Sermon Tone Analysis

1 Timothy 2:11-15

Women Preachers & the Word of God

 

/A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.

I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.

For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.

But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety/.

| G |

ender battles are an integral part of the social landscape today.

Throughout this century a crescendo of voices have assured women that they were oppressed.

Oppressed, they were encouraged to unite together with their sisters to cast off the bondage of patriarchal slavery.

Bra burning during the sixties has given way to political action groups today.

The pendulum appears to be swinging in the opposite direction today, however.

Men are now organising into political groups, their express intention being the assertion of masculine rights in contrast to feminine rights.

I am no prophet, but I am on solid ground when I say that such gender wars will continue at least throughout our lifetimes, and they will likely continue until the day Jesus comes.

It is tragic enough when these fights are ongoing in society.

Ultimately they must affect each of us.

For years we have been assured that men are violent and much more likely to harm women.

Evidence demonstrating that women are at least as likely to engage in violent behaviour as men and that they were more likely to assault a man than vice versa was suppressed.

We are assured that men use guns to kill women; on this basis we register all guns.

It is of no consequence that a woman is more likely to shoot a man then is a man to shoot a woman—all men are suspect.

Since men are the violent sex, the law in British Columbia, and increasingly throughout Canada, holds that a man must be jailed even on the strength of a rumour of a voice raised against a woman.

Families are torn apart and lives are ruined, all because of the myth of male power.

If gender fights in society as a whole have such tragic consequences, consider what must happen when these same issues infect the Body of Christ.

Women within the evangelical community are increasingly vocal in voicing their opinion that they have been excluded from power within the church.

They will assume their place as leaders and even as overseers in the Body of Christ.

In order to exercise this new-found power it has become necessary to dismiss the history of the churches.

It has become necessary to explain away the writings of the Apostles and even the words of Jesus.

Human rights and reason have replaced human responsibility and divine revelation.

There are a plethora of voices today, each representing itself as a conservative commentator and each of whom is willing to reinterpret the Bible and even to explain away what is clearly said.

What cannot be explained away is the fact that within the Body of Christ, Christ and His Word are to prevail in leading us to peace with one another.

I fear that instead of leading society, the church of this day is led by society.

Instead of being the moral conscience for society, the church of this day has exalted the most strident voices as conscience for the Body of Christ.

Brothers and sisters, this ought not to be.

It is high time that the people of God grasped the truth that we are one before we self-destruct.

To fail to heed the instruction of the Word is to ensure that we shall not long continue as a force against the darkness of this world.

Listen, then, to the Word of God and discover with me what God has to say about gender and leadership in His church.

The principle* **— */A woman should learn in quietness and full submission/.

The verse before us makes no reference to ability, but rather it speaks of the attitude which should be exhibited among women of God.

The passage says nothing concerning the worth or merit of either gender.

Neither does this statement infer that women are inferior in intellect, in spiritual perspicuity, or in capability.

We have already established that before God both male and female have *now* received the full rights of sons.

Each alike has already received divine adoption permitting access to the Father and ensuring each a place in God’s family.

Women are not proscribed either from praying or from testifying in the services of the church, though they are taught to demonstrate propriety and a submissive spirit—beginning with their own husbands.

It would be a dreadful error for anyone to infer from these words that women have no ministry within the church.

We have already demonstrated that women have received a vital ministry which is to a tragic extent neglected or ignored in this day.

Women are responsible to teach younger women in the church—a ministry which no conscientious pastor dare undertake without exposure to serious consequence.

Women are to teach their own children and they are encouraged to teach other’s children.

Women may glorify God through sharing in the teaching of /songs, hymns and spiritual songs/ [*Colossians 3:16*].

Women even baptised other women, as we have seen was the practise of early churches.

In society as a whole they should witness to the grace of God, endeavouring to turn friends and neighbours to faith in the Risen Lord.

If it should be stated that women are excluded from leadership and by implication excluded from power and decision-making, I remind you that each Christian is to aspire to serve … not to lead!

That one who will be a true leader of the people of God must become servant of all.

/If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all /[*Mark 9:35*] are the words Jesus spoke concerning this particular issue.

Later our Lord would make the case for voluntary servanthood stronger still.

/ Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve/ [*Mark 10:43-45*].

Let women who think they are kept from power weigh this thought, even as men who are prone to abuse the responsibility of occupying the position of a pastor~/teacher must also confront this truth.

The issue before us is as simple as the pronouncement of the Word of God which we must either embrace as His revealed will for us or which we must reject as culturally bound and thus irrelevant for this day.

The issue is that of submission to the mind of God.

The issue is whether we will be holy and separated to the will of God or whether we will be fleshly and surrendered to the imaginations of this fallen race.

Remember that the whole of this chapter focuses on the church at worship.

Restating the principle, a woman is to exhibit a spirit of gentleness and submission … especially in worship.

When the Apostle writes of /a woman/ [singular] he sets forth a principle embracing all women and not married women only.

The principle is binding, then, on all Christian women … married, single, formerly married or never married.

The second point emphasised by this principle is that /a woman *should learn*/ … and not teach.

Clearly the Apostle says nothing at this point about women as teachers, but he does say clearly that women are responsible to learn.

All Christians are to grow, and especially would we expect growth in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ [*2 Peter 3:18*].

Paul’s words are not an excuse for men to cease growing, but it is focused on women at worship and they are expected to learn.

The manner in which /a woman should learn/ is /in quietness and full submission/.

There is nothing in this statement we haven’t already discovered in the manner of life expected of all Christian women.

A wife is to be submissive to her own husband.

Such an attitude of gracious, voluntary submission honours Christ and is considered a virtue before Him.

In fact, to refuse to be subject to one’s husband is sinful.

Just so, an unmarried woman is to reveal a submissive spirit to the leadership God has appointed in the church.

The Prohibition* **— *I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.

Bear in mind that we are considering the church at worship.

The instructions deal with the people of God assembled as a church.

Simply stated, a woman is permitted neither to occupy the office of a teacher nor to wield authority over men.

This prohibition is clearly based upon the principle previously stated.

*The permission for a woman to “learn” is contrasted with the proscription for them “to teach,” while  “all submissiveness” is paired with “not exercising authority over a man.”

The submission in view, then, [should be understood to be toward] men, since verse twelve bans women from exercising authority over men…  Women are to learn with all submissiveness from the men who had authority in the church and manifested that authority through their teaching*.[1]

J. B. Phillips in his masterful translation of the New Testament translates the *twelfth verse* as follows.

I don’t allow women to teach, nor do I ever put them in positions of authority over men—I believe their role is to be receptive.[2]

The principle states that a woman should learn in quietness and submission.

We would thus infer that this divine command reflects her position in the home as well as her role in the church.

A submissive spirit honours the Lord; this is especially true when exhibited in the life of a Christian woman.

Perhaps you misunderstand what a submissive spirit entails, but it assuredly does not require that a woman be a doormat.

No woman should *ever* tolerate threats or abuse, nor does Paul’s teaching imply that a woman should accept such any such abuse.

Likewise, a submissive spirit does not preclude thinking or holding one’s own opinion.

A Christian husband is responsible to consider his wife’s view and to treat her with consideration, and that means that he must solicit her views and give due consideration to her needs and to her desires within the family when he exercises his responsibility.

A submissive spirit does mean, however, that ultimately it is the husband which must bear responsibility for the direction of the family and for the decisions made in the home.

Similarly, in the church, a submissive spirit recognises that Christ the Lord is ultimately responsible for the direction of the church and for decisions made in the church.

He has, for reasons which shall shortly be stated, chosen to assign that responsibility to those whom He appoints to be shepherds and elders and overseers.

Those who He has chosen cannot be women according to His own Word, but they must be men.

In *1 Timothy 3:2* we are commanded that the overseer must be a /one-woman man/ [literal translation of mia'" gunaiko;" a[ndra].

Specifically, the overseer must be a male.

On the basis of this verse alone, women are excluded from consideration as overseers, elders or pastors.

As a vital aside, the terms *overseer*, *elder* and *pastor* each refer to the same office in the church.

Peter employs all three terms interchangeably within a few brief sentences.