[Note: This sermon was introduced by a drama called "God’s Plan?"].
Men and women really are different. So different one author says that it’s almost like men are from Mars and women are from Venus. The feminist movement in America has accomplished a lot of things--many of them good things--but they’ve failed to convince us that men and women are pretty much the same. We process things differently, we have different needs in our relationships, we see life differently.
But different doesn’t mean better. Feminists have a valid point when they complain that most of human history has been about men dominating women. Throughout most of history women have been oppressed and restricted. Many Americans were shocked to learn that a woman can be executed in Afghanistan for no more than learning how to read.
Unfortunately, the Christian Church has also been guilty of treating women unfairly. The second century theologian Tertullian called women "the Devil’s gateway" (cited in Bristow 28). The Christian theologian Augustine called marriage a covenant of death.
In many ways the Christian community simply reflected the prevailing attitude of the entire ancient world. All of Greco-Roman society looked at women as inferior to men. The philosopher Socrates argued that being born a woman was a punishment because a woman is halfway between a man and an animal (Bristow 4). Women weren’t allowed to vote in ancient Greece, they had little choice over who they married, and in Roman society they aren’t allowed to be seen outside the home. Women in Jewish society didn’t fare much better. The Jewish rabbis prayed, "Thank you God for not making a woman." Jewish women were forbidden from learning the Jewish Bible. In fact, one rabbi said, "It would be better to see the…scriptures burnt than to hear its words upon the lips of women" (cited in Bristow 20). The sad reality is that much of human history has been about men oppressing women. That attitude prevailed until Jesus Christ came to our world. Jesus both taught and demonstrated an entirely new attitude toward women, an attitude that was radical and revolutionary. Jesus taught that men and women were equal but different.
We’ve been in a series through the New Testament books of 1 and 2 Timothy called Deepening Your Life With God. In this series we’ve been looking at the apostle Paul’s final letters before his death. He wrote these letters to his young protégé Timothy who was staying at the Christian church in Ephesus. We’ve seen so far that to have a deep life with God we need accurate beliefs, spiritual practices and authentic Christian community. Today we’re going to talk about the Christian community, and we’re going to see how men and women are different in the context of the Christian community.
1. Different Temptations (1 Timothy 2:8-10)
We start by asking how men and women are different. Now I’m asking this question beyond the obvious, that men and women are different biologically. How are we different in the context of the Christian community? As we worship together, how are men and women different?
We’re going to see that men and women face different temptations in the Christian community.
Now just as a reminder, this entire chapter of 1 Timothy is about conducting prayer in the church’s worship services. Pastor Bruce Erickson did a great job last week of teaching about public prayer in 1 Tim 1:1-7 and then actually modeling it by having several people from our church-both men and women-lead us in prayer. This concern that we pray in our worship runs throughout this entire chapter, and we dare not forget it if we want to truly understand what Paul is saying here.
Paul starts by talking to the men in the church in v. 8. Lifting up your hands in prayer was the normal prayer posture among both Christians and Jews in the first century. This is one of several references to the lifting of our hands in worship. But here Paul seems less concerned with our posture and more concerned with our hearts. Apparently many of the men in the congregation were bickering and fighting among each other, and then putting on happy face at church and praying as if nothing were wrong. This was pure hypocrisy, because inwardly they were filled with anger at each other, but outwardly they were pretending that nothing was wrong. This was a clear violation of Jesus’ teaching in his Sermon on the Mount, that we should leave our offering at the altar and be reconciled with our Christian brother or sister before presenting an offering to God (Matt 5:23-24). Our uplifted hands aren’t holy in worship if our hearts are filled with seething anger and unresolved resentment.
But then Paul addresses the women in vv. 9 and 10. In the original Greek Paul wrote, v. 9 begins with the phrase, "Likewise also." This is important because the "likewise also" refers back to Paul’s statement in v. 8, "I want men to pray." By saying, "Likewise also," Paul is saying that he also wants the women to pray in worship, just as he wants the men to pray (Knight 131-32.
But the temptation the women were struggling with in the worship service was different than what the men were struggling with. Paul needs to remind the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety when they’re praying in worship. The word "modest" means "well ordered," and it refers to clothing that’s not showy, extravagant or sensually enticing. He calls the Ephesian women to "propriety," which means using "sensible judgment".
Now for the Ephesian women, the opposite of modesty was braided hair, gold, pearls and expensive clothing. Before you start looking around to see if anyone here has braids, gold or pearls, you need to know that the prostitutes in the ancient city of Ephesus wore braided hair and gold as part of their working clothes. You see, the city of Ephesus was home to the ancient temple of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, and this temple employed hundreds of temple prostitutes. These prostitutes were infamous throughout the Roman world for their elaborate hairstyles and ornate gold jewelry, so much so that you could identify a prostitute of Aphrodite from a distance just by the way she dressed. Some of the Ephesian women were mimicking the hairstyles and accessories of these prostitutes when they met for worship.
If the braided hair and gold was dressing seductively, the pearls and expensive clothing refer to dressing extravagantly. Pearls were the most expensive kind of jewelry you could buy in the Roman world, so they represented affluence and wealth. Pearls and expensive clothing pictures women coming to the worship service dressed in a way that called attention to their wealth and affluence. This was a way for them to flaunt their wealth in the faces of those who were less wealthy.
As I studied this verse, I immediately thought about the kinds of fashions we see ever year at the Academy Awards. Each year we see women dressed in gowns that cost more money than you or I make in a year. And some of the dresses are so revealing that they seem to defy the laws of gravity just by staying on. I think Paul would say, "Don’t be surprised when they do that at the Academy Awards. But beware when you start dressing like that for worship."
Instead, says Paul, Christian women should adorn themselves with good works that are consistent with their claim to worship God. Now it’s very important that we understand the Bible’s principle here and not confuse the principle with how this principle applied in first century Ephesus. The principle is for Christian women to dress modestly when the participate in public worship. This verse says nothing about how a woman dresses for her husband privately. Really it’s not even talking about how a woman dresses in the workplace or the community, although we might apply the principle to those other circumstances. But the emphasis here is on Christian women dressing modestly for public worship.
Now the application of this principle for Christian women living in first century Ephesus was to avoid braided hair, gold, pearls and expensive clothing. What we need to apply in our own day is the principle, not necessarily the first century application of the principle. I had a student at the college I teach at who didn’t understand this distinction between the principle and the first century application of the principle. Because of this verse, my student refused to allow his wife to wear her gold wedding band outside of the house. Now if I met a woman who I knew was married and I noticed that she wasn’t wearing her wedding band, I’d think, "This woman is trying to pretend to be unmarried." My student’s application actually had the opposite effect, because in our culture today a married woman not wearing her wedding band is an immodest act. So we want to emphasize the principle, not necessarily how the principle applied back to a different culture 2,000 years ago.
What we have here are men and women facing two very different kinds of temptations. Both temptations are similar because they deal with the alignment of what’s inside with what’s outside. THE MEN WERE TEMPTED TO MASK INNER SIN WITH OUTWARD VIRTUE. They were being hypocritical, pretending to be outwardly pious, while seething with inner anger. And men have a tendency to keep things deeply buried in their hearts, don’t they? Under stress, we guys have a tendency to internalize our feelings and bury them. We can be experts at pretending that everything’s okay when it’s really not. We can be tempted to mask inward sin with outward virtue.
THE WOMEN WERE TEMPTED TO MASK INNER VIRTUE WITH OUTWARD SIN. Now this is not to say that the women were more inwardly virtuous than the men in the church were, but it’s merely to point out that their temptation was slightly different than the men’s temptation. Instead of allowing their inner devotion to Jesus to be sufficient, they felt the need to mimic the fashions of the temple prostitutes to call attention to themselves. Or instead of letting their service of Jesus speak for itself, they wore clothing and accessories that flaunted their wealth. The women in Ephesus were dressing seductively and extravagantly to call attention to themselves.
I don’t think this passage is forbidding women from adorning themselves to enhance their beauty. Bible teacher John Stott agrees when he says, "Paul recognizes both that women are beautiful and that they should increase and exhibit their beauty. There is no biblical warrant in these verses for women to neglect their appearance, [or] conceal their beauty or become [drab]…The question is how they should adorn themselves" (Stott 83). The principle here for women is modesty, for women to enhance their beauty in modest ways. Modesty is simply not dressing in a way that calls attention to yourself, whether seductively or extravagantly.
It’s interesting that even non-Christians in our culture are starting recognize the need for modesty. Wendy Shalit, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, has recently written a fascinating book called A Return to Modesty. Wendy Shalit believes our loss of a sense of modesty has led to women being victimized and brutalized in our society. Listen to what Wendy Shalit says, "Specific rules about modesty change with the styles. Our Victorian ancestors…would judge us utterly depraved for wearing the modern bathing suit. Real modesty, however, is a constant and desirable quality. It is based not on fashion, but appropriateness…A well mannered and self-respecting woman avoids clothes or behavior that are inappropriate and conspicuous" (Shalit 232). Shalit isn’t a Christian, but clearly she and many other women of her 20-something generation are yearning for a return to balance in this area.Men and women face different temptations, even in the Christian community.
2. Different Roles (1 Timothy 2:11-14)
Let me give you the second difference between men and women in the church: God has given men and women DIFFERENT ROLES TO FULFILL in the Christian community.
Look at v. 11-14. Now this is one of the Bible’s most controversial passages. Some people think that this passage proves that the Bible is a patriarchal, woman-hating document. The author of one of the ten commentaries on 1 Timothy I consulted in studying this verse said, "This is a passage I have always disliked, resisted, and until now avoided at all costs" (Oden 92).
Yet it’s essential that we hear exactly what Paul is and is not saying before we pass judgment on him. The text begins with, "A woman should learn." Now we quickly pass over that part, but it’s vitally important statement, because in the Greek this is a command, an imperative. It literally commands the church, "Let a woman learn." Back then both people believed it was wrong to teach women, so what Paul is saying here would be revolutionary to first century ears. This command opened a door that allowed women to learn about God for themselves, not having to rely on their husbands or a priest or prophet.
But this learning must take place in an atmosphere of quietness and full submission. In other words, the woman learning the Bible must be teachable and submissive to what the Bible says. So Paul wants the women to learn in an attitude of submission to the Bible, which is really a good attitude for all of us to have when we learn about the Bible.
Then Paul says he doesn’t allow women to teach or exercise authority over men. Now Paul uses a literary device here called hendiadys, where two ideas are coordinated but they really refer to the same action or thing. The two ideas are "teach" and "exercise authority over a man." Paul does not mean that he forbids women from all teaching on the one hand, and, by the way, he also forbids women from exercising authority over men. That would go against what Paul says elsewhere about older women teaching the younger women. So it’s not a blanket prohibition against women teaching, but it’s the kind of teaching that involves exercising authority over men that Paul’s concerned about. We might paraphrase Paul’s point as, "I do not allow a woman to give authoritative teaching to men, but when it comes to authoritative teaching, I want women to remain silent."
Now the reason for this prohibition relates to the story of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis. Paul says that there’s significance to the fact that Adam was created before Eve. That doesn’t mean Adam is better than Eve; after all, all the animals were created before Adam. But Paul does see that this order of creation illustrates a distinction in roles. Paul also points to the fact that it was the woman who was deceived. Now this does not mean that women are more easily deceived than men are. It always cracks me up when people think that this means women are more easily deceived and then they put women in charge of teaching all the children, the must vulnerable group. Remember, the responsibility for the fall of the human race is not shouldered by Eve, but the Bible says that its in Adam that the entire human race sinned. But there is significance to the fact that Eve was deceived.
All of this points to a distinction in roles for men and women in the Christian community. We can’t apply this to the workplace or to the community. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a woman being a supervisor in the workplace over men, or holding high political office, or whatever else. The context here is church leadership, not leadership outside of the Christian community.
Now how does this all apply to us at Life Bible Fellowship Church? We understand the role of authoritative teaching to be limited to our elder board. In fact, I find it very interesting that in the very next chapter Paul writes down the qualifications for church elders, because it’s up to the elder board to maintain a church’s doctrinal integrity. Our elder board guards our congregation’s doctrinal integrity, and every person in any teaching role--male or female--is expected to teach within these doctrinal parameters or they can expect our elder board to be knocking at their door. So we don’t take this to be a blanket prohibition of any women teaching men, but we take it to be a prohibition of female elders, because it’s the elder board that provides authoritative teaching in the church.
We do have female pastors because we make a distinction between elders and pastors. In the Bible, a pastor is someone who is spiritually gifted by God to help equip other people for ministry. Now there are certain pastoral positions at our church where the person must also be an elder. My job description as the pastor of teaching also requires me be an elder on our elder board, so we would never have a female pastor of teaching. But our other pastoral staff positions aren’t limited to men. In fact, we have a pastor of family life ministry named Edna Myers on staff.
We also believe women are free to minister wherever other area God might lead them to. We have female Bible study leaders, female volunteer staff with our jr. high and high school ministries, female care group leaders, female communion servers, and so forth. There’s no reason why we couldn’t have a female worship leader at our weekend services. In fact, there’s no reason why we couldn’t have a woman as a guest speaker in our worship services so long as the content of her message was under the elder board’s authority.
So God has given men and women different roles in the Christian community.
3. Different But Equal (1 Timothy 2:15)
Now if this is where the text ended, we might be tempted to think that God values the contributions of men more than he values the contributions of women. In fact, many Christians down through the ages have concluded just that, and the church has a bad history of refusing to allow women to use their spiritual gifts in meaningful ministry. In many churches, if it doesn’t involve cooking food, working with kids, or making crafts, women can’t serve.
So Paul tries to even things out with the last verse of the chapter, v. 15. Verse 15 literally says, "She shall be saved through childbirth." The "she" grammatically refers back to Eve in vv. 13 and 14. Remember what God said in Genesis after Adam and Eve both rebelled against God? God said to the serpent, "I will but hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; the offspring of the woman will crush the serpent’s head, and the serpent will strike at his heel" (Gen 3:15). In that verse God promised that the remedy to sin would be provided by the woman’s offspring. The fulfillment of this promise came through the birth of Jesus Christ to Mary. Paul’s reminding us here that God’s gift of salvation would came through women, and this gift of salvation would be for all people. Every time a woman gives birth to a child it’s a reminder that women played a vital role in bringing God’s plan to fulfillment.
Then v. 15 broadens to include all women, that they too will experience this salvation if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety. That’s Paul’s way of saying, "All women will be saved from sin provided that they are Christians."
So here we find how men and women are equal in the Christian community. Both men and women are invited to equally share in salvation through Jesus Christ.
Jesus came into the world by being born of a woman. But Jesus came into the world as a man. Which was more important to the process: Manhood or womanhood? That’s like asking which hand is more important when you clap, your right hand or your left hand? Both are equally important, because without one the other can’t do what it needs to do.
Paul writes these words to help us men view women as equals. After all, according to the Bible both men and women bear the image of God. Paul wrote in Galatians, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus" (3:28). The gift of God’s Spirit was poured out on both the men and the women, both sons and daughters, both slave and free, both young and old.
So even though men and women are different, they are definitely equal in God’s eyes.
Conclusion
Men and women are equal but different. In the Christian community they’re different because they face different temptations and have different roles to fulfill. There are probably other differences too, but these are the ones Paul focuses on because that’s where the problems were in the church in Ephesus. But men and women are also equal because they are both equally invited to share in God’s gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.
Sources
Bristow, John Temple. 1988. What Paul Really Said About Women. Harper Collins Publishing.
Knight, George. 1992. Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles. New International Greek Text Commentary. Eerdmans Publishing.
Oden, Thomas. 1989. First and Second Timothy, and Titus. Interpretation Series. Westminster John Knox Press.
Shalit, Wendy. 1999. A Return To Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue. Free Press.
Stott, John R. W. 1996. Guard the Truth: The Message of 1 Timothy and Titus. InterVarsity Press.
