Please be seated. Our text for this evening is from the book of 1st Timothy, 1st Timothy chapter 2, and we're going to be looking at verses 8 through 10. If you haven't been with us in a while, you're joining with us for the first time, we're in the middle of a series going through the book of 1st Timothy, which Elber Krizan and I are team teaching, and my job is to cover chapter 2, so we have a couple more weeks in chapter 2 before he takes over again in chapter 3. But we've been meditating, if you've been with us, we've been meditating on this theme of prayer. And particularly the call for the church to be a people of prayer on behalf of the world. A kingdom of priests interceding before God as the temple of the Holy Spirit. And so now, in this context of prayer, the apostle turns from talking about prayer in general, and the church's prayer in general, to addressing, in particular, men and women, and how they are to behave, particularly in the context of the gathering of the church for prayer. Because what the apostle is concerned with is, if you were kind of a theme, say, for the book, shows up in chapter 3, verse 15. He says he wants you to know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth. So here Paul is addressing particularly, or beginning to address particularly, men and women and how they are to behave in the household of God. So let's read 1 Timothy 2, beginning at verse 8 and going through verse 10. I desire that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. Likewise also that the 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's pray as we look at this passage. Heavenly Father, as we look at your calling for us, particularly in the context of worship for men and women, I pray that you will help us to hear your voice and that you'll guide us in the way of truth. In your name we pray. Amen. The section we're beginning here in 1 Timothy, well, this particular passage we're talking about tonight is not one of the most controversial. It begins one of the most controversial passages in the pastoral epistles, which in turn is one of the most controversial passages in the New Testament, at least in the modern era. So we're in good company. We looked at the most controversial line in the Apostles' Creed this morning. And this afternoon, evening, we look at one of the most controversial passages in the New Testament. But what makes this passage controversial is because it tends to run against the grain of one of the dominant impulses in modern society. And that is to minimize the distinction between men and women, and to chafe at gender-specific language, and to chafe at an understanding that there are particular gifts and callings which men have and women have, and that those might be distinct or different. But the Bible does not abide by what we consider to be gender appropriate ways of talking about things. The Bible addresses us specifically as men and women for a specific reason. He created us male and female. that is part of who we are created. And as male and female, we are created with certain attributes, gifts, and callings, which are particularly focused on whether we are male or female. This is not to say that every This also means then that in addition to the gifts and callings that we have, this also means that as male and female we tend to sin in gender specific ways. We have certain tendencies that tend to be more prominent in men rather than women and women rather than men. This is not to say that every man and every woman will have the same tendencies, but the Bible recognizes something that the world in general is loathe to recognize, that is, this distinction between men and women. Sex and gender is not just an aspect of individual expression. but is a created reality. And so we have particular gifts and callings as men and as women, which we are to embrace. And we also have particular tendencies to sin, which we as men and women are to take pains to avoid. So with that kind of outset, let's look at particularly what Paul says here. Because Paul has two commands, one for men and one for women, at least in the passage we read today. He starts out by saying, I desire then that in every place. This word for desire is not just a word for it'd be kind of nice if. But this word for desire is I, Paul, as an apostle, this is what I want to see you doing. This is a word of command. I desire. My command for you is in every place. And then he gives two infinitives, which give the commands. The first command is to men, that the men should pray. And second, that the women should adorn. The men should pray, and the women should adorn. And so we'll look at each of those in turn. First, that the men should pray. There's an understanding throughout scripture that the men in particular have a calling to lead their families and take the lead in the church's public worship. Now, this will be clear in the next few weeks when we begin to look later in Timothy at the instructions for the qualities that should be present in church officers and elders and deacons. But even here, this beginning, Paul alludes to this when he says that the men should pray. They should be taking the lead in public worship. They are called to the office of elder and deacon not arbitrarily, but because it is in keeping with the creational order. Men are called to represent and lead, and called to aspire to be the kind of men who are worthy of public office. And men, we should take this to heart. It is God's will for you to pray. We shouldn't just gloss over this command. It is God's will that you should pray. I desire that the men should pray. And this doesn't mean that women should not pray, but it's a particular command for men. I also think, in general, knowing men and being one of them, I know that we kind of have a tendency not to be as ready to pray. Women, in some ways, have a tendency to be more willing and ready to pray than men sometimes. Again, not every man, not every woman, I'm just speaking in a general tendency around men. And Paul says in particular that he commands, desires, that in every place, that is, in every place throughout the world, because the kingdom spreads throughout the world, the men should pray. So that's your first commandment, pray. But he again goes on and talks about the posture of this pray. I desire that the men should pray, lifting holy hands. He desires that the men should pray. He says the posture that they are to pray is that they are to lift their hands in prayer. Now, raising hands is a common posture for prayer in the ancient world and is a common posture that we see described throughout scripture. We see people praying with lifted hands throughout scripture. Jesus himself, we have described as lifting his hands in prayer. Particularly, we see this in the priests. The priests lift their hands. in prayer. It's a posture representing what we're doing. We are lifting our hands to heaven as we are sending our prayers to heaven. We're lifting our hands showing that we are offering our prayers to heaven. Now there are a number of different postures for prayer in the Bible and so this is not necessarily saying there's only one correct posture for prayer. We see people throughout the Bible you know, lifting their hands or kneeling or bowing or prostrating themselves on the ground as they pray. So there's a number of different postures for prayer. And so, you know, this is not saying this is the only proper posture for prayer. But I do find it interesting that one of the direct commands that we have in scripture is descriptions of prayer is for the lifting up of hands in prayer. And that's generally the one that we in the Presbyterian tradition tend to avoid the most. Because we are, you know, like the two most common postures for prayer you have described in scripture is one, kneeling, which we tend to associate with Roman Catholicism, and the other, raising hands, which we tend to associate with Charismatics. So we tend to just stand in the middle with our hands by our sides, because we're not quite sure what to do with them. But I do think that there is something that we should learn from this passage, that posture actually matters. Our posture in prayer, physical posture, actually matters. Because our posture, what it reflects, our posture should reflect our attitude in prayer. In what we are doing, our posture should reflect what we're doing. We are in the presence of Almighty God, offering our petitions to him, and our physical posture should reflect the nature of what we're doing. And the biblical postures of prayer are ways of doing it. One's lifted hands, the other is kneeling, or whatever, or even just sitting upright. showing in your physical posture that you believe that what you're doing is actually talking to the living God. William Henderson says that he thinks, while each of these postures is a good posture of prayer, the slouching position of the body, while one is supposed to be praying, is an abomination to the Lord, he says. And I think that was a convicting line for me, because I know I tend to, even public prayer, tend to opt for the slouch during prayer. It was a posture which reflects an unserious attitude, an inattentive attitude. And so I think that I was well-warned and well-challenged by this passage that I was meditating on this week that we should pay attention to our posture in prayer because it reflects our attitude and it also shapes our attitude. I found that sometimes when I have trouble praying, that if I change my posture, that it helps put me in the right attitude for prayer. Changing your posture can actually affect your attitude. Raising your hands can affect your attitude in prayer. Kneeling or prostrating yourself, as scripture describes, can affect your attitude in prayer. So if you're having trouble praying, changing your posture might be a biblical tool. Because remember, we're not just spirits. We are embodied creatures. We are made body and spirit. So our spirit and soul affects our body. And what we do with our bodies affects our spirits. So we should pay attention to posture and prayer. And I would say, as a word of challenge, I think we men should consider whether this is something that we should be challenged to do more, or at all. And that's lifting our hands in prayer and praise. I know some of us do, some of us don't. I don't think there's something you have to do. But Paul seems to allude here, this is something that's an appropriate expression of prayer that men should consider. And if you don't feel comfortable doing it in public worship first, because it feels unnatural, Do it in private prayer as an expression of prayer and a praise to God. Our posture both reflects and shapes our prayer, but all that said, The next line here indicates that the primary attitude which is supposed to be expressed in the raising of our hands is what we've done with our hands. The thing that affects our prayers more than our posture is our lives. Because he says, lifting of holy hands. That is, hands that have been doing good things. Hands that have been going about good works. They're not stained with the sins of our actions. Our actions, how we live our lives, affects our prayers. And God says, say in Isaiah, that your posture doesn't matter if your heart and actions are in rebellion against God. Isaiah 1, 15 through 16. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you, even though you make many prayers. I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. The priests, when they came to offer sacrifices at the temple, what was one of the first things they had to do? We just spent a long time looking at the tabernacle, right? What was one of the things they had to do? They had a big basin just there for washing their hands, symbolically symbolizing the need for them to be forgiven in order that they could intercede on behalf of the people. And it is our calling as a kingdom of priests, we can't just say, I'm praying on behalf of other people and then neglect our own lives and our own need for forgiveness. We need to have holy hands. We need to seek the forgiveness and cleansing of Christ for ourselves so that we can be fit mediators, fit interceders on behalf of others to the one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. We need to lift holy hands. What we do with our hands affects our prayers. Because he goes on to talk particularly about the areas in which men tend to get their hands dirty, unholy, as we say. lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. Men are to pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. Anger is a, shall we say, typical sin of men. This is not to say that women do not exhibit anger, but it is a sin that men are particularly prone to. And not just are men particularly prone to anger, when they express their anger, it is typically very, and can be very destructive. Paul is addressing the particular failings that tend to characterize men, and that is anger and quarreling and fighting. And he says, men, in your prayers, and if you want to be good interceders on behalf of the world, you need to bring your anger before the Lord. You need to offer up your prayers without anger or quarreling. Because again, the way we live our lives affects our prayers. 1 Peter 3, verse 7. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered." He says, in some sense, in your family life. Don't express your anger towards your wife for many reasons, but one of those reasons is because that's going to affect your prayers. How you treat your wife affects your prayer life. It makes your hands unfit to raise up in offering your prayers. If you want to be heard in your prayer, treat your wife well. And that can be applied to many other ways in which men tend to express anger or just hold anger in themselves. So men, the command to you is to pray. But Paul now turns and addresses the women in particular. 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. Just as with men, again, these are two infinitives, two verbs coming from what Paul desires, right? Paul desires, he desires the women to adorn. Just as with men, the posture, the adorning of a woman is to reflect who they are in Christ. The way women adorn themselves is to reflect that they are in Christ and that they are seeking to serve him, even in the way they dress. The word for adorning is something you add to something to enhance or bring out its beauty. And the women are to adorn themselves. This is a command. Women, you're to adorn yourselves. But how are they to adorn themselves? Well, he says that women are to adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control. In other words, this, the, um, The way women dress, in church and outside of church, is to signal something. Dress always is to signal something, it expresses something, right? We're not wrong to see dress as a way of expressing something. And it's to signal modesty and dignity and self-control, and to seek to elicit that sort of response from other people. If men have a tendency toward anger to control others, Women have a tendency to focus too much on their appearance and use that appearance to control others. As the commentator Towner puts it, by her dress the woman does one of two things, would either signal modesty and dignity or promiscuous availability. The word modesty definitely has the sense of not signaling sexual availability. So while a man can never blame a woman for his problem of lust, and I think that's one thing that people have traditionally done wrong, blamed the woman, that's something we must never do, because sin, where does sin come from? It comes from inside of you, not from outside. While men should never, or people should never blame others for their own struggles with sin, a woman should not dress in such a way that is intended to elicit that response from men. What makes this passage difficult is because what is considered dignified and modest can vary from culture to culture from time to time. For instance, 75 years ago, it would have been considered immodest for women to wear pants, for example. Or in other cultures, it would be considered immodest if you went out without a head covering or something along those lines. So some of these things of modesty can vary from culture to culture. So what exactly is modest can sometimes be exactly hard to pin down. But the principle is the same, that there is such a thing as modesty, and there is such a thing as immodesty. And when we're seeking to express that in our particular culture, we should desire to express modest and addressed that elicits from others a recognition of dignified behavior on the part of women. Now, obviously, Paul's here directly addressing women here, but obviously in most of these things you can also apply some of these principles to men as well. Just as women aren't to be angry, men should also be modest in their dress. I think if you spend any time looking on Instagram or on social media, you know there's an increasing trend with men wanting to get in on the fun of eliciting responses from others and how they picture themselves on social media, particularly the shirtless chest photo is pretty common on social media these days, right? And that's a form of immodesty that men should avoid as well. But here Patal is particularly talking about the the tendencies of women, because modesty is not just a matter of avoiding being sexually suggestive. It's what we are trying to communicate with our clothing. That's kind of the big point here. Do we obsess too much over our appearance with the intention of drawing the attention of others to us? And that's what Paul goes on to say here. He says, dress modestly, showing self-control, dignified, respectable apparel. And they contrast that with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire. Now, Paul here isn't just saying that it's wrong to wear that gold earring you're wearing or you should never wear pearls, which are much cheaper now than they were in the ancient world or such. But he is saying that we should not put excessive expense into our clothing. We should not dress in such a way that is excessively showy. This language of braided hair, gold, pearls, or costly attire. Some have argued, and I think there's some merit to this, that Paul is particularly addressing what was known as the Roman new woman. Because at the time when Paul was writing, there was a movement in Roman society in general towards almost a form of sexual revolution among the rich women of the era, where there was generally a disdain for family life, a sexual liberation of promiscuity that was going around. And part of this was you would demonstrate your being aligned with this movement by how you would dress. And we have pictures. artists, things on drawings, on coins and such, which the way you associate yourself with this movement was with really elaborate braiding of your hair and very costly jewels and attire. And again, this is a movement primarily among the rich women of the Roman Empire. And Paul is saying, if he particularly has this in mind, which I think is a distinct possibility, He's saying that you should not seek to associate yourself in your dress with something which is antithetical to the purposes and goals of Christianity. I think it's an important principle for us to remember today that in our dress, the way we dress, we tend to communicate our association or disassociation for something. Now, when I wear my Cubs hat, I am expressing my association with the Chicago Cubs and my disassociation with the St. Louis Cardinals. as the case may be. But in a similar way, other things we wear, the way we dress, affects our association with certain things and our disassociation with certain things. And when we dress, we should say, what am I associating myself with by the way I am dressing now? And I think it's an important principle that should guide us as we think about what are the appropriate ways we should dress. Am I associating myself in the way I'm dressing or what I'm wearing with something in a movement which is completely contrary to the things that God calls Good. Paul is saying that it's not wrong to wear beautiful clothing, but that we should not be obsessed with fashion, expensive clothing, or makeup or jewelry. These are not things which are pleasing to God and move other people towards God. They only cause people to focus on us, and maybe even cause, make us feel good to look down on others. And again, we, primarily when we talk about this, we, for whatever reason, we typically think about, you know, women trying to elicit a response from men. But I think most of the reason why women dress, and maybe, and this is me kind of going off the reservation here, so you can, you guys can come and correct me here, but most of the reason why women dress is not primarily for men, it's for other women. In other words, if we were, I had one pastor who said he, once in a Sunday school class he did this, he had all the men and women close their eyes, and then describe what other people in the room were wearing, or what colors other people in the room were wearing. Men couldn't do any of it. But many of the women could describe exactly the colors that other people in the room were wearing, because they tend to notice that more as part of their makeup to admire and recognize beauty. And it's a similar way. I think a lot of the dress thing is not so much focused on eliciting attention from men, in kind of the status games that we play among ourselves and women. Men have their own version of that and women have their own version of that as well. And we should seek to not enter into that world and game. That's unbecoming for Christians. As with the hands, God, you know, hands with blood in Isaiah, right? God judges clothing because of the heart behind it. Isaiah 3. Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with the eyes, and mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet, therefore the Lord will strike with a scab the heads of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will lay bare their secret parts. In that day, the Lord will take away the finery, the anklets, the headbands, the crescents, the pendants, the bracelets, the scarves, the headdresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes, the amulets, the signet rings, the nose rings, the festal robes, the mantles, the cloaks, and the handbags, the mirrors, the linen garments, the turbans, and the veils. Instead of perfumes, there will be rottenness, and instead of that, a belt of rope, and instead of well-set hair, baldness, and instead of a rich robe, a skirt of sackcloth, and branding instead of beauty. What God is saying here, just as he said with the lifted up hands, what God is impressed by is not how you're dressed. That doesn't impress God. Rather, your outward dress should display an inward heart which is devoted to him. Your outward dress, as Paul is saying, should express your desire to honor God. Because Paul says, what truly adorns a Christian woman, what truly sets her beauty, on display is not the gold or pearls or costly attire, but rather, as he says here, with what is proper for women who profess godliness with good works. In other words, what truly adorns a woman, what truly makes a woman beautiful in the sight of God and even in the sight of others is a woman who has devoted herself, whose character is so shaped by the gospel that she radiates that gospel in the way she lives. Just as men's holy hands are lifted up to God and display the works that he's done, so a woman's good works, the way she lives a life of service and love and care towards others, that is what truly adorns a woman. And I think we can all testify to this. We have all known people, elderly saints, whose beauty, as far as worldly terms, has faded, but who you would consider to be one of the most beautiful people on the planet because their character radiates from them in their words, in their eyes, in the way they touch. A true beauty. That's a lasting beauty. That's a beauty that doesn't fade. That's a beauty that almost matures and grows with time. And Paul says that that is the type of beauty that the women should seek to adorn themselves with, the lasting beauty. Again, not that we should always be out of fashion in our dress or something like that, but that we should really be concerned about, more than we're concerned about our physical appearance, is our character before God and how we're expressing that in our godly works before others. That is truly what makes someone to be beautiful. The apostle Peter says a similar line. It's worth reading his section here. Apostle Peter says in 1 Peter 3, don't let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. So we have two commands here this evening. We have the command to men to pray. and we have the command to women to adorn. And so I pray that as we both in our callings as men and women, we will hear these commands where we need to be rebuked and hear these commands as we need to be challenged in how we are to live out the Christian life as an expression of what Christ has done for us in pouring out on us his grace in our Savior Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that you will let our Hearts be moved by your commands, that you will help us to clean our hands, to keep us from anger and quarreling, that we may be fit intercessors on behalf of a world, that our posture and prayer will reflect the activity of which we're doing. And I pray that you will adorn us, Lord, with that beauty which is imperishable and lasting. the beauty that comes from a heart which is being moved by your gospel, which is being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and is working itself out in works of godliness and love and care towards one another. Lord, we thank you that you created us, man and woman, and I thank you that you are shaping us into godly men and women. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.