1 Τimothy 2:11-15

Open your bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 2 this morning....

This morning in order to teach this passage of scripture I wanted to do it in a question and answer type form. And will do that with 8 questions.

But before I get to those questions I want to tell you that this is one of the hotest debated passages in the bible in the church at the present time. That is because of what it means when it is applied to the church. Many church leaders and denominations have done back flips in order to get this passage to mean what it doesn’t mean so that they don’t have to follow it. I think, read in context it is very plain what this passage means.

What you are reading in 1 Timothy is a letter from the Apostle Paul to Timothy. There is not anything coded, or mystic, or anything like that. It is clear instruction from the apostle Paul to Timothy his friend and student in the pastorate.

So, the questions that I am going to bring up and answer this morning are all real questions that I have heard before. They are all questions that come up because we find this passage troubling, and especially people my age at least and after that grew up in a culture promoting the very opposite of this passage.

But let me remind you, Jesus gave the Apostles direct authority from Him to speak to the chruches and work out His teaching in their lives. If they as Apostles have authority from Christ, and the guidence of the Holy spirit, we can freely say that this is God’s word worked out in the doctrine of the church. Why this matters so much is because our culture hates this passage… Like really hate it. But listen to Jesus,

Mark 9:42 ESV

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

Meaning, if we are the ones promoting false doctrine in the church, we are the people Jesus says it is better for a millstone to be tied around. Why this passage matters so much is because holding to it promotes right doctrine and right doctrine, as I said in my first sermon from 1 Timothy 1, promotes and glorifies Christ. So, I want to take this with great seriousness this morning because I know many of you who hear this may be troubled by it or know someone who is because they have not been taught this and actually taught the opposite.

So, lets stand for the reading of God’s word together and get to our questions…

1 Timothy 2:11–15 ESV

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.

So, Let’s get into some of these questions…

1. Are Paul’s command’s here about women in the church only meant for his time period?

Paul’s teaching here is not meant for his time period only. Many people assume, well, he was just trying to keep the peace in a Roman, patriarchal, society. Yet, what did Paul use to back up his teaching? He used the garden.

In verse 13-14 Paul jumps back to the creation of man in order to call attention to what he is teaching. He does the same thing in 1 Corinthians 11 when he says that women entering into the temple should have their heads covered in order to show their submission to their husband. Like a wedding ring(which they didn’t have), or like a wife changing her last name(which they also didn’t have), it was a differentiation between a married woman and a single woman or evern more a prostitute, for the sake of the sancticty of marriage.

Paul goes to the Garden. He goes back, 8,000 years to creation rather than saying, well that was then and this is now. God created men and women in the garden, both fearfully and wonderfully made. And in their marriage, something even more wonderful, a picture of Christ and the church(Ephesians 5:32). Paul, is saying something timeless. God expects the order he instituted between man and woman at creation to be reflected in the church both in the first century, and because God never changes, in the present as well.

2. Is Paul a sexist?

According to the oxford dictionay, here is the definition of a sexist: “characterized by or showing prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.” So, was the life of Paul characterized by a discriminating prejeduce toward women?

At the end of the book of Romans we can see Paul’s relationship with women,

Romans 16:1–4 ESV

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well. Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well.

Romans 16:6–7 (ESV)

Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia(female), my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

I could go on but you get my point. This is not cahracteristic of a man who shows discriminating prejudice towards women. In fact in verse 11, he says let the women learn. Which would have been so counter cultural for Paul’s day! Women weren’t educated back then. But Paul wanted them to be. Jesus too crossed cultural barriers by bringing women along with him as his disicples.

Paul wasn’t a sexist but realized that God created men and women different for a reason. Our skeletal and muscular systems say the same thing! We were created male and female for particular reasons, and Paul is helping us draw them out in the church.

3. Can a woman even speak when the church is gathered?

This question comes from verse 11 and 12 where Paul says, “she is to remain quiet”. Paul is speaking in reference to one aspect of the gathering where over the course of hours, 3-4 people would have taught the church from the sciptures (1 Corinthians 14:26-40). He is telling them, when it comes to that portion, the time when the teachers present their lessons, a woman who is brilliant, a senior executive woman in the church who has been a member for fifty years, a woman who is most capable of throwing down theology with the best of them, is to yield the floor to the men of the church.

Now again, why is this? He refers back to the garden where God created man first. Adam’s role was as overseer. This is why God comes to Adam first. Not that he loved Adam any more than Eve, but because of what he was created to do in his relationship with God. Eve was decieved. Her emotions were played with. Adam sinned eyes wide open. Which is why the New Testament attributes the fall of man to Adam (Romans 5:12-21) and not Eve. In the eyes of God, men are held responsible for taking the lead in the home and in the church when it comes to obeying and holding to the word of God

Paul does not say that women couldn’t pray, couldn’t read scripture, and couldn’t sing when the church was gathered. Paul says, I do not permit a woman to teach or excersize authority over a man in the normative life of the church.

This order is normative. Paul is writing to Timothy to say, a healthy church is had in this way. Here are the corrections you need to make. Because apparently part of the doctrine Timothy was to command the church to follow and not to let anyone else teach was this.

Certainly, there are times when a woman is given the credit for teaching men in the bible. But we are talking about the norm of Church life. How we should read this is,

99% of the time this is how churches should order themselves and strive to function for the sake of proclaiming and living out the gospel in your community life.

4. Can a woman ever teach?

Absolutely! Paul writes to Titus about the same time he is writing to Timothy and tells him that the women SHOULD be teaching as a part of their expression of worship. What does he say,

Titus 2:3–5 ESV

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.

Furthermore, who is credidted for Timothy’s spiritual upbringing? His Mom and Grandmother. The Proverbs 31 woman was a woman who taught her home with wisdom. Someone asked me, can a Christian woman be a teacher in school? I have to remind them that Paul is speaking about a specific kind of teaching here, it is not every kind of teaching, it is teaching the scriptures in an authoritative way to men.

If you are familiar with your Bible you might have special cases ready to fire back and say, well what about this? John Calvin brings up Debroah being a judge over the people of Israel and his reponse is the point here,

“Extraordinary acts done by God do not overturn the ordinary rules of government, by which he intended that we should be bound”

So,

5. What does “have authority over a man” mean?

We will talk more about the role of Elder in the coming weeks as we keep going through 1 Timothy, but part of Paul’s instruction to timothy was 1 Timothy 4:11

1 Timothy 4:11 ESV

Command and teach these things.

Paul was not telling Timothy to read the scriptures in front of everyone and just hope that they listen. Paul gave Timothy authority in the church(1 Timothy 1:3, 18; 4:6, 11, 5:7, 21; 6:2, 13, 17). Elders have authority, not in a way where you must get their approval for everything you do, but in a way that they are the ones charged with opening up the word of God and saying, “believe this, obey this” and holding the church to the word of God through teaching and exhortation. As Adam should have done to his wife… (not that wives shouldn’t stop their husbands from sin!)

Paul is saying, the normative role of men is to be the head of their wife and thus being the ones who are relaying truth and overall protecting truth in the home and the church (1 Corinthians 11:3). To be at least a step out front, or working on it. In other words, the church or the home at large is unhealthy if women are the ones out front of their husband because he is lacking spiritually.

6. Are women just supposed to be quiet and stay out of the way?

No, women have a clear lane. As husband and wife you and your spouse are what Paul calls yoked together. Like two oxen pulling a cart. Women have just as much a part to play in the church as men. See the widow who Paul considers to be of honor,

1 Timothy 5:9–10 ESV

Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.

Where we get off track is believing that women must be able to run in every lane in order for a woman to be complete.

Like I said last week, the strength of a woman is not found in someone telling her she can do everything a man can do. In fact that is not true. I had to clarify myself this week on this point. But consider this, when we tell women that they can do anything a man can do and we tell men they can do anything a woman can do, what have we just done? We have not only broken the created order of God but we are guilty of supporting the LGBTQ rainbow brigade…

Now I get it, you say I am not saying she can be a boy I am saying my little girl can grow up to be a CEO or President etc… That is not what Paul is talking about. He is talking about the authoritative preaching of the word of God. He is talking about teaching and shepherding and caring for the people of God who submit to them(Hebrews 13:17).

The rub is that in our world, in the last seventy years the title of CEO or BOSS lady has become more valuable and worthy of honor than the title of wife and mother. Which leads to many problems and fruit that is unhealthy.

It is true, God does not desire for every woman to be a wife or mother. But it is generally true that women should be. The mandate for all of humanity in the garden was, Adam and Eve, be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth, to the best of your ability as God provides. And her role was first to her husband and her offspring.

We as a culture agreeably loath the man who gets off work and spends the night at the bar using all his family’s money on booze or betting… But what about a wife or a mother that neglects her family because she is so focused on becoming what she beleives the world says she should be?

Which leads me to the next question...

7. Must a woman have children to be saved?

This is a natural question that comes from Paul’s wording in verse 15. The first thing to say is that this is the Apostle Paul who when asked how one was saved said, “believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved”(Acts 16:31). The same Paul who wrote a whole letter about justification by faith alone (the Book of Romans). A person is only saved by the utmost grace of God, through faith in the cleansing blood of Christ for their sins and His ressurection from the dead alone, and not by human works (Ephesians 2:8-10).

So, how do you interpret this then?

8. Must women have children to be a Christlike woman?

Again, Paul is speaking normatively. It is normative that women will get married and have children. Not only that, but having children is an act of obedience to the Lord. He has created our bodies in such a way that childbirth is not as some may call it, a miracle.The only thing supernatural about it is the Lord opening and closing the womb. Otherwise, we are naturally created for this. Male and female were created to fit together in a way, and react in such a way that children are born. And God commanded us to do just that, go be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth (meaning with people) and subdue it…

Which means, that in our day and age where people are deliberatly saying, “I don’t want children”, those people are in sin. It baffles me to consider a woman saying that when there are so many women in the world who like some many women of the Bible would give a limb to be able to have a child. I do wonder if those women in america or even our state have considered fostering one of the 10,000 children in Indiana alone that are awaiting placement.

Now I know, again, there are circumstances that cause people to not be able to have kids. Jesus told his disciples that not everyone could receive His teaching on marriage (Matthew 19:11). That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about a heart posture that rebells against the good gift from God by saying, I will not have them. A woman who says, “I will not have children” is like a man who says, “I will not work”. I am certain there are many reasons that follow that assertion, but the truth is this, God created male and female in order to create a people who will raise up other Godly people for the gloryof Christ.

Child bearing is a beautiful gift from the Lord. And women are gifted with the gifts of nurturing and raising up those children. Not just in the infancy stage, but in all stages. No one can replace the intimate relationship between a mother and her child.

Yet, at the end of the passage Paul finishes it by bringing up the virtue of a Christlike woman here again, in saying that Child bearing is one way to obey God and go through the sanctification process. But God is looking for His daughters to ultimately reflect His glory by being faithful, filled with love, and holiness, and self control.

My friends, I pray that you can recieve this in humility, which is yours in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2:6-11

Philippians 2:6–11 ESV

who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.