God has given women a special and high privileged responsibility of shaping the leaders for the church and for the world. Welcome to Search the Scriptures, the Bible teaching ministry of Dr. Carl Broge. Senior Pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina. We come to the conclusion today of our three messages in our series on gender roles in the church.
This is part of our larger study of the book of 1 Timothy. Although in this day and age, some of the teaching on gender roles from the Bible is being rejected by some who believe it is sexist and demeaning to women. As we finish our study today, We'll see that God has created men and women equal. With different roles, and that different roles of women are of ultimate importance in shaping the future of humanity. Long before, Any culture on the face of the earth?
declared and taught The equality of men and women, Jews knew it because God said it right here in the Word of God. This document penned by Moses 1,405 years before Christ speaks of the full equality of women and men. It's wonderful. It's right here in Scripture, ever before the modern feminist movement found it. And it's a beautiful picture of our first parents in the garden with the blessings of God upon their life, a woman equal fully to a man.
Now nowhere anywhere in all of the Bible do you find any other doctrine than the equality of men and women. Adam was formed out of the dust of the ground. Eve was formed out of Adam and for Adam to be a helper corresponding to him. And I might add that in 1 Corinthians 11 Paul gives the balancing truth that while the woman was made out of the man, now man is born in and through the woman.
So neither are independent of one another. And so when you come back here to 1 Timothy chapter 2, and Paul says, but I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For, and you ought to circle that little word. It's a causal in the Greek New Testament. It means because he's saying, here's the reason why.
I don't want a woman to teach or exercise authority over man. Why? Because it was Adam. Who was first created and then Eve. A woman is not to exercise authority over a man by teaching in the church because it's the opposite of submission and it is the opposite of God's created order.
He didn't make Eve the leader, He made Adam.
So Paul's number one reason concerns the priority of creation. But as we just looked at and documented from Genesis chapter 2, priority does not mean superiority. Priority simply refers to God's order and God's role for men and women. It's not an issue of equality. It is an issue of leadership and authority.
So reason number one concerns God's design as illustrated from creation. Reason number two is her downfall. As illustrated from the fall. Her downfall is illustrated from the fall. Look at verse 14.
And it was not Adam who was deceived. But the woman, being quite deceived, fell into transgression.
Now the second argument has to do with Eve's fall into sin. And when you read that, ladies, it sounds kind of like fighting words, doesn't it? I mean, it sounds like a put-down, but it's not. Please understand, nowhere does Paul or the writer of the Hebrews anywhere in those books say or teach that a woman is mentally, morally, or spiritually inferior to a man. He's not saying, oh, look what Eve did, shame, shame, shame on Eve.
No, what he is really saying is that it was Eve who was deceived. Whereas Adam sinned with his eyes opened. He wasn't deceived at all. That's why the responsibility for the fall is laid on Adam. Paul tells us in Romans: it's not in Eve that all die.
But in Adam all men die. When Eve stepped out of the will of God concerning her role to submit to the leadership of her husband, she opened herself up to deception. By taking the leadership from the man, she was deceived in the matter of doctrine. God knows a woman needs protection. He knows that there's a certain vulnerability and a certain deceivability that comes upon her when she steps out of God's ordained role.
And I suppose, in many ways, that's also true for the man who willfully rejects the will of God for his life. But the first example that Paul gives is that. First, the order of creation, and then the second example is that she did not deceive Adam. But she persuaded her husband to eat. And so Paul is reminding us that the fall was not simply caused by the fact that God said, don't eat that fruit.
But the fall was also caused by the fact that there was role reversal. And as we just examined in Genesis, and as he just said in verse 13 of this epistle, the submission of wives to their husbands is a part of God's original creation for men and women. The woman assumed headship. And with Adam, who was to be the leader, he submitted to her headship, and so he ate of the fruit. He failed.
As a man, To accept the God-given spiritual leadership that had been dictated to him by his being created first. And Paul is bringing up this example to remind us today as men that we need to pick up the ball and assume the leadership in the church. Listen. When there is role reversal, Disaster will happen.
Sooner or later, there will be disaster, whether it be in the home or in the church. And so you have these liberal theologians. That argues that, well, this is a community condition. Paul's just dealing with a problem in Ephesus. Or it applies culturally just to the first century, and that we are no longer bound by this.
I want to tell you, they are distorting the word of God because here in verses 13 and 14, Paul gives two historical, biblical, theological reasons for God's order in the church. Number one, Adam was formed first, not Eve. Number two, it was not Adam who was deceived, but Eve being quite deceived fell into transgression. Paul's two reasons for a woman not teaching and so exercising authority over a man is rooted in the creation and it's confirmed in the fall.
Okay, now that's not to say. That women don't have a role in the church. That is not to say that women do not have a significant contribution to the church. But I want you to see that Paul is saying, based on creation and the fall. It is not okay.
For a woman to teach and exercise authority over a man. It is not okay to have pastorets. And you show me at church. Where there is strong female leadership taking on the role of a man, and I will show you a church that is developing a generation of young boys who are going to be wimps. And I want to tell you, I've seen it in the home.
Well, you have a domineering woman who refuses to submit to her husband's authority, and very often in those contexts, you develop little boys who have an effeminate tendency, sometimes homosexual behavior, and little girls who become lesbians. Listen, God has His order of things. And we would be so wise if we would simply acknowledge what God has plainly said, acknowledging that God is a whole lot smarter than we are.
So, having described a woman's adornment and a woman's submission and a woman's design, we might ask: well, what can they do? What are they supposed to do?
Well that brings us to a woman's contribution. Paul spells out her contribution on two levels. First, a woman's contribution is seen in her children.
Now when we come to verse 15, we come to that favorite verse of Planned Parenthood in the National Organization of Women. Look at it. But women shall be preserved. to the bearing of children. If they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-respect.
The King James renders this verse, notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing. If they continue and so on.
Now, this word translated preserved in the NAS. Saved in the King James. is the word sozo. It's the Greek verb that means to save, and now in form it means salvation. And so, in some instances, it can refer to physical salvation, physical deliverance, say, from our enemies.
Though Paul never once uses it that way in any of his epistles, not to say that this could not be an exception to the rule. But those who take it that way, that this is a salvation from physical deliverance, they would say that when a woman who is godly is having a baby, she is being promised protection from the suffering that would lead to death. Of course, the glaring weakness of that interpretation is it doesn't jive with other scriptures where you see some godly women who are recorded in church in biblical history of having died in childbirth, and we see it even in our day. Still others say, well, this preservation Or this salvation that Paul speaks of is in relationship to the soul. That is to say, if you have babies, you'll be saved.
Well, I thought it was Jesus who saved.
Well some of these cults And wacky groups, and others who make application from this verse say that that's what it's referring to. Obviously, the Bible is very clear that man can do absolutely nothing to merit salvation, neither men or women, but only through the grace of God as found in the substitutionary death, burial, and resurrection, can anyone be saved. Others say, well This is a reference to Eve back in Genesis 3. Where she is given the promise as the matriarch of the human race. That through a woman, the promised seed of Messiah would come.
And so, in that sense, through the bearing of children, the Christ would come, and so women are saved. But Paul is not speaking of one woman. And so he gives the balancing truth in the rest of the verse: if they continue in love and faith, and so forth.
Now I recognize if you're using the King James, it says she. First, singular and then they, plural. But the King James translators are using she as they do in other places in a generic sense to include all women. And so the new American standard rightly renders it women.
So I don't think you can say that this is a reference to Eve. No, I think the context Demands that the word preserved or saved refers to another kind of deliverance. Follow the connection here between the two verses. The two verses are linked together. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman, being quite deceived, fell into transgression.
But women shall be preserved through the bearing of children. Paul is speaking about women in general, and he's saying that women are saved through childbearing. How so?
Well, the fall. seems to put women in an inferior position. And Paul wants to raise them up. To their God-given, exalted position that the Lord has dictated for them. They are delivered from having caused the fall by bearing children.
In other words, women who led in the fall are released, they are saved, they are preserved from that stigma by having children. Women are saved, they're delivered, they're preserved by raising godly children.
Now, think it through: can you imagine? What it would be like. If men had all the babies, And all the women could take credit for was the stigma of the fall? No, God removes them, He preserves them, He saves them from that stigma by having children, but not any kind of children. Which leads me into my second point.
A woman's contribution is seen in her raising godly children. Children, godly children. Yeah. Look at verse 15. But women shall be preserved through the bearing of children if.
Eff If they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint. Paul is saying that while women helped lead the race into sin, they are given the great privilege of God of leading the race out of sin by raising a godly seed.
Now, I understand, according to 1 Corinthians 7, that some women are called to be single. And I acknowledge that God in His providence allows some women to be barren throughout this life for His own sovereign purposes. But even those barren and single women, because of their God-givering, given mothering, nurturing dimension that He has written into their personality, can have an influence on children and ministry. But as a general rule, Paul is not dealing here with the exceptions, just like he deals with men who could be, just like he was, single his whole life. But the general rule is for most people in this life to be married.
And Paul is saying, as a general rule, God removes the stigma of women. by allowing them to raise a godly seed to give leadership to the church and to the world. Though the pain of childbirth reminds the woman of her leadership in the fall, It also ought to be a reminder to her of her high and holy calling by nurturing a godly seed. Paul is telling us here, in essence, that a woman's ministry is not to run the church. But to care for the home and to bear children who will glorify the Lord.
Now before we're done, he's going to expand greatly on that. But this is one of the reasons, among others, In 1 Timothy chapter 5, that he tells younger women to get married again and to bear children. Women have a congregation. A congregation of little men and women in their home. You say, can a woman teach a man?
Can women teach men? Yes, they can, little men. And what so many of these women Bible teachers do not understand. Is that they had the opportunity to teach those little men, but unfortunately, I fear most of them missed it. And I'm not criticizing them as such.
I put the responsibility in many ways in the pulpit because the last generation of women were not called to step up to the plate and to do that which they were supposed to do in the training of younger women. But I fear that most of these leaders did not do what God called him to do. And so they have built their entire ministry modeling a role that God has never called them to model. And so we have so many of these women under the guise of a call from God. To adopt the careerism of the world instead of the God-given opportunity that He puts before her.
Do you know why there's a woman's liberation movement? I'll tell you why. Because there's a devil who does not want the work of God to be done. God has given women a special and high-privileged responsibility of shaping the leaders for the church and for the world. But they can only do this if they do their job well, if they continue in faith, in love, in sanctity, with self-restraint.
They have to be the kind of godly woman that he already referred to in verses 9 and 10, whose adornment is not just on the outside, but on the inside. They're growing in faith, they're growing in love, they're growing in holiness, and because they will not usurp the authority that God has given to men, they are growing in self-restraint or discipline. Do you know ladies? That in most cases Men are the byproduct of the influence of a woman. And I'm not speaking obviously just in the physical realm.
I'm talking about in the spiritual realm, Timothy, to whom Paul writes, was largely the influence of his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois. He learned the scriptures as they taught him. And the role that they played is so different. From what the world will tell you to play today. The world will say don't even have the kids.
It's a pain. Don't have any. And if you have any, just have a couple. God is saying no. You can have a profound influence in the church if you will not miss what God has called you to do in nurturing and developing a godly seed.
You know, when I first went into the ministry over 25 years ago, I believed with all of my heart that what God had called me to do by coming into the ministry was the highest calling anyone could ever have on their life. I've always believed that a pastor, a minister of God, is a higher calling than even the presidency of the United States. But I've since changed my view. I believe now it's number two. And I'm convinced of that not simply by having been married, by having married myself to a godly woman who's done a tremendous job with our children.
But I'm convinced from the Word of God. I believe That if a woman will get a picture If she will get a handle on God's call for her life. She can change the course of the world.
Now ladies, the spirit of the world would say, don't have these kids. And certainly, don't be tied down by them. Get out there, get a career, be a liberated woman. And certainly, don't let any man subjugate you to simply teaching younger women and children. Go to the top.
Become the pastor. I think if we could interview Susannah Wesley. She would give a different kind of spirit. She goes down in church history as one of the most Godly women and greatest mothers who ever lived. She was a pastor's wife, poor by the world standards.
But she was the mother of at least 17 children that grew to adulthood. She was a remarkable woman. She taught herself Latin and French. She read the New Testament in Greek and the Old Testament in its Hebrew scripture. She was brilliant.
And if somehow we could go into the presence of heaven. An interview her today and we said, Susannah. Don't you wish that you could have lived in our day, in this liberated day, rather than in boring old England where all you could do was be a mother? I mean, today, with all of your brilliance, with all of your ability, you could have been a pastor. You might have been like Maggie.
You might have been the prime minister of England. Don't you wish you could have lived in our day? You know what I think she'd say, I think she'd say. You know, I gave my life raising a godly seed. And all of them Without exception.
Turned out, and they all loved the Lord and followed Him all the days of His life. I poured my life into my children. And if I had a thousand lives to do it over again, I would not do it differently. Take those two boys over there, for instance. There's John and there's Charles.
With those two boys alone, I shook two continents for Christ. There's not a continent even in this day anywhere where their names are not known, where their influence is not felt, where their hymns are not sung. Do you think Susannah Wesley Would have sought a career in this day, that she would have desired to have been a pastor of a church, or that teaching over a man would have been a problem to her, that that would be something that she would earnestly desire, not on your life. Because she knew what the Word of God said. And she wanted to do it God's way, and God blessed her for it.
Ladies, I'm asking you to examine the word of God and to take the unpopular position. And I know that it flies in the face of conventional wisdom.
Now you may find yourself ridiculed for taking it. But it's high time the church of the living God said we're going to put motherhood and womanhood on the high and holy pedestal in which God puts it. And we're going to declare that men and women are fully equal, and that God has assigned women to one of the highest roles that they could ever have. And through their unwavering commitment to that role, they can turn out leaders for the church, men of God with substance and character.
Now you may not see it today. And it may be that you're blinded to a simple truth. Because to embrace spiritual truth, you must have a spiritual birth. And until you have a birth from above, Paul says, a natural man, the way we are naturally, physically alive, spiritually dead, cannot comprehend the things of the Spirit of God. It's foolishness.
But if you will come first to Jesus Christ and let him make you a new creation. The next block will begin to make sense. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Heads are bowed, eyes are closed. I wonder how many are here today.
Who could say, Pastor, I've had that new birth. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has saved me in His grace. Further war? I know that if he were to sound the trumpet today, or if I were to slump over dead in this seat. That I would go home to heaven to be with him.
The spirit bears witness to my human spirit that I, at a point in time in my life, became a child of God, that I am a saved individual.
Furthermore, I've made it public. I've been baptized and I am living in the fellowship of a New Testament church. If you could say that, would you raise your hand? Thank you. Please put them down.
Now some of you listening could not say that. Maybe because you've never been saved. You're uncertain of your spiritual state. Maybe you've been saved, but you've never had the courage to make it public. You've never been baptized, or you're not a member.
Of a New Testament church is the scripture instructs you. You know, today God brought you here, and there's a decision you need to make with no one looking around. I wonder if you need to make a decision today and you want me to pray for you. Would you just raise your hand where I can see it? Put it up where I can see it, okay?
Anyone else? Put it up where I can see it. Thank you. Thank you. All right, put them down.
Now Father, I thank you for these who've made these Handlifting decisions today that they need to respond. Maybe somebody here for salvation. You promised that whoever would call upon the name of Jesus Christ would be saved. Because he did what he did on Calvary's cross. You can promise us redemption that whoever will call upon his name Would you do that today?
Would you say, Lord Jesus, save me? I am a sinner. I am bankrupt. I am a rebel by nature. But I turn from my sin to you.
I trust that your blood paid my debt. And as the risen Lord I trust you to be my Savior. Would you just say that? Lord Jesus, save me. And because, Lord Jesus, you have saved me, I will make an unashamed public confession of faith.
Now Father, I pray that you'd help men and women to make the decisions that they need to make today. And Father, I pray that you'd help us as a church. Not to kick against truth. but to submit to it, knowing that it represents Your very best for our lives, and we pray it that Jesus Christ. the Lord of the Church.
would be glorified and we ask it in His holy name. Amen. For a copy of today's message in its entirety, Please call us at 877-787-1. 7478 and ask for program 1 Timothy 006. When we return tomorrow, we'll move on in our study of 1 Timothy and take a look at the role of elders in the church.
We hope that you will join us tomorrow. as we continue to search the scriptures.
