Men and Women in Holiness

I was thinking about how confusing it can be these days to figure out what it really means to be a man or a woman—especially in church. You hear everything from ‘Real men don’t cry’ to ‘Real men should just be more like Jesus,’ and on the other side, you hear ‘Women can do anything men can do!’ and ‘Who needs roles anyway?’

It’s like we’re living in a culture that’s throwing out all the old playbooks, and it’s hard to know what’s true. And honestly, even in church, sometimes it feels like there’s more confusion than clarity. So today, we’re going back to the Bible to see what God says about this stuff.

But don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a boring ‘here’s the rules’ lecture. Instead, we’re going to see how God’s design actually brings freedom, peace, and unity—not stress or weird competition. And it all starts with prayer, because if the church can’t come together in prayer, it can’t move forward.

MP: Biblical roles in the church are about God’s design for His glory and the church’s good.

God’s Design for Men (8)

God’s desire for the church is that it be submitted to His authority and united in prayer for the salvation of all people. When there is unity and order, the mission of the church can move forward without hindrance or disruption. In this passage, Paul focuses on the unity of the church and the distinct roles of both men and women within it.

Remember the context: the church was a new and growing movement. These early believers needed guidance on how to live and worship together in a way that honored God and advanced the gospel. Even as Paul lays out this new structure, his goal remains gospel-centered—seeking the unity of believers so that the message of salvation can reach all people.

Paul begins in verse 8 by calling men to lead in prayer with purity and peace. He desires—literally “wills”—for men to pray, lifting holy hands. This is not merely about a physical posture but about the character of the one praying. The men who lead in prayer should be those who are morally pure, living devout lives, and pursuing holiness. If they have come to worship with hands stained by sinful acts, they must first be cleansed before approaching God in prayer.

This echoes the language of Psalm 24:3–4: “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? 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.” The outward act of lifting holy hands is meant to reflect the inward reality of a clean heart before God. Wherever the church gathers, men are called to pray with lives marked by holiness and integrity.

Paul continues by saying that men should pray “without anger or quarreling.” While we don’t know the exact situation in the Ephesian church, it’s clear that some men were harboring bitterness, engaging in disputes, or holding on to resentment. This kind of relational division directly undermines the unity of the church and the effectiveness of its worship. Reconciliation must come before worship.

Though Paul addresses men here specifically, the principle applies to all believers. Jesus teaches in Matthew 5:23–24, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” God is more concerned with the condition of the heart in worship than the mere outward act. It is meaningless to raise hands in praise while harboring anger or unrepentant sin. True worship must flow from a heart that is pure, humble, and at peace with others.

Men, this text stands in stark contrast to modern Christian culture. In our world, manhood is often defined by guns, grit, and risk-taking—a rugged image of strength. Even within the church, the “macho man” is sometimes held up as the ideal biblical man.

But the Bible offers a different vision.

Men are called to be spiritual leaders in the home. From creation, we see that God designed men to lead, work, cultivate, and shepherd their families. That kind of leadership doesn’t come lightly—it carries a weighty responsibility. And it requires more than toughness; it requires courage to be vulnerable, to have hard conversations, and to guide with grace.

We are not called to be harsh or abrasive in how we lead. Instead, we are to be sacrificial, patient, and tender, just like Christ. If our identity is in Jesus, and we’re leading like a drill sergeant, we’re doing it wrong.

To be holy means to be set apart, different from the values of the world. In a culture where identity is rooted in self, success, or patriotism, the holy man finds his identity in Christ. And if your identity is in Christ, then you’re called to live and lead like Christ—with humility, love, and unwavering faithfulness.

For all of us, when we come to worship, we should come confessed and cleansed of our sins. Yet too often, we rush into corporate worship—singing songs, listening to sermons, and offering prayers—without taking the time to pause, examine our hearts, and confess our sin before God. We treat worship as a routine or performance rather than as a holy encounter with the living God.

But Scripture shows that the posture of our hearts matters deeply to God. In 1 Timothy 2:8, Paul calls men to lift holy hands in prayer—not just physically raised hands, but hands that symbolize a life of purity and integrity. This isn’t just for men, and it isn’t just about physical posture. It's about coming before God with a clean conscience, sincere faith, and a reconciled heart.

David, in Psalm 51:17, says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Before we offer anything to God—our songs, our service, our giving—we must first offer our honest repentance.

As Platt, Akin, and Merida note, “A right heart attitude is crucial for prayer and for God-honoring worship in the church.” (Exalting Jesus in 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus, 38). God is not looking for polished perfection; He’s looking for honest holiness—a heart that acknowledges sin and clings to Christ.

By the grace of Christ, let your heart be clean before God. Worship and pray with purity before God and peace with others. Confess your sin, lay down your burdens, make things right with your brother or sister—and then enter the presence of God with confidence, knowing that in Christ you are forgiven and made new.

God’s Design for Women (9-11)

Paul’s desire for women in the church is that they display their beauty in a biblical and God-honoring way. He is not calling women to hide their beauty or to dress in shapeless black garments that cover every inch of skin. Rather, Paul instructs women to adorn themselves with modesty and self-control (1 Timothy 2:9). This means they should dress with discretion and dignity—not wearing clothing that is deliberately suggestive or seductive.

Paul also addresses outward adornment, cautioning against elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls, or expensive clothing. This is not a blanket prohibition against jewelry or doing one’s hair before church. Instead, it’s a warning against excess and attention-seeking, especially when such things become a substitute for true godliness.

To understand why Paul gives these instructions, we must consider the cultural context of Ephesus. Ephesus was a wealthy and influential city in the Roman Empire, known for its commerce, fashion, and spiritual confusion. At the center of the city stood the grand Temple of Artemis, a fertility goddess associated with wild nature, virginity, and childbirth. Worship at the temple was female-led and highly sensual, often involving priestesses and cult prostitution.

Women who participated in Artemis worship wore revealing, seductive clothing to draw attention to themselves. They were known for elaborate hairstyles, ornate jewelry, and costly garments—precisely the kind of outward appearance Paul describes. In that setting, such attire signaled wealth, status, and association with pagan practices, often with sexual overtones.

Paul’s call is clear: Christian women should not imitate the world’s model of beauty. Instead, they are to reflect the beauty of a life transformed by the gospel, marked by good works, humility, and a heart devoted to Christ.

While our culture no longer contends with the temple of Artemis, we still face a distorted view of womanhood. During the Enlightenment, there was a rise in individualism, stemming from the belief that identity is self-defined. As a result, modesty was no longer tied to virtue but began to be seen as merely a relic of outdated religious customs.

Later, the feminist movements of the late 1800s and the sexual revolution of the 20th century further rejected the biblical vision of femininity, which is marked by self-control and godliness. Cultural values shifted from submission to authority to the pursuit of personal autonomy. Modesty and purity came to be viewed as shameful or prudish. Seductive clothing was rebranded as empowerment.

The rise of social media only deepened this shift, as identity and self-worth became increasingly tied to visibility and attention. Tragically, even the church began to drift with the culture. Instead of preaching holiness, many churches began to emphasize self-help, personal freedom, and affirmation. Christians began to adopt the culture’s view of beauty and identity, rather than holding fast to God’s design for what is truly beautiful in a woman—an identity rooted in the image of God.

Today, modesty is often seen as repressive. Appearance becomes identity. Status, wealth, and fashion define womanhood. Autonomy replaces submission to God’s order. Worship is no longer directed toward God but toward the self.

But Paul’s instruction is not a call to suppress women, but a call for them to live in joyful submission—not to men, but to God. This is not contrary to the gospel; it is rooted in it. From the beginning, humanity has struggled to submit to God’s law. In the garden, Satan tempted Eve by suggesting that God was withholding something good from her. That same lie continues today: that submission to God’s way is a burden, when in fact, it is the path to true freedom and beauty.

It takes deep self-control to look at those around us and at the culture’s interpretation of identity and self, and then to consciously deny it. In a world that constantly says, "Be true to yourself," the gospel calls us to die to ourselves. That kind of resistance is not natural—it’s spiritual. It requires the power of the Holy Spirit and a heart set on Christ.

Self-control means choosing obedience when emotions want to lead. It means resisting the urge to define ourselves by appearance, status, or the approval of others. It means quiet faithfulness when the world rewards loud self-promotion. It means saying “no” to seductive trends and “yes” to the slow, sometimes hidden work of holiness.

The culture tells us that value comes from visibility, but God says that beauty is found in the hidden person of the heart (1 Peter 3:4). The culture says identity is self-created, but Scripture says we are created in the image of God and recreated in Christ. The culture says autonomy is freedom, but the Bible shows us that true freedom is found in joyful submission to God’s good design.

This is not legalism. It’s not suppression. It’s Christlikeness. And it’s deeply countercultural.

God’s desire for our lives is good and perfect. Even in the gospel, we are called to die to our own desires, to our self, and to put on Christlikeness. If we want to think rightly about what modesty should look like for the Christian, we must consider how the Bible describes the bride of Christ.

Ephesians 5:25–27 tells us,

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” The Church—Christ’s bride—is beautiful in his sight. She is set apart and being made holy.

She is loyal and devoted, waiting faithfully for her wedding day. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:2,

“For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” She is the recipient of Christ’s steadfast and purifying love.

She is not adorned by the world’s view of beauty, but by Christ himself. Revelation 19:7–8 says,

“Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.” Her beauty is her righteousness, given by Christ and lived out in holiness.

The bride of Christ is also faithful and submissive, joyfully under the loving headship of Christ.

“Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” (Ephesians 5:24) This is not oppression—it is worshipful trust in the One who gave himself up for her.

God delights in his bride. She is not merely accepted—she is cherished. As Psalm 139 reminds us, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Let us then delight in submitting to God’s order for how we are to live. This is not about repression, but about being rightly restored and beautifully formed in Christ. Modesty, like all godliness, begins with a heart yielded to Jesus.

God’s Design for Authority (11-15)

There have been many attempts to negate the next section of Scripture because of the pressures and values of our current culture. Some argue that these verses reflect Paul's personal opinion rather than authoritative Scripture. Others claim that Paul’s instructions were specific to the Ephesian church and therefore do not apply to the church today. Still others suggest that Paul is speaking only to wives, not to women in general.

Even within the universal Church today, there are differing interpretations of these verses—especially concerning women in leadership. We’ve seen this tension surface more clearly in recent years within the SBC. While the Conservative Resurgence in the late 1900s brought greater clarity to the roles of men and women in the church, there are still those who attempt to minimize the text’s significance or reinterpret its teaching on authority in the local church.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, some churches adopt an overly rigid and literalistic approach. They separate men and women in congregational settings and restrict women to the role of passive listeners, while men are seen not as servant leaders, but as enforcers of rules who “reign” over the congregation.

Both extremes miss the heart of Paul’s instruction. One end dismisses God’s design for church order; the other distorts it into domination. But what Paul offers here is not based on cultural trends or personal bias. It is rooted in creation, affirmed by the gospel, and designed for the health and flourishing of Christ’s church.

So how do we hold these truths together? On one hand, Scripture clearly teaches that men and women have distinct roles in the life of the church. On the other hand, it also affirms, from beginning to end, the equal worth, value, and dignity of both men and women as image-bearers of God.

The call to differing roles is not a reflection of greater or lesser importance. It is not about superiority or inferiority. Rather, it reflects God's wise and loving design for how His church is to function—just as we see within the Trinity itself: the Son submits to the Father, not because He is less than the Father, but because their roles within the Godhead are distinct, yet perfectly united in love and purpose.

Biblical womanhood is not a restriction. It is a calling—one that displays the beauty, strength, and grace of Christ. Scripture shows us over and over again the special place women hold in God’s heart and in His redemptive plan: from Sarah and Ruth to Mary and Priscilla, to the faithful women who were the first to witness the resurrection. The church would be incomplete without the Spirit-filled wisdom, hospitality, service, teaching, prayer, and witness of godly women.

So rather than diminishing women, God’s design in the church exalts their purpose. It says to every sister in Christ: “You are deeply loved. You are gifted. You are called. And your role, whether public or quiet, seen or unseen, is indispensable to the body of Christ.”

Paul writes in verse 12, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.”

Paul is not issuing this instruction from personal preference, nor is it rooted in cultural bias. As we’ll see in verses 13–14, his reasoning is grounded in God’s created order. This command speaks specifically to the gathered church and the roles of spiritual authority within it.

Paul’s directive that women are not to teach or exercise authority over men applies most clearly to the public teaching of Christian doctrine to the entire congregation—that is, the pastoral and preaching ministry of the church. The phrase “remain quiet” should not be misunderstood as enforcing complete silence, but rather refers to a posture of peaceful learning and respectful submission, much like what Paul calls for from all believers when Scripture is taught.

Just as Paul exhorts wives to lovingly submit to their husbands (Eph 5:22–24), here he calls women in the church to joyfully receive the teaching of God’s Word under the spiritual authority of the male elders. This is not a devaluing of women but a reflection of God’s wise design for order in the household of faith.

According to the structure of 1–2 Timothy and Titus, the role of elder (or overseer/pastor) involves both authoritative teaching and spiritual oversight. Paul reserves this office for qualified men (1 Tim 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9), not because women are incapable, but because this is how God has ordered leadership in the church.

However, this does not mean women are sidelined in the life of the church. Far from it. Women are clearly called to teach and lead in specific and essential ways:

Teaching and discipling other women (Titus 2:3–5)

Raising and instructing children in the faith (2 Tim 1:5; Eph 6:4)

Praying and prophesying in the gathered church (1 Cor 11:5)

Serving and leading in various ministry roles (Rom 16:1–2; Acts 18:26)

Contributing to the mission and maturity of the church through wisdom, hospitality, generosity, and spiritual gifts (1 Pet 4:10–11)

Paul’s concern is not to restrict women but to preserve the integrity of God’s design for the church. The pastoral role is not about superiority or worth but about responsibility and calling. Every member of the body of Christ is essential. There is no hierarchy of value—only a diversity of roles that, when embraced rightly, reflect the beauty and order of God’s household.

Paul gives two reasons for this directive. The first is found in verse 13: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve.” Paul appeals to the created order, not to cultural norms. Just as the firstborn in a family held a leadership role, so Adam, being formed first, was given headship in the human family. Responsibility for the fall is ultimately placed on Adam, not Eve (see Romans 5:12–19), which emphasizes his role as covenant head.

In Genesis, we see that God gave man authority and dominion over creation. When the fall occurred, part of the tragedy was a reversal of roles—Eve took the lead and Adam abdicated his responsibility. Both sinned, but they did so in ways that reflected a breakdown of God’s good design for male leadership and female partnership. As a result, God reaffirms and reinforces His created order—not as punishment, but as protection and restoration.

This means that male headship is not a result of the fall; it was God's intention from the beginning. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:8, “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.” This creation pattern reveals complementary roles that are to be reflected in the home and in the church.

Therefore, Paul instructs that the responsibility for authoritative teaching and leadership in the church be entrusted to qualified men. Women are not to be shaped by false teachers or cultural narratives but are to be formed by faithful instruction under biblically appointed leadership. Their calling is not diminished—it is dignified, distinct, and essential.

While the biblical roles for men and women in the home and the church are rooted in Scripture, many of the challenges we face in church leadership today stem from men failing to fulfill their God-given responsibilities—especially in the home. Too often, men are not leading spiritually. They are not praying with their wives, discipling their children, or shepherding their households in the mystery of the faith. They are absent from the life of the church, slow to serve, slow to study the Word, and passive in passing the truth to the next generation.

Brothers, we must step up.

Learning Scripture is not about how intelligent you are—it is about how committed you are. Too often, men stay home while their wives go to church. Too often, men are comfortable missing the gathering of the body. Too often, men are unfazed when their wives or children are disengaged from the life of the church.

We must do better. We cannot affirm God’s roles for women in the church while neglecting our own. Biblical leadership begins in the home and flows into the church. If we want to see the beauty of God’s design upheld, we must be the first to model submission to Christ, commitment to His Word, and sacrificial leadership in every area of life.

Paul doesnt want women to overstep their Roles in life but to embrace what the Lord has given them. 1 Timothy 2:15 “Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”

Paul is not speaking about justification or salvation—as if bearing children makes a woman right with God. Rather, he is pointing women to the goodness of God-ordained roles and boundaries. He is not confining women to the home, but reminding them of the beauty and value of their unique calling in both the church and the family. These roles are not burdens—they are blessings.

God’s design for men and women is marked by dignity, respect, and partnership. And in our current cultural moment, applying this design requires great wisdom, humility, and discernment. As the church, we must resist the temptation to reshape God’s Word to fit modern sensibilities. Instead, we are called to trust that His ways are good—even when they challenge us—and to live them out with grace, courage, and love.

Further, there is no greater calling than the one God has given to each of us in Christ. Though we may have different roles in the church and in the home, we all stand equal at the foot of the cross—saved by grace through faith in Jesus. He, the eternal Son of God, entered the world through the womb of a woman. He was nurtured and raised by a mother who feared the Lord.

It is through the faithful obedience of Christ—not through our roles, works, or status—that we are redeemed. The very One who humbled Himself, taking on flesh and serving all, is the same One who empowers us to walk in the roles God has given us with joy and purpose. Our worth is not defined by our position, but by our union with Christ. In Him, every member of the body matters. In Him, both men and women are called to glorify God, serve His church, and reflect His beauty.

So let me encourage you—brothers and sisters—don’t push back against the roles God has designed. Don’t see them as restrictions, but as invitations to reflect His order, His wisdom, and His glory. God is not trying to diminish you, He’s calling you to flourish in the very purpose for which He made you.

Men, step into your calling. Be spiritual leaders—not just in word, but in action. Love your wives. Lead your families. Serve your church. And don’t wait to be perfect—start now with humility and dependence on Christ.

Women, know that your calling is not lesser—it is powerful, beautiful, and vital to the health of the church and the home. Your faithfulness speaks volumes. Your influence shapes generations. You are precious in the sight of God.

And to all of us—remember, our ultimate hope is not in our role, but in our Redeemer. Jesus is the perfect leader and the perfect servant. He laid down His life for His bride—the church—and He now calls us to follow Him with trust, obedience, and joy.

Let us be a people who receive God’s Word with reverence, walk in His design with faith, and proclaim Christ as Lord over every part of our lives—including how we live together as His people.

Lord’s Supper