Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome and Announcements

Saturday at 11am, Ladies’ Cookie Baking Extravaganza—if you’re available to help, please let Natalie know so she knows who all to expect; and if you have any questions about it, please feel free to talk with her this evening.

Don’t forget, our service schedule for the next few weeks is different—you’ll see it posted in every worship guide until the end of the year, on Facebook, and on the screens.

I’ll do my best to remind you of what’s different each week so that you don’t find yourself here when we aren’t here:

For this coming week, please know that (1) we have discipleship groups at 9am on Sunday, morning worship at 10:30am.

There will be no Bible Study & Prayer this coming Wednesday, but please join us Saturday, December 24th for our annual Carols & Lessons at 7pm

The service is about an hour long and we’ll be reading through the Christmas account in Scripture with carols interspersed between each passage.

After the service, we’ll have desserts in the Activity Room—this is a great opportunity for those of you that have an amazing dessert recipe from your great aunt Meredith to whip it together and bring it for everyone to enjoy.

Sunday is a normal Sunday, but there is no Wednesday—join us for a Christmas Eve service at 7pm instead.

Be aware that we have a quarterly business meeting after Sunday AM Worship on January 1st.

Let me remind you to continue worshiping the Lord through your giving.

To help you give, we have three ways to do so, (1) cash and checks can be given at the offering box.

Checks should be written to Grace & Peace; debit, credit, and ACH transfers can be done either by (2) texting 84321 with your $[amount] and following the text prompts or (3) by visiting us online at www.giving.gapb.church.

Of course, everything you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Preaching of God’s Word (1 Tim 2:8-15)

Introduction

If you have your Bible, please turn it to 1 Timothy 2:8-15.

We started working through 1 Timothy 2 last week, but if you remember from last week, I intentionally chose not to because of how misused the second half of this passage of Scripture is.

This passage is a difficult passage; and because of its difficulty, it has been misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misrepresented.

Many people have utilized this verse to make the argument that women are of lesser value than men in the church and that women are almost like a secondary class of believers within the church.

Others have utilized this passage to claim that women ought not even speak in a church setting and some cult leaders have utilized this passage in nefarious ways to fulfill their own lustful desires.

The sinful ways that people have misinterpreted this passage are the reasons why I chose to separate this section of the passage from last week’s passage, but I want to make it abundantly clear that this passage connects with last week’s passage and even the next section of passages in that it speaks of proper worship of the Lord in a church setting—in other words, we can’t isolate this passage, when we do, we get the messed up interpretations that I’ve already mentioned.

We must understand this text in light of its direct context and really, in light of the context of the Bible.

Keep this in mind as we read 1 Tim 2:8-15 together.

As we study this passage, we’re going to break it into three sections: (1) The Connection to Proper Worship (8), which will recap last week’s message and help us see this week’s passage in context, (2) The Need of Good Works (9-10), and (3) Roles within the Church (11-15).

As Paul continues in this letter by speaking about proper worship of the Lord within the church context, we’ll learn a bit of not just how women should serve in a church, but even how men ought to serve in the church as well.

This evening, we’ll see some of how God has set up His church and we’ll see both the importance of good works and the need of biblically qualified people serving within the church.

Prayer for Illumination

The Connection to Proper Worship (8)

Remember my encouragement that no passage of Scripture stands in isolation

Meaning there is a context to keep in mind.

In this case, the context started in 1:1-11 with a warning against false teachers.

It continued with a reminder of the Gospel in 1:12-20

And it shifted in 2:1-7 with an encouragement to pray for all people.

Or if I could put it a different way:

Paul is confronting false teaching by rejecting the teaching of false teachers—what shouldn’t be taught.

Reminding them of the actual Gospel of Jesus Christ—what should be taught.

And now, he’s exhorting them to return to what true corporate worship of God looks like—how things ought to be in light of the Gospel; and really, in light of the whole counsel of God.

Now, if you paid close attention last week, you’ll notice that I’m continuing in this week by looking at a verse that we already looked at last week.

V. 8 says, “I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.”

I’m bringing this verse back up for two reasons:

First, you’ll notice that vv.

9-10 is a continuation of the sentence in v. 8—meaning if we don’t study through v. 8 again, we’re going to start vv.

9-10 in the middle of a sentence, which won’t give us a full understanding of the text.

Second, by understanding that v. 8 connects with vv.

9-10, we’ll have a better understanding of vv.

11-15 and even vv.

1-7.

No passage of Scripture stands in isolation.

And in this context, we read about proper worship within a local church setting.

V. 8 starts this concept by encouraging men in every place or in every local church to pray by lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.

Remember, last week I pointed out that the idea of “lifting holy hands” does not concern a physical posture in which the individual ought to pray with his hands raised, but rather a way of life—it’s speaking of a spiritual posture in prayer.

Every man and really every person who prays within a local church ought to do it in full surrender—hands lifted.

And they are to pray with holy hands—referring to clean hands that have been cleansed from unrighteousness.

This ought to be done without anger or quarreling, which might sound like an unusual thing to say when talking about the local church, but again, remember the context.

Ch. 1 speaks of false teachers who have infiltrated the church and has taught a doctrine contrary to that of the apostles and really of Jesus.

It isn’t until ch.

6, however, when we see a more detailed accusation against the false teachers.

In ch.

6, we read about the false teachers’ unhealthy craving for controversy and quarrels about words—or put differently, they were picking apart the Scriptures to make the Bible say what they wanted it to say.

Instead of preaching and teaching what the text actually said, they preached and they taught what they wanted it to say.

Which according to 1 Timothy 6:4-5, “[produced] envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who were depraved in mind and deprived of the truth.”

They are to pray this way with clean hands that have been cleansed in full surrender to God; and in context, according to vv. 1-4 not just for Christians to be able to live out their faiths in a mostly safe and free manner, but primarily for all people to be saved and to attain knowledge of the truth.

The reminder in v. 8 that starts the second part of this passage is simple—when in corporate worship as a local church, men (and really everyone in the local church) need to focus on prayer and this prayer needs to be for all people—particularly concerning their salvation.

And this is to be done without anger and without quarreling.

Paul then continues this sentence—and note that it is a continuation of the same sentence with vv.

9-10.

The Need of Good Works (9-10)

Paul’s exhortation particularly for women in the church of Ephesus starts with proper attire, which in our modern-day world seems like a faux pas, but let’s look at what Paul is actually stating.

In v. 9, Paul speaks specifically of clothing and he tells the women in Ephesus to “adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control.”

And I do want to say there is a bit of cultural awareness at stake when understanding this verse—we can tell that we need to have a good understanding of our culture because of the next phrase, “not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire.”

In our modern-day world, having braided hair and gold or pearls isn’t seen in the same light as in the first century.

In fact, many people today wear gold on their ring finger everyday and many women braid their hair (though there is some debate as to what this passage means by braided hair—some argue that this refers to the practice of braiding your hair and implementing gems, gold, silver, and other precious elements into your hair).

Culturally speaking, in our modern world, it’s common for women to have gold, sometimes pearls, and braided hair—and really these elements aren’t necessarily the problem in Paul’s mind.

Rather, in the culture of Ephesus, having gold, pearls, braided hair, and costly attire was definitely a symbol of extreme wealth—the majority of people in Ephesus were just barely getting by.

It was only those with extreme wealth that could afford wearing any type of gold, or any type of pearl, or any time of clothing of great cost.

It isn’t that these people had these sorts of things, it’s that the women of Ephesus utilized these things to flaunt how much money they had—or in other words, they were coming to church—dressed in gaudy and expensive clothing for the purpose of detracting everyone’s attention from Jesus to themselves.

They wanted people to notice them and they were doing this within the church, which became a distraction to those around them—they were cultivating vanity rather than godliness.

Thomas Lea and Hayne Griffin, “The fact that some Christian women could afford gold or pearls indicates that the Ephesian church had some members of substantial wealth (cf. 1 Cor 1:26-28).

Acceptable standards of modesty will vary with place and generation, but Paul wanted the women to cultivate the fear of God rather than vanity.”

(Thomas Lea and Hayne Griffin, 1, 2 Timothy, Titus, The New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 96)

In our modern-day world because we live in a very wealthy country, we have to contextualize what this looks like.

It’s no longer unusual for just about everyone to own a little bit of gold, maybe pearls, or decent quality clothes.

And quite frankly, there isn’t anything wrong with owning something that is expensive if you can afford to own it—there’s a big difference between having a Rolex because you run a successful business and can afford it and taking out a loan to buy a Rolex as a status symbol.

The point at hand in 1 Timothy 2 has to do with motive—are you flaunting your wealth?

Are you showing off?

Are you taking people’s view off Jesus to put it on yourself?

The reality that Paul is expressing in 1 Timothy 2 is that flaunting wealth or really flaunting yourself isn’t the pointing of worship in a church.

The local church isn’t about you—and to use the local church as a platform to boast of yourself isn’t proper worship.

This is what Paul is writing about the women in Ephesus—to use the local church as a platform to boast in their wealth goes against the very purpose of the local church—to worship Jesus.

Instead of worshiping Jesus, they’re worshiping money; instead of worshiping Jesus, they’re worshiping status and reputation; instead of worshiping Jesus, they’re worshiping themselves.

They’re falling into the sins that Paul mentions to the Romans in Romans 1:21-23 “21 For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”

They’re worshiping the creation rather than the Creator.

What’s the problem with how the women in Ephesus are dressing?

They’re utilizing their clothes, their jewelry, and even their hair to show off, to flaunt their wealth, and ultimately to distract the people from worshiping Jesus.

And Paul responds to this by exhorting them to instead dress differently—he says it in two ways: (1) in v. 9, “women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control and (2) in v. 10, to adorn themselves “with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.”

And please note, that in vv.

9-10, even though it is directed at women the same principles apply to men as well.

Even though Paul is speaking directly about how women in Ephesus dress, that doesn’t give an excuse for men to dress immodestly with no self-control.

Just because Paul is speaking directly about women adorning themselves with good works; it doesn’t mean that men ought not adorn themselves with good works as well.