God's Design for a Successful Woman & God's High Calling for Women, Complete Edition

God's Design for a Successful Woman & God's High Calling for Women, Complete Edition

By John MacArthur

Hannah: A Godly Mother

And for this morning, as you know, last week we finished 1 Timothy and my wife said to me, "You're not going to go on to 2 Timothy, are you? You really need to speak on mothers on Mother's Day." She always lobbies for that on Mother's Day. And I said, "Well I haven't done that in a few years." She said, "Yes, seven years ago you spoke on Hannah and I think you ought to do that again this Mother's Day." And so I said, "Yes, dear, I'll do that." And that is what I'm going to do this morning, and I do it not without...not with any reluctance but joyfully and happily. Seven years ago I did take a look at the profile of a godly mother in the life of Hannah. It's been a long time and I needed to refresh myself on the whole story, really, to get back into it and I was again excited and thrilled about the prospects of what we can learn from this wonderful account.

Open your Bible to 1 Samuel chapter 1...1 Samuel chapter 1. Jay said in 1914 that Congress identified Mother's Day as a holiday of some sort for our country, already on a Sunday, not really an official holiday, but having the stamp of government approval by a formal act of the President its observance was to be maintained. About six years before that in 1908, Miss Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia observed the first Mother's Day on her own, wanting to celebrate the memory of her mother. And believing that other people would like to share her feelings, she began to lobby across the nation, really a nation-wide campaign to get the whole country to be alerted to the need for a Mother's Day. And finally six years later Congress affirmed that by signature of the President and now it's nationwide and it's a tradition, a heritage. It's reached beyond our nation to other nations of the world as well.

If you go back in our history to the earlier part of this particular century, you can read some very interesting tributes written to mother. If you happen to pick up some of the things that were written around Mother's Day at various times, you get an insight into how people felt about motherhood in those days.

I came across an interesting one by a man named W.L. Caldwell written in 1928. Listen to what he said about mother. "Well may we pause to pay honor to her who after Jesus Christ is God's best gift to men, mother. It was she who shared her life with us when as yet our members were unformed, into the valley of the shadow of death she walked that we might have the light of life. In her arms was the garner of our food and the soft couch for our repose. There we nestled in the hour of pain, there was the playground of our infant glee. Those same arms later became our refuge and stronghold. It was she who taught our baby feet to go and lifted us up over the rough places. Her blessed hands plied the needle by day and by night to make our clothes. She put the book under our arm and started us off for school. But best of all, she taught our baby lips to lisp the name of Jesus and told us first the wondrous story of a Savior's love."

And then he went on to say, "The pride of America is its mothers. There are wicked mothers like Jezebel of old. There are unnatural mothers who sell their children into sin. There are sin-cursed rum-soaked and abandoned mothers to whom their motherhood is the exposure of their shame. I am glad to believe, however, that there are comparatively few in this class," end quote.

Few? Few unfaithful mothers? Few sin-stained mothers? Few shameful mothers? Maybe few in 1928 but not so few today. What is the state of motherhood in America? Are mothers still the pride of this land?

I found something else that was written as a tribute to mother in decades past. It goes like this, "The young mother set her foot on the path of life. Is the way long, she asked? And her guide said yes and the way is hard and you will be old before you reach the end of it but the end will be better than the beginning. But the young mother was happy and she would not believe that anything could be better than these years. So she played with her children and gathered flowers for them along the way and bathed with them in the clear streams. And the sun shone on them and life was good and the young mother cried, `Nothing will ever be lovelier than this.' And then night came and storm and the path was dark and the children shook with fear and cold and the mother drew them close and covered them with her mantle and the children said, `O mother, we're not afraid for you are near and no harm can come.' And the mother said, `This is better than the brightness of day for I have taught my children courage.'

"And the morning came and there was a hill ahead and the children climbed and grew weary and the mother was weary. But at all times she said to the children, `A little patience and we'll be there.' So the children climbed and when they reached the top they said, `We could have not done it without you, mother.' And the mother when she lay down that night looked up at the stars and said, `This is a better day than the last for my children have learned strength in the face of hardness. Yesterday I gave them courage, today I have given them strength.'

"And the next day came strange clouds which darkened the earth, clouds of war and hate and evil. And the children groped and stumbled and the mother said, `Look up, lift your eyes to the light.' And the children looked and saw above the clouds an everlasting glory and it guided them and brought them beyond the darkness. And that night mother talked of Jesus and said, `This is the best day of all for I have shown my children God.'

"And the days went on and the weeks and the months and the years. And the mother grew old and she was little and bent. But the children were tall and strong and walked with faith and courage. And when the way was rough they lifted her for she was as light as a feather. And at last they came to a hill and beyond the hill they could see a shining road and golden gates flung wide. And the mother said, `I have reached the end of my journey and now I know that the end is better than the beginning for my children can walk alone for they walk with God.' And the children said, `You will always walk with us, mother, even when you've gone through the gates to the Savior.' And they stood and watched her as she went on alone and the gates closed behind her. And they said, `We cannot see her but she is still with us, a mother like ours is more than a memory, she is a living presence.'"

It's a beautiful tribute, isn't it? It doesn't seem to fit with 1987 in America. It certainly doesn't fit with millions of abortions, mothers killing their children. It certainly doesn't fit with a couple million divorces, abandoning their children. It doesn't fit with nearly a quarter of all babies being born illegitimate so that they have no home, no family as families were meant to be. It certainly doesn't fit with millions of battered children, the victims of the anger of their mothers.

Caldwell also said, whom I quoted to you earlier, that "No nation is greater than its mothers, for they are the makers of men." He's right, you know. He's right. They are the makers of men. Paul wrote to Timothy and said, "Women will be saved in childbearing," 1 Timothy 2:15. What did he mean? He meant that the saving role, virtue, task, goal of women is to raise godly children. While on the one hand women might bear a stigma for having led in the Fall in the Garden of Eden, she reverses that stigma by leading in the producing of a godly generation through spiritual influence to her children.

But it all seems so out of date and so irrelevant to women who have decided that the real role of a woman is a career. In fact, I think the only thing that really remains of Mother's Day is commercialism. It certainly is not being perpetuated by mother lovers but it is being perpetuated by money lovers. Motherhood in our day has been frankly devastated. It is mocked. Marriage is desecrated. Parental responsibility is shirked. Children are masacred by abortion. Mothers exercise selfishness in their work and in their play to fulfill their own satisfaction with small regard for their children whom they largely ignore.

But God's standard hasn't changed. And it is fitting that we take another look at what God intends motherhood to be, the highest calling a woman will ever know. The godly women, Paul said to Titus, are to teach the younger women to be lovers of their husbands, lovers of their children, chaste, pure, keepers in the home. A widow to be put on the list, according to 1 Timothy 5:10, was one who raised children, who brought up a godly generation. That's been God's standard all along. This is the design for women. It all started with Sarah who was a gift from a God to Abram, Sarah a model of faith, Sarah a model of obedience, Sarah who given a child late in life nonetheless demonstrated the faith and the sanctity of life that makes marriage and motherhood what it ought to be. There was the example of Rachel whose last words before her life passed from her body were at the giving of birth to one of her children whom she named Ben-Oni, a child of grief. There was Jochebed, the mother of Moses, and Miriam who fought for the life of that goodly child who was fair to God. Deborah called by God a mother in Israel. Ruth, the gentle sweet spirit who loved and sacrificed and was blessed to be the mother of Obed, who bore Jesse who bore David of whose seed the Messiah came. And there was Elizabeth, that sweet gracious mother of the greatest prophet who ever lived, John the Baptist. Of course there was Mary, the mother of our Lord.

But when the Bible details the honor due to a mother, no more detail is given to anyone beyond Hannah. We meet her in 1 Samuel 1. Hannah, her name speaks of her beauty, it means grace and indeed she is the emblem of the grace of womenhood. She became a mother by faith. She first appears as 1 Samuel opens as a childless woman. Then she becomes a mother, the mother of one of the greatest men who ever walked the earth, Samuel. And as you see the account of the birth of Samuel, you note the profile of a godly mother.

As the book opens it is the period of the Judges. There is no king in Israel as yet. It is a time of turmoil, it is a time of confusion. It is a time when Israel is vulnerable to the Philistines. It is a time when they are debauched morally. It is a time when their religion has grown cold. And it is a time for a great man to rise and take the leadership of the nation, a period of religious degeneracy, of political distress. With the death of Samson the country was divided and leaderless. The Philistines were hanging on the edge. The priesthood was corrupt. Moral scandals were rampant among the family of the priests. The nation was weak. The nation was impotent. And the worst of all, chapter 3 verse 1 says, word from the Lord was rare in those days and visions were infrequent. God even had nothing to say. The nation needed a great leader, a great man. And God needed a great woman to shape that great man. And Samuel, one of the greatest men who ever walked the earth, was not only the product of the work of God but the product of a godly mother. And she gave to her nation and the world the greatest legacy a woman can ever give, a godly child.

Verse 1 starts, "Now there was a certain man from Ramathaim- zophim from the hill country of Ephraim," that is around Mount Ephraim, "and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. And he had two wives; the name of one was Hannah and the name of the other, Peninnah. And Peninnah had children but Hannah had no children." He was married to two women, Peninnah and Hannah. Hannah, by the way, meaning grace was a common eastern name.

As we are introduced to this story, I want us to note three things, that profile, a godly mother. She had a right husband relationship. She had a right heavenly relationship. And she had a right home relationship. Those three things stand out and profile her for us.

First of all, let's consider her right husband relationship. And may I say that this is at the very outset essential for you to understand. The most important relationship in a family in raising godly children is not the relationship between the parents and the children, it's the relationship between the mother and the father. What you communicate to your children by your relationship dominates their thinking. They are learning about human relationships from the two of you. They are learning about virtue, they are learning about sin. They are learning about love. They are learning about forgiveness. They're learning about sympathy. They're learning about understanding. They're learning about compassion. They're learning about virtue. They're learning about honesty and integrity. They're watching and far more important than your relationship to your child in the long run is the relationship you have to your spouse that's projected to your child. And so at the very outset the Word of God is clear to tell us the relationship between Hannah and Elkanah.

Now first of all, let me say that it wasn't a perfect relationship. So, ladies, you want to start out by realizing you're not married to a perfect man. That's a given. I want you to understand what the Scripture says. Hannah was married to a polygamist. Now I don't know how that would sit with you as a woman, but I can guess. And I can also tell you that it didn't sit any better with Hannah than it does with you, to have a rival in the house, to have another wife in the house. And worst of all, she is producing boys and girls and Hannah has none and so she is the unfruitful, unproductive wife who cannot give to her husband that which her heart most longs to give.

He wasn't a perfect man. The very fact that he was a polygamist indicates his imperfection. But understand this, this is a primitive time and polygamy was a part of human culture, never God's design, never. God always designed one man, one woman leaving their parents joining together for life and becoming one flesh...from Genesis on. But human society was rife with polygamy. And when the truth of God came into human society, it was so pervasive, polygamy, that it took time to root it out, much like a missionary going today to a foreign field giving the gospel to a civilization of people and finding that those people turn to Christ but are embroiled in all kinds of polygamous marriage relationships that take several generations to untangle. So it was in the ancient world.

And so, Elkanah created for Hannah a very difficult situation. We don't know the details but it may well have been that he went on to marry Peninnah because of Hannah's barrenness and in order to produce a generation who could then possess his inheritance. And so that would even make the pain deeper because Peninnah came to do in that union what Hannah could not do. Not a perfect relationship, but nonetheless a good one, a right one. Let me show you why.

First of all, they shared worship. Now this man, Elkanah, verse 3 says, would go up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. It doesn't mean he went once a year, it meant that every year he went. In Deuteronomy, chapter 16, verse 16, explains the prescription. Three times a year, yes it was the Feast of Unleaven Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Booths. The man had to go to the place of worship. In this particular time in 1 Samuel the place of worship was at Shiloh because that's where the Ark of the Covenant was located before it was transferred to Jerusalem. So at least those three times a year all males had to go and do that, he did that. He was a worshiping man. And he went and offered his sacrifice to the Lord.

It notes in verse 3 that the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, who Eli being the high priest were also priests to the Lord there. They are evil men and they are set in contrast to Elkanah. Elkanah was a godly man and a true worshiper and the priest's sons, the high priest's sons themselves were evil wicked men, as we shall see. This was a worshiping man. She had a believing husband, let's put it that way. She had a devout husband. She had a worshiper. He was not perfect. He was a polygamist. And that was a violation of God's law and any time that law was violated there were very negative consequences and it always produces pain and heartache. And they had that in that family. You can believe it. And Peninnah rubbed it in that she had children and Hannah had none. But in spite of all of that he was a man who believed in God, a man who worshiped God. To put it simply, she had a believing husband. And that's the first prerequisite for raising godly children.

I encourage you, as I always have, young ladies, when you get married, marry one who loves the Lord Jesus Christ because you need that spiritual headship. Hannah had that. And in spite of the difficulty of that polygamist relationship, she had a godly husband who was a spiritual leader. In contrast to Hophni and Phinehas who though they were priests and sons of the high priest were as fleshy and vile and debauched as men could be. And here is the first aspect then of a right relationship between a husband and a wife, they worship together. They worship together. Basic...basic. Your worship is vital in projecting godliness to your children. That's why way back in the Pentateuch, the first set of books written, when God was establishing the laws for His people, in chapter 7 of Deuteronomy He said, "When the Lord your God shall bring you into the land where you're entering to possess it, the land of Canaan, and shall clear away many nations before you...and He names the nations...when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them, you'll make no covenant with them, show no favor to them." Then listen to this, verse 3, "You shall not inter-marry with them, you shall not give your daughters to their sons nor shall you take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods." Stay away from mixed marriages.

Next to the last chapter of Joshua in verse 11, repeating the same injunction, "Take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God, if you ever go back and cling to the rest of these nations, these which remain among you and inter marry with them so that you associate with them and they with you, know with certainty that the Lord your God will not continue to drive these nations out from before you but they will be a snare and a trap to you and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes until you perish from off this good land which the Lord your God has given you." If you go back and inter marry, you're going to lose everything. Don't do that. That same injunction is repeated at a later time in Israel's history when they came out of captivity to rebuild, namely Ezra 9 verses 10 to 15. You come into the New Testament, in 1 Corinthians Paul says in chapter 7, "Marry only in the Lord." In 2 Corinthians 6:14, "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what concord has Christ with Satan? What fellowship has light and darkness?" And how can parents, Ephesians 6:4, raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord if one of them is an unbeliever? Now, bless God, by His grace He can overrule the fact that you have an unbelieving husband. It may well be that when you married you weren't a Christian either and you've been drawn to Christ and your husband has not. It may well have been that you married an unbeliever as a Christian, knowing you were doing it, and God in His grace can overrule all those circumstances. But nonetheless, His purpose is that the godly marry the godly for the sake of the next generation.

Starting out then, they had a shared worship. So vital. How you worship communicates volumes of information to your children. Are you faithful? Are you faithful to come and meet with God's redeemed people week in and week out? Are you faithful to make the Word of God the priority in your life? Are you faithful that prayer should have a high place in your experience spiritually? Are you faithful to live what you affirm that you believe? In other words, the attitude of your spiritual devotion is communicating a Christianity to your children that they will have a hard time overcoming, if it in fact is less than it ought to be.

Secondly, they not only had a right relationship in their marriage because of worshiping together, but secondly, they shared love. Notice verse 4, "And when the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, one of those times when he took the trip to Shiloh, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and all her sons and her daughters, but to Hannah he would give a double portion for he loved Hannah." Stop at that point.

He didn't love Peninnah. That's the implication. Peninnah was there to produce the children that Hannah couldn't have. Peninnah was there to create a future for his family, his inheritance. But Hannah was the one he loved and he made no attempt to hide that. And when they went to offer their sacrifices, I don't know if you know how that worked, but they would go to offer peace offerings and they would offer the offering on the altar there. The priest would take a small part, the most of it would come back to the family and they'd have a feast. And when passing out the feast, he would give a double portion to Hannah because she was the one he loved. This was a gesture in the east to an honored guest. She was the one who had his heart. And it was not just the love of emotion, it was the love of kindness and the love of thoughtfulness and the love of sacrifice, the love of honor. He loved her. And this love was her security. Men, if you don't know it yet you ought to know it, a woman's security is in your love for her, not in your bank account, not in a fancy house, not in new furniture, not in a retirement plan. A woman finds her security in your love and it needs to be demonstrated so frequently that there's never a question about it. People wonder often why people tend to be suspicious of their husbands and wondering if they might have some other attraction or be fooling around with some other person, and the reason is because it's so deeply rooted in a woman that her security is in the love of her man. And that's the way it was with Elkanah and Hannah. And she was secure in his love because he took the time to demonstrate his love to her in very public ways, such as he had done at this feast in front of everyone. They shared love and thus she was secure in that love. And she needed that, believe me, when he had another wife. Now you wouldn't like that one bit and neither did she and she needed that security of love.

Isn't it interesting how God in His providence balanced things? Hannah had the love of Elkanah, Peninnah who did not have his love had the children that God allowed her to bear to receive their love. God was gracious to all of them. They shared love. Vital...vital in being a godly mother is sharing the love of your husband so that there is a security there, there is a warmth there, a trust there, a quietness there. There is the absence of anxiety and frustration so that the woman can give herself to the children and not always feel that she's got to be a beauty queen to win the affection of her husband. Once the husband with his love wraps that woman up and secures her, then she can give herself away to her children and not have to feel that she must always fight the uphill battle to attract her husband.

Thirdly, they shared another thing. They shared feelings. Shared worship, their relationship to God was a common one. They shared love and they shared feelings. Look at verse 6. "Her rival, however,...that's Peninnah...would provoke her bitterly to irritate her because the Lord had closed her womb." It said that also at the end of verse 5, twice it says the Lord had closed her womb. What it's trying to say is this isn't Hannah's problem, the Lord did this. The Lord closed her womb. And this Peninnah would harass her, you know, that kind of thing, "Too bad you can't have any children, Hannah." Just sticking the knife in. And it happened year after year as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she would provoke her so she wept and wouldn't eat. Here she goes to the big feast. Elkanah is sympathetically lovingly giving her a double portion. She won't eat anything cause on the other side of the table Peninnah's really rubbing it in that she has no children.

The response...I would not want to be in Elkanah's position, trying to pull these two women together. But Elkanah, her husband, said to her, "Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?" They shared feelings. Boy, he read her feelings and he didn't pontificate, he asked a question. Why are you doing this, Hannah? Haven't I been better than ten sons to you?

Such a sympathetic heart. Some of you women are writing this down because you want to remind your husband about that. I understand that. We can be very insensitive, very insensitive. And we can be very quick to give immediate answers to everything without hearing the heart. Not Elkanah. Bless him. He knew the conflict and he knew the conflict was intensified from Peninnah's side. And he knew that it was deep and painful and it was a hard, hard place for her to be. And so he was tender and sympathetic and thoughtful and he felt her feelings in his own heart.

Why is this a godly women? I'll tell you. The soil is right to produce a godly mother. She has a right husband relationship. They share worship, the deepest dimension of human life. They share love, maybe the next deepest dimension of human life. They share feelings, maybe the next deepest dimension of human life. They have a deep relationship. They move together in the presence of God, with one another and over the issues of life that involve other people.

Secondly, as you profile a godly mother, she had a right heavenly relationship. Not only were things right between she and her husband...and by the way, there is no statement of any conflict in their union at all, no hint of any conflict...and a godly mother grows best in the soil of a godly loving supportive sympathetic husband. But then she had a right heavenly relationship. She knew where to go with her problem, right to the Lord. And there are several virtues that come out of this aspect. First of all, she had a passion for the Lord's best. Just use the word passion. She had a passion for the Lord's best. What do we mean by that? She wanted a child. She desperately wanted a child. She wanted a child so much that she wept and fasted. Her heart was broken over the fact that she could not have a child, but she didn't have a selfish motive, she didn't want a child to live out her unfulfilled fantasies. She didn't want a child to dress like little Lord Fauntleroy and show off. She didn't want a child to fulfill her own need for love. She wanted a child to give to God. She wanted a child because she knew that was God's best for a woman. And although God does not call all women to be married, according to 1 Corinthians 7, He gives some the gift of singleness, and although there are times when for God's own purposes He makes a woman barren or a husband so that no child can be born, it is still the norm, it is still the gift of God, His best gift to women to give them a child. Children are, after all, an inheritance from the Lord. And it is God who opens the womb of a mother and makes her heart rejoice.

She desired a child because she wanted God's best. She wanted to honor and glorify God and she knew the best gift of God's love ever given to a woman is a child. And what I'm saying to you is that a truly godly mother is not a reluctant mother, not a mother who finds a child an intrusion, not a mother who will postpone the birth of a child as long as possible so that child doesn't crowd her schedule and become upset when finding out that some contraception was ineffective. A truly godly mother, a woman with the heart of a mother as God would give a mother a heart is one who longs to have a child...a passion for children, seeing a child as a gift from God, a special blessing of His love, a fulfillment of the divine intention for women and a...certainly a hope for the next generation to raise a godly seed. A godly mother longs to have a child. And has she no child, she weeps. It is not a whim. It is not an act of self- indulgence to prove her womanhood, it is that she knows this is God's best for women and that her heart is unfulfilled.

I read the story this week of a mother who gave birth to a child and the child died. And she was reminiscing ten years later and said the tragedy was not the death of the child but the tragedy was the death of motherhood. She could handle in this particular case the fact that the little one had entered the presence of God. She had a greater time trying to handle the fact that she could not be a mother. That's the heart of a woman who longs for a child.

So she was characterized by passion for God's best. Secondly, she was characterized by prayer. She knew where to go, and look at verse 9. "Hannah rose after eating and drinking in Shiloh," obviously she had perhaps eaten a little but under the encouraging sympathy of her husband in verse 8. She now has completed that in Shiloh. Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. The high priest is in the temple. She goes there. She came into the temple greatly distressed. Her soul was bitter, it literally says. And she prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. She is just crushed...crushed. And she made a promise, a vow. "O Lord," and she goes on to make her vow.

But notice this about this godly woman. She was a woman of prayer. It's a beautiful characteristic. She understood that God was the source of children. She understood that God alone could alter her sterility. Her distinctive virtue was her faith, constant faith. Verse 12, "It came about as she continued praying before the Lord..." Constant. She remained there. She stayed there. Her heart was broken. She was pouring out her prayers. This is the spirit of true prayer. It's a little bit of an aside, but, you know, we have to wonder where our compassions really are because we pray so reluctantly. I saw...I saw an advertisement inviting me and other church leaders to come to a National Prayer Congress in Washington to pray that God would turn this nation around. And it said, "Come to the Prayer Congress. It will be held in the Hyatt Regency, featuring restaurants, theaters, a jacuzzi, a spa." I thought, "That's it. Let's go and pray in the Hyatt Regency in the spa." Really pretty sad. It just...maybe you can get a crowd to pray if the environment is first class, humph? Where is the brokenness? Well, Hannah had no problem with that. She was not concerned about environment, her heart was breaking. She slipped into the sanctuary of God and she began to pour out her heart in honest open faith, totally dependent on God and given to prayer. She knew it was God alone who would weave life in the womb, as Psalm 139 says. So her passion turned to prayer. This speaks of her right heavenly relationship. She knew where to go with her problems.

Thirdly, she was a woman of promise. Not only of passion and prayer but would you look at verse 11? She made a vow, a promise that "O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction." She saw a childness as an affliction. "Of Thy maid servant and remember me." It doesn't mean He didn't know who she was but remember me in the sense of my longing for a child. "And not forget Thy maid servant but wilt give Thy maid servant a son...here's the promise...then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life and a razor shall never come on his head." That last little part was a Nazarite vow described in Numbers 6:3 to 6. If a Jew wanted to take a vow of total consecration to God, he would not cut his hair, no concern for physical appearance, not drink the wine and the strong drink, abstaining from the banquetings and the celebrations and all of that, living an austere consecrated God- centered life. Many Jews took a Nazarite vow for a short period of time. Three of them in the Scripture were lifelong Nazarites: Samson, John the Baptist, and this child, Samuel. All their lifelong totally devoted and consecrated to God. No personal indulgence at all. No preoccupation with form and looks and fashion at all. So she promised God, I'll give You this child, I just want to be fulfilled as a mother, I just want to raise a godly son to give back to Your glory. And if You give him to me I'll give him back. This is her promise, to present her child to God. That's the essence of a godly mother. While praying for a child she prays for that child not for a wrong reason but a right reason, to turn that child back to God from where the child came. That's the essence of a godly mother...to give the child to God, to give the child to God.

My mother only had one son and I am that son. Before I was born she dedicated me to the Lord from birth and told my father that she wanted a son who would preach the gospel. That's a wonderful legacy. And that may not be what every son is to do, it is not what every son is to do, but every godly mother will give that child to the Lord for whatever he has. The same with a daughter. So Hannah made her promise.

The next thing we see about Hannah was her purity. Eli was the high priest. But I've got to tell you, he was really a lousy high priest. And nothing could be said about his discernment, either. "It came about when she was praying continually before the Lord, Eli was watching her mouth." Sitting off on a...he was a big fat man. In fact, when his sons died, he was so shook he fell over and landed on his neck and broke it and killed himself. So Eli was sitting there watching her and she was in there pouring out her heart and weeping and crying. And she was speaking in her heart. She wasn't speaking out loud, it says in verse 13, only her lips were moving. Have you ever had that experience where you're really talking in your heart but your lips are moving, though not a sound was heard?

So Eli thought she was drunk. Isn't he discerning? Now I don't know anything about my discernment as relative to other people or to Eli's but I'll tell you, I think I know the difference between a drunk and a woman broken in prayer. So Eli decided to play the spiritual role. "How long will you make yourself drunk? Put away your wine from you, he says to her." And Hannah is so gracious and answered and said, "No, my lord, I'm a woman oppressed in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink but I have poured out my soul before the Lord. You misjudge me. Do not consider your maid servant as a worthless woman." That tells us a little bit about drinking wine or strong drink and its relationship to worthlessness regarding women. That's an Old Testament attitude. Don't consider me like that. "I have spoken until now out of my great concern and my provocation." Then Eli hearing such a lucid answer answered and said, "Go in peace and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you've asked of Him." It's sort of a mild apology. But he mistook her for being drunk. Don't think your maid servant a worthless woman...literally a son of Belial, prophetless. A common term, by the way, in the Old Testament associated with idolatry, Deuteronomy 13; rebellion, 1 Samuel 2; lewd sensuous acts in Judges 19 and 20; a term used to speak of arrogance and stupidity in 1 Samuel 25 and even murder in 1 Kings 21. Don't think that I'm in that group. I'm not that kind of person. She was a virtuous woman, like the woman of Proverbs 12:4 and 31:10, she was a woman of virtue. She was a godly woman, she was a pure woman.

So, what do we learn about this woman? She had a right heavenly relationship. She had the passion for God's best. She prayed in faith to God. She makes a promise to God and shows the motive of her heart. And now we find her purity. She is a woman who is not at all associated with people who are wicked.

The next one we see in terms of characteristics comes in verse 18, I love this. "And she said...responding to Eli...Let your maid servant find favor in your sight. So the woman went her way and ate and her face was no longer sad." She could eat now and she wasn't sad. You say why? I'll tell you why. Because she had patient faith. She had patient faith. She gave it to God, what else could she do? She wasn't about to remain frustrated. This is true faith. True faith doesn't pray, "O God, here's my problem, here's my problem," walk away in utter frustration. That's really doubt. Faith says, "Here it is, God," and walks away and is no longer sad. That's trust. I trust You. Very much the mark of a godly mother, one who totally trusts God. She casts her burden on God and that's the end of it. She walks away. She eats. She is no longer sad.

There's another thing about this woman that I have to talk to you for a moment about, chapter 2 verses 1 to 10. She is not only a woman of passion and prayer and promise and purity and a woman of patient faith, she is also a woman...I love this...of praise. When God gave her the child, what was her response? Hannah prayed and said, verse 1, "My heart exalts in the Lord, my horn is exalted in the Lord, my mouth speaks boldly against my enemies because I rejoice in Thy salvation. There is no one holy like the Lord, indeed there is no one besides Thee nor is there any rock like our God." And she goes on like that clear down through verse 10, praise, thanks, exaltation. Oh, this is a woman of praise. This is a woman with a thankful heart. When God did give her that child, she expressed that pure unbroken praise that streams out of a thankful soul. In fact, you should read those ten verses carefully because they are a masterpiece of praise, with all kinds of elements. Much like Mary's Magnificat, recorded in Luke 1:46 to 55, where she says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord," and then goes down through those wonderful elements of praise at the prospect of the birth of her own child. A godly mother is known by her praise.

That's the pattern. She has a right relationship with her husband, they share worship, they share love, they share deep feeling. She has a right relationship with heaven. Her passions are God's passions. She is a woman of prayer. She is a woman of faith. She is a woman of purity. She is a woman of promise. She's a woman of praise. And finally, she had a right home relationship. Go back to verse 21 of chapter 1, she had a right home relationship. And this is with reference to the child in verse 21, "Then the man Elkanah went up with all his household to offer to the Lord the yearly sacrifice and pay his vow." He's in to his routine and he's a faithful guy. And he gathers the whole household and up they go. Verse 22, here we come to it, "Hannah did not go up." She didn't go. "For she said to her husband, I will not go up until the child is weaned."

Now wait a minute. That's a couple of years, Hannah. Three years? I don't know exactly how long Hannah nursed little Samuel, but several years surely. "I won't go." It was only about a two or three week trip, at the longest, to go up there and be there for a week and traveling there, traveling back. It's less than 200 miles from one end of Palestine to the other. She wouldn't go, she wouldn't go at all. Why? She was dedicated to the child. When God gave the child, she was dedicated to the child.

Back up to verse 19 and let's see how it all started. They arose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord. Husband and wife worshiping in the morning, isn't that beautiful? Together worshiping the Lord. They returned to their house in Ramah, Elkanah had relations with Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her. And it came about in due time after Hannah had conceived she gave birth to a son, she named him Samuel saying, "Because I have asked him of the Lord," Samuel means heard by God. And boy, once that child came Hannah said this is the child of my passion, this is the child of my vow, I will not forsake my time with this child. I won't leave this child for several weeks. I won't take this little child along and make it uncomfortable because they would necessarily walk. The child needs sleep and the child needs the gentleness of home, the quietness of a nursing environment. Boy, it's a long way from what we see today, isn't it? Women having babies and a couple of months later slamming the baby in some care center and taking off for the job. Not Hannah. Totally committed to stay in the home until that little life was trained, till that little life was nursed and loved and cherished, wanting to speak to that little one of the truth of God, preparing for the time when the little one would be deposited in the temple itself. The child must have been at least three years old. Those were such important times...such important times, the little one learning from his mother and loved by his mother.

No doubt she took the injunction of Deuteronomy and taught that little one all the time the things of the Lord. So necessary. Give yourself to the child.

Such a child was a man named John Stiles, the product of a godly mother. Listen to his sentiments. "I have worshiped in churches and chapels. I have prayed in the busy street. I have sought my God and have found Him where the waves of His ocean beat. I have knealt in the silent forest in the shade of some ancient tree but the dearest of all my altars was at my mother's knee. I have listened to God in His temple. I have caught His voice in the crowd. I have heard Him speak where the breakers were booming long and loud, where the winds play soft in the tree tops, my God has talked to me but I have never heard Him clearer than I did at my mother's knee. The things in my life that are worthy were born in my mother's breast and breathed into mine by the wonder of the love her life expressed, the years that have brought me to manhood have taken her far from me but memory keeps me from straying too far from my mother's knee. God, make me the man of her vision and purge me of selfishness. God, keep me true to her standards and help me to live to bless. God, hallow the holy impress of the days that used to be and keep me a pilgrim forever to the shrine at my mother's knee."

Such was the testimony of Samuel in the years that Hannah dedicated herself to him. No higher calling on the face of the earth in human life than that kind of devotion from a mother to a child. She not only dedicated herself to the child, but secondly, she dedicated her child to the Lord. Verse 24, well actually we need to read verse 23, we didn't read it, "Elkanah, her husband, said to her, Do what seems best to you, remain until you have weaned him, only may the Lord confirm His word. So the woman remained and nursed her son until she weaned him."

And then at the end of verse 22 it said, "I will bring him that he may appear before the Lord and stay there forever." And she dedicates the weaned child to God. So verse 24, "When she had weaned him she took him up with her, along with a three-year- old bull and one ephah of flour and a jug of wine and brought him to the house of the Lord in Shiloh although the child was young. They slaughtered the bull and brought the boy to Eli and she said, O my lord, as your soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord, for this boy I prayed and the Lord has given me my petition which I asked of Him. So I have also dedicated him to the Lord, as long as he lives he is dedicated to the Lord. And he worshiped the Lord there."

What a scene. She sought nothing from him. She sought not that he have some great career in some big field and be famous or make a lot of money so that she could brag about him. She sought not that he should be put in a situation where he could make sure he had enough to care for her in her old age. No, she gave that child away to God. Never though did she drop her responsibility for him. Look at chapter 2 verse 18. "Now Samuel was ministering before the Lord as a boy wearing a linen ephod." In other words, he was girded like a priest would be dressed as a little boy. His whole life was ministering before the Lord. "And his mother would make him a little robe," verse 19, "and bring it to him from year to year when she would come up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, May the Lord give you children from this woman in place of the one she dedicated to the Lord. And they went to their own home and the Lord visited Hannah and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew before the Lord."

She never really let go of her responsibility. Every time she came she came with a new little robe for her growing Samuel. That's the result of godly mothering. And that's the insight that you never stop being mother, no matter how old they become. God blessed her. I wish we had the time to contrast the rest of the narrative because the rest of chapter 2 into chapter 3 into chapter 4 is the sad pathetic tragedy of the family of Eli. His sons were fornicators. They died and he himself fell over, as I said, and died. It was a tragic ugly scene. And the commentary of Scripture on Eli was that he could not restrain his sons from doing evil. And his wife is never mentioned. I don't know what part or finish she had, but she was a long way from what Hannah was in producing godly Samuel.

To be a godly mother involves a right husband relationship, a right heavenly relationship and a right home relationship. Hannah had all of that. God honored it. And she gives us a model to follow.

In closing let me ask a couple of questions. What does this say and how do we apply this? First of all, ask yourself, are you a godly mother? Are you a godly mother? Are you preparing to be a godly mother? Are you, if you are already, older preparing younger women to be godly mothers? And to men I say, are you creating the environment in which your wife's godliness can have its best effect? And are you raising sons who will lead their wives to be godly mothers? And to you young people I say, are you honoring your mother? Are you obeying your mother? If God has given you a godly mother, God has given you the best of gifts. None of the are perfect but when they love the Lord Jesus Christ and have passed that on to you, they have given you the greatest thing they could give. Are you thankful? And there are some who say, "My mother was not godly." Are you praying for her? Are you praying for her and asking God's Spirit somehow to bring you under the influence of a godly women who can show you the things your mother never showed you?

The hope for our society really rests in what happens in the next generation and that is so much in the hands of godly women. Let's bow together in prayer.

Father, we thank You this morning for what You have shared with us again through the leading of Your Spirit in the teaching of Your Word. We're refreshed. Refreshed again to see how clearly You have given us the pattern to raise a godly generation. Bless the mothers of this congregation. Forgive them, Lord, as I know You do for their short comings, even as You forgive us fathers for ours. Strengthen them all. Those that desire to be mothers, keep them moving that they might be finally in that place where they can be a godly mother. Those that are presently mothers, may they look to the virtues that are exemplified in Hannah and make them their portion daily. To those who are beyond that, their children grown and gone, may they instruct the younger ones. And, God, we just pray that You will give children to godly women, children who will be raised to stand strong, to walk with faith and courage, to raise a yet second generation who will live to Your glory if Jesus tarries. Father, to this end we pray with thanksgiving, for Christ's sake. Amen.

An Excellent Wife

Well, this is a special day and a special day like this demands that we give our special attention to the matter of motherhood, being a wife and mother, a matter to which the Word of God speaks very explicitly. And I would draw your attention, if I might, to Proverbs chapter 31...Proverbs chapter 31, to look together at the Word of God and its instruction on the subject of an excellent wife.

You know, it's amazing how our society has changed in its perception of a woman and her role. And I don't mean that it has changed over the several thousand years since Proverbs 31 was written, but it seems to me that it has changed in the last 20 or 30 years. It seems to me, at least in my own life time, there was a portion of my life in which our society could at least understand and affirm the pattern of an excellent wife given in Proverbs 31. But in the last 30 years or so our society has moved so far from these principles that it may seem almost ludicrous to imagine a woman of the eighties fitting in to the mold of the standards given here in Proverbs 31.

What kind of a woman does our society honor? Who is the honored woman of the eighties? Who is the prototype woman of the eighties? What is the modern super-woman like? If our society and our culture could design a woman, what would that woman be like?

Well let me see if I can't pull it together for you. She would work at a job, build her own career, demand and get equal pay with men. She would refuse to submit to her husband, demanding equality with him in everything. She would have an affair or two or three, a divorce or two or three, an abortion or two. She would definitely exercise her independence. She would make sure that she was imminently fulfilled herself. She would rely on her own resources. She would not want her husband or children to threaten her personal goals. She would have her own bank account. She would hire a maid or cleaning service. She would eat out at least 50 percent of the time with her family or without. She would make cold cereal and coffee the standard breakfast fare for the family and quick-frozen meals usual dinner fare, and she would certainly expect her husband to do half the housework. She would be tanned, coiffured, arobicized, bulging with muscle. She would be shopping to keep up with the fashion trends and make sure she could compete in the attention getting contest. She would put her children in a day-care center, making sure that each one also had a TV in his or her room so that when they were home they wouldn't interrupt her routine. She would be opinionated. She would demand to be heard from and eager to fulfill all of her personal ambition. The world would applaud her and she wouldn't be able to stay married or happy and her kids would probably be into drugs. But she would be the woman of the eighties. And she is a million miles from the woman of God described in Proverbs 31.

Do you understand that the book of Proverbs is a collection of wisdom that fathers and mothers were to give to their children? Do you understand that it was common in a Jewish family for a father to teach his sons the truths of this book? And not only a father, but a mother for on several occasions it says, "Not to forsake the instruction of your mother." This was basically the composite practical manual for living that Jewish parents taught their children.

Now one of the very most important things that children needed to learn was directed at the young boys. And that was how to select the right woman. In fact, earlier on in the book of Proverbs young men are warned against the wrong kind of woman, the adulteress who flatters with her lips, the adulteress who forsakes her own husband, breaks covenant and entertains a union with someone else, the adulteress whose lips drip honey but who brings about death and destruction, the smooth-tongued adulteress who hunts for the precious life to make him her prey. Proverbs warns against the noisy woman, the quarrelsome woman, the rebellious woman, the foolish woman. And the sons of Israel were to be warned to stay away from and avoid all such women.

In chapter 12 of Proverbs and verse 4 it says, "An excellent wife is the crown of her husband but she who shames him is as rotten as in his bones." Find an excellent wife, stay away from anything less. And so the warnings have been given. In chapter 19 and verse 14 there comes a hopeful truth. It says, "A prudent wife is from the Lord;" a wise wife, a virtuous wife, a godly wife is a gift from God." So all the way through this marvelous book of wisdom there is instruction about what kind of woman to avoid and to pursue the excellent woman, the excellent wife who is a gift from God.

It's interesting to me that the final chapter of Proverbs is chapter 31, that all the instruction given sort of climaxes at this point. And what you have in chapter 31 is the final lesson from a parent to a child. In this case, from a mother to her son. Verse 1 tells us that these are the words of King Lemuel, he wrote them down, but they are the oracle which his mother taught him. Here we have an unknown mother, we don't know anything about King Lemuel, this is the only time his name is ever mentioned. We don't know anything about his mother but here is a Jewish mother who taught her son how to pick a woman. And a lot of other very important things as well. And this is her wisdom given to him.

In verse 2, "What, O my son? And what, O son of my womb? And what, O son of my vows?" In other words, what do I say to you? How do I instruct you? What do I tell you? The first thing I tell you is don't get involved in sexual immorality, do not give your strength to women. That's what that means. Don't get involved in living in sexual misconduct.

Then on down to verse 7 and following even, down to verse 9, she says, "Stay away from drunkenness, strong drink. Take care of hurting people. Defend those who can't defend themselves. Stand by the oppressed. Support the needy and deal justly with all people." And gives him a wide range of practical truth. But then she comes to the real issue on her heart which he passes on to us. "Most of all, my son, find a good wife...find a good wife. With her you will spend your life, she will determine your earthly accomplishments and set the perimeters of your living and your influence. Find a good wife." And from verse 10 to 31 such a wife is described.

The woman described here is of priceless value. She has physical strength, mental strength, moral strength and spiritual strength. Above all she loves God deeply and reverently. She is characterized in this section six ways, and I'll point them out to you as we just look together at the Scripture...six ways. Her character as a wife, her devotion as a homemaker, her generosity as a neighbor, her influence as a teacher, her effectiveness as a mother and her excellence as a person...the sum of all of that makes the excellent wife. And I might add that this is no woman in particular but this is the woman that every woman should seek to emulate. She is rare, look at verse 10, an excellent wife...by the way, the word excellent in Hebrew means force, a woman of force, a woman of substance, a woman of strength would be another way to characterize her. It's excellent in the sense of her strength spiritually, morally, mentally, physically. She is a woman of substances. She is a woman who has made a dent in society. She is one who makes a difference. There's a force about her life. This kind of wife, he says, who can find? Very rare. Hard to find this kind of woman.

By the way, chapter 20 says in verse 6, "Who can find a trustworthy man?" I just want to put that in because I don't want you to think that this thing is out of balance. It's just as hard to find a trustworthy man at the level of God's standard of character. That was chapter 20 verse 6. But this is Mother's Day, so here we go.

Typically men seek a wife for all the wrong reasons, all of them. Looks, accomplishment, style, success, money, education, all the wrong reasons. They should seek a woman for virtue, strength of character, spiritual excellence, internal godliness, those are the right reasons. This kind of woman is a woman of force. She makes a difference. She leaves a mark. And verse 10 says her worth is far above jewels. Some would translate that word rubies, some would translate it pearls, the Septuagint translates it precious stones. In other words, she is more valuable than all earthly things which are valuable. She is a rare fortune, a rare find, a woman of force.

What are her qualities, this rare woman? First of all, let's look at her character as a wife, verse 11. And without saying anything specifically about her it talks about her husband to start with. "The heart of her husband trusts in her." Now obviously the first thing we note about her character as a wife is that she can be trusted. She is trustworthy. This is the kind of woman who allows her husband to do his work away from home, who allows her husband to go away for perhaps an extended time. And to do all of that in absolute confidence in her integrity and her discretion and her wisdom and her care for all of his interests. The implication here is that there's a substantial home to be cared for and substantial resources of which she is a steward. But he trusts her. He trusts her. The heart of her husband trusts in her. She has proven to be trustworthy. She is virtuous to the point where he has no jealousy, he has no fear, he has no suspicion, he has no anxiety. He knows that his care is her concern, his comfort is her passion, his burdens are hers to relieve, his being at ease is her high priority and his house has become the home of his heart because he trusts in the one who leads that household, his wife. Integrity, discretion, wisdom, faithfulness, trustworthiness, that's what fills the husband of this woman so that he will have no lack of gain, no lack of gain.

In other words, she's not going to cause him to lose what he's working so hard to gain. She is a very careful steward of everything that he has. Let me tell you, this sees the woman in the role of the oikodespotes to use Paul's word used in 1 Timothy 5 and Titus 1, she's the ruler of the house. She manages the assets. She coordinates the activities. She is the steward of all of that which he has provided. And he has no lack of gain because of her stewardship, her management, her wisdom, her care. And that frees him to be everything that he can be in the pursuit of bread for that family and also freedom from anxiety because he knows whatever he brings in she cares for as treasure. Definitely she is in charge of domestic matters, using and accounting for the resources of the home so he is free to give himself to the work. She helps him to profit. She devotes herself to the care of his earnings. She is careful. She is wise. She is scrupulous. And he can leave home and never give it a thought. He can give his whole heart to that which compels him in his profession, his business, his work and know that all is cared for. Her character as a wife, she is totally trustworthy, she is a steward of everything that he provides for her. She is definitely on the receiving end of his provision and she cares for it as a precious treasure.

Personally, verse 12, she does him good and not evil. She does him good and not evil. She always always does what's best for him. She pursues his best interests. She strengthens him. She builds him up. She encourages him. She sees it as her role to do good to this man. He is providing for her and for all those in her care in that home, children and household servants and workers if indeed this would include a farm. And he in providing all of that is worthy of her best. She does him good. She never takes things from him, not his money, his possessions, his resources, or his reputation. She never speaks evil of him so that those in the home would learn to distrust him because of her testimony of his absence of character. She does him good not evil. She does everything to build him up. And then it adds most interestingly this note, all the days of her life. Isn't that interesting? All the days of her life.

In other words, her love for him is based upon such high spiritual principles that it doesn't fluctuate with the circumstances of life. When you get married you no doubt have affirmed the vow that you will live together in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, in plenty and in want. And that's a vow that this woman kept. Good times, bad times, weak times, strong times, sick times, well times, happy times, sad times, plentiful times, empty times, all times, all her life she did him good. Like Sarah in 1 Peter 3:6, she serves him as lord. She reveals her virtue by her consistent service on his behalf. Her love is so deep it has a purity and a power and a devotion that never ever changes. His comfort, his success, his reputation, his joy, his fulfillment, his blessing are her delight, utterly unselfish. To live for him is her constant happiness and she knows she'll reap the benefit. Never unkind, always submissive in the most gracious way.

And this is the essence of what Paul said when writing to Titus, Titus 2:4 when he said, "Wives, love your husbands. Do them good all your life, manage properly that which is in your care so that they have no need of gain." The benefit to the husband is expressed in verse 23, "Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land." You know what that means? He's risen to the very top of the esteem of the people in the profession he has chosen in life because he is free to do so because of the dutiful wife. She creates a world for him in which he can be everything that God would want him to be. She's so faithful to the duties of her love that he is free to be all that he can be as a man. He is known in the gates. He is a well-known man. The implication there is that he is esteemed, he is honored, he is respected. And that is because she has provided freedom from the things which tie him down and bind him so that he can be everything...everything that he would desire to be. That's her character as a wife. Trustworthy, doing him good all the days of her life, seeing to it that her life is spent to see that he can be everything God would want him to be. That's an excellent woman.

The underlying virtue there is selflessness, that's the underlying virtue. She is consumed with him and offers herself in loving service to fulfill that desire.

Secondly, not only her character as a wife makes her excellent but her devotion as a homemaker. Now being a homemaker is not a popular thing today. I was reading this week Vivian Gornick(?) who is a professor at the University of Illinois who said, quote: "Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession." It's replaced prostitution, in her mind. Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession. Phyllis Shafley(?) said, "The most cruel and damaging sexual harassment taking place today is the harassment by feminists and their federal government allies against the role of motherhood and the role of the dependent wife," end quote. But in God's economy being a homemaker is an exalted role.

The sphere of the woman's duty is the home. She is the ruler of the house, the oikodespotes, Titus 2:5. And as we start in to looking at this in verse 13 we will see the beauty of her role there unfold. Notice verse 13. First of all, "She looks for wool and flax and works with her hands in delight. She expresses her ability with her crafts," in this case making clothing, blankets, perhaps even curtains to cover the open spaces in the home that let the air and the light in. She goes after wool. She looks for flax. The idea being she searches for the quality product. She brings home the wool, wool used for clothing that would be in the cold times. Flax used for linen which would be worn in warmer times and would be used for the specially beautiful clothing that they would wear at any season. She finds the best she can, brings it back with the purpose of using her hands to turn it into clothing. You see, her submission and her godliness, her virtue, her relation to her husband do not make her into a religious recluse, pretending to be spiritual when really being irresponsible. She is not defining laziness as spirituality. She is not shirking the duties of the home. In fact there's no place in this woman's life for self-indulgence. There's no place for laziness. There's no place for inactivity. She is full of energy. She is full of activity. She searches out the raw materials in order that she might work with her hands. It says she might work with her hands in delight.

And that's the key. You see, she loves the family and she loves her husband and it's the love of her heart that puts delight in her work. If she felt like the reason for her to live was to fulfill herself, everything she had to do for someone else she'd hate. But because she knows her reason to be is to give herself for the joy of those she loves, the delight of her heart becomes the delight of her hands. The Seriac(?) version translates that her hands are active after the pleasure of her heart. No complaint. There's joy in the most menial task because the motive is love and the love motive inside pushes delight into the hands. Self-denial is clearly behind the scenes. She's not concerned about her own pleasure, she's concerned about the joy and delight of her family which gives her joy and delight because she is consumed with love for them, sacrificial. She makes their clothes and all they need and does so with joy.

Verse 14 says, "She is like merchant ships, she brings her food from afar." She goes great distances to get food. And she didn't hop on the freeway, she walked...she walked. And she would walk in order to get the best food at the best price in order to introduce variety in to the family, something beyond the local fare which could be purchased in her own vicinity. She was obviously engaged in good planning and good management. She was a faithful steward of her husband's gain and she would go as far as she needed to go to get what she needed for her family. Not just to provide food but to provide the variety and the quality of food that would truly express the love and delight of her heart. She wasn't just slapping whatever she had down and throwing it in front of them. She was involved in the process of going as far as she had to go to get what she thought they would enjoy.

Verse 15 says, "She rises also while it is still night and gives food to her household and portions to her maidens." Typically in the east a lamp is always burning in the house, a little terra cotta lamp with oil in it and a little wick floating in the oil. And, of course, the wick would only burn as long as the oil was there. Because most often they went to sleep when the sun went down, the oil would not last all night and it was always the wife's responsibility to get up sometime after midnight and put more oil in the lamp that the family might sleep. Typically, the woman would rise some time after midnight, put oil in the lamp, keep it lit and then begin to do the work that was required to feed the family that day. She had to grind the corn. She had to prepare all the day's meals. There were no fast food places. There was nowhere to go. You fed your family by the work of your hand and the sweat of your brow. It was hot in that part of the world for much of the year, still is, and the cool of the night was a wonderful time...the quiet of the night. But it was still a major sacrifice. So she would grind the corn and do whatever she needed to do in order that when the family awoke a few hours later there would be food for them all. That was her dedication, her commitment. Her household could enjoy the comfort while she made the sacrifice for their greater enjoyment. You see, she was much more concerned with the blessing and joy of the people she loved then with her own indulgence.

And then it says, and I love this thought, "and portions to her maidens." The word "portions" is quite interesting. It probably means portions of work, not portions of food. Portions is tasks in the Septuagint. The word used is erga in Greek. It is translated labor in Exodus 5:14. So what she did was get up in the middle of the night and start her own work and the maidens who were servants in the household also got up and she apportioned to them their tasks so that everybody was busy getting ready for the family and the household. Wonderful, consumed with the needs of others, doing it with delight, she is every bit the manager of the household.

To depreciate the role of a homemaker is pretty foolish. The breadth of the role of homemaker is amazing. To be able to be an economist, a steward of funds and resources, to be able to analyze all the products available, to be strong enough and well- planned enough to make the right moves at the right time to acquire the right things, to be fully a wife to your husband and a tender and loving mother to all of your children, to apportion all the responsibilities to everybody who was a part of the labor force, that takes some woman. People say, "Well, you know, women have administrative skills, why should they get locked up in a house?" They don't understand. It can be the fullest and most wonderful expression of womanhood. That's why I'm excited at the Master's College about the major in home economics, to produce this kind of woman is a major task by God's grace, a tremendous privilege.

Verse 16 takes us even further into the enterprise woman..enterprising woman. She considers a field and buys it, from her earnings she plants a vineyard. There's a field, perhaps adjacent to the property that the family owns. She feels it's at a right price and would be beneficial to the family. She buys it. There's a certain amount of independence in that. It doesn't say her husband bought it, she bought it. She made the decision that it was wise. She pursued that option. You say, "Well, now wait a minute, she bought it and she also from her earnings bought it and planted a vineyard in it." That's right. "Well where did she get the money? Did she have a job on the side?" Look at verse 24. "She makes linen garments and sells them and supplies belts or girdles, cloth cumberbands that were used to wrap up the robes worn by folks in those days and she sold them to the tradesmen." The word tradesmen literally is Canaanites...i.e. the Phoenicians, the sailors of the ancient world who carried the goods all around. She had a little cottage industry going. She made things with her hands, made a little money. She never let that extra money get into the operational cash flow, she kept it set apart and when she saw a judicious moment to purchase a field to the benefit of the family, she purchased it, planted the vineyard, she did that on her own. Wise steward, careful money manager, good analyst. This is some woman...some woman.

She makes wise investments to assist her husband. She labors in the home to help. She takes the money that she has earned on her own making those things and invests that in a long- term investment for the benefit of her family and her children and her grandchildren. She buys land and plants a vineyard. A wise woman.

Verse 17 says she girds herself with strength and makes her arms strong. The first statement, she girds herself with strength, expresses the energy or the force of this woman of force. It could be translated strength is wrapped around her, she's a strong woman, strongly disciplined, strong in terms of commitment to the family, strong in love to her husband. I mean, she's a strong woman. And then even her arms are strong, not because she goes to the gym. Her arms are strong because of the effort exerted in the daily tasks. Her strength is a result of effort. Her strength is a result of becoming a blessing to her family...totally selfless. This is what comes pouring through this passage, her humility, her selflessness, her love, the joy and delight of everything she does because she's lost in the love of her household.

And verse 18 says she senses that her gain is good. In other words, when she gets the field and she plants the vineyard and the family prospers, she senses that it's good. In other words, as the Septuagint says she makes a good profit. She sees that it's good for the family. She sees that it's beneficial. It has welfare provision for them, it's for their well being. And so that motivates her. She's motivated by benefiting others. This is the woman of God's design. She is not motivated by self- fulfillment, self-esteem, self-glory, self-adulation. She is totally motivated by seeing others benefited. That's the godly woman. Spurned on, not by ego but by the fact that she sees what she does bringing good to others. So as a result, verse 18 says, her lamp does not go out at night. She is so fulfilled in the benefit that's coming to others that it spurs her to work harder and harder and harder.

Hey, it's amazing what people will do to indulge themselves. It's also frightening what people will not do to benefit others. Her lamp goes not out at night, what does that mean? Because she is so pleased with the benefit of her work she finds work for the hours of darkness, motivated totally by the goodness and the benefit of the work. She is utterly unselfish. What a woman...what a woman.

And verse 19 says, in those nights perhaps when the lamp didn't go out, she stretches out her hands to the distaff and her hands grasp the spindle. Elements...elements of spinning, the distaff and the spindle, turning the wool and the flax into thread. And then taking the thread and turning it into cloth. Then taking the cloth and cutting it into pattern, then sewing it into garments to clothe the family. Spinning the wool, spinning the flax, making the scarlet, making the linen, making the purple garments. Now all of it for someone else to be blessed and encouraged.

Verse 21 follows then, skipping over verse 20 for a moment, she's not afraid of the snow for her household. Did you know it snows in Jerusalem maybe three out of five years? It snows there. And even when it doesn't snow in the winter it can be very very cold because it's so high. Read 2 Samuel 23 around verse 20, it talks about the snow. But she's planned for that. You know, they didn't have heaters in their homes. The way they heated a room was with a pan of hot coals. They would take that pan of hot coals and sit it on the floor. And then they would huddle together in the warmth of the blankets. But they needed not only warm blankets for sleep but warm garments because it was cold sometimes during the day, often that cold season could last a long time. But she had no fear for that. She wasn't afraid of the snow for her household. Look at this. "For all her household are clothed with scarlet."

Why doesn't it say they were clothed with wool? Well we assume it was wool because that's the thing that would keep them warm. The scarlet is added to show you that this woman has a touch of class. Normally the wool wouldn't need to be colored or dyed but she dyed it. She dyed it deep red in color because that was the color of elegance, still is. Because it was beautiful, it was still dark and dark clothes tend to keep the heat in better. But it was scarlet because there was something more beautiful, more dignified in the warmth and the beauty of that color. So she made them not just functional but she made them lovely as well. And she planned far enough ahead so that she didn't worry at all when the cold came because everything was ready. Remarkable woman.

Verse 22 adds something. She makes coverings for herself. Now what that literally means is coverlets...pillows, mattresses, bedding. She made bedding. Now remember, she has to make all this. She adorned all their beds with comfort and beauty, providing for them the comfort that they would enjoy. And again, behind the scene is this love, this devotion, this unselfishness, this humility that is at the heart of the excellent wife. You say, "Yeah, but, I mean, this woman is up all night, this woman has taken trips all over the place to get stuff, she is working her head off, planting a vineyard. I mean, I'll bet she is a tacky looking gal. I mean, I'm sure she goes around in a terry- cloth bathrobe with threads hanging everywhere and coils in her hair. I mean, this is...this woman...I mean, you know, you can see her husband coming home and saying...Hey, you keep a nice house but do you ever look seedy, I mean, can't you do something about it?"

Not this woman. She's appreciative of the beauty with which God has adorned her. She's appreciative of the love of her husband and wants to show him how much she cares and how much she wants to present herself to him in the beauty that God has given her. So verse 22 says her clothing are fine linen and purple. That's lovely. Not silk and gold and pearls and etc. Just linen, not particularly expensive, but the best because she went to find the best flax and did the best weaving she could do. And purple because the beauty of the color would enhance her own beauty. She takes care of herself. She adorns the beauty of her own creation. She avoids the extreme of ostentatious display and opts out for graceful simplicity. It's not overdone. She knows that a woman's true adornment, as Paul said in 1 Timothy and Peter in 1 Peter 3, a woman's true adornment is her purity, her chaste character, he virtue, her godliness, her inner beauty. She seeks to honor God, to honor her family, to honor her husband. And that does not preclude her own loveliness for that brings delight and joy to everyone. So she manages it all, for her family, even for herself and has enough time, verse 24 says as we noted, to make some things to sell to bring a little extra in so that a field can be added to the estate, a vineyard planted and the family enriched. What a woman.

We skipped verse 20 so let's go back and note the third thing about her, her generosity as a neighbor. Verse 20 says she extends her hand to the poor and she stretches out her hands to the needy. Of course we would expect this, wouldn't we? This is an excellent woman. And as devoted and loving as she is toward her family, so loving is she toward those outside her family. She demonstrates not only a special devotion to her home but compassion on all those who don't have the privilege of being in her home or a home like her home...the poor, the unfortunate. And verse 20 says she extends her hand to the poor, we might assume that it means she touches them, she's personally involved, she's intimately involved. No doubt making clothes for them and making sure they're warm and fed. But we might assume when it says she extends her hand to the poor that she's responding to those poor who come to her, the next phrase says she stretches out her hands to the needy, which implies that she reaches out to touch the ones who don't come near her. She is touched and she is touching. She'll not just touch those who come close but she reaches out to those who stay away with the idea of feeding them and clothing them and enriching their life through her resources.

She is very much the model and the example for Dorcas who it says in Acts 9:36 was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity which she continually did. And you remember when she died the widows stood beside Peter weeping and showing all the tunics and garments Dorcas used to make while she was with them. She made all these clothes for poor people and widows and that's the godly virtuous woman. She stretches her hands to the needy. Her generosity as a neighbor. She is engulfed in her family but she's not myopic. That's not all she sees in the world. It's not overdone. It's not isolationism. She cares about others, too.

That brings us to the fourth description of her, her influence as a teacher which comes starting in verse 25 and then in verse 26 and we start in verse 25 because teaching starts with character. Strength and dignity are her clothing. She is garmented by strength and dignity. And she smiles at the future. Strength has to do with spiritual character. Dignity has to do with class, quality. She is a woman of great character, strong, dignified. She has a grace about her. She has a confidence about her. She has a spirituality about her that really is the foundation of her teaching. You see, you don't teach in a vacuum, not in a home. I mean, you may be a teacher in a school and show up and say anything you want, but you won't do that and be believed to people who live in a house unless you live what you teach, right? So that teaching starts with a platform of character in a home or else you're teaching people to be hypocrites and you sure don't want to give that lesson. When you demand your family to be what you're not, you're telling them it's really not very important that they learn this, it's only important that they try to teach it to somebody else and pass on the legacy of hypocrisy. No, the teacher in the home is the woman who has gained the right to be heard and believed because strength and dignity are her clothing.

It says, "And she smiles at the future." She has no fear. She has no fear. Because she knows in whom she trusts, she's deeply spiritual. All things are in God's hands. She has prepared elegantly for everything. It will be well in the future for her because she's right with God. It will be well in the future for her household because all things are in order. It will be well in the future for her children because they are properly brought along in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. It will be well in the future for her husband for she has made provision in his case for him to be the best that he can be. It will be well in the eternity to come for all of them because of her life. She has made a spiritual impact.

And then the teaching in verse 26, out of that character base she opens her mouth in wisdom. She guides her family daily in wisdom. I believe the father is to be a teacher in the home. I believe he is the family priest. But I do not believe for one moment that that precludes the reality that it is the mother who day in and day out, hour in and hour out is teaching wisdom to the children. Not formal classes, but instruction in the flow of life, she's the teacher. Men, we may give the formal lessons but day in and day out she's the teacher.

And in what attitude does her teaching come? Verse 26, "The wisdom of God comes out of her mouth and the law of kindness is on her tongue." The tora(?) of heseld(?). The tora of loving kindness is on her tongue. The attitude in which she teaches all of this is a dominant attitude of loving kindness. What a challenge. What does that mean? Gracious speech, kind speech, tender speech, pleasing speech, compassionate speech, ministering grace to the hearers, as Paul said, edifying, building up. That which comes out of her mouth is the wisdom of God in tender and compassionate gracious kind words. What a teacher. The greatest teacher because the character of life makes her so believable, because the wisdom of God is true and because the attitude is compassionate and gracious...no teacher like that. What a portrait. Believe me, women, this is a challenge of a life time.

Fifthly, we note her blessedness as a mother or her effectiveness as a mother. In verse 27 it sums up her leadership in the house by saying she looks well to the ways of her household. In other words, she exercises constant surveillance over it all. She manages the children well, all the resources well, all the household. She doesn't eat the bread of idleness. In other words, she is not eating the product of laziness, she's eating the product of effort. She worked hard at it. She has the real satisfaction that come from a supreme effort. She surveys the household. She's got it all under control. She meets every need. And it implies that her children are in all of this because verse 28 says, "Her children rise up and...what?...bless her." They reverence her. They honor her. They hold her in high esteem.

Let me give you something you need to know. The first half of your life, women, you make an investment, the dividends of which you will reap the second half. It flips over. This women would raise her children and when her children were old enough to be on their own, they would spend the rest of their life blessing the woman who gave her life to them. That's God's design. The compensation then for old age is the exhilarating blessed joy of the return of the investment of youth in children. The sad thing is you be the woman of the eighties and the second half of your life, you can't be the woman of the eighties. You can't cut it and there won't be anybody around to care. That's the tragedy. God has designed our life in passages and when we invest our life in those children God gives us, we will find the backside of our life will be the greatest sweetest time of blessing as they repay to us the blessing given. That's God's design.

As the children become older, they have their own children. And they seek to raise their children as they were raised. And therefore their mother is constantly before their eyes, her tender guidance, her wise counsel, her loving discipline, her holy example, her hard work, her unselfish giving. They never cease to fill the memories of her children who try to pass them on to their children.

And there's another dividend for her motherhood. Verse 28 says her husband also and he praises her. And he says, "Many daughters have done nobly but you excel them all." There are many women of strength, women of force, women of character but, honey, you're the best. That's a woman's reward. That's a woman's reward. You invested in your children and they'll return it. You invested in your husband and he'll return it.

But how can a woman be like this? It almost seems idyllic to be such a wife and such a homemaker and such a neighbor and such a teacher and such a mother. How can a woman be like this? That brings us to the last point, her excellence as a person. It all starts with the spiritual dimension. Please notice verse 30, "Charm is deceitful." Do you know what charm means in the Hebrew? Bodily form. That's deceitful...that's deceitful. Some women spend all their time on their bodily form. That is deceitful because that's not the real you. Beauty is of no real value, it's vain, it's useless, it's empty. Form, deceitful. You think you're getting something you're not. Beauty has no real value. You want to know something? Those are the two things our world looks for. No wonder there relationships are empty and filled with deceit. That's all they look for. Fools, absolute fools. But here's the woman you want, a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised, give her the product of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates. What woman is this? She loves God. She's a true worshiper. She fears the Lord. You have to live with that all your life. You live with a woman who fears God, loves God and you are in the best environment. And by the way, she'll become more beautiful to you every passing year.

This is the woman of character. Only God can produce her. Matthew Henry said, "Proverbs 31 is the mirror against which every Christian woman must stand and face herself." This is God's design. And only God can produce this woman. But this is the woman God wants. This is the woman who will be praised by her children and her husband. This is the woman who will be given the product of her hands, she'll get back everything she gave. And they will do for her for whom she did. This is the woman who is not only privately rewarded with the product of her hands by those she loves, but publicly rewarded as her works praise her in the gates. Listen, this is the woman that God wants and that every man should desire and that every woman should desire to be...one who is true to her mate, one who manages well her home, one who compassionately cares for the needy, one who lives and teaches divine wisdom with kindness, compassion and grace, one who fully fulfills the call of a mother so that her children bless her and one who though she seeks no praise will receive it anyway because of the character of her life.

I know we can't sell this woman to our society. I just pray we in the church can continue to focus on God's standard. It's a high standard but it's God's standard. And my prayer is that every woman who names the name of Christ will seek to be this kind of woman by God's grace. Let's pray together.

Father, I want to pray right now for all those who are mothers, that, Lord God, You will give them the power of Your Spirit to move them toward this pattern, this design, this portrait of godliness. Also, Lord, may they know of Your forgiving grace for every failure in the process because the standard is so high. Thank You for the standard, thank You for the power in the Spirit who meet the standard, thank You for the grace of forgiveness for the failures. I would pray for every single mother through death or divorce, struggling to be all that she should be without that man to give her guidance, that man for whom she can live and in whose love she is so fully rewarded. And I would pray even with thanksgiving for those women, Father, who have not been given children because that wasn't in Your plan, make their life fulfilled in their husband. I pray for those who have been called to singleness, may they serve You in that unique way which only the single can without having the cares of the house and the family and may they be fully rewarded in the bliss of knowing they're in Your will. I pray for the young girls as yet unmarried that You would make them the woman that You want them to be. For the young men selecting a wife, that they would seek to find the character that is exemplified here...not in fulfillment but as the goal and direction of the woman of their choice.

And, Lord, even as I think about all of this, this is a heavy burden for women to bear and all along I can't help but be thinking to myself who would I be to deserve such a woman whom am such a man? Lord, we fall so short. Not a man of us is worthy of such a woman. Such a woman in our lives would make us guilty. So, Lord, make us the men we ought to be. And then, Lord, I want to thank You this day for my own wife, Patricia, who has for all the years of our marriage sought to be this kind of woman...who has poured her life into me and to her children, to others, to our home and who has become so much a part of what I am that I know no longer where she ends and I begin. I thank You for the gift that she is from You to me. And I pray that somehow, Lord, I might be to her what a husband must be, that she might be fulfilled. That I pray, Lord, for all that we might be all that You would have us to be for Your glory in Christ's name. Amen.

God's High Calling for Women, Part 1

For now I'd invite you to open your Bible to 1 Timothy chapter 2...1 Timothy chapter 2. We're going to be looking together in the next few weeks at verses 9 through 15, 1 Timothy 2:9 through 15. I want to read that text so you'll have it in your mind. I trust you'll reread it through the weeks we go in the teaching of it, but I do for this morning want to set in your mind so you listen carefully as I read beginning at verse 9.

In like manner, also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with godly fear and self-control, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothing, but which becometh women professing godliness with good works. Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man but to be in silence, for Adam was first formed then Eve. And Adam was not deceived but the woman being greatly deceived was in the transgression. Nevertheless, she shall be saved through child bearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.

Now obviously this portion of Scripture has to do with the woman's role in the church. And we're going to be looking at it in detail because it is as we find so commonly in Scripture a revelation of the most marvelous comprehensiveness. The Spirit of God using that economy of words that only God can use uses very few terms to express vast amounts of truth in a comprehensive manner. Because of that we need to give careful attention to all that is said in the passage. And when it is complete, we will have a consummate statement on God's design for women in the church.

Now I think it's apparent to everyone here that this is a battleground today. The dialogue and debate and even conflict that goes on over the issue of the role of women in the church has reached massive proportions. It is amazing to me that it all began with a sort of self-justifying effort on the part of a group of lesbians who wanted to have their day in the sun and gave birth to the modern feminist movement. Feminism rises out of sinful perversion and yet in spite of its origin it has found its way into the culture of our society in almost every area and even lately into the church. And the church for years committed to certain standards of behavior for men and women is systematically and rather progressively throwing aside all of its former doctrines in favor of newer ones. I am amazed at how many evangelical churches, schools and even seminaries are fast jetisoning things that they have for all their life long held to be biblical truths.

Books are coming out written by people who have for all their ministry been known as evangelicals now denying the things they've always believed and affirming new truth regarding the role of women. They're going back to passages in the Scripture and saying they have to be reinterpreted. Some are saying they have to be ignored, they reflect only Paul's anti-female bias. Others are saying they were added later by editors and they do not reflect the intent of the biblical writer or even his own verbiage. One or another kind of approach is used to do away with what has been the traditional interpretation of the Word of God. In fact, interpreting passages which are so patently obvious that even a rather brief reading of the passage, as I have just done, leaves you in little doubt as to the intent of its meaning.

But nonetheless, the church which is to be the last bastion of the truth of God is falling fast to the march of the feminist army. And it's my own covenant and vow in my own heart that Grace Community Church and myself and the integrity of our teaching of the Word of God will not become victim to what is going on in the society around us. We need only to go back to the Word of God and affirm what it says to hold our ground.

Now we are aware, I trust, that all of this kind of effort is really not the effort of men, but is the effort of the archenemy of God, the God-hater himself Satan who desires to use sinful human agents to attain his goals. But really, his goal is to overthrow the plan and design of God for His church. And that's why it's so tragic when the church capitulates, when the church falls in to the lies of Satan and becomes a part of his own system of attack on the plan of God. God has designed a place for man and a place for woman in society, in the family and in the church that is very clear in Scripture and we need to go back and reaffirm that for us and for all who will listen to the Word of God.

Now, frankly, I could take a lot of time demonstrating how far-reaching the feminist movement is. I could quote all kinds of people and we could look at all kinds of incidents. We could go into the schools and seminaries and the books and the things that are indicating to us that the capitulation is wholesale in many areas of the church. But we're all aware of that. I really don't think that would serve any purpose to go over all of that data and it would take up a lot of our time.

So, in view of the fact that we all know about the march of feminism, we all know about the capitulation that is going on, it seems to me most needful to simply look at the Word of God. And having understood what the Word of God says, we then have the where with all to deal with any error that we might face. And, frankly, no passage is more direct, more helpful, more comprehensive than the one before us today. I wish we could cover it all in one time, but you don't want to be here five hours so we're not going to do that. But over the next few weeks, we are going to cover this passage. And I believe you're going to see very clearly and concisely what the Word of God has to say about the role of women. We will also tie in related passages which are necessary because Scripture interprets Scripture. And when we're done, it will be only a question of whether or not we desire to respond positively to God's Word, or join those who are rebelling against it.

Now in looking at our passage, I want you to note there are six features in regard to the role of women in the church that the Apostle deals with: their appearance, their attitude, their testimony, their role, their design and their contribution. Each of these opens up a whole area of thought and understanding to us. And for this morning, we're going to take the first two. I had hoped to be able to take the first three, but was not able to get through that third one so we'll take the first two this time.

Now I want you to remember the context so that you understand the setting of this. The letter is written from the Apostle Paul to his protege, his son in the faith, his dear friend and co-laborer, Timothy. Paul has concluded his three missionary journeys. He has just been released from his first imprisonment in Rome. He is now a free man. The book of Acts is completed. And as he moves out of prison, he meets Timothy in the city of Ephesus.

Apparently word has reached him that things in Ephesus are not as they ought to be. And Ephesus and the church there was close to his heart. He had spent three years of his ministry there. He had poured his soul into that church. He had said about that ministry that he had not failed in Ephesus to declare all the council of God. He had warned them night and day for three years that error would come from the outside and evil would rise from the inside. And sure enough, his worst fears had come to pass, the church had entered into doctrinal error, the church had entered into ungodly living and many things were wrong in that church. Most significantly of all, the leadership had been corrupted doctrinally and morally. The church then had pastors and elders and those who were the official deacons of the church who needed to be replaced with godly people.

Well, Paul met Timothy there and I believe personally dealt with Hymenaeus and Alexander, as mentioned in chapter 1 verse 20. Then Paul had to leave to go west for further ministry, but left Timothy there in Ephesus. And Timothy was to straighten out the rest of the issues in the church. Paul's only been gone a few weeks and he writes this letter back to Timothy to strengthen his hand, to encourage him in the task and to make sharp his focus as to what he was to be about.

Now many things were wrong in the church. We know that because of the character of this letter and the subjects which it addresses. But you'll notice chapter 3 verses 14 and 15 sort of give us the overall intent of the letter. "These things write I to you hoping to come to you shortly, but in case I have to tarry long, I'm writing that you may know how you ought to behave yourself in the church of God which is...pardon me...in the house of God which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." In other words, I'm writing you so you know how the church ought to function. This is a letter to set the church in proper order.

Now there were many problems in that church. One of them...one of them related to the place of women. Obviously, if the church was entering into areas of false doctrine, obviously, if it was ungodly in its behavior, this would impact the women in the church as well as the men. And since usually there are more women in a church then there are men, this could have indicated a great proliferation of problems. Things were not right in that church and it impacted the women.

There is a reminder in chapter 5, if you'll notice, in verse 2 that women are to maintain purity. Since there is a polemic nature to this epistle, that is to say it is written to deal with problems, it is written to attack issues, we can assume that the indication here about women having all purity might mark out that some did not.

Further into that chapter we would note in verse 6, for example, that some women were living in pleasure and were really dead while they were alive. Some women then had abandoned purity, perhaps. Some had desired to live only for pleasure. We find further in the passage in verse 11 that some younger widows had made vows and promises to Christ which they could not keep but in their lust were in danger of great violation of those promises and thus to bring upon themselves in verse 12 condemnation for being unfaithful to their original pledge. We find in verse 13, that some of them had become idle, wandering around from house to house. They were tale bearers, busy bodies, saying things that ought not to be said. Verse 15, some of them had already turned aside after Satan.

In his second letter to Timothy at Ephesus, the second epistle to Timothy, chapter 3 verse 6 he notes there were silly women who were laden with lusts, who were easily led astray by those teaching lies.

Now back to chapter 2. In this passage we learn that not only were women having problems with purity, not only were they turning aside to Satan, breaking pledges they had made to Christ, being led around by their own diverse lusts, but here there were some of these women who were acting indecently. That is to say bringing these improprieties, impurities and immoralities into the worship of the church. And under the pretense of coming to worship God were flaunting themselves and desecrating that worship by the dress and demeanor that betrayed an evil intent rather than a heart of worship.

Now it is important in the church that worship be central. Is that not so? We're committed to that here and we have studied much about worship. So in the list of priorities as Paul sets these things down for Timothy, this comes near the top. In chapter 2 when he began the discussion of matters in the church, he began with the issue of evangelistic praying, didn't he? Calling for the church to pray for the salvation of all men because God wants all men to be saved. And that was the most important issue for Paul to deal with because the church at Ephesus had developed an exclusive doctrine of redemption that said only a few elite Jews who keep the law can be saved, or a few elite Gentiles who can rise to the level of mystical knowledge can be saved, and it's not for everybody. And this exclusive mentality had literally cut the cord to world evangelization. And so he dealt initially with the need to realize that God wants all men to be saved.

The second subject that is in his mind is the subject of worship. And the worship was being polluted by women who saw it as a way to flaunt their wealth, to demonstrate their beauty, to put on a sexually attractive demonstration to men that would draw their focus away from the living God to things not fitting, certainly not fitting in a worship environment. And so it is the worship issue that is dealt with and that takes Paul right into the whole matter of the role of a woman within the context of the Christian faith.

Now remember that in the matter of evangelistic praying, he spoke to the men in verse 8. And said that the men are to do the praying, publicly, and they are to do so not only with holy hands, that is with a clean life, but without anger and dissension, that is with a pure heart. So the life and the heart of men were the issue in verse 8 and now the life and the heart of women become the issue in verse 9.

Since clothing is an issue of some importance with the fairer sex, Paul begins with a discussion of their appearance. And that is the first point that I want you to see. He discusses their appearance. And without question in my mind, he is revealing a problem in the church at Ephesus and not only there but, no doubt, their problems were symptomatic of problems in the church everywhere.

So, he says in verse 9, let's look at it. "In like manner, also, that women adorn themselves," literally the Greek says, "in adorning apparel." And then skipping down to the end of the verse he gets very specific, "Not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes."

Now you really cannot have a problem understanding what he says. It's very, very simple and very clear. But I want you to understand the intent of it in full so I want you to look at it in detail. First of all, the phrase "in like manner" takes us back to verse 8 where he said "I will that men behave in this way...in like manner, women in this way..." In like manner introduces a new subject but a related one. It is a new dimension of the total subject of how men and women conduct themselves in the worship in the assembly of the believers. The word "like manner" transitions within a broad subject matter to another emphasis.

For example, in chapter 3 he begins to talk about the bishop or elder or pastor. Then in verse 8 he says, "In like manner the deacon..." in verse 11, "In like manner the women..." And there what he's doing is within the context of those who are officially recognized as servants of the church, he transitions from elders to deacons to what we know as deaconesses. So the little word "in like manner" which is one word in the Greek is the transition within a large subject to another dimension of that discussion. So, he is moving then from the general attitude of men in worship to the general attitude and demeanor of women.

Now go back to the beginning of verse 8 and you will notice the verb "I will." This is boulomai, this is the will of intent, this is the will of purpose, this is the will of determination, this is the will of command. This is not thelo, the will of a wish, the will of emotion. This is "I command," it carries apostolic intent, it carries divine authority. He is commanding that men pray and that women adorn themselves in a proper way.

Now then after stating the intent is to command, we get an idea that this is serious business. And what is it specifically that he is after? "That women, also," the "also" being there to indicate men are to behave in this way, and also women in this, "They are to adorn themselves."

Now let me just talk about the word "adorn." The word "adorn" is kosmeo. We get the word cosmetic from it. It has to do with how a woman prepares herself. It means basically to arrange, to put in order, to make ready. And he is saying a woman is to make herself ready. I want to start with that very simple thought. When a woman comes to worship, there is a preparation involved. A woman should prepare herself for worship. She should make herself ready, that is assumed, that is a given. And when they prepare themselves, it should be in adorning apparel. And here is another form of the word kosmeo from the same root, this is an adjective, kosmios and it simply carries the same idea. She is to prepare herself with the proper preparation. She is to adorn herself with the proper adornment. The word kosmios, the adjective form, means orderly, becomingly, properly, well-ordered, well-arranged. So a woman, then, is to come to worship properly arranged. That is to say that there is some preparation for worship, obviously.

Now the word that is translated in the King James by the term "apparel" is really a bigger term than that. It means not only clothing but is used in many places to mean demeanor or attitude or action. It can be the deportment of a woman. The idea then is here is a total preparation. When a woman comes to worship, she is to be totally prepared. She is to be adorned from the inside out. And one demonstration of that is in the proper kind of apparel.

Now we said the word kosmeo is to arrange and kosmios speaks of the orderness...orderliness of that arrangement. The noun that comes from that same root is the word kosmos from which we get the word "world." It's translated very often world. It really means order or system. And the opposite of kosmos is chaos. And so we could conclude that a woman is not to come to worship in a chaotic fashion. That is in disorder, disarray, without a proper preparation, with an unbecoming demeanor, or an unbecoming wardrobe.

Now the idea we know here emphasis wise is clothing, but the underline idea is attitude which we'll get to in a moment which is godly fear and self-control. But he is talking about clothing because he's very specific about hair, gold, pearls and expensive garments.

The point is this, initially a woman is to prepare herself for worship. And that preparation involves a heart attitude and it involves a proper adornment on the outside. She is to come not in a disarray in spirit and not in a disarray in clothing, not in a disarray in any way but in proper respect for the matter of worship. She is to be dressed in a manner that is well suited to worship, that is orderly, that fits the God intended spiritual purpose of the meeting of the church. Her clothing should reflect a worshiping heart focused on God and focused on God's glory.

Now Paul does not just leave with that general exhortation but he gets very specific at the end of verse 9, let's look at it. He says, just in case you might miss what I'm talking about, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes. Now here the Apostle hits at some very specific styles of extravagance that corrupted the worship of the church at Ephesus and perhaps other churches as well. It is very straightforward and very practical and it needs our attention and understanding.

Now Paul, let me say this, is not saying that women ought to come to church tacky or slovenly or sloppy or indifferent. He is not saying that. He is not saying that they should not be nicely dressed. He has just finished saying that they ought to come with a right preparation which assumes that they would be properly dressed, in a way that is becoming both to the grace and beauty of a woman and to the purpose and intent of worshiping God. But as the tendency of men was to perhaps dissent and quarrel and maybe carry a grudge and maybe dirty their hands in the things of life and come with their sins, the tendency of a woman might be to be preoccupied with her outward adornment so that she would abuse the worship service.

Now let me give you a little idea of what the culture was like and where these things might come from. There was a man by the name of Juvenal who lived about 40 to...about 60 to 140 A.D. He was a poet and he has written many things that we have found and so we get a little characterization of that time in the Roman Empire by reading his writing. In one document that has been found, he wrote this: "There is nothing that a woman will not permit herself to do. Nothing that she deems shameful. And when she encircles her neck with green emeralds and fastens huge pearls to her elongated ears, so important is the business of beautification. So numerous are the tiers and stories piled one another on her head that she pays no attention to her own husband," end quote.

Now Juvenal gives us a little insight into women who were preoccupied with their appearance. And certainly we would agree today that our culture is preoccupied with that. Our culture has the cult of worshiping the human anatomy and worshiping fashion and worshiping hairdos. I mean, it's just...it's our culture. And if the church today falls influence to that system, why should we expect anything different in the early church? It's always the world system that endeavors to encroach on the church and tragically the church sooner or later seems to welcome that encroachment. There were women in the church in that time whose life was frankly centered on their appearance, as there are women today in the church who have that same mentality. They come to church with the intent of making an elaborate display of their clothing and their hairdo.

In Philo's description of a prostitute which is quite interesting in his writing called "The Sacrifices of Cain and Abel," he writes this, "A prostitute is often described as having hair dressed in elaborate braids, her eyes with pencil lines, her eyebrows smothered in paint and her expensive clothes embroidered lavishly with flowers and bracelets and necklaces of gold and jewels hanging all over her," end quote.

Now in that particular culture then the woman of the world, the woman who wanted to flaunt her wealth and flaunt her beauty and call attention to herself and attract everybody's interest and sexually allure someone was the woman who was overdressed, over-made up and over painted in every sense. Now this was the woman of the world. This marked out the prostitute or the garish gaudy lavish kind of person. And what the Apostle Paul is saying, that cannot come into a worship service without being an overt statement--Folks, I'm not here to worship God, I'm here to attract your attention. That's his intent.

In Rome, for example, Pliny tells of the bride of Calligula(?) whose name was Lolia Polena(?) and it said that very often when attending some very special event, she was arrayed in pearls, emeralds and gold which exceeded in value one million dollars.

Now in contrast to the woman of the world who was gaudy and showy and wanted to be alluring and attractive and draw attention to herself, it is interesting to note that if you study the cults of Rome, that is the cultic religious systems, and study the mystery religions of that time, you will find that they had very stringent rules about the dress and the appearance of the women who came into those worship times. The cults were very strong on this. For example, there's one inscription that has been discovered that reads like this: "A consecrated woman shall not have gold ornaments nor rouge nor face whitening, nor a headband, nor braided hair, nor shoes except they be of felt or the skins of sacrificed animals," end quote.

Now that religious cult was saying that no woman can come in here unless she is properly dressed. That's still very much a part of the cults and religions of the world. If you were to go, for example, to visit a Moslem mosque anywhere in the world, I've been in several of them in the Middle East, particularly the one in Jerusalem, if you try to go into that place as a woman and are not properly dressed, they will not admit you, in fact, they will dress you appropriately to go in. In many cases those cultic operations of religion have a higher standard than the church has through the years.

So, you can see the tension that is existing in the Ephesian congregation that is concerning Paul and Timothy. And that is the fact that here is the church sitting in the middle of the corrupt world, endeavoring to be a testimony of godliness to everyone around it. And if the church catches the disease of the world, then it brings reproach on Christ and it destroys its own testimony. To have the women in the church who are supposed to be the epitome of godliness appear like prostitutes or gaudy showy women trying to call attention to themselves, or to have them come with the intent of alluring other men and making them discontent with their own wife, or even worse, to allure them into a sexual relationship would be to blaspheme the intent of the church, certainly when it comes together to worship the living and holy God.

So, the point in all of this is that the world of that day and the world of this day has always had a preoccupation with the adornment of women. And there are always women who want to put themselves on display. And it's a very delicate balance and a very fine line for a godly woman to know when she is properly dressed to demonstrate the grace and the beauty of womanhood, to show her love for her own husband and submission to him and yet to avoid being the center of attraction that causes people's thoughts to turn away from God to those things which are shameful.

Now you have to understand, also, that in that particular time there was great poverty among the masses of people. And a wealthy person could put on a demonstration that was really hard to match. Frankly, today I can't tell a five-hundred dollar dress from a forty-five dollar one. I've got to tell you the truth, ladies. I'm not sure how you tell. Maybe you are. It's a different time, it's a different day. But I want you to get a little idea of that day so you can understand what the issue is here.

In that day, people were very poor. In fact, for example, a very costly dress worn by a very wealthy woman would cost up to seven-thousand denarii. Now a denarius is one day's pay for a common laborer. So seven thousand days pay for one of those dresses. And she would come flowing into church in one of these very expensive garments and the whole focus of worship would turn to her. And everything would be lost. And the women would feel second class and the men would take a look at their wife and look at her...(snap)...why couldn't I have married a rich one, you know? It just did not contribute to worship.

And then there were those women, frankly, who had their intent set on alluring men. And so they would come dressed in clothing that was not modest, clothing that demonstrated sensuality, passion, lust, desire, that was intended to allure and attract. And thus with those lustful purposes did they betray and desecrate the spirit of worship.

So Paul hits at that very directly and look what he says. First he deals with braided hair. Now this idea of plaiting, the old word is plaiting, p-l-a-i-t-i-n-g. We don't exactly know specifically what that was, it was some way of weaving the hair. Does this mean it's a sin to put pigtails on your little girl or braid your hair? No. That's not the intent. The intent is that it was a sin to overdo and to develop such an elaborate hairdo that it did nothing but call attention to yourself. And what happened was, the women would literally take their gold and silver and pearls and jewelry and these tortoise shell combs and things like that and they would stack their fortune on their head. This was the custom. A braid is one thing, a braid woven with a gold chain, another braid woven with pearls is something else. This was a way of flaunting wealth. And that's what Paul speaks to...the elaborate braiding of a fortune in jewelry in the hair. Gold, of course, has always been valuable. It was then and in those days pearls were about three times the value of gold so a woman could put a fortune on her head.

The women also wore gold on their fingers. They wore them on their ears. They wore them on their sandals. They even hung gold on their dresses. And it was out of place.

Now that is not to say that you shouldn't own gold and pearls. I gave my wife a gold ring when I married her and I bought her some pearls. And I've told her she can wear them. I've got $60 in those things. But I notice she didn't wear them this morning, she knew what I was going to preach on. There's nothing in the Scripture to indicate that God wants everybody poor. And I remember so well, and you do to, don't you remember reading in Song of Solomon, chapter 1 verses 9 to 11, how that the bride is decked in beautiful things around her neck? And I'm reminded of the Proverbs 31 woman in verse 22 who had such beautiful clothing in order to honor her husband and appear beautiful in her presence. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that when that becomes the focus of your attention and the intent that you have is to draw attention to yourself by that, and you know that in your environment and in your culture that's exactly what it does, you have violated the spirit of worship. So women are to come not for the purpose of alluring men from their own wives by putting on a display of lust or sexuality, not for the purpose of parading their wealth, not for the purpose of showing off in any of those ways, but women do that. And very often do that to allure men.

After a sermon some time back, I walked out the door there and a woman met me there, a woman who was overly dressed and not appropriately attired for church and she held out her hand and handed me something and I took it and opened it and in it was a well...an expensive piece of jewelry and a gold chain and a note soliciting me. Now that's pretty overt. I don't know how it could be more overt. But there are much more subtle solicitations that go on all the time in the church. If you don't think so, your head is in the sand. Just look how many pastors fall...just look how much immorality exists in a church. It's not new, folks. It's that which he's dealing with right here, that people should be discontent with their own wife or their own economic status is not certainly the purpose for which a woman comes to worship. So we might say the curtain comes down on the fashion show in the church in this passage.

Dressing on the part of women with sexual desires or insubordination to their husbands or to flaunt their wealth or to flaunt their beauty, make themselves attractive to someone other than their husband is a desecration of worship. To show you how old this is, John Chrysostom, one of the early church fathers, wrote this, "And what then is modest apparel?" Commenting on this passage. "Such as covers them completely and decently and not with superfluous ornaments, for the one is decent and the other is not. What? Do you approach God to pray with braided hair and ornaments of gold? Are you come to a ball? To a marriage feast? To a carnival? There such costly things might have been seasonable. Here not one of them is wanted. You are come to pray, to ask pardon for your sins, to plead for your offenses, beseeching the Lord and hoping to render Him propitious to you. Away with such hypocrisy." End quote.

So, a Christian woman should attract attention to her character not her clothing. A Christian woman should show by her dress and her demeanor her love and devotion to her own husband. She should show by her dress and desire that she has no intent to flaunt her wealth but that she is in appearance and attitude marked out by a humble heart that is obviously committed to worshiping the living God. And some single women are going to say, "But wait a minute, I'm not married. And I've got to attract somebody soon." I can understand that. But the worship service isn't the place to do that. That's not the worship service function.

Furthermore, it might just be that the person you want to attract will be most attracted by your godly character. I hope so. You'd hate to get stuck with somebody who was attracted by everything but that. And by the way, I'm going to say a word before this series is over about you men that ought to be attracted to godly character and aren't showing that you're being attracted by it. It's time for a lot of you to get married. But we'll get into that later. (Clapping) Some of these godly women have made sufficient the point of their godliness and some of you men...need to respond. Now back to the point.

I mean, we're all aware of 1 Samuel 16, aren't we? First Samuel 16:7 says man looks on the outward appearance but God looks where? On the heart. And that's what he's saying here. And if you're worried about how do I know if it's right? How do I know if I'm dressed right? Just check your heart. I don't believe we need to get specific and I don't think we're going to have a dress check. I'm not going to stand at the door and say, "You're okay...you're not okay...you're okay...you're not okay." I know there's a black pastor in L.A. told me a lady came to his church door one time and he said to her, this is the way he said it, "Baby, you can't come in here." And she said to him why? He said, "You aren't dressed right. You go home and you get yourself dressed properly." And he said to me, he said, "She came back a half an hour later and I was up at the front and she walked through the door and I stopped and I said, "Honey, you look good...come on in." And he said that's how we deal with that problem.

Well, we're not going to hire somebody to check you out at the door. I really don't feel that that's necessary. I think that's between you and the Holy Spirit. And all you have to do is do a motive check. How's your spirit? What's your intent? Why are you dressed the way you're dressed? What's your goal? What's your object? Are you going to do everything you can to draw everyone's attention to God or are you trying to draw their attention to you?

Matthew chapter 6, Jesus said, "Why do you take any thought about your apparel?" Right? Why do you give that any thought? "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things shall be added." God will provide that.

Look at 1 Peter chapter 3 and that's the parallel passage that's so important. First Peter chapter 3, he's talking about husbands and wives and their relationship together. And as he talks about this he gets to verse 3 and speaks of the adornment of the woman. And he says a woman's adornment, and here he's not only talking particularly about the church but he seems to have even stretched beyond that and is talking about how a godly wife wins over an ungodly husband. You're adorning, he says, let it not be that outward adorning of braiding the hair. And he refers to that same custom of spending too much time and too much money and too much effort on your hair. Let it not be that. Or the wearing of gold or the putting on of clothing but let it be the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which in the sight of God is really valuable. Now he says when you women think about your adornment, don't think about your hair and don't think about your clothes and don't think about your jewelry, think about your what? Your heart...your heart.

Now I want you to know that this is not forbidding you to wear pearls. It's not forbidding you to wear gold. I'll show you why it can't be doing that. Look at verse 3 again. "Whose adorning, let it not be the outward adorning of braiding the hair or of wearing gold or putting on apparel." Now if he means you can't braid your hair and you can't wear gold, he also means you can't put on clothes. Now we know he doesn't mean that. What he means is let that not be that which is the preoccupation of your adornment. Put on your clothes and wear whatever jewelry you choose to wear in discretion, modesty and humility and fix your hair in such a way that it is not distracting. And by the way, the other extreme may be as bad as this one, coming to church with no preparation will cause attention to be drawn to you as well. And I...it's amazing, the world is coming to a...what looks to me like an anti-beauty fashion. Do you feel that way? I tell you, I have never seen so many ugly hairdos and wardrobes in my life. (Clapping) It's almost as if women have bought the lie that womanhood is bad and they want to make it as ugly as possible. It's amazing...amazing. The point that I'm making is that the woman's adornment is to be that she has an adorned heart, she has a beautiful heart, she has a beautiful character. You show me a woman with a beautiful character, you show me a woman with a meek and quiet spirit, you show me a woman who has an incorruptible heart, you show me a woman who comes to worship God and I'll show you a woman whose wardrobe you don't have to worry about because the heart dictates that issue.

So, Paul calls Christian women then as does Peter to an adornment that exalts God, especially in the time of worship. Now when you have a wedding, you can dress like a bride. And when you go to some very formal occasion, you may dress properly for that. And there may be a special time for everything. But the worship of the church is a time for humility, it's a time for meekness, it's a time for a broken and a contrite spirit. It's a time for confessing your sin.

Now that comes through in the second point. The first is their appearance. Let's go back to verse 9 again. The second is their attitude. This is just a brief point. Just two words, their attitude. Their attitude in preparation for worship, the attitude of women, is to be godly fear and the Authorized says sobriety. That's a bad word for us because we think of someone who's not a drunk. But that isn't what it means. It is the word self-control. On the one hand, godly fear. On the other hand, self-control. A woman's adornment starts with the heart. Ladies, it all starts with the heart. Godly fear is a word used only here, the word aidos, it means modesty mixed with humility. It's a marvelous word. It has at its heart the sense of shame. That's right. It has at its heart the sense of shame. The root idea is a sense of shame.

What do you mean by that, I'm ashamed to be a woman? No. I'm ashamed of my clothes? No. I'm ashamed of my husband? No. I'm ashamed of my hair? No. I am ashamed if I in any way would ever contribute to someone else's thought being an evil thought, a lustful thought, a thought of illicit desire, or that I should ever distract anyone from a proper worship of God. It's that kind of shame. And a woman with a proper sense of shame will dress in such a way as not to be alluring and not to be the source of temptation. The word carries in it the innate idea of morally rejecting anything dishonorable to God, of shrinking way back from the limits of womanly modesty. One lexicographer, that is one translator of the Greek, suggests that the word implies something as strong as grief over the sense of sin, that a woman would be so grieved and so sensitive to sin, so hating sin that offends God that she would never come close to doing anything that could generate in another person's mind any sinful attitude. The Old English word translated originally in the King James was shame facedness...shame fastness. This should be the attitude of every Christian woman. No desire to go beyond what is honorable, no desire to exceed what is pure, what is modest, what is proper before God, no desire to attract men, no desire to flaunt sexuality but a sense of shame that fits true modesty and faithfulness to one's own husband. And even as I said earlier, for a single woman that same modesty, that same beauty of godly character should become the most attractive thing about you in the proper sense. And when women come together in the fellowship of redeemed saints to worship God, they are here for that purpose and everything they do as well as everything men do should draw our hearts toward God.

The second word is the word self-control. It could be translated a lot of ways. Some of translated it good sense, but that is really too thin a translation. It does nothing with the richness of the term. It really speaks of self- mastery. In fact, it has as sexual nuance to it in extra- biblical literature and it has the idea of controlling totally your passion and your desire, totally controlling your desires. Plato said it is one of the four cardinal virtues and when it applied to women said it has to do with their sexual desires being totally controlled.

It speaks of the habitual self-control of constant reign over your passion. That's to mark the women that they have total control of that area, that they are here for the purpose of worshiping God, exclusively committed to godly fear, a sense of shame that they should ever be a source of temptation for anyone.

Now the point of all this is obvious. The church can be a place where worship happens. Or the church can be a place devoted whole-heartedly to people putting on a show. You see, this is what so deeply bothers me when I see, very often, on television, people who say they represent Christianity, people who claim to be workers and servants of the Lord who betray an absolutely consuming preoccupation with their own appearance. It's just the antithesis of everything they claim, and certainly should not mark the church. But there are some self-centered women who are using the occasion of the church meeting together to call attention to themselves, flaunt their beauty, flaunt their wealth, their attractiveness before men because they lack humility, they lack meekness, they lacked modesty and control over their own desires. And it brings great tragedy to the church.

I believe it brought great tragedy to this church. I'll show you right where. Look at chapter 3. Here as he gives a qualifications for a leader in the church, a pastor, a bishop, an elder, he says this man who oversees the church, the pastor, must be blameless, verse 2, and then the Greek says "A one-woman man." It has nothing to do with divorce. It has nothing to do with polygamy as such. What it is saying is this, that a man who leads the church of Jesus Christ must be a one-woman man, that is in his marriage, in his mind, in his heart he is devoted to one woman. And I believe that that was one of the major problems in that church and that's why that follows immediately on this section, that there were men in the leadership of that church with bad theology, with ungodly lives and one manifestation of it was pastors who were not faithful to their own wives. And that's why that is a first issue. After the overarching idea of blameless of which all the rest are elements, the first one listed is a one-woman man because Satan would love to bring alluring women into the church to destroy the leadership. And he does it all the time. And it's not to say the women are alone at fault, that is not so....but that is not so but they are who do that at fault.

Look at verse 12, it not only had impacted those who were elders in the church but even the deacons. And so in introducing this thought to the deacons we find a parallel. "Let the deacons be one-woman men." And chapter 5 verse 14, "Get those young women married." You know what is a danger to the church? Beloved, I really believe this with all my heart, the mass of single women we have in today's society poses a very grave danger to the church because you have many unmarried women who have strong desire for marriage moving around in the church that creates tremendous problems. And that's why the word is they need to get married. And that's why I say of some of you men it's hard for them if you won't ask them. And in verse 15 he says some of you have already turned aside to Satan. Some of the women had gone that far.

Titus chapter 2, when Paul writes to Titus a similar thing, he says the aged women, the older women, chapter 2 verse 4, are to teach the young women to be sober minded, to love their husbands, love their children, be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands that the Word of God be not blasphemed. Apparently the same problem was going on in Crete. There were women who were not faithful to their husbands, not loyal to their children, not staying home, not doing what they should, not pure, not chaste. And the woman who comes to the church trying to stir up trouble by making herself attractive, violates the Word of God.

Look at 1 Corinthians, I want to show you, this is a very clear illustration of this very problem, 1 Corinthians 5, just briefly and then one other passage. First Corinthians 5, it is reported commonly, it's reported, it's known, it's around and not only by one or two sources but it's common knowledge, everybody knows that in the church at Corinth there is porneia, fornication, pornography, sexual sin. And such fornication that is not even named among the pagans that one should have his father's wife, incest. A form of incest, a son having a sexual affair with his step-mother, most likely. Most likely not his mother or it would have said that, his father's wife being a way to express the fact that this is his father's wife and yet not the mother of the son, a later marriage, but nonetheless a form of incest that a man should have his father's wife. And verse 2 makes it worse, instead of mourning over it you're proud of it, you're puffed up. Inconceivable, absolutely inconceivable in the church they are tolerating immorality, incest and not only are they tolerating it, they're proud about it so they talk about it so they get the reputation of it and it's commonly known.

Now how did they justify it? Chapter 6 verse 13, they justified it with this little sort of ancient Greek proverb, "Food for the body and the body for food." Food for the body and the body for food. What is that to say? It's biological, sex is biological...just biology, what's the difference? I mean, we're men, they're women, we were made for each other, sex is just a biological act, don't worry about it. He says God's going to destroy both it and them and the body is not for fornication. And he goes on to talk about how it is for them to join Christ to a harlot and have they forgotten their body's a temple of the Holy Spirit. And verse 18 says run from fornication and so forth.

So, the church at Corinth had gotten into sexual evil. There's little question in my mind that the same kind of alluring stuff was going on in the church there as was going on in Ephesus when Paul penned 1 Timothy. And it brings tragedy to the church. And today it is rampant in the church, rampant. And so women need to understand what God's principle is. Yes, there's a place for a woman to look graceful and lovely and gracious and to allow the beauty of the fairer sex that God has bestowed upon them to be appreciated. And yes, there's no place for a dowdy indifference to any kind of preparation for worship, but there is a limit. And that perfect balance is found by those whose hearts are right.

I want to close by reading you a portion of Isaiah chapter 3, so turn to your Old Testament, chapter 3 and verse 16. Uzziah is still on the throne. And under King Uzziah who reigned for 52 years, there was great prosperity among the people. They had peace from their enemies, they had a strong position in the cold war. They had economic growth. Even their religion flourished on the surface. There was wealth. As a result of it, the women entered into a gross materialism. And in Isaiah 3:16 to 24 God pronounces judgment on them and I want you to see why, beginning in verse 16. "Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty--that is proud--and walk with stretched-forth necks and lustful eyes--they're in the business of alluring-- walking and mincing," mincing would be sort of a sexual walk, it's a short little step, just a short little step like that drawing attention to yourself and also they would make a tinkling because they had bells on their feet, so here are women, they're out putting on a show to allure men.

"Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will uncover their secret parts." The greatest fear of a woman, nakedness in public. That's symbolic of the judgment of God. "In that day the Lord will take away the audacity of their tinkling anklets and their headbands and their crescents like the moon, the pendants and the bracelets and the veils, the headdresses, the armlets and the sashes, the perfume boxes and the amulets, the rings and nose rings, the festival robes, the mantles, the cloaks, the handbags, the hand mirrors, the linen wrappers, the turbans and the veils. And it shall come to pass that instead of sweet fragrance there shall be rottenness; instead of a girdle, a rope; instead of well set hair, baldness; instead of a robe, a girdle of sackcloth and branding instead of beauty. Thy men shall fall by the sword and thy mighty in the war and her gates shall lament and mourn and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground."

Those women who are haughty, those women who are lustful, those women who call attention to themselves for their own evil intent and purpose will be judged. This is the Word of God. All of those things in themselves are not evil. To put a ring on a woman's finger is not evil. For a woman to wear a sash is not evil. But to overdo it, to adorn for the sake of wantonness or lust, or flaunting wealth is evil. And particularly so among the congregation of the righteous. Showy clothes, elaborate hairdos, gaudy jewelry, sexual desire, hardly express a broken and a contrite heart which the Lord seeks. Let's bow in prayer.

I want to say something to you as we close. I have preached the Word of God as the Word of God but in my heart I have realized that I have preached it by way of reminder. And I must say to you, that I thank God for the grace and the sensitivity and the godliness of the women of this church. In no way do I intend in the message to speak evil against the women of this church. It's been my joy through these years to note by the grace of God that this church has never been hit with any great moral scandal. I praise God for godly women. This church has never been a place where fashion dominated and where people were preoccupied with their appearance and I bless God for that. And I commend the godly women of this congregation for their virtue, their modesty, their sensitivity, their grace and their beauty and for that meek and quiet spirit which is the true ornament of the heart. I thank God for that.

But while I am thankful I am also watchful as all of us must be lest when we think we stand we fall. And so we have much to thank God for and I thank you for demonstrating your love of God and commitment to worshiping Him and I remind us all of the need to continue to pursue such a holy perspective.

Father, I do thank You for these people in this congregation. I thank You for men with pure hearts and holy hands, for women marked by godly fear and self-control whose lives are a testimony to Christ and not a reproach. And I ask, Lord, that You would make all of us ever sensitive to that perfect balance between being what You have designed us to be in beauty and in grace and yet not overstepping the limits of modesty. I pray that You'll help every woman in this congregation to know that place and that You'll develop in every heart the meek and quiet spirit which is the true beauty of a woman. And in every man, the holy life and pure heart that is true manhood. And these things I ask because I know they're consistent with the will of Jesus Christ, amen.

God's High Calling for Women, Part 2

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 effected 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 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 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 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 spiritual dimension alongside men.

Now let me hasten to add this and listen carefully. This does not mean that they had the same role as men. And that is something we must understand. When we say that a woman has a different role in society and in the church than a man, we are not in any sense diminishing her spirituality. There are many roles in society. There are many functions in society. And one great distinguishing line in all those functions is that between man and woman. Anybody with any mentality at all knows that. I mean, you can talk about equality till there's no more people left to talk to and you can do all you can to bring about that equality but no man is ever going to produce and bear and give birth to a baby. Obviously, to the most limited intellect, men and women have a different role. I mean, how plain can something be.

But to say they have a different role does not depreciate them and does not diminish their spirituality in any sense. But think about role for a minute in the Old Testament and let's talk about that aspect of it. There are no women kings listed in the kings of Israel and there are no women kings listed in the kings of Judah. There are none. It would seem to me that that is a fairly significant statement about leadership. There are none.

There are no women priests in the entire Old Testament, none.

There are no women who wrote a book or a portion of a book in the Old Testament, none. Thirty-nine books, no one of them or even a portion of one of them was written by a woman...though two are named after women, Ruth and Esther, they were not written by women. There is no woman in the entire Old Testament who had an on-going prophetic ministry. That fascinates me as well. There is no woman who had an on-going prophetic ministry, who winds up in the minor prophets or the major prophets or who stands alongside of Elijah, Elisha or any other great teacher or leader of the Old Testament with an on-going ministry.

Now people today who want to advocate women preachers will say, "But there are several women mentioned as prophetess in the Old Testament." That is correct. There are five. And I'd like you to listen carefully as I describe those five to you.

The first woman listed as a prophetess is Miriam. Miriam is called a prophetess in Exodus 15:20. Miriam is the sister of Moses. She is called a prophetess because and only because she on one occasion led the women of Israel in a great hymn of praise with tymbral and dance wherein God gave her a revelation to speak, a very brief one. But at that time, she was a mouthpiece for God. God chose to speak to those women at that time of praise through her. We know of no other occasion where she ever acted in a prophetic office and had no on-going prophetic ministry. The word prophet or prophetess or to prophesy means to speak forth, obviously having reference to speaking forth the Word of God on that occasion. And she did that. But shows no on- going prophetic work.

The second of the five women called prophetess is a woman named Deborah who appears as a unique instrument of God in Judges chapter 4 and verse 4. She is there called a prophetess only because she was used by God to give a direct revelation from God to a man named Barak. She gave that direct revelation on that unique occasion in the battle that was going on and thus at that moment she was a prophetess. She was speaking on behalf of God.

God used her at that time to speak that message to an individual.

Miriam gave her prophecy to women. And Deborah spoke her prophecy basically to a man. But again, we know of no other occasion wherever she engaged herself in any kind of on-going prophetic work.

The third woman mentioned and called prophetess is Huldah, H-u-l-d-a-h. She's mentioned in 2 Kings 22:14 and following and 2 Chronicles 34:22 and following, parallel passages. She is called a prophetess only because she was given a revelation from God as Deborah was to be given to Hilkiah the priest about the coming judgment on Jerusalem and Judah. God spoke through her on that occasion. We know of no other such occasion, none other is ever recorded about her. And we know of no on-going prophetic ministry.

The fourth women called a prophetess is a woman named Noadiah and she is mentioned in Nehemiah 6:14 and is called a false prophetess and so we eliminate her. She was antagonistic against the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem and would have been an ally of Sanballat and Tobiah and the enemies who tried to keep the Jews from rebuilding their city. She was a false prophetess and there have been many women false prophetesses, to be sure.

The fifth one mentioned is the wife of Isaiah. And in Isaiah chapter 8 verse 3, his wife is called a prophetess only because she gave birth to a child whose name had prophetic meaning. She never spoke a prophecy. She simply gave birth to a child whose name had prophetic meaning. And she is called a prophetess only in that sense.

Now you can see from that illustration of the wife of Isaiah that the word prophetess was used in a somewhat general way. So you have five mentioned. One is a prophetess simply because she gave birth to a child whose name had a prophetic meaning.

Another is a false prophetess. And three are called prophetess because on one occasion they spoke a word on behalf of God. But there is, and I repeat again, no on-going prophetic ministry of a woman in the Old Testament.

Now what does that tell us? Without women kings, without women priests, without women authors of Scripture and without women prophets, we learn very much about God's design for the role of men and women. Please keep in mind this is not to speak depreciating in any way the woman's spiritual capability. It is talking about her role. And we'll fill that out as we go down through the rest of the passage. No woman in the Old Testament is seen in an on-going role of leadership under the authority and the plan of God or in any public preaching teaching ministry.

But women were used by God in many many areas.

Now we come to the New Testament and listen to what I show you in the New Testament which parallels that. The same equality of blessing and privilege is in the New Testament. The same thing is there. Let's go to Galatians chapter 3 and this is the passage that seems to be creating the controversy. Galatians 3 verse 28 and this is where people who advocate women ordination and women elders and women preachers and all of that, this is where they like to go. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Now that's pretty simple and I don't have a problem with that and you don't, no one really should.

All it's saying is that we're all one in Christ. In what sense? In what sense are we one in Christ? Well, you need to read the context to find out what he's talking about. So you go back a little bit and you find out that he's talking about salvation. You go back, for example, well, you could go back to verse 13, Christ has redeemed us. And he talks a little about redemption. You could go back to verse 22, the scripture's concluded everybody under sin and then the promise by faith of Jesus Christ is given to them that believe. And, of course, that's another way to look at salvation. We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are, at the end of verse 24, justified by faith. That is we're made right with God through our faith.

Verse 26, we're all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

We've all been baptized into Christ. We've put on Christ.

So, the equality and the oneness he speaks of, listen carefully, is that we are all one in the sense of salvation. You see that? It has nothing to do with the role of a woman or a man. We're all one in Christ. The point is, everyone can come to Christ, it doesn't matter if you're a Jew or a Gentile, it doesn't matter if you're a bondslave or a free man, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, you can all receive eternal life in Christ. Is that not the obvious intent of the passage?

Of course, we're all sons of God, we're all the seed of Abraham, that is we're connected to Abraham who's sort of like the father of those who have faith. We're all heirs, chapter 4. Verse 6 of chapter 4, we're all sons. We all possess the Holy Spirit. The whole passage before and after is talking about the wonderful reality of salvation in Christ which is available to all people, Jew, Gentile, bond, free, male or female. That's all it's talking about, it has nothing to do with the role of women in the church.

And it certainly doesn't mean that when you become a Christian all that's rubbed out. I mean, do we preach that when a Jew becomes a Christian he ceases to become a Jew? Or if you're a slave, you become a Christian and you're no longer a slave or if you're a free man you become a Christian you're no longer a free man? No. Whatever you are, you are. You're a Christian Jew or Christian Gentile, you're a Christian free man or you're a Christian bond man, you're a Christian man or you're a Christian woman. You don't stop being a man or a woman. No, those distinctions are obviously maintained. And so it's a ludicrous distortion of Scripture to try to take that passage and advocate through it that roles are equal when it's not even talking about roles, it's talking only about spiritual life available through the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

There is no question that there is spiritual equality in the New Testament. All of the commands of the New Testament, all of the spiritual promises of the New Testament, all the blessings of the New Testament, all the accountability of the New Testament spiritually in terms of how we live and what God will do in response to it is enjoined upon men and women. It is not isolated to men only, but to men and women. So we have all the same spiritual resources, all the same spiritual promises, all the same spiritual responsibilities. And I'm not even going to take time to go through all the New Testament and explain that to you, everything you read in here is for men and women. Never is that distinction sorted out in terms of spiritual responsibility or blessing or capacity.

But, though there is equality again, as in the Old Testament, in the spiritual duties and spiritual blessings, there is still a difference in roles...in roles. For example, in the New Testament there is no woman preacher...none. There is not a woman pastor-teacher. There is not a woman elder. There is not a woman evangelist. There is not a woman who wrote...and you have twenty-seven books in the New Testament...any portion of the New Testament. All sixty-six books are written by men. And the New Testament is consistent with God's plan for women as revealed in the Old, no woman is an evangelist, no woman is a preacher- teacher, no woman pastors a congregation, no woman takes the role of an elder. There is not recorded in the text of all the New Testament a sermon delivered by a woman...or teaching given by a woman, none. They are not prophets. They are not evangelists.

And so, women will come along and say, "But...but...but what about the four daughters of Philip?" In Acts 21:9 it says, "And Philip had four daughters, virgins who did prophesy." It does not say they were prophets. It does not say they were evangelists. It does not say they were missionaries. It does not say they were elders. It does not say they were pastor- teachers. It said they prophesied...sometime, someplace, like Deborah or Miriam by God's design and God's holy purpose they gave a word from God. We don't know why or how. We don't know whether they spoke in unison like a quartet or whether they spoke independently of each other...we just know that there was a time and a place when God spoke through them.

Listen, Mary--the mother of the Lord Jesus--herself spoke prophetically when she received from the Word of God Himself the response, you remember, in the presence of Elizabeth and she poured out what has become known as her Magnificat, her glory to God. She gives an utterance that is divine inspiration. In that sense, Mary prophesied, spoke forth the word mean, spoke forth the Word of God. And I'm sure there were many occasions when other women spoke forth the Word of God. In 1 Corinthians 11:5 it even says a woman who prays or prophesies should have her head covered. There were times and places for women to pray and to speak forth the Word of God. It says in Acts 2:17 that in the latter times, quoting from Joel, women will prophesy. It says your daughters will prophesy...your young men will dream dreams and your daughters will prophesy. The word simply means speak forth. There are times and places when women speak the Word of God. I hope every woman in this church does that. But that is distinctly different than being identified as a pastor-teacher, elder, evangelist, apostle...there are no women apostles, there are no women disciples, there are no women pastors, evangelists, etc., etc. That has to be noted...and no women wrote any part of the New Testament scripture. They have different roles.

Does that mean they were inadequate spiritually? Not at all. Not at all. We're going to get to it, women, but do you realize that men are in most cases the product of women? Not only physically in that sense, they're all products of women.

But in terms of their character development, they are most strongly influenced by women. Timothy who learned at the feet of his mother and grandmother is a product himself of a woman who learned the Word of God and who spoke it forth. But that is very much different than taking the role intended for men in the church.

Now let me speak a little further about the equality of sexes so that you're not misled by this. In no sense is a woman second-class in the New Testament. For example, Jesus first led a woman to the knowledge of Himself. In John 4, the first person He ever exposed His Messiahship to was a woman...a woman...not just a woman but a wicked woman who had a whole handful of husbands and was living in adultery. It was to that woman of Samaria He met at the well in Sychar that He brought the wonderful truth of who He was and, I believe, brought her salvation. In Luke 13 and Mark 5, Jesus healed women. He had just as much compassion on them as He did on men. He was just as concerned to heal them as He was men. Jesus taught women, Luke 10:38 to 42, shows Him in that role of teaching women. He was ministered to personally, it says in Luke 8 verse 3 that a whole group of women surrounded Him and offered Him their care and their support and sustenance. I don't know what their ministry was, maybe they...maybe they provided food and lodging and perhaps repaired clothes and perhaps came alongside to pray. But the traveling band of disciples would be Jesus, the disciples and a whole group of women. But at no time do those women preach or teach. They had a role there but that role was distinct from the role of Christ and the Twelve. But Jesus was ministered to by women.

And you remember, don't you, in Matthew, as you come to the end of the gospel of Matthew, chapter 27, verses 54 and following, that when Jesus was dying on the cross all the men are gone and who's left? Just the women which speaks volumes about the intimate relationship that existed between them and Christ. And they not only loved Him but they felt loved by Him. He gave His heart as much to women as ever to men. In John, when a sinful woman was dragged before Jesus, He defended that sinful woman, forgave her sin, loved her, redeemed her. And then chastised the men who hypocritically condemned her without condemning themselves for the same sin. Jesus called women to the highest priority in life and that was to obedience. He called women to be obedient, Luke 11:28 is an illustration of that.

When Jesus rose from the dead, to whom did He first appear, a man or a woman? First appeared to a woman. And Jesus called for women to be evangelized. He said, "Go into all the world,"

Mark 16:15, "and preach the gospel to every creature," that includes women. In 1 Peter 3 he said, Yes, women are the weaker vessel, that's by the design of God, physically they're weaker, sure. Men are to be their protector and they're to be their strength. But even as the weaker vessel, he said you two are heirs together of the grace of life. When it comes to inheriting grace from God, you inherit it together. The fruit of the Spirit of Galatians 5 is for men and women. The blessings of obedience are for men and women. And when Paul chronologues in Romans 16 all the people who helped him in his ministry, the list is full of women.

You see, beloved, women have a very, very important place in the economy of God and they are on equal level with the men in terms of spiritual life, but not role. Now that's why he says, and let's look at our text, "Let the women learn." They have to learn. Why? How else can they speak it to their children? How else can they give counsel to others? How else can they be used to bring people to Christ? How else can they live obediently to the glory of God? How else can they be blessed? How else can they be enriched? Let the women learn. This does not rub out the difference. The difference is the same, it's there, God's designed it. And I want it to be clearly understood that when we say there's a difference between the role of a man and a woman, we are in no sense saying there's a difference in their spiritual capacity or their need to know the Word of God.

Now as we close, I want to say something very personal. I thank God over the years at this church for the tremendous, tremendous ministry that women have had. I want you to know that this church wouldn't be in the place that it's in now being so blessed by God if it were not for the women of this church. I have never seen a church with more aggressive faithful Christ- exalting women than this church. And I have never seen a church where women feel more freedom, more liberty, more joy, more exhilaration in doing that ministry. And yet from the outside, we are accused of being chauvinistic, we're accused of being narrow-minded, antiquated, traditional. We're accused of belonging to the dinosaur age. But the truth of the matter is I praise God that for all the years of my ministry in this church, a high priority has been to let the women learn. I rejoice that women are learning in this church and from the very earliest days when on Tuesday mornings I taught a women's Bible study, right on through to today where we now have every week Every Woman's Grace, which is a learning time on Wednesdays. We have Every Woman's Grace, I don't know if you know this, in English, we have Every Woman's Grace in Spanish and we have an Every Woman's Grace on Friday in Korean. And women are learning. And it's marvelous, it's marvelous. It strengthens every dimension of the life of the church. And many of you men can be blessed by God and grateful to Him that your wife has grown and learned things from the Word of God which can enrich her own life and her relationship to you and your family.

I praise God for that. I don't believe as the press tries to paint it and as people outside try to paint it that we have a whole lot of deprived women who are bound in a traditionalism that's not true to the contemporary mentality as I read about us in this and that. I believe that our women at Grace Community Church have experienced the true freedom to be all that God wants them to be within the role God's designed for them. And I thank God for all of you and I thank God for the commitment of this whole church to the fact that women have to learn. So Paul says, "Let the women learn." And we shall be committed wholeheartedly to that so that they can fulfill their role.

Having said that in that verse 11, he then qualifies it by saying, "In silence with all subjection." And you say, "Wait a minute...what's that mean?" And I say, come back next Sunday and I'll tell you what it means. Let's bow in prayer.

Father, we can't express in words what a joy it is to be a part of a fellowship where there are godly men and godly women, to be part of a church where the women have learned and lived the truth of Your Word, where they know the freedom of Christ, to be part of a fellowship where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, male or female, to know that all of us together enjoy the blessings of spiritual life in Thee, where all of us enjoy the richness of the precious Word.

I thank You, Lord, through the many years for the women who have learned, who have read the books and listened to the tapes and studied on their own, who have heard the teaching and who as a result of that are serving effectively for You in their families and in their areas of life in responsibility and even in the church. I thank You, Father, for that.

I thank You for these godly women who understand both the high priority of spiritual equality and also the very clear definition of the role You've designed for them. Bless them, Lord, and honor them for that faithfulness.

I thank You, also, Lord, that You've been so clear in Your Word, that these things are so obvious to us as we look at Your holy book. Help us, Lord, to be a part of the solution, not the problem. Help us to clearly define the place of man and the place of woman so that each can come to the fullest satisfaction of living out the divine intention. And may we know that any perversion of that is a terrible tragedy as it alters Your plan, violates Your will and brings great distress to people who otherwise would be fully satisfied in the place of Your design.

Make us willing, Lord, to be what You want us to be and to rejoice in that privilege and to fulfill the role that You've given us in order that Your Kingdom might go forward, that we might be blessed and Your name exalted...amen.

God's High Calling for Women, Part 3

Let's open our Bibles together to 1 Timothy chapter 2--1 Timothy chapter 2. A couple of weeks ago I was reading a very interesting biographical sketch of a rather famous family. Some of us remember the name Beecher as a family in American history. Surely you know the name Harriet Beecher Stowe, a great American novelist. Harriet Beecher Stowe was one of thirteen children. The oldest member of the family was Catherine Beecher, she was the oldest of the thirteen. She was one of nine children by her mother and there were four other children born to a step-mother whom her father married after her mother had died. Catherine Beecher particularly grew up having a natural love for children. She found great joy in the duties of raising children. She loved to care for infants. She loved to care for little children. When Catherine was only 16, and all of the rest of the children born to the mother, nine of them, were younger than she was, her mother died. So she was left really to mother eight other little children. Her mother had been very skilled in domestic hand craft and spent a great amount of time teaching Catherine how to take care of the home. And so she was quite good at that by the age of 16. Into the home came an aunt and the aunt was to be the replacement for mother. And the aunt was remarkable for her neatness and her order and her ability to deal with things on an economical basis. Later on, she was replaced by a step-mother who was expert in all matters of administration in the home. Under them all, Catherine--with experience and the tutelage of these women--by the age of 23 had learned all that was to be learned about domestic life and decided that the state of women in the United States was so severe that she needed to do something very dramatic to train women for domestic responsibility.

So, she founded the Hartfort Female Seminary, the design of which was to train women to be lovers of their husband, lovers of their children and keepers at home. She and her sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, not only founded the Hartfort Women Seminary but a couple of years later they founded the same thing in Cincinnati, Ohio with the view to training women for domestic responsibility. At that same time, around 1869, they wrote a book entitled The American Woman's Home. Let me read you just a little of it. "Women's calling embraces the care and nursing of babies in those critical periods of infancy and sickness--the training of the minds of children in the most impressionable years of life, childhood. It involves the matter of meeting the needs of her husband so that his life is enriched and his home a haven. It involves the responsibilities of the economy of the house for the benefit of family and all others who grace it. These duties are as sacred and demanding as any given to man. Yet, where is her preparation? And what body certifies her as duly prepared to give the best to her calling?" End quote. As a result of that desire to give to women training so that they could be capable at their domestic responsibility, they founded the two seminaries and they wrote this as their purpose, "The purpose is to teach women how not only to perform in the most approved manner all the manual employments of domestic life, but to honor and enjoy them."

Now the reason I read you that is just to kind of give you a little idea of how far we have come in a few years. The cigarette commercial that said, "You've come a long way, baby," is indeed true. If anybody imagined to start a female seminary to train women today in domestic responsibility, they would become the instant laughing stock of the whole United States...if not most of the world. It would be absolutely bizarre for anyone to attempt to gain society's approval for such an effort. Can you imagine the kind of ridicule that would come upon someone for doing that? To endeavor to train women to be lovers of their husband, lovers of their children and keepers at home would put a person in direct opposition to everything that's happening in human society.

By the way, such a seminary, or such training similar to that seminary is the goal of the Master's College and soon you'll be hearing about our emphasis in that area. We are in a day today when role reversal is really high priority for Satan. It would be one thing if it was occupying itself with the world, but it is even more tragic when it occupies itself with the church. And the church today has definitely lost its sense of perspective and balance in terms of what a woman's role is to be. I'm amazed month by month to see more and more traditional evangelical Bible believing people begin to change their view of the woman's role under the pressure of the society around them. The sad part is that they are then instructing women to deny a God-given and a God-ordained pattern for life which would bring them the highest joy. And that's sad.

It was a problem in the day of Catherine Beecher, it's a problem today and I would like to add it was a problem in the day when Paul wrote his first letter to Timothy. And as you look at 1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 9 through 15, you will note that Paul is dealing with that very problem. He is identifying here a problem of women who were asserting themselves and trying to overtake the role of men in the church. They were acting indecently in the church. They were acting shamefully. They were violating their God-ordained place, defying the divine standard. And so Paul writes to Timothy encouraging him with this corrective in verses 9 to 15 to set things in order in the church at Ephesus where Timothy is located at the present time. So, they had their own problems in that time as we have the problem in this time.

Now in verses 9 to 15, a very concise passage, there are seven verses there but they're very brief with the exception of verse 9, so there really aren't a lot of words here, but in a very few words there is a very comprehensive treatment of the role of women. That's why it's going to take us the past two weeks, this week and at least one more to get through these verses because they open up to us such a wide-range of understanding that must be explored in order to get the full teaching of Scripture. But in these brief verses there is a presentation of six elements related to a woman's place in the church. Now we're not talking about the home here, we're not talking about secular society here, we're just talking about the church. In fact, we're talking about the church when it comes together to worship. We're talking about the order of the church, behavior in the church.

These six elements with which Paul deals are their appearance, their attitude, their testimony, their role, their design and their contribution. And he emphasizes all of these things in a way that is sort of building to a climax that comes in verse 15 which we'll look at next week. And I'm telling you, I can hardly wait. It's so wonderful.

But let's be reminded in verse 9 of their appearance. "In like manner, also, that women adorn themselves in proper apparel with godly fear and self-control, not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or expensive clothing." Now the first thing that occupies the mind of Paul, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, is that women are to dress in such a way that they are fit for worship. They are dressed in such a way that they draw attention to their devotion to God and not to themselves. They are not to flaunt their sexuality. They are not to flaunt their wealth. They are not to flaunt an attitude of insubordination to their husbands. They are not to make other people look at them with envy. They are not to create sexual enticement in other men. All of these things are bound up in what we saw in verse 9. Their appearance is very very important. Obviously some women were coming together in the assembly of the redeemed saints and calling attention to themselves for their own passion's fulfillment and their own selfish desires.

Secondly, we looked at their attitude. Their attitude was to be one of godly fear. That word really has as its root the idea of a sense of shame. They are to have a proper shame about themselves. That doesn't mean a woman is to be ashamed of herself. That doesn't mean she's to be ashamed of her beauty and hide it. What it means is she is to have a sense of shame that says I would never want to do anything to cause someone else to be illicitly attracted. I would never want to do anything that would cause someone else's attention to be drawn away from God to me. Her attitude is one of a sense of shame, that she should ever be the cause of someone else's sin.

Secondly, self-control...and the word is related to controlling her desires and controlling her passions and not being in a position to cause others to have wrong desire. So, their appearance then ought to be fit worship, and their attitude as well.

Thirdly, their testimony in verse 10 is a part of his discussion. A woman who professes publicly godliness should prove that confession with good works. So, you have not only appearance and attitude but you have her action, or her activity. That which she does, that which she says should indicate the legitimacy of her claim to godliness.

Now those three then brought us to the fourth, and we're going to look at it again today, and that is their role. And now you come to the real heart of this text in verses 11 and 12. The role of the women is given in these words, "Let the women learn in silence with all subjection, but I permit not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man but to be in silence."

Now you will notice that verse 11 begins with being in silence and verse 12 ends with being in silence. And so that brackets the whole idea here and becomes the dominant thought. The dominant thought is that when the church comes together for worship, the women are to be in silence. And in the middle of that he sort of speaks to that very issue.

Now as we looked at this role of women given by God and created in women by His creative power, we first of all and last week emphasized the opening statement of verse 11, "Let the women learn." And I hope you understood the major point that I was making is that on the spiritual level men and women are equal. They're equal. And as a result of that, they are equally entitled to be involved in the learning process. And we suggested to you that there were, no doubt, people in the church at Ephesus who came out of a Jewish background or people in that church who came out of a Greek background, both of which diminished the role of women, both of which held that women were inferior and both of which would assume that it wasn't important or even necessary that women learn anything. And so this, no doubt, had filtered into the church and Paul is saying let the women learn. Let them--manthano is the verb, we get the word "disciple" from it--let them be disciples, let them be learners, let them be in on the process of grasping understanding and applying divine truth. And don't let the influence of Jewish culture or Greek culture which diminishes and denigrates the role of women speak evil of them and hinder them from learning the truth of God.

And we went to the Old Testament, you remember, and I told you that the law was given for men and women. And the rules about the Passover were given for men and women. And God personally appeared to both men and women. And the service of God involved both men and women. You come to the New Testament, and men and women serve the Lord. And men and women are responsible for all the commandments. And they are given all the promises. And they are promised all the blessings. And they are warned about all the curses. In other words, in terms of spiritual life and blessing, all are equal. There's no question about that.

But that does not mean that their role is the same. You can have spiritual equality and have all different roles. To put it another way, you and I are spiritually equal. You and I have the same spiritual responsibility before God to live to His glory, is that not so? We have the same responsibility to obey the Word of God, the same responsibility to pray and to teach the Word of God and to witness and to live a Christlike life and we have the same promise of blessing, we have the same fruit of the Spirit, we have the same hope of eternal life. On the spiritual level, we're all equal and yet obviously in a role situation, you're there and I'm here. And we should be comfortable with equal spirituality and differing roles. I don't know why we want to make a battleground out of that. For all the women to demand to have equal roles with men would be like all the congregation demanding to have equal roles with the one who's preaching, and you can understand what that would do. These are just roles that God has designed for us to play to fulfill His will.

So, we see then Old Testament and New Testament equality of spiritual life. But we do not see equality of role. And you remember, as we looked at the Old Testament last time, I told you that there were no women priests, none. There were no women holding on-going prophetic office. There were some women who were called a prophetess, namely four of them, the wife of Isaiah was only called a prophetess because she was going to give birth to a child whose name had prophetic meaning, not because she said anything. But Miriam, Deborah and Huldah are all three called prophetess and all we know about them is that each of them in the Bible is recorded on one occasion to have given a message from God. We don't know that they had any on-going prophetic ministry, certainly not like the major prophets, the minor prophets, Elijah, Elisha, Moses. We have no such woman leaders. Deborah appears in the list of judges in Judge 4:4 to have been in a position of giving some wise counsel in the life of Israel. But she is far and away the exception and we really don't know when and how and how many times she was used by God to give wisdom. There are no women kings in all the history of Israel. And somebody would no doubt ask me what about 2 Chronicles 22:12 where it says, "Athaliah reigned..." It does not call her king or queen, Athaliah--you'll remember--was the mother of Ahaziah. When he died she wanted to rule, so she massacred the entire royal seed. The only one she didn't get was Joash, you remember, he was protected and later became the king. But she usurped that throne and was not and is not to this day listed among the kings of that land. No woman kings, no woman priests, no woman with on-going prophetic office. Ruth and Esther are named after women but were not written by women. So they had no on-going role of leadership in the normal course of life, in God's economy in the Old Testament, though some of them were used by God here and there to speak a word for God and many women prophesied, according to Psalm 68, a great host are the women who published the good news. That doesn't mean that women couldn't speak for the Lord. Of course not, they should speak for the Lord. But they were not given the roles of leadership within the nation of Israel either in political life or religious life, both of which were the same in a theocracy rule by God.

You come to the New Testament and you remember that there's neither male nor female in Christ, Galatians 3:28. And we know we're all equal spiritually and yet it's very obvious in the New Testament, there are no women apostles. Although there were women who accompanied Christ and the twelve, they are not included in the twelve. There are no women prophets. There is Anna mentioned in Luke 2 and said to be a prophetess because her husband had died seven years after their marriage and she for over 80 years had stayed in the temple waiting for the Messiah. And anyone who came in the temple she would tell them about the Messiah coming and what a joy it was when she met the Messiah even as an infant. But she really is a hold over from the Old Testament and she was a prophetess in the sense that she spoke about the Messiah to anyone who came along.

And then you look in the New Testament again and you do see that the four daughters of Philip did prophesy, they did speak for God but a lot of women speak for God. We don't know anything about it, they're not called prophets. That would be after the church began and they're not called prophets, it just says they prophesied, they spoke forth for God is implied there. There were other women, 1 Corinthians 11, we'll get back to that in a minute, who also prophesied, spoke forth for God, but as I said, there are no women apostles, no women called prophet, evangelists, pastor-teacher, elder.

So, both Old Testament and New Testament make it clear that though there is equality on the spiritual level, there are differing roles. And all of that was just a review of what I gave you last week, so if you want the fill in on that, get last week's message and you'll have all of it.

But that equality of learning which is given here in verse 11 is qualified at the end of the verse. Let's go back to it and I want to speak the rest of the time this morning on the last half of verse 11. "Let the women learn," and here comes the qualifier, "in silence with all subjection...in silence with all subjection.

Now you have to understand what's going on in the culture to get an idea of what's going on in this situation. Now remember that you have in the church at Ephesus a Gentile culture as the basic culture in which the church exists. Asia Minor which is modern Turkey was a Gentile place. And women were ranked in Gentile religion very low...very low. In fact, if you were to go to the temple of Diana of the Ephesians in Ephesus, you would find hundreds and hundreds of priestesses there called "melissae" whose primary function was to act as prostitutes for the male worshipers. They were chattel. They were to be used and discarded. Furthermore, any respectable Greek woman who was not some kind of prostitute, some kind of street walker led a very confined life. She lived in her own quarters into which no one but her husband could enter. She had not even the privilege of appearing at a meal unless she was invited to be there. She never at any time appeared on the street alone. She never went to any public assembly. And still less did she ever speak or take any active part in an assembly. So you can understand that when some of these women were converted, boy, they began to feel their oats--to put it in the colloquial expression. And they would read that concept that we understand, male and female equal as one in Christ, and they would say, "Boy, we're going to take our place now." Other women were coming out of a Jewish background. We know that because there are indications in 1 Timothy that there were Jewish influences in the church at Ephesus.

So here you have some women coming out of a Jewish background which was very much the same terms of suppressing women and keeping them in a sort of deprived situation in terms of learning, and now these women have come to faith in Jesus Christ, perhaps in some cases they're growing faster than their husbands, and so they too begin to feel the surge of the desire for prominence and to get out from under this abusive kind of chauvinistic tradition that they have known. And so there's pressure applied in the church as these women begin to assert themselves. Now you add to that that this church was a sinful church and there are not only those pressures that come because these women are overreacting to their liberty in Christ, but you add the sinfulness of the culture around them which obviously would militate against the things of God and you've got loose and immoral women in the church who are coming to church flaunting their sexuality, flaunting their wealth, trying to entice and allure other men. You've got women who are trying to surge into positions of teaching and surge into positions of leadership, women who don't want to subordinate themselves to their husbands anymore, they want to take over the authority in the church, the authority in the relationship at home. And the church is in great great need and great great danger. And so, as chapter 3 verse 15 says, this whole section is to set things in order in the church. The second thing he wants to set in order after the prayer passage in verses 1 to 8 is this matter of the role of the women because it's all out of whack. And he calls, basically, for them to learn in silence with all subjection.

Two things there, they are to be silent and subject. The word "silence" means just that, hesuchia, it just means silence. We have to define what that is intended to say by the context. The word "subjection" is from hupotasso which means to line up under. In other words, to get in their proper line and not rebel. They're not to be unruly, they're to get in line in their proper place. So women are to learn in silence and get in line in their proper place.

Now it's obvious the Bible says that, no one's going to equivocate on that. It says let the women learn in silence. Well, you say, "What are people who believe in women preachers going to do with this?" Well, they're going to take the word "silence" and they're going to say it doesn't mean that. Silence means a meek and quiet spirit. What it means is that when you do preach or teach, you do so in a quiet spirited way. All right. There are those who want to advocate that. There are others on the other hand who are hard line and they say when it says let the women learn in silence, that's exactly what it means. No women should ever talk in church under any conditions...not to the person they're sitting next to, not on the way in, not on the way out...you know, the real hard line thing...total silence. Women never give a testimony. Women never pray. Women never speak...nothing.

Now which of these two or what other option do we have? The answer is very simple. You always define terminology by context. And all you have to do is look at the context to figure out exactly what he means by silence. Verse 11, "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." What do you mean, Paul? I mean, I don't permit a woman to...what?...teach, that's the silence issue. Nor usurp authority, that's the subjection issue. He defines exactly what he means.

What he means by the silence of a woman is that he does not permit a woman to take the role of teacher. What he means by her subjection is he does not permit her to rise to usurp authority over men in the life of the church. He doesn't mean that the woman can't sing a song. He doesn't mean that in an appropriate place the woman cannot pray a prayer. He does not mean that she cannot offer praise to God at an appropriate time. It does not mean that she cannot participate in worship, it doesn't mean that she can't even ask a question when a question is called for in a proper spirit and a proper way. What it means is she is not to be the teacher and she is not to rebel against the role of submission which God has designed for her in the life of the church. So, silence then is in relation to teaching. And it means she's not to be the teacher. We'll get into that in more detail next week as we see what the phrase in verse 12 actually means. The subjection is easily understood to mean she is not to rebel, she is not to desire to overturn the divine pattern.

Now we need to understand what this means. Let's...okay, we've got the church, we're looking at the church, we're saying, "All right, a woman is not to be the teacher." That's plain and simple, we're not to have preachers and teachers standing up in church before everyone, mixed congregations of men and women who are the official teacher of the church and the official preacher, giving the message, the sermon, the lesson. That's right, that's very obvious.

But there are other passages that broaden our understanding of this and we need to look at them. So let's go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and you're going to find this, I think, very very interesting. In 1 Corinthians 14:34 we have a very similar statement to a very similar situation. In verse 34 it says, "Let your women keep silence in the churches." Now it isn't too hard to figure out what that means. You do not have to be a Greek scholar. It is obvious what it means. And in case you missed it, let the women keep silence in the church, I love this kind of reasoning, for it's not permitted to them to speak. And you say, "Well, wait a minute, that's just saying the same thing twice without a reason." No, that is the reason. The reason women are to keep silent in the church is because it isn't permitted for them to speak. You say, "That doesn't give me a reason." Sure it gives you a reason. They are commanded to be under obedience so also says...what?...the law. The law of who? The law of God. Do you know why women aren't to preach in the church? You say, "Well, it has to do with their psychological..." No...no. "Well, it has to do with the fact that, see, if you give a woman that kind of role, if she doesn't have the mentality to deal with the things that come a...." No, no, the reason they don't do it is because God's law says they can't do it, that's all. That's the issue. It's not sociological, it's not psychological, it's not pathological, it's not anything, it's just the law of God. So, women are to keep silence in the church.

You say, "Well, what does that mean?" So now we have a big debate about what it means to be silent again. Well, let's find out what it means. It shouldn't be too hard, all we have to do is look at the context. So we go back in the chapter a little bit and we ask ourselves, "What is this chapter all about?" Well, verse 1 of chapter 14 talks about prophesying. Verse 2 talks about tongues. And then you have tongues and prophesying compared all the way through the chapter. And he says that of course the best thing is to prophesy. Verse 39, you don't want to stop speaking in languages legitimately. In that apostolic age it was a legitimate gift of God. But it's better that you should desire as a congregation when you come together that prophesy be done, that's the proclamation of the Word of God. And most of all, verse 40, it ought to be done decently and in order.

But you want to get an idea of what's going on there? Let me give you some background. Right across the bay from Corinth is another city. The name of that city is Delphi. In the city of Delphi there is a religious structure. At the pinnacle of this religious structure is a woman by the name of Pythia. She is known as the "Oracle of Delphi." Have you ever heard that phrase? She is known as the "Oracle of Delphi" in this very time. This from Stuart Rossiter in his book on Greece in which he treats this whole thing. This is a woman about 50 years of age and she is a medium who contacts demon spirits. And everybody wants to know the future and everybody wants to know what it holds and everybody wants to know the secrets and everybody wants to know how things are going to turn out and they want to know how to get rid of their problems and so forth and so forth. And so everybody wants to go to get to the "Oracle of Delphi" to give them the truth. So it is a very popular religion. Controlled, of course, by Satan and run through demons who speak through this medium and she gives out this stuff.

Now Rossiter in describing this tells us some very interesting things. Someone who goes over there, first thing they have to do is make an animal sacrifice. It can be a sheep, a goat, a bear or some other animal. They make an animal sacrifice while a few attendant priestesses stand around and evaluate the omens and the sacrifice. I don't know how they did that...maybe had to do with the way the thing burned or the way the inside of the animal fell, some kind of omen.

If the omens were favorable based on the evaluation of the sacrifice, the person could then come into the inner shrine. No woman could ever be admitted into that, only men. So the man would come in, let's say the omens were good so they accepted his sacrifice so the man comes in. He takes a tablet and on that tablet he writes his request. By the way, archaeologists have dug up that area and found some of those tablets still in tact. So we know some thing about what the people were asking. That tablet then as he waits in line is his consideration to be given to the oracle. And finally if all fortune goes well, he is ushered into the oracle. She is sitting on a tripod, three legs going rather high over a huge chasm from which rises incense smelling heavy dense smoke. And she's sitting over this chasm to answer this request.

Before she can take her throne, she has to eat laurel leaves and she has to go through some kind of thing. And she gets up there and the request is taken and presented. In response to the request, she gushes out some absolutely inarticulate babble, some kind of demon talk. Standing beside her is a poet who interprets everything she says in perfect hexameter, which is a poetic form. And that is the interpretation because nobody understands what she's saying. And the person then hears a very obscure, very confusing hexametric poetic bunch of babble from this guy that probably leaves them more confused than they were when they got there. But they have had an ecstatic experience and they've encountered the supernatural.

Now think about that. That's right across the bay from Corinth. Now in the church at Corinth, and Satan always counterfeits something that God does, if God has a true gift of languages and a true gift of interpretation, and a true gift of prophesying and speaking forth the Word of God, then Satan's going to move in as close as he can and counterfeit the whole thing. And so you've got some people coming to the Corinthian assembly and what they're doing is mediamistic occultic demon kind of stuff, they're uttering these same babbles that came out of the mouth of the Delphic Oracle and the same kind of obscure nonsensical prophetic things that are coming over there and they're doing it supposedly in the name of Christ and the church...some people in the church are doing the true gifts and the people in the church are not rightly evaluating it and what you've got in Corinth is absolute confusion. Some people actually standing up, claiming to have the gift of tongues, cursing Jesus Christ and being patted on the back for it because it must be of God because it's supernatural. Now that's the background of 1 Corinthians. Anybody is absolutely naive who comes into chapter 14 and starts reading about tongues and prophesy and doesn't have that as background. Paul is correcting all of that.

So the issue here in the Corinthian church was not only that there were women who were flaunting their sexuality, they were in Corinth. We know there were terrible sex in the Corinthian church, wasn't there? Terrible sexual evil. But here you have some women who are looking at a religion that is all women, the Delphic thing, and saying, "Boy, we ought to be prominent in this religion, too." So they're pushing themselves into prominence by standing up and speaking in this unintelligible babble by standing up and giving their prophecies.

So when we come to this chapter, look at verse 26, he says, "What is going on with you? When you come together, everyone of you has a psalm, a doctrine, or a teaching, a tongue, a revelation, interpretation, let everything be done decently and in order." Get this mess straightened out.

And then he says no more than two or three people in tongues, never without an interpreter. Don't let the prophets speak except two or three of them, and everybody evaluate them to see if they really know the Lord, they really speak the truth. Get this thing together, verse 33, because God is not the author of what? Confusion. And then in verse 34 he says let the women keep silent. Keep silent about what? Well, it's obvious. Speaking publicly in the assembly of the church either in ecstatic speech or prophecy. So if we look at 1 Timothy, we see women are not to preach or teach. If we look at 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 35, we can conclude very simply women are not to speak in tongues and women are not to give prophecies in the church. They are not to speak forth in the church. Why? It's not permitted. Why? They're to be under obedience. Why? The law of God says that.

Here it comes. "It is indecent for women to speak in the church." It's not indecent for women to speak, you can speak all you want...unless you're usurping the role of authority, unless you're taking leadership in the church. This is so clear.

So, what are we saying then? When it comes to the meeting of the church together, women are not to preach or teach, they are not to speak forth the Word of God and they are not to speak in ecstatic speech. Obviously, the sum of those things is to say that the church when it comes together is to be spoken to by men. That's just God's way.

But the underlying thing that I want you to understand here is this, this does not mean that a woman can never under any circumstances speak in a group of Christians. What this speaks to is the women who usurp that, who push themselves in the place of prominence. Remember, God used Miriam to speak a word for Him. God used Deborah and Huldah to speak a word for Him to very important men. God used Anna for scores of years in the temple, speaking of the coming Messiah to anybody who came there. So there's no reason to believe that on the right time and the right place woman can't speak. When Paul traveled on his trips through the book of Acts it says that he went into an area to a church and he dialogued with them out of the Scriptures, I believe there were men and women, I believe honest questions could be asked by women in right format and could be answered by the Apostle Paul. I think there was a time and place for women to speak a testimony of phrase to the Lord. I don't think that he's saying that they can never do that. What he is saying is they cannot rise to leadership in the church so that they become the ones who dominate the church with their authority and their teaching and their gifts. There is a place, of course, when it is the right environment and we ask for those to ask questions where a woman has every right to ask a question in a right spirit just as a man does. There is a time when we ask for praise to be offered to God when a woman has every right to praise God just like anyone else does. That's when the preacher or teacher deflects the communication responsibility to his congregation and says I want to hear from you. But that wasn't the issue here. The issue here was interruption. The issue here was usurpation, that's a different issue.

So, we understand what he's saying. Now let's go back to 1 Corinthians 11 because we can't understand this whole picture without understanding this passage. By the way, in chapter 14 he says not to do this is absolutely unthinkable because he says in verse 36, "What came the Word of God out from you, or came it unto you only." In other words, if you defy this are you telling us that you're the originator of the Word of God? You're going to decide how it ought to be done? Or maybe it was just written for you to twist any way you want...it's ludicrous to him. What? Did you write the Bible, you who want to exercise authority in the church, you who want to speak out and be the preachers, teachers and prophesiers and tongue speakers and all that? It's just ludicrous to imagine that you can overturn the Scripture, that you can do it any way you want.

And going back to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 2, he says, "I praise you, brethren, because you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I deliver them to you." I think we often get the idea that everybody in Corinth was corrupt, but this verse tells us not so, there was a great number there who were not. And he says I know you remember me in all things and you do keep the commandments or ordinances the way I delivered them to you. But there's something you have to know. Now remember, this is Corinth. In the middle of Corinth was a temple to Aphrodite, a thousand priestess prostitutes with heads open and exposed and hair cut short flaunting their sexuality trying to lure men into sexual acts in the temple, put up on the acro of Corinth, the hilltop outside Corinth, this big temple. And these women again flaunting their liberation, flaunting their sexuality. There was a whole attitude there very much like Ephesus. So he says I know you obey me, I know you remember what I said, but I want to tell you this, folks, you've got to realize the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man. And the head of Christ is God. You have to get one thing straight, women are put in a place of submission to men. That's just how it is. That's just how it is. And again I remind you that it's not to say that women can't speak. It's not to say women can't pray. It is to understand as an attitudinal objective that the man is the head of the woman.

Now look at verse 3 again, nobody argues about this, the head of every man is Christ. Do you know anybody that doesn't believe that? Do you know anybody that now has a sort of a Christian's liberation demanding equality with Christ? Anybody running around saying I want to be equal with Christ or forget it? No. And everybody understands that God is the head of Christ. Christ comes in subjection to His Father, becomes a servant, takes upon HIm the form of a servant, humility and all that, Philippians 2, the kenosis. Then why do we debate about the fact that the man is the head of the woman? That's just basic.

So, let me give you a little cultural thing. In Corinth, women as a custom covered their heads. That was how a woman identified her humility, that's how she hid herself as if to say I am not available, I belong to one man. And that was her modesty, that was her femininity. This is how she carried herself and how she clothed herself to demonstrate her womanliness, her femininity. In the Corinthian society, men were uncovered. Their heads were bare, their faces were open and that was the mark of maleness. Somehow in the Corinthian church these things were getting inverted. And women were praying and speaking the Word of God with their heads uncovered, actually sort of identifying with the prostitutes and the woman's liberation movement. And men, maybe from some Jewish background or something, were covering their heads and praying and people were looking at them and saying, "They're feministic." So he says in verse 4, look, every man who prays or prophesies having his head covered dishonors his head. What are you doing? Don't do that. Why? You say, "You mean it's a sin to put something on your head when you pray?" No...not unless your culture perceives that as something that's feminine. And the point there was for a man to cover himself was to be acting like a woman. Men didn't do that. Verse 5, "And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head and she might as well be like one who is totally shaved, she might as well destroy all of her femininity, look like a prostitute or some liberated person." Verse 7, "A man not to have his head covered..." See, in their society that said something.

So what Paul is saying is this, now listen carefully. Look at your society and mark out the symbols. What are the symbols of femininity in our society? What are the symbols of masculinity? And identify with those. If they don't violate Scripture, if they don't violate God's design for morality, then adhere to those symbols because that says something to your society. Listen, even this society today still knows when a woman looks like a woman. There are symbols in our society for femininity. And you know as well as I do that you can look at a woman who obviously has adapted the symbols of femininity and looks like a woman, and you can look at another woman who looks like she is rebelling against everything that womanhood absolutely means. Can't you tell that difference? Of course you can because even our society has symbols. Every society does.

Our society has symbols of maleness. You can look at a man and by the way he appears and carries himself and dresses, you can say now that guy's a man. And you can look at another guy and you get the impression that this guy is really very feminine. Because he's denying the symbols of maleness and he's communicating an inverted perverted message. So that's all he's saying to the Corinthians. Look, when you behave yourself as Christians, do so in a way that adheres to the perception of your culture so they'll understand. And further on down in verse 14, even nature has provided an analogy for the symbol of headcoverings by giving faster growing hair to women as a special covering from God.

So women then are to take a role of submission as the one who is under the headship of man.

Now people say about verse 5, "Well, wait a minute, here are women praying and prophesying. Isn't that in the church?" Well, it doesn't say so. Let me show you something. I think he's just talking about general things. I don't think he's talking about the formal worship of the church, the coming together of the church. You say, "Why don't you?" Go down to verse 18, this is really the first time he gets into issues about the church. Look what it says. "For first of all," what is that again? Literally in the Greek, "In the first place," which means if this is the first place there isn't any place before this. If this is first of all, there isn't anything else related to what he's going to talk about. So, first of all, "When you come together in the church," may I suggest to you that nobody has come together in the church until that verse? "First of all, when you come together in the church I want you to take care of these divisions." So prior to this he hasn't been talking about the worship of the church. So the women who are permitted to pray or prophesy with their head covered are not doing that in the church, they're doing that in other than that duly constituted worshiping place of the church. He doesn't get to describing the church until verse 18. So here he is just saying in general, maybe it's in a home fellowship, maybe it's in a Bible study, maybe it's in a prayer time, maybe it's when you get together as a family around the table, maybe when it's when several families get together, when you Christians get together wherever it might be, you women maintain the decorum of submission. You men maintain the decorum of headship. And then later on he gets to the church when it comes together in its formal assembly. So the allowance for a woman to pray and prophesy in verse 5 does not overturn what Paul says in 1 Timothy. Sure a woman should pray, of course she should speak forth the Word of God every time she has an opportunity, but not when given the title of the official teacher or prayer in behalf of the church when it comes together for worship and certainly not as an intruder into the worship of the church. This is very important.

So, in verse 13 he says, "Decide for yourselves." Just decide for yourselves. Take a look at the symbol and make a decision. Is it right that a woman pray to God uncovered? And you know in your society you're going to say no. So follow the custom. The sum of what he says is this, if a woman is veiled when she prays or speaks the Word of God, she attests to her womanhood, she affirms her role, she reflects her husband's protective covering over her, she protects the relationship she has with her husband, she doesn't rebel. She knows heaven is pleased. Verse 10 says even the angels are watching. She is acknowledging what verses 7 and following say that this is so important. Man is the image and glory of God and the woman is the glory of man. Boy, that is a verse that just sends the women's liberation people right up in space.

So man in a sense is the sun and woman is the moon that reflects the light of the sun. Man is the representative of the glorious dominion and headship of God, and woman is the representative of that one who follows. The woman is the glory of man. God could have created them together, could have said "Man-woman," and they would have been there and He would have said you're equal, go at it, see who wins. He didn't do that.

Now why do we want to fight that? She was taken out of man. Verse 8, "The man is not of the woman but the woman of the man." You talk about which came first the chicken or the egg? The man came first in this case, the man. "Neither was the man created for the woman but the woman was created for the man." Now why do we not want to accept this? Let me tell you what the underlying philosophy is, very simple. God has designed all of human life in terms of this key word, "relationships." Okay? Everything is built on relationships, family, fathers and mothers and children, husbands and wives. Everybody has a relationship. And within those relationships there are differing roles. Is that not so? All right. In our culture and our society, the word is not relationship, the word is individuality. I want my rights. I want to do my thing. If you fit into my life for a little while, you can come in. The first time I don't like the way you're doing it, you're gone. Marriage, divorce, marriage, divorce, live with somebody, whatever it is, everybody living for himself. The family is being disintegrated, it's just a bunch of sticks all living side by side. And in a society where relationship as a concept of life is lost, and it is replaced by individuality, why not everybody having equal rights and equal roles? You see?

So what does Satan do to undermine the role of a woman, he attacks the whole concept of family, devastates, destroys the family. And in the devastation and destruction of the family, all you've got left is a bunch of individuals who look at the whole world through their own eyes and see only their own individuality and scream for their rights. That's the whole thing. Bottom line. But the church is an organism. And the family is an organism. And the relationships of the family take right into the church that same kind of attitude. The feminist movement is nothing more than the human race being defined as a bunch of unrelated individuals all demanding their own rights. That's Satan's big lie. Now I'll tell you, to be honest, you may not agree with Paul says. You may not like what he says. But he said it. And it's obvious what he said.

You say, "Well, now when can women prophesy?" Any time you want to speak the Word of God, speak it. Any time and any place, but don't try to take over the church. Don't try to step into a territory where you're not allowed. A woman can speak the truth. Anna spoke it. Mary when she gave her magnificat at the announcement at the birth of Christ spoke forth the Word of God and no one ever more modeled the virtue of womanhood than she. Listen, women, I pray God that you speak forth the truth over and over again as long as you live. You say, "Well, what about..what about at a Bible study, can we share what we see?" Of course, of course. In the right environment when that is given to you, when the leadership says yes we want to hear from you, share what the Spirit of God is doing, offer praise to God. Yes.

You say, "What about praying? Can women pray? What if there are men there, can women still pray?" Look at Acts 1. In Acts chapter 1 we have a prayer meeting. Verse 13, "They came in, came in to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, they went into the Upper Room and they're abode Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, Simon the Zealot and Judas son of James." This is what's left after Judas, of course, who is called Iscariot is gone. Here are the remaining disciples.

Now look at verse 14. "These all continued with one accord in...what? what were they doing up there?...in prayer and supplication." Watch this, "With the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with His brothers." Can women get together with men and have a prayer meeting? Of course. Here's one right here and it involved the eleven disciples, a lot of women including Mary and some other people. In fact, how many were there in that upper room? A hundred and twenty, weren't there? They had a prayer meeting.

There's a time and a place for a woman to speak forth the Word of God. There's a time and a place for a woman to pray. There's a time and a place when asked for a woman to share a question. The point of all of these things is this, you go back to 1 Timothy again and it's very obvious what he means when he says, "Let the women keep silence," he's talking about in the official meeting together of the church and he's meaning their silence in the sense that I do not allow a woman to teach. And what I'll show you next week is that that phrase "a woman to teach" literally in the Greek should be translated "I do not allow for a woman teacher as an on-going official office." It's just that that's consistent.

In the Old Testament, no women kings, no women prophets, no women priests. In the New Testament, no women prophets in the on-going New Testament sense of the prophet, no women evangelists, no women pastor-teachers, no women elders. So why are we concerned when the church goes on with the same pattern that when it comes to the order of the worship of the church, that responsibility to be the preacher, the teacher, the one who speaks for God, the one who leads in prayer as we saw in verse 8 where he says I command that the men pray, the one who leads the congregation before the throne of God, this is a role given to men.

You say, "Well now why would God give all the good stuff to men and leave us women just sitting here listening in silence?" You want to know something? We have the easy part. You say, "Well, where's the balance?" Come next week. It's exactly what I'm going to get to and that's what I wanted to get to today but I couldn't get there. I just can't go fast enough. Let's bow in prayer.

Father, how thankful we are, how thankful we are for Your Word. How thankful we are for its clarity. We understand what You ask of us as men and women. Help us, Lord, not to be looking for the toothpick in somebody else's eye, but we've taken the two-by-four out of our own eye. Help me as a man and the rest of the men of this congregation not to be faulting the women until we've become the head that we should be. Help us not to be criticizing others until we've examined our own hearts. And if we are the head of the woman as Christ is the head of us and God is the head of Christ, then help us to act in a way consistent with that. Father, may the men of this church be men as men ought to be, giving spiritual leadership and direction, taking responsibility for support, nourishing and cherishing their wives, protecting and saving and delivering them from harm and danger, encouraging and supporting and strengthening them in their spiritual life. And, Lord, may the women be women. May they bear all the grace and loveliness and beauty of womanhood. May they enjoy all the spiritual privilege, promise, blessing and instruction. May they be on the front lines in prayer, on the front lines in speaking forth the word of truth and understand that in that role that is designed for them there is complete fulfillment.

We thank You that You've given to the church teachers, men, godly men, who can stand in the place of Christ as His representatives, bearing His glory before the congregation. We pray that we might always be faithful to that design, that we might see that the place of men is in the overt leadership of the church, the teaching, preaching, praying, decision making, ruling authority of the church. And that the role of the women is to learn everything they can and come alongside in submission so that they can be prepared for that immeasurably profound and far- reaching task that is theirs within in the home, as we shall see in our next time together. And, Lord, may the combination of the men who lead in the church and the women who powerfully profoundly and for life influence in the home build a godly seed for the praise and glory of the Savior in the generations to come.

God's High Calling for Women, Part 4

Let's open our Bibles together as we study God's Word to 1 Timothy chapter 2. First Timothy chapter 2 verses 9 through 15 is our present text. We're studying together God's plan for women in the church in our ongoing study of this wonderful epistle. And I want to read for you as the setting for the message verses 9 through 15. First Timothy 2 beginning at verse 9, "In like manner also that women adorn themselves in proper apparel with godly fear and self-control, not with braided hair, gold or pearls or expensive clothing, but which is fitting women professing godliness with good works. Let the women learn in silence with all subjection, but I permit not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man but to be in silence, for Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Nevertheless, she shall be saved in child bearing, if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control."

Now to introduce our study today, let me remind you of the fears of the Apostle Paul had come to pass in the church at Ephesus. If you will remember in Acts chapter 20 when Paul gathered together the Ephesian elders at Miletus in verse 17 of that chapter, and then went on to discuss with them the priorities of ministry, he concluded the discussion with a warning section. That warning section expressed his deepest fears for that congregation. Let me read you just a few verses out of Acts 20 so that you'll be familiar with his statements. Beginning in verse 29 he says, "For I know this that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock, also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that for the space of three years I ceased not to warn everyone night and day with tears and now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all men who are sanctified."

Now in that, Paul expresses his great fear that false teachers would arise within the church as well as come in from the outside. The church at Ephesus had great beginnings, marvelous beginnings. It was born out of a great revival. It was born out of paganism with a clarity of purpose and intent that is without a surpassing experience in the book of Acts. And yet Paul knew inevitably no matter how good the beginning, no matter how effective his own three-year ministry in that city it was inevitable that the enemy would begin to attack that church by bringing in false teachers, unholy leaders to bring it down from its place of effectiveness for God and to be sure Paul's worst fears did come to pass. By the time he has finished his first imprisonment in Rome, having been released from that he met Timothy in Ephesus and when they met there they found that indeed that church of his heart, that church which had taken so many years of his rather brief ministry, that church which he loved so deeply and for which he no doubt prayed regularly had fallen prey to false teachers and those who advocated a godless living pattern. And so when he and Timothy met there, he put out of the church two of the most prominent leaders named in verse 20 of chapter 1, Hymenaeus and Alexander, it says of them, "Whom I have delivered unto Satan," indicating that he himself dealt with them. Then he had to move on west to Greece and so he left Timothy in Ephesus to set the rest of the things right and you'll notice in chapter 3 verse 15 you have the kind of key to the whole epistle. He says, "I want you to know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." In other words, I'm writing this so you will know how to behave in the church and you can do what you need to do and pass on to the people what they need to hear.

Now the primary problem in the church at Ephesus was false leadership. And beginning in chapter 3 and running all the way to the end of the epistle, really, there is a preoccupation with these false leaders. Some chapters are more totally devoted than others but the theme that is woven through 3 through 6 in 1 Timothy is the theme of dealing with false leaders. The book then is a polemic, it is a treatise against the false leaders who have arisen in the church at Ephesus. Now these false leaders brought with them a lot of baggage. Their ungodliness manifested itself in many ways. One of the ways in which their false leadership brought problems to the church was in the matter of the women's role. It is apparent that in this church there were certain women who were desirous of taking the place of official teacher in the church and usurping authority from the men to lead the church. That was one of the problems, no doubt, under the false leadership of those who had risen to the role of pastor or elder and were doing all they could to undermine the Word of God. It may well be, we don't know for certain, that some of these false teachers themselves would not only have advocated a non-biblical role of women, but it's possible that some of them may have been women themselves and that's why the qualifications for an elder given in chapter 3 are distinctively given as male qualifications, such as a one-woman man, the man who knows how to manage his own household. It is apparent at least for certain that there were women seeking to be teachers in the church and to usurp authority over the man and with that issue Paul must deal in specifics before he gets into dealing with the false leaders themselves in chapter 3. So from verse 9 to 15 Paul gives us six elements of this very important instruction regarding the role of women in the church.

Now you'll remember that the first thing he speaks about is their appearance. How are women to appear in the church? You remember verse 9 says that women are to adorn themselves in a proper adorning. In other words, they are to appear in a way that expresses love for God, reverence for His holiness, an attitude of worship. The latter part of the verse indicates that they are not to occupy themselves with outward fashion. They are not to flaunt their wealth, and he refers in the plaiting of the hair, and gold and pearls to a common custom where since women were so fully clad in that culture from neck to the ground, the way they would flaunt their wealth is in their hair. And they would weave gold and pearls and tortoise-shell combs would be placed into their hair and this way they could show their wealth. They could flaunt themselves. That was the way women adorned themselves in a carnal expression in that time. And what he is saying here is that that should not happen in the church. A tendency of women to be occupied with their adornment is only a manifestation of the carnality of their hearts, dressing to flaunt wealth, dressing to manifest lust and sexual desire, dressing to express a spirit of insubordination to one's husband. We went into all of those things in detail in a prior message. These are forbidden a woman who appears to worship God.

Secondly he discussed their attitude. In the middle of verse 9, their attitude is to be that of godly fear and self-control. Godly fear comes from a root word meaning they have a sense of shame. In other words, they are to be ashamed of causing anyone to be distracted from the worship and the glory of God. They have a proper sense of shame that results in modesty. And self-control refers to being able to control your passion and your desire. Women are to present themselves then in modesty and humbleness of heart, demonstrating total control over their passion and appearing in such a way that draws attention to their godliness and their virtue.

Thirdly in verse 10 we discussed their testimony. If they make profession of godliness, they should support that with good works. So you have not only their appearance and their attitude, but their activity or their action. Their deeds should also demonstrate that profession of godliness which they bear.

Now that takes us fourthly to their role. And this is really the heart of what we're looking at now, the role of women then is given in verses 11 and 12. We're talking specifically now about their function in the church. And the first thing we noted in verse 11 is that the apostle says, "Let the women learn." We realize that from Jewish culture and from pagan culture, women were put on a second-class level and their status was that of one who perhaps was on the level of a slave, in some cases even on the level of a beast of burden. And there was little concern in the minds of the Jews of that day whether women learned anything or not, since they were really not a part of the significant education of the populous. That was to be the men and the men were responsible for passing on truth. It was immaterial to them whether the women showed up at the synagogue, whether they came to the feasts and festivals, that was inconsequential. The same was true in Greek culture where women were not thought to be worthy in many cases of a learning process. And so in contra distinction to that, Paul says, "Let the women learn," a very affirmative statement, affirming for us the equality of spiritual privilege, the equality of spiritual rights, blessings and promises for men and women. And as Galatians 3:28 says, "In Christ there is neither male nor female." But in terms of role, he qualifies their learning by saying this, "In silence with all subjection," and that defines for us the woman's role.

Silence, you'll remember, refers to not teaching. It refers to not teaching. Subjection refers to not ruling. That is, women in the church are not to be the teachers when the church assembles itself in its constituted worship, women are not to be the teaching persons and they are not to be the ruling ones. The context makes it very clear that that's what he has in mind because verse 12 says, "I permit not a woman to teach," and therein does he define the kind of silence he's talking about, nor to usurp authority, and therein does he define the kind of subjection he is talking about.

In the assembly of the church women are not to teach and preach and they are not to rule. Now there's no doubt that that's exactly what he is saying. Obviously in Ephesus some were seeking to do both of those things and that's why he has to deal with this. Now in our last message we looked at a parallel passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 verses 34 and 35. And in that passage we found that Paul prohibits women in the assembly of the church from speaking in languages and interpretation and also from expressing the gift of prophecy. He says, "Let the women keep silence in the churches." So we learn then from 1 Corinthians 14 when the church comes together women were not to speak in tongues when tongues were a valid gift. They were not to engage in the public interpretation and they were not to be involved in the prophesying. Here we add to that that they were not to be ruling in the church and they were not to be the preacher/teacher. Furthermore, we learned from verse 8 that women were not to lead the congregation in prayer, but the congregation was to be led in prayer by men. That's why Paul says in verse 8, using boulema which is the will of command, I command therefore that definite article, the men pray everywhere. So when it comes to the worship of the church, the praying, the teaching, the speaking for God and the preaching is to be done by the men.

Now we noted last time that that does not mean women cannot pray. We saw, you'll remember, many women, including Mary the mother of our Lord in Acts 1:12 to 14, gathered with all of the men disciples and they were in a very long prayer meeting together. There is a time and a place when women ought to pray together with men. It does not mean that women cannot teach the Word of God to children or other women. It does not mean they cannot speak out for God the gospel of Jesus Christ on every occasion that they are given. It does not mean that cannot contribute in a Sunday-school class or in a Bible study or in a home fellowship meeting. What it is saying is that in the duly constituted worship and service of the church, there is to be clear line of distinction between the role of men and women that God wants established as His pattern, and that is that men do the leading and the teaching and the praying and the preaching and women learn in silence with all subjection. That is why, beloved, there are no women apostles in the New Testament. There are no women prophets in the church. One prophetess is mentioned, she was prior to the church and functioned in a unique way speaking to individual people about the coming Messiah. But there was no prophet in the New Testament church who was a women...a woman. There is no woman pastor. There is no woman teacher. There is no woman evangelist and no woman has written any book of the Bible. Now that is an affirming thing to indicate God's divine order. And this is an issue of role not spiritual inequality, as we saw last time.

Now the affirmative statement of verse 11, "Let the women learn in silence with all subjection," is given a clarifying and supporting counterpart in verse 12. Let's look at it. "But I permit not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." And all the verbs in that verse are present and that means they have a sort of continuing idea. I am not allowing a woman to be engaged in teaching or to be taking authority over the man but to be continually in silence. In other words, all of those present indicatives indicate that this is a continual commitment on the part of Paul through the Holy Spirit.

Now let me give you a little bit of insight into some of the terms. Look at the word "permit," it always means to allow someone to do what they desire to do. It has the inherent idea in it that someone desires to do something. And what he is saying here is I do not permit women to teach or usurp authority and by the choice of words he is saying, in effect, even though they desire to do that. And that was the problem in that church and it's still the problem today because there are women even today who desire to teach and preach in the church and to take authority. Women have always desired to rule. We go back to Genesis chapter 3 verses 15 and 16 and you remember that the part of the curse that God brought upon man and woman in the Fall was that woman would desire to control man and he would have to rule over her. And therein is the conflict of the sexes born out of the Fall. Woman would desire to seek control. The word for her desire there is a word used only one other time in the Pentateuch and that's in Genesis 4:7 and in its use there we understand that it means clearly to take control because there it talks about Satan taking control. And so we conclude that that word means that a woman desires to take control, to master. It's an Arabic root word and man then has to fight to keep his mastery and therein lies the battle of the sexes that has caused so much marital conflict through the centuries. And even in the church it is true there are women who are discontent with their God-given role and they seek to reach a place of prominence in teaching and taking authority over the man. But Paul says I do not permit them to do that even though that is their desire and that obviously means in the duly constituted church when it comes together in its official worship. This has reference then to the authoritative pastor/teacher role, the one who articulates the Word of God. And this kind of teacher that he has in mind is the kind of teacher we see, for example, in the five pastors of the church in Antioch in Acts 13, all five of them were men. This is the God-called, God ordained, recognized pastor/teacher/evangelist who has authority in the church in matters of doctrine and interpretation. And nowhere in the New Testament, as I said, is any woman ever presented in any such office or role as teacher in the church, nowhere.

In fact, let's go further into verse 12, for a woman to try to take that rule is to usurp authority over the man. And here you have a very interesting word for usurp authority, authenteo, yes, that word is used only here in the whole New Testament and it indicates, I believe, as it is properly translated a person desiring to usurp authority. A recent study of that verb conducted by Dr. George Knight in New Testament Studies concludes that the common use of that outside the Bible, when you don't have a lot of uses of a word in the Bible you go outside to find out how it was used, the common use of that word indicates, and I quote, "to have authority over." And that's really all it means. Now the reason that is important is, women who want to eliminate this verse and there are women who want to, women pastors, women teachers, and women elders would like to get rid of this verse, so what they will say is it means this, I permit not a woman to teach nor to take abusive authority. In other words, it's okay for her to teach and have authority if it isn't abusive. But a careful study of that word means...leads us to understand that it means to take authority period. It has nothing to do with abusive authority. In fact, if he was talking about abusive authority he wouldn't be just talking about women, he'd also be talking about what? Men because it would be just as much a sin for them as for women. So the idea here is parallel to teaching. He is saying I want a woman to...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.

There is no hint that this is to prevent abusive authority on the part of women. There is no limiting this and some have tried, I heard a message this summer by a man who wanted us to believe that this was only related to Ephesus and nowhere else. I don't know how and why you can conclude that. Teaching and usurping authority are in contrast to silence and subjection. Rather than a woman being the teacher and the ruler, she is to be in silence and subjection. There's no way that you can come up with anything else and do any justice to the intent of the text. 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.

Now notice that in verse 11, "Let the women learn in silence," and at the end of verse 12, "But to be in silence." So silence here is the issue before and after. This brackets the section and thus contains the main idea. They cannot exercise the office of teacher and ruler in the church because that is inconsistent with their God-given design...their God-given design. The issue then is not the way in which women rule. It is not the way in which they teach, as some would have us to believe that they're not to teach in a...in a domineering way, it is that they will teach or rule at all. That is the issue. So women who don't lead in the public prayer of the church in verse 8 also don't teach, also don't give rulership over the church, also don't lead in public display of gifts as in the early church in prophecy and tongues, and so forth. So you get the picture.

Now you say, "Well does this wipe out all of our instruction?" No, do you remember Acts 18 where Aquila and Priscilla instructed Apollos? There was a time and a place where women are to be instructing others and there may even be a time and a place where a woman and her husband could instruct another man, even a man who was a preacher. But it wouldn't be in the public worship and service of the church.

Somebody says, "Well, do women have spiritual gifts?" Well a ridiculous question. Because you believe what you have just seen here doesn't mean we're saying, "Well, women have no gift of teaching or women have no gift of speaking for the Lord, they have no verbal gifts at all. They have no leadership gifts." That's absurd. Of course they do...of course they do. And the Lord who bestows them those gifts offers them ample opportunity to use those gifts without violating His standard design for their role in the church. It is not necessary that because a woman has the gift of teaching she has to appear in the public assembly of the church to teach. It is not necessary that because she has gifts in the area of leadership that she has to lead the church. The thought that woman is somehow wronged when she is limited to her own God-ordained sphere as a woman and when her claim to be a man and do a man's work in the church is not admitted is absolutely irrational. There's plenty of room for her to exercise her gifts to the very fullest by God's intent.

And somebody else says, "Well, what about missions? What about missions? We need missionaries, what would we do without women missionaries?" God bless women missionaries, but I don't think women being on the mission field necessarily have the right to violate the Word of God. Paul was a missionary. He had a lot of missionaries traveling with him. And if ever there was a great need for the expanding church to have leadership, it was then and the pragmatic argument, if it ever was valid would have been valid there, and Paul would have thought, "Well we don't have many men but a great host of women keep coming to faith, so maybe we'll just kind of stick those women in there till we get some men. Wouldn't be bad to have a few women teachers and preachers and elders." But no, I mean, look at it this way, God wrote on a wall a message to Belshazzar but it isn't His pattern to use walls. God doesn't do that. God doesn't violate His own principles for expediency sake. People say, "What about the shortage of men?" Well if there's a shortage of men, Jesus gave us the answer, "Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth...what?...laborers into His harvest." Elizabeth Elliot who most of us know as a marvelous instrument of God in the expansion of the Kingdom, the wonderful wife of the martyred Jim Elliot, after the massacre of her husband and the several other missionaries in Equador, she was the only biblically trained person left who could speak the Alca language, the only one left...

But so convinced was Elizabeth Elliot in her heart that she could not violate the Word of God that she took one of the Alca men and weekly taught that man a sermon so that he could preach it in the church on the Lord's day. Much like Aquila and Priscilla, she would not step up to the preaching but she did not mind instructing the preacher. Don't get carried away with that. (Laughter) But I do appreciate it when you do instruct me, believe me.

Now I want to add to this that this in no way abuses women but this is a ...a tender and sympathetic understanding of the role and intent of a woman. Let not a woman enter into the sphere of activity for which God has never designed her. She is planned for a different role. Women don't sing bass and men don't have babies. People have… have lied too, also. You say, "Well, the only power in society and the best place to be is to be in leadership that is more fulfilling to lead than to follow." Think about that. Is that really true? You want all the stuff that comes with being a leader? You better have a heavy, heavy, heavy load on your back and be able to carry it. You better have some strong legs and a strong back because leadership is not the easiest thing. Ego makes people seek prominence and with it to seek the responsibility to prove their power. But such responsibility, take my word for it, is not always a welcomed friend. Frankly if you want to know the truth, subordination and subjection is the condition of the greatest peace and the greatest happiness, the greatest contentment, the greatest safety and the greatest protection because somebody else is doing all the caring for you. So don't live under the illusion that you can really know a great experience in life if you could just get on top of the pile and control everything. I say to women who would seek to do that, stay where you are under the loving care and nurture, nourishment, strength and protection of your husband and of the leaders of the church and that's a much happier place to be, the burden is much lighter. Subjection, my dear friends, is not a punishment, it is a privilege...it is a privilege that someone should care for you and that's by God's design.

And speaking of God's design, let's go to our next point...their design...their design. And here to support what he has just said come these two wonderful verses, 13 and 14. Here is the root of the role of a woman in the design of God. Verse 13, "For Adam was first formed, then Eve." Now that is so clear. Woman's place was ordained in the order of the creation. Adam was made first and then woman. First, protos, first in rank, chief, he is ish(?), she is isha(?), in the Hebrew. In 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 8, "For the man is not of the woman but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman but the woman for the man." And that's why she ought to recognize his authority. 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.

This is not a cultural issue, friends. This is not a cultural issue. Those people who say, "Well this was just some bias." This is not any Pauline bias. This is not some rabbinical gloss. This is Genesis. This is creation. It isn't temporary and it isn't cultural. Adam was first formed, then Eve.

Now look at verse 14, and this is fascinating. "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." We talk about the Fall of Adam, and rightly so because in Romans chapter 5 that is the way Paul refers to it as in Adam all died, and so forth. 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. And I said I was going to say this, and I'm going to say it right now, some of you men around here are leaving these girls leaderless. Now if you see some lovely Christian girls around here, you better ask them to marry you and get this thing moving. (Laughter) They're...they're ready to fulfill their God-given calling but some of you guys have a standard that's absolutely on the fantasy level of what you're looking for. You're not that hot a catch yourself. (Laughter) So come down. Enough of that, right?

But woman...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. And by the way, the term for being deceived is very strong, it is stronger than just a common word for deceived, it is a word that means because it has the addition of a preposition on the front of it, it means to be fully deceived, to be thoroughly deceived, to be completely deceived.

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.

Now may I say to you that a woman is not more defective than a man? Please. 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.

Now at this point somebody might conclude that, "Wow, women are really causing this race a lot of problems. That's right. She's the one that did this thing. She's more susceptible, perhaps, to sin or temptation." No, just different. But doesn't this leave a terrible stigma on women? I...I...many women would say, "Boy, I'm happy in Romans 5, but I'm not too happy in this passage. I don't mind Adam's fall, but this is a little heavy for us to bear." It might leave the impression that woman sort of lies under God's permanent displeasure.

So to avoid that we come to the final point, their contribution in verse 15, and this is just marvelous. I don't know why people get so mixed up about this verse. They're contribution, wonderful instructive verse. "Nevertheless," or not withstanding, or in spite of all that, "she shall be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with sobriety and self-control."

Now look at this verse, what a fascinating thing. She shall be saved through childbearing. Now this is in contrast to another phrase. Look at verse 14, "Adam wasn't deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression," parabasis, she stepped over the boundary. She stepped over the line. So she's in the transgression. Women are in sin. The stigma of the Fall is on woman. But she shall be saved through childbearing. Now somebody says, "What kind of salvation is this? You mean you're saved from sin for having babies?" No, it couldn't possibly be that.

Well notice it says, "She shall...she shall be saved," future tense shows that it couldn't refer to Eve. Some would like to think it refers to Eve and the bearing of her children, but it doesn't, "She shall be saved." Furthermore, if they continue in faith means it's more than one woman. Some think it's Mary and that the she is the she being Mary was saved by bearing Christ. It's a nice thought but I can't imagine anything more obtuse to this passage. How in the world you could ever read that into it, I don't know. I don't see Mary and I don't see the birth of Christ here. She must be the generic sense when compared with the word they. The woman was deceived and in the transgression, nevertheless she, broadens to include all women, shall be saved in childbearing if they continue in...so the she sort of melts into the they.

Now what is he saying? All women are saved through childbearing. Well in what way? What kind of a general statement is that? What kind of saved do you mean here?

Well not saved from sin, but listen to this..the word saved can mean delivered, or it can mean saved from things other than sin. What we have to understand here is that all women are delivered. Now listen carefully. 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.

You say, "How so?" Mark it down, because 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 child...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. And you know, to me it's so sad and tragic that women want to whine over an unfulfilled life because they can't act like men. And they have the unique privilege of raising a godly generation of children who are nursed at their very breast and who bear an intimate relationship with them that no father can know and thus do they restore dignity to that fallenness to which they contributed and thus do they become all that God intended them to be. They are delivered from the results of sin and able to maintain a positive influence in society and in the church by accepting the role as a mother who raises godly children. That's why it says even when younger widows lose their husbands, verse 14 of 1 Timothy 5, "I will therefore that the younger women marry and bear children and rule the house." That's their calling. 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.

You want to know why there's a Women's Liberation Movement, because there's a devil who doesn't want God to get His work done. 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.

I think about, in closing, I think about Susanna Wesley, wife of a pastor and mother of 19 children. She's gone down in Christian history as one of the greatest mothers. Here are some of her rules. Here are the rules she kept. No child was to be given a thing because he cried for it. If a child wanted to cry, cry softly. (Laughter) Nineteen children and it says, in her house was rarely heard loud cries. Second rule, no eating and drinking between meals except when sick. Rule number three, sleeping was also regulated. When very small the child was given three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon. This was shortened until no sleeping was allowed during the daytime to be productive. Four, punctually the little ones were laid in the cradle and rocked to sleep. At seven P.M. each child was put to bed, at 8 P.M. she left the room. She never allowed herself to sit by the bed until the children went to sleep. The little ones, fifthly, had their own table near the main table. When they could handle fork and knife they were promoted to the family table. That is a great idea. (Laughter) Sixth, each one must eat and drink everything before him. Seventh, children must address each other as sister and brother. Eighth, she never allowed herself to show through her ill temper or by scolding, she would always explain and explain. Listen, she spent one day each...pardon me, one hour each day shut up with God alone in her room praying for every one of her children. And her two sons under God brought revival to England while France was bathed in a bloody war. We know about John Wesley, but maybe behind all of that was a godly mother, surely that's true.

G. Campbell Morgan, that great preacher said, quote: "My dedication to the preaching of the Word was maternal. Mother never told it to the baby or the boy, but waited. When but eight years old I preached to my little sister and to her dolls arrayed in orderly form before me, my sermons were Bible stories which I had first heard from my mother." And G. Campbell Morgan, by the way, had four sons, all four of whom became preachers. And on one occasion when G. Campbell Morgan was explaining all the preachers in his family, someone said to him, "Who is the greatest preacher in your family?" And he replied without hesitation, "My mother."

Joseph Parker once said that when Robert Moffit(?) was added to the Kingdom of God, a whole continent was added as well and a mother's kiss did it. Charles Spurgeon's father once told Dr. Ford, an American minister, how when he had been taken away from home a good deal trying to build up congregations, there came a conviction that he was neglecting the religious training of his own children. So he decided that he would preach less. On returning home he opened the door and was surprised to find none of the children around the hall. Ascending the stairs he heard his wife's voice and knew that she was engaged in prayer. One by one she named the children. When she had finished her petition and instruction, Spurgeon said, "I can go on with my work, the children are well cared for."

Now there is the role of a godly woman in the church. May God grant us such godly women. Let's pray together.

Father, we thank You so much for Your precious truth. In a world of confusion and chaos where everything sacred seems to be overturned, we can come back and find perfect clarity, understanding in Your truth. We bless Your name. Thank You that the design that You've given for us is so clear. O Father, may this church be a church marked out by godly women who bring up a godly generation of young people and thus attain by the Spirit's power to that divine purpose for which they were created. And may we not waste lives on the trivia of this world while children are lost to the Kingdom. Father, help us to be a beacon light in this generation for this very truth for the Savior's sake. Amen.