Why She Can't Preach

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:06
Please open your Bibles with me and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 14.
00:22
Last week we ended in the middle of verse 33 because the middle of verse 33 begins a new thought.
00:30
Thought.
00:32
So this morning we're going to pick up at the second half of verse 33 and read down to verse 35.
00:43
It says, As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the law also says.
01:03
If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
01:17
Father in heaven, such is a difficult thing.
01:24
In our modern day, to preach.
01:29
For there will be those, Father, I imagine who will hear this and the very sensitivity of their soul will begin to become enraged.
01:49
And Lord I pray that we would hear these words with the confidence that they came from the pen of the apostle Paul, but from the heart of the Holy Spirit.
01:59
And that these words are not intended as words to hurt, but as words for instruction and words for order in the church.
02:12
And Lord that we might be more concerned with what you think than what the world thinks.
02:21
That we might be more concerned with what the word says than what the national opinion may be.
02:30
I pray Lord that you would keep me from error, as I always do.
02:35
Fill me now with your spirit, that your spirit may speak through me, that I might decrease and Christ might increase.
02:44
And that I might preach as a dying man to dying people with the urgency for the hour.
02:50
I pray it in Christ's name, Amen.
03:04
There are few subjects which cause more debate and more division in the world than that of the differences between men and women.
03:17
It would be fine if those arguments were just out in the world, but they are not.
03:27
Unfortunately the debate and division in the world has made its way into the church.
03:35
And I can honestly say, without fear of contradiction, that some of the hardest battles I have faced as a pastor have been about today's subject.
03:50
Certainly there have been other battles, doctrinal battles, practical ministry battles, but none have been so hateful, none have been so personal, none have been so diabolical as this one.
04:04
I have been called sexist, misogynistic, and even an agent of the devil himself.
04:18
One of the very few pieces of handwritten hate mail I've ever received was about this subject.
04:27
Therefore when I say that the subject is not one that I preach on lightly, I hope you realize that's not an exaggeration.
04:36
This is a serious business that we're going to deal with today.
04:40
And there's a very good chance that you may not agree with everything I'm going to say, but I am going to do my best to make my case from the Scripture, to point you to the Word of God, and I will say this, were I to deny what the Scripture says, I would be denying what God says.
04:59
For the Scripture is the Word of God.
05:01
It is the only thing in the whole world which is called theanoustos, God breathed.
05:08
And therefore, we have a choice.
05:12
Will we listen to God or not? I want to remind you of the context of this passage because context is always key in interpretation.
05:23
Paul is giving instructions about the corporate assembly of the church that began back in chapter 11, when he began to talk about whether or not men or women should dress differently in the church, and his conclusion was that they should.
05:36
Women should look like women and men should look like men.
05:39
He went on to talk about the Lord's table and how the Lord's table should be a place where people come together and are sharing with one another, not keeping things back from one another.
05:50
In chapter 12, he explained the difference of the gifts within the body and how every person in the body has a purpose in the body and every gift has its place.
05:59
And in chapter 13, he showed that no gift has value unless it is motivated by love.
06:08
This all brings us to chapter 14, wherein Paul argues that the gifts that have been given to the body are given for the purpose of building up the body.
06:22
Which leads us to our passage for today, because in chapter 15, which we began last week, 15 to 33, rather, excuse me, verse 26 to chapter 33, Paul began to talk about the corporate assembly and he began to talk about the fact that there should be order and not chaos in the assembly.
06:43
Do you remember that? We talked about that last week.
06:45
Paul said there should be order in the church, not chaos in the church.
06:55
And what I said is really verses 25 to 40 is all about order.
06:59
Verses 26 to 33 is order in worship, 33 to 35 is order in gender, and 36 to 40 is order regarding authority.
07:10
And that's what we're going to look at next week.
07:14
So today we're going to look at the subject of gender.
07:17
And boy, isn't that a hot button topic.
07:20
I mean, honestly, I could say I was doing a sermon on gender and never even talk about it in the church.
07:24
We can just talk about the craziness in the world.
07:28
But that's not the subject today, because if you look at the passage, verse 33, beginning in the middle, as in all the churches of the saints, that's the focus.
07:41
In all the churches.
07:47
You need to understand the reason why the ESV separates that from the first part of verse 33.
07:54
Remember, the verse numbers were not included in the original.
07:58
In fact, the chapter numbers came a few centuries before the verse numbers did.
08:02
And so the verse numbers sometimes create artificial breaks.
08:07
The verse number at 33 should end the word peace in the ESV.
08:12
For God is not a God of confusion, but a God of peace.
08:16
And then verse 34 should begin, as in all the churches of the saints, because that's the focus.
08:23
And what it's giving us, it's giving us a universal imperative.
08:29
You've heard me use the phrase universal negative.
08:31
You've heard me talk about what a universal negative is.
08:34
No one can.
08:35
No one should.
08:36
Those are universal negatives.
08:36
Well, this is a universal imperative, as in all the churches of the saints.
08:44
This is not, and the reason I say this is not a Corinthian issue.
08:48
This is not a Greco-Roman social policy.
08:53
You understand? By the way, I'm already arguing against some of what people use to say this isn't for the churches of today.
09:02
The passage is so emphatic, as in all the churches, and he goes on to say, as in all the churches of the saints.
09:10
And by the way, what I'm going to do, here's how I'm going to break down the sermon today so you can follow along.
09:14
I'm going to give you a running commentary of these passages, and then I'm going to give you four observations.
09:19
So we're going to do a running commentary, and then I'm going to give you four observations, which I hopefully will help you understand them better, but I want to give you the commentary first before we do that.
09:28
As in all the churches of the saints, that means it's a universal imperative, as in all the churches of the saints.
09:30
Universal imperative.
09:31
The women.
09:32
Who are the women? Agunakes.
09:35
Comes from the root word gune, which is the Greek word for woman.
09:39
This word is also sometimes translated as wife.
09:42
There is no Greek word for wife.
09:45
It's just woman, and a wife is his woman.
09:48
That's sort of how the Greek does it.
09:50
It doesn't have a separate word for wife.
09:54
It's simply the women or the woman of the man.
09:56
And the word is translated wife in some texts.
10:00
I don't think it should be translated wife here.
10:03
However, if we look down a little further at verse 35, he does mention husbands, telling your husbands.
10:09
So in that sense, it could refer to wives, but I don't think it's limited to wives.
10:17
I just don't think the context bears out that it's limited to wives.
10:21
As in all the churches of the saints, the wives should remain quiet, would indicate then that the ones who are not wives wouldn't have that command, and I don't think that that is being bore out by the context here.
10:34
Again, context helps us determine how we use words, and the word here certainly would apply to wives, but not would apply to wives only.
10:41
So if you are a wife, yes, it applies to you.
10:44
If you're not a wife, maybe you're a widow, maybe you're a young woman, maybe you're not yet married, that is still applying to you.
10:51
You're not excluded simply because you're not a wife.
10:57
And so in that sense, it could be translated as in all the churches of the saints, the women in the churches should keep silent.
11:07
This is one word in the Greek.
11:09
Should keep silent is one single word, and it is in the present active imperative.
11:18
What does that mean? Present in the sense that it means it should continue to be true.
11:24
It's present.
11:25
It's always present.
11:26
It's active in the sense that this is something that they are doing themselves.
11:32
It's active on their part.
11:34
It's not in the middle voice where somebody is doing it to them.
11:37
It's not passive where they're being quieted.
11:40
They're silencing themselves.
11:42
It's an active participation.
11:43
They should silence themselves.
11:46
That's why we see it in the active voice.
11:49
And it's in the imperative, which means it is a command.
11:55
So you've heard the police say you have the right to remain silent.
12:00
Well, you have the command to remain silent.
12:03
That's what we're seeing here.
12:05
It's a command.
12:07
And it goes on to say they are not permitted to speak.
12:12
This is essentially a reaffirmation of the previous statement.
12:15
Permitted means allowed and not permitted means it's the U in the Greek, which is the adversative.
12:22
It's the not allowed and they're not allowed to speak.
12:25
And some translations and some commentary writers say the speaking here is not speaking.
12:33
It's chattering.
12:35
You know what chatter is? Chatter means to speak idly or meaninglessly.
12:43
Some people say, well, this is this is this is forbidding chitchat or it's forbidding gossip.
12:50
Well, I will say I agree it's forbidding gossip in the sense that gossip is always forbidden.
12:54
We wouldn't need this verse to forbid gossip.
12:56
Gossip is a sin.
12:59
And I don't think it has a reference to idle chitchat either, because the word speak again, we get our understanding from the text.
13:11
The word speak in this verse is the same root word for speak earlier when it talks about speaking in tongues.
13:20
Same word speak.
13:21
And when it talks about speaking words of prophecy, same word speak.
13:26
So when we see the word speak here, it's not just chitchat and it's certainly not gossip.
13:33
It's referring to the speaking that's already been discussed.
13:36
Remember, this whole chapter has been about those who would speak in tongues and those who would speak prophecy, both of which are and get this because I'm going to talk about this later.
13:46
They're both public and authoritative.
13:49
Hear it again, the speaking that is being in view, the speaking that is in view is speaking that is public and authoritative.
13:59
That's key to understanding what is being said.
14:03
They are not permitted to speak.
14:05
In what way? In a way that is public and authoritative.
14:09
All right.
14:10
But he goes on, he says, they're not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the law also says.
14:22
And I must say, this is probably the part that had me scratching my head the most.
14:27
You say, why this part? Well, he says the law says this, and there's really not a place in the law of Moses where it says these words.
14:40
So we have to consider what Paul is saying when he says the law says this, and I am of the opinion, and I think that this is correct, that Paul is expanding his understanding when he says the law to include all of the books of Moses, not just the law of Moses, which would have come in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy.
15:04
I think he's referring this to the whole law.
15:06
And what is the first and simplest understanding of the relationship between men and women? It came at creation.
15:14
That man was created first, and woman was created as a helper to him, and that she would be in submission to him.
15:22
Right? That was the design of creation.
15:25
In fact, Genesis 3, 16, after the fall, God speaking to Eve about Adam, she says, he will rule over you.
15:34
So there is a foundation in the law, not in the law of Moses, per se, but in the creation order that God has established.
15:42
And it goes back to the very beginning.
15:44
And Paul in 1st Timothy 2, when he's talking about the relationship between men and women, he cites that very thing.
15:51
When he says about the difference between men and women, he said, because this is the way God created them.
15:56
He created man first, and then he created woman, and he created them in a relationship where the man would have a position of authority and the woman would have a position of submission.
16:05
Moses, certainly in the law, maintains this throughout regarding the household and regarding how the household is to operate.
16:12
This law is certainly maintained, even though it's never explicitly stated.
16:16
It's certainly implicitly within the text.
16:19
And so we see throughout the law, this is what Paul is referring to when he says, as the law also says.
16:25
And you're way ahead of me.
16:26
I don't want to put that up yet.
16:30
Even without a direct reference, even without a direct reference to something in the Old Testament, I think the references to the Genesis passage.
16:41
But even without a direct reference, we have New Testament Scripture which says these things.
16:48
Ephesians 5.22 says what? Wives, submit to your husbands, for the husband is the head of the wife.
16:57
And he himself, now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
17:05
I mean, it's so clear.
17:07
God has a specific strategic design for men and women and He has placed the husband in a position of authority and the wife in a position of submission.
17:14
This does not give the man the right to mistreat his wife.
17:19
And it does not give him the right to lord over his wife.
17:22
In fact, what we're going to see in a few minutes is this actually lays a heavy burden upon him.
17:28
The burden of leadership and the burden of leading in a loving way is placed upon him.
17:34
And he will answer to God.
17:35
Man, you will answer to God as to how you lead your wife.
17:40
So keep that in mind.
17:42
In fact, that's the next part.
17:43
He says, if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home.
17:50
This is the one where people would say, see, it's married women.
17:53
It's got to be talking to married women, because here it says if they have any questions, they ask their husbands at home.
17:58
I think there's an assumption in the text.
18:01
And let me tell you why I say that.
18:03
Because it's addressed to all the women in the church and not all the women are married.
18:08
So there would have to be an assumption within the text.
18:11
And this is the assumption.
18:13
If you are an unmarried woman, you have a father.
18:18
If you're a young woman, you may have a son.
18:20
If you're an older woman, you may have male relatives.
18:22
If you're maybe not older or younger and you have pastors, elders who are men.
18:28
And so you are not being left out here.
18:32
There is simply an assumption that you will have a man in your life that you can go to if you have a question.
18:37
But there's an additional assumption.
18:39
And this is the one I want to point to you guys.
18:42
The men should know the answers to the questions.
18:46
I say that again.
18:49
The men should know the answers if the wife has a question.
19:01
This passage increases the burden on men to know the Scriptures.
19:09
And it increases your responsibility for your wife to be able to look to you as the spiritual leader in your home.
19:20
We have reached a sad state when so many women in the church know their faith and are more committed to their faith than their husbands.
19:37
I'm going to say this.
19:38
I'm going to say it directly as I wrote it because I wrote it specifically.
19:41
Men, if you can rattle off facts about sports, if you can rattle off facts about hunting and about cars and about boats, but you cannot lead your wife in her understanding of the Word, you are failing her as a husband.
19:58
She may know more than you, but that could be a temporary condition.
20:07
That's up to you.
20:10
Men argue, well, she's smarter than me.
20:12
She probably is.
20:15
But you do not have to be the smartest to take the lead.
20:19
If that were true, I wouldn't be the pastor of this church.
20:22
I'm not the smartest person in the room, but I've been called to lead.
20:25
And so because I've been called to lead, what do I do? I study to show myself approved unto God, a workman that needs not be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.
20:34
That's my job.
20:37
So men, you have a job.
20:38
My wife's smarter than me.
20:39
That's fine.
20:40
Be her leader anyway.
20:45
Use her intelligence to your benefit.
20:54
And he goes on to end this short aside with this statement.
20:58
It is a shame for a woman to speak in church.
21:02
The word shame is shameful, is translated disgraceful back in 11.6.
21:08
And in that context, it was a woman who cut all of her hair off to show rebellion.
21:13
And that was an act of rebellion in that time.
21:16
And that was considered, it's the same thing.
21:18
It's the same word.
21:20
So the idea of a woman speaking in church is an act of rebellion.
21:23
It's an act of disgrace.
21:25
It's an act of, it's a shame because it puts things out of order.
21:29
Remember what the subject matter is here, order in the church and what's out of order.
21:34
It's out of order when a woman is standing up and speaking publicly and authoritatively in the church.
21:41
It's out of order as God has designed.
21:45
And so we've looked at the text.
21:47
I now want to give you four clarifications.
21:52
Four clarifications, because I know some of you have questions.
21:56
I have questions.
21:56
I read this text.
21:57
I have a thousand questions.
22:00
First, I seek to understand it, but then I got to apply it.
22:03
That's what preaching is.
22:04
You read the text, you explain the text and you exhort or apply the text.
22:09
Call us to how do we obey this? OK, here's four things.
22:14
Now we can begin.
22:15
Sorry, Miss Pamela, I confused you.
22:16
Four things.
22:17
Here's the first one.
22:19
Number one, women are not the only ones required to silence themselves in this passage.
22:23
Notice this.
22:24
Look with me.
22:25
Women are not the only ones required to silence themselves in this passage.
22:28
Go back up to verse 28.
22:30
If there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in the church and speak themselves unto God.
22:35
That's speaking to somebody speaking in tongues.
22:37
It says if there's no interpreter, shut your mouth.
22:42
The word silent, same word.
22:44
If the person is speaking in tongues, there's no interpreter, shut up.
22:48
So there's one call to silence.
22:50
The second one we see in verse 30.
22:53
If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent.
22:56
Because in this particular time, one man might stand up and give a prophecy and another one might receive a prophecy from God.
23:01
The first one was expected to shut up and sit down so the other guy could speak.
23:06
So there was a call to order.
23:08
So here is the order.
23:10
If you're speaking in tongues and there's no interpreter, hush.
23:13
If you're giving a revelation and someone else receives a revelation, hush.
23:16
And if you're a woman, hush.
23:18
That's it.
23:20
By the way, you might not like that.
23:24
And a lot of people don't, but that's the three acts of silence that are called for in this passage.
23:30
And here's the thing.
23:31
I've heard it all.
23:32
Paul is biased against women.
23:37
Paul didn't like...
23:38
Well, I remember hearing that.
23:39
I heard that very early on in ministry because I cited the apostle Paul.
23:42
And somebody said, well, Paul didn't like women.
23:48
I want to read to you a quote, a lengthy quote here.
23:52
This is in 1971, Dr.
23:55
Mary Daly became the first woman to ever preach at the Memorial Church of Harvard University.
24:01
In 336 years, she was the first woman to preach there.
24:05
Selecting her biblical texts, she wove together what Dr.
24:10
Peter Gomes, also of Harvard, would later call all of the most offensive passages of St.
24:15
Paul.
24:17
Stitched together in one grim tapestry of Scripture.
24:21
With these texts as her backdrop, Dr.
24:23
Daly used her historical sermon to condemn the patriarchal legacy of Paul and his letters.
24:29
And as the sermon reached its climax, she invited women in the congregation to join her in an act of protest against patriarchal domination and walked out before the service had even ended in what she called an exodus from centuries of darkness.
24:46
The first woman to preach in 336 years of Harvard's history led an exodus of women out to say Paul was wrong.
25:01
Such attacks on the character of the apostle Paul are simply unfounded.
25:04
Paul is not anti-woman.
25:06
Paul is pro-order.
25:08
Simple enough.
25:09
Paul is not anti anyone.
25:12
Paul is pro-God and he's pro-order.
25:16
And God has designed and established an order in worship.
25:18
And those who ignore the order that God has given are ignoring God himself.
25:27
So people who say, well, Paul just doesn't like women.
25:29
They're not the only ones he told to be quiet.
25:31
Just keep that in mind.
25:32
That's number one.
25:33
Number two, the silence in this passage refers to public authoritative speech.
25:39
Now, I mentioned this earlier, but now I want to break this down because, as we noted before, there are three groups called the silence.
25:45
And this establishes a context for us to understand the silence.
25:49
The tongue speakers and the prophesiers had two things in common.
25:52
They were speaking publicly.
25:53
They were speaking authoritatively.
25:55
And we can conclude, therefore, that this is the speech Paul is forbidding.
25:59
Paul is not saying you can't say amen, ladies.
26:04
Thank you.
26:05
I knew it.
26:06
And he's not saying you can't sing in the assembly.
26:12
He's not forbidding conversations before and after worship or the welcoming of each other and shaking hands and hugging each other and expressing care for one another.
26:21
This is how people take things with what I call crass literalism.
26:26
It removes it from its context and applies something Paul never intended to be understood.
26:32
Paul is simply expressing the rule that public authoritative speech is to be done by men.
26:37
And by the way, just so you understand, this agrees 100 percent with what he says in 1 Timothy 2, verses 11 and 12.
26:46
I'm going to read them to you.
26:47
You can write them down in your mind.
26:48
You probably know him.
26:49
He says this in 1 Timothy 2, 11 and 12.
26:52
Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.
26:54
I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.
26:58
Rather, she is to remain quiet.
27:00
That little bit is the same as this big bit in 1 Corinthians.
27:04
It's the same context.
27:06
It's authoritative public speech.
27:10
A lot of ink has been spilled trying to explain away what Paul is saying here.
27:14
We don't need to explain it away.
27:15
We need to simply obey it.
27:19
Because when you compare 1 Timothy 2, 11 and 12, and 1 Corinthians 14, 33 to 35, you see absolute parallel and agreement.
27:28
And when you have one scripture that says something, it's worth listening to.
27:32
When you see two scriptures that are both saying the exact same thing, then what you have is what's called the analogia scriptura, or the analogy of scripture.
27:40
Where scripture interprets itself.
27:42
And thereby you have something that you can begin building your doctrine on.
27:46
And there's more that say this, but here's two passages that say the same thing.
27:52
And there's more, but those two so agree.
27:56
And by the way, this immediately, immediately would forbid a woman from holding the office of elder.
28:03
Because the elder's role is the role of speaking authoritatively and publicly in the church.
28:10
But I would say it's not limiting just that.
28:12
I believe it also would forbid a woman from teaching in a class of men and women.
28:16
In fact, I believe it would have kept the Corinthian women from speaking in tongues in public worship.
28:24
Because that's the context.
28:25
By the way, the context is prophecy in tongues.
28:27
And he's saying, be quiet.
28:28
So you go into a lot of churches and everybody speaks in tongues, and it's out of the...
28:32
And by the way, I don't even think that's speaking in tongues.
28:34
Because as I explained earlier, I think a lot of that is not.
28:39
But, even if it is, it's often being done, men and women in mixed assembly, no order and no interpretation.
28:47
Thereby, it runs headlong against all these.
28:54
And I'm not saying women didn't speak in tongues in the first century.
28:57
But I don't think it was done publicly and in the assembly.
28:58
I think it was done in the world.
29:00
It was done for the purpose of sharing the gospel.
29:02
I think it had its purpose outside the church.
29:03
I think within the church it wasn't done, according to this passage.
29:09
Some people say, well, 1 Corinthians 11, 5 says a woman who prophesies with her head uncovered.
29:13
I understand that.
29:14
But I think in that sense, Paul is referring to the head coverings and that's his focus.
29:17
I don't think he's focusing on women prophesying.
29:19
Because there were women who prophesied.
29:21
The daughters of Philip prophesied.
29:23
But was it done in the church? That's the question.
29:26
I don't think so, based on this passage.
29:30
Here's a simple rule.
29:32
And I believe this rule is universal.
29:34
It should govern all churches.
29:36
There is a limit to who gets to speak publicly and authoritatively.
29:40
And by the way, it's not just men.
29:42
But it starts with men.
29:45
Public authoritative speech is to be done primarily by the elders of the church.
29:50
Who are men who have been tested and found to be appropriate for that position and office in the church.
29:58
This is why not just everybody gets up and preaches.
30:01
This is why not just everybody comes to the elders meetings.
30:04
Those men have been tested through 1 Timothy chapter 3.
30:07
These are men of good reputation.
30:09
These are men who are faithful to their wives.
30:12
These are men who are above reproach.
30:14
As the scripture says, that's who we have to have in those positions of teaching.
30:18
And public authoritative speech.
30:22
Some churches just let anybody stand up and say anything.
30:24
And I think that's dangerous.
30:26
We've had people come to this church.
30:27
I don't want to get too far off topic because I'm way over time anyway.
30:29
But we've had people come to this church and say, God has given me a word for your church.
30:35
You know what my response is? No, he didn't.
30:41
The burden is on you to prove he did.
30:44
Not me to prove he didn't.
30:50
You think I'm being too harsh? Let me say it like this.
30:53
Lady came in one day with her husband and the husband said, My wife has a word for your church.
30:57
I said, well, tell her to tell me what it is.
31:00
No, she needs to say it to the church.
31:01
I said, she can't say it to me.
31:02
She ain't saying it to my people.
31:05
God's called me his under shepherd here with the four other elders.
31:08
We serve as elders of this church.
31:10
He ain't saying a word to these people.
31:16
Ain't happening.
31:19
John MacArthur was preaching.
31:21
Some guy stood up and started running towards the pulpit.
31:25
Challenging him about his cessationism.
31:28
That he doesn't believe the tongues and prophecy for today.
31:32
Thankfully, he wasn't dangerous.
31:34
He had a backpack.
31:34
I was scared me when I saw the video.
31:36
I was like, you don't know what this guy had or what he could have done.
31:38
But we just aren't going to let that kind of out of order nonsense go on here.
31:41
Just isn't going to happen.
31:44
Well, you're binding the spirit.
31:46
Paul binds everything here.
31:48
He says there's order.
31:50
There is order in this text.
31:51
If you can't see it, you are blind.
31:55
The church is not a haphazard smattering of uncoordinated elements.
32:01
And if you think it is, you have a wrong idea about God because God is not haphazard.
32:06
He is not uncoordinated.
32:07
God is a God of order, not of chaos.
32:14
And when God establishes the role of men and women in the church, he establishes it from creation.
32:18
He builds it on that simple model of male headship.
32:20
God establishes it and he sees it through to the end.
32:23
And the churches who ordain women or put women into preaching, teaching, and authoritative roles over men are doing so in opposition to Scripture.
32:30
As John MacArthur said, if your church has a female pastor, you don't have a church, you don't have a pastor.
32:40
Because she's not ordained by God.
32:47
I'm going to keep going because I don't want to hold this over next week.
32:50
A good sermon become a bad series.
32:51
So I'm going to just do this today.
32:53
All right, so let's finish it.
32:56
Number three, Paul appeals to the law not to custom to justify this command.
33:03
He's not saying, ladies, you have to be quiet because that's what the Romans expect.
33:07
He's not saying, ladies, you need to be quiet because that's what the Corinthians demand.
33:11
He said, this is what the law also says.
33:14
This is what the law says.
33:17
One commentator I listened to, or I read rather, one commentary I read, it was the Pillar New Testament commentary.
33:24
I was really surprised that it said this.
33:25
It said, there is no longer any shame or disgrace associated with women speaking.
33:29
So there's really no reason why we should not let them do it.
33:32
The only reason it was wrong is because it was disgraceful and shameful at that time.
33:38
Simply stated, Paul's being motivated to command these things because it's what his culture demanded.
33:42
I want to tell you this.
33:43
Paul never ever appeals to culture when it comes to the established order of men and women.
33:49
He never appeals to the culture.
33:51
He always appeals to creation.
33:54
He appeals to the immutable law of God, not culture.
34:00
And he's already told us this is for all the churches.
34:05
Finally and fourthly, and this is important, ladies.
34:09
I want you to hear this.
34:10
I'm not over.
34:11
I prayed long.
34:12
That's what it is.
34:13
I look at the clock.
34:13
I've got plenty of time.
34:14
I'm going to slow down.
34:18
There is no spiritual...
34:19
And by the way, nobody holds me to a time clock.
34:21
I hold myself sort of to an imaginary thing.
34:29
I want you to hear this though.
34:30
Number four, there is no spiritual inferiority which results from this command to silence.
34:37
Hear it again.
34:37
There is no spiritual inferiority which results from this command for silence.
34:43
Oftentimes people hear that we don't allow women elders.
34:47
And they think in some way we think women are spiritually inferior to men.
34:51
But that is not the case.
34:52
The inability to do something within the kingdom does not make anyone inferior.
34:56
Who said that? The Apostle Paul when he said the ear can't say to the eye, I have no need of you.
35:00
The hand can't say to the foot, I have no need of you.
35:02
You cannot say simply because you don't have the same position as someone else that that makes you spiritually inferior.
35:07
That's wrong.
35:07
Paul has already told us that.
35:10
In fact, the Bible says in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female.
35:17
That's Galatians chapter 3 and verse 28.
35:22
In the new covenant, God promises to pour out His spirit on men and women.
35:28
But spiritual equality does not equal positional equality.
35:32
Hear that again.
35:33
Spiritual equality does not equal positional equality.
35:36
How do I know that? Because my daughter is a believer.
35:40
And she lives in my house under my authority.
35:43
My wife is a believer.
35:45
And she lives with me under my authority and my protection.
35:50
There is no sense in which my wife is my spiritual inferior.
35:55
In many ways I see her as my spiritual superior.
36:00
She loves the Lord.
36:02
She studies her Bible.
36:03
And she's an example to her children and to me.
36:06
She is in no way my spiritual inferior.
36:09
But she is mine to protect.
36:12
She is mine to lead.
36:14
And she is mine to provide for.
36:18
And in that sense, I have a position that she does not have.
36:22
Therefore, positional inequality does not mean spiritual inequality.
36:29
If we confuse spiritual equality with positional equality, we will be out of order as a church.
36:36
Because that means we can't have elders.
36:39
If there can't be positional leadership, we can't have elders.
36:43
If there can't be positions of service, we can't have deacons.
36:47
If there can't be those roles in the church that people have, we can't understand how the church is supposed to function.
36:53
It's every man for himself.
36:59
Sadly, that's the way a lot of churches are.
37:01
Every man for themselves.
37:04
We must not confuse these things.
37:10
Women, if you leave today thinking I'm calling you spiritually inferior, please understand that you've misunderstood me.
37:19
Because that's not my intention.
37:23
Now I want to begin to draw to a conclusion.
37:24
Such a message as this often produces a call to repentance.
37:33
Because every message should call for a response.
37:35
And really, this message often comes with a call to repentance.
37:39
And I would say there are churches which need to repent.
37:41
Whole churches, whole denominations that need to repent.
37:46
Because they've been unwilling to take God at His word.
37:49
In fact, I want to say this, and I want to say this.
37:51
You might come and argue with me about this, and God bless you if you want to argue about this, but I'm going to say this anyway.
37:56
I've never seen a church which ordained women that wasn't also willing to give up other essential doctrines.
38:03
I've never seen it.
38:05
And you might come up with one.
38:08
I think it'd be hard fast to find a church that was willing to go forward with the ordination of female pastors that was not also willing to give up other essential doctrines of the faith.
38:19
Church history bears this out, by the way, because we do not see women preachers historically except in movements that are heretical.
38:27
Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Science, Ellen G.
38:30
White, in the Seventh-day Adventist movement, some may argue whether or not they're heretical.
38:34
Her prophecies were heretical, if nothing else.
38:39
In fact, one of the first historical movements of the church that was considered heresy was the Montanists, with a man named Montanus, who believed that he himself was a prophet in the second century, and he was flanked by two women, Maximilia and Priscilla, and he believed they were his prophetesses.
38:57
And they went about with these crazy, absurd expressions of ecstatic speech, and trances, and all of these crazy...
39:05
Yeah, that ain't new, that's been going on forever.
39:07
In fact, modern charismatics are the outgrowth of Montanists from the second century.
39:13
And it was built on false prophecy and putting that forward.
39:19
Churches which abandon the teaching of Scripture, on this point, male headship and the authority in the church align themselves with a history of error.
39:30
You simply will not find conservative, orthodox teaching which gave way on this issue.
39:41
But here's the thing, I'm not preaching to those churches today.
39:45
I'm not preaching to the PCUSA, or to the charismatics, or anybody else.
39:50
I'm preaching to you, Sovereign Grace Family Church.
39:54
I'm preaching to you, I'm your pastor.
39:56
So I ask you, in what ways does this message speak to you, and call you to repentance? You say, well, as a church, we understand this.
40:08
But I'm not talking about the whole church, I'm talking to you now.
40:11
Now I'm going to move this to the you.
40:14
Not to the us, not to the we, not to the me, but to the you.
40:19
Some pastors won't go to the you, they'll stick with the we.
40:22
I'm going to go, forget the we, how about you? Perhaps you're a married woman who despises your husband's role in the home.
40:35
Is that you? Maybe you choose to manipulate rather than to submit.
40:39
Maybe you simply make his life miserable if he tries to exercise any form of leadership over you.
40:44
Is that you? Maybe you harbor a desire to stand up and speak publicly and authoritatively before God's people, and you're angry that this church won't allow it.
40:54
Is that you? Maybe you secretly wish that we were like thousands of other churches that were willing to bend to the culture and give in to the demand of allowing women to preach and be elders.
41:05
Is that you? Maybe behind closed doors you whisper words of discontent because the church holds a firm line on this issue.
41:11
Is that you? If it is, I would say as a woman in the church you need to repent.
41:19
But it could just as well be a call to men.
41:23
Every time, men, every time you are faced with the Bible's command for women to live in submission to our authority, we are faced with the very serious reality that we are to exercise that authority with love and godliness.
41:38
The Bible never calls a wife to love her husband.
41:46
It says wives, respect your husband.
41:49
Wives, submit to your husband.
41:51
But the command of husband to wife is husbands, love your wives.
42:00
As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
42:12
Her burden is heavy, yours is heavier.
42:19
Man, if you're lording over your wife today and she fears you, you need to repent.
42:26
Man, if you lead your wife in a way that is ungodly and you're pursuing the world, you need to repent.
42:35
If your wife cannot come to you in her hour of spiritual need, you need to ask why.
42:50
This message should hit all of us.
42:54
None of us are everything we should be in Christ.
42:56
Amen? No man and no woman perfectly fits every duty that we're called to.
43:04
In fact, I think that's what husbands and wives do best for each other is they sanctify one another.
43:09
Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
43:12
Well, I think that can apply to husbands and wives too.
43:14
Iron and iron, sometimes we rub each other the wrong way.
43:17
But you understand that's all the sharpening process.
43:22
But here's the thing.
43:24
Maybe you're out there and you haven't even bowed the knee to Christ.
43:27
Maybe you're out there and you haven't even taken the first step towards living for Christ.
43:33
I'll say this to you.
43:34
Man or woman, it doesn't matter.
43:36
If you're not a follower of Christ, nothing else matters.
43:40
You could be a wonderfully supportive wife.
43:43
You could be a diligently protective and provisional husband.
43:46
But if you have not Christ, you have nothing.
43:52
A comfortable life that will end in hell.
43:57
If you have not Christ, this is the closest to heaven you will ever get.
44:02
Likewise, if you have Christ, this is closest to hell as you'll ever feel.
44:09
So the first question we have to ask ourselves is, do I know Christ? Have I trusted in Him? Have I fallen on my knees, given my life to Him? Have I turned everything over to Him? And then I say, am I following Him as He commands? Husbands, are you loving your wives? Wives, are you supporting and submitting to your husbands? And church, are we seeking with diligence to do what God has called us to do? By His grace only, we will.
44:38
Let's pray.