You have your Bibles, turn with me please to 1 Timothy chapter two, and we'll be reading verses eight through 15 today as we continue our study of 1 Timothy, this pastoral epistle where the apostle Paul is writing to young Timothy. Timothy is a young minister who is in the city of Ephesus. Paul has gone on to Macedonia and he's writing to Timothy to maintain sound doctrine, good church order, in the church in Ephesus. We've looked at the first chapter, where the concern was mainly about sound doctrine. And then last week, we entered chapter two, where he's talking about the worship of the church. And in chapter two, verses one through seven, we looked at how we are to pray for all kinds of people, because God desires to save all kinds of people. God's global saving purpose informs the public prayers of the church. And then at the second half of this chapter, Paul goes into decorum and public worship, especially the roles of men and women in the life of the church. And in these instructions, he's really focusing on good order. Men are supposed to behave in a certain way in the public assembly, and women are supposed to behave in a certain way in keeping with who God created them to be. grace restores nature, and the purpose of men and women has been restored by the work of Christ. And so we'll be looking at decorum in worship today. I am aware that this would be an odd Mother's Day sermon. We don't preach Mother's Day and Father's Day sermons. It's the Lord's Day. and we just continue going through the book of the Bible we're going through, and it just so happens that we're on this passage on Mother's Day, but it's not supposed to be a sentimental Mother's Day sermon, as you'll find out very soon. But it is a good passage that is true and trustworthy, and it is for all of us to grow in grace in this. It is a controversial passage, as you know, but it is one that we should all receive with meekness. So if you found 1 Timothy 2, let's stand together as we share God's word. 1 Timothy 2, we'll be reading verse 8 to verse 15. Let's remember this is God's true word. I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness, with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control. Thus far, the reading of God's word, the grass withers, the flower fades, but God's word endures forever. Let's pray and ask for a blessing on our time in God's word this morning. Father, once again we thank you for giving us true and trustworthy words, words that may offend, words that may be hard for us to accept given our cultural moment, but words that are true and words that are for our good. We pray that you would help us to have humility and to receive your word for what it is. We pray that you would bless the preaching and teaching of your word. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. And we ask that you would give us ears to hear and hearts to receive it as true and as good and as beautiful as you intend for it to be. And we pray that you would bless us with this your word this morning. In Jesus name we pray, amen. Would you please be seated? Well this passage of scripture is the most controversial passage in the pastoral epistles. It may be one of the most controversial passages in the entire New Testament. And when people, when men preach this passage, there are a variety of wrong approaches that can be taken to it, and I want to go through some of those wrong approaches by means of introduction so that we don't fall into that, and you understand that I'm trying to avoid these wrong, common but wrong approaches. Some people read this passage and they are immediately dismissive. They wave their hand and they say, well, that's just Paul giving his opinion. Or they might say, well, that's just instructions that Paul gave for the church in Ephesus. You know, the women there, they weren't educated, and so Paul just gave these instructions in that particular cultural context. Our people might quote Galatians 3 in verse 28 and say, there's no Jew and there's no Greek, there's no slave and there's no free, there's no male or female in Christ, and so none of those distinctions matter anymore, and so they just, with a wave of the hand, dismiss it. One commentator I read said, this passage is completely filled with temporary instructions, and none of them are binding on us today. Of course, the problem with that approach is that Paul grounds his instructions here, not in culture, but in creation. He says Adam was formed first. And so the instructions are not bound up in Paul's opinion. He's speaking as an apostle of the Lord, and he roots these instructions in creation. And so the immediately dismissive approach that you hear in many liberal churches today is completely misguided and wrong. Another approach that commonly happens with this passage is the hopelessly apologetic approach. This is far more common in our circles. Our circles would believe this passage. We're conservative, Bible-believing Christians. But I've heard many a sermon where the whole thing is just apologizing for the way that Paul said it. Paul, you know, he sounds kind of like a chauvinist. He sounds kind of like a misogynist, people would say. And he doesn't mean this. And then the whole sermon is spent giving all the qualifications, so that the sermon really dies the death of 1,000 qualifications, and it's dead on arrival. And the whole sermon is just apologizing for the way that Paul said. I think of an illustration of this. It's like going over to a friend's house. And his grandfather's living at home, and your friend says to you, you know, my grandfather's kind of senile, and he says some crazy stuff sometimes, so don't take him too seriously. And so some sermons sound like that. They might affirm what this passage says, but the whole sermon is explaining why it doesn't really mean what it seems to say it means. And that's an apologetic approach that is far too common. Another approach that is wrong to this passage is the excessively restrictive passage. There have been some people who have taken this passage and made it more restrictive than it actually is. And so you might think those who have used this passage maybe to make all women feel like they have to be a plain Jane, they have to be in the prairie dress with their hair down to their feet, and of course that You have those who would say this means that women have no role to play in church at all. They can't teach other women. They can't teach children. And it becomes an excessively restrictive interpretation. And that would be wrong as well. So we don't want to be immediately dismissive of God's Word. We don't want to be hopelessly apologetic, trying to be kinder than God is. And we also don't want to be excessively restrictive because to bind consciences of people where Scripture has not bound them would be wrong and evil. What I want us to see as we come to this passage is that it's actually true and good. That what it says is true and it's good for the life of the church. God created, we know, in Genesis 1 and 2, men and women both in His image. Men and women both have equal dignity and value and worth as image bearers of God. But men and women clearly have different roles, different roles in the home, different roles in the church, and different roles in society. God created Adam first, and out of Adam's side, he created Eve to come alongside and help him. And so man and woman, they're different by design. They're both equal in value, but they have different roles, different purposes, because of the way God created them to be. Man is not superior to woman, but man is superior to being a man than a woman is to being a man. Woman is not superior to a man, but a woman is superior to being a woman than a man is to being a woman. God created us different, and there's a purpose for men, and there's a purpose for women. It is good. We also know that grace restores nature. The Bible tells us that when God redeemed us, he doesn't erase the way he created us, he restores us to the way he created us to be. Sin certainly has marred relationships between men and women, and it's abused it into things like feminism, women's greater than man, and chauvinism, man's greater than a woman, and there's all these abuses in our sin, but grace restores the proper decorum. Grace restores the proper functioning of men and women in the life of the church. And what Paul would have us to see by the Holy Spirit in this passage, I believe, is that as redeemed men and women, we must embrace the roles God has given to us. We do not determine what we are, but we accept who God created us to be and who he redeemed us to be. And there are different roles for men and women. And so in this passage, he's talking about that. You can see in verse eight, he talks about the men and their prayer life. And then in verses nine through 15, he talks about the women. Now, obviously in this passage, he spends more time talking about the women, and so someone's going to ask, why do you spend more time talking about the women? Because the passage does. As I've said before, as we've been looking at this passage, I will talk more about the women, because this passage talks more about the women. And you say, well, why does it? Because the Holy Spirit inspired it that way. And that's the best I can do. That's how the Holy Spirit inspired this, and that's exactly why we would take it in turn in that way. It is important to underline that in this passage, He's not giving us a comprehensive explanation that everything a man is supposed to be and everything a woman is supposed to be. There are many other verses that we won't be looking at today in the Bible about men and women. I will bring in other verses to help understand this passage, But it's not comprehensive and exhaustive of every single thing a woman's supposed to be and every single thing a man's supposed to be. Yet, these instructions are very, very important for men and women in the life of the church. So let's look at it together. First of all, look with me at what he says to the men in verse 8. In verse 8 he says, I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. Notice that Paul has been talking in these first seven verses about prayer, praying for all kinds of people. He said we should pray for kings and for those that were in authority, that we might lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. And now he shifts to talking especially about the men praying in every place. The every place there highlights the fact that now under the new covenant, the church can gather anywhere and everywhere to worship God. In the old covenant, the worship of the church was primarily localized in Jerusalem. When Jesus was speaking to the Samaritan woman, He said, she said, well we worship on Mount Gerizim, you worship in Jerusalem. And He said, there's coming a time where it doesn't matter where you worship, God is spirit, and He will be worshiped in spirit and in truth. And so every place is an acknowledgment that the new temple can meet anywhere and everywhere. And wherever the church gathers for public worship, the men are to pray. The emphasis here is on the leadership role of the men. It's why they are mentioned first. In the public assemblies, talking about the public prayers of the people, the men are supposed to be taking the lead in prayer, leading the people of God in that way. Notice it talks about how the men should pray by lifting holy hands, lifting holy hands. The lifting of the hands is a posture of prayer that we find in various places in the Old Testament. Psalm 63 in verse four says, I will lift up my hands in your name. Lamentations three in verse 41 speaks of lifting up our hands and our hearts. And most likely that posture of prayer, it's not the only posture of prayer, but is a way of saying our help is outside of ourselves. Our help is in heaven, our help is in God. So men understand that they are not self-sufficient. Godly men are to understand that we are to reach out our hands, either physically and spiritually, to say, God, our help is in you, our hope is in you. and to be men of prayer, that in every place the men should demonstrate this lifting up of the soul to the Lord. Notice how it says that their hands are holy hands. Most likely that's understood in the moral sense of the word, that they're holy hands, outward action, your hands represent your outward action, of a holy heart. And so men are supposed to have lives that are morally pure. Psalm 24 in verse four, says, give us clean hands and give us pure hearts that we might not lift up our soul to what is false. The one who ascends the hill of the Lord is the one who has clean hands. And so a man is to pray with a holy heart. Psalm 66 in verse 18 says, if I cherish iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. In Isaiah 1 in verse 15, it spoke of those who had hands filled with blood and therefore the Lord had no regard for their prayers. And so as men, we're called to be holy. We're called to put off sin and put on righteousness. We're supposed to seek purity because it impacts our prayer. The impurity of our lives can hinder the effectiveness of our prayers, but instead, Paul is saying, lift up, men, lift up your holy hands, reflective of a holy life, to the Lord and cry out to Him. I desire that in every place, as the church gathers for worship, that the men should pray and lead in this godly way. Notice also he addresses the particular pitfalls that are unique to men, not solely unique to men, but especially kind of go along with the masculine constitution, that is anger and quarreling. Paul knows that men are uniquely tempted in that way for anger and quarreling. And so he says, lift up your holy hands without anger and without quarreling. James 1 in verses 19 and 20 says, let every man be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. The anger of man, one of the most disastrous things it can do, it can do a lot of disastrous things. It can ruin a marriage, it can ruin a family, you can lose a job over anger. One of the most disastrous things that anger can do for a man is hinder his prayer life. But rather we are to be united in love for one another, and we are to be united in righteousness, not in anger and malice, and not in quarreling, he says. Men are prone to fight with one another. We're prone to quarrel. We're prone to debate one another and argue with one another. And yet that can be a hindrance to prayer. We are supposed to love one another and listen to one another. And as iron sharpens iron, so sharpen one another. Later on, Paul will tell Timothy to be careful about quarreling. He says in 2 Timothy 2, In verse 24, the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. So what Paul tells Timothy is, of course, unique to him as a minister, but it also applies to men. We're not to be quarrelsome. We're to be kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting opponents with gentleness. God can change their hearts. God may grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. We know the principle of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, if you're going to offer your gift and you think your brother has something against you, go first and be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. So what God would have the men to know, again, not exhaustive of everything that could be said about men, but especially when it comes to public worship, that men are to lift their hands in prayer, asking for God's help without anger or quarreling. Seems in our day and age we have ready applications of this. We live in a time where people are very angry. People all over our country, all over our culture are very angry. They're not happy with the way things are going. Understandably so. You watch political shows or you read blogs or you go on the internet or whatever and it's all stirring up this anger and stirring up this unrest. We see anger in the streets. We see anger from political leaders. We see anger wherever we go, and it's easy to get caught up in the spirit of the age and just become angry, and just always become combative, and even carry that into the church, where you're combating with other people in the church, and you're always fighting, and you always have to be right. Well, what God's Word would tell us that as men is, yes, there is a time and place for righteous anger. Surely there is. We know that Jesus demonstrated that when He cleansed the temple But far too often, our anger is not righteous anger. It is selfish anger, self-righteous anger, and it is quarreling. And instead, we are to be men of prayer. We are men who are to lead in prayer. Are we doing that? Not just in the public assembly, but also in our families. Are we praying with our wives? Are we praying in family worship? Are we praying over the meals? Are we leading our families before the throne of grace? Avoiding anger and avoiding quarreling. You know how quickly it can get you out of the mood to pray is when you've been in a quarrel? You ever had that happen before? You have a fight before dinner or a fight before family worship or a fight before you go to church and all of a sudden you're just not in the mood? It's because that sin kills the spirit of prayer. And yet what God is calling us as men is to be men. Yes, we have so many roles to fulfill, but especially men of prayer, that men who are united in love for one another, united in love for the Lord, lifting holy hands, not in anger, but crying out for help to the Lord. This is what he says to the men. Then notice how he moves on to talking to the women there in verses nine through 15. When he talks to the women, he's primarily concerned about two things. He talks about proper adornment, and he talks about proper submission. First of all, he talks about proper adornment. Notice he's really concerned with the women about their apparel or their clothing. And he essentially says here, don't obsess about external adornment. He says, likewise, the women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, apparel that fits the occasion, if you will, that's respectful of God and the decorum of public worship, with modesty and self-control, and not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire." And so he says it negatively first, don't be obsessed with external adornment, and then he says something positive. He says, instead of being focused on external adornment, he says, but with what's proper for women, verse 10, who profess godliness with good works. So instead of focusing on the externals, focus on your life and your faith and the expression of that faith in your deeds, the good works. Now, when he talks about external adornment, there's a good parallel passage here. If you flip to the right in your Bibles to 1 Peter 3, in verses 3 and 4, Peter says something very similar that I think gets at the spirit of this. It says, 1 Peter 3, Verse three and four, do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing that 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. God loves that gentle and that quiet spirit in a woman and the focus on internal beauty rather than external beauty. Now when he talks here both in Peter's epistle and Paul here in 1 Timothy about the braided hair and the gold or the pearls and costly attire, he's not saying there's something inherently wrong about braids or about jewelry. Some people have taken this this way, and they've kind of taken the plain Jane interpretation that makeup is always wrong, jewelry is always wrong, any kind of trying to beautify yourself is always wrong. Well, it's highly unlikely that's what Paul means. Paul knows that in the Old Testament, Rebecca, when Rebecca was found to be a wife for Isaac in Genesis 24, she wore jewelry, and it talks about the jewelry she wore. The virgins in Song of Solomon, I don't know the last time I quoted Song of Solomon in a sermon, but here's a quotation for the virgins. They are decked out in fine jewelry and so on and so forth. Even the imagery the Bible uses of our justification in Isaiah 61, it talks about how we're clothed in a robe of righteousness and decked out as a bridegroom with her jewels, speaking positively of it. The church is adorned, it talks about like a bride for her husband, and that culture was fine clothing and jewelry. So it's not saying it's inherently wrong to braid your hair or to wear gold or pearls or anything like that. You can see from the cross-reference in 1 Peter, it's that your adorning is not merely external. It's not merely about obsessing about those outward ornamentation and things of that nature. Some of these hairstyles take a lot of time, and a lot of attention was devoted to them. You had to pay someone to do it for you. And it was about drawing attention to yourself, and the jewelry too. Drawing attention to yourself and your wealth, the fine clothing Paul mentions here, the costly attire, showing off your wealth. are, in terms of immodesty, showing off your body so that men might pay attention to you in a sensual way. And so what Paul is saying here, what God is saying through him, is that this is not the way that women are supposed to focus on their adorning. It's not merely external. John Chrysostom, Theologian in the early church spoke about it, and he said this, And what then is modest apparel, such as covers them completely and decently, and not with superfluous ornaments? For the one is decent, and the other is not. What, do you approach God to pray, with broidered hair and ornaments of gold? Are you come to a ball, to a marriage feast, to a carnival? There such costly things might have been seasonable, but not one of them is wanted. You are come to pray, to ask for pardon for your sins, to plead for your offenses, beseeching the Lord and hoping to render him propitious to you. away with such hypocrisy. So what he's saying is if you're focusing all on those things, it can be a distraction. It can be a distraction to yourself because you're focused so much on beautifying your body and making yourself look nice or show what great clothes you have, working on your hair. But rather than focusing on the Lord, you should be drawing attention away from yourself and to the Lord. And so what God's word is saying here is that women should be careful about this. Just like men have a kind of by their constitution, a temptation towards anger and quarreling, this is kind of a temptation for women. And some people think it's chauvinist to say that kind of thing, but just think about it. Think about when you have a wedding. Women will get together and they will spend all day preparing for that as they should on that special occasion. spending all day on their hair and on their makeup and on their attire. The groomsmen aren't doing that to the last second. When they get together and they put on their tux and they're trying to figure out how to put on those cuff links and all that and go to the wedding. And that's because we're different by design, but there's unique temptations that come along with that. And so what Paul is saying is be careful, be careful that you don't get so wrapped up on external beauty, on making yourself look nice or look wealthy or look sensual. Be on guard against those things. Obviously, women are called to dress modestly at all times, not just in public worship. And the goal of our adornment is not to draw attention to our physical features sensually, but rather to draw attention to the face and away from us to the Lord. And mostly that's done by good works, by godliness. It's very hard to be a young woman in our culture today because our culture obviously is not screaming for modesty, is it? Think especially the exhibitionism that goes on in social media and the internet and pictures that are posted online and all this sort of thing. It's saying, this is what it means to be a woman. It means to be sexy. It means to be scantily clad. It means to be provocative. It means to be seductive. That is wrong. That is not God's will for your life. It is to be modest and it is to be careful that you're not drawing attention to yourself, but away from yourself to the Lord. Now, there is a good sense of trying to make yourself beautiful for your husband. In Proverbs 31, it talks about the proverbial woman and how she dresses in fine linen and she cares for her household. But even in that passage it talks about charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Don't focus on those external things. Focus on internal beauty. And that's how he shifts here. He says, seek to adorn your life with virtue. He says, with good works. It is proper for women who profess godliness to adorn their life with good works. I was going for a run the other day, and I was going through a neighborhood that had a lot of new developments, new houses, and there was one brand new house, and the realtor had put out a sign on the outside of the house, and it was beautiful externally, but the sign said, gorgeous on the inside. And I thought that's exactly the lesson for women. Gorgeous on the inside. The house was beautiful externally. They had done a good job. But it said, gorgeous on the inside. These good works, this righteousness that flows out of faith. is how a woman is supposed to adorn herself. So proper adorning is one of the focuses here. Also he talks about proper submission, proper submission. Now this is the part of the passage that is often very controversial and people want to dismiss it and try to find a way around it. But it's not difficult to understand, it's really difficult for many to accept in our culture. But what I want you to see here when it talks about the women learning in proper submission, this passage actually both dignifies women and restricts them in certain ways. It dignifies them in certain ways, and it restricts them in certain ways. One of the ways it dignifies them is this passage says, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. Many in that culture and in other cultures throughout the world would say women should not learn. They don't need to learn. They don't need to be dignified as sentient beings. You can find quotations in rabbinical sources in the Greco-Roman world that said women just, they don't really need to know how to do anything other than to have babies. They don't need an education for that, they would say. But here Paul is asserting that a woman is made in the image of God. She has value. She is a sentient being. Let her learn. Let her learn. Let them grow in the knowledge of God's Word. The picture there is of Mary. You think of Mary in Luke chapter 10. What did she do? She sat at the feet of Jesus and she learned in quietness and all submission from Jesus. Martha was distracted with much serving. She was busy, she was doing things. Maybe even the things that she was doing she could have justified and said, Oh, these things have to be done so that I'm showing hospitality. But Jesus said Mary had chosen the better portion of sitting at His feet and listening to His doctrine. Women are supposed to be learners. Now in the public assembly on the gathered church, he does use this word quietly. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. And he goes on to say, verse 12, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, rather she is to remain quiet. And so the word that is used there is a quietness. And sometimes people try to find a way out of the quietness. Obviously, it doesn't mean not even a peep quietness. Earlier on in the passage, the church was told to live a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. That doesn't mean we never say anything. But it does mean a submissive posture of receiving the Word, just like Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and she was receptive to the teaching of the Lord Jesus. This is not the only place in Paul's letters where he talks about this importance of silence or quietness and associating it with submission. In 1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle Paul says these words, 1 Corinthians 14, verse 34, So there, Paul is grounding the submission and the law of God, which doesn't change, not culture, but the law, talks about the women needing to be silent and listening in the church and the public assemblies, that is they're not lead speaking, they're not speaking out, they're not asking their questions and causing a disruption in the gathering of the worship service, but rather they are in submission and if they have questions they are to ask their husbands at home, which means that the husband is supposed to be the resident theologian. He's supposed to be able to teach his wife and instruct her and give her the doctrine of God's Word. Obviously, there's always exceptions where men unfortunately aren't fulfilling their duty in that regard and aren't a source of much wisdom, but that's the way it's supposed to be in terms of the husband being the head of the wife. And then he says they're not just learners and dignifying them here in 1 Timothy 2, but he does restrict them in a certain sense, and we have to look at that carefully. He says they're not to teach or have authority over men. Notice what it says, again, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. So, notice a couple things here about that verse, those two verses. This does not mean that women have no role in the church. We could talk about how women were the first witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. We could talk about the women who accompanied the ministry of Jesus in Luke chapter 8, who supported Him financially out of their means. We could talk about Philippians 4 and Euodia and Syntyche, and how Paul talks about how they were co-workers in his ministry, laboring side by side for the sake of the gospel. That's why he wanted them to agree in the Lord. We can talk about women who seem to take some kind of role in correcting a preacher privately, a male preacher privately. In Acts 18, verse 26, Priscilla and Aquila meet with Apollos when he was off base about the doctrine of baptism, and they correct him, and he changes his view, and he's stronger for it. There certainly have been times in redemptive history when men were not living as they should, and God, in an extraordinary way, used women to do things that sadly men were not doing. We think of Deborah, the judge. We think of various prophetesses that showed up in the Old Testament. We know about those things and God's role for women in those times and in those special ways. We also know that this passage doesn't mean that women can't use their teaching gifts. We know that because later on in the pastoral epistles, in the book of Titus, in Titus chapter 2, in verses 3 through 5, it talks about the older women teaching the younger women. Titus 2, 3 through 5, it says, older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. And so the older women are to teach the younger women and the children. In 2 Timothy 1 verse 5, when Paul talks about Timothy's godly heritage... ...he praises Timothy's mother and his grandmother for their godly nurture of him... ...in the scriptures from infancy. He speaks of Lois and Eunice... ...and that pious upbringing that Timothy got, not from his dad... but from his mom and from his grandmom. And so you see that value that he places on them using those gifts. But what is Paul restricting women from doing? What he's restricting them from doing is as it says, he doesn't permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. She doesn't teach or exercise authority over a man. And so they are certainly not to be pastors, they're not to be ministers. As we'll see in 1 Timothy 3, verses 1-13, they're not to hold church office, because church office is elders and deacons, overseers and deacons, and that has authority, and so that would have authority over men. And so certainly we could say that Paul is prohibiting there the public preaching of the Word, teaching of doctrine, exercising a leadership role over the men. Well why? Why is this forbidden? What is the reason? Is Paul just giving his opinion? I don't permit it, but maybe someone else will permit it. I don't permit it, but someone else can. Well, I like what Ligon Duncan said about that. He said, if you can make, I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man, to mean I do permit a woman to teach or have an authority over a man, then you can make the scripture say whatever you want. But what Paul says is he doesn't permit it as an apostle. And the reason why is he goes back to the order of creation. Very important, not culture, not opinion, but creation. Look what he says in verse 13. He says, for Adam was formed first and then Eve. Adam was formed first and then Eve. So there's a significance to the order of creation. When God created man, we're told, male and female, they're both made in the image of God in Genesis chapter 1. In Genesis chapter 2, we see the order in which God went about that. He created man from the dust of the earth, and He breathed into him the breath of life. And there was not found a helper suitable for man in all of creation, of all the animals. And so God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and out of his side, He made Eve to be a helpmate, to come alongside and help him. And so she was created of equal dignity and value and worth, but her role was different. Her role was supportive. Her role was to come alongside and support Him in the order of creation. And what Paul is saying here is essentially that in the church, it should be reflective of creation norms. Men and women are created different by design. A man is supposed to lead. A man is to protect. A man is to exercise dominion in a unique way. And the wife is to come along and support that role. And we see that is supposed to be reflected in the life of the church. overturned, but decorum in worship requires that creation is affirmed. Grace restores nature. Grace restores nature. God restores us into the rightful roles that we were supposed to have. And so you see it's rooted in creation, but he also says more than that. He also talks about the fall, because obviously we have fallen from the estate wherein we were originally created by sinning against God, and you see how that fall has affected the relationship between men and women. He says in verse 14, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Now, that verse obviously could be taken in the wrong way, as if he's saying Adam didn't do anything wrong. We know Paul believes Adam did everything wrong. Adam was with Eve, and he was passively sitting by when this serpent was lying to her. And Adam sinned, and in Adam's fall, we all sinned. Normally, when Paul talks about how sin entered the world, he talks about Adam. Why? Because he's the head of the human race. He was born first. He's our representative, and in his fall, we all sinned. But Eve had an instrumental role to play. Her instrumental role was she was seduced and deceived by the serpent. He tricked her. He lied to her about the Word of God. He lied to her about that truth, and she believed it. Adam was in some ways worse. He was passive. He wasn't tricked. He just disobeyed. But Eve was deceived, he is saying, and she became the transgressor. She was instrumental in leading astray, even as Adam was instrumental as well in disobeying and eating the forbidden fruit. But her temptation was different. And so Paul is saying the woman is not supposed to lead for that reason. She's not supposed to have authority over man. That creational order was subverted when we fell into sin. But the woman was essentially leading. She was essentially demonstrating authority over man. She took the fruit, and then she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he also ate. And as we study Genesis, we saw that same kind of reversal, didn't we? Repeated throughout Genesis. Sarah took Hagar, and she said, Abraham, go into Hagar. And he followed the advice of Sarah. You see that deception that comes in through the role of a woman. Men and women have different proclivities, different sins, different struggles. And so Paul warns about this in multiple places. 2 Corinthians chapter 11, he says this. 2 Corinthians 11 verse 2, For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts would be led astray, led astray from a pure devotion to Christ. And so the men are called upon to lead, the men are called upon to give the authoritative word of God and to exercise government in the church, elders, deacons, and also the public speaking. Now, there's been a trend, for whatever reason, to disregard these instructions, even in the PCA, in the public worship service. For some reason, we live in just kind of a temptation, I guess, with egalitarianism, and we want to try to find where's opportunities in the public worship service where women could speak. Well, can they pray? Can they read scripture? Well, we know they can't preach, many would say, and that's the only restriction there is, but what are all these other things that maybe they should be able to do? And there have been even PCA churches that have allowed women to read scripture publicly in the assembly. To me, these are clearly out of bounds, according to 1 Corinthians 14, and even here in this passage, and that these things are acts of authority. When prayers are offered on the Lord's Day in the corporate gathering, the man who is leading that prayer, whether he's a pastor or an elder, is acting in authority in the sense that he's taking the request of the people, he's the lead prayer of the people, and taking those before the throne of grace. There is authority and there's leadership in that. We also see when we're reading the authoritative word of God publicly, there's a certain sense in which that is an act of authority. It is an act of authority that is to be done by those who are in the office to do that, which would only be men. And so there's a sense in which this does apply to all the lead speaking that is done in the public assembly. We're not talking about singing songs or reading the corporate confessions of faith. Of course, women should do that. But when it comes to the preaching of the word, or the reading of scriptures, or the prayers that are offered, that is for men, that is especially for ordained men to be leading in the assembly of the church. But even if they were not ordained, there is a creational issue here, a creational difference between men and women, and that Paul says it would be shameful to violate that creational distinction. by having the women lead speaking in the church, because Adam was born first, then Eve. Adam was not deceived. The woman was deceived and became the transgressor. And so we recognize here what is being said about the proper submission, but he also says this bugaboo of a verse in verse 15 here at the end that is a very difficult one to understand. He says, yet she If you're reading in the ESV, it'll be easier because various translations will take it differently, just so we're all on the same page. It says, yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control. And the question becomes, well, what is that saying? What is that saying, she? will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control. It's just interesting grammatically. The subject of the first verb is a singular subject, she. The word, then the question becomes, what does the word saved mean? Does it mean spiritually? Does it mean physically? What is it talking about? What's the childbearing talked about? And then why is it going to the third person, they? They continue in faith and love and holiness and self-control. And all commentators, even those who have a high view of scripture, will say this is a difficult verse to interpret. basically three views on it. Some say this is talking about the preservation of the woman, that she will be saved in the sense of preserved through having children. NASB takes that interpretation if you look at it in that translation of the Bible. But that seems weird because many women, even godly women, die in childbirth. So in what sense are they preserved through having children in that physical sense? Others would say, no, saved here means, like it often does in the pastoral epistles, working out your salvation and fear and trembling, working it out in terms of what we would call sanctification, the process of being holy. She, that is a woman, will be saved. She will fulfill her calling. She will submit to her role. by loving her husband and by raising his children for the glory of God. And so she'll be saved through childbearing, continuing in faith and love and holiness with self-control. So some people say it's just talking about sanctification, of course, the role of motherhood and sanctification. Obviously, even that has some qualifications, because not all women will be married, and not all women will, if they are married, be blessed with children, and all of those kinds of scenarios. But, of course, those are the exception, rather than the rule. The rule is generally that men and women are to marry, and they are to be fruitful and multiply and have children, so he may be speaking generally about sanctification. Eve was not submitting to her role when she took the fruit, and she was deceived. But he's saying now she needs to submit to her role, and that is in this role of motherhood. Another interesting view that is, I find, I kind of lean towards this view, is that it's redemptive historical. The she is Eve, yet she, the nearest antecedent would have been Eve, the first woman. She will be saved, and in the original, the childbearing has the article before it, the childbearing, referring to a specific childbearing. If they, that is women, continue in faith, love, and holiness with self-control. According to this view, that Eve would be saved, women would be saved through the childbearing. That is, the childbearing of Mary and the coming of Christ into the world. The seed of the woman, the offspring of the woman who is to come to bruise the head of the serpent and bring salvation. That is what brought salvation to the world. Interestingly, the woman became an instrument of damnation in the garden. But ultimately, through the coming of Christ into the world, the woman would become an instrument of salvation for the world. When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem us from the curse of the law. And so God reverses that, and He brings about salvation through motherhood. Think about Adam in the garden after Eve had sinned. When Adam names Eve, he doesn't call her damnation bringer or curse bearer. He calls her the mother of living because he believes the first promise of the gospel that through the childbearing, through the birth of a child, the world would be saved, the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. But given that that is true, given that we are saved through the childbearing, through the coming of Jesus into the world, how high does that lift the vocation of the woman in the home as a wife and a mother? Paul will later on talk about the significance of motherhood in 1 Timothy chapter 5, in verse 14 when he talks about the younger widows, he says in 1 Timothy 5 and verse 14, I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the occasion, give the adversary no occasion for slander. 1 Timothy 5, 14, notice that instruction and notice how many how many people would be offended about giving that instruction in the church today. So I'd have the younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. Motherhood is a noble task. It is a wonderful thing. It is the raising of immortal souls. And when a woman learns in quietness and full submission, when she submits to the preaching ministry of the church, the teaching ministry of the church, on those men who've been called and ordained to give that ministry, she will be a stronger wife. She will be a stronger mother. And these immortal souls that she's raising for Christ, yes, she's teaching them. And it's not one of those things where it's like, yeah, she just gets to teach the children. No, the children at the beginning in that formative time, The mother is teaching them and raising them in faith and love and holiness and self-control. That is not a small thing. That is an immense thing, a high calling that elevates women greatly in the home. We do live in a culture that basically says that it's far, far more significant for a woman to have a career outside the home. And it's not wrong for a woman to have a career outside the home. We understand that. But let us not devalue the role of the woman inside the home, submitting to her husband, submitting to the male teaching authorities of the church, growing in grace and growing in knowledge and then pouring that into her children and pouring that into other women as older women are teaching younger women that that is a high and a holy thing and a wonderful thing and would to God it be an awesome thing in the life of His people. I think about some of the most gifted women teachers that I've ever met and ever known or ever listened to, and all of them have spent a great deal of time learning with quietness and full submission. They've learned in quietness and full submission from their husbands. They've learned in quietness and full submission from their pastors. They've learned in quietness and full submission from theologians and pastors from men. And that has equipped them to be more effective teachers. Think about someone like Nancy Guthrie, a great Bible teacher for women. If you read Nancy Guthrie or if you hear her speak, who does she quote a lot? Pastors and theologians, she's learned in quietness and full submission, and that has equipped her to minister to other women. And that is a value, but it is also a value inside the home for our children. Let us embrace our roles as men and women and serve in the strength God supplies. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank You for Your Word. It is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Your Word is trustworthy and true, and it's good for us. Yes, in our sin we all at times resist what Your Word says or even how it says it. Sometimes we even, we shut it out because we want to do things our way, but we pray that You would help us to humble ourselves and receive with meekness Your truth. Help us, for those who are men, help us to be the men you've called us to be. For those who are women, help them to be the women you have called them to be in godliness and righteousness, so that others might see our good works and give glory to you in heaven. We pray, Lord, that within the church there would be decorum, there would be good order, especially as we fulfill the roles that you assigned at the very creation of the world. when you created man to be a man and woman to be a woman, and that you told us how those roles are to be fulfilled in the life of the family and the church and society. May we submit to it as good students of your word in the school of Christ. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.