This is God's word, let a woman learn in silence with all submission and I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. Nevertheless, she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with self-control." It goes without saying that this is a controversial text of Scripture. So even in a group like this we feel the tension created by a text which casts gender roles in such stark terms, in such stark contrast. Imagine if I had simply read that to kick off a sermon in any average American church.

Really not sure what would happen. I'm going to classify ours as a post-question authority bumper sticker age. Here's what I mean by that. Those of you who are old enough know that 15 or 20 years ago, there were cars everywhere with a bumper sticker that said, question authority on it. I can't remember the last time I have seen a question authority bumper sticker.

Why is that? Because people are no longer questioning authority. No, because questioning authority has become so commonly interwoven into every part of life that nobody needs the bumper sticker anymore. Questioning authority in every way, in every part of life, in every institution is woven into our culture so much that we don't even say question authority anymore. It's a given.

So people can possibly still swallow this person has authority in this context, but if you add the implication, the unavoidable implication, that means you need to submit to this authority in this context, then you're asking for trouble. And to go further than that and add, and you also need to be quiet in this context, you're not permitted to have your say anytime you want and you can't just blurt it out in this context is completely unacceptable. But we are the people of God. We are a purchased people. Here's how the Apostle Paul says it, "'For you were bought at a price.

Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's.'" This is 1 Corinthians 6 verse 20. "'My body, God's, he bought it with blood. My spirit, God's, he bought it with blood. He owns me and so Jesus is King. He owns me because he paid for me with the blood of his beloved son.

He gets to be king, I'm happy that he's king. And God is the object of worship, We are worshiping him and as the object of worship it is for him to direct how he is to be worshiped, how he desires to be worshiped, what worship is acceptable to him. He determines that. I don't determine that. I'm not the object of worship.

If I determine that, it's idolatry. And so the people of God go to the Word of God to get our marching orders for how we ought to conduct ourselves when we gather to worship this God. As we go to our central text that I read, let's ask the Lord to help us. Our God we are happy to be yours body and spirit, we're not resentful to be yours, We know what it cost you to purchase us. It cost you the blood of your beloved son.

Now rule over us, govern us by your word. We're happy to be governed by you. We remember what it was like to be governed by our own thoughts and the pressures of culture. Oh set us free, set us free to just delight in your word and follow you wherever you lead. We pray this in Jesus name, amen.

Now let's look at this text in detail it is 1st Timothy chapter 2 so please turn in your Bibles to 1st Timothy chapter 2 verses 11 through 15. First a couple of points about the context of 1 Timothy 2, 11 through 15. In chapter 3 verse 15, Paul tells Timothy explicitly the purpose for his letter. He doesn't leave Timothy, the recipient of his letter, guessing about why he's writing. He says in black and white exactly the purpose behind his writing.

Look at 1 Timothy 3 verses 14 and 15, follow along as I read it. These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly, but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." Or to reverse the order in which Paul just said it, Because of what the church is, the living God's Church and the pillar and ground of the church, the church that God owns, the living God in heaven owns this church and it's the repository for his truth. It's meant to be where the world can go for truth. There is a way we ought to conduct ourselves in his house. He owns the house.

He owns the house. So there's a way that we ought to conduct ourselves and we ought to take pains to know how we ought to act in his house. That's the whole logic of the letter. It's God's Church and we are to be a pillar and ground of the truth, a repository for truth, a place where the world can go to get truth from heaven, and so we're not at liberty to just decide how we act in his house because it's his house. So that is why Paul is writing and that is what Paul is writing as an authoritative apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Also regarding the context, the chapter break isn't particularly helpful here. We have a particularly uninspired chapter break. What comes immediately after the words that I just read is a text about who should oversee the church, and it isn't men in general. It is certain very select men who have been tested and qualified by the brethren in the church against the character qualities and abilities that God has laid out as essential for being present in the life of men who lead the church. So Paul isn't teaching at all that men have no limitations and that women have comprehensive limitations so they're learned to like it.

Okay, that's what Paul's not teaching that. Men, you're unlimited, women, you're completely limited, so get over it and learn to like it. That's not the teaching of Paul. You have to go somewhere else for that message. It is actually that we all have limitations in the house of God because Christ is the head of his church and the object of our worship.

As the head of the church he leads and follows, as the object of worship, he tells us what worship is acceptable to him, what worship he delights in. And then we should all understand our limitations and operate within the limitations of the head of the church and our object of worship. That all makes sense until you start to apply it. Then it becomes very offensive to our sensibilities. Let's look at this in detail.

Look at verse 11. First Timothy chapter 2 verse 11. I'll reread it. Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. We naturally gravitate to the controversial part of the verse.

In Silence with all submission. And when we do that when we gravitate to the controversial part we've really essentially skipped right over the top of the first part we've skimmed over the top of it. Paul first says let a woman learn. Paul's expectation is that the women are present, that they are worshiping God, and that they are learning. The admonition of the author of Hebrews to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, that's Hebrews 10 25, is to all of the Lord's people.

Men, women, children, women are to be present among the Lord's people. They are the Lord's people. They are to be learning among the Lord's people. They are the Lord's blood-butt people. And what should they be learning?

Everything! The whole counsel of God. There are no secret handshakes here. There is no subset of learning for men the deep things of God and another set for women who don't need to know the deep things of God. Women need to know the deep things of God.

They're to learn everything. This is a book for the Lord's blood-butt people from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. Not one word is not for women. You might say you might have heard, why bother learning the deep things of God if I won't be teaching? Theology is the study of God.

It's the study of the God we're worshiping. Our worship is deeper and better and sweeter and right when we study him, the object of our worship. The day you're born again you still love a lot of the things that he hates and hates a lot of the things that he loves you grow in that We need to enter into the deep things of God because God is a deep God and he is a God to be worshipped. What are they learning? Everything.

Who are they learning from? Any man who wants to blurt something out no matter how ignorant or ungodly he gets to say whatever he wants, whenever he wants, because he's a man. No! Paul's not teaching that. We keep reading into chapter 3 and find that she will be learning predominantly from men whose character has been verified to be exemplary, to a level of Christ-likeness and growing in Christ-likeness, and who is able to teach, able to explain and unfold and articulate the Word of God and then defend it against those who would attack it.

Men who have mature Christian character that's been tested and verified by the church, men who are mature in their doctrine. Now what Paul adds in verse 12 adds clarity. Look at verse 12, 1 Timothy 2 verse 12, and I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man but to be in silence. Of course it is implied that if a woman is learning in silence with all submission, verse 11, that she is not teaching or having authority over a man, verse 12, but Paul makes it explicit. Paul not taking any chances here.

He actually gives us both sides of the coin. He is very clear. She is to learn in silence with all submission. She is not to teach or to have authority over a man in God's house. And then Paul grounds what he is teaching.

He sets it on a foundation. What is the grounds and foundation for what Paul is teaching, verses 13 and 14. Look, 1st Timothy 2 verses 13 and 14. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression.

First, notice what Paul is not laying as a foundation. Culture. Find a word of culture in there. Well, men have cultural advantages that women don't have in Corinth at the time that he's writing, so men should teach. There's not a word of that.

Intelligence. Men are smarter than women, and so men should teach. There's not a word of that and it's not true. Gifting. Men are gifted to teach.

Women have no teaching gifts so men should teach. Not a word of that. Education or training. Men have had access to theological education that women have not had an access to so men should teach, women shouldn't. Not a word of that.

If not those things, then what is Paul's foundation? Creation. God's own design and intent expressed in creation. See, God doesn't have to fight culture in creation. He's creating culture in creation.

There is no culture into which Adam and Eve come into. He's not reacting to culture, he's creating culture. God made us in his own image and God made us male and female. He made the distinction, Genesis 1 27. Male and female is his idea, Genesis 1 27.

Adam first, then Eve. And God made man to lead and woman to help, Genesis 2 verse 18. It's God's idea that men lead and women help. Genesis 2 18. Which is why in Genesis 3 Eve eats first but Adam is called to a count first.

Go look at it yourself. Genesis 3. It'll never change until the end of time. Eve will always eat first, Adam will always be called to account first. There are tremendous implications with that that you cannot escape.

He did eat but not first. She was called to account but not first. So the problem that Paul identifies in verse 14 in our text in 1 Timothy 2, the problem identified is not that Eve was more prone to deception, I've heard that taught from this verse, I don't think this verse teaches that, that women are more prone to deception than men. The problem wasn't that she was more prone to deception, it was that she overthrew God's design and intent by usurping the leadership of her husband. The helper assumes the place of the head in Genesis 3.

You see that? God made male and female in Genesis 1, God made the man leader and the woman helper in Genesis 2, and in Genesis 3 what we see is the helper takes headship and eats the fruit first. That's the problem that the Apostle Paul is identifying in our text. Paul is arguing that it is Genesis 3 all over again when a woman teaches or has authority, exercises authority over a man in Christ's church. It's just like the garden all over again.

The helper is assuming headship contrary to God's design and intent. He expressed his intent, His desire, His pleasure in the creation order, Adam first and then Eve. And it was overthrown in Genesis 3 and it's overthrown when a woman takes the pulpit in the house of God. I want to now make a connection to truth, to a truth that is outside of this text. So I'm going outside of our text.

I'm going to say, you know this is true from another place. Now let's take that truth and just look back in on our text, like throw light on our text with that truth. What is the ultimate expression of gender? The ultimate expression of gender. Gender is an approximation of Jesus Christ and his church.

There's more to say about gender than just this, but whenever we consider matters of gender we should keep this in view because the ultimate expression of gender pictures Christ and his bride. In Ephesians 5 Paul says, this is a mystery but I speak of Christ in the church. A husband should be this way and a wife should be this way. It's a mystery but I'm speaking actually of Christ in the church. So in marriage sometimes we speak of it in terms of the gospel drama.

Have you ever heard marriage called that? The gospel drama? God has given the human race marriage as a way to picture the gospel. The husband given a role to play in his marriage, the role of Christ, a self-sacrificing role, a role to love and lead and nourish and cherish, and a wife given a role to play the role of the church in the respect that she has for her husband being a picture of the respect that we have for the Lord Jesus Christ, her submission to her husband as a representation of our submission to the Lord Jesus Christ who bought us with his own blood. The gospel drama.

Marriage is approximating the marriage. How does that apply? When the people of God, some men, some women, meet together to worship our God? We are approximating something. When we meet to worship God and men teach and women listen reverently, it's not reverence for the man in the pulpit, it's reverence for the head of the church.

The man in the pulpit just stands as a representative of the head of the church. So her reverent listening goes beyond him to the head of the church. We are approximating something. What do we approximate? It is for Jesus to speak and for us to reverently receive his words and obey his words.

And when we refuse to approximate that in the house of God. We are still approximating something. We will have our say no matter what Jesus thinks. Even though the church is to be Christ's helper, we will be head. We are to picture the Lord's people when they gather.

We are to approximate Colossians 1 18. So to what Paul writes in Colossians 1 18, And he, Jesus Christ, is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have the preeminence. Preeminence just means that the place of highest honor, first place, but all things the Lord Jesus Christ is to have the place of highest honor. When a man stands before the Lord's people to teach the Word of God and the Lord's people, especially the daughters of Zion, listen in silence with reverence, we're approximating Christ in his church. It is for him to speak, it is for us to receive his words.

It's a gospel drama too. What it is not is a declaration that men are without limitation and women are under comprehensive limitations. What do you find in James 3 verse 1? James 3 verse 1. My brethren, let not many of you become teachers knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.

Limitation! What do you find in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1? Rigorous qualifications for church leaders. Limitation! The shortage of elders in churches that take the qualifications from 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 seriously is proof that it's a limitation.

You go to a church that takes the qualification of church leaders According to those two lists, 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, really seriously, and what you'll find is a challenge to find men who meet the qualifications. This is the Lord's people accepting the limitations of Scripture. I hope cheerfully. What do you find in 1 Peter 5? You find Peter identifying himself as a fellow elders exhorting other elders to shepherd the flock in a diligent humble way under the chief Shepherd.

It is a phrase found in 1 Peter chapter 5. Chief shepherd. No pastor in any church is the chief shepherd of that church. So it's fine to use the language of shepherd with pastors, because the Bible does, as long as you understand that none of them are chief shepherds they are all under shepherds none of them is free to rule according to his own thoughts he is under the chief shepherd who has given us governing regulations for his people. It's limitation.

You think the man who stands in the pulpit has no limitations? Does not answer to a chief shepherd? We're all accepting limitations because it's not our church, it's his church, because we're not the object of worship, he's the object of worship, and he's given us a book. Thank God for the limitations of the book. As if Paul could say it with any more clarity turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 14.

1 Corinthians chapter 14. 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Follow along as I read 1 Corinthians 14 verses 34 and 35. Verses 34 and 35. Paul writes to the Corinthians, Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak.

They are to be submissive as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. The same or similar words and phrases keep silent, not permitted to speak, be submissive. Paul actually provides the clarity that this extends to question asking. What should a woman do at church if she has a question at church?

She should ask her husband at home. This is what the Apostle Paul says. So it's not mostly silent unless you have a question. Has anyone been present when a question was asked and it was really teaching and the exercise of authority. I mean if you haven't, you haven't been alive very long.

Seen that many times and I've done that a few times to my shame. It's not not usually permitted to speak unless she's called on to pray. Have you ever been present when the praying was really teaching or the exercise of authority? If you haven't, you haven't been alive very long or you haven't been paying attention. I've heard that many times.

I've done that a few times to my shame. Paul is actually putting a high value on the theological unity of the home. If a wife has a question, they should talk about it at home. They should unify on their theology at home. And he preserves the headship of a husband in his home, establishing him as the chief theologian in his home.

Every man in every church should be intimidated by what Paul says here. You better be readying your heart to receive good questions about the Word of God. As the chief theologian in your home, you're responsible to bring the Word of God to bear to give a Bible answer to a hard question. Can't dump that on the pastor. Nice try.

Okay Let me conclude with some associated questions and issues. I'm going to give you five. Number one, what about a woman who is an exceptionally gifted teacher? I answer that question with a question. What does that have to do with the text?

What does that have to do with the text? Paul didn't build on the foundation of gifting, intellect, culture, education, and training. He built on the foundation of God's design and intent expressed in creation in Genesis 1, 2, 3. How does exceptional gifting in a woman change any of those scriptures? What does the Bible say?

That is the question for the Lord's people. What does scripture say? To get me to change you have to change my understanding of the texts. Number two, What about a woman who has a calling from God to teach in the church? In our time of family worship this week, we were in 1 Samuel 13.

In 1 Samuel 13, the Philistines have gathered to war against the Lord's people and Saul is gathering Israelites to defend themselves and Samuel is supposed to come and offer the sacrifice but he's late and the people are starting to scatter. The people who have gathered to defend Israel are beginning to disperse and Saul feels like he's out of time so he makes the offering even though it ought to be the priest, he does it. And Samuel comes and says, What are you doing? And Saul says, This is what was happening. And then look this up, 1 Samuel 13 verse 12, He says, therefore I felt compelled.

Therefore I felt compelled. God took the kingdom from him. That moment God took the kingdom from him, I'm sure he felt compelled. But our women are more gifted than our men. We feel compelled.

There are no men to preach. We feel compelled. I have a strong sense that God would have me do this. I feel compelled. Brothers and sisters, Are we prepared to stand on the Word of God and say, that is either self-deception or you're lying?

Find me the middle ground. I don't see it. I can't see a way to it. There are many women who say, I have a calling directly from God to do something that appears to me to be 180 degrees contrary to these texts. You are self-deceived or you are lying.

Or I should be removed from the pulpit because I don't know what the Bible says. Number three, if you have a pre-commitment to wiggling out of it then you'll find a way. Meaning if you've already decided the answer to the question and you come to the Bible just to find something to set your preconceived answer on, you will find it. You will find a way to explain away the text, but be warned. When you then want to hold the line on marriage or sexuality or gender, remember you taught them the ways to explain away the text and they'll use the same tricks you did and they'll look right at you and dare you to say, that's not the way to handle the Bible.

Evangelicals opened the way to compromise on marriage, sexuality, and gender. We taught them the tricks And now precious few can look them in the eye and say, that's not the way you handle the Bible. God calls us to be workmen approved who don't need to be ashamed of how we handled this book. Number four, where are the lines? Where are the lines?

Because it's clear that women can teach in some contexts. It's clear! Aquila and Priscilla taught Apollos, who was one of the most powerful and influential teachers in the New Testament. Priscilla was teaching a Priscilla was teaching a teacher. Titus 2 calls for older women to teach younger women.

The church has different kinds of meetings on different days of the week, so you're gonna have to find, if you believe that my handling of 1 Timothy chapter 2 is sound, you're going to have to then wrestle with, okay, where do we draw the lines? I'll just tell you where we've drawn them in the church where I serve. On Sundays when the Lord's people meet on the Lord's Day for our corporate worship only male voices are heard distinctly, only individual distinct male voices are heard in that meeting. We recite together, women are reciting with all of us. We sing together, women are singing with all of us, but if you hear an individual voice, a distinct voice, it is a male voice.

It's because this is what we think 1st Timothy 2 means. We meet to pray in different houses on Wednesday nights. Different people have different views of this. In our view this is like Acts chapter 1 where after the resurrection and ascension they're waiting in Jerusalem and they're gathering in the upper room, the disciples and women and it reads to me like they're all praying. Our Wednesday nights are like that.

The men pray, the women pray. We think it's a meeting that's like Acts chapter 1 but we're going to the book. I mean if we're wrong about the book and we get convinced that we've misunderstood these things, we want to change our practices, we want to conform our practices to whatever the book says. We think we're here to do what the book says, whatever that is, whatever that means for me. Number five.

Number five, and maybe most importantly, why are we demeaning the normal participatory worship of God that never requires me to be up front speaking. Is that nothing? I'm nothing unless I can stand up front. The normal participatory gathering for corporate worship is so unsatisfying that it's nothing unless you can be upfront. How dare you?

How dare I say that? It is the most precious thing in the sight of God when his people gather together and join their hearts in one accord like you see in Acts 1 and 2. You could live a lifetime and never violate what I think is a proper handling of these and have the sweetest times of communion with God, entering into the prayer of others, listening to preaching to hear from God and being sanctified by his Word. The normal participatory worship of God is so far from being nothing in a sense it's everything who cares who's preaching Jesus is the one being preached about it is about him God I thank you for your word stunning clarity, saying it from different angles to be understood. God, I pray that in any category, this one or any other, that your word would be our guidepost.

Whatever it says we would embrace because we're bought. My body, you own it. My spirit, you own it. You paid your own precious blood to have me I'm your bondservant. We're your bondservants Lord govern us through your word make us so happy to be under your authority whatever your word says that we would desire it that we would call it good because you've loved it.

I pray this would be true of us in Jesus name amen.