A biblical church does. And in chapter 1 we saw that a biblical church stays on course with its message. It does not waver. It does not allow itself to lose its way. It stays on course with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. In chapter 2 and on into chapter 3 actually we also see now that an authentic biblical church arranges for its order, arranges for order in its ministry. We saw in verses 1 through 4 that its order includes the priority of prayer in its life as a congregation.
First of all, prayer is to be offered. And then in verses 5 through 7 we saw that an authentic church stays its order by establishing a priority of its mission. That we are here to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ to a world that needs to hear it. There is no other mediator, there is no other Savior but the Lord Jesus. And our mission is to tell the world. That was Paul's mission and we are an extension of that mission to tell.
Now we are going to see in the last part of this chapter that God's order in the church as in the home follows the principle of male leadership. Now I recognize in saying this that what I am going to say today is not going to please everyone who is here. In fact, it is not going to please people on the two extremes of positions that can be taken regarding this.
Nonetheless, I want to share with you what I believe is a valid interpretation of scripture and an application for us as a church seeking to follow the scriptures. God's order in the church as in the home follows the principle of male leadership. Now this does not mean that salvation is unequal in men and women. This does not mean that salvation is unequal for men and women.
Galatians 3 28 is a key verse in the New Testament that tells us that in Jesus Christ as far as our relationship is concerned with God, there is absolutely equality. There is neither male nor female. There is not preeminence about the one above the other. That there is absolute equality in salvation. So when we talk about following the principle of male leadership, we are not saying that salvation is unequal. Nor are we saying that men may dominate women.
That is not what this principle of the scripture teaches. In fact, not even husbands may domineer their wives. Male husbands are said to be the head of the home. Headship is viewed in the context of sacrificial love. Husbands are to lead as servants. They are to lead by persuasion, not by coercion. And the scriptures emphasize that husbands and wives reign together in the grace of life. So when we talk about the principle of male leadership, we are not talking about men dominating women.
Third, we are not saying that only men may lead in every situation. Even in the home, the husband and the wife can divide the responsibilities of the home while respecting the principle of the husband's leadership. In the home, there are many duties that must be carried out. Any number of them could be viewed as a leadership role. In every home, a husband and wife divide those responsibilities according to their own gifts, their own desires. There is nothing wrong with that.
So when we talk about the principle of male leadership, we are not saying that only men may lead in every situation. Then what are we saying? Well, let's take a look at the text. In verse 8, we have the role of men in ministry. Therefore, I want the men, and that word is of the male gender. It is not the generic word for mankind. He says, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and dissension.
The word therefore relates what he is saying now to what he has said before, obviously. Before he has told us that in the church we are to place a priority on prayer, and what he says now is that men are to take the lead in offering prayer. I do not understand this to rule out the possibility of women praying. In 1 Corinthians 11, in fact, women did pray in that assembly, and Paul does not say that that was wrong.
But he is emphasizing here that it is the role of the man especially to lead in prayer. If you are a man, a believing man in Jesus Christ, and you find it difficult to pray out loud, I have something to say to you, get over it. Get over it. That is your role. You are to pray out loud. You are to take the lead in praying in our church. You are to take the lead in praying in your home.
He says that this is to be carried out in every place, which means in every assembly of the saints, where they gather for worship and teaching. He is talking, however, in the context of this whole chapter about the public service of the church, not every possible setting where Christians gather together. A Sunday school class, a cell group, etc. The primary focus in this whole text is on the public assembly of the church when it is gathered for its worship and its teaching from the word of God.
It is in that context especially where men are to take the leadership and do so by lifting up, he says, holy hands. This of course is quite radical for Paul to say that men should lift their hands in a service. How out of touch, how charismatic can he get to say that men are to lift their hands? And yet that is exactly what he says. Now I say that a bit with tongue in cheek because there are some who react so strenuously to anyone lifting the hands. Let's be clear about it.
There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is absolutely biblical to do it. It doesn't mean that one has to do it, but it is absolutely biblical to lift the hands in prayer or in worship. That is seen throughout the Psalms. It is seen here in the context of 1 Timothy 2. The lifting up of holy hands is a reference to the common Hebrew posture for prayer.
The emphasis really though is not on lifting up of the hands, but on the fact that those hands are to be holy, which is a way of saying that men are to pray being spiritually and morally pure. Our children come to the table after washing their hands. At least that is the ideal, isn't it? We want them to come with clean hands. The point is here that we are to come to service and to offer up our prayers having cleansed ourselves, our hands being washed.
Our hands are not to be contaminated with wrath or dissension. The word wrath here means anger. It means resentment. It means personal ill towards someone else. Men especially have a struggle with anger. That anger is absolutely destructive to relationships, it is destructive to our health, it is destructive to our relationship with God. As Zoe says, when we come together for worship, we are to be sure that anger has no place in our lives.
If we are in sin, it is to be confessed so that we come offering up prayers without wrath and then without dissension. The word dissension here is the root of our English word dialogue. It means to think or to speak back and forth. It means to doubt or to dispute or to be quarrelsome, which really seems to fit the context here. He is saying that when we come together and offer up prayer, we are to offer up prayer without being in dispute, without quarreling with others.
Zoe points out in the beginning that public prayer is the responsibility especially of the men of the church. And he has already pointed out to us that prayer is a priority in the ministry of the church. And now we come to the longer part of our text today, dealing with the role of women. In summary, the role of women in the public ministry of the church is to be in support of God's order by using their gifts with a God-honoring attitude.
Now doing this is certainly going to be counterculture, especially in a day like ours. Nonetheless, women are to do this in a way that honors God. What does it mean? Well, it means in the first place in verses 9 and 10 that women are to emphasize or to exemplify godliness.
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. So women in coming to church are to exemplify godliness. Their adornment rather than emphasizing the outward is to emphasize the inward. But outwardly women are to dress modestly and they are to have a testimony of good works before God.
The values of Christian womanhood, he says, are to be distinct from those in the pagan world. For the kinds of things that he mentions here were the kinds of things, especially in those days, that the pagan women emphasized. And he says as you come to the public assembly of the church, let not those things be emphasized. Emphasize godliness, being modest in the apparel that you wear, having a heart that reflects godliness and which is proven by good works.
In verse 11 he says that women are to subject themselves to teaching. Let a woman quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. The word instruction means discipling. And so he's saying let a woman quietly receive her discipling with entire submissiveness. The word submissiveness means to be placed under or to be in rank under. He's talking here about the attitude of a woman as she comes to worship. The quietness or the silence, as some translations put it, is not absolute stillness.
It again is an attitude. He is talking about coming without resisting or squirming under authority. It does not mean that women are to come to church without talking, but women are to come with a settled, undisturbed, subdued manner and attitude. The same word that is translated quietly in verse 11 is translated quiet in verse 12.
The context in verse 12 helps us to further understand that he's not talking about women coming and saying nothing, but he is saying that women are to come quietly, to remain in quiet, he says, as opposed to exercising authority over a man. So the quietness is the opposite of exercising authority over a man. It is talking about the attitude. It is talking about having an attitude of submission, an attitude of nonresistance to God's appointed authority.
Dr. John Piper, who pastors in Minneapolis at Bethlehem Baptist Church, in a printed message several years ago, has this very fine comment about this idea of quietness. So what sort of quietness does Paul have in mind, he writes? It's the kind of quietness that respects and honors the leadership of the men God has called to oversee the church. Verse 11 says that the quietness is in all submissiveness, and verse 12 says the quietness is the opposite of authority over men.
And so the point is not whether a woman says nothing, but whether she is submissive and whether she supports the authority of men God has called to oversee the church. Quietness means not speaking in a way that compromises that authority. And so the role of women in the public ministry, the public service of the church, begins by exemplifying godliness, emphasizing godliness rather than the external, as did the pagan women.
Secondly, it means that women are to subject themselves to the teaching of the church. And third, women are to recognize a divine restriction. In verse 12 he says, let no one, let me get to the right chapter, chapter 2 verse 12, 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. And so the apostle lays down a divine restriction. And that restriction is that women are not to teach or exercise authority over a man. Of course, this is the most controversial text in 1 Timothy. What is meant by what the apostle Paul says here? What does he mean when he says that women are not to teach?
Well keep in mind that he is talking in the context here about the saints gathering for their public assembly, for their public worship, their public teaching time. When he says that women are not to teach, he is not ruling out every kind of teaching. For example, Timothy himself was taught the Word of God by his mother and his grandmother, 2 Timothy 1.5, 2 Timothy 3.15. Priscilla joined with Aquila in discipling Apollos, Acts 18, verses 24 to 28.
You may recall in that text that Apollos was a man who had not yet learned the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ. And so this husband and wife took him aside and over a period of time instructed him in the things of God, the both of them instructing him in the things of God. Priscilla assisted Aquila, joined with him in teaching doctrine to Apollos. And then in Titus 2, verses 3 and 4, it says that the older women are to teach the younger women.
But to be honest to the context, it doesn't say there that they are to teach doctrine, though that may not be precluded, but the emphasis in Titus 2 is that they are to teach the younger women how to be wives and mothers. So when Paul makes the prohibition that he does in 1 Timothy 2.12, he is referring to a specific role, a specific teaching role, which I believe is further explained in the last part of this clause, where he says they are not to exercise authority over a man.
In other words, I don't understand this verse to be two items that women are prohibited of, but he is talking about one restriction. It is that women are not to teach so as to exercise authority over a man. To exercise authority over means to dominate, to have mastery over. Once again, I don't understand Paul to say that he is forbidding every kind of authority in all situations to women. He is forbidding that teaching that relates to authority over men.
The teaching and the exercise of authority here go together, they are not separated. So what is it that Paul is saying in this verse? He is using this expression, in my opinion, to describe the function of an elder in the local church. Now let me show you why I believe that. In chapter 3 verse 2, he says that one of the qualifications of an elder is that he must be able to teach. So you see that teaching is part of the responsibility of an elder. Now that is not news to anybody, I think.
Then in verse 4 he says, he must be one who manages his own household. The word manage means to stand before his household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. And then he inserts this parenthesis, but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God? The word take care of here means to care for by forethought or by provision.
It is the same word used of the Good Samaritan in Luke chapter 10, in that he made provision for the man who was wounded. Now as I am talking, this sounds more and more tinny all the time. Is that just my ear or do you hear it as well? Is it near a ring? Could we adjust that some way please? And so he is saying that the responsibility of an elder is to manage or to lead, to take care of the church of God. So you see the two roles. Elders are responsible to teach. They must be able to do that.
Elders are responsible for managing their own households because they have to oversee and manage and take care of the church of God. Now look again in chapter 5 and verse 17. The apostle says, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. And so do you see again that in the context of 1 Timothy, Paul is describing the role of the elder as that of teaching and ruling, teaching and having authority over the church.
And so going back now to 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 12, when the apostle Paul uses that same language to teach or to exercise authority over a man, it seems to me a proper conclusion, a proper interpretation to say that what Paul is here forbidding is that a woman fill the office of an elder or function as an elder in the local church. Now that interpretation does not please those who believe that a woman should never teach a man.
That interpretation does not please those on the other hand who believe that women ought to be able to be elders in a church. But I believe that it is not only a possible, but I think it's the best interpretation of 1 Timothy 2. Now I don't have time this morning to compare this to 1 Corinthians 11, 1 Corinthians 14, which are other texts that bear upon this whole idea of the role of women in the church.
But I believe putting them all together that this interpretation is the one that strikes home. So Paul here is not forbidding women from all teaching or all positions of leading. He is talking here specifically about women not serving in the office of an elder, women doing that kind of work. He is not forbidding women teaching men in all circumstances, because there are circumstances where that is appropriate and acceptable as long as the principle of male eldership is respected.
Third, he is not saying that women are forbidden from all positions of leadership where they may have men serving under them. For example, within the church, in a Sunday school where a woman may be a coordinator of a Sunday school department and a man may be a teacher in one of the classes. Or in a parachurch ministry, or for that matter in a seminary. Neither a parachurch ministry nor a seminary is a local church, by the way.
And we get in trouble when we try to place restrictions that Paul puts over the church into that kind of a context that is not a church. So he is not forbidding women from all positions of leadership where they may have men serving under them. This is the interpretation that the elders followed nearly two years ago now in establishing the policy called roles in ministry for women and men. I think it is important for me to read part of that, maybe the whole thing.
This policy is based on biblical principles primarily from 1 Timothy 2, but also from Genesis 2 and 3, 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, Galatians 3, and Ephesians 5. Scripture emphasizes the need for men to provide leadership in the local church. Scripture and the history of the church testify to the blessings which flow to the body when all its members, men and women, minister together in the unity of the Spirit.
Number one, women and men are viewed as enjoying equal privileges in their relationships to God through Christ. Generally, a mutual submission reflects the Spirit-filled life as we serve Christ together in the local church. Number two, God's order establishes that the role of spiritual leadership in the family be filled by the husband. Similarly, the office of elder in the local church is the responsibility of qualified and appointed men.
Three, both women and men are encouraged to freely exercise their spiritual gifts and to function in any ministry role in the local church under the authority of the board of elders. Fourth, this policy is to be applied with sensitivity and regard for the edification and unity of the body. So it is this interpretation that I have shared with you this morning that is the one that provides the basis for the elders' understanding and policy adopted a couple of years ago.
Some ask the question in Ephesus as well as today, why did Paul make this restriction? Well let's go back to our text and notice verses 13 and 14. This restriction is placed upon women for two reasons. First of all, the priority of creation. He says it was Adam who was created first and then Eve. Adam after being created was given his responsibility to cultivate and to till the garden. And then Eve was created as a helper for him.
It is important to notice that this order in Genesis precedes the fall. It has nothing to do with sin. It is God's order from the beginning. And so God's order in the home as well as in the church follows this principle of male leadership. And it is both for the good of men and women as well as for the glory of God that we follow His order in the local church. There is a second reason that He gives us and that is the record of the fall.
He reminds us that Eve was deceived and then that Adam followed her. The point here really is not that women are more easily deceived than men. The fact is that in given areas men or women may be more easily deceived. That isn't the point. The point He is making here seems to me again goes back to Genesis 3 where Satan purposely attacked God's order by approaching Eve, not Adam. The text seems to indicate that Adam was present because her husband was with her, it says.
And that Satan chose to attack God's order by talking to Eve and presenting the temptation to her. Adam did not intervene. He failed God by not exercising His headship and then by following His wife. God's reprimand, again in Genesis 3, was not only because they ate the fruit but also because Adam abdicated his responsibility as the leader and the guardian of Eve. You can read that in Genesis 3, 17. So what God is doing is this.
He is establishing in the new creation, the church, what had failed in the old creation. Now verse 15 is one of the most difficult verses in all the New Testament to interpret. Because of that there are at least a dozen different interpretations. Most of them are possible. Some are awfully far-fetched, but most of them are possible.
The one that I think fits best, at least from my understanding this morning, is the one that says, a woman will find her greatest satisfaction and meaning in life not in seeking the male role but in fulfilling God's design for her as wife and mother with all faith, love, and holiness with propriety. I am quoting there from the Bible knowledge commentary. Now the point that is being made in this whole text is this. Jesus Christ is the Lord of the new creation, the church.
And as Lord, He has the right to establish the order in it. A church, the church as part of the new creation must follow the order that He establishes. To be an authentic church in a biblical sense, we must follow God's order. Now another bottom line is this, that whether male or female, all believers are gifted by the Holy Spirit and given roles for service in Christ's body, the church. We are to exercise our gifts, all of us. And women have the gift of teaching.
There is nowhere that I can find in the New Testament that that gift is limited only to men. There are ways for women to exercise that role. There are ways for women as well as men to exercise authority, to lead. But the one restriction that is made, I've already stated. It seems to me the bottom line question in this text is this. Am I willing as a child of God to follow God's order, the lordship of Jesus Christ in the church as well as in my life?
That's the bottom line question, not theoretical arguments, but whether I am willing to obey the lordship of Jesus Christ. There was a young woman who was greatly troubled by a question she had and she went to her Scottish preacher. She asked how she could resolve the question of her own desires when what she wanted seemed to contradict the will of God. So the minister took out a slip of paper and just wrote down two words on it, folded it and handed it to her.
He asked her to sit down for ten minutes to think about the words and to cross out one of them, then to bring the slip back to him. She agreed to do so. She found a chair, opened the paper, and on it were two words. One word was no and the other word was lord. And as she pondered that, she realized what her pastor was saying was, you cannot say both no and lord. When it comes to a conflict between what we think and what we want and God's will, there is only one answer if we are walking with God.
And that answer is yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. To make that choice. Now whether it be the issue that we have touched on this morning in this one message or if it be some other issue in our lives today, that is the crucial question. Will Jesus Christ be the Lord of this life that He has redeemed by His precious blood? Can I say to Him, yes, Lord, whatever you say, yes, Lord. Let's pray.
Father, I thank you that in your Word we have directions for us personally as well as us together as a body of people. Thank you for telling us how we need to order our lives and our church. We acknowledge officially, publicly, that you are the Lord. We pray that you will bring our understanding of Scripture, our personal preferences, our choices, all under your Lordship, that there we may abide and there we may serve you with the gifts that you have given to us as men and as women.
We pray the result of that will be the building up of the body of Christ and its unity. We pray that as a result of our working together in those roles that you have given us as a body of people, that the church may grow and become all that you desire it to be. For you are our head and our Lord. Amen. Would you stand together with me please? I'd like for us to sing just a verse of 97 that says, All hail the power of Jesus' name. Let angels prostrate fall.
Bring forth the royal diadem and crown Him Lord of all. Let's sing it together, just the first verse of 97. All hail the power of Jesus' name. Let angels prostrate fall. Bring forth the royal diadem and crown Him.