Women in the Church


Sermon by J. Ligon Duncan on August 1, 2004 1 Timothy 2:8-15

The Lord’s Day
Morning

August 1, 2004

I Timothy 2:8-15

”Women in the Church”

Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III

If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to
First Timothy, chapter two. We have said all along as we’ve been studying the
first of the Pastoral Epistles, these letters from a veteran pastor to a younger
pastor about pastoral matters, matters that pertain to the local church–we’ve
said as we have studied this pastoral letter that we find here a pattern for
ministry, a divinely appointed set of directives for how we are to live and
minister as God’s people and among God’s people in the local congregation.

And last week as we were looking at I Timothy 2:1-7,
we saw important matters pertaining to the church’s prayer addressed by Paul.
Paul was speaking to the church about its posture towards the world. In verses
one and two of First Timothy two, Paul urges the church to be praying for all
kinds and classes of people, including the rulers, which are so often in
opposition to them.

The church could have been tempted to pray against
the rulers who were so pressing down on Christians in Ephesus. Or, they
could have simply been tempted not to pray for them at all. But Paul says, “No,
you pray for your rulers, for kings, for those who are in high places, those who
are persecuting you. You pray for all kinds and classes of men.”

And then in verses three through six he explains
why. He gives them an expression of God’s desire to see all kinds and classes
of men, women, boys and girls, come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. He
reminds us that there is one mediator, there is one ransom, there is one atoning
sacrifice for sin. And there is only one hope for the world; and if we have
been saved by that hope, by grace, then we also must pray. If we are going to
really love humanity, we must pray that humanity would come to know that one
hope savingly in Jesus Christ.

Paul concludes in verse seven by reminding us that
he himself is an apostle to the Gentiles. He’s been appointed not simply to go
to Jews, not simply to go to one small ethnic group on the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean, but he’s been appointed to go to the peoples of the world. And
that, too, stands as testimony for the reach of God’s work.

And so, Paul continues this emphasis on prayer in
the passage we’re going to read today. But today we also come to some issues
that are even more controversial than some of the matters that we touched on in
verses one to seven–at least, more controversial in the modern mind. That is
especially the subject of the roles of men and women in the church.

Paul’s words would have been controversial in his own
day, in that he would have been seen as “liberal” and progressive. In our day,
however, these words cause people to respond in horror to the Apostle Paul.
They cannot believe that he would be so backward, narrow, closed-minded–even
chauvinistic. And so this is a very controversial topic in our own day.

Paul, in various places, addresses both male and
female roles in the Christian home, and in the Christian church. And this is
one of those passages where he addresses male/female roles and
responsibilities–distinctive male and female roles and responsibilities–in the
church. And there are, frankly, few areas in the church today more fraught with
controversy than the role relationships between men and women in the home and in
the church. You don’t have to turn on the television today to know that there
has been an explosion, for instance, of female ministers in the Pentecostal and
Charismatic world. Many of you perhaps have caught Joyce Meyers from time to
time on television, pounding the pulpit and preaching away. Well, she’s just
typical of a new wave of female preachers in the Pentecostal and Charismatic
world. On the other hand, you don’t have to look very far in the liberal and
mainline denominations to see very different expressions of male/female role
relationships in terms of leadership, teaching, and preaching in the church.

Well, why does First Presbyterian Church do like we
do, when they’re doing like they do? Why is it that the PCA does things as we
do, when others are doing it a different way? Why is it that conservative
evangelical Christians all over the world have a different view of male and
female roles and responsibilities in the life of the church, when we see many
churches doing it differently?

In part the answer will be found in a passage here,
like I Timothy 2. There are other passages as well: I Corinthians 11; I
Corinthians 14; and others. But this is one of the important passages for
answering why we do as we do. I want to remind you as we look at this passage
that Paul speaks very clearly to this matter. This is not waffling language
that Paul gives us. This is very clear, unequivocal language. He’s not the
politician, who studied the overnight polls to see how things were leaning and
then he wrote in that direction…or he tried to straddle the fence so that you
couldn’t figure out what he was saying. Oh, he is painfully clear with what he
has to say!

And I also want you to see that Paul thinks that
this issue is important. Sometimes we say, “Look. With half of the world never
having heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, why are we squabbling about this?”
Well, Paul thought this was important enough to write down in a pastoral epistle
inspired by the Holy Spirit for the instruction of the church in all ages.
Clearly, he thought this was an issue very significant for the life of the local
congregation. And so we’re going to pause and take some time to consider it.

Now, Paul, the Bible, Christianity, and conservative
evangelical Bible-believing Christians have all been the objects of much
derision from modern secularists in terms of our approach to male/female role
relationships in the church. For instance, one current Mississippi writer has in
fact taken direct aim at us in this congregation on this issue. He protests
that “the exclusively white male elders of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson
believe in the Pauline precept that women should be silent in the church.” Now
he, of course, thinks this is utterly ridiculous and irrational in the extreme,
and he makes no bones about that. But I want you to see that that brand of
mindless mudslinging is precisely the same kind of mindless mudslinging that
gets Paul tarred and feathered as a misogynist–as a woman-hater.

Now, that’s patently untrue. Paul, throughout his
ministry, was supported by significant women. Did they think that Paul was a
woman-hater and they still supported him? Paul often found the greatest
reception for his gospel preaching amongst godly women. Think of Lydia, the
businesswoman that he met from Thyatira, who responded to the preaching of his
gospel and became the core of the disciples in a new particular quadrant of
ministry that he was developing. Look at the greetings of Paul in his letters,
and the final salutations and messages at the end of his letters in the New
Testament. They are filled with greetings to women who were near and dear to
him. Look at how Paul responds and relates, for instance, to Priscilla, the
wife of Aquila. Everybody else calls her by her diminutive name, but Paul calls
her by her full and formal name. I suspect that it reflects the great respect
and esteem in which he held her. So there is no concrete evidence for Paul
being a woman-hater. Secularists just don’t like the position that Paul states
here regarding male/female role relationships in the Church, and so they call
him names. Consequently, they call anybody who follows his teaching those same
names.

But there is, of course, a different kind of tack on
this issue. Many mainline Christians want to vindicate Paul from the charge of
being a woman-hater, and so they do this by saying, “He did not teach what you
think that he’s teaching.” And they do that in three different ways. The idea
is to say, “No, Paul was not a woman-hater, but it was not the intention of his
teaching…or it is not the result of his teaching…to restrict the
teaching and ruling functions and offices of the church to qualified males.”

And there are three ways in which this argument is
made. First, the argument is made that Paul did not mean what he seems to be
saying here in I Timothy 2, in I Corinthians 11 and 14. The argument goes
something like this: whenever Paul puts a restriction on the role
responsibilities of women in the church, it is only because of a specific,
temporary situation in a local congregation, but his general ethic is
egalitarian. And an appeal will be made to an important passage. Turn back
with me to Galatians 3. If you’ll look at Galatians 3, verse 28: “There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male
nor female; for you are all one in Christ.” And the argument there is, in that
passage Paul makes it clear that his ethic is egalitarian. There are no
differences between male and female.

Now I want to just pause there. Can you get from
that verse that there are no differences between male and female in Paul? Well,
only if you take Ephesians 5 out of the Bible; only if you redefine marriage.
By the way, once that you argue that a passage like that means that there are no
differences between male and female, then you really have no ground for arguing
that marriage ought to be between one man and one woman–if there are no
differences between male and female.

So Paul clearly doesn’t believe that his statement
in Galatians 3:28 means that there are to be no differences in the way males and
females relate, the roles that they play, the responsibilities that they have in
the local church. But the argument is from these mainline Christians, “Well,
Paul’s words in Galatians 3:28 trump whatever he says somewhere else.” So
that’s one way that they argue.

The second way that they argue is like this: Paul is
inconsistent on this issue, that he contradicts himself. Sometimes he says one
thing, and other times he says another. When he says that the roles of women
are restricted in the church, there he’s caving in to the prevailing
traditionalist Jewish culture. When elsewhere he speaks an egalitarian ethic,
there he’s speaking in the spirit of Jesus. And therefore, we go with him when
he’s speaking the egalitarian ethic, because he’s inconsistent and
self-contradictory, and the best position that he articulates is that there are
no male/female role relationship distinctions in the church. That’s the second
way that people argue.

And the third way that people argue is this–and this
is becoming more and more popular. Intervarsity Press has just published
a book articulating the position I’m about to describe. It says that the New
Testament ethic is incomplete in this area. It is deficient, but that if we
follow the trajectory from the Old Testament to the New Testament and then
extend it out, we can come to a better ethic than the ethic of the New
Testament. In other words, if women’s roles were restricted even more in the
Old Testament, and broadened in the New Testament, but not broadened enough, we
can follow that trajectory to broaden them even more and come to a better ethic
than the New Testament.

Now, I think you see, my friends, that all three of
these approaches to Paul create problems with your view of Scripture. You have
to denigrate Scripture. Can we say that we can come up with a better ethic than
God in Scripture? Can we say that Scripture contradicts itself, and so we’re
going to pick and choose the parts that we think are best? Or can we say that
passages where Paul says that he “intends his words to be practiced in all the
churches and everywhere” are only for some churches? You see, each of these
three explanations require you to undermine the authority of Scripture in the
life of the church. None of these approaches is acceptable to the Christian
with a high view of Scripture. What the Bible says, we believe and practice
joyfully.

Now, I want to say as well, that we’re not taking up
this subject to take an aim at someone, or a potshot. I don’t do that in
sermons. There’s never a time when there’s a person in the congregation that I
really want to speak to, so I preach a sermon to them and the rest of you are
along for the ride. That’s not how I operate. We’re preaching through the book
of First Timothy, and we’re to this passage. If I were not to preach this, I
would be unfaithful. So my job is to preach to you as faithfully as I can, the
word of God. We’re not following or advancing a hidden agenda. We’re just
following the text of the word of God. So let’s hear God’s word. Let’s pray and
ask His blessing before we read it.

Lord God, thank You for Your word. Thank You
that Your word makes us uncomfortable. If Your word always said what our
preconceived notions of the way things are, or ought to be, then we would be
suspicious that Your word was not Your word, because You so often come in and
show us that the way we think is not the way we ought to think. We recognize
that these are not the words of men, but this is the very word of God. Teach us
by that word. Help us to receive it joyfully. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Hear the word of God:

(8) “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 befits women
making a claim to godliness. Let a woman 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 quite deceived, fell into transgression. But women shall be preserved
through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity
with self-restraint.

Amen. And thus ends this reading of God’s
holy, inspired and inerrant word. May He write its eternal truth upon our
hearts.

Paul is writing in a cross-cultural situation here.
He’s writing in a situation where the Gentiles do not know the long-standing
practices of the Jewish tradition. In a Jewish synagogue, the women would have
sat on one side, or stood, and the men on the other. In a Jewish synagogue, the
men alone would have prayed. The women would have remained silent. And Paul is
speaking to church life where some Gentiles don’t know the standing practices of
the Jewish synagogue.

But you will notice that Paul is neither saying
“we’re going to do it just like the synagogue” nor “we’re going to scrap
everything that the synagogue did and start over and do it ourselves.” He’s
saying, “No, some of these things we do; some of these things we don’t do. But
all that we do, we do in accordance with God’s word.” He is explaining to these
Gentiles, who don’t know Jewish worship practice, what proper Christian worship
practice is and what Christians take over from Judaism, and what they don’t take
over from Judaism.

And so, because these Gentile men didn’t know about
the long-standing Jewish practices, and because they didn’t know what the Old
Testament had taught about their leadership, some of these men were failing to
exercise leadership in a very important area of the church’s life: prayer. And
so the very first thing Paul has to say about male/female role relationships and
responsibilities is to the men, who were apparently falling down in their
responsibility to lead in prayer.

Now he does this, again, because he’s in a
cross-cultural setting. The woman’s new-found freedom in Christ may well have
tempted those Ephesian Christian women to do things that they ought not to do.
Remember, in the New Testament, Christian women, in fulfillment of Joel, chapter
two, were involved in Christian gatherings in prophesying as well as prayer, and
there may have been many Christian women who said, “Hey, if we can prophesy and
pray, then we ought to be able to preach, too. And we should be rulers, and
preachers.” And Paul is saying, “No, I want to tell you what you can do, and
what you ought not do, and why.” And so Paul is speaking to these various kinds
of specific practical questions in a cross-cultural setting.

Then, for the rest of this section he turns his
attention to the ladies in the congregation. Remember now, women in the
Christian gathering, in the Christian assembly, in the local Christian church,
were able to do something they had never been allowed to do in the synagogue:
pray out loud. We know that from Acts 2 and from I Corinthians 11. It never
would have been allowed in the synagogue. But in the Christian church, one of
the freedoms of the Christian woman was to be able to pray. Paul, because of
those new-found freedoms, knew that there were also temptations for women,
Christian women, to do things that they shouldn’t do in the congregation. And
where the culture around them was tempting them also, to do certain things in
Christian worship that they ought not to do. And so Paul speaks to them.

In fact, in this section of Scripture, Paul speaks
about four topics, from verse eight to verse fourteen. Let me just outline those
topics for you. First, he speaks about prayer; then he speaks about clothing;
then he speaks about discipleship; and then, he speaks about teaching. Let’s
look at each of these together.

I. Christian men are to take the
lead in the prayer of the church.

First of all, let’s look at verse eight. Here’s
where he speaks to men about prayer. “Therefore I want the men in every place
to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.” Paul is saying
there that he wants men to take the lead in the public prayer of the church. He
sees a particular responsibility for men leading in the prayer of the church.
He uses not the generic word “man”–our English word “man” can sometimes refer to
humans, whether they are male or female, and sometimes it refers to a male
human–but in this passage, he uses the very specific Greek word which refers to
a male human. “I want men–male humans–in every place to pray.” All are
to pray. We’ve seen this from Acts 2 and I Corinthians 11. But especially,
Paul says, he wants the men to take the lead in prayer. As we’ve already
said, Paul’s instruction would not have seemed strange to anyone familiar with
the synagogue worship. But now he’s having to speak to Gentiles in a new
situation. And so he calls on these men especially to lead in prayer.

On Saturday nights in Scotland, at the Holyrood
Abbey church, they have their prayer meeting, and they pray for about two
hours–from seven-thirty to nine-thirty every Saturday night. About a hundred
members of that congregation will typically gather for prayer meeting. And I’ll
never forget, maybe my second year there, after prayer meeting had gone on for
an hour, a succession of godly women had gotten up to pray and not one man had
prayed. And

Dr. Philip just stood up in the middle of the prayer
meeting, and he castigated the men for not leading in prayer. Now I can
thankfully say, at First Presbyterian Church in prayer meeting it’s usually the
other way around. We’re usually having to encourage the sisters in Christ to
feel free to stand and pray, and the men, in general, do a good job of leading
in prayer. But Paul is speaking to that kind of a situation in Ephesus. He
wants the men to be leading in prayer, and specifically, he wants them to be
holy and he wants there to be no dissension in the congregation.

You see, there are three hindrances to
prevailing prayer in the corporate prayer life of the church: male indolence
(men not taking the spiritual initiative to pray); a lack of holiness upon the
part of the men who are praying; and bitterness and divisions that exist in the
congregation. And Paul knows that each of those three things can rob the
power of the corporate prayer of the church, and so he says, “Men, I want you to
pray; I want you to live holy lives so that when you pray, you’re not putting on
your ‘Holy Joe’ robes (and you’re living like a pagan the rest of the week); and
I want you to pray in such a way that it flows out of healthy relationships,
without bitterness and division in the life of the congregation.”

Friends, those are very practical things for us
today. It’s easy for us to get crossways with one another. It’s easy for us to
live parallel lives, and Paul says, “Men, take the initiative; pray; live holy
lives; and be at peace with one another.” Be at fellowship with one another in
the local church.

You know, in a society like ours today, suspicious of
conservatives, they might expect conservatives to experience more domestic
domination and abuse from men to women than in a liberal and open-minded society
out there. In fact, there are new statistics from the University of Virginia (a
Brad Wilcox survey) that shows practically the opposite. Christianity Today this
week has released a report that says the least amount of domestic abuse amongst
any professing Christians in America comes from conservative, active,
Bible-believing, evangelical Christian men. And the highest level of abuse is
in nominal, mainline, liberal Christian circles–the men in those circles.

But what I find interesting is that as I talk to
women, not only in this congregation, but in other evangelical congregations,
the complaint that I have them say to me most frequently–maybe eight out of ten
times, when I talk–is not that their husband is authoritarian and domineering,
but that their husbands will not take spiritual initiative and leadership in the
home. Now, that’s shocking. You wouldn’t expect that. The culture would say
that it would be otherwise. And Paul is saying to the men, “Brothers, take
initiative! Pray! Lead this congregation in prayer!” That’s a clarion call to
us all. There’s the first thing that we see. What are men to do? Especially,
they are to take a lead in praying in the church.

II. Christian women are to aspire
to modesty in dress/godliness in demeanor.

Then he turns to the ladies, and speaks to
them about clothing. You’ll see it in verses nine and ten. “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. This is proper for women making a claim to godliness.” Paul is
telling Christian women here that they are to aspire to modesty in dress and
godliness in demeanor. That they are to long to clothe themselves outwardly
modestly, but also they are to clothe themselves with godliness. He is calling
for them to think about a different kind of outward adornment when they come to
church.

The first thing that he says is that they are to
clothe themselves properly, with modesty and discretion. And those three
words are very important for our own assessment of our dress in our own day and
time: properly, modesty, and discretion.

Paul’s circumstance in Ephesus was this: there were
many wealthy women in Ephesus who often showed off that wealth in the excess of
their clothing. We know from history that the women of that town were given to
wearing very flashy clothing. And apparently the culture had influenced the
Christian women. And so their clothing was not modest and discreet. It was
very ornate, as you can see by the very description of the jewels and gold and
other things that were with it. And so Paul says, “Look. Your by-word for your
dress ought to be modesty and discretion.” The congregation is to be made up of
men and women, and boys and girls, of all kinds and classes and stations of
people in life. There should not be one part of the congregation flaunting its
wealth against another part of the congregation. There should be a desire to
minister to all in the church, and to embrace and accept all in the church.
James talks about this in James, chapter two. Well, Paul’s speaking to that.

Now friends, we hear this word in a very, very
similar, and different, cultural situation. Similar from the standpoint that we
have the temptation, too, in our Sunday dress to show off the lavish blessings
of material wealth that we have. And we need to be careful about that. But
especially in this culture, there is a tendency to immodesty in female dress.

I trust that my sisters in Christ will not be
offended by my speaking directly to this issue. We have a culture that is not
helping our women in terms of dressing modestly and discreetly. Now, I want to
assure you that it is not my goal to be named Ayatollah Duncan, nor the Session
to be named the Taliban, nor to order that you all wear burkas to church every
Sunday. This is not our goal. It would be easy to write it off. And, as I’ve
spoken about this in the past, I’ve gotten some rather snippy responses on the
subject of modesty. But sisters, bear with me as I address this question. Paul
is concerned that Christian women, especially when they’re gathered in the
assembly of God’s people, dress modestly and discreetly.

Now, I want to tell you that at least twice a week,
the ministers of our church have calls from young men in our congregation who
are trying to be godly in the way they look and think about women, and in the
things that they look at–whether it be on the internet, or in print media, or
out in the world–and they tell us that they have a hard time with some of the
clothing that they see at First Presbyterian Church on our women. Sisters, it is
those brothers’ responsibility to be pure with their eyes. I’ll never let them
off that hook. But sisters in Christ, we should not be stumbling blocks to
brothers in Christ. I want to urge you to think long and hard about what you
wear: blouses that are skin-tight and reveal everything; midriffs bared; diving
necklines; skirts that are way too short or worn way too low. We need to think
about dressing modestly and discreetly. It starts, Dad and fathers, with you.
You should say to your wives, or to your daughters…they’re getting ready to go
out in something they ought not go out in, and you’ll know, dad and father,
“You’re not going out in that.”

On the other hand, wives and daughters, it ought to
be a desire on your part–perhaps it’s with your husband, perhaps it’s with other
godly friends whose judgment you trust–to ask them the question: “Is this
modest and discreet?” I want it to be beautiful and attractive, but I also want
to be modest and discreet. Does this fit the bill? You ought to be approaching
your husbands and fathers, instead of dreading them sharing their opinions. You
ought to be inviting them, because it ought to be your desire to dress modestly
and discreetly.

We have a huge problem with sexuality in our
culture. It is entirely too free and too flaunted. Sexuality is a beautiful
thing. Within the context of marriage, the ability of the husband to enjoy the
wife and vice versa is one of the greatest privileges that God has given us. But
God did not expect that to be shown and shared with every human being who you
pass in the hall. You are to be modest and discreet in the way you dress.
Invite godly friends, sisters and brothers in Christ, to help you dress in such
a way that you honor the Lord. Paul is saying that there is a right way to
dress and a wrong way to dress. He’s not saying that it’s all just subjective
and in the eye of the beholder. There is a way that a person can dress, and it
sends one message, and there’s a way that a person can dress and it sends
another message. Paul is saying in this passage, “instead of aspiring to be
seductive and provocative in the way we dress, let us adorn ourselves instead
with a beautiful character and life.”

You know, oftentimes we hear that women
today do not want to be treated as objects, but they want to be treated with
dignity as persons. Well, let me ask you this: “Do you think that a woman who
is dressing as if she were a streetwalker is going to evoke a response of being
treated as a person worthy of esteem, respect, a person of substance and
dignity, or do you think that the woman who adorns herself with the character of
hard work,diligence, trustworthiness, and good works?” Which of those two women
do you think will be treated more as a person, with more dignity?

Well, I’ll tell you. It’s the woman of character,
the woman who has adorned herself with good works. She will be treated as a
person worthy of respect.

Paul is perhaps even meditating on the
characteristics of the woman in Proverbs 31. You remember how she is
described? She works hard, she has her husband’s trust; she advances his
reputation; she cares for the poor; she speaks with wisdom; she’s a person of
strength and dignity, and she has the praise of her family. Now I want to ask
you a question: who is the woman who is being treated more as a person of worth
and value and esteem? A woman who is described like that, or a woman who is
described as a sexy tart? Paul is saying, “Women, that’s how I want you to be
known. Not because you dress provocatively; not even because you’re the most
gorgeous thing that ever walked the planet.” You see, Proverbs says that “charm
is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be
praised.” And that’s exactly what Paul is saying here in First Timothy, chapter
two. He’s saying that Christian women ought to aspire for beautiful character
and life, and that we ought to avoid anything that is improper and immodest, and
indiscreet in terms of our clothing. Help your brothers in Christ, sisters in
Christ. Help them to treat you the way they ought to. Ask yourself: “What is
this clothing drawing attention to about me? Is it making a man look at my
face, or is it drawing a man to look somewhere else? And if it is, why do I
want a man to look somewhere else; and what will be the result in the way he
looks at me?” Do you want to be treated as only a sex object? Or do you want
to be treated as a person of substance and dignity?

Paul wants you, as a Christian woman, to be treated
with substance, esteem, respect and dignity. Help his goal be realized, sisters
in Christ, and help one another. Fathers, husbands, you help your wives, too.
It’s so easy to create a climate where you think everybody is judging you, and
that’s not what I’m trying to do. But you ought to be approaching others that
you respect, and with whom you are already in relationship, to get their help,
instead of having to have them come to you and say, “Ummm, you shouldn’t have
worn that.” You should be saying before it’s ever off the rack: “Is this
something that I should wear?”

III. Christian women are to be
receptive and respectful in their discipleship in the Church.
The third thing that Paul speaks of here is in verse eleven,
and it has to do with female discipleship. He tells us that women are to
receive instruction in a submissive manner in the public assembly. When the
people of God are gathered for preaching and worship, Christian women are to be
receptive and respectful in their discipleship in the church. Now something is
probably going to be lost on you as you read this verse. Paul says, a woman
must “quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.” In our culture,
a culture in which women have attained unparalleled freedoms, the three words
that jump out at us are: quietly, entire, and submissiveness. Those three words
jump out and they kind of grate, because it seems like a put-down. But don’t
miss something here.

But there is a hidden blessing in this verse.
Notice that Paul says a woman must receive instruction. Forget “quietly” and
forget “entire submissiveness” for a second. Paul is once again affirming
exactly what we see in Jesus’ ministry, that women are disciples. Now, that’s
revolutionary, my friends. Jesus’ pattern was for women to be part of His
disciples, but for men to be doing the teaching in that circle of discipleship.
And Paul is simply saying in verse eleven, “that’s exactly how I want it in the
church, just like Jesus ordained it. Women are disciples.”

Unlike the rabbis who prayed according to the
Talmudic liturgy every morning, “Lord God, I thank You that I am not a
Gentile, a slave, or a woman.” Now, that was the prayer that the liturgy
instructed every Jewish male to pray when he got up in the morning. Women were
not included in the discipleship of the rabbinic circles, but in Christian
circles Christ had made women to be disciples, and Paul is affirming that.
Women are to receive instruction. They are disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.
They are to be taught. And elsewhere Paul also makes it clear that they have a
role in training and teaching. In Titus 2, the women are going to be helping to
teach and train the other women, and there are going to be some cases, even in
private, where women with greater Scripture knowledge are going to help some men
who don’t know the Bible as well as they ought to–such as Priscilla and Aquila
instructing Apollos in good Bible teaching.

And so there’s a tremendous esteem for women as
disciples in Paul, but here he’s just articulating what Jesus had done in His
own ministry. “Let a woman quietly receive instruction, with submissiveness.”
Paul is calling on women to be receptive in their discipleship. They’re not to
be handing it out in the church publicly as the church gathers for worship, and
they’re to be respectful of that teaching. The headship of men in the home and
the authority of the elders in the church, Paul is saying, is not to be tested
by women in the public assembly. Instead, they are to receive that teaching
submissively.

You know, the authority of a teacher can be easily
tested, even with a question. Any of you who have ever been a teacher have
probably heard a question after you have just taught about a particular view.
Someone stands up in the class, or somebody raises a hand in the class and says
“I’d like to ask a question.” And the question doesn’t turn out to be a
question, it turns out to be a monologue! And Paul’s saying to the women,
“Don’t test the authority of the teaching offices of the church. Respectfully
receive that teaching.” The great New Covenant blessings for women in
discipleship–women are involved in the prayer life of the church, in the
discipleship of the church–was a tremendous advance over their own tradition.
In fact, I would argue this: there is no world religion that has done more to
advance the position of women than Christianity. There’s nothing even close.
And Paul is affirming that, but he’s also saying, “We’re not going to be bound
by our current culture or our past culture; we’re going to be bound by Jesus and
by the word of God. And Jesus says women are disciples, but I appointed twelve
men to be the teachers. And that’s how it’s going to be in the Christian
church.” Paul makes it clear that there are still role distinctions and
relationships in the way that men and women are to relate to one another.

IV. Christian women are not to be
preachers or elders.

And he goes on and he elaborates that, fourthly, in
verses twelve to fifteen, where he talks about teaching. In verses twelve to
fifteen, Paul says that Christian women are not to teach or exercise authority
over men in the public assembly. They are not to be preachers or elders, in
other words Paul here is restricting the teaching and ruling functions of the
church to qualified males. Paul’s not saying that males only can teach and
lead. He’s actually saying something less than that. He’s saying qualified
males only may teach and lead in the church, and he will give those
qualifications in I Timothy 3 in the very next breath, as we begin to study next
week. But his point here is that women are neither to teach in the public
assembly of Christians as we gather to worship, or to hold authority over men in
the church.

Now, let me say that this has been one of the things
that has gotten Paul more bad press than anything he’s ever said. Paul has been
called a misogynist, a woman-hater, and a chauvinist. But you know what? So has
the Bible; so has Christianity; so have conservative, evangelical,
Bible-believing Christians who have attempted to implement Paul’s teaching in
their churches. All of them have been called, from one time or another, by
modern secularists and pagans, woman-haters, chauvinists, backwards,
fundamentalists, and various other names that I won’t mention from the pulpit
here.

Against those charges, let
me remind you of just a few things from Paul’s own teaching and ministry. We
have already mentioned the prominent role that women had in Paul’s ministry,
from those who financially supported the Apostle, to specific women such as
Pricilla and Lydia who labored along with Paul.

Paul, in Titus, chapter two, speaks of the role that
women have in discipling one another. And elsewhere in his writings, in Second
Timothy, chapter one and chapter three, he speaks of the important role of women
in discipling the children of the church. There is a vast role for women in
discipleship in the church, so Paul is not motivated by being a woman-hater, or
being a chauvinist. Paul has no question about the abilities of women.

I grew up around intelligent, educated women. I’ve
never met a liberal female who was half as intelligent as my mother. My father
could not keep up with my mother, when it came to theology and education. But
Mother always respected his role in the home, and the role of the elders and the
pastor in the church. And it didn’t bother her. As long as they didn’t get in
her way, she didn’t get in theirs! She went about doing her business, and she
did not feel the need to claim some status or office that was not hers. It was
a great witness to me, and I’ve always enjoyed being around women of energy and
intelligence.

Paul is speaking to this kind of a circumstance, and
he says this: “I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a
man.” Paul’s prescription is functional. And you notice he doesn’t just say,
“You can’t give them the title, but you can let them do the work.” He says,
“No, you’re not to do the work.” They’re not simply denied the title or the
office, but the function.

And Paul gives us a rationale. If you look at
verses thirteen through fifteen, he gives you three reasons why this should be.
Why is it that First Presbyterian Church practices “qualified male-only
eldership” and “qualified male-only pastors”? Well, because of what Paul says
here.

First of all, Paul says that men are to be the
teachers in the church because Adam was created first. Now, secularists and
pagans mock this. What does it matter? That’s a myth, anyway. Well, Paul
thinks it matters a great deal. First of all, he doesn’t believe that the story
of the creation of Adam and Eve is a myth. Secondly, he believes that there was
something of great significance that God was saying about the nature of the
created order and the relationships between male and female in the fact that
Adam was created first. Adam’s priority in creation expresses a complementarian
relationship between man and women in marriage and in the church. He’s pointing
to Adam’s priority in creation, and he’s saying that that reveals something
about the structure of family and Church that God wanted to be reflected and
respected in every situation and culture.

Secondly, in verse fourteen, he speaks of the
deception of the woman in the fall. There he says this: “It was not Adam who
was deceived, but the woman was deceived and fell into transgression.” Paul is
not saying that women are more gullible than men, and therefore they can’t be
trusted with leadership. Paul is saying that what you see in the fall is
the classic example of role reversal. You look at Genesis three: where was Adam
when Eve was being tempted? He was right next to her. Because when she gives
him the fruit, she doesn’t have to go looking for him. She turns, and she gives
him the fruit. Adam had stood there the whole time with his clap shut, and
never said a word. He handed off authority. He never stepped in, and he let
his wife do what he should have put his pants on and done. And Paul is saying,
“This is what happens in the church when men fail to take their responsibility,
and women have to step up to the plate to try and pick up what the men have
dropped to the floor. Problems occur.” And so Paul says, because of the
problems of role reversal, women are not to have this particular role in the
life of the church.

Then, thirdly, in verse fifteen, and this is perhaps
the hardest of the verses, he says it is for the well being of women that this
order be attained in the church. We don’t have time today to do justice to the
meaning of verse fifteen, and so be sure and look on the website and the
bulletin next Sunday, and I’ll include all my notes on those passages.

But what I’m saying to you is that our practice at
First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, our practice in the Presbyterian Church in
America, and, frankly, the practice of most Christian churches throughout the
world today and in history, the practice of a male-only eldership, a male-only
pastorate, is simply designed to be faithful to the Bible. If we had any other
reason for this practice, it would be wrong. If we had any other justification,
“Oh, it’s traditional,” that would be wrong. No, the reason for this practice
is because it’s what the Bible says, and it’s because we want to be faithful to
the Bible that we follow this practice. If you’re struggling in this area, if
you find this hard to accept, please come talk to us. Talk to Donna Dobbs.
Donna would be happy to talk with you about this, if you’d rather hear it from a
godly woman. Come talk to me, or one of the other ministers or elders. We’d be
delighted to talk with you about this particular facet of our church. But the
main reason we do what we do is because we want to be faithful to Scripture.

Paul is exhorting us here, in our male and female
role responsibilities, to do what God calls us to do in prayer, in the way we
dress, in the way we go about our discipleship, in the way we respect His order
in teaching in the church. And all of these things actually have a very
significant impact on the health of the life of the local congregation. May God
bless us to follow His word. Let’s pray.

Lord God, thank You for Your word. Teach us
by it to walk in it, by Your grace and by Your Spirit, and build Your church as
we are faithful to Your truth. We ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This
transcribed message has been lightly edited and formatted for the web page. No
attempt has been made, however, to alter the basic extemporaneous delivery
style, or to produce a grammatically accurate, publication-ready manuscript
conforming to an established style template. Should there be questions
regarding grammar or theological content, the reader should presume any error to
be with the transcriber/editor rather than with the original speaker

© 2024 First Presbyterian Church.

This transcribed message has been lightly edited and formatted for the Web site. No attempt has been made, however, to alter the basic extemporaneous delivery style, or to produce a grammatically accurate, publication-ready manuscript conforming to an established style template.

Should there be questions regarding grammar or theological content, the reader should presume any website error to be with the webmaster/transcriber/editor rather than with the original speaker. For full copyright, reproduction and permission information, please visit the First Presbyterian Church Copyright, Reproduction & Permission statement.

To view recordings of our entire services, visit our Facebook page.

caret-downclosedown-arrowenvelopefacebook-squarehamburgerinstagram-squarelinkedin-squarepausephoneplayprocesssearchtwitter-squarevimeo-square