Guarding Public Worship

1 Timothy 2:8–15 NASB95

Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension. Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.

Do you ever turn on the tv in the middle of a movie, show or football game? Or maybe you walk in the room just in time to hear only a piece of a conversation? It can be really confusing, right? And maybe even misleading. So, when this happens, we (should) start asking some questions. What’s going on? Who are you talking about? Is that Cuba Gooding Jr? We do this because in order for us to understand the movie, game, or conversation, we need to know the CONTEXT!

This is also true in Scripture. When we study a passage, we cannot just jump in without considering the context. We cannot know what to do with Scripture until we understand what it meant to the original audience. And so we ask questions like WHO is speaking? WHO are the characters involved? WHAT type of writing is this? WHERE is this taking place? WHAT Is the occasion of the writing? Our role is not to give Scripture meaning, but to draw God’s meaning out of Scripture.

So today, I will be reminding us about context as we go through our text.

Let us remember that the purpose of Paul’s writing to Timothy is for the sake of the church. His command, as we saw in chapter 1, is to Guard the Gospel. The main challenge being addressed is false teaching. This remains the purpose of this letter as we saw last week when we talked about the priority of prayer in this Battle for the church. It is still true as we speak today about Guarding Public Worship.

We begin in verse 8 connecting the following instructions to the previous command. “Therefore” Paul says:

b/c we are called to guard the Gospel

b/c we are fighting the good fight against untruth

As we are preparing for battle in prayer,

We must be prepared to Guard Public Worship through our Personal Holiness/ godliness.

Paul speaks directly to both men and women here, and gives a warning and a promise that we want to take with us today.

Discuss: Why is context important?

Men, Lead in Godliness (8)

Listen to what Paul says in 1 Tim. 2:8.

Paul is addressing specifically men who are leaders in public worship. The emphasis here is on prayer, of which we spoke of last week. In traditional Jewish worship, men would pray with their hands lifted up, of course after they had ceremonially washed them.

Now, we see this as a posture, much like we might fold our hands, bow our heads, etc. The idea is not so much about one’s physical posture, but rather his spiritual posture before the Lord. You see, God had placed men in the position to lead. We can see how Scripture defines the man as the head of the family. This is not a statement of value, but rather a statement of position. Man’s position as a leader in the home and in the church is not about favor, it’s about responsibility. Men, listen to me, God will hold you responsible for how you lead-both your family and in the church. To refuse to take this position is to refuse God’s design.

As leaders, men, we must be godly in our approach to public worship and prayer.

Here’s what that means: We must have “holy hands” IOW,

We must be pure. We cannot lead our church or our family to a level of godliness and purity that we do not have. It will help us to think back to last week’s study- Praying with God’s heart is only possible if we are pure- that is in right standing. Paul gives two examples of this purity- without wrath and without dissension. One cannot lead in prayer if he prays hypocritically.

We cannot say, ‘forgive one another’ if we have not forgiven. We cannot say ‘love one another’ if there is hatred in our hearts. We cannot say ‘stay away from sin’ if we are entangled in sin ourselves. We cannot say ‘Have faith’ if we doubt God’s goodness or might.

I am reminded of men who have stood before their churches and prayed prayers that were elegant and beautiful- prayers that appear to bring heaven down, yet their lives were marred with hypocrisy. Some were addicts, some were unfaithful, some were liars and thieves. Some were abusers of power and the list goes on. And when the truth came out, hundreds and thousands of church members were rocked to their cores. How could a lay-person continue in faith when the leader of the church did not even see fit to fear God enough to be pure and godly?

You may be thinking: “Well, I’m not sure I’m able to lead, but you say I am responsible to lead, but if I lead where I am not able, then I will be judged for that… this is a pickle”

And it’s true, sorta. You see, leading is not necessarily as a pastor or elder- we’ll talk about that more next week. Leading in this context is with regard to your faithful witness. You see, God does not call us to be idle nor hidden, but he calls us to be salt and light. He calls us to live out the Gospel in all areas of our life. What good is public worship if we are not sincere? What good are songs that exalt God’s name if they are sung by men who do not truly believe them? What good is our gathering if we are not meeting to give glory to God?

Discuss: Does your life reflect the Gospel? How can you live more sincerely?

Men, we must lead with pure, sincere hearts and clean consciences. We must lead in godliness.

Next Paul turns to address the ladies. Now, again, we are going to look at the context and draw out the instructions that were specific and what we are to apply today.

Women, Adorn Yourself in Godliness (9-10)

Let’s read these verses again.

It’s not too difficult to imagine how applicable these instructions were for the women in the Ephesian church. We talked about the secular culture of the day- the Temple of Diana and the religious prostitution that went on. Women were tempted to dress in ways that would draw attention to their bodies, their wealth, etc. Often these adornments were similar to the way ladies would dress when soliciting in Diana’s temple. This attention, Paul noted, is not what Christian women should strive for.

In other words, ladies, you don’t need to try and be like the world. Magazines, TV, and others pressure you to dress a certain way, talk a certain way, to fit in with the cool crowd. There is a pressure to put more emphasis on your sex appeal than your character. Does this mean that you should not wear jewelry or nice clothes? No, it simply means that you are more than eye-candy.

If you are so focused on dressing up that you might not come to church if you don’t have the right outfit, that is a problem. Do you get hung up on what other people are wearing and can’t lift your voice sincerely in prayer? Problem. We gather together to worship God, not Ralph Lauren or whoever those designer people are… I don’t really know any others.

Discuss: Do you find your value in what culture says? How can you adorn yourself in godliness this week?

Ladies, please hear me: You are not some sort of sex object; you are not a piece of meat; your value cannot be assigned by the world- only by the Creator.

So, as Paul says, adorn yourself in godliness. Let your character and faith be what you are known for. Ladies, you are called to be different from the world- to shine the light of Jesus Christ.

You say you are a Christian, then you will be known by your love. You will be known by genuinely serving your neighbor and by exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit. Look, Paul is saying that if you make a claim to be a Christ-follower, your life, your actions should affirm that. What do your actions say about you?

Paul goes further to underscore his command for women to be adorned in godliness by giving a warning against deception. Now, I’m going to Read v. 11-12 again. Please hold your applause and glares until I get through this ok?

(READ)

Discuss: What false teachings have deceived you or someone you know? How did this happen?

We must know what was going on in order to rightly interpret this passage.

This is not a misogynistic or sexist statement.

Christianity actually has liberated women in ways that no other religion has. Women are of equal value with men, unlike the cultures throughout history as well as in and around the first century. (Gal. 3:28)

Paul is NOT saying:

that women cannot ever be teachers- in fact we see throughout the Bible examples of women teachers. In Acts 21:9, we see that Phillip the evangelist had 4 daughters who prophesied.

Not saying that women cannot serve the church - We see women as key servants within the 1st century church. Jesus and his disciples were ministered to by women, we see faithful servants recognized like Dorcas, and Phoebe. Some would say that, since Paul uses the same word for deacon as he does to describe Phoebe in Romans 16, that we could even argue for women deacons.

Paul is not saying that women cannot hold leadership positions- we can look even back to the OT and see how God raised up women to lead, like Deborah the OT judge.

Truly what we must see here is that Paul is addressing a specific problem within the church as it relates to false teaching. Let us consider his argument:

Women were welcomed into public worship and should seek to learn. Paul instructs their ‘quietness’ which is addressing attitude more so than volume. In other areas of Scripture, we see instructions for women to ask their husbands questions as opposed to bringing them up in the midst of public worship (1 Cor. 14:35).

The reality is that in this time period, women were in large less educated than men. They were often illiterate and could not study for themselves. But this is as much of a call to men to be leaders of their home as it is instruction for women. Men were charged with teaching their families, discipling them, helping them grow. We can see this role affirmed in Ephesians 5:22-23.

Women were not permitted to teach or exercise authority over a man. Now, again, we are seeing both a role being described as well as a situation being addressed. Literally, Paul is saying “I am not permitting” which helps us to see that he is (at least mostly) concerned about the false teachings that were creeping into the church.

Being less educated, women were more prone to deception by false teachers. What would happen is that the false teachers would actually prey on these women with the intention of gaining advocates within the church.

Now, in truth, this will also be said of any person who is not qualified to teach. Any person who undermines the teaching of God’s Word harms the unity and mission of the church.

What was happening, scholars agree, is that women in the church were trying to persuade others toward these false teachings. The false teachers were being addressed, but the problem of false teaching is that it ripples throughout the community as people are deceived.

We can even see this as fake news articles are shared on FB…

The role of pastor was given to a man of God and it was his responsibility to ensure that God’s Word was the authority- that it was not compromised.

This is why Paul brings the example of Adam & Eve here at the end. As we read through the creation account, we can plainly see that God created Adam and set him in the garden. Adam was given the command NOT to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17). THEN God created Eve as a companion and help-mate for Adam. Adam was given the responsibility to lead Eve in godliness.

Adam communicated God’s law to Eve, but Eve was deceived by the serpent. Eve was drawn in by the promises of the devil, compromising the truth of God’s Law. The deceiver sought out Eve to tempt and deceive her, not Adam, and Eve persuaded Adam to partake of the forbidden fruit.

Paul saw that same pattern being repeated in Ephesus. The men who had been given the responsibility to lead the church would be persuaded by the women to forsake God’s design and embrace a false gospel.

After this warning, Paul gives a word of hope- a promise to the women in Ephesus. (read 1 Tim. 2:15). Now, what is he saying?

I believe that he is telling these women, who were prone to falter, prone to get wrapped up in false teachings- these women who were receiving a bit of rebuke- they will be saved through their faith in Jesus as they persevere. There will be struggles- Paul speaks of child-bearing- I believe he is still referencing the account of Adam and Eve in Gen.3. Sin has brought a curse on the world. Man would suffer through toiling, women would suffer through the pain of child-birth and a desire to rule over her husband. But, God offers salvation. There is something better and that something is Jesus.

Effectively, Paul is calling the church to guard the gospel, to guard their public worship through personal godliness. I want to ask you this morning, what needs to change in your life that would lead you to be more godly this week?