Men and Women in the Fight

In continuing our study of 1 Timothy, we are approaching one of the most challenging passages of Scripture in the New Testament.

It is challenging for several reasons:

Some of the wording is a hard to understand.

The truth of the passage pushes back against the trends of our culture.

However, we believe that God’s plan is best, and we want to honor him by following his design in every area of life.

We have been talking over the last several weeks about Fighting the Good Fight. We have seen that in this letter, Paul is writing to a young pastor named Timothy. Timothy pastors in a city called Ephesus, and there are some false teachers there trying to distract people from the incredible truth of the gospel.

Paul is calling each of us, along with Timothy, to join in the fight, fighting against error, fighting to keep the truth of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection central to our own lives.

We saw last week that one of our main tools in the fight is prayer. We are called to pray in every way, for everyone, because God can save anyone.

As we talked last week, we said that we are not in this fight alone.

God has put us together in the church for us to fight for his name and his glory together.

This morning’s passage is going to begin giving us more information about how we join together to fight.

Here’s what I want you to see from our passage this morning: God has called men and women to face unique challenges and fight the good fight in unique ways.

For those of you who don’t really enjoy looking deeply at theology, you are going to have to bear with us this morning.

There are some important truths that we need to explain as we look at this passage, so try to hang in there with us.

Let me establish some groundwork up front.

As a church, we believe the Bible teaches complementarianism.

This is the idea that God has created men and women with different roles to play in the home and in the leadership of the church.

That does not mean that we believe that women are somehow inferior to men. In fact, the New Testament makes it clear that God’s offer of salvation extends equally to men and to women. In fact, the New Testament highlights many women who played vital roles in the early days of the church.

We see that in the Gospels, where God fulfills his promise of bringing a Savior to the world and speaks directly to Mary, who openly praises God for what he has done in blessing her with this.

We see Jesus interacting graciously with women throughout his ministry, which many teachers in those days would not have done.

If you remember the passage we looked at on Easter, the first people to know about the resurrection were women, who then went to tell his disciples.

It doesn’t stop with the Gospels, though. We see women playing key roles in the early days of the church. tell us the Phillip’s daughters prophesied. In , we see the church at Philippi began with a businesswoman named Lydia, who housed the apostles while they were in the city.

Perhaps one of the clearest statements of men and women’s value before God is found in :

Galatians 3:27–29 CSB

For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.

Men and women, whatever their race or economic standing, are equally valuable to God.

Are we clear on that truth?

Here is where we differ from some other believers, though. We believe that God, in his wisdom, has established unique roles for men and women to play within the home and the church.

This morning’s passage specifically deals with the way that

That’s what we are going to see as we dive into this morning.

As we saw last week, we are called to pray every way for everyone because God can save anyone.

That’s the idea that we pick back up with in verse 8.

In these verses, we are going to see how men and women are called in unique ways to fulfill that command within the church.

There is a lot to unpack in them, so let’s dive in.

First, Paul addresses the men. As we seek to join together with others in the church to pray, we find this instruction:

1) Men: Be holy, not hot-headed.

The shortness of this verse would make it easy to overlook, but let’s drill down for a minute.

2) Women: Be known for good deeds, not great style.

The verb “to pray” here is related to the word “prayers” in verse 2. We said last week that this was the idea of prayer as an act of worship.

When Paul brings up the idea of “lifting up holy hands” in prayer, he is drawing off the common posture of prayer in the Old Testament worship.

Although there are times when we see people kneeling, the common posture in public prayer was standing with our hands raised to the heavens.

It is a symbolic gesture that acknowledges that we are dependent on God, gently offering these requests to the one who is worthy and able to meet the needs we have.

I sometimes think of it as a child reaching up to a parent to pick them up or offering a broken toy for a parent to fix.

Guys, it can be hard for us to pray because, like we saw last week, we are strong and self-reliant, which we can’t be if we are going to acknowledge our need for God to help us.

We are called to lift our hands to God in prayer as an act of worship.

You and I are called to lead out in prayer . We cannot abdicate this role.

God has called us to set the pattern of

However, if you notice, it isn’t just any hands we raise. We are to raise “holy” hands.

That means that our hands need to be clean from sin. That happens initially as we place our trust in Christ. You can’t wash off your own sinfulness on your own; you need Jesus to cleanse your hands.

However, when you have received that cleansing, you also need to live like it.

Jesus may have cleansed you from your sin and you may be saved, but you aren’t able to lift up holy hands if you are not striving to live in light of what Christ has done.

Are there any parts of your life that you know would keep you from being able to stand here with arms raised to heaven, knowing that you are living out the holiness God has already given you in Christ?

Get that right!

Paul specifically highlights an area for us to demonstrate holiness: by putting away anger and arguing.

Paul specifically highlights an area for us to demonstrate holiness: by putting away anger and arguing.

Guys, many of us battle more with our temper than we would like. We have a tendency to be hot-heads, going off over the slightest issue.

Men,

I am not talking about how you behave at church. Listen: you and I can fake being kind and patient and gentle for a few hours a week when everyone is around.

I am not talking about how you behave at church. Listen: you and I can fake being kind and patient and gentle for a few hours a week when everyone is around.

We can’t fake it with our wives and our kids, though.

Would your wife and kids say, “My dad can lift up holy hands because he isn’t a man that gets angry a lot and he doesn’t pick fights”?

Letting God work in your heart to make you secure in your identity in Christ frees you from having to get mad over things that don’t matter.

It doesn’t take you out of the fight of the faith; it leaves you in it.

As God works in you to develop that control over your mind and emotions, you start to be able to respond in a Christ-like way, not out of frustration, but out of a desire to see Christ exalted in the situation.

You will be bold and you will fight for the truth, but out of control, not anger.

So, men, how are we doing? Are you a man who prays fervently for your family and your church? Could you stand here this morning and lift holy hands, or are you giving into sin and temptation so that you aren’t in a place to lead in prayer as you should?

What about your temper? Are you known as a hot-head at home or work or church? Seek to be known for your holiness, not your hot-headedness.

The church flourishes when men stop fighting each other and start joining together to live holy lives that honor and glorify Christ.

Paul doesn’t stop there, though. Having outlined the role men are to play in prayer, he describes how women are equipped to serve as well.

For women, we see that you are to....

2) Women: Be known for good deeds, not great style.

Let’s read through verses 9-10 and tackle them first.

Given the context, it seems that Paul is still talking about the way we conduct ourselves in worship as a church. Men are to worship and pray with holy hands and without anger.

Women are called on, then, to worship in such a way that they are known for their godliness, not their great style.

Just like in the command for men, this extends beyond how we act in church to how we live our lives.

Paul encourages women to dress modestly, not making their appearance their defining characteristic.

In that day, it was common for rich women to show off their wealth with expensive hairstyles that would have had jewels and pearls braided through them.

You can imagine how this would have created problems in the church. Not only would that have been distracting, it would also have created a division in the church between those who had money and those who didn’t.

Not only that, but it seems as well that they were dressing provocatively, which would have added further distraction from what God had called the church to be and do.

With that said, we don’t interpret this passage as saying that a woman should never wear something nice, do her hair, or wear any jewelry.

That’s because of the contrast in verse 10...

What you should be known for is not your style of dress but your way of life.

Do people know you as a woman who worships with her lifestyle, or do they know you as a woman for whom style is life?

You are to clothe yourselves with good works so that what stands out to those around you is the way you honor God.

No, you shouldn’t dress provocatively or seductively. No, you shouldn’t dress in such a way that your attire distracts in worship.

You should be known

Instead, you should desire to honor God through every aspect of your life: your appearance, your good works, and your worship.

That’s what we just said about men, isn’t it? Although most of us aren’t as concerned about the way we dress, our insecurities drive us to anger and harshness.

We are to be known for our holiness, not our anger.

Jump down to verse 15...

Although there is more to unpack here, you notice that women as well are to be known, not for their appearance but for their holiness as well!

The challenges for each gender may be unique, but the outcome is the same: holy, God honoring lives.

Now, let’s take a few minutes and talk about verse 11 and following.

Read through these verses with me again.

At the beginning of the message, I told you that we, as a church, believe that this passage and others indicate that God has unique roles for men and women within the church.

This passage can be tricky, and it has been used in ways that haven’t been God-honoring.

Let’s work through four different ways you could think about this passage. These cover the main ways to interpret these passages, although there are a lot of smaller nuances under each of these broad headings.

I want to let you know that much of what I am articulating in this section comes from a helpful post from J.D. Greear, who is the pastor at The Summit Church in Durham, NC. He also serves as the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention. (https://jdgreear.com/blog/can-women-teach-in-the-church/).

So, what are the four ways to look at it?

First, you could dismiss these as irrelevant for today.

Some deny that these words belong in Scripture, so they would choose to refuse these distinctions. We would not agree with that at all.

Others may agree that this really is Scripture, but they feel it was speaking specifically to a cultural issue at play in Ephesus during Timothy’s lifetime, but they don’t apply to us today. That is the position many egalitiarians hold. I have a hard time with that, though, because of what we see in verse 13-14. Paul grounds this concept in the creation order and the Fall, which implies that it isn’t limited to a particular time and place. Adam was created first, so he is like the firstborn son and would be expected to take the lead. Also, Adam was the one who was given the command not to eat the fruit of the tree, yet he let Eve take the lead and she was deceived. Had Adam stood up and led as God intended him to, she would not have been exposed to the temptation she was. He was to protect her, and when he didn’t, it hurt everyone.

Others take these words very literally, saying that there is never a time a woman should teach or speak in church, and she should never hold any position of leadership in the church. That doesn’t seem to fit with what we see taking place in the rest of the New Testament, though. As we already mentioned, Phillip’s daughters had been known to prophesy, which seems to put in the context of something that happened when the church got together for worship and teaching.

Some others would say that a woman could offer a testimony or something, but she can’t speak during the main sermon time of the service. The challenge with that is that the New Testament doesn’t give us a particular order of worship. It is largely our tradition that you have music for half the service and then have one person preach a sermon for the second half. There is nothing in the New Testament that mandates that our services be like that, so it is hard to limit a woman’s right to speak in church to the first 30 minutes of the service.

Finally, others see this passage as explaining that a woman is not to hold the authoritative teaching position in the church. This is what we believe best explains this passage in light of what we see elsewhere in the New Testament.

Here is how J.D. Greear defines it:

“ “Authoritative teaching” in a church is (1) teaching that is binding for that particular congregation and (2) the teaching body that comprises that church’s fulfillment of its responsibility to pass on the faith to the next generation. The elders have the “authority” to remove from that local covenant community (under the consent of the congregation as a whole) those that reject this official teaching of the church ().”

The elders have the “authority” to remove from that local covenant community (under the consent of the congregation as a whole) those that reject this official teaching of the church ().”

Look back at verse 12. Although “teaching” and “exercising authority” are two separate ideas, they are closely linked in this passage.

There is a role in the church that is tasked with teaching and exercising the authority of the local church, and that is the role of a pastor/elder/overseer.

Here is how J.D. Greear defines it:

“ ‘Authoritative teaching’ in a church is (1) teaching that is binding for that particular congregation and (2) the teaching body that comprises that church’s fulfillment of its responsibility to pass on the faith to the next generation. The elders have the “authority” to remove from that local covenant community (under the consent of the congregation as a whole) those that reject this official teaching of the church ().”

We believe, then, that this passage teaches that a woman cannot serve in the office of pastor/elder/overseer.

That fits the context, doesn’t it? Look at 3:1. Immediately after the instructions on how men and women are to behave generally in church, Paul gives us qualifications for the men who will serve in that authoritative teaching capacity of the church.

This doesn’t mean that a woman cannot hold a leadership position or speak on Sundays during the worship service. It means that she cannot serve as a pastor/elder/overseer or serve in a way that would indicate that she is.

Let’s look at how this plays out in our life as a church:

There are times when some of the women who help lead worship will read a Scripture passage or give a word of encouragement or testimony. That doesn’t violate this command, because they are using their gifts and talents in a God-honoring way, but they are not exercising the authority of the church as a whole in the way that a pastor/elder does.

Rebecca Hall is leading our Children’s Ministry currently. There are men who serve in the Children’s Ministry, under Rebecca’s leadership, but Rebecca is not a pastor/elder, so this doesn’t violate this command.

Not only that, but a few months ago, we had Debbie Christian from the Pregnancy Resource Center and Cindy Middaugh from the SBC of Virginia both come and speak on a Sunday morning. If you recall, I introduced them both and explained how their ministries tied into our Scriptural commands to reach the community and equip the next generation to follow Christ. Although they spoke and taught, it was under my authority as a pastor of this church.

So, then, we seek to provide opportunities for both the men and women of this church to use their gifts, talents, and abilities for the glory of God, while still acknowledging and honoring the design he put in place for the church.

As we see in verse 15, a woman’s

Let’s bring that understanding into the last verse of the chapter.

Verse 15 is another challenging verse in our culture. Many women don’t get married, and others may never have children.

Does that mean that they somehow aren’t going to heaven?

Not at all. This verse simply teaches that a woman’s greatest fulfillment comes, not from trying to lead the church as a pastor or elder, but through living a life of faith, love, and holiness through her family, whatever God allows that to look like.

A woman’s greatest fulfillment comes, not from trying to lead the church as a pastor or elder, but through living a life of faith, love, and holiness

This isn’t a prohibition against a woman working outside the home. Instead, it is a reminder that your greatest mission, as a woman, is to serve your family however God directs.

So, then, men, you are called to be holy, not hot-headed.

Ladies, you are called to be holy, not flashy.

That looks different for men and women, but the underlying reality is the same: As we seek to honor Jesus for all he has done, we want to do so in such a way that nothing we do distracts or takes away from how amazing he is.

As we fight the good fight, we may be called on to take different roles in the fight, but the battle is for us all.

May God give us strength to fight, as a church, in the way he directs.