God’s Good Design

We come now to 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 8 through 15, which has proven to be in perhaps the last 50 or 60 years one of the most controversial paragraphs in the Bible that has divided churches, denominations, I should say rather the Bible itself isn’t the divider but can be the source of division as people have disagreed on this passage.  Thankfully, I don’t think that is the case in our congregation nor in our denomination, but it can still be a difficult passage.  You may have many questions about it or people that you know, and so my prayer this week has been more than anything to faithfully expound what is in this very important paragraph.

We read: 

“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.”

One of the difficulties in preaching on this passage is that people are often listening with very different sets of ears.  There is a tendency sometimes for preachers, when it comes to controversial sections like this, to therefore approach the text in a certain way assuming or thinking they know the kinds of ears that are listening to this message.  I think there could be at least four kinds of ears in our audience that are listening.

One might be skeptical, the sort of person who brings a lot of intellectual objections.  It may not be on a heart level but they have a lot of questions.  This seems very different.  They’re not sure if they like what this has to say or it doesn’t quite make sense in our culture so then the approach of the pastor is apologetic, sometimes even too apologetic.  But trying to explain what this means, what it doesn’t mean.

Another sort of ears might be suspicious.  Here I’m thinking of the person who listens to a passage like this and can’t help but bring to the listening task their own personal hurts, fears, maybe the way that they’ve seen this played out in sinful ways or texts like this abused.  So the approach then of the teacher or the preacher is to try to overcorrect and perhaps say a lot of things about men, for example, which might be true, and yet are not really what this text is about.

Another set of ears might be sinful, that is the pastor might assume, well, the people who are listening to this are deeply infused with feminism and they refuse to accept the Word of God, and so the pastor’s stance is to bring a thunderous rebuke.

Then a fourth set of ears I call specific, that is the sort of people that say, “I’m with you, Pastor.  I agree with this and I have a lot of specific questions about who can speak at our retreat, a man or a woman, or at what age does a boy become a man, or what about small groups, or what about a mixed group,” and lots of questions which are important.  Then the sermon focuses almost entirely on application.   

Now each of those approaches, thinking that the audience is skeptical or suspicious or sinful or wants specifics, each has its place and can be warranted, so which one?  Well, what I want to do, I can think of another S, is to be simple.  That is, to walk through, no fancy outline, walk through verse by verse and in some cases phrase by phrase, to try to understand what Paul and God by the Holy Spirit means to teach us.  So not overly apologetic, not trying to land a thunderous rebuke, but trying to explain, and along the way, perhaps, a few points of application and how this fits into the larger truth of the Bible.

As we look at these verses, it needs to be mentioned that Paul is not addressing some unique situation in Ephesus, or we have no indication that he is.  One of the ways that some commentators have tried to put this paragraph and make it under the category of culturally conditioned, the sort of thing that you could safely set aside in its particulars, is to say that Paul was addressing a particular concern in Ephesus, where Timothy is ministering.  And it said, after all, don’t we know from Acts chapter 19 there they are worshiping the great statue, the goddess Artemis of the Ephesians.

So maybe we ought to think that Ephesus was saturated with this proto-feminist principle that was at work and Paul needed to say these sorts of hard things to that audience because they were run amok with feminism.

There’s a number of problems wrong with that.

One.  To think that any society, any city then would have had more feminism than we have in the 21st century is very unlikely, but just to deal with the text itself from Acts chapter 19, the men who are there, Demetrius is the maker of the shrine, the Asiarchs are high-ranking officers of the province, the city clerk there in verse 35 of Acts 19 would have been a man in Ephesus as in all the other towns, the men would have had charge of the temple functions and of the civic functions.  Even though there were many gods and goddesses, men would have had control of the religious and the civic centers in the ancient world. 

Ephesus was not a radically feminist place.  You can read the various Greco-Roman literature.  Girls in Ephesus were praised for modesty, for devotion to their husbands.  The roles that women played in Ephesus were the same roles in other ancient cities.  Ancient texts give examples of women in Ephesus who were wives, who were mothers, who were farmers, who were homemakers, who were bar girls, who were prostitutes, who were fortune-tellers, just like it would have been across the first century world.

And besides, whatever we think Ephesus might have been like, Paul is not meaning to give just a narrow concern.  If you let your eyes drift down the page to chapter 3, verse 15, “If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.”  So there in 3:15 Paul is not saying, “I have some specific instructions for you in Ephesus because of some cultural dynamics you’re dealing with,” rather he’s says this whole letter, though addressed to one pastor, is about how you might conduct yourself in the household of God.  Paul is concerned broadly what is life to be like in the Church, not just in this one church in Ephesus.

Look at verse 8.  First instructions have to do with men – desire that men everywhere should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.

He gives instructions to men and then he gives instructions to women.  The emphasis here is not on posture, prayer in the Bible is given a lot of different postures.  Sometimes we see that people pray standing up, sometimes kneeling, sometimes lying down flat on their face.  Here he says lifting holy hands.

It’s good to remember, though that’s not our usual stance in a church like Christ Covenant on a Sunday.  I would hope that there is some point in your prayer life where you are praying lifting with holy hands to the Lord.

But there are many different postures for prayer and the point here is rather the second half, that when you pray and you lift holy hands, may they be hands, that’s the reason he’s mentioning hands, may they be hands that are not given to fighting, to fisticuffs, to pugilism.  Paul’s instructions move inward.  This is important when we come to verse 9, the instructions move from outward appearance, hands lifted up in prayer, to the inward reality, which is most important, and that is an attitude that is free of anger and quarreling.

Notice this command is not given to the women, just like the subsequent command about modesty is not given to the men.  Now that’s not because men can dress immodestly, they shouldn’t, nor is it because women, well, you can lift holy hands in prayer and then you can punch people with anger and quarreling.  No, he’s not giving one to women and one to men because it doesn’t matter for the men or the women vice versa, but rather, this is important, because Paul is addressing men and women at the struggle that is typical for a man or for a woman.  Now I didn’t say exclusive, but typical.  Women can be angry, men can be immodest, but ordinarily, if you are to think of potential rage monsters, you probably think of men.  And typically if you think who might walk into the room dressed in a way meant to attract everyone’s attention, you probably think of women.

So they’re not exclusive problems to men or women, but Paul is addressing to the sexes at a particular point of struggle.  Men, he says, you can be given to fighting and to anger and to quarreling.  That’s not how I want you to pray.  That’s not how you ought to conduct yourself in the church.

Then he has instructions that are specifically targeted for women, and that’s the reminder of this section. 

If you want an outline, and I’m just going to walk through the verses, but if you want an outline, I did come up with three M’s, as Paul gives instruction to the women about modesty, about mouths, and about motherhood.

So first, in verses 9 and 10, he talks about modesty.  He says, “Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel.”  So that’s the over-arching command.  Women, you ought to adorn yourselves respectably.  There are going to cultural cues and dynamics, what is costly, what is respectable, what is not. 

I would say if you travel to some parts of Europe or the British Isles to some parts, especially the north, you may find yourself thinking, “Wow, Americans dress very garishly.  Americans like to draw attention to themselves.”  And if you went to some parts of southern Europe or South America, you might think, “Well, Americans dress rather conservatively.”   

So there will be some cultural dynamics at play.

Notice after he gives the command “respectable apparel,” he gives three clarifying clauses.  He says first women are to dress with modesty and self-control.  That is there should be a sense women in how you dress of propriety, of moderation, and refraining from sensuality.  That word “self-control” usually has a sexual overtone, that you are not trying to draw sexual attention to yourself.

Then he says, second, women are not to dress with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes.  Why?  Because such items in the ancient world flaunted wealth.  They drew attention to external beauty rather than 1 Peter says the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.  Now we’ll come back to that lest you’re panicking because you wore a braid tonight, we’ll say more about that in just a moment.

But notice then the third clarifying clause, to dress with good works, profess godliness with good works.  So notice what Paul has done.  Just as he did with the men, he moved from outward appearance, hands lifted in prayer, to inward reality, free from anger and quarreling.  He’s done the same thing here.  He’s moving from outward appearance, and he mentions some specifics, gold, pearls, expensive clothes, but he’s moving inward so that the conclusion to this modesty section is to say, “Here’s how you want to dress.  You want to dress yourself with good works.”

His main concern is that women adorn themselves in a way that fits the Gospel.  Internal maturity that reflects and is borne out in external modesty.

So let’s talk about some of those specifics, braided hair, gold, pearls, expensive clothes.  Those things are not intrinsic evils.  Heaven is full of gold and pearls.  The Old Testament priestly garments were ornate and expensive, so it’s not that something that has an expensive price tag, and that measure itself is culturally conditioned, nor pearls or these expensive things, are by themselves, well, that means that that is something worldly. 

There is a problem that Paul is warning of their abuse, of drawing attention to themselves, of walking into a room, particularly in a sensual way or in a way that exacerbates class divisions that may be present.  We know that Paul is not meaning to write a forbidden list of jewelry items because of what he says in 1 Peter 3.  There he says, “Women, do not let your adorning be external.  The braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart.”

Now notice what he says.  Literally, don’t let your adorning be the putting on of clothing.  No, pretty safe to say Paul meant you should wear clothes.  He’s not saying don’t put on clothes, you’re so worldly.  What he’s saying is don’t let the adorning, don’t let what is most attention-grabbing about you, what people see immediately and jump to the conclusion is most important to you, and the thing that most defines you, is what you wear.

Peter did not condemn certain kinds of clothing so much as the clothing that would draw attention to oneself.  Women were supposed to go to church with clothes.  Dress is not the fundamental problem in itself, but it is the sort of dress that is an expression of sensuality and unnecessary opulence.  That’s why he mentions gold and pearls and braids, all those things which could have been in the ancient world a marker of either extravagant wealth or drawing attention to oneself in a sensual way.  Paul’s concern, like Peter’s, is that women labor to make themselves beautiful on the inside more than the outside.

Now notice, very carefully, the motivation for modesty here is not to prevent men from stumbling or to prevent unwanted attention from men.  Now those are not irrelevant considerations.  Most men are very visual and they will notice a woman dressed immodestly.  They will, and immediately, and always.  So there is a kindness toward one another that we might think of one another.

But that is a consideration by implication, and sometimes pastors have gotten themselves into trouble by so emphasizing that as if the burden of a woman’s dress is just so the man who has no control over himself.  Here it very clearly – a man has agency and control over his eyes, over his thoughts.  So a woman is not to be blamed when a man sins in this way.

The reason given here rather than that consideration, which is not irrelevant but not the point that Paul makes, the exhortation is not rooted, hey ladies, think about a man’s response, but rather think about your own pursuit of godliness.

I don’t have time to flesh this out, but I have become convinced in thinking about this for many years, men and women, that the Bible, especially the New Testament, approaches men understanding that they have a central drive pursuit of true strength.  I think many of the commands in the New Testament understand a man, he wants strength.

1 Corinthians 15, or 16 rather, says “act like men,” which is given to the whole church, but manliness there is fortitude and courage.  Why does the Bible so many times, like here, say “Men, don’t have quarreling.  Fathers, don’t exasperate your children.  Live with your wives in an understanding way.”  It’s because a typical male sin is anger, to lose control, a temper, to be grasping after a strength and to mistake just a rage for that strength.  So a man wants a true strength.  That’s part of what we think it means to be a man.

Again, this is culturally conditioned.  I don’t think every man here likes hunting, fishing, sports, and cars, but even men who aren’t into sports, there’s generally a kind of competitiveness, there’s something of a proving that you have strength.  That’s why you say to a man, “Are you a man?  You want to act like a man.”  That is a deep insult and I think the Bible understands and wants to push men to say, “I know you want to be strong, I know you want to have strength.  Here’s what biblical strength, it’s under control, it serves, it sacrifices, it’s courageous for the sake of Christ and for others.”

Then likewise, I think the Bible understands that a main female desire is the quest for true beauty.  The Bible does not shame women for being beautiful or for wanting to be beautiful.  In fact, many of the most famous women in the Bible are praised for their beauty – Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Esther.  You could go on and on how many were praised for their beauty.  Proverbs and Song of Songs are full of language where husbands are praising their wives for their beauty.

So a woman who wants to be beautiful is not the problem.  The potential problem rather is twofold – pursuing beauty in the wrong way, not respectable, not self-controlled, or neglecting the truest beauty, how beautiful are the feet of those who teach good news.  Adorn yourselves, Paul says, and you, women, how you look most beautiful?  It is when you adorn yourselves with good works.  And you want to find a man who is most attracted to that beauty in you, and husbands, we ought to praise our wives, yes, Scripture gives lots of examples of praising our wives for their physical beauty, we should do that as well.

But note, even more so, this beauty of the heart, this beauty of good works.  The Bible understands men are motivated, grasping after true strength.  That’s part of what it means to be a man.  And women are grasping after this true beauty.

I know there are potential stereotypes here, but men, all the time you spend following sports; woman, often the time you spend wanting to get ready, applying the right things, looking for the right clothes; is telling us something about our drive, and the Bible doesn’t say “shame on you, men, you want to be strong, shame on you women, you want to be beautiful,” it says here’s what true strength and true beauty looks like.

Modesty.

And then the second heading, mouths.  Verse 11 – let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.

Now it must be said from the beginning Paul is saying something counter-cultural.  He’s commanding women to learn.  There were some segments of Judaism that considered it inappropriate for women to learn the Scriptures.  Women didn’t need to learn the Scriptures.  This verse disagrees.  No, let a woman learn.  We want women in this church, and praise God this describes the women in this church, who love the Bible and love church history and love theology and want to study and grow and learn.  So Paul says let a woman learn provided they do so in quietness and with all submissiveness.

The word “quietness” or “silence” as it comes up at the end of verse 12, “she is to remain quiet,” is not meant to be a demeaning term.  These are positive qualities of the learner.  It signifies an attitude of humility and an eagerness to learn.  The person who’s talking on and on is not listening to the teacher.  Silence in this text, as well as in 1 Corinthians 14, refers to the teaching ministry of the Church in the context of the gathered assembly.  Women are not to be teachers but quiet learners.  That’s what this passage says.

“All submissiveness” clarifies why women are expected to be quiet.  They are to be submissive to men in a similar way that wives are submissive to their husbands.  It would not be fitting for a wife to be submissive to her husband in the home but then to be in the Church and then the husband has to be submissive to his wife because now she is a teacher in a position of authority over him.  No, the two, the home and the Church, must go together.

So Paul continues this line of argument in verse 12, and he becomes even more explicit – I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.

Verse 11 and verse 12 go together.  The central idea that women should be quiet in this context you see forms a bookend.  Look at verse 11, starts “learn quietly,” verse 12, “she is to remain quiet.”  So it bookends 11 and 12, giving these commands, what does submissiveness look like for the woman in the context of the Church – quiet, quiet.  In the middle we have the explanation that women are not to teach because you cannot respect the command for quietness in the Church to do so, nor should a woman have authority over a man.

Now some have argued that when verse 12 says “I do not permit,” that since the verb is in the present tense, we should understand Paul to be saying “at present I am not allowing a woman to teach.”  This is just my rule right now, you have an unruly situation, or Ephesus is difficult, or I need to make a temporary measure, so I do not permit.  It’s the present tense so Paul didn’t mean it for all time.

Well, that is an unreasonable understanding of a grammatical tense.  If present tense verbs only carry weight for the time in which they were written, then much of the New Testament has no significance for us.  In the pastoral epistles alone, there are 111 present tense verbs like “permit.”  So if you want to go through 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, and underline all the present tense verbs and say, well, those things really don’t apply to us, that was just a specific moment in time, you’re not got to have much left.  Like when it says God desires all people to be saved, just a few verses earlier in verse 4, or the mystery of godliness is great, 1 Timothy 3:16.  Or 1 Timothy 6:6, there is great and godliness with contentment.  Those are all present tense verbs and we understand instinctively that these were not just written for one drop in the moment of time but for all time.

Where Paul says, then, “I do not permit a woman to teach,” he is not specific about what a woman may not teach, he is not saying that, well, if you are learned then you can teach.  Doesn’t say anything about that.  That’s wanting to read something into the text.  Nor does it say, well, the woman simply isn’t to each error.  Well, that’s true, but nobody should teach error in the Church, and in fact all of the named false teachers in the pastoral epistles are men – Phygelus, Hermogenes, Hymenaeus, Philetus, Demas, Alexander.  The verb here is not the verb for false teaching, heterodidaskalos, which is used elsewhere in 1 Timothy, is just the word didaskane, for teaching.

So we can’t say, well, Paul is just saying I don’t want you to teach error.  Well, he does say that elsewhere, but all the false teachers he indicates are men.  No, this is a broader command that in the Church women are not to teach or to exercise authority over man.  This word authentene, and you can hear the English word authority derived from that Greek work, only appears here in the New Testament.  So scholars have written a lot about what this means, and some people have argued that the word “authority” really means to usurp authority. 

In fact, that is how the King James interprets it.  Or the later NIV has assumed authority.  Or some people have argued that it really should be translated “to domineer.”  Which would give verse 12 a very different flavor.  In that case, Paul would just be saying, “Women, you’re not to domineer over men.  You’re not to steal away authority.  You’re just not to do something wrong in this regard.”

But there’s no really good reason to take the verb as being a specifically negative verb.  In fact, all the other translations, the first NIV, the NASB, the NLT, the ESV, the RSV, the NRSV, all translate it simply as “authority.” 

These two words going together, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority,” are very specific grammatical construction in the Greek.  You can go look this up.  I don’t like it when pastors, you know, play the Greek card, just trust me on it.  But you can go read these things for yourselves.  But I think all of us, just good English readers, understand that when he says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority,” he is talking about two things, not simply saying “I don’t permit a woman to teach in an authoritative way,” but he’s saying number one, I don’t permit a woman to teach and number two, to exercise authority.  Those are both infinitive verbs, which is why they are translated “to teach,” “to exercise authority.”  They both should be taken in a positive sense.  It doesn’t work grammatically to say well, teaching is good and then authority is bad, or one is bad and the next one is good.  They’re both general verbs with a positive connotation and Paul does not permit women to do either in the context of the Church.

No teaching, no authority over men, is that what verse 12 gives as permanent instruction for life in the Church.  The application of this would mean, at the very least, that women are not to be elders, we’ll come to that later next week in 1 Timothy chapter 3 because the specific skill unique to the elder is that he must be apt to teach and eldership by its very nature wields authority, nor ought women to have positions of ordained leadership in the Church.  So in the PCA though deacons are servants, and there is nothing that prohibits women from doing service activity, Phoebe is called a diakonos, she is called one who does diakonal ministry, yet a deacon as an ordained office in the Church does carry by virtue of that ordination some measure of authority, so ordained offices in the church are reserved for qualified men.

We can also conclude that teaching and preaching in the corporate worship service is reserved for men.  There would be many other questions after that about Sunday school classes and then small groups or campus ministries or conferences or high school ministry, and we have to sort those things out and I think you can look around, if you’re familiar with our church, and see how we have understood the application of those things.

I think in general, the more public the nature of the ministry, and the more frequent the nature of the teaching, the more and more that this prohibition does hold.  I don’t think that we can only limit it to this room, as if Paul has in mind, well, when you leave the church room and go to a different room in the church, then suddenly these things don’t apply.

But certainly when we come to other sorts of classes, and you may have women, men and women, teaching about marriage, or you may have Bible studies that are led by men and women, or small groups that are led by men and women, or different times on occasions where a woman may share an announcement or in a class may give some sort of explanation of her expertise, specifically when it’s for other women.  Certainly there are many ways in which women can exercise gifts of instruction for other women and for children.  This does not give a prohibition of men learning things from women, but rather it is what women are not to do in the context of the Church.

Now look at verses 13 and 14 because Paul gives the reasons, lest we say that this is simply a cultural construct, this was a cultural construct, this was the first century, Paul couldn’t have understood, women weren’t taught, they didn’t go to university, they didn’t have the same educational opportunities, this is just limited to one cultural moment, Paul makes clear, he gives a couple of reasons, and they are transcultural reasons.

He says, “for,” you see that in verse 13, so that tips us off he’s giving us reasons, and he gives one reason in verse 13, the order of creation, Adam was formed first then Eve.

You may think, well, that’s, sorry, Paul, that’s not a very good explanation.  Weren’t badgers and fish and snakes created before man?  If we’re just going order of creation, why does man get to be better than woman?  Is this saying that the man is somehow superior than the woman?  The man is first place.  He is A+ creation and the woman is B+.  Of course that’s not what it means.  It may be that this is the idea of the firstborn son in the family who is given certain rights of the sons.  It may mean, even better I think, the order is significant not because first is first place and second is second place, but because in the Genesis narrative the man being created first and then the woman from the side of the man communicates something about the way they relate to each other and they relate to the world. 

We don’t have time to show this from Genesis, but men and women are created in Genesis in different ways.  The man is created from the ground, which shows that his primary work is going to be there with the outer world of the garden, and what happens with the curse, but his primary area of responsibility grows up thorns and thistles.  He will now have to work by the sweat of his brow.

The woman is taken from the side of man.  She is created in a different way because she is created to be the helpmate of the man and she will have, generally speaking, she will have the inner world of the garden, and in particular she will be a helpmate for the man because only the man with the woman can fulfill the creation mandate to be fruitful and replenish the earth.

So just as the curse affects the man at his primary area, working the ground, the curse affects the woman there in Genesis at her primary area, which it says “now you shall give birth to children in great pain.”  Just keep that in mind because that’s going to help us understand verse 15 in just a moment.

So in Genesis, Adam, who was created first, he’s the one who names, tames, and protects.  Eve is one created after Adam to nurture, help, and support.  The first and the second is not first place and second place, but it does speak to the larger way in which men and women, in particular the marriage relationship, are to relate to each other.

So the first reason.

And then verse 14 he gives another reason, that Eve was deceived and became a transgressor.

Now don’t think that God is putting all the blame on Eve.  In fact, it’s very instructive that Romans chapter 5 says that sin entered into the world through one man.  Now Eve, right here it says she sinned first.  We know that.  She was the one who sinned, deceived by the serpent she gave the food to Adam to eat, and yet theologically Adam was the covenant head of the human race so that sin entered the world not through Eve, she was not the head, but Adam was, so the sin entered through Adam.

But here the point is a little different.  Adam was not deceived but the woman was deceived.

There’s a couple of ways we might understand this.  One is to think that Paul may be making a case that women can be more easily deceived.  Here the point would not be, well, men have fewer faults than women, but rather men and women are prone to different kinds of errors and men generally more aggressive and assertive may on the whole be more prone to harshness, or schism, where women generally more contextual, more sensitive to the feelings of others, may on the whole be tempted to compromise on doctrine.  They first built relationships.

So Eve’s deception may be a comment, generally speaking, that Paul believes that on the whole, though men and women will have different strengths and weaknesses, that to be deceived is a particular problem for the woman.

Now there’s another explanation which I think is even better, and that is to say that Paul is making this argument about deception not so much because he thinks women are more easily deceived, though there’s many commentators who have thought that, but rather because it speaks to the reversal of roles there in the garden.  This is what happens.

Remember he’s making the point Adam, remember Eve was deceived and she ate, she was the transgressor?  Because you flip the script and Eve was talking to the serpent and then Eve gave the fruit to the husband and then the husband was abdicating his responsibility and you all remember, it’s a very sad story, and he says to God,  “Well, the woman You gave me, she made me eat of this fruit.”  It’s a story of the woman being deceived by the serpent and the man abdicating his God-given responsibility.

So the statement about Eve being deceived and became a transgressor is likely to signify, look, here’s what happened in the garden when these God-given roles were reversed.

Now no matter how we understand verse 14, the point should be obvious.  Paul does not ground these commands about silence and submission in first century culture.  He does not say this is the way things are done in the Roman world.  He does not say, look, this would be offensive to the world of Ephesus.  There are plenty of other times where Paul is not afraid to be counter-cultural.

In fact, he does precisely the opposite.  He does not root these commands in anything in that particular culture but rather his rationale goes back to Genesis.  He does not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority because it would be a violation of God’s design for the sexes and the created order.  Both of those examples go back to Genesis to say God has created the world with a design, and it’s a good design.  And the design in which we flourish is for the man to have headship in the home and in the Church, which is one of strength and protection and self-sacrifice and honoring the woman, and the woman is given in the home and in the Church that she might be a help mate and a support and a nurturer.

Which brings us then, quickly, to our final verse 15.  Modesty, mouths, that’s the big section, then finally motherhood.

Understandably, this has struck people as very strange, almost unbiblical, except here it is in the Bible:  She will be saved through childbearing.

This is where Scripture needs to interpret Scripture.  Your instincts should tell you, well, surely Paul is not saying, “Have a baby, go to heaven.”  This is Paul, who said it is not by works of the law, it is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone so that no one may boast.  It is a gift of God.  So all of that comes into your head and you are right to think, “Okay, Paul is not saying if you want to go to heaven, have a baby.” 

No, the key is to understand this word “she will be saved.”  Now when we hear “saved” or “salvation,” we tend to equate that with justification.  Okay, the woman will be justified, she will be declared right through childbearing.  But saved and salvation is not identical to justification.  It is a broader category in the New Testament covering the entire life of the Christian.

We are commanded, in Philippians 2, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.  Now if you hear that as work out your justification, there goes the Gospel, but salvation is a bigger term for the totality of your Christian life.

So she will be saved.  That is, she demonstrate her obedience to Christ, she will demonstrate that she is working out her salvation with fear and trembling through childbearing.

But pay attention to the last half – if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.

The point, and I know this is a very painful point if we misunderstand it, because there are no doubt people here who say I have wanted for years to have a child, I wanted my whole life to have a child and to add to that pain, now a verse like this that says that somehow I’m not a woman that I haven’t had a child, would be pain that the Lord does not mean to put upon any woman or any couple here.  So please hear what the verse is saying.

Yet, we must understand that Paul is trying to make an important point.  He is saying insofar as a woman is able, that is, she is able to be married and she is able to have children, insofar as she is able, it is one of the ways in which a woman demonstrates everything that has come in the verses previous, one of the ways to demonstrate her obedience to Christ, her being saved by Christ, is to give herself to having, nurturing, and raising children.  Giving birth, in other words, is one of the ways, if God should grant that to a woman, through marriage, is one of the chief ways in which a woman demonstrates obedience to her God-given identity.

Instead of casting off order and decency, a godly woman embraces true femininity.  And how does she do it?  Well, we’ve seen it.  She dresses modestly and in good works, she learns with a submissive spirit, and insofar as she is able, she bears children.  She continues in faith and love and holiness.  It does not tell you how many children, it just says to embrace the role of bearing and nurturing children.

I’ve been asked many times as a pastor, well, what about women working outside of the home?  That is an anachronistic question.  Hardly anyone worked “outside the home” until the industrial revolution.  You worked on a farm and everyone had work to do on the farm and maybe the man was more outside and the woman was more inside, but there wasn’t somebody driving off or going to some other city “outside the home.” 

And if you’ve ever paid attention to Proverbs 31, that wisdom personified, that godly woman, she’s selling things, she’s buying things, so it’s not to say that a woman cannot work outside the home.  The question itself is anachronistic.  What the Bible does say, however, Titus 2:5, is that young women should be busy at home.  So the Bible does not give us you can do this many hours here or this many hours there, it simply says that a young woman, understanding that in most cases young women will be married and have children, are therefore, if that is their season of life, must not neglect those God-given priorities and responsibilities.

By embracing motherhood, women show themselves to be godly women who love the call of Christ in their lives, love God’s good design.

So in these verses, and here we bring this to a conclusion, we see in one paragraph in miniature how manhood and womanhood work, are supposed to work, in the Church.  Just as in the home husbands should love their wives and not be harsh with them, Colossians 3:19, that’s the home, in the same way in the Church men should lift holy hands in prayer without anger or disputing.  You see the connection?  Same idea.

And just as wives are submissive to their husbands in the home, Colossians 3:18, so in God’s household women ought to learn in quietness and full submission, refraining from teaching or having authority over men.

In all of this, as men and women embrace God’s design, we are to will and to do according to God’s good pleasure.  This is not meant to be a word that makes life miserable but that makes life full of flourishing.

Genesis records the creation of men and women and there are two essential things that Genesis knows.  One, male and female created in the image of God.  Utterly unique of any creation story in the ancient world.  The image of God, not just the man but male and female underlines it.  Both of them made in the image of God.

And then the second essential feature of the creation of human beings is that God made us male and female.

The starting place for anthropology has to be in those two Genesis realities.  God made me in His image, that is, to show forth his likeness, to grow into true holiness, and we see that image most clearly in the image of His Son, God in the flesh, Christ Jesus, made in His image to reflect His character and to show forth His glory in the world.

And then God made me as a man or as a woman.  I don’t have to tell you we live in a time where both of those things are under assault, both the image of God and the distinction between the sexes that men are men, women are women, and the two are not to be confused.  It’s not a matter of being culturally conservative, it is not a matter of being politically conservative, whatever party wants to align with what the Bible says, then go for it.  It is being aligned with God’s Word that in the beginning He made them male and female, and here in 1 Timothy 2, we have transcultural for all time instructions on how we are to conduct ourselves in the house of faith that these distinctions between men and women would bring glory to God, order and decency to the Church, and, in fact, bring harmony and joy to each of us.    

Let’s pray.  Father in heaven, we thank You for Your Word, all of it breathed out for our benefit to train us in righteousness.  Help us.  For those that have heard these many things before and the refreshers are good, for others who may be approaching this for the first time or have many questions or come with personal pain of difficulty, would You so move in our hearts that You would show us where our lives may be out of alignment with Your Word, both as men and as women.  We pray in this church that You would, as we think You have done for these 40+ years, so give to us godly men to lead and to teach and to hold office, and godly women to serve in hundreds of ways, honoring to the body and to each other.  We trust that You will give us this grace to do so and in so doing You will be pleased.  Amen.