Tuesday, November 15th

Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is Psalm 137, Ezekiel 1-2, 1 Timothy 2

OK, I'm taking the plunge and tackling the women being silent in the church portion of our 1 Timothy passage.

John MacArthur has several sermons on this passage, but I didn't have to time to read all of them, so I just read Part 4 since I figured he'd summarize Parts 1-3. :)

He definitely had some things to say on the subject, and as I was reading I could feel my pride rearing up because I felt like he was saying women are stupid (and that was NOT what he was saying) and realized all that was doing was confirming what was being said. Anyway, I have some quotes, but if you have time, do read or listen to the whole thing.

The first portion of the passage....

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 1 Timothy 2:11-12

He is saying I want a woman to learn in silence with all subjection. Now her silence is the silence of not being the teacher and her subjection is the subjection of not being the authority. She is not to have authority. She is not to be a teacher. She is not to be a ruler in the church. That is the prohibition that the apostle gives us....So women in the church then are not to be at any position where men are subordinate to them. And I say again please, it doesn't mean women can't pray, can't teach, can't speak out for God. It doesn't mean they can't ask questions in a proper environment where questions are invited. It does mean in the public worship of this church these things are set down as God's standard.

But the part I found really interesting was the next part....

For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing - if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

In creation, God made man first. Now keep this in mind, man was made for God and woman was made for man. Eve was made for Adam. She was made to be his helper. (Genesis 2:18 to 25), she is his glory. Man is the glory of God, woman is the glory of man. She is made to be the helper of man. She is to follow his lead, live in his provision, find safety in his strength and protection in his courage. A tendency to follow was built into Eve until the Fall and then came the curse and in that curse the tendency to rule and then the conflict....

We talk about the fall of Adam because Adam, his name represents generic man, if you will, his name represents the race. He is the head of the race and he did fall. But we have to keep in mind that he didn't fall first. First the woman fell and her fall confirms what verse 13 said, that woman needs a head. She needs a strengthener because when she got out from under the strength of Adam and tried to operate independently in conflict with the enemy, she was...what?...deceived. And the intent of what the Word is saying here is that woman needs protection. That she has a certain vulnerability. She was designed with the need for a head. She was designed with the need for a leader. She was designed with the need for a protector and a savior....

woman who is designed by God to be under a head and a leader and a helper and a protector and a savior, when she stepped out on her own and acted independently of the headship of Adam, when she acted without his leadership, without his counsel, without his protection, she became vulnerable. And it is inherent in the nature of woman that she should not find herself in that position of ultimate responsibility. For woman has a deceivability when out from under the headship of a man. So the woman then in verse 14 was deceived. She showed by that her inability to lead effectively. She met her match and more than her match in Satan. She shows an inability to act independently of her protector....

So we conclude then, beloved, that when a woman leaves the shelter of her protector and savior, provider and nourisher, she has a certain amount of vulnerability because she is designed for protection. That's true even in the physical sense, isn't it? So the Fall then was the result of not only disobeying God's command not to eat, but the Fall was the result of violating the divinely appointed role of the sexes and woman acting independently of man. Woman assumed leadership, and you know what man did? He messed up his role and then he instead of maintaining the leadership acted in submission to whom? To the woman. And the whole reversal was part and parcel of the Fall. So subordination of women in the church wasn't invented by Paul, it is rooted in the nature of the sexes and it is confirmed in the Fall....

She was deceived and he subjected himself to her deception. The weakness of a woman is that she needs a head. The weakness of a man is he needs a woman. We are not less defective than women, we are differently defective. We're defective in different ways. We're temptable and vulnerable in different ways. So that's the reason that we have affirmed the leadership of men, is in the creation and the Fall. And no daughter of Eve should follow the path of Eve and lead to tragedy by entering into the forbidden territory of rulership which was intended for man....

All women are delivered from the stigma of having caused the Fall of the race by childbearing. In other words, women led in the Fall but by the wonderful grace of God they are released from the stigma of that through childbearing. What's the point? Listen carefully. They may have caused the race to fall by stepping out of their God-intended design, but they also are given the priority responsibility of raising a godly seed. You understand that? That's...that's the balance. Not soul salvation, not spiritual birth, but women are delivered from being left in a second-class permanently stigmatized situation for the violation of the garden. They are delivered from being thought of as permanently weak and deceivable and insubordinate. Can you imagine what it would be like if men had babies and all women ever contributed to the human race was the Fall. The balance of it, women led the race into sin, but bless God, God has given them the privilege of leading the race out of sin to godliness....

in the raising of a godly seed it is the godliness and the virtue of the mother that has the greatest impact on the young life in the next generation. Is that not so? Theirs is the challenge to raise a godly seed. God has designed this to give woman back her dignity. She is saved from the stigma of the Fall and her path to dignity and usefulness and her great contribution comes in accepting what God said that you will bear children. Motherhood then is woman's appointed role in general. Now obviously God doesn't want all women to be mothers, some of them He doesn't even want to be married. First Corinthians 7, some have the gift of singleness. Some He allows to be barren for His own purposes. But as a general rule, just like marriage is generally the grace of life, as Peter calls it, so motherhood is that which reverses the stigma of woman and allows them to provide for society the rearing of a godly seed which in a real sense reverses the curse for which she was so responsible. The pain of childbearing was the punishment for her sin, but the result of bearing the child is the deliverance of the stigma of that sin. Marvelous how God has worked that out. The pain she goes through reminds her of her sin, the result reminds her of God's restoring grace and puts her back in the place where she makes a positive contribution to the godliness of the next generation. She may have caused a generation to plunge into sin, but she can by being a mother who raises godly children bring a generation to God.

What Paul is saying by the Holy Spirit is that a woman must accept her God-given role and that role is not to give outward overt leadership to the church, but to raise a godly seed and that's why he says she'll be saved in childbearing, but only if...look at it...she continues in faith and love and holiness and self-control. If she is godly, she can raise that godly seed....

The highest ideal of Christian womanhood is here, and this is how the church is to work, beloved. Look, we're led by men in the worship of the church, they pray, they preach, they teach, they give leadership to the church, but the perfect balance of that is the influence of godly women that raised that godly generation. And the only way that will happen is if they...and look at it closely in verse 15...if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self control. They have to be the kind of woman described in verse 9 and 10, who are not into the clothes and of the outward flaunting of sexuality and desire and wealth, but they are women whose hearts are marked by godly fear and self-control, who are strong in faith, they believe God, strong in love toward God, who are pure and holy and who manifest self-control. Godly Christian women will raise the next generation....

Her faith in the Lord, her sincere love for God, her holiness and purity of life, her modest self-control mark her spiritual state as such who will bring forth children who will bless the world. And as she brought forth once a curse, she now brings forth a blessing. That's her calling. (emphasis mine)

Thoughts?

Tomorrow's passage: Ezekiel 3-4, 1 Timothy 3