This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

We want to invite you to one of our weekend services. Visit us online at
saddleback. com for locations and service times in your area.

Please visit us this weekend. Hi, I want to welcome you to day four of First
Timothy chapter two. Remember yesterday, Paul was talking to us about what to do
in worship, how to keep the focus on God.

And he had something to say to men and something to say to women. Remember that
keeping the focus on God is one of the keys to staying motivated in the
day-to-day life of faith. Paul, in talking to men and women, goes on to say some
more things to women.

And what he says is going to make you think. Listen to verses 11 and 12. Here's
what Paul says under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, "A woman should learn
in quietness and full submission.

I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be
silent. " Wow.

You and I read those two verses and we think, Paul sounds so controlling here.
We're going to walk through these verses today and we're going to see what God
has to say to us through these verses. As we prepare to walk through them, let
me just sort of give you some ground rules.

Share three things about God's word that I think will help to put everything
we're going to say today and tomorrow into perspective. Remember these three
things. Remember that God's word is always above culture.

It's not a matter of what this culture did or what our culture does. It's a
matter of what does God's word say and how does it fit into our lives. Remember
number two, that God's word has to be taken as a whole.

These verses say some things, but you also have to look at the whole of the New
Testament, the whole of God's word, to understand what's being said here. And
then remember a third thing. God's word is above culture.

God's word has to be taken as a whole. And number three, God's word can be
trusted. Whenever I wonder about verses and I wonder about these, I wonder what
they mean.

Whenever I wonder about verses, I realize that my wonderment does not take away
the fact that God's word can be trusted. I can count on God's word because God
loves us and he has a plan for our lives. And these verses talk to women and
they talk about learning and they talk about teaching.

Remember they're talking about what happens not in a home or in a business.
They're talking specifically about what happens in a worship service. So let's
just walk through those two things that Paul talks about here.

First he talks about learning and then he talks about teaching. They're both
difficult to understand, but the second is more difficult to understand. The
first, let's tackle that first.

What about learning? A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.
Learn in quietness and submission.

Now we look at that and we think what does that mean? Well let me just make it
clear and say that's the same way men are to learn. All of us are to learn in
quietness and submission to God.

That's the way every one of us is to learn. If everyone is talking out loud
while the teacher is teaching, nobody is learning. If everyone thinks they know
what's right, they're not submitting, hearing God's word, then there's no
learning going on.

The Bible tells us that submission is our mutual response to one another in the
body of Christ. It's just exercised in different ways, in different roles,
whether you're in the family or in the church. And what's happening here is,
apparently, just as the men in Ephesus seem to be having a problem with arguing
instead of praying, it seems that the women are having a problem with needing to
share their opinion or talking all the time while teaching is going on instead
of being willing to learn.

What Paul is talking about here is somewhat like the words over in 1 Corinthians
chapter 11, where he's saying some of the same kinds of things to women. And in
both of those cases, it's helpful to understand what was going on in the
churches of that day. They often did a lot more talking than we might do in our
churches today.

It seems in that day that it was common for people to shout things out or to
talk to each other all through a church service. So while Timothy, the pastor of
this church, is trying to teach, no one is letting God's word sink in. So Paul
says, women, you're struggling with this.

I want to let you know you need to learn in quietness and full submission. If
the men had been struggling with it, he would have talked to them. Now that's
the learning part.

And that's the easier part, actually, of these two verses. The teaching part is
the one that many people struggle with. Verse 12 says, I do not permit a woman
to teach or to have authority over a man.

She must be silent. Now let me just walk through this for a minute before we
talk about what this means. Because you and I feel a little uncomfortable with
these words.

They don't seem to quite fit our modern culture. They don't seem to fit the way
that men's and women's relationships work today. We can tend to go down some
roads, two specific roads, that are not at all helpful.

The first road that's dangerous to go down is the road of saying, this is just
some local application of scripture. It has nothing to do with us today. It only
fit the culture of Paul's day, or it only fit the church of Ephesus.

This has nothing to do with our lives today. Well, the reason that's a bad road
to go down is this whole letter is written to a local pastor of a local church.
And if you're going to go down that road, why don't you evaluate the two verses
before about modesty and dress and say, well, we don't have to apply that today.

Why don't you take the verses about prayer and lifting up holy hands and saying,
oh, that was just their problem. Now let's be honest. The only reason we say
this is just a cultural verse is because we're uncomfortable with what the verse
says.

Now we've got to look at what the verse says. This was obviously a healthy,
holy, and spirit-inspired truth that Paul was getting across. So we have to
figure out what does it mean for the health of our church today.

Don't go down the road of saying it doesn't mean anything because it was written
back then. That's a silly road to go down if you really tear that through to its
logical conclusion. The second road that's dangerous to go down is the road of
getting caught up in what I call excessive Greek analysis.

Sometimes when we come across verses we don't understand, you hear people go,
well, the heiress says this, or the construction in the Greek is this, or the
definite article is there, or it's not there. And they get so buried in all this
Greek analysis that in the end you can't see the verse anymore. You see, here's
the problem with both of those roads.

They end up just sort of erasing the verse, moving on to the next verse. God's
word is given to us to change our lives, and God put this verse in his word for
a healthy reason. Taken in context of Scripture, remember I said this at the
beginning, as we take a look at what does this verse mean now.

Taken in context of Scripture, if you read the whole of what Paul writes under
the inspiration of the Spirit, what Jesus' ministry was all about, this
certainly doesn't mean that women should never teach anyone. I don't allow women
to teach. That means women shouldn't teach children, they shouldn't teach in
their family, they shouldn't teach in their home.

No, Paul specifically says that women should teach in other places, give some
directions for how and when they should teach. So it doesn't mean that women
should never teach anyone. And also taken in context of Scripture, Paul accepted
women teaching men in at least some cases.

Paul and Aquila are famous teachers that Paul accepted as partners, and there's
this sense that they were teaching others the good news of Jesus Christ, two
teachers together. There are women who were called as prophets of God, who were
teachers of the truth in the book of Acts. So you have this sense of at least
sometimes there's women teaching men in the New Testament.

So what does this mean? Well, as you take a look at these verses, I don't permit
a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. Not getting tied up in
excessive Greek analysis, but in the Greek language, that those two phrases are
very closely, very closely tied together.

So it almost has the idea of teach in a way of exercising authority over a man,
or teach in a domineering way. It's a pretty strong word for authority that's
used here. It's not the usual word for authority.

Teach in a domineering way over a man. I don't let that happen. All is not
saying here, I believe, the Bible is not saying that you can't teach.

It's saying a woman can't teach in the position of the spiritual authority in a
church. And for us, that would be the senior pastor or the elders of the church,
the regular preacher in the church. And as we talk about this, we're really
talking about the roles that God has outlined for his church.

And just to take a quick walk through this before we end today, because I know
this is some verses that people have many questions about. We can't cover it in
just a few minutes, but let me just take a quick walk through a couple of things
before we end. Remember that the New Testament is filled with examples of women
ministering.

You have Priscilla, and Lydia, and Nympha, and Chloe, and Dorcas, and Mary, and
Tryphina, and Pursus, and Julia, all these names. Priscilla and Aquila that I
mentioned earlier, six times they're mentioned. Paul calls them co-workers in
Christ.

You have Lydia in Acts chapter 16, a church that's meeting in her home. Dorcas,
the ministry that she had to the poor. In Romans 16 alone, Paul mentions seven
different women who ministered with him.

So the idea that women should take care of the home and should not be
ministering within the church, that is nowhere in the New Testament. It's the
exact opposite in the New Testament. Just walking through three things about
this that I believe the Bible specifically is saying to us.

Number one, ministry in the New Testament was determined by gifts, not by
gender. It wasn't like women can do this and men can do this. It was some have
the gift of teaching, some have the gift of shepherding, some have the gift of
helping.

In Acts chapter 21, I mentioned earlier that Philip had four daughters with the
gift of prophecy proclaiming to the church. Number two, Paul instructed the
Roman church to accept, affirm, and appreciate the ministry of a woman in Romans
16, one to two. So the idea that men should be the only ones who are doing
ministry in the church, that is just nowhere in the New Testament.

What would our church, what would any church do without the ministry of women?
Men and women together, but specifically right now, just think of the ministry
of women and the impact over 2,000 years in the body of Christ, the impact in
your church for the body of Christ. The third thing I'd say is that there's no
support in the New Testament for a woman to serve as the leading elder or the
senior pastor in a church.

Why do I say that? Well, next week we're going to look at the qualifications for
elders and there's no qualifications mentioned for a woman. There are for the
elders wives, but not for a woman.

There's no example in scripture of the pastor of a church or the ruling or
leading elder being a woman. There were no women apostles of Jesus Christ. There
were no women that were exemplified in those that Paul set aside for ministry to
lead churches.

Now why is that? Why did God set it up that way? Is it because men are smarter?

Obviously not. Is it because men are more spiritual? Well, doubly obviously not.

I don't know exactly why God set it up this way, but I do know that it's obvious
to me that God is in charge of his church and I can trust him as the head of the
church. Remember in the Old Testament, there are several times like Moses and
the rock that he spoke to and then struck that was an example of Christ where
there were things that were happening in the day-to-day realities of Moses that
were greater spiritual pictures than he understood. And the Bible tells us that
if you're married, your marriage is like that.

It's a picture of the body of Christ and the body of Christ is like that. In
some way it is a picture of who God is. So as we talk about this and what Paul
has to say here about women and leadership in the church.

Remember we're talking about the church. We're not talking about all leadership
roles for women. The Bible doesn't apply this to all of society.

Can a woman be president? The Bible doesn't say yes or no. Now I would say most
women are too smart to try to want to be president because of what they know
that it would mean.

But if God called a woman to be president and put that person in that place,
then God could use that person. In fact, Proverbs 31 says that even in a home, a
woman is a community leader. You get this picture of buying land, running a
business, of a household not being a cocoon, but a center of impact upon the
world, political, social, economic, spiritual impact on the world.

Well, I walked very quickly through some ideas there and maybe too quickly.
Maybe this is something you want to read some more about. But let me get back to
the bottom line.

The bottom line is focus. The reason Paul is writing these things is because
somehow this church had lost its focus. And in the public worship services,
there was a lot of talk going on that was keeping people from focusing on who
God really is.

So you and I, as we talk to God today, let's focus together. Father, I thank you
for your word. I thank you that I can trust it.

I thank you that it leads me to the healthy places that you want me to be,
following you, serving you. And even with verses that I may have a hard time, a
struggle understanding, I know you put them in your word, not only to cause me
to struggle, but also to cause me to come to a place of truth. And I pray that
through these words, that men and women both would come to the place of truth,
of focusing on you, who you really are.

The focus isn't on us, Jesus, it's on you. And we thank you for who you are. We
pray that in your body, the church, you would be glorified.

And we ask it in Jesus' name, in your name, amen. And join us tomorrow if you
think that the Holy Spirit has finished with challenging us on this issue. Just
wait till you hear what the Spirit inspires Paul to say in the verses we're
going to look at tomorrow.