God's High Calling for Women, Part 1 B

Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. You may have never considered the potential problems caused by your clothing choices, but the fact is, how you dress can speak volumes about your attitude towards God, and can even distract the worship of others. Well, with Mother's Day a few days away here in the U.S., John MacArthur is going to show how the issue of dress, and specifically how a woman dresses, became a disruption in the Ephesian church, and it can still cause problems today. It's a more important topic than you may have realized, as you'll see in today's look at God's high calling for women.

So stay with us now as John begins the lesson. 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. 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.

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 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 and 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. 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 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. 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? 1 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 it, how do I know if it's right? How do I know if I'm dressed right? Just check your heart.

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.

It's so important. 1 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. Who's 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 it's amazing, the world is coming to what looks to me like an anti-beauty fashion.

You feel that way? I tell you, I have never seen so many ugly hairdos and wardrobes in my life. 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 author 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 idus. 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 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. 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 shamefastness, shamefastness. 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 there is about you in the proper sense.

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 have 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 a 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 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 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 the 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 wholeheartedly 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 qualification 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. And 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 that women are alone at fault.

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 to 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, 1 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 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 stepmother, 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? Verse 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 does that have 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 bodies at the 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 a 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 three, so turn to your Old Testament chapter three and verse 16. Isaiah 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. That's symbolic of the judgment of God. In that day the Lord will take away the audacity of their tinkling anklets and their head bands 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 of rope, instead of well-set hair, boldness, 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. Father, 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 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. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, showing you what a woman's outfit might say about her attitude and her character. Today's lesson comes from John's current study here on Grace to You, titled God's High Calling for Women. Now John, we know there are plenty of women listening today who don't need to be convinced to follow God's High Calling. They understand their unique design and especially their role as mother, but understanding that role and living it out, those are two different things. Yeah, and I wish I thought that most Christian women understand their role. I'm not sure they do, and the reason they don't is because the culture has informed them wrongly about a woman's role, and the church has bought into the culture, and so the church is not speaking biblical truth to women, and this is horrific. This is devastating to families, marriages, children, and ultimately to the entire culture and to the church. If you get anything right as a pastor, if you get anything right beyond the gospel, get the family right, because that is God's design for passing righteousness from one generation to the next. And what husbands do and what wives do and fathers and mothers do is critical to raising another generation in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

It's tragic to see the church confused about the role of men and women, and we need to go back to what the Word of God says. I want to mention a book that I put together some time back called The Extraordinary Mother. No matter what her other virtues—a generous nature, hospitality, intelligence, physical energy, management abilities—nothing makes a woman more extraordinary than her devotion to the Lord. This book, The Extraordinary Mother, demonstrates that truth by exploring the ways that many women in the Bible offered extraordinary lessons for mothers today.

Now look, we all have flaws—men do, women do as well—but we have testimony from women of faith as to how God can use them in mighty ways. Some of the mothers in this book were mothers by birth, some by behavior, some raised children of great faith, and some of these great mothers go even unnamed in Scripture. But all of them can teach us something valuable about what makes a woman an effective mother, a truly extraordinary mother. You're going to learn about Eve and Sarah and Deborah, the mother of Samson, Abigail, Mary, the mother of our Lord. Beautiful hardcover book, The Extraordinary Mother.

Thanks, John, and friend, the women in this book, biblical characters, still have flaws, but even those shortcomings can teach you something valuable about what makes a woman, particularly a mother, truly extraordinary. Makes a great gift for a new or expecting mother to get a copy of The Extraordinary Mother. Get in touch with us today. Call 855-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. The Extraordinary Mother costs $9 and shipping is free. You might want to order it as a late Mother's Day gift for your mom.

We can ship it directly to her as a gift in your name. Again, to order, call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. Also at gty.org, you'll find a number of helpful resources related to John's current study including articles on issues such as female pastors and women in the workplace and the biblical concept of submission.

That and much more is available at gty.org. And let us know how you're benefitting from these broadcasts or our online resources or John's books. If anything about Grace To You is making a difference in your life, write us a note and send it to Grace To You, Post Office Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412.

Or you can simply email a letter to letters at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Be here tomorrow when John examines God's design for women in the church and how to be truly fulfilled by following his plan. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time. One Grace To You.