ROLE-ING FORWARDS:
A BIG-HEARTED VIEW OF
1 TIMOTHY 2:8-15

CHRISTIAN GROWTH - The Church of the Living God

1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 8-15

Do you remember the story of the man who loved his cat, and had to leave for overseas and leave his cat with his brother, who disliked his cat? The man went overseas, and he rang back and he said to his brother, “How is my cat?” and the brother said, “Well, your cat has died.” And the man said, “You are so insensitive. Why didn’t you break this to me gently? Why didn’t you say, ‘The cat’s playing on the roof’ and then I’d ring back a couple of days later and you could say, ‘The cat’s had a little accident’ and then you could tell me later that you’ve taken the cat to the vet, and then later, ‘The cat has been ‘very gently put down’. You’re so insensitive! Anyway, how’s mother? The brother said, “Well, she’s playing on the roof.” There is a sense in which the passage this morning is so difficult to explain in the modern context, and yet we ought not to be at all ashamed of it. Why is it that some Churches are slow to have women leading congregations and preaching at Churches? Well, basically, the answer is 1 Timothy, Chapter 2, verses 8-15. What will we do with the passage? Will we see this passage as a block to progress, almost like a rock that is in the way of a highway, a nuisance? Or, will we see this passage as a fence, which is in the way of danger, something that guards and protects? I want to suggest to you, without a doubt, it’s the second. And, although this passage is difficult for modern ears, and although it is difficult, in a way, to preach today, and it sounds a little bit dictatorial and patronising and chauvinistic, it’s actually a magnificent plan of God for His local Church; and it’s much better for us to face it, than to avoid it. I have noticed that people who tend to ‘cut out’ passages from their Bibles don’t know what to do when a crisis comes. They’ve already decided that there are certain passages that they just don’t like, and so when the crisis comes (often a moral crisis), and they’re asking the question – or the question they should be asking – ‘What does the Scripture say?’…they’ve already sold out on that, because they’ve given away something that is in place.

Now, we’re meant to profit from this passage this morning, and I expect that we will. Paul says in his second letter to Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching”, and that includes Chapter 2, Verses 8-15.

A little bit of background: we’re working our way steadily through this letter of Paul to Timothy. It’s actually a letter of Paul to Timothy and the Church and Paul has reminded young Timothy that he must get the Gospel ministry back into the Church. He has gone on to say, ‘Remember that the Gospel changed me (Paul), my life, absolutely’. He reminds Timothy of the Gospel impact on his own life. And he then, as we saw last week, calls for prayer across the world since God desires all to be saved.

And now we come, in Chapter 2, Verses 8-15, into the assembly of God’s people. We move into the Church meeting, into the fellowship, and we see in these verses how men and women should exercise their roles, in a way that helps the Gospel. The theme is still God’s desire for people to be saved. So, please don’t think that 1 Timothy is bringing in antiquarian, optional, foolish, Church rules, which are just a nuisance. The letter is trying to work out, what’s the best way for the Gospel to go out into the world, in order that all people would be saved, and God would be honoured. You see, for example, in Chapter 2, Verse 4, “God wants all to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” It would be very unusual if three or four verses later, he began to teach things which muck up the progress of the Gospel, and yet there are many people today who say, ‘If it weren’t for this stubborn refusal to allow women to lead congregations and preach in the assembly, the whole world would be believing.’ The Apostle Paul says, ‘No, God desires all people to be saved, and it would be helped by the roles’.

You see in Chapter 2, Verse 7, “I am an Apostle,” says Paul, “I am telling the truth, I am not lying.” It would be very unusual if he suddenly moved into 8-15, and introduced a whole lot of cultural baggage that was irrelevant and a nuisance, having just announced himself to be the Apostle and the truth. So the whole lead-in to this section today is helpful and logical and important. However, it comes in cultural dress, as all Scripture comes in cultural dress. Jesus said on one occasion, that His disciples were to wash one another’s feet, but I never see anyone at St Thomas’s washing one another’s feet, and yet I see masses of people at St Thomas’ obeying that instruction. Why? Because we understand that washing one another’s feet is a cultural explanation or expression of serving one another. And so, we see people, all around the place, serving one another, but not specifically washing feet. And when we read the Scriptures, they come with cultural dress, historical dress. And the principle we’ve got to ask is, ‘Which part of these verses is permanent, and which part is cultural?’ And the main way to work that out is to use your brains. Verse 8, “I want men everywhere to pray, holy hands lifted up”. Is prayer something which God wants every generation of men to do? Obvious answer — Yes. Is it essential that you have your hands lifted in the air to pray? Obvious answer — No. Verse 9, 10, “I want women to be modest, but not with gold, pearls, expensive clothes”. Is modesty a permanent ethic for women, in God’s family? Obvious answer — Yes. Is the dress, or the hair-do or the jewellery a permanent one? Answer — No. We can work this out. It doesn’t take any difficulty to work these things out. Now, when we come to Verses 11-15, the teaching in the public assembly, what is fixed and what is cultural? That’s the challenge.

Well, I want to look at these verses under two headings this morning. The first one is, ‘Men and women with godly influence’. That’s verses 8-10. And then I want to spend a few more minutes on the subject of ‘Men and women with godly roles’. That’s verse 11-15.

First point, men and women with godly influence – verses 8-10. Now, if you stand back from those three verses, you can see that it is a very searching request. Paul calls for men in the church to be prayerful. He says, “I want you to be holy, and I want you to be prayerful.” Negatively, he says, “I don’t want you to be angry or to be given to disputes.” Then he says to the women, “I want you to be very influential as well.” Positively, he says, “I want you to be modest and I want you to be practical.” You see that? Modest - Verse 9… good deeds – Verse 10. Negatively, he says, “I don’t want you to be showy. I don’t want you to be shallow.”

Here’s the question. How are men and women to be as influential as possible in the church? ‘Well, for the men,’ says Paul, ‘the key to remember, is not by using your muscles’. It’s not by wrangling, or wrestling, or forcing your way, which is the sort of thing men can do. ‘It’s going to be done,’ says Paul, ‘with the weapon of prayer, and spiritual influence.’ That’s the best way to be influential as a man. ‘For the women,’ he says, ‘it’s not to be by parading or indulging yourself. It’s going to be seen by character, and that’s not the veneer of false glamour, it’s the character of a godly heart.’ Now you can’t begin to imagine how big a shift this is from the agenda of the world. We live in the world, where the world is saying, ‘Would you men like to be really powerful? Come to this seminar. We’ll show you how to be powerful.’ Paul says you’ll be really effective if you’re a man of prayer. The whole world says to the women, ‘If you really want to get people to take notice of you, then this is the magazine you need, this is the course you need, this is the cosmetic surgery you need. In other words, if you really want to make an influence, go down this line.’ And Paul says: character and godliness is powerful.

We are going to be utterly counter-cultural, if we take these verses seriously. They’re not teaching men to be weak. They’re teaching men to be really smart. They’re not teaching women to be dowdy. They’re teaching women to be truly beautiful. And therefore, if you’re a man, this morning we need to work out the God-given way to be effective. I remember Hudson Taylor, the missionary, said, “Learn to move people, through God, by prayer alone”. That’s a spiritual insight, because most people want to move people with their force. Most men want to move people with the force of their personality, or their influence, or their importance, or their stature, or whatever it is. But it’s to be a spiritual thing.

And the women need to work out their God-given way to be effective as well, and that’s going to be, largely, a godly character and godly lifestyle. So Paul is correcting what is really a very shallow world. Men and women are given, in these verses, a profound way to have lasting influence. And I just want to say, if there’s a man in this church who is a praying man, he is the most influential man. And if there is a woman in this church who aims to be godly and to do good deeds, she is an influential woman. Of course, the two cross over. Women are to pray and men are to be godly and do good deeds, but there it is, Paul’s genius — God’s genius — for how to have an effective life.

Now the second section, which is the more complex and controversial, verses 11-15. This is men and women with godly roles. We do not expect the unbeliever to like these verses at all. So please don’t come and tell me afterwards you don’t like the verses. But, if you’re a Christian, you’ll want to submit to these verses, like all the Word of God, and not explain the verses away. Some people in the church have tried to explain these verses away. They’ve said things, for example, like, ‘These verses are written just for Ephesus, first century Ephesus. The problem with that is in verse 13 and 14, where Paul grounds his argument in God’s creation and the fall. Those are historical, not cultural, things. Others in the church, have said, ‘Oh, this is just Paul’s opinion’. Somebody said to me this morning, ‘He was a bachelor, he didn’t know what he was talking about’. But he says in verse 7, “I was appointed a herald and an apostle. I am telling the truth. I am not lying. A teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.” Once you throw this passage out because you don’t like it, you then throw Paul out, the apostle. That’s a very dangerous thing to do. Others in the church have said, ‘This is just written to wives. It’s just wives and husbands. It’s got nothing to do with women in church.’ But, of course, this is an assembly context. It’s not a home context. It’s when the church gathers. So, let’s follow the argument. I want you to know that behind the argument, is the genius of God to put an order, or a structure, into his institutions, just as we understand a captaincy role in the cricket team, and members. There is a little structure, which works. It’s functional. It makes things go well. And, God has a number of institutions. There is government — that’s secular. There is the local family — that could be spiritual. And there is the church family — that’s spiritual. And in the government and in the local family and in the church family, there is an order, to make it work, to make it functional, to make it fantastic.

“First of all,” says Paul, in verse 11, ‘A woman should be a learner” (positively). “She should be a learner in quietness”. It’s exactly the same word as back in verse 2, where Paul says that we want there to be peace and quiet and the word is, literally, ‘tranquil’ or ‘calm’. In other words, Paul says, ‘I want a woman to be a learner, with tranquility.’ “…and in full submission”, he says, verse 11. Now this is not a command for women to submit to men in general. Please don’t think you’ve got to walk out here (if you’re a woman) and be submissive to men in general. This is submission in the context of learning. This is a teaching context. And we ask the question, therefore, ‘Well, shouldn’t all people be submissive in a teaching context, to the Word of God?’ And the answer is, Yes, but there’s a difference, verse 12. He says, “I don’t permit a woman to teach, or to have authority over a man. She must be silent”. Now the negative here, is that in the public assembly, the woman shouldn’t be the teacher, or have the authority. Why is that? Is it because Paul doesn’t think a woman can read, or think, or grasp, or explain, as well as a man? Obvious answer — No. He knows that women are as least as intelligent as men, and may be able to do all these things, and may be able to do them better than a man. And that’s one of the real difficulties, when you’ve got a couple in ministry, and the wife is actually a better communicator than the man. I’d better not pursue that too quickly…

What is Paul talking about? He is talking about order. He says, verse 13, “The man was formed first. Then the woman”. That’s God’s creation plan. And then verse 14, in the fall, when it was reversed, there was a disaster. “Adam was not the one deceived. It was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.” Don’t read verse 14 wrongly, as though Eve was more gullible. The implication in verse 14 is that Adam abdicated his role, and he did, and Eve’s role – which was to take the initiative, was the cause of a double-fault. His fault. Her fault. The fall is a demonstration of where the roles get out of order. Incidentally, some people have pointed out that in the plan of God, God spoke to man, who cared for the wife, and together, they looked after the creation. In the fall, the whole thing got turned upside-down. The snake serpent spoke to the woman, who spoke to the man, who then went and hid from God. Paul is grounding his argument here very firmly in creation and fall. ‘There is a hierarchy,’ says Paul, as I say, in all God’s institutions. There is a hierarchy in the government. We have a Prime Minister, or a king, in place, and we are to honour or respect them, whether or not we like their particular decision. They’ve got a position. Whether or not we like their decision, they’ve got a position. When it comes to the spiritual institutions, whether the local family, or the church family, the Scriptures teach that the man is to model good leadership, and the woman is to model good support. This is a theme that runs right through the Bible. It’s not just first century; it runs from the beginning to the end. It teaches the plan of God for the whole of the world. This is not a matter of superiority or inferiority. It’s grounded in creation. Because it’s grounded in creation, listen carefully to this, we can’t say, ‘Oh, well, it’s an imperfect set-up that we live in, and therefore it doesn’t apply.’ No, Paul says, ‘It’s God’s ideal plan. It’s His plan for the ideal world.’ Then the person says, ‘Ah yes, but we’re not in an ideal world. So, it can’t be, of course, of any consequence to us.’ Paul says, ’No, even in the fallen world, the role reversal is a disaster.’ He uses both creation and fall to demonstrate. It’s His ideal, and it’s also right for the fallen world.

Let me draw some of this together. There is some teaching in these verses, which have to do with the local assembly being taught. It’s got nothing to do with IQ. It’s got nothing to do with gifts. It’s got nothing to do with different worths. It’s got to do with God’s team plan. The plan of God is that there would be an order. There would be some authority, and there would be authoritative teaching done by the men. ‘Now, to teach and to have authority,’ says Paul, ‘should be modelled by the men’, and I want to ask you this question: why do the teaching and the authority go together? This is the $64,000 question. Some people say, ’Let’s separate them. Let’s say anybody can teach. But we’ll let the man be the Rector. Some people say, ‘No, the teaching and the authority are the same.’ And again, I want to point out to you that the second is obviously the case. The teaching and the authority are the same. Our authority is the teaching. The teaching is our authority. So this twosome has been bracketed together in two ways. It’s been bracketed together grammatically. Paul joins teaching and authority together, in the Greek, with a little word, which in 100% of cases, in non-biblical and biblical literature, is used to join two complementary ideas: teach, have authority, bracketed together. Theologically, of course, it’s obvious our authority is the teaching that God has given us. Somebody might say, ‘Well, why not let anyone teach, since the Scriptures are the authority, not the man or the woman?’ And I want to suggest to you, the question that we ought to be asking is this: since the Bible, since the Scriptures, since the teaching that God has given us, is our authority in the local church, when it gets taught, ‘How will we model the order of the family?’ That’s the question. Let me put it again. Since the Bible, or the teaching is our authority in the local church, how will we do it in a way that reinforces an order in the family of God, which He has put in place? That’s why we need to think through carefully, as a church, as a local church, how we do the teaching, and keep modelling the order that God has put in place. Even in the home, we need to think through, how do we teach a family, but also keep modelling the order? And I don’t want to come down with any hard-and-fast rules on this. I just want to ask you, if you’re in a home-group, or you’re in a home, or you’re in a church, we’ve got to keep asking the question, ‘How do we teach the Scriptures and model God’s brilliant order?’ Because it is a piece of genius. It’s no good fighting against these verses, like some men, who just abdicate their role, and won’t rise up and take the proper role, and it’s no good fighting and refusing these verses, like perhaps a woman who says, ‘I will not let my man get on with this’. It seems to me, that as the church lives in the world, which is very disordered, and God has given us a brilliant order for the church, the last thing we ought to be doing, as a church, is saying, ‘Let’s scrap the order that God has given us, and follow the world, which is disordered, in order to keep the world happy, and go down the messy road that they’re going down. Let’s model the genius that God has given us, which is a team, playing their role, under Christ, under His Word, functioning well.’

Is there a cultural aspect, in Verses 11-12? Is there something that stands out as being foreign to us? I suspect that it is the word ‘silent’ in verse 12. I suspect that the word ‘silent’ has got more to do with the culture of perhaps the shift from synagogue to church, and maybe even the context of the Roman world, in which Ephesus was placed, but it seems to me that that is a cultural, not a timeless part, of God’s plan for His people. All the rest, I think, is threaded through Scripture.

And what is verse 15 all about? “Women will be saved, through child-bearing, if they continue in faith, love and holiness, with propriety.” It’s the most patronising-sounding verse of all, isn’t it, to our ears. Some people think that it means that women will be saved through the child-birth. In other words, just as all are affected by the fall, so women will be saved through the birth of the child, the Christ-child. But it’s an unusual argument, I think. I am persuaded that what Paul is arguing here, is that although the woman may not have the downward role, in a church family, or a local family, she has an incredibly powerful upward role. That it is in the raising of her children that she has the most extraordinarily powerful influence. And when you think that in the United States, something like 75% of church leadership traces itself to Christian homes, you begin to realise that the mums in the church, who raise a child to know and love Jesus, are setting people forward for the future in a way which is an unbelievable blessing to the world.

And I think that’s what Paul is saying. Why, however, will that save you? Well, I don’t think it means you will be saved from your sins by doing this. I think it means you will be saved from many struggles, many wrangles, many difficulties. If you flip over to chapter 4, verse 16, you will see that Paul says to Timothy, “Watch your life and your doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save yourself and your hearers.” I doubt that Paul meant to Timothy at that stage, ‘If you watch your life and doctrine, you will suddenly save your people from their sins.’ He’s not asking Timothy to be the saviour of himself and the world at that point. He’s saying, ‘You will save them from many troubles.’

Let me close with a few quick comments. I want to urge us to repent of ever using 1 Timothy 2 in a bullying kind of way. If ever it’s been used by men in the church to force their way, when the plain fact of the matter is that if you’ve got a leadership role, it should be used for the initiative of the welfare of those under your care — we repent, we apologise. We also need to repent of avoiding this passage, as if to say, ‘Well, we don’t like it, so we’re not going to do it.’ That, to me, sounds very like Genesis 3. We don’t like what’s being told, and we won’t do it. Some questions that may be on your mind are: why does it say, in Galatians 3:28, that there is no male or female, but all are one? And the simple answer to that is that, that is a family verse, describing that we are all equal in the family of God — there is nobody better or worse — but it is not a functional verse. It’s a family verse. Second question, ‘Isn’t submission of women a little bit like submission of slaves, something which is to be avoided at all costs, and got rid of?’ The simple answer to that is that slavery was never part of God’s design, but an order in the family goes back to the very beginning, and runs right through the Bible. What about the great women in Scripture — Deborah, Priscilla — who did wonderful roles of effective ministry, and our answer to that is, we agree, they were wonderful. They were raised up often, by God, at a time when the men were hopeless and pathetic, and we thank God that He used them, but they are not the pastors of churches, they are not the leaders of home-groups. Their role was, in many ways, an emergency, or a fill-in role. What about the great women in history, who have pioneered mission, and done more in other cultures and other places, because the men were either not available, or not able, or not willing, or whatever it was? And again, we say we praise God for these women. It doesn’t rule out, however, when the men are around, are they going to rise up and play their role?

Now, you may have some other questions, but I just want to point out to you, in case you get caught up in the nitty-gritty, tiny details of this passage, that what Paul is really arguing is, ‘Let’s have a church, which helps the watching world see it functioning… not beaten down, but gladly submitting to Christ in His Word, enjoying what He has for us, modelling the very hierarchy which He has built into our local family church, as a display to the world of a very wonderful God, who sent His Son, Jesus Christ, submissively to the Cross, in order that all people might be saved.’ That’s the big picture. That’s where 1Timothy 2, 8-15 fits in.

Summary

Believe it or not, I summarised the essentials of this into a 20-25 minute sermon with the aim to leave the congregation with two main threads in their heads. One, that the theme of the Bible is God’s desire to see people saved – and our desire should be the same. Two, that the local church can speed on the process with men and women set free by this truth – and showing the world a revolutionary submission to the One who submitted first.