1 Timothy 2:8-15

-Open with Prayer.

-Read the Text:

1 Timothy 2:8–15 ESV

8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; 9 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, 10 but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. 11 Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

As we think about this text tonight, we think about where our culture is at. We are so confused as a nation on issues about gender and sexuality, and the pressures that go along with this to compromise and conform as many churches have. Pastor and author Mark Dever helps us to see the seriousness of these realties.

The most important revolution of the last century has been the sexual revolution. Contraception replaced conception. Pleasure was separated from responsibility. It was as if a license was given out, legitimizing the bending of every part of our lives around serving ourselves. Since that time, divorce, remarriage, abortion, premarital sex, and even extramarital sex, as well as homosexuality have been accepted by increasing percentages of people. This is not just a problem with society out there. Many churches have found their members plagued by failed marriages and illicit affairs.

We live in a culture, on a world and sadly amid a church marked with rampant sexual immorality, skyrocketing divorce, and degradation of marriage, and the confusion of gender. The ongoing debate over homosexuality and same-sex marriage is just one example of these disturbing trends. But these issues are much larger than mere politics.

The issue of manhood and womanhood strikes at the core of who we are and who God is which makes a passage like ours tonight sound laughable to the unbelieving world. However, this passage is essential to the church and we cannot skip over the hard passages found in God’s Word. God’s Word is not out of line, and it is never out of date. It is true and it is right and good. May we come to repent of our unbelief and arrogance and gladly submit to God’s good and wonderful design.

Verse 8 = So as we have already seen here in chapter 2 who to pray for and what to pray for. Now Paul is helping us to see who we need to be as we pray. That would be men and women who bring glory to God in the church. These instruction did not just come out of no where because they were specific to what was happening there in Ephesus.

Here in verse 8 Paul talks about men who were either not leading in prayer at all, or they were praying in the church while fighting with one another which was not good. God wants men to pray in every place, which is either a reference to the many homes that the early church met in or the church in Ephesus as well as across the world. But, more importantly Paul desired that these men pray with purity before God. The “lifting up of holy hands,” is speaking of the purity that God desires.

Psalm 24:3–4 ESV

3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.

What we see here is that purity is essential to prayer. It makes no sense to hold on to sin in your life while come to a holy God in prayer. Instead we must humbly confess our sin and be cleansed by the mercy of God through Christ. Not only do we need to pray with purity before God but next here we see that we must pray with peace before others. To pray without anger or quarreling. We all need to ask ourselves from time to time is there anything in my life that has gone unreconciled with another person? Is there conflict, anger, fighting that I need to resolve? Apparently there was a situation here in Ephesus that contributed to an attitude of anger that led to fighting.

Matthew 5:23–24 ESV

23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Verses 9-10 = After addressing the men here Paul now turns to another issue that has come up in the church, or a distraction in the church. I think that it is helpful to understand a little bit about the culture into which Paul was speaking too. Like many ancient cities into which Christianity was born, Ephesus was of course filled with all kinds of sexual immorality. So, it was very common for women to use ornate fashion to attract attention to themselves seductively. This is why Paul gives the women in the church at Ephesus an altogether different exhortation. He tells them plainly to adorn or put on yourself with modest dress or respectable apparel. Christian women today should also have a different motivation in their dress from the rest of the world or our surrounding culture.

So, there are several ways to do this. In fact, Paul lays out some specifics:

Women should not dress in a way that draws other people’s attention to them and particularly men. There clothing should be modest, a word that can have sexual overtones. Modesty is a huge issue in our world today. For those who are liberal, many believe that it is perfectly ok to wear skin tight clothes with low necklines and as if many women walk around in their underwear. This kind of clothing falls short of the biblical ideal of modesty.

Along the same lines here, Paul gave the Christian women another exhortation. Do not draw attention to worldly wealth. Paul mentions specifically hairstyles of gold and pearls. This kind of ornate or expensive apparel were things women would put on to show the distinction between the wealthy and the poor in the church. Paul wants the women here to see not to adorn yourself with anything that draws attention to yourself and especially when you come together to worship the Lord. We should all want our worship to draw attention to God.

Finally, in addition to modest outer adornment, women should also adore God through a Christlike demeanor. Paul desires that women adorn themselves or put on an attitude of godliness. This is what matters the most. Paul wants women of the faith to be adorned with good works, as is proper for women who affirm that they know God and worship Him.

Matthew 5:16 ESV

16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

How can I dress in a way that will bring honor and glory to God? Women in the church should not be a distraction to others especially men, but instead live and dress in a way that attracts others too Christ.

Verses 11-12 = Paul again is likely addressing some very specific things that were going on in the church at Ephesus. We know from chapter 4 that teachers in the church were encouraging men and women not to marry which would undercut the beauty of marriage. In chapter 5 the younger women were not getting married and instead spending a lot of time together gossiping in the church. When we get into 2 Timothy we find that a group of women were false teaching and even living according to worldly passions. So, what we have here in Ephesus was a problem, not only with godly behavior, but also with godly leadership.

This passage here is one of the most controversial passages in the New Testament. I think it is important for us to understand this passage in light of the foundation of biblical manhood and womanhood that we see all the way back in Genesis.

-First God created men and women with equal dignity. What this means is that male and female have been equally valuable before God. So, to demean men or women is a sin against God. Pauls instructions here in 1 Timothy have noting to do with the value of men and women because what Paul is talking about here are the roles of men and women which leads us to the 2nd thought here.

-Second, God created men and women with complementary roles. Men and women are different and distinct in their respective roles. Man was created with a roles that complements woman, and woman was created with a role that complements man. This is part of God’s good design. Similarly, God has designed men and women with equal dignity and complementary roles.

We now come to the 2 prohibitions that Paul lays out here.

-First, Paul says I do not allow a woman to teach or have authority over a man. The first prohibition is that women should not teach men in the church. Again this does not mean that woman are inferior or the fact that women are not better teachers. This has nothing to do with any of this at all as we will see. In fact, we know that Paul encouraged women to teach in some settings, since Titus 2:3 makes clear that older women should teach the younger women. Guys we need godly women in the church and I am so thankful for the ladies that God has placed here so we need to at times thank our ladies for what they do in the church.

In chapter 3 Paul talks about elders or pastors with authority in the church. And these elders express their authority by doing what? By teaching. In fact the ability to teach is a qualification for elder. The elder/shepherd/pastor are the good leaders in the church who are considered worthy. So, the picture in 1 Timothy is clear that elders or specifically the men in the church should do the leading and teaching. Therefore this is why Paul said women are not to teach or exercise authority over men. Paul here was specifically pointing to the 2 areas for elders.

Now I would also say that men who do not have the gift of teaching or who do not meet the qualification of elder and deacon should not teach as elders in the church.

Instead Paul desires and makes it clear that women should listen willingly to the biblical instruction of elders. This does not mean that women should stop talking when they are in church, but has the meaning that would should listen with a teachable spirit to the God-ordained leaders in the church when they are teaching the Word of God on Sundays.

I say this to help us understand tonight that Pau and other New Testament writers make it clear that women should teach in various settings of the church in accord with elder instruction. Here are just a few examples.

- Timothy recieved instruction from his mother and grandmother.

-Pricilla and her husband Aquilla both took Apollos aside and explained the word of God to him. They were sharing their faith with him.

-Men and women both make disciples, which involves going, baptizing, and teaching people to obey what Christ has commanded.

-Paul seemed to allow for women praying and prophesying in public worship, with humility and submission.

-The Second prohibition that Paul gave was that women should not lead as pastors/elders/shepherds. By God’s grace women should submit gladly to the servant leadership of the elders within the church. An elder is not to serve and teach in a heavy handed way that undermines the beauty and value of women. Elders are to serve the body of Christ by teaching the Word of God. They are to love, care for, and nurture the body of Christ. However women should and can lead in various positions around the church. When you look throughout the New Testament you see women teaching, helping, serving, equipping, and spreading the gospel in many ways.

John Piper has said that the fields of opportunity are endless for the entire church to serve the Lord. Both male and female can serve the Lord. Nobody is to be at home watching soap operas. God intends to equip and mobilize all the saints. Down through history there have been many women who have served the Lord faithfully.

Verses 13-15 = The last 3 verses here now give us 2 reasons to consider.

-First God’s design in creation. God gives authority to man. As Paul says in verse 13 Adam was created first and then Eve. This goes all the way back to Genesis 1 and 2 when God created man before woman. This helps us to understand the headship of man. Paul is not basing his view merely on human opinion which is constantly changing, but on divine revelation which never changes. After pointing to God’s design in creation, Paul now points to the second reason for his teaching about gender roles.

-Second, Satan’s distortion of creation: man abdicates authority and woman assumes it. When Paul said in verse 14 that it was woman and not the man who was deceived, he was not saying women shouldn’t lead because they are more easily duped. Nope, Paul was pointing back again to the picture of sin entering th world in Genesis chapter 3 when Satan crept in and subverted God’s design by approaching Eve instead of Adam. Adam was supposed to be the leader of his home and instead Adam sat back and did nothing. And God’s good design was distorted. In short, sin entered the world when man abdicated his God-given responsibility to lead. God’s design is for godly men to lead as husbands of their homes and to lead the church as kind and loving and gentle elders.

Verse 15 = This final verse does not mean that women must have children in order to be saved. If Paul believed that, he would not have encouraged some women to stay single as he himself did in 1 Corinthians 7. Sisters in Christ should thrive in their roles as wives, mothers and women of God. Of course not only women but also men are saved only through Christ. Women have a great responsibility as mothers to help teach their children about God and so this is what we see here in verse 15.

How does the current sexual climate of our culture affect the church’s view of men and women’s roles?

How would you respond to someone who argues that this instruction is no longer relevant?

Why do some churches look for a reason to skip over or ignore passages like this one?