Book of 1 Timothy - Ch. 2, v. 9

All right, sorry man. No, that's okay. I was the one talking about fireworks. We will go ahead and jump into it just just to be safe here and Let me see here. Let me recap just briefly because we're gonna get into some verses for the first time last week was more of an introduction, but we are going through First Timothy chapter 2 verses 9 through 15 and One of the reasons why we needed to slow down a little bit and talk you talk through a few things is because as We mentioned this is a particular passage that is Ignored at best and at worst greatly abused and of course both of those are are really You know really bad.

The Design of Women in 1 Timothy 2:9-15

And so we kind of set this up by giving ourselves a foundation for understanding That the Lord is giving these very specific exhortations not to be authoritarian. But rather to give instruction that cuts with the grain of the way he designed men and women and specifically women are in view from verses 9 through 15 and.

So that really changes the perspective when you go into it and you hear the way that Paul is Presenting these things and there are so many so many different Contextual things happening at the same time.

It kind of goes without saying we can look at this passage and think wow Paul was certainly speaking prophetically. Because here we are 2 ,000 years later, and we have these very issues that he's saying don't let happen in the church happen and while of course it was prophetic in the sense that the Holy Spirit was leading him to write these words because God knew that we would need all of these instructions Today as well Paul is writing them because these were issues at the time.

He was writing also a little bit different cultural context because Part of the reason why he was delivering some of these things were because of the way the pagans approached Worship and things like that in general.

If you were looking at the faithful Jews coming up into the first century You probably would not have seen a lot of the types of errors in the early church that the Apostles were having to sort out. And so by the time you have Paul writing the pastoral epistles some of his last Epistles 2nd Timothy was the last letter he ever wrote before he was martyred in Rome.

You have Paul speaking to probably largely Gentile churches. There were maybe some that leaned more heavily Jewish some that leaned more heavily Gentile some maybe more 50 -50. But of course he is speaking to the church at Ephesus Through Timothy and so there would have been a lot of now converted Gentiles who were just coming out of various types of pagan context pagan religion pagan worship and all sorts of things and so Paul had to hit some of these things dead-on himself because he saw some of the really Unbecoming things that were taking place and that they were used to Coming in that now the church.

So he's laying all this out to preserve the purity and the chastity of the church itself. But also of each individual church member within it, which is all really amazing stuff. So again we set the foundation for this whole passage by emphasizing and will continue to emphasize.

That we are hearing these exhortations not because they're arbitrary authoritarian commands, but rather because they are gracious instructions by God that comport with the nature the design of Women so that they can thrive and so that they can flourish the best they possibly can in the church.

Even when at times maybe even in the moment, they're like, well, you know, why can't it be this other way? Well Paul gives us the picture because when you zoom out and you look at the way I'll put it this way the way that biblical methodology unfolds in the blessings that come with it.

There's not even a question that again. This is so that flourishing and thriving can be sustained over the long term so remember all that as we now turn to first Timothy chapter 2 and We'll pick it up at verse 9 today.

And we'll probably spend this week and maybe even next week on what Paul's main little subtopic is in view here in these couple of verses because it's. It's an amazing topic, but it's an incredibly neglected one.

Modesty as a Neglected Topic and the Meaning of Adornment

It's actually It's actually somewhat of a thrilling topic and I think you'll see why that's the case as we get into it this week and probably next week, too. So now that we understand again that the following passage from verses 9 through 15 Paul is exhorting Christian women how to behave themselves how to present themselves in a very specific way.

Now that we know that all of that is grounded upon God's good design. For men and women we can kind of begin to unfold this passage and see some of its deeper meaning. Even a few layers beyond just the surface level reading.

So look at verse 9. He says in like manner also. That's an important little phrase that women adorn themselves in modest apparel. Which excuse me with shamefacedness in sobriety not with broided hair or gold or pearls or costly array.

But which become if women professing godliness with good works. Now we're gonna break some of the specifics down probably next week in these verses. But we'll start to kind of break down the thrust of this today.

Remember where we left off in verse 8. Look at that one more time. He says I therefore that men pray everywhere lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting and then he gets to verse 9 and says in like manner also in like manner also.

That women adorn themselves in modest apparel shamefacedness sobriety. And so on and so forth. So just as men are commanded to pray with holy hands, which again, what does that represent? It's not that their hands are clean and washed and things like that.

That's how the Pharisees approached it. What Paul means in the way and you can see This in the Old Testament as well. It's a representation of their heart being in the right place. Circumcised regenerated in the right place with God and that flowing out into their good works their holy works.

And so this is kind of a phrase a word formula if you will representing the inner man actually. That flows out into the external works. That the man does so just as men are commanded to pray with holy hands in that same way.

That's what the phrase in like manner also means in the same way women are likewise Commanded to honor God and how they adorn themselves. And so this is very important. We understand in verse 8 the context of men.

Leading public worship in a way that is reverent in a way that is God honoring is extremely important. That's what's in view in verse 8 you get to verse 9 and in the same way with equal importance. Women should think about this particular thing.

They're commanded to honor God and how they adorn themselves and As we'll get into more later. They're not commanded to adorn themselves as a way to hide themselves. But rather as a way to emphasize their glory in a God honoring way.

We know that Paul in first Corinthians tells us that the woman is the glory of the man and the man is the glory of God so a woman is a glory and unto herself and so when we see these words like adorn and modest apparel in you know ways in which you approach the external.

Dressing the external we are seeing a biblical essential essentially we're seeing a theology of how to Emphasize the glory that God gave uniquely to women and of course there are places where it's emphasizing the unique glory of man.

And so we have to remember that when it talks about adorning it is not talking about hiding The female body it is talking about emphasizing its glory in a God honoring way. Now again, just to set this up a little bit.

We'll dig into the specifics of the verses as we work through this, but I just have to set a little bit of foundation. Modesty is a little bit of a strange topic at this point in church history. It hasn't always been a difficult topic kind of like we alluded to last week if you had approached the church fathers performers the Puritans.

Even many of the wonderful 20th century theologians with this particular passage and says what are your thoughts on the controversy here? They would have looked at you Kind of cockeyed and been like what are you talking about?

What what controversy is here? This is somewhat of a novel thing. We're dealing with only about four or five decades old as far as the the arguments for still having to deal with and so here Again modesty is a Subtopic within all that we're looking at in this passage.

It hasn't always been a difficult topic either, but it has become one Unnecessarily in the day that we live in and there's a couple of reasons for that. And again, I want to bring these forth just to give us a solid foundation for why this is somewhat of a thrilling topic Despite it being Avoided in so many contexts.

Two Ditches: Legalistic Standards and Shallow Grace

So here's a couple of reasons why this is a difficult topic for churches today one is this particular topic of biblical modesty is either treated as a primary gospel issue and They and listen to what I'm saying carefully here because they're very important distinctions.

It is either treated as a primary gospel issue and we have plenty of great examples from bad preacher clips. That when it's taken from that angle it can be thundered from the pulpit as if it is the dividing line Between the heathen in the church.

So that is one thing that we have to deal with as we As we go into a topic on modesty, but there's another problem as well. There's another reason this is a difficult topic and that is is because in the majority of cases it is ignored altogether.

It's never talked about it's never addressed It it's it's just the kind of thing that you don't really want to have to deal with because maybe there's just too many nuanced Opinions about it and then you're in a sticky pastoral position or something like that.

Unfortunately, that's the majority of cases. So as much as we can laugh at the bad preacher clips and have some stories within our family even going pretty far back just kind of the independent fundamentalist Baptist approach to the topic is Great as those stories are that's actually the fringe when you look at the full landscape of the American Church.

Or the church in the West broadly. And so let's you know, just think about this for a second for one for the people that like to kind of pontificate a little bit on modesty. With regard to kind of the IFB movement, you know, just the The Jack Hiles type preaching on issues like this you have to give them some credit and The reason why is because they are dealing with a topic that has been ignored to such a degree by the church in many respects.

While in the midst of a cultural decline into just decadence in general. So what do they see you have, you know, these these faithful churchgoers. They may have their issues we all do but they have their specific issues that make them who they are but they're faithful churchgoers and they care about these types of issues and they look around and they see that we're in a cultural downfall with regard to the moral fabric of the the nation with regard to the social fabric of it.

And then they have an even bigger problem within that because this isn't like the first century Christian Church that are kind of building burrows and protecting themselves while the pagan world is just going crazy around them.

What we see now is we see this cultural downfall with the church compromising and Falling into it. Usually just a few years behind and so they see the the degeneracy. They see the decadence and then they see a very very weak church that isn't dealing with it at all.

And so what happens when you find yourself in that way, well you get in defensive mode you get into a mode of wanting to defend what they with conviction believe is the Word of God in the way that it was intended and in all of these types of things and They want to they want to protect the sanctity of all of these types of things.

And so they're they see the cultural decline. They also see the church ignoring it in many respects and In Some cases they'll even see the church following suit with the the cultural decline itself. They're either ignoring it or they're even as far as compromising and just going into it.

So in other words What they see is what any person with their eyes open can see when they go to any beach Anywhere in the West with their little kids. That's what they see and it's concerning to them and it's it's a legitimate concern.

And so the fundamentalists may the Lord bless them. They consider themselves as kind of the last bastion of defense against this very real very significant moral issue in the country, which is immodesty, which is the culture lowering its standards at a very Concerning scale.

I mean you go back and even At the time where my parents were children certainly our grandparents, you know There was a long periods of time with consistent modesty even with different like style changes, so obviously Fads and styles and and things like that in clothing I mean change over time but even with the varying style changes over the generations you can see huge portion of History where there was Pretty significant sense of modesty and then that started to change and it just again the rapid scale Was was very very scary and so you have the Fundamentalists kind of believing that they are the last line of defense in all of this and it is a real issue.

And so you have to grant them at least that but here's where we pause for a second. We say okay, but There's there's something not quite right there. What is it? They have there's a real issue that they're dealing with.

But there's something that's just not quite right there. There's something that's off-putting about it there's something that has There's something about the approach that has turned really good people that were legitimately God-fearing.

But maybe hadn't yet got to a point where they were discipled enough to understand. Maybe this is how I should present myself to the public that those people go away and That that's a sad thing. And so what we have to remember just as a quick footnote.

Somewhat of a rabbit trail, but I guess it's connected is we have to remember. Especially as ministers, but honestly any mature Christian in the church that is talking with people around them. Especially if they're new converts.

They're new to the faith is you have to remember that. Yes salvation is everything witnessing evangelism and I'll use the fundamentalist phrase getting people saved is everything but it doesn't in their Discipleship has to follow or else they're not gonna even know where to go.

What kind of where to go in Scripture to even know what to obey? What what kind of standards are there? What kind of models are there? So that's one area that I see the fundamentalist movement Falling short in is that yes, they were all about Preaching the gospel and getting as many people saved as they could in the Lord uses that.

But it has to continue with discipleship or else the standards will never meet. Let me get dad real quick Robert cuz I skipped him to say go and then I'll come to you. Go ahead dad, right? We We have tapes going way back here and they're whispering back.

Y 'all are very quiet. You can sure bet it pop up and you better be listening. No, I'm just kidding. We'll need your thoughts when you get back. That's funny though. Dead. Feel free to share your thoughts with pop pop not over there.

Just raise your hand. And we can all take part in it. Go ahead Robert. I Can't remember if it's I can't remember if it's a Galatians or maybe it's another epistle, but one of Paul's epistles. He says that I I yearn and travail for you like a mother travails with child.

And that's what you're talking about these are people that were already saved and he had this internal just Deep seeded emotion toward their growth and toward their their spiritual maturity because he knew it was ultimately to their benefit into their safety.

Similar similar idea there and you're exactly right so back to that original point because that's a good a good segue back to it is that Yes, it begins with with getting people saved and salvation and and that is everything but the Lord has Specifically ordained means to get us to a point of spiritual maturity.

Which is what Robert's alluding to what the the writer of Hebrews talks about Hebrews chapter 5. Getting to the point where you can handle the strong me. We have to get people there and it's our jobs to get people there and so Discipleship has to follow that and so back to the fundamentalists.

Okay. So what if they have a legitimate moral issue? They're dealing with legitimate concern and we can at least agree with them on that point where where's the line where it begins to become this kind of off-putting delivery that Seems to make make young believers stumble.

Almost like the Romans chapter 14 scenario of the weaker brother where it's just you're letting the weaker brother Be in charge. Basically because there doesn't there's something missing and what is it?

And what it is is something that dad has talked about my entire life. Even with the legitimate issue standing before you and you're wanting to go in guns a-blazing even in that even in that specific Context biblical method job methodology can never be ignored and we just we referenced that just a minute ago you have to have your biblical methodology in place even while facing a frontal assault.

From the world which in this specific case is the immodesty that we face. So legitimate issue it's everywhere is something that is an unfortunate reality for the generations we live in because it's very hard to rear up children in a Decadent and immodest culture you have to work especially hard in certain areas that previous generations didn't they had their own battles.

But they didn't have this specific one that we now have and so the answer to dealing with the serious Cultural issue of immodesty. It isn't swinging the pendulum so far that you begin setting standards that actually reduce femininity and That poorly communicates the need for genuine modesty in a very immodest world.

And so what you don't want to do is Again swing so far that you are setting man-made standards that that aren't scriptural in order to combat a very real issue you can think of it this way sin is never an appropriate fight against sin and So when you add to God's Word and create dogmatic standards around it, that is something that is not Okay, and that the Apostles speak Very strongly about and the reason why is because there's nothing lacking in the word when you add Standards that aren't given in the word.

What you're saying is that you don't believe in the sufficiency of Scripture that it doesn't actually have everything we need for life and for practice and for faith and so. The pendulum swung too hard in the fundamentalist Baptist movement.

Even with as legitimate as some of their concerns were where you started to see Standards created that were fallible standards that were man-made standards and when you do that interestingly enough what was the result and I say this with all due respect.

Sincerely is what you see in Man-made standards of modesty is the reduction of true femininity. You you don't see the emphasis of the glory of woman. And this is something as you and I have talked about many times and it's a very sad thing.

You can look at a girl who is naturally lovely, but is you know a a Little frumpy a little frumpy why because of the man-made standards that were put on her in order to fight the True problem over here of genuine immodesty.

And so what we'll probably have to get to this next week. But next week we're gonna get into what does it mean to adorn and I can tell you one thing. We'll we'll look at a number of scriptural examples.

But what it doesn't mean is it doesn't mean hiding the theme the beauty of of the female form. It means emphasizing it. Making it lofty in a God-honoring way in a way that pleases the Lord and in a way at once more that Emphasizes her glory and so there again when you move away from biblical methodology.

That's what you get a reduction in this particular case a reduction of femininity a very poor communication style. That when dog here's let me throw this out there dogmatics are a good thing. Dogmatics are a good thing.

You cannot have a healthy church without dogmatics. Without doctrine. However, when dog when dogmatics are built upon man-made standards, it gets really ugly. It gets nasty. It becomes off-putting. Like I said, you have really good people that want to leave rather than feeling conviction.

Yeah, it may it may convict them. You know dogmatics are meant to convict people. It's meant to make you uncomfortable in the sense that you recognize maybe a personal sin problem. You need to deal with and the answer is the Word of God and the answer is the standard of Scripture but When you are dogmatic about a man-made standard what it does is it gives you a natural aversion to it because we are not designed to To follow the pontificating of fallible man.

We are designed to follow the Word of God. It's our light. It's our lamp. It's the voice of the Shepherd and so we're we especially as Christians we have this natural capacity to understand when we're not hearing the voice of the Shepherd and to want to move away from it and.

So, what do you see you see churches split you see churches dwindle you see the American Church General and when I say American Church you'll know what I mean, it's Christian Christianity broadly within the United States.

There is no American Church, but you start to see it Fractured and it becomes really sad really fast. Go ahead dad. But when you're given I just want to throw that out there before I was anticipating this.

Oh Sure, no that illustrates the point. Yeah. Well, that's. That's actually a good point. What is the voice of the Holy Spirit? It's the Word of God. He's living within them and he gives you and he has delivered his word in full which is why we don't need new revelation and His standards are right here, I mean we're reading about it in one specific example, but it's right there.

And so to dad's point what happens is you have a new baby born? Okay, and that baby is on the milk and Sometimes that milk can be delivered through Preaching and things like that and sometimes it's necessary.

Sometimes it's it's in a bad way like it just it never go goes from there. You're kind of supposed to do both. But it's coming through preaching but as the baby is maturing into toddler hood and you know growing into a More mature child and beyond there.

How was that? Maturation happening. It's happening through reading the word Continuously and eventually what happens is you stumble upon some passages. You're like, wow. Well, that's a little convicting.

I hadn't seen that I hadn't seen that yet now to dad's point Pastors can help new converts get there quicker by preaching the whole counsel of God and that's all they have to do. They don't have to add to it.

We're going verse by verse through the pastoral epistles. And here we are. That's what that's what our job is as you preach the whole counsel of God and then What they now have is a new set of standards that weren't man-made But were rather delivered by God that doesn't reduce femininity.

But rather emphasizes it in a God-honoring way, are you did you have a thought Jen were you raising your hand? Oh Okay. Cool, but anyway, so yeah dad's point is is good. There is they don't it's the sufficiency of Scripture and a lack of maybe faith that the Holy Spirit is actually Sanctifying a person and things like that.

So there's that okay, but remember we still have another problem. There's two ditches on the side of the road as we talked about so on the other side of what we what dad just displayed. Which is a very good illustration of that side of the ditch.

On the other side you can't skirt over the issue with kind of a shallow Approach to the topic because it's uncomfortable and you just kind of have this general kind of untethered Of Understanding of well, I'll put it this way.

You can't have a shallow We live in the age of grace kind of answer to it either kind of message that kind of overlooks all of the uncomfortable topics by means of constraining Christianity to a mere heart religion.

That's what we see on the other side of the ditch and that's what and that's the majority of the cases. What again what dad just described which is a very real issue. That is the fringe the majority of the issue is on the other side, which is well Christianity is a heart religion.

We live in the age of grace. You know this we We let the Holy Spirit lead these types of very real doctrines can be abused quite easily in a very shallow way to Help a pastor avoid the difficult topics and to avoid maybe difficult one-on-one pastoral Conversations where questions are asked and they're you know, people are wanting to to learn how to to find balance.

Okay, how do we apply 1st Timothy chapter 2 written 2 ,000 years ago in the year of our Lord 2026? You know, how how do you do that? That's not easy. So you skirt over the issue. Well Right. Well, it's yeah and maybe you can't even call it milk at all if if the intent is I'm going to You know, I'm gonna use Christianese language you know throw words like grace out there and Heart religion out there and heart posture and things like that and it sounds great.

Like you're like you're talking Biblically and yet what you're actually doing is you are pushing the Bible aside at that point. It wouldn't even be considered Skim milk anymore, but I get your point Robert and I do like it.

So we can't we can't you know We can't cast all of this aside and say that Christianity is a mere heart religion and that's what counts. So do your thing that sort of thing? The reason why we can't do that Consistently is because while it is absolutely true That Christianity begins in the heart by definition by necessity It never stays there and that's really the point that's the point of the epistles as they are written to Christians already saved is that Christianity starts in the heart, but it does not stay there if it's genuine.

You can't on one hand proclaim the name of Jesus is kind of your personal religious preference while completely ignoring all that flows from a regenerate heart and This is where it starts to get really beautiful because the external human body Can and should become a glorious vessel in service to the Lord when we understand these things when we relegate the Christianity only to the heart in order to kind of appease whatever Preferences people have what you're doing is you're saying that their outward appearance including their body itself Is not actually all that worthy of a vessel and that really it's about making sure we're saved until the day we get to go to heaven until the day the rapture happens or something like that when in reality the Apostolic teachings are that the body is an incredibly important factor in our worship in our relationship with the Lord in the way the church presents itself and all of these types of things and so the human body needs to be made a Glorious vessel in service to the Lord and instructions like what we have in 1st Timothy chapter 2 here Give us what we need it illuminates what we need in order to understand this and so in many ways.

This particular teaching of modesty is exactly What that is that's what's happening. It's a theology of how important in precious the human body is in service to God. It's another defense against the Gnostic heresies of the early church because the Gnostics they would do egregious things With their bodies why because it just doesn't matter the material realm is evil.

The spiritual realm is good. Let's have a good time. Many of them indulged an ancient form of hedonism and would abuse their bodies in many ways. They would engage in Awful illicit, you know acts To just to keep it somewhat light and they would do that because again the physical realm and they're including their bodies Just didn't matter.

And so that was that was the Gnostic heresy in brief and so when we see teachings on the adornment of the body and how important that is that is actually a defense against that very kind of Gnosticism.

The body matters and how we present the body matters because things like dress things like clothing. The outward appearance is actually a form of language. It is a way in which we communicate something.

It it's not neutral. So we can't go out in the public square dressed. However, we want and that is it's just kind of a neutral Thing that is used to cover us up a little bit so that then discourse can happen the clothing itself is part of the discourse.

Apparel is a language in and of itself. It's saying something about you as a person. But more importantly it says something about what you believe and who you believe in and we learned in Scripture. That it also conveys kind of our general attitude in the moment.

Go ahead Robert. Sure. Sure. Right, yeah, it's an interesting point because it kind of breaches another topic that is very significant and very Interesting and that is the topic of nakedness. Throughout Scripture, you know.

What the way that the way that it was attached to the fall is very significant in a number of ways. And that's not necessarily where we're going in the study, but it's it's one worth talking about. Because something did change the answer is why we know we can say it's the fall, of course but it's a little bit deeper than that and Yes, it's it's the reason why the the first bloodshed that ever took place in human history was to cover the shameful nakedness of Adam and Eve because of sin.

To your point not because of an insufficient creation act, but because of sin. Bloodshed had to take place in order to cover the shame and that's interesting. Let me show you guys something really quick.

We have about maybe three minutes. If y 'all want to turn to a couple of places with me turn to Isaiah chapter 3 and I just want to illustrate this as We close out today in the next week we will get into a little bit more of the specifics of the two verses were in verses 9 and 10 and What it truly means to adorn oneself and Again what biblical modesty is all about but first what I want to show you guys is what I mean by Clothing is language.

Clothing says something. It's not neutral. It is saying something and it is actually part of the discourse itself. I mentioned a second ago that scripture conveys Clothing speaking in a way that illustrates our general attitude.

Look at Isaiah chapter 3 in Just a couple of verses, but if y 'all hop around with me, I think you'll enjoy this. Isaiah chapter 3 verse 16. It says moreover the Lord saith. Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes.

Walking and mincing as they go and making a tinkling with their feet. Therefore the Lord will smite. With a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion and the Lord will discover their secret parts.

Now what's interesting is that second verse verse 17 there is. It actually flows from the very thing Robert just brought up a second ago. We're not going to go there now, but verse 16 is interesting because what it's showing us is that the clothing the way that one dresses oneself can communicate a Attitude of pridefulness kind of a showy pridefulness of arrogance.

And that's what these specific women were doing in this context was they were they were putting their haughtiness on display and How did we see the haughtiness by the way, they were dressed it was a light.

It was it was a language. They were speaking. It was something they were putting on display to communicate something so Dress clothing it can communicate kind of a showy pridefulness. Now turn over to Isaiah chapter 52 and Look at verse 1 it says Isaiah 52 verse 1 says awake awake put on thy strength put on thy strength those I on put on my beautiful garments.

Oh Jerusalem the Holy City for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised in the unclean. So right here clothing is speaking Joyfulness the language of the clothing that the people of God are putting on at this particular point is communicating a joyful attitude.

The clothing isn't neutral it is a part of the language that we speak and then finally and by the way This is just a brief sampling. We could look at dozens of examples just like this. But one more and we'll close here look at Matthew chapter 22 so Gospel of Matthew Chapter 22 and This is a fun one because this is Jesus talking and it is in the very intense Context of a parable about the future and You'll recognize it as we read it, but it once more speaks to this principle of clothing being language.

Matthew chapter 22. Look at verse 11 and when the king came in to see the guests He saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment. And he saith unto him friend How camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment and he was speechless.

So in this specific Context what is it? What is going on? What we learn is that clothing can excuse me clothing can communicate a respect toward the occasion. So this guy you can't say clothing is neutral.

Because this guy came to a wedding without a wedding garment on if clothing was neutral. That's not an issue at all, but it's not neutral. It is a part of the language that we speak and he came in and he was brought to shame Because of the fact that he showed up without a wedding garment so we can see that clothing communicates something.

Now what we're left To do at this point is ask the question. What are women going back to our main? First Timothy chapter 2 passage. What are women to model in this pursuit of modesty? What are they communicating?

What what is Paul bringing all of this into the picture for at this juncture? We'll answer that question next week because we're out of time. And then from there we will continue to break down Paul's specific instructions in verses 9 and 10 and how they are applied in the 21st century.

For Christian women today. It's a again a wonderful thing. There's much beauty in it and a Lot of great stuff that we're barely scratching the surface on so do y 'all have anyone have any last thoughts before we close out?

Go ahead Tabitha. Yes. Well, you just gave Tabitha basically three more Illustrations, like I said, we can look at so many examples and I love all of them because number one the clothing of mourning. There's a in Genesis chapter 38.

I can't remember her name, but the daughter-in-law of Judah. Y 'all remember it's an awful narrative of Judah. Judah's sin. Was it Tamar? Okay. At the point where the final son is not given to her as a husband.

She puts on the garments of widowhood. The garments of widowhood. So what she was wearing without ever uttering a word told the world what she was going through in that moment to your point. We put on Jesus and what's interesting is I believe us putting on Jesus was typified in the Old Testament.