Romans 15:29-16:1 - God's Roles for Women in the Church, Pt. 1 (04/02/2023)

Good morning everyone. Good to see you all. That was great news about Jeremy.

He got me all excited now. I love that family. They're just really an awesome family.

That's so good. And you can bet it's the school and your relationship with them that's bringing them back and God will bless you for that.

Yeah, they've always loved our church. I don't know if it's his or her parents that are kind of big in our side and they wanted him there, you know, and that I'm a grandpa.

That makes sense to me. So I tried not to hold it against them. But anyway, it's fantastic.

You guys will love this family if they do choose to come and stay with us. All right, well, it's a little quiet in here today, but it could be because we have a little bit smaller crowd.

I don't know. Or maybe you're somber for some reason or whatever it is.

It's okay. It's so funny from up here because sometimes you're so fellowshipy you can't even start the service, you know.

All right, well, let's go back to Romans 15, 29 just for a second because we're actually jumping into chapter 16, which is the last chapter of the book, which means we'll be going into a new book.

And I'm praying about this. You can pray with me about it. And I would like, I think, from here to go to the book of Acts, perhaps next.

And then after that, 1 and 2 Corinthians might be interesting. So we'll see. If you have other thoughts, tell me.

It could change my mind and my mind's not made up. I'm just praying about it because we got a whole chapter to go.

So we have plenty of time to figure out where we're going next. That's a joke. But anyway, like a whole chapter could be a year.

Soon we'll be into the book of Acts. Okay, so let's pray.

And I'd like us to just go back and look at verse 29 of chapter 15, just for context. Lord, thank you so much for the service already today, for the great news you've given us during the prayer session.

And thank you for hearing our prayers. We ask you to teach us. Holy Spirit, we thank you for writing this book, an eternal book and bringing it from eternity into time and space and giving it to us and protecting it for us and our children, our children's children.

Help us to learn it today. In Jesus name, amen. What a fantastic, interesting Sunday school lesson it was today with Brother Ben.

And today is his birthday. So it's a special day for all of us and for him,

I would imagine, but he did a great job. It was so interesting listening to John Calvin's commentary on the verse in Malachi that he was covering.

Very fascinating stuff. These are not as difficult to interpret as that one was.

These are pretty plain. And as we go into chapter 16, I don't know if you've looked ahead, but it's like he's commending a whole list of names, people that worked with Paul in his ministry.

And it could be easily just read past and skip it and go to the next thing. But don't you think that if God himself chose to put those names in the one

Bible that will ever be the eternal book, God's word, that we ought to take a look at those names and see if there's anything there to learn.

So I think we will. And we'll, we might find some very interesting things. We'll see.

It's, it is a little difficult to make a chapter like that. Interesting. But when you look into these people and what

God can teach us through them, I think, I think we'll change our minds. Well, let's go back for context here.

Romans 15, 29. And I am sure that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.

So, um, Paul is, has sent a letter forward to the church at Rome and he's telling him, but I want to come see you in person.

I don't want to just communicate back and forth with a letter. And then things that I hear about what's going on in your church,

I want to come see you face to face. I want to hug you, give you a holy kiss and, and see you in person.

And so he plans to do it. And, uh, when he comes, he's come, come, uh, in the fullness of the

Holy spirit. And, you know, you think about this, he says in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.

Now he's bringing the gospel to him. They already have the gospel.

They're saved. They're some of his spiritual children. And, uh, what does he mean when he's going to come in the blessing of the fullness of the gospel?

He means the preaching is going to be a blessing to them and they're going to be a blessing to him. And then, um, he says,

I beseech you brethren for the Lord Jesus Christ sake and for the love of the spirit.

I don't think it's interesting that he mentions two persons of the Godhead there. Um, what he's going to ask them to do is pray for him.

Paul is asking the church to pray for him, Paul. And he says, I want you to do it, uh, for Jesus's sake and be caught.

Now, sometimes the word for, uh, in English can mean because of in the Greek underneath the little word for the

Greek word can mean because of, I think it means that here. So I want you to pray for me for Jesus's sake and because of the love of the

Holy spirit. So as the Holy spirit brings God's love into our hearts, which that's where love comes from, by the way,

God is love. The Holy spirit who dwells in us makes us able to love others rather than just ourselves.

And because of that love in them, he's asking them to pray for Paul. So the very love that God put in our hearts should cause us to pray for each other.

We shouldn't do it because we have to, we should do it because we love each other. And that's what Paul is saying.

Now, what's he wanted to pray for? Well, several things. Um, one is that the

Jews, uh, he would be protected physically from them. Now think about who the Jews were.

They were legalists. So you should pray for your ministers that they would be protected from religious people who are legalizers who will attack them and say bad things about them and maybe do bodily harm because a legalist hates grace.

They literally hate it. I had a Mormon, a young Mormon elder, they're like 18 and they call them elders.

But he tried to reach across my desk and grab me by the neck. One time he got so angry.

And all I did was, was I pointed out that his salvation wasn't going to work because it was all by the blood of Jesus.

When I said that phrase, blood of Jesus, he reached across that desk and tried to grab me. And, uh,

Raymond whipped him and sent him out. Not really, not really. He would have, but anyway, so they hate, they hate grace, right?

And, um, be protected from those that don't believe. And, um, that also when he took this love offering back to Jerusalem, that they would accept it.

Why they're stiff neck Jews, right? And they're poor as dirt. They don't have anything. And he's collected money from all the

Gentiles. Well, will they take Gentile money? That's his problem. See, see, he always had this problem.

The Jews did not like the Gentiles, but they're giving them money. And he says, pray that they'll take the money, right? That's what he's asking about here.

It's kind of funny, I think. And, uh, so, uh, and the last prayer was that he could come to see them in person with joy by the will of God and be refreshed with fellowship with these people.

And then he says, now the God of peace be with you all. Amen. And that leads us into chapter 16.

Now, so he is excited about coming to see these folks. Well, chapter 16, verse one, he begins this series of commendations for people.

And the first one, in fact, many of them are women, if not most.

I mean, it's just, it's amazing how many women there were that ministered to Paul.

And it makes you wonder where the men were sometimes, but, uh, look what it says. I commended to you,

Phoebe, our sister, which is a servant of the church, which is at Sincrea, is how that's pronounced,

Sincrea. Does anyone have a different version than the King James? And you would read that verse to me this morning.

Anybody have that? You may or may not. I mean, I know you could get one on your phone. Dave, why don't you look it up a different version on your phone?

I know it might blow your phone up, but... Romans 16 .1.

Everyone listen carefully. Yeah, so what version is that?

Try another one. Try, I don't know, try the

New American Standard. See what that one would say. Oh, we don't even have it.

Okay, well, let me just save you the time. Many of the modern English versions, the word servant would be translated deaconess.

In fact, most of the modern versions, it calls her a deacon right there. That's problematic, and we'll talk about that in a minute.

The King James directly translates it servant, which is a servant. She is a servant of church, which is at Sincrea.

So we're going to talk about Phoebe, a servant of the church, for a little bit here.

Now, it's interesting. There's no doubt that this woman meant a lot to Paul, and I mean, he names her first in this chapter, and she had done a lot in the

Lord's service. We'll see a little bit of that in a minute, but there's a huge movement among liberal theologians in this country and in the world, among false teachers and denominations such as among the

Pentecostals, the Charismatics, the Methodists, and others, to bring women into positions of leadership in the church that are not ordained by God.

Now, there are some positions of leadership that are ordained by God for women. Titus is an excellent book to read about that, but we're not going to go there today.

But the point is, I'm saying there's a big movement to place women in positions that are not ordained by God.

Phoebe is a person that is often cited as a woman in authority in the

New Testament church and even called a deacon, and they use her to try to teach that women should strive and pray about God giving them these types of leadership positions in the church, some of which are not ordained by God, not blessed by God, in fact, hated by God, and that is not too strong of a word.

Because if you look among the Hebrews throughout the Old Testament times, and even in the book of Revelation, which is written in such an interesting way, the style of that book is so interesting, but it's the

Holy Spirit who wrote the whole Bible, correct? So, you look at these places in the Scripture, both Old and New Testament, a woman out of place is used as a picture of evil and uncleanness.

Isn't that interesting? Throughout the Bible times, both Old Testament and New Testament, when we really understand that that's

God's viewpoint, that it is disgusting when a woman is in a place that's out of place, in a place of authority, that's not where God wants her, that it disgusts

God, then it makes it an important topic. Would you agree with that? You know, so many women will use this excuse, and I have a particular one in mind.

She's in heaven now, so she's in perfect agreement with me on this at this point, but while she was on the earth, she was not.

But they would just say, well, if the men won't step up, the women have to. Anybody ever heard that in a church scenario?

If the men won't step up, the women have to. I had a man that I still respect so much in many ways.

It was one of the men who was one of my teachers when I was very young, walked up to this woman in the foyer of the biggest church in Mahea, and she said that to him, and he looked at her, he didn't, she was smiling, thinking it's cute, you know, and he didn't smile.

He looked at her and stared her squinting eyes and says, you are totally unqualified to teach men in the church, and he walked away.

Oh, and she had nothing to do with him for the rest of history, nor he her, but I mean, he actually got it right because she was teaching

Bible study doctrinal classes to men, and God does not allow that.

There are things women are supposed to do in the church, one of which is she is supposed to teach women, the younger women, how to be good wives and good moms and how to behave in the household, and I'm not thinking that it's even wrong to teach doctrine to the young women, but it doesn't mention that in the

Bible, so you'd be going beyond the Bible if you did that, thinking that maybe it's okay. It's not necessarily wrong, but it's not mentioned as good

Bible methodology, so women basically are supposed to teach the younger women how to be good wives and good moms and how to keep the house right in a whole place, you know, if they own land, how do you oversee the whole place?

Proverbs 31, woman, read that sometime, remind yourselves what it is, and the older women are supposed to teach the younger women how to be that.

It doesn't say anywhere else they're supposed to teach anything other than that. Now, I'm not saying that it's wrong to teach doctrine, but I'm saying the

Bible doesn't speak to that issue, so we don't know, so I don't know, but I do know what it does say, so there are places where it gives the proper role of the woman in the church, and there are places where it very distinctly shows what is improper and disgusting to God, and you say, well,

Brother David, you know, nobody in this church too much has other views on this, but we do have a crowd out there in the internet world, and anyone can go to our website and hear every sermon we ever preach, going back a long way, thanks to Ben back there putting them out there, and this is a particular problem.

There are a couple of big problems in the modern church right now that we can identify. One is this problem of putting women in inappropriate roles in the church all across the country.

More and more denominations are falling into this myth, this false idea that it's okay with God to do that, even homosexuals and lesbians in the pulpit, but,

I mean, we're not even going there today. We're just talking about the role, the proper role of women is not to be in the pulpit if there are men in the room, probably not to be in the pulpit even if it's just women and little girls, but it is a problem in the

American church in particular right now. The second one is the charismatic movement with the tongue speak, the false tongue speaking, the false faith healing, and that huge movement.

Those are the two biggest problems in the church, and you say, well, there's worse problems than that. Well, not really, because when you look at scripture, what it shows is that when you put women in inappropriate positions in the church, false doctrine comes from that, and then from false doctrine comes, you always get into idolatry because you begin worshiping a different Jesus than the

Bible teaches and a different God than the Bible teaches, so that's idolatry, which leads to physical adultery and fornication and uncleanness in the church, and it just spreads, and it permeates like leaven in a loaf of bread, and it's a major problem.

So, those are two of the major problems in the church. So, it's funny that I wasn't going to go here.

This wasn't going to be the main thing I talked about with Phoebe, but now it is because what's funny is when I went out like Ben did, and I don't often consult commentaries much in my old age like I did when

I was younger, but sometimes I do, and I began to read, and I even went out on the internet and looked at what people were saying about Phoebe, and most of what

I saw, they were using her, calling her a deacon and imploring women to ask

God and seek God that he would give them leaders, positions of leadership in the church across the country.

I saw that again and again. I'm going, oh my goodness. I think the Lord wants me to address this. Not so much for you guys, but then again, you can always use it at Christmas when your family wants to argue with you about it, right?

Maybe you can get some ammunition here, but mainly for our audience out across the world that might run across this because you guys understand these things, but so we have these problems predominantly in the groups

I mentioned, and they will come to Phoebe and use her as an excuse to disobey

God, and I don't think Phoebe would appreciate that, would she? And she'd probably be glad when that era of time is over.

Now, there is a passage that speaks to the subject of women teaching and preaching doctrine to men, and it is in the context of causing confusion in the church where this is mentioned, and you can turn to 1

Corinthians 14 if you turn there, please. I'd like you to see it with your eyes, not just listen to me, but see the scripture, please, either in your

Bible or your phone Bible or whatever. Is that a good phrase, a phone Bible?

I don't know. Your online scripture. So this, in this particular passage in 1

Corinthians 14, the whole context is about confusion in the church. As expected, this passage will perfectly line up with a passage in Timothy that we're going to look at later.

That's the main passage, but I want you to see this one first. 1 Corinthians 14, 33.

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

Now, don't you think it's interesting that he says all churches, and this was, you know, written in what, probably about 30

AD, no, more like 45 AD, something like that, certainly prior to 55

AD. So the young churches that were in the world at the time, all of them had something in common, and that was that in those churches,

God was not the author of confusion, and he was the author of peace in the early church, all right?

As time progressed, there became more and more confusion and less and less peace, because the kind of confusion he's talking about is satanic intervention into the church through false teachers and so forth, and that always removes peace because the righteous people have to fight against it.

So there's not going to be peace. You cannot have peace with a false teacher.

You just can't. They're always nice. I mean, often they're nice, but you can't have peace in a church if you're going to allow them in there.

So this is all about peace in the church, and I look at verse 34. Let your women, first thing he mentions, to have peace in the church.

I find this interesting. Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.

So they're bringing, the apostle Paul is bringing this from the Old Testament Hebrew way of the woman being in the correct position of authority in the church, but never crossing the line and saying that part is true in the church age as well.

So here's something that brings from the Old Testament, comes right into the church age, and it doesn't change, Paul says, under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit. Now, we're going to go back and talk about what this phrase, keep silence, means in a minute, because in English, it sounds like something that it doesn't mean.

It's not important what the Bible says. What's important is what it means, and we'll look at that in a moment, but let's keep going here and read a little bit more of it.

They are commanded to be under obedience, as also says the Old Testament system, and if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home.

Isn't that interesting? Do you know why it's not a great idea for women to come into the pastor's study and ask him a whole lot of spiritual questions?

Can anyone think of why that might not be a good idea? Let's say I'm 35 and learn what

I know now about life. I'm 35 years old and handsome. Let's say I'm Dave Huber, although he's not 35.

Why would it not be a great idea for the women to come in his study every day and ask for spiritual counseling?

Okay, I don't think we need to go any further with that. So the scripture says let them ask their own husbands. Now, that presents a problem.

What if the husband is not in the word? What if he's not doctrinally sound?

What can she do then? It's a problem, isn't it? So guess what women do? They say, well, if the men won't step up, we will.

So either the women will start teaching them doctrine or they will go into the pastor's study and ask spiritual questions all the time.

Now, we just don't have that in this church. For one thing, we teach from the pulpit.

We teach the Bible from the pulpit. So you don't have to come to the study because we don't just tell little stories and sermonettes and things.

We go deep into the Bible. You're learning the Bible, and then you got your own Bible study time with your husbands at home.

And we have women that can teach in this church. So it's kind of working correctly here, but I mean,

Paul mentions it for a reason. It doesn't mean, to us, when we read that, ladies, when you agree, it sounds a little snooty.

Like if your pastor were to get up, you raise your hand, you ask a question. I said, look, why don't you go home and ask Ron, okay?

You don't need to bring that up next. That would be a little snooty, wouldn't it? And that's how it reads.

But of course, Paul's not saying to do that. He's not saying to be unkind and do that sort of thing in a church.

All he's trying to say is, you will solve a lot of problems if the men will grow and the wives will grow with them together in the home with the great teachers that God may or may not put in your church.

And the more you have good teachers, the better. So that's what he's talking about. So you have to put it in proper context.

It sounds very strong to say, number one, she's got to remain silent. If she wants to know anything, she just needs to go home and ask her husband.

In the context of this, it's not that harsh. So we're going to try to get to the actual meaning of it as we go here.

But this is how the scripture reads. And I really think the bluntness and the harshness of this is needed in the modern church in America today.

This should be read in churches all over America today because they're so far removed from this that to hear the blunt language, they go, oh, that can't be in the

Bible or that can't mean that or whatever, but it's there. So we ought to be looking at it in the modern church.

This is a major, major problem in America today. All right. So if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home for it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church.

Wow. Wow. Okay. So I'll tell you one thing that we've done in the life of this church and it has worked beautifully and the men and the women have liked it is when we were larger from time to time.

I mean, we've had ebbs and flows since 1980 when this church was founded. But, you know, we've had times when we had it, we were big enough to have a few tears in the church and some troublemakers and different things.

And then God gets rid of them and, you know, it just goes around. But what we've always done when we had a major decision in the church, we would have what we called a men's meeting.

And I would always call it a short men's meeting. The tall men were not invited, but and they never were short, though they lasted longer than we thought.

But we would meet somewhere in the building with just the men. And I would encourage them to, you know, to be honest, debate.

You don't have to agree with everybody. Let's get all of the ideas out on the floor.

And I don't remember a time when we ever had to fight it out, but if we did, it would have been fine.

And we would come to a consensus in that room. We wouldn't leave till we did. And when we did, the last thing

I would say is, OK, now everyone go home and discuss these matters with your wives. Tell them what we decided as a group of men and pray with them, and then we'll have a business meeting next week.

So when we would have the business meeting, 100 percent vote to do it because we didn't do it in a scenario where emotions would get up and the women are sitting right there.

I've gone to churches where they just do it like most churches do. Just have a business meeting. And two things

I would see. One is, I would see two deacons stand up and want to fist fight.

I'm thinking First Baptist Mejia. They want to fist fight and the wives would grab their coattails and sit them down and say no and stop it.

That was good. But I've seen other cases where the women would get very emotional and interject a spirit of division into the church, into the room, and made it very difficult for the men to not get emotional too because that's their wives talking and stirring things up.

It just didn't work right. Why? Because this scripture says don't do it that way. It definitely says that.

And it's certainly talking about business meetings. It's not so much talking about in Sunday school that it's inappropriate for a woman to raise her hand and have the teacher call on her.

It's talking about in matters of ruling the church, you should have a men's meeting.

That's just scripture. That's more what this means than what it sounds like it means.

Now here it is not speaking of church as in a building as we think of the word in English.

It's speaking of the fact that to God, it is a shame for a woman to speak in the ecclesia and that means in the community of the called ones.

And so it's talking about when we, it doesn't have to do with necessarily any particular church building, but it's talking about when we meet together as a group.

Like forsake not the assembly of ourselves together. So when we meet together as a group, so it's not talking about in your home when you have a home

Bible study. I think if you had a Bible study here in that room, but it's more as a home

Bible study, it's still more of a home Bible study than say at 11 o 'clock on Sunday morning when we're gathering to pray together to hear the word preached and so forth.

So, and we have scriptural evidence to expand this a little bit.

We'll look at some of that. But anytime you have the official meeting of the church together to hear preaching, to pray, to fellowship, that's what this passage is talking about.

In any gathering anywhere where Christians meet for fellowship, bread breaking, to pray, to preach, to teach, et cetera, this is contrasted with at home where she is to ask her husband if she wishes to learn doctrine.

And it's also contrasted with at home where the woman actually can teach doctrinal things to men, which

I'll show you that in a minute, which is with her husband, as long as she's together with her husband, we have an example of that.

And we'll look at that in a minute. So to me, the word that catches my attention most is where it says it is a shame, where it says it is a shame for the woman to speak in church.

Now we're going to get to what the word speak means here in a minute. But first of all, whatever this thing is that she's not allowed to do, when she does it, it is a shame.

And that means a shame to man and to God. Now, the word shame is ahiskros, which means shameful, but it also means base, venal, or filthy.

That's kind of the Hebrew mindset, something that's filthy and unclean. That's what that word means.

So now, see, that goes back to what I mentioned earlier in the Hebrew mindset of a woman out of the right position of authority and anything to do with God's work.

It is filthy, not only to man, but to God. Base in English means having or showing a lack of decency, contemptible, mean -spirited, and selfish.

It means all those things. Now, from God's viewpoint, it is shameful, filthy, indecent, and selfish for a woman to speak in the assembly, the official assembly of Christian people.

And now let's look at what the word speak means. And this will help you, ladies.

It'll help you men, too, not to be too domineering over your wives and telling her, God says for you just not to speak.

So the gentlemen won't like this definition, but the ladies will love this, because it's the

Greek word laleo, and it can mean to utter words, but normally it's translated in the

English Bible universally into the word preach. So it's really saying she's not allowed to preach in the assembly, not speak.

It doesn't mean literally speak. It means she can't preach. You see the difference. She's not supposed to stand up in front of the room and teach doctrine, especially if there are any grown men in the room.

And we know that it means that. Now, even if we take it at that very limited definition, this is being broken all across America right now today in our churches.

And it shouldn't be, because even if you take it at this most limited view of what this means, it is a lack of decency.

It's contemptible, mean -spirited, and selfish for women to do this. I don't care if the men say it's okay.

Does it really, is it okay, ladies, if a man tells you to do something that God said don't do, is it okay for you then to do it?

Of course not. Is it okay for any of us if the government tells us to do something that God says we are not to do, or if it tells us not to do something he commanded us to do, is that okay?

No, we're supposed to disobey that authority in that case. So all across America where women are asked by the elders of the church and the people, whatever the case is, to bring a message, they should refuse to do it.

And they should quote this scripture and say, no, the Lord won't let me do it. I appreciate it, but no, right?

So this indicates that a woman teaching or preaching to men is out of place in the same sense that other things we often talk about are unnatural and out of place and seen as filthy or base to God, and simply because it is rebellion against his clear, revealed will.

All right, now let's go to the main passage, 1 Timothy 3, verse 14.

Take a look at this. Of course, it will fit perfectly with the passage in Corinthians because God wrote the whole

Bible. It doesn't contradict. 1 Timothy 3, 14. These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly.

But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou ought to behave thyself in the house of God.

So 1 Timothy is often called a pastoral book or letter because it tells the church how the church ought to operate.

So now think of that context as we read what we're about to read. I mean, this is God telling the church how it ought to function.

So many people mistakenly think that the book of Acts is the place you should go to learn how the

New Testament church should operate. And there are parts of Acts that are brilliant on that because it tells us how the early church operated.

But there's other parts that will mislead because it's a transitional book. But Timothy is not a transitional book.

It is the book where God teaches how churches are supposed to run. So now if we drop down to 1

Timothy 2 or go back to chapter two and look at verse 10, it says, but which becometh women professing godliness with good works, let the women learn in silence with all subjection.

So the women ought to be in subject to their husbands and to the male elders and teachers of the church when you're in the official assembly is what it's talking about.

And so when you come together and you have church, the women should learn in silence with all subjection.

Now, I'm going to, we're going to look at that word silence in a minute too, because once again, it doesn't mean like it sounds in English.

It doesn't mean like you, you can't utter any words. That's not what it means.

And I'll show you that in a minute, but it's important to see what the scripture is talking about here.

And so when it says that, and she's to be in subjection to her husband and to the male teachers in the church, then it says this, look at verse 12, this verses 12 through 14 are violated every day in America right now.

Now, the founder of this church, the pastor who founded this church, he and I had a debate over this passage and I won the debate and I was hadn't been saved nearly as long as he had, but I was in the word more than he was,

I think, but he asked me to preach. I'd been called to preach and he was going to be gone.

And he said, I want you to preach. So it was going to be my first sermon that I ever preached. And it was in this church, but the church was located in Mahea at that time.

And then later it was expanded that Mahea and Corsicana, that's how we ended up here. But so I was all excited.

And as usual, I was not going to be caught without ammunition. So I had lots of notes and I was ready to go.

I was all excited. Now he tried to tell me what topic to preach on, but I said, you know, I think I'll, if you don't mind,

I'll pray about that. And I'll preach what the Lord lays on my heart. And he said, well, okay. But he said,

I don't want you to go more than 25 minutes or whatever he said.

It might've been 20, it might've been 30, but he put a time limit on it. Now his wife was not going with him on the trip.

She was, her name was Sandy and she was staying there. And I didn't know at the time, but he had caused her to be watching me and report back to him if I obeyed him.

Right? So I get up, I'm all excited. And I start preaching my very first sermon. I'd been teaching the Bible for years, but I never had preached a sermon behind a pulpit.

And boy, I got into that sermon and I didn't have a clue what time of day it was. And all of a sudden

I see this, this woman, kind of a heavyset woman, walk across the back, got right in the middle of the aisle at the back and she squats down and she goes, just like that.

I'm not exaggerating, just like that. So I added 10 minutes to the sermon, at least.

And then it was over and I forgot about it. Well, two weeks later, he calls me into the office and wants to, his practice was to wait two weeks and then he'd call me in the office and try to straighten me out.

So when he did, I asked him to turn his Bible to these verses.

So let me read them to you as I read them to him. First Timothy chapter two, verse 12. But I allow not, suffer is old

English for allow. I allow not a woman to teach, nor usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

For Adam was first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

And I said, so your wife is a woman. And I just looked at him and waited to see what he would say.

And he says, well, yes, but she was acting under my authority. And I said, but she's still a woman.

And I just smiled at him, see what he would say. Well, yeah, but I told her to watch you and make sure you did what

I said to do. And I said, but she wears a dress. She's a woman. And the scripture says she cannot have authority over me.

He says, well, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that. And I said, fine. And I walked out, never heard about it again.

But here's what people do with this. And and he tried to do it a little bit, but he knew he wasn't going to get there with me on this given day.

But let's look at it again, because here's what, here's how it is misused. I allow not a woman to teach nor usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

They don't understand, first of all, that there are two things that are disallowed, not one thing, two. The first one is

God or Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the pastoral epistles, which teaches us how to run a church says,

I do not allow a woman to teach a man because in the grammar, it says to teach the man.

If you look towards the end of that phrase, she's not allowed number one to teach a man. Number two, she is not allowed to usurp authority over a man.

So those are two things she cannot do in the church. Now people will say this and they say it still today.

And I can't believe the argument still holds after 2000 years of being refuted by scripture, but they'll say, well, you know, this

Paul, you have to understand that Paul wasn't real big on women. Remember he said, it's best not to marry.

If you can be that way, just don't marry. He's not real big on women. And really this has to do with the societal moors of his time.

And he spent a lot of time around Corinth where they had temple worship and temple prostitutes. And really that's why he says these things.

They don't really apply today. And that's what they'll say. And a lot of times when they say that they've only quoted verse 12 and they'll say that and they'll totally just dismantle the verse entirely of its use.

And the pastor tried to do that with me that day. And I said, well, you know, it does.

I really did. I just only read verse 12 to him. And I said, well, okay. But the problem is in the context,

God not only tells us what to do and not to do. He tells us why I said, now

God doesn't always tell us why it's like my father that raised me. Sometimes he would say,

David, do this. And I'd say, why? And he said, cause I told you to, and he'd turn and walk away. And I went and did it. Right.

You did not give me a reason. But as I got a little older, if I would say why sometimes he'd say, well, because you could get hurt.

If you did it your way, you need to do it this way. And that, oh, okay. I like that better. Well, this is such a case.

God didn't just say that I'm not going to let the women teach the men and I'm not going to let them have authority over the man period.

And you say, why God? And he says, cause I said, so he didn't do it that way. He said, so I'm going to give you a reason for each of them.

So now we see two reasons in verses 13 and 14. What's interesting is, is there a little out of order because 14 answers the first thing and 13 answers the second thing, but that doesn't matter.

The answers are here. So first of all, I don't allow a woman to teach a man.

So now look down at verse 14 and it gives the reason it gives you God's reason. And you won't see him mentioning

Paul's society. You won't see him mentioned. Well, it was the times of Paul because he takes it all the way back to the earliest of time into the first few chapters of Genesis.

And he says the reason she cannot teach the man doctrine is because Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

So it teaches as a principle in the early parts of the Bible, we call it the principle of first mentioned that women, because of their emotional, their higher geared emotional nature, not that men don't have emotions, but because of her emotional nature, she can be more easily deceived.

And that's why Satan went to Eve, not to Adam. Now, women, some of you would disagree with that if I just said it, but you can't disagree with God when he says it.

So it is a fact of life. Women are more emotional than men. Now I know everybody's an individual.

And so when you, when you generalize, you're going to miss it in some places because we have some been, and sometimes

I jokingly to myself, I was like, man, he's acting more like a woman where they just get out of just totally emotionally beyond where they should be.

And I think that's sad when that happens. Right. And then you have some women that are just all business and they can seemingly handle stuff.

I mean, we do have some fighter pilots, pilots, uh, in the Navy who are women now. And, uh, so, you know, so there are exceptions, but generally

God says the woman has been given by God more of the emotional side.

Now, when you think about it in the book of Genesis, when you see the word man, it means mankind because when, when

God made, when he created Adam, all of the attributes of a female and of a male were in that one person.

He was a whole person. He was, he was every attribute of any human was in Adam.

When God put him to sleep and took a rib and created Eve, he took some of the attributes away from Adam and put them in Eve and left some of what we now call the manly attributes with Adam.

And now only together do they make a whole man. And in Bible language, like Calvin said,

I found it interesting. And, and what Ben was studying for his Sunday school lesson again, and again,

Calvin would call man and woman, the man and in Bible language and Bible understanding of how creation worked.

That's true because both were in Adam until God separated them. And then when God told him to get married, he said the two become one.

Now Adam is whole again. You see, this is how God did it. So some of the attributes that Adam had, he took away from him and gave to the woman.

And part of that is a higher emotional state. And this is why Satan approached her first because he could reason with her without reason.

He could reason with her from an emotional viewpoint, rather than a reasonable, logical viewpoint.

And it worked, didn't it? It worked. And all of mankind fell because of it.

And so here we are. And for that reason, since women are more easily deceived, and the

Bible teaches clearly that Adam was never deceived, that he sinned willfully. There was a point where Eve literally thought she was doing

God's will when she ate that fruit. You do know that, right? Satan convinced her,

God would want you to eat it. Read it carefully. You'll see it. And she ate it. Adam never thought that.

Adam always knew he was breaking God's law when he ate it. You can debate all day about why he did it. You know, my theory is he loved his wife.

He thought she's going to hell. She was going to go to hell. And he thought maybe, well, number one, if she does,

I want to be with her. I'm going to do it too. Or maybe if I eat it, God won't send either one of us to hell because God loves me, right?

Whatever he was thinking. But he knew he was sinning when he did it. She did not. She was deceived.

That's why women are not supposed to teach doctrine to men in the church. In fact, if we want to study history together, you will be amazed at how many cult groups were started by women who began to teach doctrine in a church.

So this is why, this is the why behind God, why God doesn't allow women to teach men because she is more easily deceived.

Now, what about this second part of verse 12, where it says, nor usurp authority over the man?

Well, that's answered in verse 13, the why. Verse 13 says, because. Don't you think it's interesting that it starts with the word because, in the

Greek anyway, it starts with the word because. It is the reason for what

God commanded. It has nothing to do with society. It has nothing to do with when Paul lived or that he was in Rome, Roman empire.

It has nothing to do with that. It takes it all the way back to the earliest book of the Bible, to Genesis.

And it says, because Adam was formed first and then Eve. Eve was created as a help meat for Adam.

She is not to have authority over him, especially not after the fall, where God said after the fall, he will rule over you.

Remember that? So God tells his reasoning behind this. There's no way to get around it, wiggle out of it.

It is a fact. Men cannot and are not ever qualified to teach doctrine to men in the church.

I'm talking about when we officially come together, where it could be in a barn, could be anywhere, but we officially come together and say, we're having church.

We're going to fellowship, break bread, pray and preach and teach. There you have it.

So, in this church, if women are going to teach, they're going to be in another room with females, or they're going to be teaching children.

And that's all fine, but they're not going to be teaching men. And by that, I mean a man that's 13 years old or older.

So that's just scripture. Now we see not only the command of scripture, the imperative,

I should say, but we see the reasons in this case, God told the why, and there is no way around it. There is no scripture that contradicts it.

In fact, all the other passages, like in Corinthians say the same things. So why does the American church do it?

Can anyone give me a reason? Why? Well, what if you could give me 10 reasons?

Would it matter? No, because it's like Calvin said in the commentary

Ben read in Sunday school, you make yourself smarter than God. Calvin said that, you know, you men think you're smarter than God, so you don't have to keep this methodology that God laid out.

So that's the problem. Now, this should be enough authority to forbid women from being pastors or elders or bishops or deacons in the church.

And it's interesting if you look in first Timothy chapter three, where it gives the qualifications of an elder, and then it comes in and gives qualification for a deacon.

And now we're going to go back to Phoebe just for a minute, because some of these translations translate the word servant into the word deacon.

And the reason is because the Greek word that's used where they do mean deacon is the same

Greek word that's used for servant, because a deacon is a servant. Now there's another problem in the

American church. I grew up Baptist, so I can pick on them, right? But most Baptist churches think that deacons are men who run the church.

And that is not true. Elders are men who run the church. Deacons are men who serve the church.

They are the servants. And it's a very high office, but it's all about service to others.

It's not about running anything. And so it's humorous when they try to use Phoebe saying, oh, she's a deaconess, so women need to have authority in the church.

It's not talking about authority. It's talking about serving, because the very word for deacon in the

Bible, didosko, it literally means, sorry,

I got the wrong word here. It just literally means to serve or to do ministry in the church.

Now I got the wrong word. It's not either.

Let me find it. Where did I put that word? I'll find it in a minute.

Anyway, so this word can be translated minister, servant, or deacon.

You can only tell by the context. So how can we know that Phoebe is not a deacon?

Well, we know by other scripture, we must interpret scripture with scripture. In first Timothy chapter three, verse one, when it gives the qualifications of an elder, and then later of a deacon, it says, number one, the elder must be a man.

So I don't think Phoebe fits that qualification. Number two, it says an elder must be the husband of one wife.

I don't think she can, well, now in America today, I guess she could do that one. But in first Timothy three, one, it says, this is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, and later on, it talks about deacons as well.

He desireth a good work, a bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober of good behavior, given to hospitality and apt to teach.

So the first thing in verse one, it says, if a man desires the office, so it's got to be a man. And number two, he's got to be the husband of one wife.

Number three, the Bible says in first Timothy two, 11, that the woman must learn in silence in the church.

So if you think a deacon is a position of authority, she shouldn't, she should not have it for those three reasons.

Now, I told you earlier, at these places where it says, let her remain silent, that I would give you some help with that, ladies, because what the

Greek word actually means, when you look it up, it means stillness, not silence.

Now there's a similarity. Sometimes if you ever have a teacher, when you were a little kid, first, second, or third grade, when she's a class, be still, what did that mean?

That's cute. The two girls on the back are exhorting one another to be still.

That was perfect. So it didn't mean silent though.

It just means quiet. So when a woman is going to speak in church, let's say the

Holy Spirit just let you know, I need to say something. If the

Holy Spirit let you know, you need to say something, would it be okay to say something? Yes, because he wouldn't tell you to do something that's unscriptural, but you say it with a meek, still attitude and voice, not with authority.

You see the difference? And that's what it means here. Wouldn't hurt for the men to have that attitude when they speak as well, to keep the emotions down, especially in a business meeting.

So she must be learning with all subjection. 1 Timothy 2 .11 says, subjection means subordination, which means placement in a lower class rank or position.

Subjection literally means one that is placed under authority or control of another. So the very word definitions do not allow a woman to be an authority in the church when we come together to have church.

Remember the context, we're not talking about it at home. And there may be other scriptures that deal with how we act with each other in home and there are, but this one is dealing strictly with the church meetings.

All right. Now, Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, does not allow women to do two things.

Number one, to teach men. Number two, to usurp authority over the man. So it's very, very clear.

It's interesting that where it says that she can't teach a man in 1 Timothy 2 .12, the

Greek word for teach is didache, which is, I mentioned a minute ago,

I had it out of place. It's the word for teach. And literally it does mean instruction, but it's translated more often than not into the word doctrine, which means like the major principles of the

Bible. She's not allowed to be the doctrinal teacher over men in the church is what the word literally means.

Now this word usurp, when we go to the next thing where it says she can't have authority, it doesn't just say she cannot have authority.

It says she cannot usurp authority. And there's a big difference. Usurp is even stronger because the word usurp means to act of oneself and therefore to dominate.

Now, when you look at it in English, the word usurp means to seize and hold office, place, function, or power in possession by force and without right.

So you're holding a place of authority with no right to that place of authority. Like King Saul did when

David had already been anointed King, yet Saul kept the throne. He was usurping that. He wasn't supposed to be there.

Like Satan is doing right now. He was totally defeated on the cross and certainly at the resurrection, but he usurps authority in the world as the little

G God, but it's not even rightfully his, but he usurps it. And Saul was a picture of this and prophesied that this would happen in a sense.

And so eventually God will put him in his place because he's out of place. Satan is totally out of place right now.

And anytime a woman teaches a man doctrine in the church setting, she is completely out of place.

And anytime she has to have authority over men or tries to have authority and tell the men what to do in the church setting, she is usurping it.

It's not rightfully hers to do. So now we know exactly what the scripture is saying.

Now, many liberals teach that it was not universal, the truth, but it had to do with Paul's social more mores.

That is not true. If we take this teaching in context, we see in the immediate context that Paul not only teaches women not to teach or usurp authority, but he tells them why.

And he tells why the Holy Spirit does not allow it. So that's verses 13 and 14.

So we see in church history, many ungodly cults that have been started by women.

Though churches of all denominations throughout church history have forbidden women to teach and preach to men, cult groups have almost always allowed it, even promoting this practice.

And now, sadly, our mainline denominations are doing it. They did not used to. If you go back to the 1800s and back, they did not.

But now in these end times, they're promoting it. Females who have started terrible cult groups are not a few.

There are many. Going way back in church history, the Nacenes claimed to have received their teachings from James, the brother of Jesus.

And it was mediated by a woman named Marian. And so these people taught that the

Nicolaitans had a work that they ascribed to a woman that they thought was

Noah's wife called Norea. So they came up with all this false extra biblical teaching, which was brought to them by a female prophet.

The apocryphal literature names not only Thesea in the

Acts of Paul and Thesea, but also Marian, alleged to have been the sister of Philip and a number of other women who were said to be prophetesses.

And the New Testament itself had spoken scathingly of that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess in the book of Revelation, chapter 2, verse 20.

So they violated Revelation 2, 20, and they had prophetesses in there. And this is, listen, this goes back like first century church.

They already had cults starting to form. And a lot of them were begun by women. We know in the book of Revelation, it teaches how it's ungodly and unclean for women to be out of position of authority in the wrong place in the

Old Testament times and in the church. So I think we're running out of time today. It's a topic that I think if we stay on it much longer, lunch will be way more important.

But I think we covered the big scriptural issues of it and teachings that are irrefutable to anyone who doesn't cheat with their interpretation of scripture, but they keep the 10 rules of Bible interpretation.

And they really have a heart that just wants to know the truth. They don't care about winning an argument. They just want to know the truth. I don't think there's any issue here that's not clear.

Now, some of the issues about whether a woman could teach doctrine in the home are also clear.

They're in the study. I just want to pick it up next week because we're out of time. So it's a little hard when you can't finish the study because you didn't get all of everything it teaches about this.

But I did make it clear that today we were just talking about in the called out church ecclesia, the assembly of the church, the official church time when we come together, that's what we were talking about today.

Next time we'll talk a little bit about in the home and other places and what the Bible says about that. All right, let's stand and have prayer together.

Bet you never thought Phoebe could be so interesting in your whole life. But she is used by most churches who want women to be in positions of authority.

They will go to Phoebe and say, well, she was a deaconess, which is not even true. Lord, thank you so much for your word.

We ask you to bless it. Thank you for our time together that we're about to have. Bless the food we're about to have together and we pray in Jesus name.

Amen. You are dismissed. Yes. All righty.