House Rule #6 Honor God's Created Order (1 Timothy 2:8-15)

The Church as a Mystery Revealed in the New Testament

Welcome to Kootenai Community Church Adult Bible Study.

Happy New Year.

We're going to resume our study in First Timothy this morning in a study that we're calling having to do with God's household. And this morning we're going to come to house rule number six, honor God's created order.

There is an outline there for you. It's around here someplace if you don't have one already. And there's also a second set of notes, the green one, that we're going to be looking at this morning as well.

Before we begin, let's commit our time to our Lord and ask his blessing and his guidance as we study his word. Our Father, we do thank you for this opportunity that we have to be together, to gather in your name, to fellowship, to praise your name through the preaching and teaching of your word, to sing praises to you for who you are and for what you have done.

And we pray, Father, now as we look into your word that by your spirit you would teach us and guide us, help us to be hearers of the word but also doers of the word as well. And we will then praise you in Jesus' name, amen.

Last time we looked at rule number five, pray for all kinds of people. And we saw in those first seven verses of First Timothy chapter two that Paul is encouraging Timothy to be someone who prays primarily for everything.

There's a set of notes here if you don't have one. And he encouraged him to pray first of all, in other words to make prayer a priority. He was going to need that in his ministry in Ephesus. It was going to be difficult for him.

He was going to be there ministering to house churches that were having difficulties, probably encountering false teachers and their false teachings. So prayer had to be a priority and he had to learn if he didn't already that he was totally dependent on God as we are.

And then to pray all kinds of prayer we saw and pray for all kinds of people. And we saw that very important little phrase, all people, verse two, all who are in high positions. Again, verse four, all people.

And we saw in the context that that is primarily an understanding that he wants him to pray for all kinds of people. And that when you see this in scripture, it's a real important interpretive principle, whether it's the word all or anyone or everyone or even the word world, it's very commonly used in that regard, that we need to decide from the context, is he talking about all without exception?

In other words, all people, all humanity? Or is it all without distinction? And we saw that the animosity that the Jews had toward Paul was a result of his ministry to go to the Gentiles. And so there was this existing hatred for the Gentiles among the Jewish people to the point that when Paul announced that Christ had commissioned him to go to the Gentiles, they wanted to kill him.

And that went on for quite some time through the book of Acts. And we saw also that the Roman government was the mechanism that God used to preserve Paul from being killed by the Jewish people. And so the sovereignty of God was one of the main important things that we saw last time in this ministry.

Also something Timothy was going to have to rely on as well. Let's just real brief recap, go back to Acts chapter 26 for just a minute. We looked at the passage, but I think it sort of gathers up what we wanna see from what we saw last time.

In Acts chapter 26, Paul is appearing before King Agrippa. Agrippa I was the grandson of Herod Agrippa, and he's the ruling king at the time. And he appears before Agrippa, he's the last one of these officials that he appears before.

And we looked at this first part last time, I think 26, the first three or four verses. And Paul then gives his testimony. Verse one, Agrippa said to Paul, you have permission to speak for yourself. Then Paul stretched out his hand and made his defense.

I consider myself fortunate that it is before you King Agrippa, I am going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews.

Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently. My manner of life from my youth spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem is known by all the Jews. So Paul was well known, he was very famous among the Jews.

And verse five, they have known for a long time if they are willing to testify that according to the strictest party of our religion, I have lived as a Pharisee. And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, that is the Abrahamic covenant to the fathers, he's talking about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to which our 12 tribes hope to attain as they earnestly worship night and day.

And for this hope, I am accused by the Jews, O King. We ended up last time talking about the underlying force here is the Abrahamic covenant that was established by God to Abraham and to his descendants forever, it says.

Critical to understand this covenant. And he says, this is my hope. And the hope is in the promise made by God to our fathers. When you look at in the book of Acts and we spent some time looking in Luke, what you see here are Old Testament believers, Zechariah, his wife, Mary, Joseph, and so on, who are anticipating messianic fulfillment or they have a hope.

And that hope is because they believe the promise. Promise produces hope, okay? And so this is the connection that's being made here. God promised Abraham personally he would inherit the land and he also promised it to his descendants.

Well, Abraham died, he died without receiving the land, even though in chapter 13 of Genesis, God takes him, he's in the land and he says, look north, look south, east and west. Where you're standing, you will own this someday.

But he died, so how is he ever gonna inherit the land? There's only one way, he must be raised from the dead. This is what Paul says, verse eight. Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?

So there he is, his conclusion is Abraham will be resurrected from the dead and he will inherit the land. My hope is in the Abrahamic covenant, the promise that God made. And so that's where we wound up last time and we saw that Paul's mission then was to go to the Gentiles, why?

Because in the Abrahamic covenant, it says, in you, Abraham, or through you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So this is the underlying theology of what Paul is doing here in these first several verses of Acts chapter two.

So I thought I'd just go through that real quick and see if there was any questions you might have from last time. Okay, we're gonna move into the next several verses. But before we do, I wanna draw your attention to this green handout here.

It's not green for any reason in particular, just happened to be green. And many of your copies might have a vertical line on here. This vertical line tells you something, doesn't tell you anything biblical.

What it tells you is that I buy really, really cheap toner cartridges, okay? That's what it tells you. Either that or my printer is in real desperate need of cleaning, or maybe a bug got stuck on there and he's just making a skid mark.

Anyway, that's all it is. What I wanted to do was just, since Paul is talking so much about the church and the nature of the church, I thought I would just take a few minutes this morning and just walk through this.

This is two pages of a study just on the basics of the church from Scripture. And we won't touch every single or go into every single verse here. I wanted to include them on here just so you could maybe go back and look at this on your own, and I encourage you to do that.

Verify what you see here. And we'll just use this to kind of just set a little bit of a foundation for the rest of the study. Paul's letter to the Ephesians really would make a really excellent precursor study to the study of the pastoral letters, of course, because that's where he sort of lays down the foundation for the theology of the church, and it's the same group of people that Timothy, several years later, is going to be ministering to.

So let's just walk through this together. Page one at the top there. The church is a mystery in Scripture. It's a mystery. Here's a quote. It's a pretty good quote, I think, from a really excellent New Testament scholar.

He says, in the New Testament, Gentiles do not become Jews, nor do Jews become Gentiles. Rather, both believing Jews and Gentiles become one new entity, Christians. That is the mystery. And so what we see then, this repetitive reference to the church being a mystery in the New Testament, and primarily here, it's the Apostle Paul.

It was not known in the Old Testament. It wasn't known. And this is from Ephesians three, three through five. We won't go there, but here's just the gleamings from this. The church was made known to Paul by revelation.

That's verse three. It wasn't known prior. It is made known now. And he was given insight into the mystery, he says, and it was not revealed before that time. But it is now revealed, he says, to his apostles and prophets.

So the church being a mystery, not revealed in the Old Testament, was revealed to Paul as he began to write the New Testament. And it says very much the same thing in Colossians. You know, Colossians and Ephesians are pretty much sister letters.

You know, they contain much of the same information. And so it pretty much says the same thing in these verses. Colossians 1, 24 through 27. The church was hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed, he says.

So it was a mystery in the Old Testament. Wasn't revealed. And then down in B, there are several features that are revealed in the New Testament. One is Jews and Gentiles are united in one body. We're going to be looking at this on page two.

This was not known, anything like this. This is called spirit baptism. And every believer is indwelt by Messiah. Spirit indwelling. Several verses there on the right. One in particular, John 14, 20, from the upper room discourse, it's called, where Jesus is meeting with his disciples the night before he goes to the cross.

He begins to teach them about the coming of the Holy Spirit. And he says, when the Spirit comes, you will know that I am in my Father. And then he says this, and you in me and I in you. And there in one very short, concise statement, he captures both spirit baptism and the spirit indwelling.

And they're both together, always. And then third, the instant transformation of believers at the last trumpet. First Corinthians 15 speaks of that. And then the church, the body of Christ, being Messiah's bride.

There are references in the Old Testament to God betrothing the nation of Israel and that kind of thing. But nothing like what is pictured in the New Testament concerning the church being the bride of Christ.

So the church is a mystery. It was not revealed in the Old Testament, but it is revealed in the New. And then on page two, we're just moving on in this whole progression here. A, at the first mention of the church by Christ in Matthew 16, it was still future at this point.

And he said, I will build my church. That's a future reference. He has taken his disciples all the way up to Caesarea Philippi, way up in the north. He's beginning to work his way back down to Jerusalem for the final time.

And he begins to talk about his death. So that also occurs in Matthew chapter 16. And his death is one of the three prerequisites for the church to be born. Death of Messiah in Matthew 16. And then the resurrection of Messiah is also a prerequisite.

Let's look real quick at Ephesians one. Ephesians chapter one. I am just beginning to warm up. It was a long, cold drive this morning. So Ephesians chapter one, verses 20 through 23. And Paul here, he's praying for the Ephesian Christians, praying that God would give them knowledge of their status in Christ and so on.

And he says in verse 19, he also wants them to understand what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead.

So the resurrection is pictured here, but also his ascension to be seated at the right hand of the Father. Raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

And he put all things under his feet, and here it is, and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. So the death of Messiah had to occur before his resurrection occurred, of course, which had to occur before his ascension occurred.

His ascension also, in chapter four of Ephesians, let's look at that real quick, was also essential for the birth of the church. In Ephesians four, starting in verse seven, he talks about, in quoting Psalm 68, the gifting of the church.

And he says, but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions of the earth?

He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. Pretty much what he said back in chapter one. And, and here it is, when he ascended, the next thing it says is, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry for the building up of the body of Christ.

That's the church. That didn't happen until he ascended. And he had to ascend before the spirit would come down and then gift the church for the church's ministry. The church functions through gifted people.

And for the church to function, there had to be the giving of the gifted people in the church. So, at C there we see also, very important to understand what God did, the unity of Jew and Gentile did not occur until the body was formed.

This is Ephesians two. Very important passage to understand what God did through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. In Ephesians chapter two, and we looked at chapter two, verses one and following about what they were like when they were dead in their sins, right?

Dead in their trespasses and sins. But then he begins to talk about, now what does it mean to be alive in Christ? And he says down in verse 13, but now in Christ Jesus, you, you Gentiles, who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

So the shed blood of Christ was a precursor to the unification of Jew and Gentile. And it says in verse 14, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

So the unity of Jew and Gentile did not incur until the body of Christ, the church, was formed, okay? And that body began on the day of Pentecost. The church began on the day of Pentecost. And this next little progression will show us that.

First we see the church is the body of Christ. Again, both in Colossians and in Ephesians. This is Paul, says in 118 of Colossians, he is the head of the body, the church. And again, for the sake of his body, that is, the church.

Ephesians one and then in five, he says pretty much the same thing, except very interestingly, he reverses the order. The church, which is his body. Chapter five, Christ is the head of the church, his body.

So the body of Christ is the church, and the church is the body of Christ. Pretty clear. Well, how do you get into this body of Christ? How do you get into the church? Someone might say, well, I just walked in those big doors up in the front up there.

That's how you got in the building, okay? Somebody else might say, well, I joined a church one time and I just filled out some paperwork and a card, you know? Well, that's how you join that organization.

But how do you enter the body of Christ? By spirit baptism. This is 1 Corinthians 12, 13. For in or by, that little word there can be understood either way. For in or by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slave or free.

And here you also have, in that same statement,.

The indwelling.

And all were made to drink of one spirit. So here you have those two truths together. The baptism into the body of Christ and the indwelling of the spirit. So you enter the body of Christ by spirit baptism.

And then third, as of Acts 1 .5, spirit baptism is still future. So the church doesn't exist yet. This is where Jesus met with his disciples and he's the resurrected Christ. He has yet to ascend, but he's giving them instructions.

In fact, he did a 40-day conference on the kingdom. I would go to that conference where he talked about the kingdom. And their only question was, is it going to be now? And he said, no, it won't be now.

You're going to be, go to Jerusalem and wait and you will be empowered by the spirit to be my witnesses, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the outermost parts of the earth. But here it says, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

So the baptism of the spirit was still future as of Acts 1 .5, okay? This is Jesus to the disciples. Well, then we see on the day of Pentecost, this is four, in Acts 2 .1 -4, the baptism of the spirit is not mentioned, but his filling is.

Acts 2 .1 -4 says, when the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. Now there's a little interpretive footnote there. Many people believe that in the upper room was where the baptism of the spirit first happened or the filling of the spirit.

I think it was a different place. And I think it was limited to the 12. And exegetical reason is there's a different day, it's a different group of people, and it's a different location. And you see it right here in verse one.

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they, who's the they? Well, normal interpretive principle would be you look for the nearest antecedent group, okay? You look for the nearest antecedent. And back in chapter one, verse 26, it's the 11 plus Matthias.

So it's the 12 here, I believe. The they were all together in one place. Now, why would Luke mention that they were in one place if they were still in that upper room? So I think, different day, it's Pentecost, different group, it's restricted to the 12, and they are all in one place.

And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Notice, once again, no mention of the baptism of the Spirit but of the filling of the Spirit. But Jesus said, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days from now. Well, we move on to Acts chapter 11.

You remember in Acts chapter 10, Peter has an experience with Cornelius, and he visually witnesses these men who are Gentiles being baptized in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, right, when they heard the gospel.

So there's apostolic validation of the movement of the Spirit from Jew to Gentile there. But this is his testimony about what he saw recorded in Acts chapter 11. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, the Gentiles, just as on us at the beginning, which would be Pentecost, and I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

So there, Peter makes the connection of back to Pentecost that what happened there really was also not just the filling of the Spirit but also the baptism of the Spirit. Baptized believers into the body of Christ.

So the church is the body of Christ. It had its beginning at the day of Pentecost, and most importantly, it united both Jew and Gentile in one new man that was not known in the Old Testament, wasn't there, wasn't seen, because it didn't exist.

And the Jews could understand the blessing of the Gentiles. It's all through the Old Testament. It's in the Abrahamic covenant. But what they didn't understand was how, how could God bring Jew and Gentile together and take down this animosity and unite them together?

What they couldn't see was the cross and the church, okay? So that's just a real brief background to give us a little foundation for the church and when the church began, okay? Do you have any thoughts or questions on that before we go back to 1 Timothy chapter two?

This is background for what Paul is doing here in 1 Timothy chapter two. Well, in 1 Timothy chapter two, this morning we're going to see house rule number six. Remember, we're talking about rules for the church, house rules for the church based on chapter three, verse 15, how one ought to behave in the household of God.

And so what we're gonna see this morning, and this is your outline there, that first of all, and what we just saw, God created a new entity, his body, the church. And then second, and we're going to see this now from verse eight, God created the men of the church.

The Men of the Church Are to Pray with Holiness

To be holy.

In the past when I've taught through this passage, I've taken verse eight all the way down through 15 and as I looked at it this time again and thought it over, I thought I would just take this in two parts.

So today we're gonna look at Roman numerals two and three and next time, number four. And we'll be doing 11 through 15 next time. So bring these notes back. Gonna give Kathy a little break on copying this next week.

So bring the notes back and next time we'll look at verses 11 through 15. There really is also a natural sort of a transition that takes place there. So it makes a good place to stop and start. But this morning, first thing we're going to see, God created the men of the church to be holy in verse eight.

Paul then just moves right off of where he ended in verse seven and prefaces what he's going to say on that. He uses this little word then or it's actually therefore. So it's the foundation for what he's gonna say, this command is based on what he has just gotten through saying, which is, I am the apostle to Gentiles.

And he's gonna be a teacher and a apostle to the Gentiles in faith and truth. I desire then that in every place the men should pray lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. The first thing we see here, and it's pretty obvious, men are to pray or worship.

And really, since we're talking about the functioning of the church, he's more than likely speaking about the gathered church for worship and prayer. And in that day, the men would have led that. You know, we're going to eventually come to chapter three, the requirements for elders.

And next time we're gonna talk about the issue of women teaching or leading in the church. But this whole paragraph has to do with really the roles of men and women. And so, what he's saying here is, the men in every place should pray lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.

The men are to pray with holiness. This passage is not about posture per se. These people all would have known that the very common, typical posture for a man to lead prayer would be standing up with his arms outstretched and his hands open like this.

They all would have known that.

This wouldn't have been a surprise. He's not trying to teach them some kind of new posture. Because really, posture in prayer is not relevant. This is how they prayed. Just listen real quick. You can find many references here.

I'm just gonna read a couple of them. You don't have to turn there. But listen to Psalm 28, a Psalm of David. He says, verse two, hear the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary.

And again, another one, Psalm 63, verse four. Verse three says, because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you, so I will bless you as long as I live. In your name, I will lift up my hands.

Very common, very standard way for people to pray, for men to pray and lead especially. There are, as we know, other postures of prayer. People could lay down on their face and pray. They could pray with their face up toward God.

They could bow their head in submission. So the posture is really not the issue. Paul is really more concerned with the issue of the heart, the holiness of the man leading the prayer. And so he says, I want the men in every place.

One of the interpretive issues, and there's a lot of them here in these passages, as you could probably imagine. One of the interpretive issues here is, is what he's dealing with something that's localized, peculiar to the Ephesian churches, and therefore is it time-bound and geographically bound?

If it is, and there are a lot of people that argue this in their commentaries, I've just read lots of articles and commentaries on this, if that's the case, then they argue, well, then we are not bound by this.

And that would extend clear into the issue of women in leadership in the church. So that's one of the arguments. You may hear that, well, this is just that culture. This is just that time. The problem is when Paul says in every place, he universalizes this.

It is not limited to just one location. It's a principle that is absolutely applicable to anything geographical and also down through time to every single church. We wouldn't wanna say that the issue of holiness is limited to that group of people, would we?

Of course not, that'd be ridiculous. We can build that doctrine from hundreds of other places throughout scripture. He's concerned about the holiness of the people leaving the worship, specifically that their worship be without anger or quarreling.

Now, from what we saw last time about the anger of the Jews, can you imagine if some of those Jews got saved who were wanting to kill Paul, and then some of the Gentiles were saved, and they all enter into somebody's house?

You know, these were house churches, maybe 20, 30, 40 people. And you're sitting right next to a guy who's Jewish that you've hated your whole life, and he's hated you. But all of a sudden now, you have a transcendent relationship.

You're brothers in Christ. But there still may be some animosity that needs to be overcome there. The Jewish family comes in to the worship, and Jacob and Sarah, and she's carrying a little basket of food, kosher food for the fellowship meal.

And coming up the street the other way is the Gentile couple. I don't know, you know, Ricky Bobby and Carla, you know? And she's got a little basket of food, you know? And they're coming together. They're gonna share worship.

They're gonna share food. They're gonna share fellowship. Prior to that, that wouldn't have been possible. That just was unheard of. The animosity would have been there. But in Christ, they're united.

And so there could possibly still be some animosity in the men leading prayer, you know? And Paul says, hey, look, if you harbor anger or bitterness toward anything or anybody, you can't have that when you lead worship.

So God created the men of the church to be holy. It's not about the posture, which is the external. It's about the holiness of the person, the internal. Well, then in verses nine and 10, God created the women of the church to be holy.

There's a, you know, God's an equal opportunity creator, right? There's not a standard of holiness for men and a different one for women. The church needs to be holy. And so Paul says, likewise also in the ESV, interestingly though, there is no verb in verse nine.

You have to rely on the verb from verse eight. So when he says, I desire then the men to pray, also the women to adorn. If you were gonna diagram it, that's what it would be. You'd have this one verb governing both these two issues here, okay?

So it's not, you can't just separate them out. Paul is concerned about both of these and he only uses a single verb to tell you that. He wants the women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness with or through good works.

The women in the church are also to be holy. There's not a separate standard of holiness for men and another one for women. This word for women may also be used for wives. It can be used either way and depending on the context, but here, the word for men is not the word anthropos that we get the word anthropology from.

It's a different Greek word. It's the word anere, which means men. Anthropos can be used in scriptures to encompass both men and women. We might say like mankind, that type of thing. But here, he's specifying men and here, again, this word for women is probably not wives, although it could be used that way.

If he uses it for wives, he's going to exclude the widows that are found in chapter five because he's going to address widows later on. So we wouldn't want to say, well, the married women have a certain way they have to dress and a certain level of holiness, but the widows can do whatever they want.

That's not what he's saying. So it's best to understand it since it's used sort of in, he's playing it off against the men to see it's men and women and it is plural. And they are to dress or adorn themselves with holiness.

In the ESV here, in respectable apparel. The word actually is cosmos and the word is even translated world. And why world? Well, because when God made the world, he ordered it.

Did he not?

He set things in order. And so really that's the concept, ordered apparel. But the key to it is with modesty and self-control. Again, he's not focusing on the external, he's focusing on the internal.

The women adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty, self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire. Now, historically in the church, there has been all kinds of things done with this.

People will take this pastors and denominations and they'll forbid women from this or from that. This is not what Paul is talking about here. He's not talking about prescribing a certain kind of dress or a certain kind of apparel.

He's simply focusing on the internal holiness of the woman. Let's look at first Peter for a minute because there's really almost a parallel passage in first Peter chapter three, where Peter says very much the same thing, dealing with wives who don't have believing husbands.

Peter says in chapter three, verse one of first Peter, likewise, wives be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be one without a word by the conduct of their wives.

In other words, the holy conduct of their wives. When they see your respectful and pure conduct, verse three, do not let your adorning and some translations add merely, merely be external or don't let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear.

Very much saying the same thing but there's a little bit different wording here. If Paul and or Peter are prohibiting things, the braiding of hair, can't have any braided hair or the putting on of gold and jewelry, can't wear any kind of jewelry, guess what else Peter's prohibiting?

The clothing you wear. I don't think we wanna go there, especially here in North Idaho, okay? It can't possibly mean that. And so Paul is right in line with Peter. They're not trying to prescribe a certain set of a certain appearance, just that your appearance communicate your holy status before God.

There may be, if the concept of wives is in view here rather than women, one commentator, a very excellent commentary named Philip Towner in his commentary on the pastoral letter says this. Consequently, the instructions to women slash wives begin with an exhortation to appropriate adornment.