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Reading 1 Timothy 2:9 now shifting attention toward the women in the church and their important role, but also that they are to submit to God's design. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
Paul gave Timothy instructions on how to pastor the church in Ephesus that he was sending Timothy to. And there's a certain structure that the church is supposed to follow. Not only was Timothy supposed to follow those instructions, but we are as well when we understand the text.
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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everyone. We continue with our study of the book of 1 Timothy, chapter 2, verses 8 -11. Again today, Paul writes to his servant Timothy, I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands, without anger or quarreling.
Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness, with good works.
Let a woman learn quietly, with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
Yet she will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. So Paul has sent Timothy to the church in Ephesus to be a pastor there. And the first instruction he gives Timothy is to teach right doctrine, that which flows from the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And do not let anyone teach any different doctrine. If a person has centered their life on the gospel of Jesus Christ, then what should come from that, what should be produced in their life is godly living.
And then Paul gives instructions on here's what that godliness should look like. First instruction he gives right at the start of chapter 2, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people.
So the first instruction he gives related to a godly outpouring of living out the gospel is to pray. Now, remember, as I mentioned yesterday, the context of these instructions is corporate worship or the church setting.
But it's not limited to corporate worship. We're not just talking about how we conduct ourselves in church, but how we conduct ourselves everywhere. The way that you conduct yourself, the way that you live out godliness with your brothers and sisters in Christ in corporate worship, is also the way that you should live out godliness, that you should live in a godly way in any kind of setting.
Whether you're talking about your home life, you should be praying with your family as much as you should be praying with the people of God in church, right? Even in social situations, there are people that you probably engage with on a regular basis.
Maybe you should be praying with them more often than you are. So this isn't just talking about worship, even though that is the context of the instructions that we're getting here. Then when we get to midway through chapter 2, Paul starts to get even more specific about these instructions.
Men, you are supposed to be this way, and women, you are supposed to behave like this. And the word godliness even comes up in verse 10. The way that women should live, those who profess godliness, they should display good works.
Their beauty should not be on the outside. It shouldn't be what people see on the outside, and that's the impression that they get of that person. But rather the beauty of their heart in the good works that they do, which is the outflow, the outpouring of a heart that is devoted to Jesus Christ.
A person will do the works that Jesus has told us to do. So this is what godliness should look like. And that first instruction is still related to the prayer instruction that Paul gave at the start of the chapter.
Verse 8, I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands, because men are going to set the example for the church. They're filling the roles of teacher, specifically pastor, elder, and overseer.
Now, we generally think of verse 12 as the hot button verse, right? That's the one that says, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. But the fact of the matter is, that tone was being said long before we ever got to verse 12.
Because who is Paul addressing? He's addressing Timothy, a man, a young man specifically, whom he is sending to Ephesus to be the pastor of that church. And the other elders that are there, Paul is instructing Timothy not to let any of them teach any different doctrine.
And even related to false teachers. When Paul talks to Timothy about those who have taught falsely, who have had to be disciplined because they taught falsely, he gives the names of two men, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.
So at no point in the letter have we ever been given the impression that teachers in the church would be primarily women. For Paul, who is an apostle, a man, is addressing Timothy, who he is sending to be a pastor.
Instructing the elders that are there, correcting those who teach falsely, which is the name of two more men. Then he gives instructions about prayer. And he says that we should pray even for kings and all who are in high positions.
Then we get to verse 8 and he says, I desire that in every place the men should pray. Since men are primarily the teachers in the church, because that is a role that God has designated for men to fill.
Then men are setting the example for the whole church. Therefore, the men should pray. And as I said yesterday, it doesn't mean a woman can't pray. But a man is supposed to be who is setting that example.
I desire that the men should pray, lifting holy hands, since the instruction is given to everyone to submit their whole bodies unto the Lord as a living sacrifice. So this is especially upon the men in order to set this kind of example.
And Paul even talks about this with Titus as well. So 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus are regarded as the pastoral letters. And it's in Titus chapter 2 that we have the mentorship structure in the church.
Titus 2, starting in verse 1. As for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. There he gives that instruction to Titus, just as he gave it to Timothy. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.
And here, Paul isn't even just talking about elders. He's talking about the influence that the older men of the church have over everyone else in the church. Now, he did give instructions about elders in chapter 1.
So now we get to chapter 2, Titus 2. And once we get through 1st and 2nd Timothy, then we're going to go to Titus next. But in Titus 2, this is how all of the body of the church should be. So not just instructions related to elders and teachers, but also the older men.
That they are to be sober-minded. They're to be self-controlled, just as we've had the instruction to be self-controlled in 1st Timothy chapter 2. They are to be dignified and sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.
Verse 3, older women, likewise, are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
And so here, the women are even given an instruction to teach. But who are they to teach? They're supposed to teach other women. See, there are things that a man really should not be teaching another woman.
That would be considered inappropriate for a man to say to another woman or teach another woman. And I think I can give an example here and keep it tasteful. My wife is a mother of four kids, and we have a church that is very military-oriented.
I've explained this before. About 60 of our congregation is military, either active duty or retired, because we're right next door to Fort Riley. So we will get a lot of young families in our church.
They were just married, in fact. We've even had couples come in that were just married a couple of weeks ago, and they were just moved to Fort Riley, and this is the first church that they have ever chosen together, and they end up at our church.
And then sometimes these young families will decide to have children. And so a young woman will get pregnant for the first time, and she is experiencing those changes in her body that she has never experienced before.
And so my wife has helped to instruct young women pregnant for the first time on what to expect. And then even when they have the baby, some of the things about newborns that they're inexperienced with, things that have happened to their body even after they've just had a baby, these are things I couldn't even begin to instruct a woman on.
I don't know anything about that stuff, and it would even be inappropriate for me to give instructions to women about stuff like that. And so my wife, I've observed her giving instructions to young women about the kinds of things I just know nothing about.
So this is a primary example. It's not the only example, but it's a really good example of how older women in the church are to teach younger women and to even teach them things that men cannot. My wife has led women's Bible studies before and also teaches these women about Christ.
Now, I think it's important that the whole church, whether you're talking about men or women, should be submissive to that role of elder or pastor or overseer. A woman needs instruction from men, too.
Men Bible teachers. The whole church is supposed to be listening to the teacher who teaches the Word of God from the pulpit. But there are ways that my wife has a one-on-one ability with somebody to communicate Christ in a way that she just has that touch that I don't have.
Sometimes I can be a little academic. I can tend to talk up here, and maybe I don't even get that a person is not understanding what I'm saying to them. And my wife just has that way of recognizing that and maybe simplifying things a little bit, too.
So there are ways that older women teach the younger women in the church, and this is the structure of mentoring that even the Apostle Paul has said a church should be organized in this way. They're to teach what is good and train the young women to love their husbands.
There's a way that a woman can tell another woman to love their husband that is going to mean something to them, maybe a little bit more so than if a man were to tell a woman, you know, you should be submitting to your husband because that's what the Bible says.
And maybe certain immature women would be a little bit standoffish with that kind of instruction coming from a man. And coming from an older woman would be received a little bit more tenderly. So we have the instruction of older women training the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
You think of the women's lib culture that we live in today, and it's in that mentality that they'll say something to the effect of women submitting to their husbands is oppressive. That's oppression. And Jesus came to free us from that oppression.
I snicker at that because I just saw that comment made yesterday by a woman who claims that she's going to become a pastor. She actually said Jesus came to free us from that oppression. That's not oppressive at all.
A wife is to be a picture of the way that the whole church submits to Christ. A woman, a wife specifically, submitting to her husband is just the way that the whole church is supposed to submit to Christ.
That's a blessing that she gets to be a picture of that. It's not oppression at all. And so if you've got a wife who is rebelling against that picture, which is biblical, which is what Christ has intended for the marriage home as much as he has intended it for his church to submit to him.
If a woman has a behavior or an attitude that she should not have to submit to her husband, the word of God is being reviled. Now, what does that mean to revile? Well, it means to criticize in an angry or an insulting manner.
So you're talking about when a woman says that she should not have to submit to her husband or says that no woman, no wife should ever have to submit to her husband. She is criticizing God's word. She's reviling it in an insulting manner.
She's insulting the very word of God. Now, how arrogant is that to say that, no, I should not have to submit to my husband, even though this is the way that God has designed the marriage to be between a husband and a wife.
And the wife is supposed to submit to her husband as a picture of the way that the whole church submits to Christ. And what does that mean to submit? It does not mean that the husband lords himself over his wife or that his wife is somehow subservient to him.
It does not mean that the husband is to treat the wife like he would treat his own children. It's certainly not the the children to parent kind of relationship. That's that's not the kind of submission that we're talking about.
So children are to submit to their parents. They're to obey their parents in the Lord for this is right. But the submission that a wife gives to her husband is not the same way that children are to submit to the authority of their parents.
It's a different kind of submission. Rather, the submission that a wife is to give to her husband is deferring to him as the ultimate leader and decision maker and provider for the home, particularly as it pertains to spiritual leadership.
She should let her husband lead in the home, reading the Bible, helping his wife and his kids understand the scriptures and what God's word says, what God has done for his people over the generations, teaching his kids how to pray his wife and his children, leading them in prayer, leading them to church, teaching them godly disciplines, growing in godliness, living in a godly way.
The husband is described as the head of the household. What does the head provide for the body? Everything. Right. The head's kind of the control center. So the head nourishes the entire body, just as the husband, as the head of his wife and the head of his household, is supposed to provide the spiritual nourishment for his family.
And the wife needs to submit to the husband's role in doing that, in being the provider for his family. He has that primary role in his home. And just as God has created the family structure to work that way, he's created the church to work that way as well.
Those leadership roles in the church, pastor, elder, overseer, which is the same role. I'm just using different words to kind of describe that role so that we're fully understanding. We're talking about that role that's primarily called pastor, right?
Bishop. You know, there's there's other kinds of names that go with that. But anyway, so that position of a pastor, that's a man that's supposed to be filling that role because the way that God has structured the family is the way that he has designed the church to function as well.
That's that primary provider of godly teaching in the church. As a pastor, that role is supposed to be filled by a man. And just as that role should be filled by a man, so the most influential person in the church is going to be the older men.
When you're talking about the structure of mentorship, older men are going to set examples for everyone else in the church, which is why when you get to these instructions of mentorship in Titus chapter two, Paul mentions the older men first and then the older women instructing the younger women.
And then you get to verse six where it says, likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled, show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works. And so you have the older men mentoring the younger men, the older women mentoring the younger women, and all of this in submission to what God has designed for the church, how he has designated that these roles are supposed to be filled.
The pastor is supposed to be a man. And when somebody goes against that concept, whether you're talking about a man or a woman opposes that structure that God has established for his church, they revile the word of God.
They insult God's word. They're angry about it. They're bitter over it. No, I think my way is better than God's way. That's essentially what the rebel is saying about these instructions pertaining to the church.
My idea of church is better than God's idea of the church. And so we get into this culture war that we're in right now, where you have the women's lib movement trying to rebel against what God has established for the home, for the church, and even for a culture and a society.
As I pointed out to somebody earlier this week, as God says in Isaiah chapter three, one of the signs that God's judgment is coming upon a people or a nation is that their leaders are women instead of men.
Even in the government structure, God has designated for the highest offices to be filled by men and experienced men on top of that. So when you have women filling those roles or young, inexperienced men filling those roles or children, as the way that it's put in Isaiah chapter three, then you have God's judgment upon a nation because they have not been faithful to the instruction of the Lord.
And so we see now, even in churches across America, they are dismissing the way that God has structured for the church to work. And so we have women stepping into pastor's roles because it's God's judgment.
And so we must submit to the way that God has designed for his church to operate, to function. Men filling the role as teacher is the way that they are supposed to do, and women being submissive to what God has designated for his church, wives submitting to their husbands as is fitting to the Lord, husbands laying their lives down for their wives, just as Christ did for the church.
Our great God, we thank you for the grace and love that you show us on a daily basis and in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which has saved us from death and transferred us into your heavenly kingdom.
Help us to live as kingdom people even now, obeying the command of our King, because we love you and we desire to live lives of godliness. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.
Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text. Pastor Gabe is the author of several short books on the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. Topics include the deity of Christ, original sin, resurrection, Christ's incarnation, and many more.
Find these books in our bookstore when you visit www .utt .com. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in God's word when we understand the text.