Romans 16:4 - God's Roles for Women in the Church, Pt. 5 (05/07/2023)

Good morning, everyone. We got our home crowd today, don't we?

Except a lot of them aren't home. I got how many families out traveling today? Six families traveling at once.

It's not even summer yet. What's it going to be like in summer? Well, maybe they'll all have their family will travel here.

Just visit them and we'll fill this church up. How about that? That'd be awesome. But great to see you.

Some of my favorite Sundays are when we have just a small group.

It's always nice to be that way here. Either way, it's up to the

Lord, is it not? I promise you this, though. Everybody that's supposed to be here is here today, and that's awesome.

So let's get started. We're in a little bit of a topical study on the proper role of women in the church, and we got started on that in Romans chapter 16, verse 1, where it talks about Phoebe and how she was a servant of the church, and some modern

English versions incorrectly translate that deaconess or deacon. So we discussed why that's a problem for a couple of Sundays.

Huge problem in this country and in the world, but really don't think it's a negative topic because probably 10 percent of what we would say about the role of women in the church might sound negative if you're sort of a modern woman who grew up in this age where you haven't really read a lot about what the

Bible says about men and women and how God created us to be, especially after the fall.

So we have to always let this book right here be our authority, not modern psychology, not modern

TV or movies. It's this, and so we come back to this. We make no apologies for that, but I would say 90 percent of what we would say about it is extremely positive because Jesus Christ, if you just studied, if you study not theology, but if you studied the great world religions in college, which

I took a course on that, I imagine some of you did, just where you take a survey of the great world religions,

Jesus Christ is the only prophet, if it's what they would call him, of God who elevated women to the highest level.

If you look at Moses, if you look at Islam, if you look at Buddhism, if you look at any of them, they always push the woman down and make her not much more than a servant, and Jesus did not do that.

Jesus elevated the woman to the highest level. He said neither, and the apostle

Paul said there's neither male nor female in God's eyes.

Show me a world religion that says that. There's not one, and so we talked about that a little bit last time, and I want to continue on that.

We were talking about some of the positive things about women, and with Phoebe, you know, that is starting out where Paul is going to commend about 35, what's more than that.

We don't know how many people because he listed about 35 people and then their families, so that broadens the number, and he was commending them for being servants in the church, and in Phoebe's case even higher than that.

She's a leader among women in the church. As far as leadership of women in the church, she was like at the top level of that, and then we started talking about some other people that are commended, other things especially with regard to women.

Last time in the church, different things that God points out, and you know both

Jesus and the apostle Paul mention large lists of women that ministered with them in their ministry, and I don't know any other world religion that does that.

I know Judaism does not do it, and so none of the great world religions, so -called world religions do, but Christianity is the greatest as far as emancipating women.

You don't need women's lib if you have a Bible, especially if you have a New Testament in your

Bible, and so we've been talking about that a little bit. I think last time we were talking a little bit about Sapphira, Ananias and Sapphira, and how every time they would be, they were

Jewish, and they'd be persecuted to have to move to another city, and every time they would, they would start a church in their house, and she was very instrumental and discipling, one of the greatest preachers of the first century, and helping his doctrine be better, but she did that along with her husband in their home, and so the exhortations in the

Bible about let not the woman usurp authority over the man or teach a man, that is for the church service.

The official church services is the context.

If you go back and read that in 1 Timothy, it's the context it's found in. It does not apply to the home.

Now, the authority applies everywhere because it starts in Genesis where the man was created first and the woman from the man, and the woman is the helpmate for the man, so the authority structures in the home as well, but the part about not being able to teach

Bible to people, that does not apply in the home because women can take part in discipling people, and this proof is in Scripture.

We talked about that last time. All right, so, and I think last time we mentioned

Luke chapter 8 verse 1 through 3 where it talked about several women in the church who meant one was named

Susanna and Joanna, and these women would minister with their substance, which meant they were from wealthy families, and they would take their money and help the

Apostle Paul with his ministry, help other ministers and other churches in the area, so we talked about that last time.

That's where we ended, I think, so then, well, actually, we talked about Mary and Martha a little bit, and I'd kind of like to finish up on that as we start today.

I think we were in Luke several places, but Luke chapter 10 verse 38. You don't have to go to that because that was last time, but I'm just reviewing a little bit.

It said this is where it shows that Martha is the person who owned the house, and her sister

Mary lived with her, and the two, it talks about two women in the Bible that were very instrumental, very close to the

Lord Jesus, maybe the the closest family was those two women and their brother Lazarus, and it shows how different their personalities are and how different they served the

Lord, and both were commended, and we talked about that just a little bit. Remember, it was

Martha was, Jesus said, was she was cumbered about with much serving. She was the person who wanted to get the dinner ready, serve people, including

Jesus, make sure everything was right and organized and in place, and the Lord never rebuked her from that, but she tried to tell

Jesus that her sister Mary, Jesus, would you make her come help me, because she was just sitting there at Jesus' feet on the ground before him, listening to every word that he said, and so Martha came and said,

Jesus, tell her to come help me. I need some help, and Jesus said, no, you know what, actually, Martha, bless you for being a wonderful servant and everything, but she's doing the better part.

She's listening to my word. See that? So, a picture of it's important to be a person, a woman can be a person who is very much into the word of God.

We have those in this church, many women, very much into doctrinal studies, all kinds of systematic theology, you know, topical studies of the

Bible, even have women who debate those things on the internet and do a great job, better job than I would do, and so these, you know, this is pictured by Mary, and then we have women that do that, and they also take care of their households, their husbands, and their children at the same time, so you're kind of a combination of Mary and Martha, and it's just these two women are a beautiful picture of the proper role of women, and so I'm going to go into John chapter 12, if you would go there with me now,

John chapter 12, verse 1, and I want to finish up this discussion of Mary and Martha in the picture that they paint of wonderful roles of women in the church and in the home and in the world, and then we should have time left after that to go into the book of Titus, which is the premier place in the entire

Bible to look at the role, the proper role of women in the New Testament church, so that'll close the topic down a little bit just to church, right now we're talking about in the world and in the home and in the church, it's a little bit broader topic here, so John chapter 12, verse 1, then

Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany where Lazarus was, which had been dead,

I like that phrase, he ain't dead now because Jesus raised him from the grave in front of everybody, in front of the whole world basically, the whole world knows about it now, and so he had been dead, whom

Jesus raised from the dead, and there, so now he's back, he was with them before this happened, he was their friends in their home before Lazarus died,

Lazarus died, Jesus raised him to the dead, now he's back in the home and Lazarus is running around the house living his life, and actually, you know, let's talk about a little bit of a rabbit trail, that's not actually a resurrection, that is a raising from the dead, which is almost like a healing, it is a healing, it's a raising from the dead, and it's different, do you know the difference?

We talked about it before, anybody remember? Well, that plus in a resurrection, you never die again, and you get a new body, a glorified body, so there's only two of those in the entire history of the world, one will be at the end of the church age, and the other will be at the end of the millennial kingdom, but these raisings of the dead were different, because these people died again,

I'm not sure I'd want to be that person, do you want to die twice?

Lazarus had to, he died twice, so anyway, this was God's will for him though, as a great testimony of the back with his family, it's a beautiful story, but there are people who create false concepts of the end times, and they try to pretend that there are more than two resurrections, which is not true, at best, it's a misunderstanding, at worst, it's a lie, there are only two, first and the second resurrection.

Now, this was not a resurrection, this was a healing or raising from the dead, it's not really, it's different than a healing too,

I just call it a raising from the dead, I don't have a good theological word to call it other than that, different than a resurrection, so here he is back in his house, and Jesus comes back for a visit, and I'm sure a rest from the crowds, and so forth, and this was six days before Passover, and there they made supper, and Martha served, there she is again, right, the servant, that's her, that is her gift, that is her ability, that's what she wants to do, that's what she's going to do,

Jesus never rebuked her for it, he did say Mary's doing the greater part, which is saying, okay, look

Martha, what you need to learn to do is both, you know, learn to stop and sit at my feet sometime, and then you can still serve, now isn't that a great lesson for all of us, because how many of us like to stay busy more than we like to just sit and be quiet and have a quiet time, you know, now some do, but some like, would rather stay busy, in fact, there are many people in church who'd rather be doing good works in the church than to be praying, or to be studying the scriptures, and Jesus didn't rebuke folks like that, he just pointed out, but this is the better part, and that's all

I want to do, so we need to have a good mix of both, and so it's not natural for some of us, for some of us to study all the time, and maybe those on that side need to learn to serve a little more, you see how it is, so there needs to be a balance here, and these two women picture it so beautifully, so here she is serving, but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with Jesus, and then took

Mary, now here you find Mary, who rather than helping Martha with the food, like Martha probably thought she should be, and the apostles were sitting around watching this and criticizing this woman,

Mary, it's very subtle, but very real that they were criticizing her for what she's about to do here, so then

Mary took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, very expensive, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, that's very humbling, wouldn't you say, very humbling thing that she did, and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment, and then said one of the disciples, whose name happened to be

Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray the

Lord later, here's what he said about that, why was not this ointment sold for 300 pence and given to the poor, doesn't that sound spiritual and religious, we have to be careful, if we were in a larger church,

I have a friend I grew up with from probably even before first grade, Marcus Sheffield, he's the pastor of First Baptist Church in Mahea, which was the largest, it still is the largest church in town, most likely there in Mahea, still a big church, and he's been the pastor there longer than any other pastor, and I got to spend some time with him this past week,

I don't get to see him much, but we were just talking, I said

I bet you have lots of problems in the church, your church is so large, I bet you deal with problems a lot, he said oh yeah, he said

I've been through the ringer on that issue, and so we're talking about the concept of people who can be critical about things, and like Judas, and I'm not saying critical people are

Judas, I'm not saying that, but there is a spirit of criticism, whereas you could just come talk to the person, and when you saw their heart, it might just dissolve, and it's not even a problem, but if you don't talk to them, it turns into bitterness and defiles many people, it's what scripture says, and it's what happens,

Marcus has seen it many times, I've seen it a lot of times, if you go back the whole history of our church, because we started in 1980, and we've been as large as 220 in attendance, and so we've had times where we had trouble, and had to deal with it, and you deal with it in a scriptural manner, so the point is, you're going to have people who will think they're religious, and think they're righteous, and saying all the right things, like we should really, she should sell this and give it to the poor, that sounds good and right, but it's not what the

Lord wanted done here, right, and it's not what Mary was led to do by the

Holy Spirit, and yet she's being criticized, that's what I find that interesting, because especially since she's the one that would sit at his feet, she's the one that gets criticized, okay, so when you get criticized, the way to deal with it, it says if you have a brother has ought against you, go to the brother and talk, there are people sitting in this very room right now, who have done that recently, come to me in person and talk, and I respect that, it's exactly biblical, it's how it's done, and there are people who aren't here today, who did that though, who came and talked with me in person, that is the right way to handle things, so when you have trouble with people, remember this, the best weapon against Satan and his goal to divide is good godly loving communication, and do it quickly, don't wait, every day you wait is a day

Satan can build imaginations in the mind to make it a huge thing, when if you go right immediately, it's a little thing, and it gets dealt with usually, so these are just the ways to do it, now look at him, he looked at her and says, look, she's totally wrong, and he's probably talking to Jesus saying, you know, she shouldn't be doing this, she should have sold that, given it to the poor, now happened to be

Judas was the treasurer, well, let's don't get ahead of ourselves, he says, why was not this, you know, sold for a lot of money and given to the poor, this he said, not that he cared for the poor, a lot of times people who criticize don't really care about the things that they're saying should be done, it's not really why they're doing it, this he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the bag, in other words, he carried the money and he bear what was put in the bag, he was the treasurer, so if we could sell this and create a lot of money, put it in the bag, he could probably get a piece of that action when no one was watching, is what the scripture says he was doing, and yet he was one of the apostles, all right, so verse 7 says, then

Jesus let, he said this to Judas, he said, leave her alone, stop criticizing this woman, leave her alone, she does this against the day of my bearing, and that's why she has kept this, in other words, he said, this is a picture of my death and my burial, so leave her alone, all right, let's finish, it says in verse 8, for the poor always will be with you, but me you will not have always, there's a whole other study you could do,

I'm not going to go there today, but Jesus said, the poor be with you always, but what he said was,

I won't be, and so leave this woman alone, now I think I want you to think about Mary for a minute, with regard to the role of women in the church, how did

Mary know that he was about to be crucified when no one else knew it or believed it, what did

Peter say when Jesus said, you know, I'm going to die, what did Peter say, remember the great man of God, Peter, what did he say, he said, he rebuked

Jesus, said, no Lord, you will not die, we will die first, you know, we won't let you die, and what did

Jesus say, he said, get behind me Satan, so does that, do you see that there is spiritual warfare, would you agree with me that Satan had put a thought in Peter's mind that was ungodly, would you agree with that, do you think he can still do that, and did

Peter think he was doing the right thing, absolutely, would he have thought that was Satan or God that put that thought in his mind,

God, right, so we have to discern the spirits, so a lot of times we do what we think is right and it's not right, and the only way we have to discern it is with the

Word of God, and that's very, very helpful, that's the revealed will of God, and by prayer and the

Holy Spirit, and an attitude of love and unity, because the

Holy Spirit's grieved when we don't have that, so if we do that, we can discern the spirits, so here we see

Peter, an example of Peter thinking he was doing God's will when he rebuked Jesus, that was kind of, it wouldn't want to be him in that day, would you, and Jesus corrected

Satan, told Satan to leave, he wasn't even talking to Peter, he was talking to who was in Peter at that moment, and he rebuked

Satan and made him flee, Peter came back to his senses later and wept, didn't he, so he was under the influence of Satan, and now here we have

Judas obviously under the influence of Satan, and Jesus corrected him as well in front of the whole crowd and said this woman's doing exactly what she's supposed to be doing,

Peter doesn't understand that I'm about to die and raise again, but this woman understands it, and she's picturing it, so when you want to talk about the role of women in the church, there's a lot of confusion about it because of the few things that they're not allowed to do in the actual church, like church and Sunday school on Sunday morning or anytime we have official services, there's a couple of things they're not allowed to do, and so people extrapolate that out and say, well, they're not like men then as far as being spiritual and able to do powerful things and all that, and that's false,

I mean again and again we see women in the New Testament, even in the Old Testament doing far more powerful things than most of the men are doing, and still taking care of the kids and the husband, the other kid, right,

I'll probably get in trouble for saying that, now the men are going to come after me, all right, so, but ladies, am

I right? Come on, give me an amen, we give you temporary permission to speak,

I'm kidding, okay, so you see here this beautiful example, and there are many, and I just chose that one a couple of three weeks ago when

I was working on this, I think it's beautiful, all right, so let's see, look at Matthew chapter 28 verse 5, we'll see another beautiful picture of how

God used women, Matthew 28 5, and the angel answered and said unto the women, now do you remember which women these are?

This is Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and there are five to six

Marys in the New Testament, which can be really confusing, and the reason I say five to six, because some people think two of the

Marys are the same person, so that would then be five, and there's debate among theologians on that, but it's clear that this in Matthew 28, it's

Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and the angel answered and said unto these two women, fear not ye, for I know that you seek

Jesus now who was crucified, so they're at the grave, and they're trying to probably make sure

Jesus was, his body was wrapped with spices properly and all that, and they also want to make sure no one steals his body or abuses his body like the

Romans might want to or the Jews, so they're there, there they are, now it's interesting that these are, that men didn't show up, not one male apostle or disciple showed up, they all fled except for John, but he's not here, two women are here, two women,

I want you to think about this, you guys think about this too, how would you have liked to walk up to that tomb and look inside of it or try to look inside of it, you got

Roman guards, they might not have been awake by this time, you had

Roman guards who would kill you if you tried to unseal it, no one back then and even today likes the idea of looking at dead people or into a grave at a dead person, so how would you like to be there, but these women did it, they had a lot of bravery that the men did not have and so the angel had to comfort them a little bit and said fear not,

I know you're looking for Jesus who's crucified and verse 6 says he is not here for he is risen, so the first two human beings, the first human being to prophesy in the

New Testament, the burial of Jesus was a woman named Mary, a different Mary, this is interesting, and the next two human beings to witness his actual crucifixion were two other

Mary's, women named Mary, so there's three women, the first human beings to actually prophesy and or witness that he actually was risen like he said he would, were women, why did

God pick that, God is sovereign, why did he pick women, well because there's neither male nor female, with regard to your closeness to God, your devotion to God, his devotion to you, your power and ability to get prayers answered and to disciple even preachers who are all, all of that, you have equal power with men because the sex does not matter in that issue, you may have more power than most men if you're in the word more than they are and praying more than they are, you see, it's a powerful role that women have in the church, so the angel says he is not here, he's risen and he said come and see the place where the

Lord lay and he had already moved the stone out of the way and the Roman guards were taken care of, it scared them to death, they literally fainted and they may have run away by this time and he takes the women in to see that the tomb is empty, it wasn't really empty though, what did they see, they saw his grave clothes that had been around around him, they learned that from the

Jews, learned that from the Egyptians, like a mummy with spices all in it, probably weighed a couple hundred pounds laying on the slab where Jesus' body had been and just kind of settled down as if the body just came out of it and it's still there and just the body's gone out, it just settles down and the face cloth that was on his head was nicely placed over here, it wasn't like torn to pieces like someone who came and stole the body, it's as if the body removed itself from the windings without disturbing them and then the weight of the spices just pressed it down and that's what they saw when they looked in there, it freaked them out frankly, but it let them know scientifically that there had been a resurrection, not a grave robbery, plus the

Roman soldiers were out there the whole time under penalty of death if they let anyone take that body out, so there's so many proofs of the resurrection, it's interesting if you ever want to study that, look at evidence that demands a verdict by Josh McDowell, the section on the proof of the resurrection is fabulous, so anyway, here these women are, now look at verse 7, this is very important, it says, and go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead and behold he goes before you into Galilee and there you will see him lo

I have told you, so now we have, it was a woman who was the first human in the

New Testament to prophesy that Jesus would be crucified and buried, it was two other women who were the first women to look in the grave and see that it was empty and then it was two women who were instructed by God through the angel to go and tell all the disciples he's alive now, but why didn't he choose a man to do that, why did he choose women, do you think, if you wanted to just conjecture why

God chose women to go and tell the disciples he's alive, do you think that under Moses in the

Old Testament that men would think very much about anything women would say, no, because it's like all the other world religions, am

I right, so like did you know that under Judaism, I'm not sure women were allowed to even be a witness in a trial, women could not even testify, had to be a man, where it says two or more witnesses had to be two men, that's why so many women could be abused by men and the man get away with it, because you got to find two men that will say they observed it and the woman couldn't testify, that's how it was and now

God chooses two women to testify, the only testimony available yet that he was risen, why, because once again

Jesus Christ elevates the role of women above all religions in the world and he says you know what, if you're going to believe

I'm resurrected, you're going to believe it at the witness of two women, isn't that great, women you like that, okay,

I like it, I think it's great, now we got a little time left since we're starting right on time nowadays, so turn to Titus chapter 2 verse 1 and I'm going to end this little section of just kind of a little trip around the

New Testament looking at different amazing things women did in the New Testament, I'm going to end on Mother's Day with Proverbs 31 and talk about the

Old Testament God -inspired concept of the role of women and it'll be very different than the legalist

Jewish picture that it came into being 400 years before Christ came in there, the part of time

Ben's talking about in Sunday school, the in between the Old and New Testament time, that 400 years where the Pharisees perverted

Judaism and made it really even much harder on the women than it ever was because they were so legalistic, legalism always is the hardest on women, but we'll talk about the genuine

God -inspired Old Testament view of the role of women on Mother's Day, it'll be awesome

I think, so Titus chapter 2 verse 1, there are several, three books in the

Bible that are called pastoral epistles, at least three, the three that I'm thinking of are 1st and 2nd

Timothy, where the apostle Paul through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was teaching Timothy how to set up a church, how to run a church, how to be a pastor and Titus is also considered a pastoral epistle, it has the qualifications of deacons in it, but it also has this beautiful passage we're going to look at to end up today where it talks about the role of women in the church and I think anyone who's filled with the

Holy Spirit will like this and anyone who's in the flesh probably won't like it, they'll find all kinds of things to criticize, but just remember

I'm just going to read it, it's not me, it's not what I believe, okay, it's just what I'm reading, it's what the

Bible says, I do happen to believe it, but I did not originate it, but Titus chapter 2 verse 1, but speak thou the things which become sound doctrine, now he, see this is another reason

Titus also is included in the pastoral epistles because here Paul is instructing again on how to be a good elder or a good pastor, speak things which become sound doctrine, so make sure that you don't teach things that contradict the doctrines of the

Bible, they're in tune with the whole of the Bible, secondly that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in love, and in patience, so teach your older men if you're the pastor or one of the pastor, the elder that preaches most, teach the older men that they need to be grave, which means they don't need to be always telling silly jokes, they don't need to, what, how's the verse go,

I hear it at home sometimes, yeah, because you know how guys are, we will just do it, and sometimes it's the woman's role to say something, so quite often

Ben and I and Matt will hear mom say, she just quotes a verse, she just says avoid foolish jesting, it leads to further ungodliness, and then she walks out of the room, and we shut up, and we start talking about something else, you should not be laughing, but yeah, it's okay, it happens quite often, doesn't it

Ben and Matt, so Dave Huber can tell you too, because they've been living with us while they're building their new house, and so yeah, and you know

I don't often hear Charlotte and the girls doing foolish jesting, is this a man thing,

I don't know, but anyway, it's interesting the Holy Spirit is telling the older men to be grave, which means avoid foolish jesting, temperate, which means you have self -control, to be sound in the faith, that means in the biblical

Christian faith, you need to understand the major Bible things, you need to understand systematic theology, you need to understand what's right and what's wrong biblically, doctrinally, and then in love, everything that you do needs to be in love, because men can get prideful, and just you know get after each other, and so you know it's okay to disagree, but you should do it in love, and Larry, I'd have to commend you for that in recent days, you know how to be serious, but you know how to do it in love, and you know how to do it appropriately, it's fantastic, and you happen to be,

I hate to say it, an older man in the church, this is the way you're supposed to be, I'm an older man in the church, and this is how we're supposed to be, so we do what we do in love and in patience, why do we need to be patient?

Because we're dealing with human beings, and they're not perfect, notice I said they, and everyone besides me, right, we are imperfect people, and if you want to start picking at me, you could go on for days, but I could do the same with you, because I watch you from up here, so Satan wants us to do that, but God doesn't,

God says love covers a multitude of sins, what's the practical use of that verse? You can just easily pray for someone when they're doing something you disagree with, as to talk to someone about it, just pray and say,

Lord, do you see that, I see it, would you help David, help him to stop picking his nose when he preaches, because he does it every time, and it's weird,

Lord, could you ask the Lord to do that? Yeah, I come back and half my nose is missing or something, but anyway, yeah, but we don't like to do it that way, we'd rather just do it ourselves, but if we're going to do it ourselves, let's do it in love and in patience, that's how we're supposed to do it.

Now, this is for the older men, the younger men need to learn this too as they get older. Now, look at verse three, because here's the topic, the aged women, likewise, so everything that he just said to the aged men, he says to the aged women, do you get that?

All right, so the aged women need to be sober, you know, I left that one out, didn't

I? Sober means self -control, it doesn't mean you don't drink, but it means you have self -control in your life, and it does mean if you drink that you don't, it never gets out of control, you don't ever get drunk, and that's an issue

I don't even like to talk, I wish the Bible said never drink anything alcoholic, I wish it said that, but I cannot say that it says that, but I know when

I got saved, God took it out of my life completely, so it's gone, but you know,

I think my best question for that is, show me where it says you can't drink, my best answer to that is, show me where it says it'll make you a better witness if you do,

I don't know, I just, am I legalistic when I say that? I don't mean to be legalistic, just I like to get you thinking though, so sober can mean with regard to drinking, but it's much bigger than that, it's self -control, okay, grave, temperate, sound, and faith, does that mean women are supposed to be studying doctrine in the

Bible? Yes, you need to do what you do in love and in patience, now it's going to add a few things, it says likewise, so you got those things, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, so with the woman in particular it mentions holiness, what does holiness mean?

Does it mean perfection with no sin in the life? Is that the major connotation of it?

Maybe if you use it with regard to God, yes, but to humans, no, what does it mean?

Separate, and what's another good English word? Different, I love it, separate from the world, and different from the world, and more like God, more like Jesus, right?

Mentions that for the women, their behavior should be as becomes holiness, not false accusers, that's interesting that it mentions that to the women,

I wonder why, why didn't it say that to the older men? I guess we're always just joking, and the women would like to talk about people maybe more,

I don't know, is that true? Is that a woman thing? I don't know if it is or isn't, I'm just reading the scripture,

I don't know, it says specifically says though that they not be false accusers of someone, not given too much wine, that one instead of just saying sober, it said don't drink much wine, don't you think that word much proves that it doesn't say don't drink any wine?

It says don't drink much, now we could define wine as grape juice though, and then

I'd get my way, right? I've seen people do that, I do think their wine had less alcoholic content in it,

I've seen some pretty cool YouTube studies on that, must be true, I found it on YouTube.

All right, so not given too much wine, and then they should be teachers of good things, isn't that something, isn't that general, that's a big topic, whatever it is that you wish the younger women would be good in and at, you should teach them that, good things.

Now it goes on and says that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, now that's interesting because when it references with regard to the official church services, in the official church services, the women's role in teaching is selectively dedicated to other women, you may teach other women, you can teach young children, even boys, but when those boys get up to be where their hormones are kicking in, probably let them go to a

Sunday school class at that point, because all of a sudden they're not going to want to listen to a woman teaching, for whatever reason, how

God made men, so it's best to put them in a different class, so this is your role is to teach young women, what are you supposed to teach them here in this context, to love their husbands and to love their children,

I don't think that's funny, because wouldn't you think women have a natural love for their kids, a natural love for their husband, but why does it say to the older women to teach them to do that, because in life we can begin to focus on the negatives, especially in the home, if we can do it in the church, we can certainly do that in the home and the older women are supposed to help the younger women realize that we go through problems, your husband's not perfect, your kids are not perfect, but you have to overall love them and that will cover a multitude of sins, so you can get along in the home and it'll help you be a better wife and a better mother and I don't know telling how many hundreds of topics you could put under that, subtopics you could put under that, that you could teach in a class here in the church, if God led you to do it, so then it says, where was

I, I'll teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands and to love their children, teach them to be discreet and chaste, those two kind of go together, discretion, you know, if you look at Eve in the garden,

Satan came to her first because she was more easily deceived, that is a fact of life, you can't get around it, that's one reason women are not allowed to teach doctrine to men in the church setting, as they are more easily deceived, they can introduce false doctrine, we spent a length of time on how they have in history done that, men have done even more, but women have done a good damage there, if you let them teach men, but this word discretion is very important because Eve did not have good discretion when

Satan came to her and Satan said to her, well

God didn't say don't eat that fruit and even if he did, he didn't mean it because he would want you to know good and evil like he and I know, why would he not want you to know that, and she didn't use good discretion because she didn't ask who am

I talking to right now, who is this person, what do I know about him, and why am

I talking to a snake anyway, a serpent anyway, but she just allowed

Satan to convince her it was God's will to disobey God and she did it,

Adam the Bible says was not deceived in the matter, but he sinned willfully and we could debate the reasons why he did it till kingdom come and we don't know the reasons, but we can guess at some of them, but that's the reason that we need to teach the young women to have discretion, they need to you know, it's interesting that he put discretion and chase side by side in the

Greek, you don't have a comma and you know women, I think the older women should teach the younger women this, that there are going to be times in your life when a handsome young man that's not your husband is going to come to you and talk nicer and sweeter than your husband because your husband's burdened down with whatever he's doing and he's just in one of those modes where he's not paying the attention to you that he should be, and Satan may bring this young man who will act like, oh well,

I'll talk to you, tell me everything that's on your heart, just share your heart with me, and just like Satan used his word to affect the woman and Jesus uses his word to draw all of us to him, bad men will use their word with women to cause them to sin, remember that I said that young women, and when that man comes to you, you need to reject him and you need to use discretion and ask who is this man and why is he saying these nice things to me, ask that question and then it says you know that you are to remain chased, which means only for your husband, right?

So older women, that's what we teach the younger women, also how to be keepers at home, what does that mean?

Now let me ask you how popular you think that would be, if I got up First Baptist Dallas this morning, and that's a good church from what

I know, but I got up in First Baptist Church Dallas, Texas today as a guest speaker and I hadn't gotten that invitation yet, but if I get it, maybe

I'll preach this sermon, how popular would that be among the women in that church?

Be keepers at home, that means be homemakers, now

I can tell you this, I'm going to jump ahead a little bit, when we get to Proverbs 31 on Mother's Day, it doesn't mean this is all you do, it doesn't mean you have to only stay in the home and only sit there,

I don't even know what you would do all day, that's all you did, I mean there's plenty to do, but that's not what it's saying, but it is saying you need to be really good at this, you need to be a good keeper at home, you need to keep the home in order, you need to keep it nice and in best shape as possible, so that everyone in the home can be the most productive people they can be, and that is one of the key jobs that the older women teach the younger women to do, to be keepers at home, then to teach them to be good, and we've already mentioned that once, so this is redundant, the second time, it's the second time the

Holy Spirit mentioned that you got to teach them to be good, what's the opposite of good? Bad, don't be bad, right, teach them to be obedient to their husbands, how popular would that be?

Obedient, I got to obey my husband, that's what the word says, what the Greek word says too, why is that though?

That's because of sin, when we sin and we came out of the garden, that is where God said, okay, the woman will be under the authority of the man in the home and must obey the man, but let me ask you this, just to be clear, do you think there's an exception in the

Bible for men and women, if the government asks us or tells us to do something that to us would be a sin, do we have to obey the government?

No, we don't, not if the government asks us to do something that we believe is a sin, we can say no, now will we have to bear the consequences, that'll put us in jail, yes, yeah, all right, but in with the woman under the authority of the man, if the man asks her to do something that she knows

God does not want her to do for a fact, no doubt in her mind, from scripture and the

Holy Spirit both, from from the water and the spirit, you know I am not supposed to do that, do you have to obey him in that?

Absolutely not, now will you bear the consequences? Some women will be beaten for it, am

I right about that? If that ever happens, you come tell your pastor, seriously,

I just said there's at least one woman in this room right now that knows I will get after the husband that does that, probably more than one woman that knows that in this room,

I would get physically after him if I had to, other men here would do that too, wouldn't you? If you knew any woman beaten by a man, we would pay a nice deaconly visit, and that's the way it should be, but I mean there could be consequences, but you don't always obey the husband, you obey the husband in the

Lord, is that a good way to put it? And if the husband's right, he loves you like Christ loves the church anyway, and he's in the word so much, he would never ask you to do something that would be a sin or something against the

Bible or the Lord, so these are the things that the older women are supposed to teach the younger women, and why do we need to teach them to be obedient to their own husbands, so that the word of God be not blasphemed, now that phrase is difficult for us to understand two thousand years after the life of Jesus, we're losing a little bit in the time that's gone past to understand totally what the

Holy Spirit and what Paul mean by that, why is it in Paul's day, we could conjecture what it means if we look at history a little bit, but if Paul told the women to teach the younger women to obey their husbands, so that the word of God would not be blasphemed, we got to dig a little bit on that one,

I think, but I mean think about the pagan world that the

Gentile churches that Paul established, especially in Corinth, where they had Diana worship and temple prostitution and all that, and different things women were taught by their society that were okay to do, some of it's in the context of that, but if they would obey their husbands,

Paul is saying the word of God will be upheld, and we have to believe that even though this had some other meanings we may not fully understand today, it still has a meaning that applies today, that when the world looks at women who claim to be

Christian, and they see them pulling the man through Walmart, he's got a ring in his nose, and the wife's pulling him through, and the kids are the little daughters pulling him around, it is a bad testimony for the word of God, and for God, and for Christianity, and for the church, the man must rule the home, the men must rule the church, and if they don't, the world can talk all they want to about how wrong that is, but they will not respect you if it's not that way, they won't respect the

Bible, because they know inherently what the Bible teaches about this thing, they don't like it, but they know it teaches it, so if you don't live that way, then you're a hypocrite, and you have no influence on them whatsoever, that's my take on what that verse means, but there we have it, now

I'm going to read just a little bit of this before we close, it starts talking about men, I'm just going to use it as a contrast a little bit to really be talking about the role of women still, so verse six, it's all right here in the same context, young men likewise exhort to be sober -minded, so the older men should be teaching the younger men, just like the older women teach the younger women, they need to teach the younger men to be sober -minded in all things, showing thyself as a pattern of good works in doctrine, showing uncorruptness, gravity, and sincerity in all things, so if we review what we see in this passage, is number one, female teachers should be old enough to have lived enough life to have learned the lessons of life in the light of scripture, so if you're going to be a leader, a female leader in the church, you should be have enough age on you, where you've lived through some of the troubles in everyday life, in the home, and everywhere, so that you then when you see these scriptures, you learn both from the practical part of the life you've lived and the scripture to be able to teach the younger women, so that's the first thing it says, is they need to be old enough to have experienced that, same with the young men in the church, they need to live long enough in the world and in the home to understand some of these things in the light of scripture, and the same is true for elders and deacons, lay not hands on them too early, the bible says, but the same is true of the women who are teaching the younger women, secondly, they should be living a holy lifestyle, verse three, there in Titus chapter two, third, they should not be false accusers, it's interesting the greek word for that is diabolos, what does that sound like, is there an english word that comes from diabolical, so when you accuse people behind their back, you're diabolical if you're a woman, now

I would think that applied to men too though, wouldn't you ladies, if they accuse people behind their backs, they're diabolical and don't be that way, go to their face, give them a chance to tell what their heart is really at, where their heart is, not so much what their words may or may not have said, what do they mean by what they said, this is how we deal with these problems, so they cannot be false accusers, diabolos means, if you look at the greek dictionary, it says a traducer, but how many of you use that word in english, so I looked that up in Webster's, a traducer is a person, it means to expose to shame or blame by means of falsehood and misrepresentation, so don't be a person who takes maybe a half -truth and applies it to a person in a negative way, very bad, don't do that, secondly it says a traducer or a slander, diabolos can be translated as slander, what is slander,

Webster's dictionary, the utterance false charges or misrepresentations, which means taking stuff out of context, which defame and damage another's reputation, don't ever do that, so this is what we teach the young women not to do, men, we need to be teaching the men not to do this too, number four, they should not be wine bibbers, you don't get drunk on wine, okay, number five, they should be teachers of good things and little a b c and d under that, teach the young women to be sober, teach them to love their husband, teach them to love their children, teach them to be discreet and chaste, etc.,

all right, and homemakers, and to be good and to be obedient to their own husbands that the word of God be not blasphemed, so this is all that it teaches about the proper role of women in the church in the book of Titus, and it is a pastoral epistle, which means this is how we should operate in the church, now remember in the home it's a little different on some issues with regard to teaching, it's not different on with regard to authority, but it's different with regard to teaching and discipleship and things like that, so we've already covered all that,

I had a little bit here, let me see what time it is, I had a little bit here in Titus where it talks about the young men, but I was kind of,

I was just looking at it to see if any of it sort of was a contrast with what was supposed to be taught to the young women, and I don't see anything,

I think it's all sort of the same, we teach the young men, the young women some of the same things, I'll just read it as less like three verses, young men likewise exhort to be sober -minded and all things showing a pattern of good works, very similar, don't you think, in doctrine showing uncorruptness and gravity and sincerity, they need to understand good doctrine as Paul taught doctrine, sound speech that cannot be condemned, like if you're going to say something, you need to be able to prove your point,

I tell people that all the time, people that work for me, but also in church, if you see something that you think is wrong in church, you need to come to me, or you can come to one of our elders or deacons, but you should, if it's with regard to me, come to me, and I will listen to you, but I will require you to use truth to prove it, you have to use the truth and facts to prove that you're right, and if you're right,

I will fix it, and if you're wrong, I will tell you that's just simply not true, and that's just how it is, and if you don't like that, you just generally, you leave at that point, if you don't agree on that's not how it is, and you say, well,

I think it is how it is, well, it's not, well, okay, we part ways, but the better thing is to be able to talk and say, okay, why don't you think that's a problem, and you give the person the chance to say, well, because I didn't say that, here's what

I actually said, you know, we can listen to archives if we need to, but here's what was actually said, so here's the truth of the matter, do you still feel the same way, and they, you know, if they the person didn't say it, they should say, well, no, actually,

I guess you're right, I don't feel that you do that, and you can actually get right with each other, and avoid division, have peace, and all that, that's how it works, so all of these things here, where it talks about knowing good doctrine, so, you know, you know what good doctrine is when you hear it, gravity, and then sincerity, being sincere in the heart, and in love, and so forth, sound speech that cannot be condemned, always be able to answer to family at Christmas on what you believe, that's why

I joke about giving ammunition all the time, that's part of my job as a pastor, is to teach you what it took me 40 years to learn, so you can learn it in a couple of years, that's my job, it's called time compression, that's what teachers are for, it's what

God gave us here as a gift to the church for, so sound speech that cannot be condemned, that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you, well, that's interesting there, isn't it, so there is a time when one should defend himself, and then there are times when one shouldn't,

Proverbs teaches that, you have to try to pray to the Holy Spirit to discern that, so here it's sober -minded, pattern of good things, uncorrupt doctrine, gravity, sounds like the same things the women teach the younger women, don't you think, so I don't see any contradiction, and here again, it sort of proves the verse that says there's neither male nor female, these are the same things that we teach, so I think we can stop there for the day, and I hope you enjoyed that study, it is not lengthy, but it's very full of great wisdom from the

Holy Spirit, let's stand and have prayer together, dear

Lord, we just thank you for your word, we ask you to always lift it up, and we know you say it never returns void, help us to use it like Ben said in Sunday school today,

Lord, that we should just use the word of God, even when we think people may not believe it, it's still powerful, we use it, and it never returns void, so we can have great confidence in using scripture in our discussions with everyone, church members, people out in the world, everyone, and thank you for that,