How Men and Women Thrive in the Church

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Please enjoy the following sermon. When a pilot begins their training in flight school, whether it is in the classroom behind a desk or in a cockpit behind a dashboard full of controls, one of the things that their flight instructor will always tell them, it is a common refrain that they hear over and over and over again in the course of their training is this, trust your instruments.

When you are flying in the open sky and the visibility suddenly changes from clear blue sky to fog or overcast, don't rely on how you feel, don't rely on your own perception of things, but trust your instruments.

When you're socked in with thick clouds and fog, don't concern yourself with what is outside of the windshield, but look at that dash with all of the numbers and the dials and the gauges, and trust what those things are telling you.

Even when up feels like down and down feels like up, and you're totally discombobulated, resist the temptation to fly by the seat of your pants.

This is where that expression comes from, to rely on your own feelings to go with how you feel.

Resist that temptation and trust your instruments, and this is why. It is a well -known fact that when pilots go into some kind of low visibility conditions and they ignore their instruments, they will succumb to what is sometimes called the 178 -second rule.

There's actually a publication from the FAA entitled 178

Seconds to Live, which says this, a pilot that ignores their instruments, even an experienced pilot, will, within 178 seconds, lose control of their airplane and eventually perish.

In less than three minutes, they go from being a confident pilot to a confused pilot to a dead pilot when they do not trust their instruments.

I would suggest that this is a wise slogan, not only for students in the skies, but it's a wise slogan for students of the

Bible, and I'll explain to you what I mean by that. There are times when we will consider a particular topic or theme, and everything seems more or less straightforward.

God tells us something in his word, we reckon it to be true, and then it's all smooth skies.

That is until a competing idea or a whole host of competing ideas enter into the equation, and it is as if we are socked in with that thick, shadowy fog, and we begin to lose our bearings.

And I'll give you a couple of examples. Sometimes it is the world that seeks to obscure facts that would otherwise be plain to all, like the binary nature of human sexuality, that God has created man male and female.

We see that in God's word, we see that in nature, and yet the world will come in and say there are not two genders, but there are any number of genders.

And with these claims come a perplexing haze that we might feel are below us, but have many pilots, if I can call them that,

Christian pilots have succumbed to this fog. And in such a case, when the world comes to us with competing ideas, what are we to do?

Where are we to look? Or when we consider the truths of the gospel, and some of you can fully relate to this experience,

I trust. You may hear the gospel of our risen Lord, see

Jesus Christ, and look to him with repentance and faith, to give him your everything, and to know that the joy of his salvation, such a great salvation.

And then one day, for the enemy to come with thick darkness, and to level accusation after accusation against you.

And before long, though you were once in the blue skies, the clear blue skies of God's favor, and the joy of the gospel, you enter into such a deep fog that you feel that you are altogether unworthy of the love of Christ, and altogether alienated from him.

When the fact of God's word meets your feelings, where are you to look?

Or to consider the theme of our text today, we might observe that God has a specific design for men and women, a good design at that.

And we might look at this and concur with God that all that God has done, all that God instructs for us is very good, it is perfect, and it is exactly in keeping with the order that God has made for us.

When all of a sudden, even people who might belong to the visible church start to exclaim that all is not as it appears, and what seemed so clear at one time suddenly becomes obscured with clouds of countless rival ideas.

And in a situation like this, when we look at the roles of men and women in the church, or any other matter, one of the most dangerous things that we can do is fly by the seat of our pants and decide that we will do what feels best to us.

If we're going to have anything that resembles a prosperous, joyous, persevering

Christian life, something that exceeds 178 seconds, whenever we come upon a particular theme that seems for whatever reason to be shrouded in confusion, we must trust our

God -given instrument. We must trust this instrument, the word that God has given us to guide us.

Today we're coming upon a text that has been one of, and this is not an exaggeration, one of the most fiercely contested passages in all of the

Bible in the last 100 years. And we are presented with something of a crossroads.

Are we going to trust our instrument? Are we going to trust what God has given us in his word?

Or are we going to trust our own faulty perception of things? As we study 1

Timothy 2, we will see that we have been given good instruction for how men and women are to conduct themselves in the church of the living

God. And though many have sought to erase or to explain away this passage, for those of us who trust

God's wise counsel, we will see here that God shows us how men, and particularly women, can thrive in the church.

Yesterday, as in 2000 years ago when Paul wrote this, or today, or tomorrow, until the

Lord tarries. For those of us who care to trust him, here God shows us in this short passage how men and women can flourish and prosper and excel as we worship

God together. And we don't do this very often, but this sermon is almost entirely directed to the sisters of our church.

We do have a blessed word for the men, but it's almost all for the ladies.

And so today we'll look at four truths in the text. The first that relates to men in the church, and then the remaining three that address women in the church.

And we'll begin looking in verse eight addressing the men. And we're going to look together at what

I've called the prayers of holy men. In verse eight we read, I desire then that in every place the women should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.

Here in verse eight, Paul begins the section with those words, I desire then.

That word then, if you know anything about English grammar or Greek grammar, if we were looking at it in the original, is a conjunction.

And what that means is that Paul is beginning this passage by building upon, by expanding upon what he has already said in the preceding verses.

If you remember two weeks ago, when we looked at the first half of chapter two, we saw that Paul dealt with the church's obligation to pray.

And I said to pray all kinds of prayers for all kinds of people.

And you remember the intended end to that praying, that we would be able to lead peaceful and godly lives in Christ Jesus.

And that the Lord would save all people, that they would come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And we saw that this is good and pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior. As Paul begins here in verse eight, what he is doing is he is teaching us how we are to apply verses one through seven.

Verses one through seven are some of the, you could say the indicative statements. And we find more of the imperative statements in verses eight through 15.

And he again uses the same kind of all -encompassing language to tie the first half together with the second half of the chapter.

And we see this immediately in verse eight, when Paul says, I desire that in every place men should pray.

So if we expand upon what I said two weeks ago, we should be praying and men in particular should be praying all kinds of prayer, all kinds of prayers for all kinds of people in all kinds of places.

And there's something significant about what Paul is saying here. Unlike the Jews, if you were a

Jew in first century Israel, it would be the practice primarily to pray at the temple or at the synagogue.

That was the local meeting place. And so there you would go to pray. If you were a pagan in Paul's day in the first century, what you would go to is the local temple or perhaps a public shrine to bring your prayers to your particular deity.

But here what Paul is saying is this, that we must not limit ourselves to as men, especially

I'm addressing you to praying only on Sundays or only when the

Lord's people are together or only at the prayer meeting. And that might sound like a real exaggeration, but we know that there is a real temptation to neglect prayer in such a way that we sometimes we wonder, is this really the only time that I'm bringing my true prayers to God is when

I am obligated as it were in the assembly of God's people. We must pray all kinds of prayers for all kinds of things, all kinds of people in all kinds of places.

And in the words of Matthew Henry, I think he summarizes it nicely. He says, we must pray in our closets, in our families, at our meals, when we are on journeys, when we are in the solemn assembly, when we are in public, when we are in private, we must pray.

Brothers, I ask you, even now, and I'll get to you in a moment why I'm directing this specifically at you.

Are you the kind of man that doesn't just pray at the appointed times and the appointed places, but to pray all kinds of prayers in every place so that prayer permeates your life, that regardless of where we find you or how we find you, we find you praying.

And I say that this is for Christian men, that we as men are called to pray because I think that this is what

Paul is getting at. I do not think that Paul is addressing mankind in general when he calls men to pray in particular.

And this is why, if you look with me at verse nine, you'll see that he begins with these words, likewise also that women should adorn themselves.

Here what Paul is doing is he's addressing both the men and the women uniquely and distinctly in the church.

And what I think Paul is getting at here, though some have argued that here he's just referring to all people in general, is that Paul is saying that while all people are to pray, the men in the church are to lead out in their prayers, that they have a particular responsibility to lead their families, to even lead within the church, whether you are an elder or not in your prayer life.

He addresses men with the definite article, the men are to pray.

And though we don't know exactly what was happening in Ephesus, we do know that Ephesus needed this exhortation.

And perhaps it was because the men were not fulfilling their unique responsibility to lead the church in prayer.

And for this very reason, the church was suffering. Brothers, I want to ask you if you can see the correlation here between the men praying and Paul addressing the men for the good of the church.

Have you ever thought that you as a man and the church as a whole are only as strong and as vital as your prayer life and your leadership in the church's and in the family's prayer life?

As Paul deals with the unique struggles that were present in Ephesus, it seems that he is implying this very thing.

If it wasn't good for the church, he wouldn't need to address Timothy about it. But it is to the benefit of the church that the men would be found praying.

To the degree that men in the church are strong in prayer, the church will flourish. And to the degree that the men are weak in prayer, the church will flounder.

And brothers, I put this to you, how are you doing in this regard? Do you just individually before the

Lord possess a prayer life that builds up, that builds you up as a man in Christ, that builds your family up?

Can I find you brothers in your quiet times with the Lord and or throughout the day lifting up your own wife in prayer, the very woman who he has entered into and has been joined in a one flesh union with you?

I sometimes wonder, do the men in our church neglect to pray for the souls of their own children?

For the welfare of their family? For their witness at work?

For the prospering of their household? Men, do we find you praying for this church?

If you're a member of this church, you've been given a prayer directory. We call it a prayer directory, not just a church directory for a reason.

It is so that you would bear up God's people in prayer. How are you doing in this regard?

But more than merely the presence of prayer, Paul has some important qualifiers in mind.

It's not only important that we pray, but it is vitally important how we pray.

And here Paul says that he wants all men to be praying in every place, lifting holy hands.

Now, what in the world does that mean to pray lifting holy hands?

I think this exhortation combines two important truths. First, holy hands speaks to a man's uprightness and obedience.

His day to day walk in increasing sanctification.

Hear that Greek word for holy, holy hands. It means something that is unstained or unpolluted, if you can think about that.

And what it means is that we have to engage in some kind of Jewish ritual hand washing before we pray.

I don't think that's what Paul is getting at. I don't believe that it means you can't work and turn a wrench with your hands so that you get dirt under your fingernails.

But rather what it's speaking to is speaking to the uprightness of one's life that is demonstrated by hands that are free from the pollution of the world.

John MacArthur, I think summarizes it nicely. He says, hands symbolize the activities of life.

And you don't maybe appreciate that fully until you lose one. That these hands are vitally important to what we do.

And he says, thus holy hands represent a holy life. Hence why the psalmist prays about clean hands and a pure heart.

The two go hand in hand. So brothers, we are to lead in prayer that is accompanied by personal piety.

And is this the case in your life? I ask you. And secondly,

Paul says that we are to lift these holy hands. What does that mean?

This refers to a demonstration of devotion and fervency in our prayers.

Once read a work by a biblical scholar who looked at all of the passages that have to do with lifting hands in prayer.

And he itemized in this study of his every single reference to lifting hands in the form of prayer.

And it's fascinating to see what corresponds, what correlates with that lifting of hands in prayer.

I went back and looked at that study this week and just brought a couple of the highlights out of that study.

In Psalm 28 in verse two, the psalmist prays there, 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.

There's an urgency in this praying. There's a fervency in this praying. In Psalm 63, four, we read,

I will bless you as long as I live in your name, I will lift up my hands.

Or in Psalm 88, nine, my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day

I call upon you, O Lord, I spread out my hands to you.

Are you beginning to get some of the flavor of it already? To raise our hands.

And this is in keeping with what that scholar included, is to give visible expression to the very focus of our attention that I raised my hands to you.

It is to come to God in dependency, with expectancy, with a vulnerability before him.

It is prayer that encompasses the whole person as you seek the Lord with your whole soul and all that is within you.

I know that we often think about lifting hands in worship as something that other churches do, right?

Those churches that have fog machines and lights and other things. Let me encourage you, dear brothers and sisters, because we are not

Gnostics and we believe that God has created both our body and our soul. From time to time, would you join me in talking with your hands and lifting your hands in praise and expressing yourself, not only with your words or with your murmurings, but with your whole body as you come to God in prayer?

Man, I know that this is a particular challenge for us, maybe especially in the

Reformed camp. We are rightly called at times the frozen chosen to have zeal for God and to desire him and to truly seek him.

It does not just use our lips, it uses all of us. Men, we are to pray all kinds of prayers for all kinds of people in all kinds of places with personal piety and with fervor, with zeal.

And then Paul tacks on these final words without anger or quarreling. I'm convinced that what

Paul is doing here is specifically addressing the temptations that are common to men. Whereas women are prone to their own vices, sometimes it is anger, but not always.

Men are often prone to sinful anger and arguments. Almost every time

I was in school and there was a fight at the bike racks, I knew there were going to be two boys there.

And it's a disturbing trend when we find more and more girls at the bike racks. Perhaps this is what was sidetracking the men in Ephesus.

They were so busy arguing about their Jewish myths and speculations that they had ceased pursuing personal piety and prayer.

Now, brothers, I want to make this very brief because I want to address our sisters for the rest of our time.

But I will say this, you and I, if you are like me, most of us are inclined to be passive rather than to lead in prayer.

We're happy to be just like Adam and let our wife lead the way and choose the fruit and go where we're going to go and have our courts course directed, charted for us.

We must not. Most of us are inclined to be more discouraged and hindered by our remaining sin.

And with the conviction of that sin to drift and to hesitate in lifting holy hands up to God in prayer.

Most of us may be inclined to misplace our zeal and to focus on sinful passions rather than devote ourselves to fervent prayer to God.

And brothers, as I come to you, I'm going to give you the same exhortation that I'm going to give our sisters.

We are not to be ruled by feelings. We're not to be ruled with how men are portrayed in sitcoms as the doting, mumbling fool.

We're not to go after the world in respect to our conduct, but we must trust our instrument.

And what does God say in this instrumental instruction for us, but that we are to lead our families and to lead in the church in prayer.

This is an instruction and a command, command given explicitly to us.

Well, other men in other churches are making ruin of themselves by foolishly neglecting prayer.

Might God grant that we would be the kind of men who are always praying all kinds of prayers for all kinds of people in every place that our families, that our personal walks with the

Lord, that our churches might thrive. Now men, as I address our sisters,

I'm going to caution you. Do not turn your minds off. Pay attention. This is

God's word. And there's much for us still to learn. And there's much for us to pray for our sisters in the coming respects.

And ladies in the church, I don't say it often, as I said earlier, but I'm going to address you almost explicitly now for the remainder of our time.

And I hope you see it as an expression of God's love and care for you, that God would give such explicit instructions for the women in our church, in his church.

And so as we move to the second truth, we find this, the adornment of godly women in verses nine and 10.

This is what we read. Likewise also, that 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.

Good works. So just as Paul addressed the men, I've already pointed it out in verse nine, he says, likewise, also the women.

We're going to look at three particular instructions that he gives concerning the women in the church.

The very first that we see here, as I've already mentioned, is the adornment of godly women.

And it's interesting what Paul does here in verse eight. As he speaks about the women in the church, how they are to address, or how they are to dress, he uses a variety of synonyms to describe the moderation that is to characterize the clothing that Christian women choose.

Just to look at it once more. Likewise, also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, that's one synonym, with modesty, number two, and with self -control, number three.

I know that most people here don't read Greek and you don't have to, to get this passage, but it is really interesting to see how in the original language, what is used here are three separate words that because of the semantic range, what that word can mean, can all mean the same thing.

And so it would be potentially a faithful translation to translate it this way.

Women should adorn themselves with modesty and moderation.

So modestly, modest moderation. Now this is not God commanded you to dress unfashionably, as unfashionably as possible.

It is not an exhortation to sloth and meanliness, nor is it an encouragement for you to neglect your appearance.

Sisters, it is not a death sentence to shop only at Value Village for the rest of your life.

Plus it's too expensive. It really is. But what these words express is that women should dress in a manner that is consistent with humility, that is not ostentatious and overdone, and that attracts all of the people's attention to you, either for good or for bad.

It is clothing that is not seductive, but it is clothing, it is choosing clothing that is fitting for a woman who is pure and chaste in heart.

Oftentimes when we think about dressing ourselves, I don't know what it's like for a woman to dress themselves and what goes through their minds, but we often think about what can

I wear that will make me look the best? And that might be a fair question to ask.

How can I be most handsome or more beautiful as God has made me? But have you ever asked the question, sisters?

I'm sorry I can't relate to you on this. What outfit would best convey the character of God in me?

My desire to be a humble woman, to be an honorable woman, to be a dignified woman, to be a woman who values not just the things that are in this temporal world, but eternity.

When was the last time, sisters, you thought about the corresponding relationship between the treasure that you are storing up in heaven and the clothing that you buy?

And can you see that correlation? I think if we're to understand this text well, the historical context gives us some help.

In the first century, there was a movement amongst the women in the

Roman world that far surpasses, or at least in terms of chronology, what we would consider first wave, second wave, third wave, fourth wave feminism.

There was a pre -first wave feminism, maybe we can call it, in first century Rome. And what was happening was the women, as they were beginning to enjoy the

Pax Romana, the Roman peace and the comforts that came with Roman life, they began to become emboldened and they started to dress in seductive ways and to conduct themselves in a boisterous manner.

And so the women who once had their very distinct place in society, they began to kick against that and to seek to express themselves in ways that were not always pure and chaste and honorable.

And it appears that perhaps what had happened was that some of this influence had entered into the church.

And more than that, perhaps because of the new order of things in the church with the elevated status of women in the church, because there truly was an elevated status of women in the church, these women were readily adopting this.

We see in our study of ancient Rome that what was happening here was not more than just a nice dress or a braid in the hair or a single ponytail, but rather women, especially women of wealth, would fashion their hair in elaborate arrangements with gold and with pearls.

If you want to know why Paul is directing that the braiding and the gold and the pearls, why he's including all of that together, is they would braid their hair with strands of gold worked in and with various pearls.

Sometimes there are accounts of women who would take all of their hair, I don't know how this is done, but they would get it on top of their heads so that it was a tall tower.

And then in a pattern place gold and jewels and other things in their hair so that, at least as I picture it, would walk into a room like a walking disco ball.

And all of the light comes and reflects off of their hair as they enter the room. And as they do it, what are they doing?

But they are attracting all of the room's attention to themselves. This kind of exuberant lifestyle and dress is seen in the life of one person.

Some of you from church history or church history class will recognize this name, Pliny the Lesser, who was a

Roman magistrate. He writes about the dress of one woman in the Roman Empire, a woman named

Lolia Polina, who had a wedding gown that cost around 40 million

Roman sesterces. Now, 40 million sesterces, what does that mean?

If you do the calculations, if you know your first century currencies, 40 million sesterces is 10 million denarii.

And what is a denarii? But it is that the daily wages, one denarius, was the daily wages of a

Roman citizen or a citizen in Rome, under Rome, who worked either in labor or as a soldier.

And so what that amounts to is 10 million days labor to afford this one dress.

That's over a thousand lifetimes spent for one article of clothing, in the very same century that Paul is writing this letter.

And so what Paul is doing is he is seeing the excess. He is seeing this being portrayed by those people who are most wealthy, those ladies who are most prominent.

And this has apparently somehow seeped into the church. Now, Paul would have you sisters to avoid this.

Every time you go to the mall, I remember walking my young son, I would take him in the wagon.

We were not very well off. And so sometimes our activity was Kingsway mall. We're going to go for a walk in the mall.

It's warm and I can take my jacket off. And I remember taking him past doors and saying, okay, everybody look that way because I know what's happening on this side of the room.

This is the air that we breathe. Sisters, this is the air that you breathe. And Paul would have you to stay as far away from that as is humanly possible.

Instead, we see in verse 10, that you are not to adorn yourself with a $40 million dress or with glittery hair, but you're to adorn yourself with what is proper for a woman who professes godliness with good works.

What Paul is after is that you would not have an excessive emphasis on the cultivation of your physical beauty, but instead that all of your emphasis would be upon the cultivation of a godly character in you.

That would be your priority. That you would say more than being a beautiful woman,

I want to be a godly woman. Understanding that a godly woman is going to be a truly beautiful woman.

And again, we know that this is completely at odds with the way of the world. But this is true beauty in the sight of God.

I cannot, some ways it's very difficult, though it is my calling as a man to preach to my sisters about things that are distinctly feminine.

I cannot relate with you on every unique temptation of a woman in this regard.

But what I can relate to you in some degree with is this, the fact that I am a husband and a father.

And I remember raising, I'm still raising my daughter, but I remember raising her when she was very, very young.

I got permission to share this from her. That when she was old enough to have any kind of hair that could be styled, it needed to be styled.

As soon as she had hair that was long enough, they were going in pigtails and then eventually in ponytails.

And I remember one day sitting in the front of the church as I was doing a ponytail for my daughter.

And another brother looked at me like, oh wow, you can do a good ponytail. That's right because I have a daughter.

And these things matter to little girls to have their hair done well and to be in a nice princess dress or to have a headband or a tiara or all kinds of things.

They look at clothing and they say, that looks beautiful. I want to wear that. I go to Costco and my wife chooses my clothing.

Now this is what we see, that there are very distinct feminine temptations, sisters, that you will experience.

That I watched my sister or my sister, my daughter experience from a young age. And without guidance, what would happen invariably is that she would think that the most important thing for her to focus on is that which is related to her physical beauty.

And I remember seeing this in my daughter, even as a young girl and saying, I need to become very close friends with 1

Peter 3, verses 3 and 4. And if you're the father of a daughter or you will one day be the father of a daughter, memorize 1

Peter 3, verses 3 and 4. What does it say there? Peter says, do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and gold jewelry or the clothing you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart, which with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God's sight.

So I would repeat this to my daughter, that at least the most beautiful, the best way for you to be beautiful is to have a quiet and gentle spirit, which is precious in God's sight.

To be beautiful in God's sight with the hidden beauty of the heart, focus on those things.

And yet I recall so often telling her these things only to have neighbors and grandparents and many other people who made very little of her character and made very much of her beauty, so that he was reinforced again and again and again.

And sisters, I want to tell you, because the rest of the world is telling you, you need to focus on your looks.

Let me tell you, you need to focus on your heart, not to let your adorning be merely external, but for your adorning to be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God's sight.

In the words of one brother, the greatest asset a woman possesses is a devout and godly life.

If you're married, I assure you, if you want to elevate your beauty, whether it's the first year of your marriage or the 20th year of your marriage, or after that, if you want to be beautiful, a truly godly man is going to find a godly woman beautiful.

That is what you should focus on. And if you are single, focus so much on your godliness and on your pursuit of a man who desires godliness, that when you find a man who is looking for anything other than godliness, it just is not going to work.

That the only man worthy of your attention is a man who honors and values godliness in you.

Now, again, it is not to suppress the natural beauty of an individual in terms of their physical beauty, but it is not to be your focus.

Now, we'll look at a third truth, the second for the sisters, the posture of a learned woman or learning woman, you might say.

In verses 11 through 14, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.

Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

Now, what does it mean that a woman is to learn quietly or that she is to remain quiet?

As it says at the end of verse 12, that there is a cross -reference that we could look at.

Maybe I'll have you turn there with me. We'll just get into this. In 1

Corinthians 14 and verse 34, we'll look at verses 34 and 35, where it says, the woman, the women, excuse me, should keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission.

You see, it's almost exactly the same as we find in our passage in 1 Timothy. Should be in submission as the law also says, if there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

Now, again, what we can do, and we understand that this is an occasional letter is begin to read back some of the occasion, at least into this.

And so with this, this ostentatious dress and this boisterous attitude, perhaps, as I said, the elevated status of women rightly in the church, understanding that both are equal and yet different in Christ.

For one reason or another, it appears that the women were perhaps beginning to disrupt the worship of the church, either by asking questions in the middle of the service, or interrupting things, or seeking to speak, or seeking even to teach, or to exercise authority over a man.

What does it mean that a woman is to be quiet, and to be silent in the churches?

Does it mean that the women should not sing when the church sings? That would really hinder our version of, it is well with my soul.

You might remember that last week. Who's going to sing that other part? That might really hinder the prayer meetings when the church comes together, and all of the women are silent while all of the men pray.

What does it mean after the fellowship, or after the service during our fellowship time? Does it mean that the women are to go off into the corner, and to remain silent while the men fellowship?

It means none of those things. Rather, what it means is that it is a silence of a particular sort.

I like what R .C. Sproul says on it. He says, it is a silence that respects the authoritative teaching and governing roles assigned to the male leaders of the church.

So it is to sing loudly with all of your heart. It is to pray boldly when the church comes together for prayer.

It is to have warm fellowship, and to share your hearts, and to ask other sisters how things are going.

But it's also when it comes time for the preaching of the word, when it comes time for the ministry of the word, and the public ministry of God's people in the midst of the church.

It is to understand that God has not made you less than a man, but simply differently from a man. So that the position of prominence here behind the pulpit is one where a man serves the women in the congregation.

And you've heard me say this before. We often think that the most prominent role is the most important role.

That is an idea that is just from the world. But some of the most important things that will ever happen in the life of this church,

I can assure you, I know of at least some of these things, and I can say it with truth.

Some of the most important things that happen in the life of this church happen in total obscurity, outside of the eyes, the gaze of most people, and never see the light of the day, nor do they ever come behind this pulpit to speak.

Now, some will say, no, no, no, this is just a cultural commentary.

That what Paul is dealing with here is a particular issue in a particular church, and it has no place anywhere else.

A moderate commentary that I consulted said this, the teaching role in public settings was traditionally assigned to males in Jewish and Greco -Roman culture, and that Paul prohibits women from teaching and exercising authority over a man.

He does this so as not to contradict the accepted authority structure in the

Greco -Roman society. So what Paul is doing here is he's saying, I would allow women to preach, except that Roman society frowns upon it.

Now, I want to ask you, did Paul ever concern himself with the fleeting trends of culture and society?

Did he say, let your mind be transformed according to the culture?

That we are here to please, and to not interfere with the cultural sensitivities that are around us.

He is the very apostle who said, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God.

Not the will of the world, not the will of surrounding society, but the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

God could not give two rips about what the culture thought about men and women in the church.

And so we know it's not that. It's not Paul bowing to the culture, but there is an intertextual evidence here that's far more compelling.

In verses 13 and 14, Paul does not root his teaching in the fickle sensitivities of Greco -Roman culture, but he roots this teaching in creation.

He says this, for Adam was formed first and then

Eve. And Adam, verse 14, was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

I once looked at this as being one long explanation. It's actually two that Paul is giving from creation.

In verse 13, Paul is teaching that there is an importance in the order of creation, that man was created first.

In some ways, it is as if man is the firstborn and with that status as the firstborn comes an inherent authority, as well as the inheritance.

We see this in creation when we see that after man was made, when woman was made, she was made to be man's helpmate.

That God was made first to provide and to protect, to work and to keep, and to fulfill his mandate as a man.

And the woman was made to be the companion and the helper of the man.

But more than that, in verse 14, we see that Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived first.

Some have interpreted this to mean that that means that the women are weaker than the men. They do not have the spiritual fortitude, that they do not have the discernment skills needed, and therefore they cannot be the leader.

I do not think that that is actually what is being said here. But that the woman in the garden, even as she left the headship of her husband, was seduced and tempted into sin and fell into sin.

And so it was the disordering of the normal order of God's creation that ultimately led to the sin of the woman and the fall of man.

One commentator says, by leaving Adam's protection and usurping his headship, she was vulnerable and fell, thus confirming how important it was for her to stay under the protection and leadership of her husband.

What always happens invariably is this, that men and women read this passage, and especially women read this passage, and they look at everything that they cannot do.

And they go, well, I can't teach and I can't exercise authority. And those who are particularly militantly against this will say, and this is bogus.

But what we see here, I want you to see here the silver lining, a very important detail here, that it's not just speaking about what women are not able to do.

But one of the great blessings that women are able to appreciate, to loop back to verse 11 for a second, let a woman learn quietly.

Now this is a jaw -dropping statement in the first century world. It is a call, a command.

It is in fact an imperative. But when you parse out the language, it is an imperative statement.

Let the women learn. And the reason why this is such a strange, counter -cultural idea is this, that the idea of a woman learning in first century

Roman society, or in Jewish society, was almost incredible.

If you were to go to, there were not public schools in the time of the Romans, but there were fee -driven schools.

If you were to go to a school where there were children learning, you would almost invariably find all men, unless there was a very wealthy family or a very exceptional young lady in a wealthy family.

It was the boy's job. It was the men's role to learn. If you were to go to the synagogue, isn't it lovely that in this room we have brother, sister, brother, brother, sister, brother, sister, brother, all sitting together.

If you were to go to the synagogue in the first century, what we would have is this. The men would be seated here. We would have a gallery back there with a short wall that would that would barricade one section from the other.

And the women were to remain in the gallery while the men came to the front to learn. So that one historical commentator said that it was when the synagogue came together for worship, it was the role of the men to learn, and it was the role of the women to hear.

It was actually against the customs of the

Jews to teach a woman the law. And it was even more forbidden for one woman to teach another woman or even to teach her own children the law.

Women were on par with the children and the slaves in first century

Roman or Judeo -Roman society. But here

Paul issues an imperative for the women to belong to the church and to learn.

I will go this far. I will say that it is a summons to thrive under the ministry of the word of God.

Sisters, that the Lord does not see you the way that the culture sees you as an object to be drooled over in whatever clothing it clothes you in.

Nor does it see you as a secondhand citizen that you were to be in the gallery listening but never learning.

But here God invites you to come each week into the assembly of the church and to thrive under the ministry of the word, to be a student of God's word.

You will not, so long as Sam and I are elders in this church, we will never have a woman preaching on Sundays behind this pulpit.

But that does not matter. We are here to serve you, not to have you watch us as we engage in some kind of oratorical presentation.

And what is wonderful and valuable for you is this, that you can sit here every week with the congregation belonging to Christ church where there is neither male nor female.

And here you can learn and study God's word and apply yourself. I rejoice that when we have our institute, we have so many ladies that were here learning

Greek and parsing and you'd catch them practicing their vocabulary or speaking about who it is that they're learning about in church history.

Or I trust in the coming weeks to speak about what we're learning in systematic theology, to come and to ask questions and to learn and to thrive and to flourish and to be served by the public ministry of the word.

And then finally, look at a final truth, the hope of faithful women in verse 15.

It is just one difficult verse after another, yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self -control.

Now some people have looked at this passage and there have been just a vast number of interpretations that have come up.

As I looked, there were probably close to 10 possible interpretations. I'm not going to take you through all of them, but it's important to at least hear a few of the interpretations that have come up for this, that she will be, woman will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness and self -control.

These are some of the interpretations. Some have said that women will be saved from their sins because by bearing children, they will atone for their own sins.

There are sects that believe that. I would say that there is an aspect of that that is baked into Mormonism, that you will attain to the highest levels of heaven by keeping certain precepts and by having a big family with many children.

I think that that is totally at odds with the teaching of scripture. And so we can reject that part.

Second is that women will be saved from evil distractions by carrying out their calling as mothers.

Well, that's certainly true. I know that our new mothers would agree with that, that the ability to entertain distractions vastly decreases when you're nursing and helping a child survive in the world.

But I do not think that that's what Paul has in mind. Some will say women will be saved from the stigma of sin by rearing godly children.

And so while women, using Paul's logic here, women introduced sin into the world.

And therefore by raising godly offspring, they are undoing the introduction of that sin. I don't think that that deals with the language that we find here that I'll share in a moment.

Some will say that women will be kept safe through the process of childbirth, that they will be saved and not die when they give birth to a baby.

I find all of these explanations unconvincing. And I'm inclined to adopt a fifth view, which is this, that women will be saved, not as they give birth to a child, not by atoning for their own sins and childbirth, but that women will be saved through the offspring of the woman, through Eve's offspring, the promised seed who would come to crush the serpent's head and deliver his people.

And I think it's because, I put this forward for two reasons. One, because the language fits it.

In verse 15, she will be saved, sozo, that's the normal term that we would use for salvation, that she will be saved salvifically through childbearing.

And number two, because it fits the context. Because in verses 13 and 14, who are we dealing with?

But Adam and Eve in verse 13. Adam and Eve in verse 14.

And it makes sense that we are dealing again with Adam and Eve in verse 15. So that the great

Messiah, the one who was to come, the offspring of the woman who was to crush the serpent's head would come, not through a man, but through a woman in the very way that God had made her.

It aligns with passages like Matthew chapter one in verse 21, where we read, she will bear a son and you shall call his name

Jesus, for he will save his people from his sins. The bearing of a child and the saving of a people.

And so what this becomes about is the hope of the woman in Christ. That sisters, the greatest thing that you can do in this world is to trust in Christ and to rejoice in the fact that God has not made you a man.

He has not made you something between a man or a woman, but he has made you a woman. The very thing that makes you a woman is the fact that you can bear children and produce offspring.

The very thing that brought the Savior of the world onto this earth. And so the very thing that makes a woman a woman is the very thing that you are to embrace.

Praise God that he did not make you a man, but he made you a woman. And you're to shine as that woman.

You're to be a godly woman with a godly character. To thrive under the ministry of the word.

To learn his word and to carry out everything that it means to be a woman.

We see Paul confronting this in 1st Timothy chapter 4 and verse 2. He says, What he's getting at here is this.

That some are attacking the role of women. They're attacking marriage. They're attacking the normal institutions of the family life.

And here Paul is saying, God made you a woman. Embrace that. It is through a woman that the

Savior of the world came. So that R .C. Sproul says Christian women generally need to focus on their proper

God -assigned role and especially on embracing their calling with Christ -like attitudes befitting women of faith.

And so we are saved by the child who was born.

And sisters you will be saved if you continue in faith. Faith first.

To believe this gospel. And to bear the fruit that comes. And love.

And holiness. And self -control. So sisters this is, as it were, as I said to the man, an opportunity for you to thrive and flourish in your individual walk with the

Lord. In the family. In the church. It is by embracing who the

Lord has made you as women. Not to go beyond that. Not to go below that.

But to be who God made you to be. And brothers and sisters we have been given then an instrument,

God's word, to teach us how we are to thrive. My desire, my hope, my prayer is that we would be a flourishing church.

And that the growth of this church would not just be the growth in numbers, but the growth of the people of this church.

The individuals growing more and more in the likeness of Christ. And we can either go with what the world says is true or we can trust the instrument that God has given us.

Now I'll tell you what every new pilot is told. Brothers and sisters, trust your instrument.

Let's pray. Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church.

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