Amen. Amen. Let us turn then to God's Word. 1 Timothy chapter 2 as we continue to work through this letter from Paul to Timothy, but a semi-public letter as it has been called. It was never intended to be just for Timothy. We'll begin reading at verse 8. We'll read to verse 15. I will say if you're looking at your outlines in the bulletin, we won't really get into our fourth point. We'll just touch on that briefly. And so the fourth point is the apostles neglected Segwit. We're not going to try to neglect verses 13 to 15. We're just going to touch on them and Lord willing come back to them next week. And you've heard me say before that chapter divisions are sometimes helpful and sometimes not helpful. I think this is one of the times when they are not helpful. Verse 8 certainly goes together with all the way to the end of the chapter, but verses 13 to 15 really link verses 10 and 11 with what follows, especially in the first seven verses of chapter 3. And so this is really part one. So, Lord willing, we'll come back. We'll look more at verses 13 to 15 as we get into chapter 3. And this is more of a part 1 of themes that we'll continue to look at as we get into chapter 3. But for now, we'll be reading verses 8 to 15, even as we're looking especially at 8 to 12, 8 to 13 this morning. Let us hear the holy word of God. 1 Timothy chapter 2, beginning at verse 8. I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarrelling. Likewise, also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire. but with what is proper for women who profess godliness, with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control. So far the reading, the grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our Lord endures forever. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, for nearly two millennium, these verses were not controversial in the church. In the last two centuries, and especially in the last two plus decades, these have become very controversial verses. It has become, as the saying sometimes goes, a passage on which much ink is spilled. Why is this debate arisen? Well, brothers and sisters, it's not because the text is unclear. There are questions about how this passage relates as far as is there anything here that's culturally relevant and we'll consider some of those. And there are some other questions which I think are helpful for us to understand the scope of the passage and so we'll ask We'll ask a question a few times in the sermon this morning. Does this verse apply in the local church, in the local pool, or in both places? I think that'll be a helpful question for us to see the scope of our text. But while there are some questions that are helpful for us to think over and consider, this is not a confusing portion of God's word. There is a reason why it was not controversial for so many centuries and for nearly two millennium. God has spoken plainly to us about the nature of his church and about the distinction between men and women and about the distinct roles that they are called to in the church. So our theme this morning is this, God calls men and women to godliness with specific roles within the church. We're going to first look at men's posture or men's call to prayer. That's verse 8. And then women's call to modesty, verses 9 and 10. And then women's role under authority, verses 11 to 12. And we'll just begin just a little bit really in our third point to think about the the segue, the connecting literary bridge of verses 13 to 15. Lord willing, we'll come back to those next week with the start of chapter 3. Well, brothers and sisters, having just reminded Timothy and all the other readers of this letter of his apostolic office in verse 7, the Apostle then begins verse 8 with these words, I desire and We don't always do this, but I will a few times this week and next week stop to say, this is a verse that's sometimes misinterpreted, and this is the way it's sometimes done. And right here, we can already stop, and we see language of I desire, verse eight, and then verse 12, I do not permit. And quite frankly, there are many who just try to disregard this passage in one way or another. They don't like what it says, especially in verses 11 and verse 12. And one of the ways that they try to get around it is to say, well, look, the Apostle Paul is just talking about personal opinion, personal thoughts in these verses. Well, not only can an apostle writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit sometimes use the first person pronoun, and we don't make a big deal of it in other texts like Romans 12 or 13 or whatever, but more than that, the verb that begins this section in verse eight is a very strong verb in the Greek. And so right after reminding all of his readers of his apostolic office in verse seven, the apostle uses a very strong word in verse eight, which was a word that was sometimes used to declare a Caesar's desire to have a law put into effect. And so even right here, as one commentator said it, this is not so much just I desire in any sense, as much as it is I order by apostolic authority. Well, beginning his section with these words, he speaks, and who is he speaking to? Well, he's speaking to every place. I desire then that in every place. Well, which every place? every single place on earth? No, every place in the church. How do we know that? It doesn't say that. Well, the context demands that. The whole context of the letter is the church, the church, instructions for the church. And as I said, the chapter division between two and three is not helpful. This is really all part of what leads to chapter three, verses 14 and 15, when the apostle looks back at what he's just said and says, I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church, the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth. So the first context, the first application of these verses, of this text, and of what follows into chapter three is the local church. It is the gathering of the household of faith. And so when he says in every place, he's either speaking about every local church around where Timothy is, or he's simply speaking about the fact that A single local body of believers would worship in more than one place at that time. They didn't have a church building yet. They would gather in homes. They would usually gather in different homes from one time to another. So in every place that you gather for worship, in every place that there is a local church in Ephesus, one of those two things. But what is clear from what follows is that we're speaking about especially this, the local church. That's true in verse 8 and that's true in what follows all the way to verse 15 even as basically that's true of the letter as a whole. We're speaking about the church. So already I said we'd come to this question. Does this verse apply in the local pool or at the local church or in both places? And the first answer to that is everything in these verses applies to the local church. it may or may not also apply at our local pool. We really have to go to other texts to know what the word of God tells us about the pool. This passage is first concerned about places of worship. So, when we see that there are real distinctions between men and women, and that the apostle is not just speaking about men as a general word for all of mankind, but he's speaking specifically about males, we can say this already as we look at verse eight. Is the apostle Paul saying that if there's believers and they're standing around the water at a local pool and a matter comes up and they say we should pray about this, if it's two men, should they pray about it? Yes. If it's two women, should they pray about it? Or is the apostle saying women should not pray in every place? No, no, no. Men and women should both pray. This is not saying only men should pray in every place. If you're over here or over there, women shouldn't pray, no. The first concern here is about the church. But is the Apostle Paul saying that in the local church, as the household of faith is gathered together for worship, only men should lead what we might call congregational prayer. Yes, the Apostle Paul is saying that. Men and women should pray. Men and women should pray in all kinds of places. We are all called to be people of prayer, but when leading the congregation in prayer, there is a special call for men to do that, not women. And that's part of the distinction that goes all through, really through chapter three, verse 13. Men are specifically addressed. Women are specifically addressed. Women are specifically addressed. Men are specifically addressed. And in the middle, we have verses 13 to 15 about the difference between how God made men and women. We should see all of these verses going together. Now, How should we pray? Well, whether we're in any place, we should always pray with a holy posture, such as the lifting of holy hands, and we should always pray with a holy attitude, without anger or quarreling. But at this point, let us note that this was something especially appropriate for the Apostle Paul to say to the Church of Ephesus at this time, because if you were here the last couple of weeks, what's going on? There's theological controversy, there's false teachers, And what is tempting to do when there's false teachers and controversy and things like that? It's tempting to become especially angry and quarrelsome. And so it's not surprising that these are the specific words the Apostle Paul uses. And so now let's put it this way. And again, it's men especially who are being addressed in this verse. Men, in your life, in God's local church, be especially ready to be bold enough to stand against false teaching and against false teachers, those like Hymenaeus and Alexander and others who are bringing this different doctrine described in 1 Timothy 1. But there's a temptation, right? When we stand bold enough to stand for the truth, it's tempting to be too bold, to become angry, to become quarrelsome. Be bold enough, but do not be too bold. Do not allow your boldness to turn into anger or quarreling. It would be tempting to do that, even in public prayer, wouldn't it? To turn prayer into an exercise, to quarrel against, to be angry with Hymenaeus and Alexander and others, and to pretend that it's righteous anger. But no, we are called always to pray, and to rebuke, and to stand for the truth in love. Be bold, but do not be overly bold. Anger and quarreling. Well, this is our first point. Now, women specifically are addressed And in verses 9 and 10, the subject is modesty. And the do this, don't do this pattern continues. And with the subject of modesty, the Apostle Paul begins with a do this. Women should be adorned in respectable apparel. William Hendrickson once had helpful words on this. He said, quote, women should be adorned with good sense. Women do not have to balk at fashion unless particular fashion happens to be immoral or indecent." But a full discussion of modesty includes not only how women should be adorned, but also how women should not be adorned. And now here, at the end of verse 9, we have some culturally specific applications of the overarching principle of modesty. And brothers and sisters, this is exactly what we would expect. And when we have a passage which is giving us principles and sometimes giving specific applications of that principle, when we're talking about modesty, when we're talking about how women dress, this is exactly the place we would expect to have some culturally specific examples. Women dress differently from one decade to another, from one place to another. Even in the city of Wupan, what people wore in the 70s might seem rather unusual today. And that wasn't that long ago, and that's one place. Now go to the other side of the world and go back 2,000 years, and we should expect that we're going to have a cultural bridge to gap here. So when the apostle says that women's modesty Should not, and then he gives specific cultural examples. This is exactly the place in our text where we might expect to have some things that sound a little strange at first reading. What is the Apostle Paul saying? Should women never braid hair? I didn't mention this to my wife this morning, but I did notice that both of my daughters had braided hair this morning. And I was like, well, I didn't even tell Vicki what passage we were on this morning. But does this passage say that we should not have braided hair today? What's going on? Does this passage say that we should never wear pearls today? Well, let's work backwards. Start with the pearls and then we'll come to the braids and gold. We are told in the parable of the pearls of great price in the book of Matthew, Matthew 13, 45 and 46, that to buy expensive pearls would require a merchant who was a relatively, he was kind of the middle class of first century Rome, would require a merchant to sell everything that he had. In other words, in the local church at Ephesus, where you might have merchants, those poorer than merchants, and those richer than merchants gathered together, If a woman wore pearls, she's wearing something worth more than some of the members of the church could even think about buying. Now that is a lot different from today, when we can buy pearls and have it shipped to our house in two days for a relatively reasonable price. Pearls said something different in a time when they were extremely valuable, shipped only from the Persian Gulf and things like that, That is just different than the situation today. It does not say, I'm extravagant, I'm wealthy, I can wear something that's worth more than your entire net worth. It just doesn't communicate that today as it did in first century Ephesus. And what about the braids and the gold? Well, we should read that as connected together, hairs braided with gold. because there were women in first century Roman Empire who would braid up their hair very elaborately and put expensive jewels into the braids with pins of gold or sometimes of other rare items like ivory to hold it together. And then those pins were often not just like straight pin, they'd often have a little image on the side, sometimes the image of an idol, sometimes the image of a female figure. And it basically communicated one of two things or both. It said, I'm wealthy and or I'm sensual and I am available for sensuality. And so women who are wealthy, women who are harlots, women who were married and said they didn't want to be faithful to their husband, Those were the social groups who wore hair braided with these expensive pins. Now, that's not the first thing that probably any of us thought of when we read the end of 1 Timothy 2 verse 9. But that's the kind of things that Timothy and those living in his time would have thought of. Here is one place in the text where the principle, which does not change, the call to modesty, has some specific cultural examples and applications that are far removed from us. And I'm just gonna stop right here and say the argument sometimes goes something like this. Well, I don't really like 1 Timothy 2, verses 8 to 12. And so see, the apostle talks about braided hair and pearls, and it's all things for the first century. And so nothing here applies to us today. And that is an absolutely horrendous approach to the word of God. And it is not where this text is taking us. No, we have a principle, women should dress modestly. We have a specific cultural example. But just because braided hair are mentioned at the end of verse nine does not mean that all of the surrounding verses are some culturally specific word. No, indeed, the call to modesty is an overarching principle that applies now with new specific things. What are the ways that women today say, I am sensual and look at me? There's other ways to do that. You don't do it with hair golded up with expensive golden pins, sometimes with female figures on the end designed to be sensual. No, you do it in other ways today. But the principle applies. And while 1 Timothy 2 is especially about the local church, and we might say it's especially wrong to enter the house of God, where we must all know that we are sinners, we must be humble before God, It's especially wrong to come into the church with, look at me, I'm wealthier than you. Look at me, I'm sensual kind of clothing. But while the first application of 1 Timothy 2 is to the church, here is a place where everything in verses 9 and 10 applies to the local pool as well. We know that because of texts like Proverbs 31, verse 25, and 1 Peter 3 and other passages. It's true, the first concern of the apostle here is the local church. But we know from other texts, the call to modesty applies not only in the local church, but also at our local pool and in every public place. Well, let's come to our third point. Women's role under authority. So in verse 11, the apostle takes up another subject. And again, he addresses women specifically. He discussed public prayer with a specific address to men who are called to lead those prayers. He discussed public appearance in the worship service for the household of faith with a focus of women who are more apt to have temptations on that particular point. And now he comes to the subject of authority and submission. Now, again, we're not gonna be able to spend too much time on verses 13 and 15, but let's just say one thing. If anyone would say, well, the Apostle Paul is just talking about first century Ephesus here, then they are not considering verse 13. The Apostle Paul is talking about women's position for submission in the household of faith because from the beginning, Adam was formed first and then Eve. And so when we talk about the household of the home, the man is called to be the head, he was made first. When we talk about the household of the church and the family of faith, the same principle applies. The Apostle Paul explicitly takes this to creation. So let's not be distracted by the word braid in verse 9. Let's see what the Apostle plainly teaches to us here. In the context of every place in the household of God, every gathering of believers for worship, Women are not to speak with a voice of authority or to take up positions of authority. Remember that chapter three is not the most helpful chapter division. We should really see this as all linked together by verses 13 to 15 with the words about overseers and deacons, the offices of the church, and what follows. Women should not take positions of authority, the offices of authority, women should not take the voice of authority in leading the public worship service. Brothers and sisters, we'll, Lord willing, speak about some more examples of the many ways that women can and do serve God. We'll look at some of the texts that are sometimes appealed to to say, well, these verses can't mean that, and things like that. But for this morning, let's just say that there is a reason these verses were not controversial for 1800 plus years. They are plain enough. So we live at a time when any distinction between male and female is under attack. But the word of God does not change. So there is not only distinction, but there's also distinct roles in specific places. In the church, women are not to have the position of public teaching, the position of authority. Now what about the local pool? The forming of Adam first and then Eve, it has special reference, we're told, and here in Ephesians 5 and other places, this has special meaning for who is the head of the home, both within the family unit and within the household of faith. The household of God, as the apostle calls the church in 1 Timothy 3, verse 15. Does this apply at the local pool then? Is there no place that a woman could ever have any kind of authority? So what happens when, let's just say there's a 40-year-old man who goes to the local pool and he decides to try to see if he can do a flip off the diving board like he did when he was younger. So he goes and he does a flip and then the lifeguard, hopefully wearing modest clothing, is a female lifeguard and she blows the whistle at the man who tried to do a flip off the diving board. Now should he climb up the ladder, get out of the pool and go over to the lifeguard station and say, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. You cannot tell me that I can't do a flip off of the diving board. No. That would be completely inappropriate. This text is especially about the local church, the household of faith. We know from other passages like Ephesians 5 and so on that it also applies in the home, but we should not make this some broad declaration. Men, you cannot tell a female cop who pulls you over for speeding that she has no authority over you and she can't give you a ticket. Principles for modesty we know from other texts apply in every public place. Verses 11 and 12 do have a particular application to the gathering of believers in public worship. So let us see how the apostle plainly takes these verses far enough, but let us not take them too far either. Well, brothers and sisters, we have a, again, a text which did not cause much discussion for century after century after century because it's plain enough, but a text which many are quick to disregard to try to work around, to try to blank out in all different ways, but the Word of God is plain enough. Having spent this time, and Lord willing, returning to this again next week, looking at verses 13 to 15 into the beginning of chapter 3, we now will come to our conclusion, speaking about some of the ways that men and women are equal. Because while men and women do have distinct roles, men and women are equal before God and created dignity. Male and female, he created them in the image of God. Men and women are equal before God in their need for and in the gracious giving of salvation. For men and women have equally marred the image of God. And we are all sinners before God. But in Christ there is neither slave nor free, male nor female, in Christ. As we come before God in humility, we are set free. from our sins. So Jesus Christ is the one Savior. And He is also the one Lord. And so all people, all men and all women are ultimately under His authority. Finally, all of us are called to obey God rather than man. And so finally, in Christ, we have the one perfect, loving, authoritative head over all, our only Savior, our only Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray. Lord God Almighty, We thank you for the plain teaching of your word. May we stand firm in the path that your word sets for us, whether it is a word that is popular in one century or unpopular in another century, oh Lord, teach us always.