Well, we come tonight to, I guess this morning, I was talking, Alan mentioned in the Sunday School, as I said, that Jerome said that Zechariah was the most obscure of the Old Testament books. And I said that Jerome said about those verses in chapter 30 of Genesis that no one had satisfactorily explained them yet. I don't know what Jerome says about verse 15 of chapter 2. I didn't find a particular quote on him, but I got a feeling he would maybe say the same kind of thing, that nobody's adequately understood what this particular verse is talking about. It is certainly the most difficult verse in this passage and probably the most difficult verse in 1 Timothy to really comprehend and understand. And so the phrase that of course is difficult is, what in the world does Paul mean by saying, yet she will be saved through or by childbearing? What does that mean? We can kind of make our way fairly quickly. I didn't do quickly, but fairly easily in understanding Paul's instructions about women in public ministry. And that all seems to make sense and go along with everything. But then we get to this phrase and go, whoa, wait a minute. What in the world is he talking about here? How is the woman to be saved through childbearing? Well, I'm going to kind of break this up a little bit tonight. First of all, I'm going to tell you what I absolutely am positive that Paul did not mean. OK, I can say that about one particular view of this passage that I with all my heart, I'm sure that Paul did not mean this. Paul did not mean that a woman's spiritual salvation is dependent upon her being able to bear children. This is not what Paul is saying. There were women in scripture who were barren, but were yet godly women. We have Rachel as an example for us. Now, I realize eventually she did bear children, but there are barren women, there are Women who do not get to the age of childbearing who die. There are women who never marry. Therefore, we know that many of these women are saved and are Christians. And so to teach anything like this, that a salvation of any particular person depended upon some particular work that they had to do would go against every kind of Pauline theology that we can find in any of his writings. It would go against everything Paul has to say about the subject of salvation. It would not go along at all with it. So we're going to say positively, absolutely, this is not the meaning of the passage. A woman is not saved spiritually by bearing children. Secondly, then, that's what I'm saying, he absolutely doesn't mean. Now I'm going to back off a bit and say this is what I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean. OK, this is what I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean. I don't believe that Paul is referring. to the fact that a woman will be kept safe through childbearing. In other words, that a woman, even though all of this stuff is true about a woman, when it comes time to give birth, she will be protected by God and she would not die in childbirth. God will physically protect her. Why would I say that I don't believe that Paul's talking about this? It might actually sound good to some, and some actually do believe this is the meaning of the passage. But there's a couple problems. Godly women do die in childbirth. Rachel again, okay? Rachel died in childbirth. Godly women do die in childbearing. We perhaps know someone in our own experience through time that we know that has died in childbirth. We're certainly probably aware of those, and there have been godly women throughout history who have done that. Our objection to that is it doesn't bear out an experience. We know godly women who do so. This cannot be a promise that all godly women will be protected in childbirth. That's one objection. Second, this would be a very strange meaning of salvation. This particular word, sozo, in the Greek for Paul, which usually always refers to spiritual salvation. When Paul wants to talk about physical salvation or physical deliverance, there is another word. that Paul almost always uses, and that is the word ruamai. And for example, a couple of places here in these books, 2 Timothy 3.11, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra. which persecutions I endured, yet from them all the Lord saved me." Now that word, translated delivered or rescued in different versions, that word is ruamai. It refers to God physically protecting someone in a situation. In 4.18 in this book, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and Lystra, which persecutions I endured, the Lord rescued me. I don't know that I, I think, let's see if I did that. I'm just wondering if I read the right verse. I have something wrong. There's another verse. I cut and paste the wrong thing there. But we'll skip it. When Paul wants to write about it, it's probably a different book. Anyway. When Paul does talk, let me just tell you this, when Paul does talk about physical salvation, physical deliverance, he uses this word ruamai. He doesn't use the word sozo. So this would be a very unlikely word and it would be very out of context in this passage for all of a sudden for Paul to make this particular statement that a woman would be saved and in particular use the word he always uses for spiritual salvation if he's actually referring to physical salvation. Thirdly, there's two other views that I want to talk about and that I think are the most likely of the views. But before I do, to help you understand this and to help us get into a frame of mind here, I want to go over a couple of things. One, I want to review something I said at the very end last week, and then I want to add something and then we're going to look at the views. Remember what last week I talked to at the very end, those of you that were here, about the fall. and creation and reminded you that the fall did not change the duties of men and women. What God intended for man and woman to do in creation remained the same duties after the fall. Man was to tend the garden before the fall. He was to tend the ground after the fall. He was excommunicated from the garden. He was but still told that now he still had to tend the earth. Woman was still to reproduce. She was to reproduce the creation mandate. Go and be fruitful and multiply and repunish the earth. That does not change after the fall. Woman is still to do that. Woman is still to be in subjection. That does not change. That also was part of the creation. that the woman would come to be a help, a meat for man. And so this doesn't change also. So all of these things, the only difference is the fall makes them exceedingly harder. Man will still subdue the earth, but it's going to be very difficult. The earth is going to fight back. It's going to give thorns. It's going to give thistles. It's going to do all of these things that are going to make it very difficult. for man to now subdue the earth. Man is still to have dominion over the earth and subdue the animals, but the animals aren't always going to just go along with man's dominion. There's going to be a struggle. There's going to be a fight. Not all animals will just listen to us when we say things. You know, it's very difficult. Sometimes it's hard to exercise dominion over a fly. And, you know, I mean, we have a problem with this dominion thing. It just doesn't quite work out so well anymore. Childbirth continues, but it's much harder. It's a struggle. There is pain. There is suffering that goes along with childbirth. There is labor. Again, all of these things become labor intensive. And so all these things take place continuing after the fall. Now, when woman is created, Adam names her woman, Genesis 2.23. The man said, this is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she's taken out of me. Isha in Hebrew. Ish being man. Some of you might think that's an appropriate name. Ish being man, but Isha meaning woman, taken out of man. And so that is what Adam names her in creation. But after the fall, man gives woman a different name. We've got a very corrupt version of that name that's come down to us. We say Eve, not really even close, but through various language changes, that's how the name has come down to us. Genesis 320, the man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Now, the Hebrew is Chava here, meaning life or living. It's not, like I say, very close to Eve, actually, if you look at it. The first name, then, I will call woman because woman is taken out of man. The second name, Chava, or Eve as we've come down to it, is because man is taken out of woman. So in creation, woman comes out of man. In reproduction, man comes out of woman. And so we have these two names that are given. And let me also say this. If Paul is dealing with a woman not infringing upon the roles of men in the church, verse 15 would indicate there's a role that a woman has that a man shouldn't infringe on. In fact, we really can't. Childbearing. Men, that's something I know probably some women would gladly let us take that over for them. in doing that, and we don't have much of an understanding of the pain that goes along with that. But nevertheless, that's something we can't do. That is something God has ordained in the role of womanhood, and a woman does that, and that is her role. And so just as we talk about the roles for men, we have one of the roles for a woman here in that of childbearing. Now, I'm not trying to say that women are only to be kept at home and to be kept pregnant all the time, bearing children, and that's their only function in life. That's not what I'm saying, but I'm saying that this is one of the roles that a woman has that a man is not able to come to. Now, all that said, what does Paul mean? Well, two ideas that I think are possible. I don't know that I've settled on which one particularly I believe or accept. So I'm going to give you both of them and maybe you can decide if you like one or the other or like one of the earlier ones. That's up to you. The first one hinges upon the Greek reading here. It has not come through in the ESV for some reason. I don't know. But there is a definite article here. She shall be saved through the child bearing. Now, If we keep in mind what Paul is saying along here, the first woman fell because she did not obey God. She did not do her God-given role of submitting to her husband. So all women are lost in the fall. Of course, all men are as well. But just as the first woman fell in the fall in doing this and not doing her God-appointed role, now a woman who does her God-appointed role in childbearing, in particular, one woman with one childbearing. You can probably take a guess what we think he'd mean by the childbearing. One particular childbirth, of course, the birth of Jesus Christ. And so therefore, just as we were lost through the first child bearer, we now become saved through the birth of our Lord and Savior, who is born of another woman. So some believe that that is what Paul is saying here, that a woman, even though she had this role in the fall and Paul's got the fall in mind here and he's thinking about that, but now he's saying, but yet there's another thing to look at here, that a woman would give birth to a child and that child would become the savior of the world. And so this is an idea that is put forth. Now, there are many people who reject this. Hendrickson in his commentary, I never know if it's Hendrickson or Kistemacher because both of their names are on it, but they reject it because they think that the whole idea is very foreign to the context of what Paul is dealing with. And I read that line in their commentary, and then I read what Philip Ryken says in his commentary, and here's what he said. This interpretation, speaking about the one I just told you, also makes good sense out of the immediate context. So it's kind of interesting. You have two commentators. One says, doesn't that all fit in the context? And the other one says, hey, this makes great sense in the context. So two able commentators disagreeing on this. And what Ryken says after what he says about that line about the context, he says, verse 14 ends with the reality of sin. What could be more natural than for verse 15 to begin with the hope of salvation in its usual sense of deliverance from sin and to connect that salvation with the submission of a woman to the plan of God? He then goes on to quote John Stott. John Stott says, even if certain roles are not open to women and even if they are tempted to resent their position, they and we must never forget what we owe to a woman. If Mary had not give birth to the Christ child, there would have been no salvation for anybody. No greater honor has ever been given to woman than in the calling of Mary to be the mother of the savior of the world. So it is accepted, there's a lot of people that believe that this is Paul's meaning here in this verse. If we go back again to the creation, I think it's obvious Paul has creation in mind. This particular verse, Genesis 3.16, to the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children, your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." And it seems like Paul would have this in mind, and that might very well lead him into the childbearing of Mary. One of our own commentators, E.J. Young, writes of Genesis 3.16, she will be able to propagate the race So God has just promised, but her life will be one in which this very function of reproduction will remind her of her fall and disobedience. But now the reproduction of a woman reminds us instead of salvation. Jesus said, when a woman is given birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come. But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world. The anguish of childbirth is now covered up by the joy of bringing a human being into the world. So I think this is a very possible interpretation. And then let me give you one last thought on what this verse means. The New English Bible, verse 15 says, Yet she will be saved through motherhood. It's a little different take on this particular word. She will be saved through motherhood. In this idea, the woman is saved not by going outside her roles, as Paul has just forbidden, but now instead she is saved by submitting to God's will for the role that He has given her. Again, this is the whole idea in the Bible, for example, of head covering and things like that, is that the woman understands the role and she accepts that role. This is the reason behind this. Not, again, saying that a woman's place is in the home and shouldn't be outside the home, but Hendrickson says, who accepts this view, this way a woman influences from the bottom up instead of from the top down. So instead of coming to the church and exercising authority as a teacher, going down, she now exercises her authority from the child rearing and coming up and does that. And so this is the way that a woman now becomes saved, is fulfilling her God-given role. And again, being very careful not to translate salvation in the sense that she's saved by some kind of works. But again, there is something that goes on. We are, as Christians, told by God to continue in some kind of lifestyle if we've truly been born again or justified by faith and sanctification. And Paul mentions this immediately following here when he talks about if they continue in faith, love, holiness with self-control. And those words are interesting because some of these words are going to come back in the qualifications for elders, not only in first Timothy three here, but also in other passages that speak of qualifications. So the same thing a woman is exhorted to do are some of the same qualifications that an elder is commanded to do. So, those are the ideas that there are. One, again, just to summarize, a woman receives spiritual salvation, kind of a Catholic view, through childbearing, which I'd say we reject. Second idea, that a woman would be kept safe physically in childbearing. Third idea, that a woman is saved as everyone else would be through the child bearing, the bearing of the Messiah. And fourthly, that a woman is saved in her God-given role that God has defined for her and in doing that. So those are the ideas on that particular verse, and I'll allow you to take it from there. Now, I do want to, before we leave this and go on to the ordination or the qualifications of elders, I do want to say one thing about this. I want to stress I stress this in the beginning, but I want to stress it again. that the New Testament is very liberating when it comes to the role of a woman. And a lot of times people read a passage like this and they want to say Paul is masochistic and Paul is down on women and Paul is very much influenced by his culture, but just the opposite is true. Paul is giving women in his passage a great freedom and the New Testament does much to bring honor to the woman, very much. If you read, for example, there are several ways you can see this, but for example, When you read the greetings of Paul, it's interesting how often it is women that he sends greetings to. When you get, for example, to a chapter of greetings like Romans chapter 16, probably the longest passage of greetings in the New Testament, Paul begins by greeting a woman or speaking about a woman, Phoebe, who is a deaconess, a woman's servant that comes to Rome, and Paul begins with a greeting to her and talking about her in Romans chapter 16. Before anybody else is mentioned, he says, I commend you, our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Centuria, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints. and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and myself as well." So right away we have a woman mentioned in the greetings. Then the next pair that Paul mentions are husband and wife, and he mentions the woman first, Priscilla and Aquila here in verse 3, his fellow workers in Christ Jesus. Then in verse 6, another woman who he signals out, in particular mentions, he says, greet Mary who has worked hard for you. In verse 7, another couple, Andronicus and Junius, a woman there also mentioned, he says, they are well known to the apostles. And they were in Christ Jesus. So that is one of the ways. And along with that, a second one that goes right along with this is Paul often mentions the great help that women have been to him in the ministry and how they have helped him. Phoebe is one I mentioned, Philippians 4.3. I ask you, true companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. There's mention of these women that helped him. We can think again of Aquila and Priscilla who helped Paul and also helped Apollos and their role in doing this. And later on in this book, we'll read in chapter 5, 9, and 10 of the widows, the kind of works they were involved in. It says, let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband, having a reputation for good works as she has brought up children. There again is that childbearing. has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work." So there again we see how important women were to the ministry of the church and the ongoing work of the church. And the third thing I'll say is The honor that Paul gives and other writers give in just other scriptures. First Corinthians 11 7, a man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God. But woman is the glory of man. Later in verse 11, Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor man of woman. Paul's statement of marriage in Ephesians 5, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Women were encouraged, Peter says, to give respect to her as unto the more precious vessel. Women are oftentimes lifted up, and their role is given exceedingly respectful, and we are to do this as well. So I don't want you to leave this passage thinking, oh man, Paul was really down on women, because he was not. And the New Testament has so much good to say. So let's move tonight, for a little while before we close here tonight, into chapter 3. The qualifications again, now we're dealing with public worship. We move on to the officers and those that are to be participants in public worship. And he's going to deal particularly with the choosing of officers, first elders and then deacons. He begins in verse one with the ESV, the saying is trustworthy. Other versions say this saying is reliable. King James said this saying is true. I don't know if you remember, we had one earlier, and I told you Paul has five trustworthy sayings in the pastoral epistles. Five sayings, and he begins with this particular phrase, this saying, is trustworthy or true. Earlier we had this saying, is trustworthy and worthy, full acceptance, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. We also had that saying about the bodily training, as quoted in 1 Timothy 4, 8, and 9, and the saying, if we have died with him, we will also live with him. is also introduced with that. And then in Titus, when he speaks about being justified by grace, he also said this saying is trustworthy. Now, some people say, well, Paul got this all wrong. He says a horrible thing in verse one. He's encouraging people to aspire to office. He shouldn't do that. That's not what you want people to do. You don't want them to aspire to office. You want them to live up to the office and the church to recognize that they're ready for office. Now, the Greek word here for aspire is to stretch out after. Paul, we use it again in this epistle in chapter six when he speaks of the love of money and says it's a root of all kinds of evils. It's through the craving, this craving that some have wandered away from the faith. There the ESV translates it craving. to crave the office. It says, he that craves, it craves a noble task in regards to that. Now, two things to say about that. Number one is, notice Paul doesn't say it's the aspiring that's noble, but it's the task that's noble. They desire a noble task. That's the first thing to say. Calvin says, it is no light matter to represent God's Son in such a great task as erecting and extending God's kingdom, in caring for the salvation of souls whom the Lord himself has deigned to purchase with his own blood, and ruling the church, which is God's inheritance. It's no light matter. It's a noble task. Secondly, we need to recognize in these days, especially, being an elder of the church was the fast path to martyrdom. So if you were looking at martyrdom, that's the direction you needed to go. So aspiring after office wasn't all good in those days. It could mean that you were going to end up dying. Walter Locke put this verse in rhyme form. He who would play a leader's part, a noble task has set his heart. And so that's what it is. Now, In an office, we believe that there is an inward and an outward call. The inward call is the call of conscience. The outward call, the call of the church. William Perkins, one of the first Puritans, not the first, said, how can you know for yourself whether God wants you to go or not? You must ask both your own conscience and the church. For if you are genuinely willing and are fully and worthily qualified, then God bid you to go. Your conscience must judge of your willingness in the church of your ability, just as you may not trust other men to judge your inclination or affection. So you may not trust your own judgment to judge your worthiness or adequacy. If, therefore, your own conscience tells you after careful self-examination that you do not love and desire this calling above any other, then God is not sending you. If this is true of you, it is not God, but some worldly and sinister consideration that has motivated you and put you forward. But even if you desire the call to the ministry, if the Church of God does not recognize your sufficiency, God is not sending you. But if on the contrary, your conscience truly testifies that you desire to serve God and his church in his calling above any other. And if when you've indicated this to the church and your gifts and learning have been tested, the church and as many who are learned, wise and godly and those in the church is publicly appointed for that purpose, approves of your desire and your ability to serve God in the ministry, the church issues a public call and bid you go. Then God himself has bid you to go. This is as effectual a calling. as if you had heard the voice of God from heaven. So Perkins is basically saying, inwardly you have to judge your own willingness, but outwardly the church has to judge your sufficiency, your worthiness for the office. And these two things have to go hand in hand. Now, let me just mention something here, what Paul says about the title here in verse one. The ESV says it is the title of overseer. King James says Bishop. The Greek word is episcopate. You might recognize that. There is churches that are named after that. But you probably can figure out without any, almost no knowledge of Greek, what the word means. The last part of the word is scope, okay? S-C-O-P-E. So you probably know what scope means, a microscope, or telescope, or you weaponophiles, just a scope. But simply to see is what it means, and then epi over. So to look over, to see over, is literally what the word means. I'm not going to do an in-depth study of this with you by any means, but I'm just going to tell you that if you read through the New Testament, it's obvious that overseer and elder are the same office. There's no difference. In fact, it's clearly seen in Acts 20 when Paul calls for the elders of the church at Ephesus. And he calls the elders to come to him, it says in verse 17, and later on in verse 28, he says, pay careful attention to yourselves and all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. And so in those two verses we have the titles found in the Greek, overseer, elder, shepherd. So all of these titles are the same office in the church. This office of elder goes back to the Old Testament. There were elders in Israel. I'm not going to take the time tonight to read the verses I have, but back in Numbers 11, we see the Spirit of God coming down on the 70 elders. Very early in the church, they appoint elders. Paul and Barnabas in Acts 14.23, they go back to the churches and they appoint elders in all the churches that they had founded. And this whole idea of elder, and it's very similar to what we call an alderman, an elderman, we'd say alderman. So what we have here is that the elder is the title, and the overseen is the work that the elder would do. So the elder is the title, and the oversight is the work that the elder is called to do. Now I'm just going to, I just have time to quickly introduce the qualifications tonight. Before I tell you what the qualifications are here and we go over them, I want to first of all tell you what qualification is missing from this list. There's a very important qualification that is not found in this list. It does not say, for an elder must be perfect. and is not there as a qualification because none of our elders are. Well, maybe Elder Roble is, but none of the rest of our elders are perfect. OK, so we are not called because we are perfect. We are to strive after perfection, as Paul talks about in Philippians three. But we are not perfect men. Now we can divide these. different qualifications in different ways. They've been divided. Some have said the overall qualification is a good reputation. That's what Paul has is the overreaching thing. And then the first qualifications deal with a good reputation within the church. And then the last seven qualifications deal with the reputation from those who are outside the church. So you have in verse two, seven qualifications that relate to the church people themselves. And then in verse three, you start seven qualifications that relate to the people outside the church and how they would view the elder. In the seven qualifications in verse two, all positive. Everything is a positive. In the seven qualifications in verse three, five negatives. Not a violent man, not quarrelsome, not given to much wine, not a novice. All of these things have not in front of them. And then also there is in both sets a mention of the relationship in the home. Husband of one wife and one who manages their own household well. And so overall, as verse 2 says, they are to be above reproach. Reikin tells the story of a pastor that was going to preach on this passage of scripture. And so he had put as his title, qualifications above reproach. But when it came back from whoever had typed it and printed it, it said qualifications of an elder above approach. And so Sometimes that's how people look at elders. Well, I can't approach them. They're way too ahead of us. But no, that is not correct. Elders should be very approachable. And it's interesting. I'll just give you this quote. We'll close here. But David Dixon, who was a Scottish minister in Edinburgh in the 19th century, wrote some commentaries. And some of you may be familiar with him. But a Scottish Presbyterian said, Our people know well the necessity and usefulness of the office of the eldership. All over Scotland there is a happy prejudice in favor of an elder's visit. No elder could ever say they did not welcome his visits. The houses and hearts of the people are ever open to those whom they have called to the office. And I think by God's grace, I can say the same thing about this church as well. I don't ever feel like we have not been welcomed as elders into the homes as we make our house visits every year. I believe that is also true, but we are not to be above approach. But again, the above reproach is what it says. Well, let us close here and take our song books tonight as we talk about the church and sing a song of the church, We Are God's People, page number 355.