Equal but Different (1 Timothy 2:8-15)

First Timothy chapter two starting in verse eight.

Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument.

Also the women are to dress themselves in modest clothing, with decency and good sense, not with elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls, or expensive apparel, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess to worship God.

A woman is to learn quietly, with full submission.

I do not allow a woman to teach or have authority over a man.

Instead she is to remain quiet.

For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed.

But she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with good sense.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for your word.

Lord, uh, I thank you for passages like this that we would probably never pick on our on our own.

Um, but because we go through the word the way we do, Lord, we we get to wrestle with these things.

So, Lord, I pray for clarity this morning for everyone.

I pray for clarity of mind for me and in communicating this passage.

Lord, I pray we would just come humbly and with open hearts and saying, Lord, what do you have for us, for our church, but also for us as individuals, as we kind of parse this out and look at what you have to say uh regarding this.

So, Lord, have your way.

We thank you so much for your word.

Accomplish your purposes here today, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

A young boy was taken to church for the first time by his grandfather.

When the grandfather dropped him off at home after the service, his parents asked him how it went.

The boy said, the music was nice, but the commercial in the middle was way too long.

Today's subject matter does get a little bit technical, so I wanted to give you this warning.

And I am gonna go long.

I can tell you that right away.

I was wrestling with this passage all week long, and I was trying to eliminate everything that wasn't necessary so it wouldn't go long, but I got it down to everything I think has to be uh spoken about today.

So just get ready.

If you need another cup of coffee, feel free to go grab another cup of coffee.

Um, do whatever you have to do.

You can elbow your neighbors today if you see them nodding off.

If I see anybody nodding off from here, I'm just gonna shout commercial really loud.

See if that'll snap you out of it.

We'll see what happens.

But I just do want to invite you to stay on your toes.

Um and uh just pick up on as much as you possibly can here today.

You know, last week we started the section, as I told you, on authority.

And we're just continuing on in this section for the next couple weeks as well.

Um, just about this section, uh, and it all just he just talks about authority over and over and over.

Last week was praying for authority, if you remember.

Uh today and next week will be about the behavior of men and women uh in church and God's authority within the structure of church as well.

And today we get to go through a very hotly debated subject in our culture, as you probably could tell as we were going through these passages.

But it really comes down to some fancy words, complementarian versus egalitarian.

And complementarianism is the view that men and women have different but equal roles within the church and in marriage as well.

Equal but different.

Just please remember that for complementarianism.

It means those roles are intended to complement one another.

They're different, but they complement one another.

Equally but different.

Now, egalitarianism is the viewpoint that there are no biblical restrictions based on gender regarding ministry in the church and then marriage for that matter as well.

And let me just be the first to admit up front and get this out of the way that this passage that we're in today, it's been abused.

It's been abused for all kinds of horrible purposes and reasons throughout history, really.

It's been taken out of context by both sides of this, and it's been tortured until it says what people want it to say.

So we have to remember a few things as we dive into this today.

And so there are four things in particular, and I want to just go through these one by one and talk about them.

So, one, we have to keep this passage in context.

You're gonna hear me say context until you're like, please stop saying context today.

It's just gonna come up over and over and over.

This has nothing to do with your workplace, has nothing to do with your boss or your neighbors or politicians or anything else.

This has to do with how the church is to function.

To reinforce this, like we did last week, I want you to turn to chapter 3, verse 14.

First Timothy, just probably a page over to the right in your Bible, chapter 3, verse 14.

This is how Paul ends this whole section on authority.

And this is how we're gonna keep it in context.

Chapter 3, verse 14 says, I write these things to you, hoping to come to you soon, but if I should be delayed, I have written so that you will know.

Ready?

How people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

This is applied to the whole church, not just the church in Ephesus.

This is to be applied to the whole church, all of God's household, the Capital C church, if you will.

Now, the second thing that we need to keep in mind as we're going through this passage and the ones to come is we have to parse out which part of this is cultural and which part of this is not cultural.

And quickly the question becomes well, then who gets to decide what is cultural and what is not cultural?

The text.

And the text within the context is what we're gonna do to try and keep this, you know, and let itself parse itself out of what is cultural and what is not cultural.

Now, three, third thing to keep in mind, we have to ask, how much does our current American culture dictate how we feel about the passage and how we interpret the passage?

Or maybe how does our upbringing dictate our interpretation of this specific passage that we're in?

You know, and that could be based on a positive experience with one of these beliefs or a negative experience with one of these.

So we have to ask ourselves, what else is influencing our beliefs in this?

And I want to encourage you, I want to encourage you this morning or over the next couple weeks or whatever it might be, to come to your own conclusion on this.

Don't just trust me because I'm up here or anybody else just because you respect their views on other things or whatever it might be.

Today, I want you to leave here with an open mind, but to really explore these things on your own and come to your own conclusion, not just because of what we believe or what I believe or anything else, but you know what you believe and why you believe it.

Now, the fourth thing to keep in mind, just like when we talked about in times not that long ago, there are people that interpret this passage completely differently than we do as a church.

And they have their arguments as to why they interpret this differently.

But does that mean that they're not believers or that we can't be friends with them or that they can't even attend our church?

No, it means that we disagree on the exegesis of how we interpret this passage, which means we disagree on just how this functions and how this is applied to the church.

This is not a salvation issue, though.

And I know that some of the people in our church are egalitarian, and that is perfectly fine.

And I am so glad that you're here, and I'm so glad that you feel comfortable coming here as well.

I like to say that we here at Abide that we're benevolent complementarian.

Meaning we believe the Bible teaches complementarianism, but we try very hard to not be jerks about it.

We try very hard to not abuse this passage that we have here today.

So let's jump in and let's look at this instruction and how to behave within the body of Christ.

So look at verse 8 with me.

Therefore, I want the men in every place, not just Ephesus, to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument.

Men crave respect.

They crave it at the deepest part of their soul.

Ephesians 5.33.

This is the end of the marriage chapter, I guess, so to speak, in Ephesians.

It says, to sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself.

So there's the men's instruction, and the wife is to respect her husband.

Those are different directions, aren't they?

This is speaking to some of the deepest needs and desires of men and women, just in that one verse.

And I think what Paul is saying in our passage today to men, and he's going to speak to women here in a second, is it really has to do with this concept of love and respect.

I think what Paul is saying is exactly what this verse is saying.

He's saying that I think that the anger and the arguments that are taking place, they're part of verse 8 here in our text.

It's Paul part of a man's desire to be respected, wanting people to recognize and respect their intelligence and their point of view and their opinion and their knowledge on a certain issue.

And then they get angry and argumentative when somebody doesn't respect those things in their life or what they're saying in the moment.

You know, I gave you this definition multiple times, and I'm going to give it to you again.

Anger, specifically unrighteous anger, is the emotion we experience when we don't get what we think we deserve.

Please memorize that.

It is so important once we understand what unrighteous anger actually is.

Anger is the emotion we experience when we don't get what we think we deserve.

This is why men struggle so much with anger, because we think we deserve respect from everybody all the time.

You know, if I were to take an anonymous poll of all the men in the church here, and what are the biggest temptations in their life, I would put money on the top two results being lust and anger.

I've just seen it, I've experienced it so much over the years.

These tend to be the top two struggles in every man's life.

Some of your translations here in verse 8, they'll say anger and disputing, wrath and doubting, anger or quarreling, anger or disputing, anger and controversy, things like that, just to give you an idea of what we're talking about.

So we're not talking about having a well-thought out or well-presented argument or debate and having a civil conversation about these things and exchanging ideas.

We're talking about anger and rage and wrath here.

It's really talking about a man that's not living a tranquil and quiet life like we defined last week in verse 2.

This is kind of the opposite of that.

Paul addressed these quarrelsome debaters already in chapter one, and those that wanted to be teachers of the law, and he says, but they don't know what they're talking about, but yet they're insisting on those things that they don't know what they're talking about.

They wanted authority, they wanted to be respected, but they didn't know what they were talking about.

So Paul says once again, no, Timothy, not in church.

This does not take place in church.

You need to squash these things.

Now, I also want to talk about the raising hands part of this verse.

So the question is: should men in our church be raising holy hands every time that we pray at church?

I didn't see any men doing that this morning.

So is there something wrong, you know, with that?

I really think this is more about the hands being holy than the posture of the hands.

We see all kinds of different postures of prayer in Scripture, and they're all great and they're all wonderful, and this is only one of them.

Paul was probably writing under the assumption that this was already happening in the church because this was a common posture of prayer for the Jewish people.

They would pray like this all the time, with their hands up, palms up, face up.

We tend to go kind of the opposite, right?

We go like this.

Their posture was like this.

But I don't think it was about the posture of the hands.

I think it was about the posture of the heart.

I think he's basically saying if you're going to lift your hands up to God in prayer, they better be holy hands.

Don't be quarrelsome and angry and get in these arguments in church, and then the next moment lift up your hands as if everything's perfect and fine.

You know, there are a lot of scriptures that come right alongside of what's being said here.

Matthew 5, 23 says, So if you're offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.

First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

Mark 11, 25.

And whenever you stand praying, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

If you have anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you your wrongdoing.

Peter 3:7, husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker partner, showing them honor as co-heirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

You know, we can't be sinfully sideways with a brother or sister in Christ, and then go and pretend like everything's okay between us and God.

Then lift our hands as if they're holy, to the Lord in prayer, like everything's good.

That's what I think the heart of this is.

Less about the posture of the hands and more about the posture of the heart.

Now, we're gonna pick on the women.

Men, you can take a breath for saying verse 9.

Also, the women are to dress themselves in modest clothing with decency and good sense, not with elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls, or expensive apparel.

Again, Ephesians 5.33.

To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.

Again, speaking to some of the deepest needs and desires for men and women here.

And husbands, it's your turn to listen up.

Women crave love, they crave approval and acceptance.

Now, if I were to do an anonymous poll of the women in our church and ask them what the biggest temptations are in their life to sin, and I had Carrie Sleton help me with this.

She's our women's leader, um, women's ministry leader.

Um, so if you don't like what I'm about to say, you can talk to her.

But she said the top struggles would be probably self-image, self-worth, jealousy of other women, and comparison.

So those would probably be at the top of the list.

And I think verse 9 here is addressing a lot of those things.

All because they want to be loved.

And the overarching lesson here in verse 9 is don't dress to draw attention to your outward self.

I think that is the biggest message here.

You can look nice, please comb your hair.

That's great, you know.

You can wear jewelry to church.

I don't think that's the heart of this.

But if you're doing any of that to draw attention to your outward self, to make yourself feel superior to somebody else, to make somebody feel jealous, that's when we have a problem.

You know, or maybe you don't even do it intentionally.

But the way you dress does draw attention to who you are on the outside as opposed to who you are on the inside.

That's when we have a problem.

And we, we, the women need to ask themselves, and the men can too, how can I dress in a way that I look nice, but I don't draw attention to the outside appearance?

I don't draw attention to the outside self.

You know, the point is when we come to church, we should be looking at each other's hearts, not at each other's appearance that day.

You know, this this verse has been abused as well.

Used to say, you know, women dress so men don't stumble.

You're responsible for men's lust problems, you know, and things like that.

I think that's a very poor take on this verse, honestly.

I don't think this has anything to do with the men in Ephesus having trouble lusting after women in church.

I don't think that's in our context.

You know, indecency is a part of a modesty that absolutely we should all be avoiding.

But the examples here in the context don't speak to lust specifically.

It speaks to being flashy, it speaks to drawing attention to outward appearance, and absolutely indecency can be a part of that.

But I do want to take a stab at why this instruction is going specifically to this church.

This church had very wealthy people in it, and over half of the Roman kingdom were slaves at this time.

So they had very wealthy people and very poor people, very wealthy people and slaves in church together.

Now, if you could imagine that one of those wealthy women walks in all done up, you know, with the gold and the pearls and the fine clothing and maybe a beehive, you know, some fancy hairstyle or whatever, and then they sit right next to a slave woman that's in rags.

How is that gonna make the slave woman feel?

It might make them feel like they don't belong there, right?

Maybe it'll cause the slave to start drawing comparisons, maybe leading to thoughts of inadequacy, maybe causing some self-consciousness.

Maybe that would cause the slaves to sit over here, and then the rich to sit over here, causing a division in the church that isn't isn't even spoken.

But it's just like I don't feel comfortable next to that woman that looks perfect when I'm coming in and haven't had a bath in uh two weeks, and I'm wearing these rags, and but I really want to be here.

I think this gets at the heart of the passage here that we're talking about.

I think it's addressing struggles that women go through in wanting to be loved.

You know, they want this positive attention, but then they're struggling, or somebody else is struggling with the feelings of jealousy or inadequacy or feeling like they're not accepted in that church.

And it forces people to start drawing comparisons.

So we have to ask with all that, should the women of our church not wear gold, pearls, or anything that's expensive?

Kind of like should men be raising hands every time they pray.

I think the context says here's some examples for you guys of what's going on here.

Here's some things that you should be avoiding for the sake of the church, both telling Timothy this and the church in Ephesus this as well.

You know, it's probably gonna look a lot different for us today in our culture, but we still have to hold on to that concept of don't draw attention to your outward self.

Instead, adorn yourselves with, look at verse 10, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess to worship God.

If you want to stand out in church, stand out because of what you're doing for God's kingdom, not what you're wearing.

You know, this is something that any woman can do, isn't it?

Stand out for good works.

Regardless of how they look or their social status or how much money they have.

We can all, not just the women, we can all choose to stand out for our good works and not because of something else.

I think the overarching thing here is let's stop focusing on what the eyes can see, and let's start focusing on what the heart can see.

We need to adorn ourselves with good works, and let that be what maybe allows us to stand out within a church.

So that really finishes our behavior section today.

Now we're gonna move on to the authority section.

And before we go any further regarding this, I think this would be a good place to kind of stop for a second and address biblical authority and biblical submission.

And I want to do this because our cultural understanding really plays a part in this.

Our English definitions of these words really play a part in this because of abuse of passages like this, or it led to abuse of passages like this, and like in 1 Corinthians as well.

You know, we tend, as Americans speaking English, we tend to think of authority and submission as a hierarchy, don't we?

Like, oh, authority.

Here's the authority structure of our government, here's the authority structure of a business or, you know, or something like that.

And I really don't blame you and I for looking at it as a hierarchy.

Because in wrestling or in UFC, if you're familiar with that, what's a submission hold?

I don't expect all of you to know that, but what is a submission hold?

It's when somebody holds an opponent in such a forceful and painful position that they tap out and they give up.

We call that a submission hold.

It's kind of like fine, you win, I give up, you beat me, I'm in a lot of pain right now, you can just do whatever you want.

And we can tend to look at biblical submission and biblical authority in that same way.

So I want to counter how we naturally think of submission in our culture and in English with what biblical submission and biblical authority look like.

So I want to ask you a question.

And these are not trick questions, okay?

So you can actually, you don't have to think about them too hard.

Do you believe that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God and three persons?

Yes.

Yes.

Do you think that they are equal in nature?

Yes.

Do you think that they're co-eternal?

They've all existed from eternity past and will for eternity future.

Yes.

Do you think they are co-equal?

They're all equal.

Yes, absolutely.

I do at least.

Jesus himself said, I and the Father are one.

Do you remember that?

And then he talks about his submission to the Father.

He talks about only doing the Father's will.

He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, not my will, but your will be done.

So how can God, in three persons, how can they be equal and one, yet one submits to the other?

It's because we're talking about biblical submission here.

We're not talking about a submission hold.

And I think it's this misunderstanding that has led to so much of the abuse that we've witnessed of men abusing their power and authority to basically make women servants.

That is not at all what this is talking about.

That is not biblical submission.

But the thing is, God has set up the same type of relationship that we see in the Godhead.

He's setting it up for us in that same way that the Trinity is already doing this.

He wants the church to be in that same function.

The Godhead has different roles, but they're co-equal.

We need to stop thinking of submission as a hierarchy.

We need to stop thinking of submission as inequality.

That's not biblical submission.

We have to remember equal but different roles that God has assigned for our own good.

We're created in his image, both male and female.

And it's when we're complementing each other in this way that we get the most complete image of God in our life.

I really believe that.

So just keep that in mind as we get into the controversial part here.

Verse 11.

A woman is to learn quietly with full submission.

So remember the context.

This is written to a church about church gatherings, church assemblies, if you will, just like us here this morning.

And as we're going to see in verse 12, it's specifically regarding teaching and authority.

Keep it in that context.

You know, if you're already writing off this passage as like this is chauvinistic, you know, and I don't believe this and stuff like that, just hang in there, okay?

Just hear me out until the end.

Hear this passage out until the end.

I want to point out that this cannot mean that a woman should be quiet all the time in church.

The context is teaching the body of Christ in an assembly specifically about teaching and authority.

This is about learning quietly with full submission, as it says, to their spiritual authorities that God has placed over them.

If they're married, that would include their husband as well.

1 Corinthians 11, to kind of prove the point here, it talks about something similar.

It talks about God being the head of Christ, Christ being the head of man, and man being the head of woman.

And then right after that, right after that, it talks about when women pray or prophesy in a public setting.

Talks about when they do that.

So this is in the context of teaching in a church service.

We have to keep it right there.

Specifically in an authoritative way over God's appointed authority.

Which is what verse 12 is about.

I do not allow a woman to teach or to have authority over a man.

Instead, she is to remain quiet.

You know, I know women that have an amazing gift of teaching.

I know women in our church that have an amazing gift of teaching.

I've learned so much from other women, from my wife, from my mother, from my grandmother that all love the Lord and have taught me so much about God.

You know, in Acts 18, Priscilla and Aquila, a husband and wife, they come across this guy named Apollos.

It says he's a very gifted orator that taught very accurately about Jesus, but he only knew John's baptism.

And it says in 1826, after Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside, Apollos.

They took him aside and they explained the way of God to him more accurately.

Both of them did that.

Also, when you think about it, who taught Timothy the scriptures?

Where did he learn this?

His grandmother and his mother did, right?

They're the ones that gave him that foundation in his life that led to him being appointed to being Paul's right-hand man and then the pastor here in Ephesus.

So this isn't a command that women can't teach.

This is a command that women are not allowed to have authority over a man, which includes teaching in church assemblies like we have here this morning.

That is specifically a role of this teaching job here.

That's specifically a role that God has given to very qualified men and specifically to the elders of the church to have authority over that position in every capacity.

Now I want to talk a little bit about the main arguments against this passage.

This was simply, you know, one of the first things that people say is this is simply a problem in Ephesus of women disturbing the service, so they had to draw some hard lines.

So this is cultural, it was just for that one church.

Or they will say that this is simply Paul's opinion, because uh in verse 12 there he says, I do not allow.

So it was just what Paul did, what he liked to do.

Another argument is that the word authority by definition means to kill somebody with your own hands.

So that's just an obscure word.

It was used once in all of all of uh the New Testament, which is true.

But, and this is kind of an argument that's gaining traction just recently, is the definition of this, but that's only about a quarter of the definition in Strong's, and it doesn't even show up in the BDAG.

Those are the Greek to English uh lexicons.

So we have to look at the context once again when we're looking at this verse, because it'd be so out of place if we read this verse and said, a woman is to learn quietly with full submission.

I do not allow a woman to teach or kill a man with her hands.

Instead, she is to remain quiet.

Context does not allow for that definition.

It just seems a little bit out of place, doesn't it?

I think the arguments one and two are the ones that we should address because they're common, they're in our culture, they're the ones I come up against the most.

And the reason that I don't think one or two really holds water, like, you know, because they'll say, well, the the raising of hands is cultural, the gold and the pearls are cultural, so how can you know this must be cultural as well?

So we we need to just say that was cultural and not apply it to today.

But it's the text.

Look at verse 13.

This is why I don't think it's cultural.

For, so this is automatically a because statement, right?

For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

There's an order to creation, to God's creation.

There's an order in creation, and God desires that order in church as well, and our relationships as well.

1 Corinthians 14, let everything be done decently and in order.

Yes, that's talking about spiritual gifts, but God desires that order within his churches as well.

He created order in everything.

Sin has messed a lot of that up.

But it's glorious when we keep that intended order that God first wanted for us in everything that we possibly can.

Now, verse 14 continues on with this because statement, this for statement, which is about what happens when we get things out of order.

We start doing things in the wrong order.

Verse 14.

And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed.

First, let's address that this is not, you know, women are gullible and they can't be trusted.

I don't think this is what this is about at all.

I think women can definitely be trusted.

I've seen a lot of women with the gift of discernment and the gift of teaching and all of those things.

I know a lot of women that are way smarter than I am.

I think this is speaking specifically of how God made an order in creation, how he made an order in marriage, in the home, in the church, of men being the head.

And we've had that role since the very beginning.

And the result of Eve stepping out of that order and usurping Adam's role is what led to the fall.

It was how the world was first introduced to sin was getting this out of order.

You know, I think oftentimes when we read through the creation story in Genesis, we picture Eve, you know, and the serpent and the tree and all that stuff, and somehow think Adam was probably off somewhere else, you know, doing something else.

Eve gets tempted, she eats the fruit, and then she takes it to Adam wherever he is.

But there's really no reason to think of it that way.

You know, I think Adam was probably right there with her, standing next to her, listening to this whole conversation, and was just apathetically standing by, willingly allowing his wife to usurp his headship.

He wasn't leading her in love, he was being passive, he was being apathetic.

He ate knowingly, he was not uh uh deceived.

But Adam was giving in to apathy, Eve was giving in to deception, and that is still a huge issue in our society today.

You know, if men aren't domineering on one side of the spectrum, they completely seem to be on the other side of the spectrum.

Completely apathetic, just like, you know what, you guys do what you want.

I'm I'm just not interested anymore.

And that causes the women in their lives to end up having to lead and usurp authority because nothing's getting done.

You guys, there's nothing new under the sun.

Today, all the way back to creation, it's still the same issue.

You know, our passage here in 13 and 14, it's not so as much about deception as it is about what happens when we mess with God's order to things, God's order of creation, God's order in creation.

This is talking about Eve acting in the place of Adam's headship and Adam just going along with it.

And this still happens in our church, and it still happens in our marriages today, just like it did way back then.

I want to speak to the men for a second.

You cannot be domineering, and you cannot be apathetic either.

We are called to be like Jesus.

He's that perfect example of who we're supposed to be as men and as leaders in the church.

And he was neither of those things.

He was not apathetic and he was not domineering.

You know, as husband andor elder in a church, we're called to be demonstratively loving, to demonstratively lay down our life for our bride and the bride of Christ just like Jesus in church and at home.

You know, and Paul's not done speaking to women here.

Look at verse 15.

But she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with good sense.

Let's look at the word saved here first, because this is obviously not talking about eternal salvation, is it?

The BDAG says to preserve or rescue from natural danger and afflictions, save, keep from harm, persevere, uh I'm sorry, preserve and rescue.

And then this word is also translated uh throughout the Bible as save or make whole or heal or be whole to give you an idea of the connotation.

So again, we need to look at the context here.

Context is saying women, instead of feeling defeated, take joy.

Find fulfillment in the equally important role that God has given you.

Take joy in your unique role of child bearing, something men cannot do.

I don't care what people tell you.

It's saying, find fulfillment in raising and discipling your children.

The next generation is in your hands.

You do have authority, you do have this authority, like Timothy's mom and Timothy's grandmother.

Take joy in managing your household sensibly and with wisdom, as it says.

You know, there's glory in the role of women.

We should uphold it, we should celebrate it, we should see it as equally as important as the role of men, but we have a horrible time doing that in our culture, don't we?

Like we were saying earlier, biblical submission does not equal suppression.

Biblical submission equals flourishing.

It equals joy, it equals contentment, it equals fulfillment when we're all doing the things that God has told us to do.

That's what it means to be saved through childbearing.

It's to flourish in that role that God has given you.

Now, I believe the context of verse 15, along with what we're going to see in 5.14, is instruction on the best way for women that are called to marriage.

So this is different than women that are called to singleness, but women that are called to marriage, it's a call to flourish and to avoid sin and struggle by doing these things.

Because chapter 5, verse 14 says regarding the young widows not being led into sin, it says that they should marry, have children, manage their households, and give the adversary no opportunity to accuse them.

You know, a good way for women called to marriage to avoid sin is to stay busy with these things.

And in this they will find fulfillment of their role.

In Titus 2, 3 through 5, when speaking of older women teaching the younger women, it says, older women are to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children and to be self-controlled, pure, workers at home, kind and in submission to their husbands, so that God's word will not be slandered.

You know, whether this makes you uncomfortable or not, this is God's word.

This is God's order.

This is how God set things up.

And it's so beautiful when men and women are complimenting each other in this way, as God designed in his specific order.

And I like I said earlier, when we compliment each other in this way in the body of Christ, it makes the body function and it gives us a more complete image of God.

But I get it.

Our culture screams, that is not politically correct.

You can't say that.

It's 2026.

You're so tone-deaf.

The only reason you believe this is because you're a man.

Or this cannot be the right interpretation.

This goes against everything our culture has taught us.

This goes against every strong woman in my life and what they have taught me.

Can I tell you a secret?

Just between you and me, just the two of us.

I went through this phase, and it was a while ago, where I really dug into all of everything we're talking about here this morning.

And I kind of hoped when I did this a long time ago, was to come out on the other side as an egalitarian.

I had two friends that went to this conference.

They went complimentarian, they came back egalitarian because of these speakers and all of these things that they were learning and teaching.

So I was like, I really need to dig into this on my own.

I need to search the scriptures, I'm gonna look into the Greek, I'm gonna read the theologians and all that kind of stuff.

And then I studied all of that stuff on my own, and I came out on the other side a complimentarian because I truly believe it's the most literal and the most accurate interpretation of all of the verses in the Bible when we are trying to the best that we can to unbiasedly keep this in context and not look at whatever what's our culture gonna think.

I want to end with this.

You know, we need to recognize that, and I think this will help a little bit, every human is under authority.

Every single human in some capacity is under authority.

It's not something we can avoid and be like, I don't have any authority in my life.

It's just not true.

To some capacity, even if you're not a Christian, you're under some type of authority.

And this includes Jesus submitting to God, elders and the whole church submitting to Jesus, the church submitting to the elders, if married, wives submitting to the husbands, children submitting to the parents.

God truly wants what is absolutely best for us.

So he created us in an order that's very similar to the order that we see within the Trinity.

And even in a fallen world that we're living in, that's destroying all the order that God created in creation, his order is still what's best for us.

If we seek it out and we try to maintain the order that he first created.

Which we're gonna talk about next week when we're talking about authority with elders and what an elder is, and we're looking at the qualifications for an elder.

Uh, but the last thing is I just want to leave an admonition for the men and for the for the women so we can leave with this.

For the men, let's step up.

In every place that God has given you authority, whether it's in a church, whether that's in marriage, in your home, with your kids, whatever it might be.

If your wife is having to lead because you're being apathetic, step up and lead with the love and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in each one of those areas.

Do not let the sin of apathy or the sin of being domineering get a foothold in your life.

As we said, demonstratively love those that God has placed you in authority over more than you love yourself.

And then for the women, God has given you an amazingly and equally glorious role in his kingdom.

Do not let our society tell you otherwise, or downplay the role of women in the church or women in the home.

That's probably one of the good things that came out of COVID.

A lot of people were like, How do you moms do this?

How do you have your kids at home with you all day or whatever it might be?

Like they kind of became the heroes there for a little bit and shine some light on something that our culture was trying to downplay for so many decades.

It's a glorious calling.

It's a hard calling, but it is a glorious calling.

And I want to encourage you as well.

Don't listen to the enemy.

You're beautiful, you're loved.

God cares for you so deeply.

You have an amazing purpose in God's kingdom.

So let's all go out and flourish in those roles and in that order that God has called us all into.

You please pray with me.

Lord, you are so good.

We thank you for the calling that you have placed on each one of our lives.

We thank you for the role that you've given each one of us in the different areas of our life.

For every single person in this church.

Lord, we pray that you would show us how to live our lives in a way that honors and glorifies you.

In a way that points people to you.

I pray that people can look at us as a church, as individuals, and just say, man, something's different.

Something's better in their lives that I don't have, which would lead to us sharing the gospel with them.

Help us to be those lights in our community, whatever capacity we're involved.

Neighbors or work, school, whatever it might be.

Help us to be a beacon of light and to thrive in the roles that you have given us for your glory and for your kingdom's sake, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.