House Rule #7 God Created the Roles for Service in His Church | Adult Sunday School

Good morning everyone, good to see you all, I invite you to open your Bibles once again to 1 Timothy, we're going to finish off chapter 2 this morning, verses 11 through 15 in our study, it's part 2, house rule number 6, honor God's created order.

There are some notes from last week, because we're going to use the same notes again, if you don't have your set from last time, I think they're back here on the countertop back here, so both sets of notes, so let's begin our time in the Lord's Word by committing our time to Him and ask His blessing on our time.

Our Father, we do know that it is by Your grace that we are able to gather together here in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to worship You, to fellowship with one another, to hear Your Word preached and taught, and so we thank You for that opportunity, and we pray that You would be our teacher this morning, that You would guide us through Your Word, that You would show us what You would have us learn and also help us to apply it to our lives and do it for Your glory, in Jesus' name, amen.

The Church as a Mystery Revealed in the New Testament

Well just a brief review of last time, last time we looked a little bit at the nature of the church from this, just a two-page study, and we saw that the church is a mystery, and Paul calls it a mystery, and it was a mystery not revealed in the Old Testament, but revealed in the New Testament, and so we just saw that since Paul is concerned with the church in this letter to Timothy, we ought to build a little foundation for it.

The mystery was not known in the Old, but revealed in the New to Paul, and we looked at the features of the church, and very importantly that Jews and Gentiles in the church are united in one body through spirit baptism, and that every believer is indwelt by Messiah, what we call spirit indwelling, and then we saw that the church has a clear beginning point in time.

First mention of the church in Matthew chapter 16, the church was still future, but then there were three prerequisites for the church to be born, and those prerequisites were the death of Messiah, the resurrection of Messiah, and the ascension of Messiah to be with His Father, and of course what followed after that was the day of Pentecost and the work of the Holy Spirit.

After class last time, Brother Dave over here reminded me of a verse very pertinent to this, and you should jot down John 7, 39, it very clearly speaks of the prerequisite of the ascension of Christ. This verse says, now this He said, this is Jesus, about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

So there once again, very clearly, prerequisite for the Spirit's work on the day of Pentecost in forming the church, starting the church, was the glorification of Christ. And by the way, that whole chapter is very interesting because it really does parallel what we saw taking place in the book of Acts in the experience of Paul.

Because in that same passage it talks about the Jews wanting to kill Jesus, and you remember what happened with the Apostle Paul, the Jews tried to kill him. When he talked about going to the Gentiles and ministering to the Gentiles, which is what Christ wanted him to do, they attempted to kill Paul.

Well, the same thing was happening to Jesus in His ministry, and in that very same passage He tells the Jews who were trying to kill Him, where I am going, you cannot go, speaking of heaven. And they mocked Him.

They said, where's this guy going to go? Is he going to go to the Greeks? You know? Ha, ha, ha. Well, the Greeks are Gentiles. And so, in this very passage then, before He talks about the Spirit coming, He says, if anyone thirsts, is that anyone without exception or anyone without distinction?

Well, in the context, it has to be without distinction. You bet he's going to the Gentiles. If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

He's clearly talking about his ministry to the Gentiles. So this permeates the New Testament, the idea of the Gospel going from Jew to Gentile. And so we saw that. And then we saw the church is the body of Christ.

The church is the body of Christ, and the body, the church, is entered by Spirit baptism. And as of Acts 1 -5, Spirit baptism was still future, so the church does not exist yet. But then, in the book of Acts, chapter 2 and following, the baptism of the Spirit is not mentioned, but His filling is.

And then we saw, this is number 5 on page 2, that Peter recounts the Gentiles hearing the Gospel and the Spirit falling on them when he preached the Gospel to Cornelius and his family. He personally sees the presence of the Spirit in those Gentiles.

And how did he know that? Well, because they spoke in languages they hadn't learned, just like they did at Pentecost. And because they did that, Peter understood the Spirit of God is in the Gentiles. How could that be if Gentiles were considered to be filthy vessels and defiled vessels?

Well, there's only one way. The Spirit cleansed them with salvation. And so that gave evidence of Gentile salvation. And he talks about that in Acts 11. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning.

And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And there he makes the connection between the Gentiles being filled with the Spirit, baptized in the Spirit, and what happened on the day of Pentecost.

So on the day of Pentecost, the church began with the baptism of believers into the body of Christ. So that's just foundational for, really, not just the rest of the Bible, but also for our study in 1 Timothy.

So were there any questions that you might have on that? Yeah. They would be believers. And like in, we also spent some time in Luke. And when you look through Luke's first couple chapters, he lines out several Old Testament saints that are saved the same way we are, by God's grace through faith.

And of course, Abraham becomes the prototypical believer, according to Paul in Galatians and also Romans 4. And his justification, and this is Paul's whole argument, is by faith alone. So everyone who's ever saved is saved by faith alone.

I'm sorry, what? So are Old Testament saints part of the New Testament church? I would say no. The church is a new entity, born on the day of Pentecost, that did not exist. That was what we saw Paul teaching.

But they're still saved. In other words, their salvation is certainly as valid as any New Testament saint. They're just a different entity. They're not part of the church. Not part of the church. Right.

They're believers. They're a separate entity. Okay. Anything else? Well, then we looked also at the idea of, and this is why I've just titled this whole thing Honor God's Created Order, because he starts in verse 8 to talk about men and women, and we saw that last time.

And how God created men and women in the church to be holy. And we worked our way through those passages. First he looks at men, then he talks about women, and the idea that the holiness is the prime purpose for that whole passage.

He's not so much concerned about externals, about posture, he's more concerned about internal spiritual reality. So was there any questions about what we saw last time in that whole passage? Well, this morning we arrive at verse 11, and I wanted to make a break there as far as last week and this week, because there is actually a natural transition there.

There's a transition because of a change of topic, probably the big transition, but if you notice there's also a transition in the number. In verses 9 and then 10, he's speaking to women, it's plural, women should adorn, women who profess, but then in verse 11, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.

When he does that, he's transitioning into a different topic, and he's also generalizing the teaching. He's creating a principle here. This is one of the interpretive issues that is applied to this passage.

This passage is quite amazing. For one thing, it's very short and concise, but there's also a tremendous amount of literature out there and articles and writings about it, as you probably well know, but it really is quite clear as far as I'm concerned.

But what we're going to see here this morning is that in honoring God's created order, Paul is still concerned with God's created order right through the end of this chapter. In Ephesians chapter 2, verses 14 through 22, we looked at that passage and we saw that the church, by definition, again, is one new man.

And what does Paul say? He says it's created, okay? So creation, as we're going to see, is the foundational doctrine in the Bible. Of course, the Bible starts with creation, but every single true biblical doctrine is built on creation.

You can see this all the way through Scripture. And once you have it fixed in your thinking that the importance of every doctrine is that it is built on and from God's created order, they'll sort of pop off the page at you when you see them.

If any man is in Christ Jesus, he's a new what? Creature, or creation. There it is right there. Our salvation has its origins in God's created order. Every single doctrine, every one you can think of, has to do with creation because creation is foundational to what God is doing through the rest of the Bible.

And it even goes back, of course, to the creation of man and woman. And actually, technically, it says male and female. Creation is the foundational doctrine for every other doctrine and practice in the rest of the Bible.

Genesis 127, God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. That's the account in Genesis chapter 1. It is quoted by Jesus, Mark 10, 6. He said, from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.

Now that's a good translation of the word there. We saw in the first part of chapter 2 the word men, women, but this word, male and female, is critical to understanding creation and how it's used in the rest of the Bible.

You really could almost translate that, he made them a male and a female. He's specifying the difference between male and female. He uses the word that is male, or the male sex, and also the female sex.

This is also used by Paul in Romans chapter 1. A familiar passage, but in many of the translations, well, in few of the translations, the English translations, does it actually use that translation of that Greek word.

It says, let me just read down through it, and I'm going to translate the word like Jesus translated it, okay? Romans 1, verse 18 and following, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

Now that's anthropos, mankind, okay? General application. That would be men and women. Who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, for what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world. Creation of the world creates accountability on the part of all humanity.

That's what he's saying there. In the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. No one will ever be able to stand before God and say, hey, you can't cast me into the lake of fire. I never had the gospel preached to me.

No missionary ever came to me. The fact is, though, that person was part of creation. Creation reveals the glory of God, and that creates accountability. And so yes, God can legitimately cast them into the lake of fire, because they're guilty of their sin, which causes them to suppress the revelation of God in nature.

And then verse 21, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, and birds, and animals, and creeping things.

Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator.

You see the upside-down nature of what they have done. Who is blessed forever, amen. Now here it is. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their females exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

And the males, likewise, gave up natural relations with females, and were consumed with passion for one another. Males committing shameless acts with males and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

That's very clearly the word that is used there. Now, it essentially can mean the same thing, men with men, but you hear the focus on the sexual distinction and difference between males and females when you actually use the very word that's there.

It's males and females. And so you also see the fact that this descending cycle that they're in, where God gives them up, gives them up, gives them up, certainly you can identify this in our own life and generation.

So I want to just start with there this morning. Creation is the foundational doctrine for every other doctrine and practice in the rest of the Bible. And it's male and female. Well, this morning we're coming to Roman Numerals 4 on your outline from last week, and we're going to see this morning that God created the roles for service in His church, verses 11 through 15.

This is a very interesting passage for a variety of reasons. One is it's so controversial, and you probably can tell that this is a passage that really butts heads with the worldview that we find in ourselves, and it's very, very interesting to see the history of this.

One scholar, a New Testament professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Ted's in Chicago, he did a survey of scholarly articles, and these would be produced by theologians and published in journals and things like that.

And so using some of the really cool computer tools that we have nowadays, he was able to survey these. And he found out that it was only in 1969 that the egalitarian or the progressive view that women should be in positions of pastors and pastor-teachers and elders in the church really became prominent.

In 1 ,900 plus years of church history, this was not a controversial issue. It wasn't even an issue, per se. It all began around 1969. Well, studies have shown, then, that this really just followed after the social movement out there in the world of the feminist movement.

And so the church just sort of chased after the feminist movement, and these articles began to be published and just really flourished. This scholar concluded that the rise in the progressive interpretation's promotion following the women's movement of the 1960s, he says, is indebted significantly, and at times probably culpably, to the prevailing social climate rather than the biblical text.

The church chases after the world, and that's what happens. Another scholar said, when opinions and convictions suddenly undergo dramatic alterations, although nothing new has been discovered, in other words, nothing new scripturally has been discovered, and the only thing that has dramatically changed is the spirit of the age, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the spirit has had an important role to play in the shift.

And of course, that's what's gone on. The church has chased after, when I say church, you understand, air quotes, my arms get tired, I need somebody to hold my arms up, if I keep saying the church, the church.

Portions of the broader evangelical church, as you well know, follow after the world. Wherever the world goes, the church wants to follow after it in some cases. And this is what's kind of dramatic about this, this explosion of articles and explosions of promoting the egalitarian view, it's at least within my lifetime, in 1900 years of church history, it's relatively new.

So we need to see that at the very beginning. But this passage is very clear, one of the things about it is Paul is very plain, he's very clear about what he says. I'm just gonna read through verses 11 through 15.

He says, 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.

In verse 11 he says, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. That's from the ESV, the ESV here is a reworking of the King James, you know, and it follows after that, kind of that same English strand.

You don't really get a sense of the imperative there, that's a command force verb. New American Standard is better actually, it says, a woman must quietly receive instruction. So you can hear the command force of that verb.

When they translate commands as let, I never did understand that, that's strange, let? No that's a command, let a woman must quietly receive instruction. So what happens in so much of this literature, and we can't possibly review it all because there's just so much of it out there, they begin to say, well what it really means is she needs to learn, and it says quietly, and so that question then comes up, what does it mean by quiet?

But he actually says that with all submissiveness. That phrase with all submissiveness defines what he means by quietly. It does not mean silent, he uses the word again in verse 12, she is to remain quiet.

Now some people try to link this back to 1 Corinthians 14 verses 34 and 35 where Paul actually does use a stronger word, and it's silent. But you go back and you look at that passage, and if you carefully walk your way through there, that is a different group of people in a different location, but it's also a whole different topic.

It has not to do with her learning quietly, but with her actually participating in some things that were going on in the Corinthian assembly. But even in that book in 1 Corinthians, in 11 .5 it says women are to pray and prophesy, and even though in that particular passage it says she is to remain silent, so it has to be understood by how it's used in its context.

Here, and he uses it three times in this passage, verse 11, quietly, verse 12, quiet. It does not mean silent, okay? Some people have said it means silent, but if it does, the first time he uses it up in verse 2.

Four kings, who are we going to pray for? Kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life. Now certainly Paul doesn't want to say we want to live a peaceful and silent life.

The very last thing Paul wanted to do was to be silent. So in the context, it is simply meaning quiet in the sense of willing to listen, willing to hear with all submissiveness. He even defines it up in verse 2, godly and dignified in every way.

But this might have been something a little unusual for these people to hear because the Jewish rabbis historically really wrote a lot about women and they were, because it was known that Eve was the one who first was deceived in the garden, Paul's going to talk about that.

So the Jewish rabbis, and without really any warrant from scripture, created a whole social construct where women were really placed at a very low level in their culture. And they blamed the fall in the garden for it.

But Paul kind of just does away with that. That very first thing he says in this passage, let a woman learn in quietly with all submissiveness. So she is supposed to be part of the teaching ministry of the church and she is supposed to learn.

Women are to be learners along with men, but with all submissiveness. This word submissiveness really fits in well with what we've seen about how she is to behave as far as her dress and her good works and that kind of thing.

And then he says in verse 12, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, rather she is to remain quiet. And here again, a lot of people would take that and actually a good first word in that would be but.

The word sometimes doesn't show up in the English translations, but Paul is really, he is creating a pretty strong contrast there, even an adversity structure there, but I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority.

There are those that say, well, what he's really doing there, he doesn't want a woman to teach heresy. That's all he's saying there. She can teach, she can teach men, but she just can't teach heresy. Paul has dealt with heresy back up in chapter one and he uses a different word actually.

When he says that he charges Timothy and tells him that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine. It takes two English words to describe that word apparently because that's just one big Greek word.

Different doctrine. So he doesn't use that word here. He doesn't say that she's not to teach different doctrine. It says I do not permit a woman to teach. The second thing he doesn't want her to do is to exercise authority over a man.

And there again, there are those who say, well, she can teach men, she just can't teach them in a domineering way. What they have to do is they have to take either or these two commands and turn them into negatives.

And yet when we get to chapter three and we look at the requirements for elders, both of those are positive requirements for elders. They are to teach and they are to exercise authority. That's part of their job as elders, pastor, teachers of the church.

So there's other, many, many other attempts from the grammar and so on to try to change this around and change what Paul says. But he is very clearly saying I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.

Rather, she is to remain quiet. This word permit even tells you that Paul is not addressing a particular event or even a local issue in Ephesus. There again, this is one of the arguments against this.

Well, he's just dealing with a specific event, specific group of people. It's confined to a geographic area and also a period of time. If they can prove that from the text of scripture, then they can say, well, of course it doesn't apply to us here now.

That's one of the exegetical interpretive expedients that is used quite a bit. The problem is when he shifts to the singular, a woman, okay, he is generalizing this. And we just simply also have to bring it back under the original purpose of him writing this letter as we have seen, that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God.

You have to bring that back under that context. He is talking about the church and he's talking about the church wherever it meets and down through history, however it meets and wherever it meets. This is not for a particular period of time.

These are not confined to the first century. These are general principles for the church to practice. His language also, the grammar of that word, I do not permit, his language, it communicates the habitual and continual prohibition of women usurping the God-ordained role of men to lead the church in the local assembly, okay?

This word also implies, this word permit, that there has been permission requested. And it's generally thought that this word is back behind the scenes. People are wanting to teach, women are wanting to teach in the church when he says, but I do not permit.

Tells you that this is a word that's applied to a request that has been made. Women are not to teach men in the church. And Paul is prohibiting two basic things, to teach men, to exercise authority over men.

Grammatically, again, the object of this in both these words is men. Doesn't mean she can't teach domineering. Doesn't mean she can't teach false doctrine. That's not the issue. It's the issue of her teaching men in the church.

And by the way, women can teach one another. They can be teachers. They should be teachers. Titus 2, verses 3 and 4, older women are to teach the younger women. And also women are to teach children. In 2 Timothy 1, 5, we know that Timothy's grandmother, Lois, and his mother, Eunice, taught him, trained him.

His father was a Gentile and believer, but he was trained by them. And even in chapter 3, verse 15, Paul says, you know from childhood how you had these sacred writings able to make you wise unto salvation.

So women were teaching Timothy. Both these sentences, on either end of them, the word quietness or quietly brackets these. So what Paul is really stressing here is attitude and not so much the issue of the what is the there, but also the attitude.

She's to learn quietly, and as far as exercising authority over men or teaching men, she is to remain quiet about that issue. And he gives the reason in verse 13. Now in your notes, I say two reasons, and some take it that way, but just in thinking through this again, I think there's really only one reason.

He gives one reason in verse 13, and verse 14 is the illustration of that reason. He says, for Adam was formed first, then Eve. What does Paul do with this? He goes directly back to creation. He just plants the foundation of this right in the created order.

The reason women in the church, the household of God, are not to serve as elders or pastor-teachers is because it violates God's created order. He doesn't say a whole lot, right? For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

That is God's created order. It's kind of fascinating. Once Paul anchors this in creation, there's not a whole lot left to say apparently, right? And the Apostle Paul, he's very capable of making long, extended arguments on theological issues as we well know, right?

Romans, Colossians, Galatians. So he could do this under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but he just basically has one very short, terse sentencer. First word is for. That's a little preposition. Paul really likes that.

It basically says, because, the reason is, Adam was formed first, then Eve. Adam is the head of the race, and as the one who brought sin and death to all humanity, Romans 5 .14, he is accountable for what happened in the garden.

Well, what happened in the garden? It says, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. She became a transgressor. The illustration or example is from the fall. That's why I think it's basically legitimate to say, he gives one reason.

God made it that way. And here's what it looked like when that was violated. Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Paul is emphatic that Adam was not deceived. It was Eve who was deceived.

But what happened with Adam was, he violated God's created order in allowing that to happen. In Genesis 3 .6, it says, Adam was with Eve when she was deceived. God had created the relationship of Adam as head of the woman.

He violated his God-ordained created role to exercise the leadership necessary to correct the deception and deal with the serpent. He knowingly violated God's command. God holds him accountable for that in Genesis 3 .17, you have listened to the voice of your wife.

It doesn't mean listen to her advice about different things. In that instance, the fall occurred because he listened to the voice of his wife. He violated the created order as well. He's held accountable as the head of the race for the sin of the whole race down through history.

Paul holds him accountable for that in Romans chapter 5. And, remember, his wife was also under his headship. So he is actually accountable for her sin. But the women cannot teach or exercise authority over men because it violates God's created order.

Eve was deceived concerning the nature of God. But Adam violated the God-ordained created order that God had set for him. He anchors this. This is so critical, right back in creation, in the same created order in which God created all people, male and female, in his image he created them.

So from there on, that sets the value of all people, does it not? And that also sets the value of both male and female. Women are not a lesser person in creation, and she's not a lesser person in the church.

There is just simply a different order of service based on God's created order. And we need to connect the dots here a little bit. If God created them, male and female, and after that he created marriage, and then he also, remember, created the God-ordained roles.

So when Paul goes right straight back and anchors this truth in creation, you need to connect the dots, okay? When you see a woman preaching in a church, in a gathered assembly of both men and women, when you see that, I get it, I understand.

The focus is on her, right? We want to talk about her and all of that. But listen, you need to ask another question, very important question. Where are the men? Where are the men? Where are the godly men in that woman's life and in that church?

That's the big question, because she is usurping God's role in the church. She's just the symptom. The men are the disease. They have abandoned their role, just like Adam did, okay? So we need to ask that question.

Where are the men? Yeah. It goes back to creation. Where was Adam? He was there, right there. He saw the serpent deceive his wife. He usurped his role, and that's what's going on now. Where are the men?

I get it. The woman, you know, she's kind of the focal point. But for every woman that's in the pulpit, and you see that, and you see the congregation out there, all those men sitting there, they are submitting to something that is not biblical.

But behind the scenes, in her personal life, and in the life of that congregation or that church, whatever you want to call it, where are the men? Where are the godly men who say, that's not biblical?

They reject the word of God, just like Romans 1. Even though they knew God. That's where apostasy starts. It starts with some knowledge of God. And then they reject God. They suppress the truth in their unrighteousness.

And then it's just a downward spiral. God gave them up, God gave them over, God gave them up. And, you know, I'm sure there's a variety of reasons, but the bottom line is, they have to just disregard the clear teaching of Scripture.

And that probably has happened way back in the past. Usually these things aren't some immediate cataclysmic event. There's a history of rejection. You remember in 2 Timothy 4, 2, Paul says to Timothy, preach the word, be ready in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wishing to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate to themselves teachers after their own lusts.

The issue is not with Joel Osteen, well, how in the world can 30 ,000 people come and listen to this guy? Well, who attracted who? According to Paul, they're not attracted to him, you know, he didn't attract them, they attracted him, they accumulated him.

Now, certainly there's a symbiotic relationship there, but this is apostasy. This is, that wasn't a church, by definition. Why didn't he train men, like Paul told Timothy? Things you've, well, I know not after that, but in other words, there has to be a history there.

Those things just don't happen with an immediate time. You could track back a history of not obeying the Word of God, of disregarding the clear teachings of Scripture, as in every other area. So that's probably my best answer, Nathel, I can't without knowing more about that particular situation.

But the bottom line has to be, if they have a Bible in front of them, it's a rejection of the Word of God and the clear teaching of Scripture. I think you're right. Yeah, according to Paul, you're right, yeah.

If a woman is a pastor of a church, that church doesn't have a pastor. It's not a church, by biblical definition. Okay, any other questions? Oh, Jim, yep, I agree, okay. And now verse 15, maybe one of the most difficult verses in the entire New Testament.

So I'll tell you what, we're out of time, let's just, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just teasing here. We're not scared of tough verses. It really is kind of an enigmatic verse. And like the rest of this, I think if you just practice regular, normal, biblical principles, first and foremost, bringing it under the purpose of Paul's writing, this is Paul's purpose for the church, so you will know how to behave in the household of God.

So it has to be brought under that. And what Paul says here is, even though the woman was deceived and became a transgressor or a sinner, yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness and self-control.

Now some of the issues here are even, you can see and hear from the grammar of this, is she, the woman, the referent is the woman, will be saved through childbearing, and then there's a shift to the plural, if they.

So there's just quite a bit to sort through here. She will be saved, and now the word saved has a semantic range like these words do, and for the most part, it's going to mean salvation from her sins, okay?

It can also be used in a sense of being delivered from something, okay? But here, consistently, this word is used by Paul and others in Scripture to speak about salvation from sins, and I think this is how it's being used here.

She will be saved, future tense, she's going to be saved. Now here's one of the more difficult ones, through childbearing. Now I'm not going to rehearse all the varied meanings and interpretations of this, but really it is, I think the best one is to think that what Paul's doing here, he's capturing what it means to be a woman in submission to the will of God by basically one concept, childbearing or motherhood.

Even if you go back and track through the Old Testament, this was very common in Hebrew thought that a woman's, the description of a woman is best pictured by seeing her as a mother or in motherhood. And so I think what he's doing here, he's wrapping up all that it means to be a godly woman in submission to Christ within the church by this single concept.