a pastor.
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And a pastor is an elder.
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It's not a different role.
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The shepherd of the church is the elder.
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The shepherds, and it should be a plurality of them.
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It should be more than one.
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And so, myself and two other men share that position as elders in the church.
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And I believe that 1 Timothy chapter 12 is denying that position to a woman.
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And you say, that's a terrible thing.
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Why? Are you saying, pastor, that every woman preacher is wrong? I think Paul is.
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And I just happen to agree.
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I'll tell you what John MacArthur says.
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He says, every time someone tells him, my church has a female pastor, he says, you don't have a church and you don't have a pastor.
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That's MacArthur's answer.
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He says, my church has a female pastor.
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You don't have a church and you don't have a pastor.
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Because she's usurped a role that doesn't belong to her.
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You say, that's awful offensive.
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It doesn't matter.
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It doesn't matter.
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Because ultimately, if we tell God, we don't care what you think about this, where does it stop? God, I don't care what you think.
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She's a good speaker.
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God, I don't care what you think.
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She gets the people going.
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God, I don't care what you think.
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She gets people to give.
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At this point in the message, the audio recording was stopped unexpectedly.
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And so, I'm now picking up this message, recording it after the sermon, just so that I don't finish the message the way it was left on the recording.
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I want to end by looking at this last portion of 1 Timothy 2, because I think that this is important and it is necessary.
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And in the message, I did go for about another five minutes.
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So, if you're listening to this by recording, know that this portion was added later.
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This isn't exactly what was said, but I'm going to try to present a reasonable repeating of what I said earlier this morning.
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When we go to 1 Timothy 2, and we had gotten up to in the message about verse 12, you look after verse 12, and you see in verse 13, 14, and 15, Paul makes his appeal to the reason why he is forbidding women from teaching in the assembly and exercising authority over men.
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And a lot of people say that Paul makes this, his reason is cultural, that the reason why he's saying not to do this is because the culture of his day didn't allow women to teach, but that because today the culture has shifted and we live in a post-feminist society, a post-feminism society, and we live in a more enlightened age, as some would argue, that the reason is now we are able to allow women to preach.
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But that's not the argument that Paul makes.
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Paul doesn't say, you know, I don't suffer a woman to teach or exercise authority over men because the culture around us wouldn't allow that.
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Instead, in verses 13, 14, and 15, he appeals to Scripture at its most foundational level.
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He appeals to Adam and Eve, and he says in verse 13, 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.
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And some of that is confusing for many people, but the most important thing is that his appeal to the reasoning is not cultural.
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His appeal to the reasoning is not that the people around him wouldn't accept a female teacher.
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He goes all the way back to Scripture, and he says, look, Adam was formed first and then Eve, and Eve transgressed by ignorance, but Adam transgressed not by ignorance.
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He wasn't deceived.
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Adam was not deceived, but rather he willfully acted.
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And somebody says, well, that's worse.
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And in a way, it is worse.
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But the point that the apostle Paul is making here is that Adam was representing mankind.
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He had a positional headship, not only over his wife, but he had a positional headship over all of mankind.
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And when Eve sinned, that isn't the sin that we carry as fallen sons and daughters of Adam.
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We carry the sin of Adam, not the sin of Eve, necessarily.
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It's the sin of Adam.
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He is our federal head acting as our representative.
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He had a positional authority in the garden that allowed him to act on our behalf.
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And so that same positional authority Paul is addressing here for the man and woman relationship inside the church, and it's saying women should not usurp that authority, but that women should be in submission to their husbands.
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He says that in other places, as such in Ephesians 5.
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And he says that women are not to teach or exercise authority in the church.
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But then in verse 15, he says something that often confuses people, and I hope to bring some at least clarification on this, because he says, yet she will be saved through childbearing.
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And that's caused some confusion.
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I've even heard atheists argue about how the Bible is self-contradictory, and they say you're not supposed to be able to be saved by works, but a woman can be saved by having a baby.
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But the reality is this is not talking about salvation from sin.
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The word here in the Greek can mean to be saved, but it also can mean simply to be delivered.
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And the deliverance that a woman is able to have from the lack that she may feel in not having the authority of being able to be an elder or being able to be in a position where she has authority over men is the fact that she has the power to do something a man can't.
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She has a power to become a mother.
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She can bear a child, and in bearing a child, she is tasked with a responsibility that could even have more influence and impact than an elder, because she gets to be a mother.
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She gets to interact with a child and be the most influential and powerful teacher in a child's life for the most formative and important years.
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Some of the greatest theologians in history have referenced the fact that godly mothers are the reason why they grew up to be godly men.
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And we go back to Timothy, and it references his mother and his grandmother as being godly examples in his life.
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And so a woman may feel as if not being able to be an elder is a slight, you know, well, why has this happened? But at the same time, she must remember that god has given a blessing to womanhood that men don't have, and that's the blessing to be able to be a mother.
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And how does she receive the full blessing of being a mother? Well, by continuing in faith and love and holiness with self-control, because it's not only being a mother that gives a blessing, but it's being a godly mother.
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And I want to conclude by saying that I am thankful that at Sovereign Grace Family Church we have many, many godly mothers.
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We have many, many godly women, and I'm thankful that we have women that are submissive to the word of God and they don't argue about being elders in the church, about that opportunity not being afforded to them, because they understand that God did not design the church to be overthrown by the culture, but rather for the church to be influenced by the word of God.
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And the word of God does say that there are positional authorities that are given to men that are not given to women, one of those positions being that of elder.
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And so I'm grateful, again, as the pastor of Sovereign Grace Church, to shepherd so many godly women who are great examples of faithfulness to their husbands, faithfulness to their children, and I just praise the Lord every day for the opportunity to shepherd them and to be a part of such a godly group of people.
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And so, again, I thank you for listening to this message, and I apologize for the recording error, and I hope that it's been an encouragement to you.
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May God bless you.