God's High Calling for Women, Part 2
1 Timothy 2:10-11
Let's open our Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 2...1 Timothy chapter 2. We're looking again at verses 9 through 15, 1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 9 through 15. Now remember that as Paul writes this epistle to Timothy, the instruction that is given here is for Timothy to give to the church that he is presently involved with, that is the church in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor which would be modern Turkey today. Ephesus had been a great church but had fallen into doctrinal error and ungodly living.
Paul then has left Timothy in that city to work with that church to straighten things out.
Chapter 3 verse 15 identifies his task, is to teach them how to behave themselves in the house of God which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. The epistle then is an instruction to a young pastor who has a responsibility before him that is very, very difficult. It is a corrective epistle because of the errors that existed in that church.
Among the problems in the church at Ephesus was a problem related to the women. There was heresy in general. There was immorality and impurity in general. And it affected both men and women. But one thing in particular had become a problem there, that was there were certain women in the church who were usurping the authoritative roles of men and desiring to be the official teachers of the church. There were other women who were coming to worship in an improper way. They were improperly dressed for worship. They had an improper heart attitude for worship. And they were denying with their behavior the very profession of their lips to know and worship God.
And so, verses 9 to 15 then corrects this matter of the women in the church and how they are to function and serve there.
The subject, needless to say, is very germane to our society today. The modern destruction of God's purpose in creating women is very tragic. The role and function of women today and consequently their divine design and their ultimate well being in life, their meaning and sense of satisfaction is being continually attacked and perverted. The sad thing is women are not the winners but women are the victims of this. Women are being told to be bold, to be assertive, to be confrontive, to be independent, to be competitive, to take leadership, exert authority, be the bread winner, rise to the same function level as men and not take a back seat to anything in that regard. And sadly, tragically, there are churches and evangelical institutions, colleges and seminaries that have bought into this even though the Word of God is absolutely clear on the matter.
They are willing in this modern day, over the last 15 or 20 years, to reject all of the biblical teaching, or to twist it and turn it to fit the new attitudes, or to just jetison centuries of Christian belief. This is tragic because women are not best served by this, they are ill served by being cast into roles for which God never intended them to be a part.
And I think about this in so many dimensions. I was thinking this week that if I could identify one single attitude biblically that would be the supreme attitudes of all attitudes, the most desirable attitude of all from God's viewpoint would be humility. That's the one...one most beautiful of all human virtues in an attitudinal sense, humility. And if I were to identify one activity as being most desirable, it would be the activity of service. Combining the two, I would say the Bible teaches that the highest attitude is humility, the highest activity is service. And for a woman then to offer humble service is for her to have a head start on men in being able to reach the highest level of God's intention for His creatures. Her loftiest goals are found in the humble service that God has designed her for, under the direction and protection of men. And when that is perverted, chaos results in society and chaos results in the church.
Now this is something we're dealing with in our society but it is not something that only our society has faced. We go right back into 1 Timothy and we find they were having a similar problem there. Certain women in that church were impure. We find that in chapter 5. Certain of them were growing wanton against Christ. Some of them had turned aside to Satan. Some of them were living in pleasure. He calls them silly women laden with sins and various lusts, in 2 Timothy 3:6.
But not only were some women living in an ungodly and an impure way but there were women who were usurping the role of the men in the church. They were desirous of leadership. There were women who were flaunting their physical form and beauty in the worship of the church and becoming a severe distraction, who were lustfully trying to lure men away from their own wives and there were some very serious matters that needed to be dealt with in regard to this.
And so, in this passage‑‑verses 9 to 15‑‑he deals with those two issues. The issue of women leading in the church and the issue of women indecently appearing in the church, coming to worship God when in fact their desire was to present themselves in some indecent fashion for some self‑serving lustful end. And Timothy then is instructed to give appropriate teaching to the church to deal with such indecency of conduct and such perversion of role as was going on.
Now as we look at verses 9 to 15, there are six elements that outline the woman's design...six elements that speak to the woman's place in the church. Paul speaks of their appearance, their attitude, their testimony, their role, their design and their contribution. And these are the six we'll be looking at as we look through this section. And it will take us a couple of weeks to finish it.
Let's go back, first of all, to note their appearance in verse 9. Paul writes, "In like manner," and what he means by that is as I have just discussed how men are to act in worship, they are to pray and they are to be sure they have holy hands, and their hearts are not filled with anger and dissension. As I have spoken to the matter of how men conduct themselves, in the same way I know speak to the matter of how women conduct themselves. Both of these, verse 8 and 9, are commands. When he says in verse 8 "I will," it is boulomai, it is the will of command, it is the will of demand. This is not something he just wishes would happen, this is something he prescribes that must happen. So his command to the women here is first of all regarding their appearance. They are to adorn themselves in proper apparel. That is the word "proper" having the idea of what is well suited to worship. It has the idea of being orderly, fitting to a God‑centered purpose in the spiritual life of the church. Her clothing should reflect a humble, meek, worshiping heart. Her clothing should reflect a thankfulness for her beauty and an effort to grace her loveliness, but not a preoccupation with self and not designed to call attention to herself for some evil purpose. She should design her apparel in such a way as to point to her godliness and to point folks to the God she worships.
He becomes very specific at the end of verse 9, as we saw in our last study. Says that she is not to be adorned with braided hair or plaited hair, an old word, or gold or pearls or expensive clothing. And here he identifies the customary motifs of extravagance in that time. These were the marks of an extravagant woman. They were characteristic in that time of a woman who wanted to put herself on display. So Paul forbids dressing to show off, dressing to flaunt wealth, dressing to stimulate sexual desire or lust in someone else, dressing to allure someone's husband away, dressing to demonstrate a lack of submissiveness of subjection to one's own husband. Anything like that desecrates the worship. Anything like that dishonors God.
And we saw when we looked at that verse that Christian women are to adorn themselves in a manner that attracts attention to their character, not their wealth...to their virtue, not their physical form...to their humility, not their pride...to their godly intention in worship, not their evil intent. They are to call attention by the way they dress to the God they worship.
So, first of all, we dealt with their appearance. Secondly, their attitude, back to verse 9, the middle of the verse. He says the attitude within this woman is to be one of two things, godly fear and self‑control. Those two words combine to express the underlying attitude of heart that is a woman's true adornment. First of all, godly fear has the idea of modesty mixed with humility...modesty mixed with humility. The root idea of the word is a sense of shame, not that she's ashamed to be a woman, not that she is ashamed to be lovely, but that she has a sense of shame about causing anyone to have an evil thought or to be distracted from worship. She would be ashamed to do anything like that. She is then to be adorned in the truest sense with a proper reserve in the matters of sex in a way that causes people to be distracted away from her to the presence of God.
Secondly, she is to be marked by self‑control. That is she is to give evidence by her adornment and her attitude that she has her passions and desires under control. She must maintain the delicate balance between thanking God for her beauty and loveliness and also preserving an attitude of humility, an attitude of godliness, an attitude of self‑control, a way that does not call attention to herself illicitly but only to the fact that she loves and adores and worships God. So, her true adornment then is her character and her character should manifest itself in such a way as to enhance that character outwardly.
Now that brings us, thirdly, and where we left off last time, to the point of their testimony in verse 10. Paul is very concerned about consistency in a woman's testimony. It is essential, he says in verse 10, for those women who profess godliness to support that profession with their conduct. Look what it says. But rather than what we have seen as to adornment at the end of verse 9, "She is to be adorned with good works."
Then in parenthesis he says, "which is fitting women professing godliness." The point here is a woman professing godliness, that's the major idea, that is her testimony. The word "profess"
is a word that means to communicate loudly. It means to make a public announcement. And what he is saying here is that any woman who has made a public announcement about her commitment to the Lord, if she has professed godliness, if she has professed to be devoted to God and to worship God, then she should conduct herself in such a way that she is consistent in her attitude and adornment and activity, as well, with that profession. That seems rather obvious.
The word "godliness" is a very, very direct word, theosebeia, has the name "God" in it, the word for God. It basically means reverence to God. When you claim to be a Christian, you are claiming to reverence God. When you claim to be a Christian you are claiming to worship God, to honor God, to adore God, to serve God. And any woman who claims to serve and love and worship and honor and adore God should conduct herself in such a way that her good works support that profession.
And if I might digress at this particular juncture, I think herein lies a major problem in the contemporary Women's Liberation Movement in the church. There are these women who want to preach and teach and take authority and they want to be the preachers of the church, they want to be recognized equally with men, they want to be ordained as elders. I know one evangelical seminary very well where I have spoken in years past that is now having women speak in their chapel program because they have now reinterpreted this very passage and they think that this can be altered somewhat to fit the contemporary desire of women and they want them to be able to express what the Holy Spirit is doing in their lives so they're having women preachers in their chapels.
The problem with that is that a woman who professes godliness and a woman who professes reverence for God should by her good works, which are intrinisically and genuinely and deeply good, the word agathos, show that devotion to God. And any woman on the one hand saying "I want to serve God, I want to honor God, I want to show my love and reverence for God," cannot on the other hand say, "Therefore I want to violate what God says, I want to change what God says." Those two are mutually exclusive. And so, when I see a woman who wants to step out of the God‑designed plan for her within the church in order to serve God, I see that nothing more than a contradiction. And if a woman professes godliness then she will conduct herself in her attitude, in her adornment and in her activity in a way that is consistent with that profession. And let me say at this point, the Bible is so clear on this that there really shouldn't be much discussion. At the risk of sounding a little bit simplistic and a raging debate, I want to say to you that with all my heart I think this issue is absolutely clear cut in Scripture. And I don't know how anyone with an open mind can come to the Word of God and conclude anything other unless they're not diligent or biased than that that which the Word of God says about the role of a woman is so clear that there really is no discussion at all.
So, the testimony of a woman, then, professing godliness should be a life of good works, that is righteous activities, which demonstrate that that is indeed a legitimate and faithful profession. Now that comes down to how you behave in the church.
If you profess a reverence for God, then your attitude in coming to worship should indeed reflect that. You should come with a godly fear and a sense of self‑control. If you do have a reverence for God and you worship and adore God, you should come adorned in such a way and clothed in such a way to speak supportively of that profession, calling attention to God and not yourself. And if you indeed worship and honor God, you should conduct your spiritual activities and activities of life in a way that support that claim because they are biblical and true to God's design for you. Now that speaks to the issue of their testimony...demonstrating your claim to be true by the conduct of your life.
Now that brings us to the fourth point, the fourth point...the third one was very brief, the fourth one will take us this time and next time to look at because it is so very important. That takes us to the woman's role, their role. We've seen their appearance, their attitude, their testimony. Paul now wants to speak to their role in the church. And this is really a very, very essential understanding. Now I know that when I'm done this morning some of you are going to have questions that are not answered, and that I expect because we're not yet through the passage. This is one where if you only get one of the messages, you really are going to have difficulty because we're just going to get started on verses 11 and 12, but we need to begin at that point.
The first thing Paul says in verse 11, and this is where we'll spend our time this morning, is "Let the women learn." Now stop at that point. "Let the women learn." The first thing that he says about the role of a woman in the church is that she is to be a learner. The verb here is manthano. It is a present active imperative which means it is a command, it is the word from which "disciple" comes. Let the women be discipled. To put it another way, disciple the women. It is a command. Teach the women. Let them be involved in the learning process.
Now this indicates several things. I don't want to get too far off where we are in the matter of the role of women, but I would like to add a little footnote here. The fact that he's discussing the order of the church and how the church conducts itself, as indicated in chapter 3 verse 15, the fact that this section includes that meeting together of the church, also leads us to an understanding that when the church came together, it came together in its worship to learn. The fact that he says "let the women learn" indicates that learning took place when the church met.
We shouldn't be surprised by that and perhaps we aren't.
Because in Acts 2 it says that when they met together they met together for the apostle's doctrine. But let it just be put in the record that in the early church and today, the church is to come together for the purpose of learning. And when someone criticizes a church like ours or other churches because there's a great amount of time and effort given to the content of teaching and they say that that's not worship, they're wrong in terms of the fact of looking at the New Testament, the early church was engaged when it met together for worship and for the Lord's table and prayer and fellowship also in the disseminating of the apostle's doctrine so that a high priority was in the area of learning. And when the church comes together, Paul is saying, let the women learn. Don't send them all out to get the pot luck ready for what's going to happen afterwards. Don't send them all into the nursery or whatever might need to be done outside, let the women learn. They were to be included in the learning opportunity.
Now you say, "Well, isn't that rather obvious?" Well, it might be obvious to us but apparently was not obvious to them.
How is it that it wasn't obvious? Well, one of the things we learned in chapter 1 was that exiting in the Ephesian church at this time were some Jews who were holding on to their Judaism.
They were into geneologies and fables, that is mentioned in chapter 1 verse 4, chapter 1 verse 7 talks about the fact that they were into being teachers of the law. They wanted to be rabbis. There's little doubt in anyone's mind who studies 1 Timothy that there was an element within the church at Ephesus that was bringing a Judaistic mentality to the church. And part of contemporary Jewish tradition of that day was low esteem for women. The Jewish tradition at the time of our Lord and the time of Paul had put woman into a low profile position. The mentality would be basically to keep them ignorant, barefoot and pregnant, that kind of thing. Jewish men, frankly, did not feel that women were a part of the learning process necessarily. They were not forbidden to come to the synagogue. They could come. It was immaterial whether they did. They could learn, it was inconsequential whether they did. They were not required by the traditions to attend the feasts. They were not required to attend the festivals. And most rabbis refused upon meeting a woman to give her any kind of greeting at all. The rabbis did not feel they would waste their time instructing women.
Some of the rabbis actually said that teaching women is like throwing pearls to pigs. So there was a very depreciated view of a woman's role as a learner in spiritual matters. They really had no significant place at all. They could listen but it was of little consequence whether they listened or whether they learned anything at all.
Now you can understand that this kind of thing existed in the early church when Judaism with its mentality encroached upon that. And what happens in this situation, no doubt in Ephesus, is there's a certain amount of suppression of women. In retaliation to that, as will always occur, there were some women who were really upset about that kind of thing and so they were determined to rise to the leadership level. And some of them, according to chapter 2 verse 12, were teaching and taking authority over men. And Paul has to tell them to stop. They were overreacting to their suppression by seeking a dominant position. They were taking that aggressive role that was not fit for them, just as they're doing it today, and they had to be corrected. But before Paul gets into the details of how he corrects this, he starts by correcting this issue of whether women have a right to learn and he says basically, "I command that the women be given the right to learn." The women must be taught. They must be discipled. They must learn God's truth.
It is essential to their spiritual life and it is essential to their role within the plan of God. And here we find in that brief four‑word statement in English, "let the women learn," which is actually two words, the word "women" and then the verb in the Greek, we find there the equality of the sexes in spiritual life and blessing. And that's what I want you to see as we begin. In terms of spiritual life and blessing, men and women enjoy equality.
Now that isn't anything new in the New Testament. That was true in the Old Testament. And I want to take a little bit of time to point that out to you. In spite of Jewish tradition, the Old Testament did not teach the suppression of women in spiritual matters. That was a non‑biblical tradition. The Old Testament elevated women alongside men in an equal position of spiritual life and blessing.
For example, in Exodus 19 and 20 God gave the law. You don't need to look it up, but just remember it. In Exodus 19 and 20, God gave the law, the Ten Commandments. And He gave those commandments to men and women. And He promised to men and women that those who obeyed would be blessed and those who disobeyed would be punished, or cursed. And that was given equally to men and women. Therefore it was from the very beginning laid down by God that both men and women are responsible for their spiritual life and their obedience before God.
In Deuteronomy 6 where you have the Shema(?), the Lord our God is one, the Lord is one. And then you have the instruction that you are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. That is not set apart only for men, that is for men and women. And the families were to talk about it all the time, teach it to their children so that both the external Decalogue of Exodus 19 and 20 and the internal attitude of love toward God were required of men and women. There was no difference in those areas. In Exodus 12 when God ordained the Passover which was the single greatest celebration in the calendar of the year for the Jews, that great celebration of God's redemptive power in delivering them from Egypt, that was for men and women. Both of them were to be involved then not only in responsible Christian...or responsible biblical behavior, responsible obedience but they were also responsible to be engaged in the praise and the worship festivals of the people, men and women.
Further, it is interesting to me that throughout the Old Testament, penalties given for sin were given equally for all people, men or women. I was reading one of them this morning in Exodus chapter 21 verses 28 to 31 where it talks about what you do to an ox who gores a man or a woman, a man servant or a maid servant, a brother or a sister and the disposition of the animal in that case under the law of God was the same. In other words, God valued the life of a man and the life of a woman equally.
And the punishment of the animal that did that was the same in either case. So they had equality on the spiritual level in terms of spiritual responsibility to obey the law. They had equality on the level of worship and praise in the great convocations of Israel. And they also were equal in terms of the value of life as indicated by the sentences and penalties given in regard to sins against them both.
It is also very interesting to me that in the Old Testament, the single greatest spiritual vow known as a Nazarite vow, a vow of separation, that single greatest Nazarite vow, that is a vow of separation from the world, a vow of devotion to God which cut a person off from the world around them, they took a great giant step of total consecration to God, that Nazarite vow belonged not just to men‑‑though we are most familiar with men who took it‑‑ but also to women. Listen to Numbers 6:2, "Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the Lord..." and then it goes on to describe what they do. A woman could take a Nazarite vow just as a man could.
The high levels of spiritual commitment were not in any way restricted to men. There was equality in terms of spiritual life and responsibility.
Furthermore, in Proverbs chapter 6 and verse 20, a very interesting verse indicates that there was equality among the sexes in the knowledge of God's law and the responsibility to teach that law within the family. Proverbs 6:20, "My son, keep thy father's commandment and forsake not the law of thy mother."
The assumption here is that both the father and the mother had known the law of God and when they commanded their children to do things, they were reflecting to those children the truth of God.
Both sexes then were responsible to teach the law of God which means they must know the law of God.
Now summing that much of it up, we realize that when God had ordained man and woman He gave them equal spiritual privilege and responsibility. They were responsible to obey His law. They were both responsible to love Him from the heart. They were responsible to worship and adore Him. Their life was of equal value. They were also able, either one, to take the vow of absolute total consecration to God, the supreme level of commitment was available to both of them. And they were responsible, both of them, to know the law so that they could pass it on to the next generation.
Furthermore in the Old Testament we see that there is equality between the sexes in the regard of God's dealing with women. God did not avoid dealing directly with women. He didn't go through men every time He wanted to communicate with a woman.
He had very intimate, very personal, very glorious and miraculous appearances to women.
For example, in Genesis 3:13 and following, He appeared to Eve. In Genesis 16 verse 8 and following, He appeared personally to Hagar. In Genesis 18 verses 9 to 15, He appeared personally to Sarah, the wife of Abraham. And in Judges 13:3, He appeared to the mother of Samson. God had personal intimate contact with individual women.
Furthermore, we see the equality of the sexes in the fact that men and women both served God in very special ways. A choir is described in Nehemiah 7:67 made up of 245 singing men and singing women. They had a part then of the worship of the temple in leading the people in praise through music. In the tabernacle ministry, also, in Exodus 38:8 it says there were women who served at the door. Now we don't know what they did, whether they were a welcoming committee, whether they were a clean up crew, we really don't know what they did, whether they took women aside who were coming to worship and instructed them, whether they ministered to women in need but they served the purposes of God in the tabernacle.
You can read Deuteronomy 12:10 to 12. You can read 2 Samuel 6. You can read 1 Samuel 1. And many other scriptures and you will find that women shared in the great national convocations of Israel, and that by God's design.
And so we see then that they had equal spiritual responsibility in terms of their own spiritual life, they were given opportunities of service within the framework of God's design for the people. God personally intimately appeared to them. They had ministry opportunity. So they served God in the Old Testament in the sp