When we think of how we are to live, are we more influenced by the fads and notions of society or the Word of our Creator? 1 Timothy 2:9-15
The Word of God challenges us to do what is right. This is easiest when we already agree that it is right, but it is most needful when we do not already agree with it. It is easy to hear the right view when we have the right view. It is when we do not have the right understanding that we need to hear the difficult and corrective words of the Bible.
This passage is difficult because we have made it difficult. Our culture asserts that there is no difference between men and women except the artificial constructs that we create. When news magazines publish a study that shows actual difference between men and women, our society receives it with a shock. God tells us that men and women were created for different roles and they will find their fulfillment when they live as they were designed to live. Why are we shocked?
This passage says three things to women about their calling as Christian women: 1) Your value as a Christian woman is not based on how sexy you look, how in style you are or the fast crowd you travel with. Your value comes from your character, your love for God and for others. 2) Your calling as a Christian woman is not to lead or fight, but to nurture and support. The first woman was created to be a helper just right for the man, not a competitor or a foe to the man. 3) It is an appropriate calling as a Christian woman to be a wife and mother. In the Church these should not be very controversial, but they have become so as far as our culture has influenced us.
I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety (v 9). When we think of modesty, we think that women should not be seductive in their clothing and demeanor. This sort of modesty is influenced by culture, but a Christian woman should not be known as the one who pushes the envelope. In this passage, modest also means not overly ostentatious. A Christian woman is not to get attention only by how flashy or impressive she can dress. Rather, she should want to be known as a woman who has good deeds that come from a heart that worships God. Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised (Eccl. 31:30). Men need to believe this as well and honor women who fear the Lord rather than give attention to those who are merely showy on the outside.
A woman should learn in quietness and submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man: she must be silent (v 11-12). This is one of the explicit verses in the Bible that indicates male leadership as the design for the Church. The rationale that Paul uses goes back to Genesis and the first sin. In Genesis, Eve was created to be a helper who was just right for Adam. He was to be her leader and she his completer. He was stronger and should have shielded her from the enemy, but that is not what happened. Instead, Adam let Eve face the Tempter.
The Tempter told Eve that God was holding out on her, that God’s command would deny her good things. The same temptation is given when women hear the requirement to learn in submission and not lead or rule in the Church. God is not holding out on women then or now. And then as now, the men could help their sisters if they would perform their function of leading. Adam failed and sin resulted. If men would not (by cowardice, laziness or selfishness) shirk their duty to lead, women would not feel compelled to fill the void.
But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety (V 15). Women do not have to be single and work in Calcutta with the dying in order to live a godly life. A woman does not have to be a leader in the Church in order to be acceptable to God. The calling of wife and mother is not a second class Christian calling. In fact, it is the calling that God gives to most Christian women. Believing mothers will be saved. That calling is not too ordinary to God; don’t let it seem too ordinary to you.
Unfortunately, our culture has devalued the role of wife and mother. The Feminist Movement constantly asserts that women should live independently from men. It denies that a woman was designed to work together with her husband as one who completes and nurtures. We in the Church have listened to those voices and denied the design that God made from the beginning. The men have also been at fault because so many have broken faith with their wives, that women have been unwilling to trust that their calling as wife and mother would not be suddenly taken from them.
Do not chafe under what God has called you to do, but open your heart to the Word of God. Remember, wives, that your beauty does not depend as much on how you look, as how you look at your husband. Look at him with respect and love and he will find you beautiful. As always, the secret to the Christian life is to trust God and not give way to fear. May God give you joy in your life.
Pastor John Howard Dawson 08-28-05