Two years ago I was a coach for the JV Bible quiz team and one of our books that year was 1 Timothy. During practice, one of the girls with long blonde hair stood up to quote 1 Timothy 2:9. “I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls, or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” But the ironic thing was that while she was quoting this verse, she was also busy braiding her long hair. So as her coach, I said to her, “How dare you stand there and braid your hair while you quote a verse about the sinfulness of braided hair!” I’m only kidding. I pointed out the irony to her and the team and we all had a good laugh about it. Don’t think for a minute that we were laughing about the authority of Scripture, but this example does illustrate the difficulty with understanding and applying Scriptures like this one. I don’t believe that the Bible forbids women from braiding their hair or wearing gold jewelry. If it did, I am guessing that almost 100% of the women here this morning would be sinning. But here is where it tricky and a bit sticky, because the verse immediately following the one I just read is this one of the key texts for understanding the role of women in the church. “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.” Do you see the dilemma? How can we on the one hand say that women can break the command not to wear gold jewelry but in the same breath insist that women cannot hold positions of teaching authority in the church? How can we say that verses 9-10 is not binding but verses 11-12 is?

Last week we covered point one of our outline[i]: in the church, women are subordinate to men in the same way that Christ is subordinate to the Father. These verses in 1 Timothy 2 take us immediately to our second point.

2. The order: Adam was created first, then Eve.

When you want to understand Scripture, the context is king, therefore, notice carefully what follows after the prohibition against women teaching in the church. “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man…For Adam was formed first, then Eve.”  (1 Tim. 2:12-13)

Here is where we start to pull Genesis into our thinking, because Paul is relying on genesis for his own teaching. Why is there a hierarchy between men and women? Because Adam was created prior to Eve. At the beginning of the New Testament church and four thousand years after creation, Paul appealed to the beginning of creation as the chief evidence for this hierarchy. Man was created before woman. This was no accident or flip of the coin on God’s part. It was intentional and one of his chief purposes was to lay this foundation of authority and submission.

We see the exact same thing in 1 Cor. 11:8. “For man did not come from woman, but woman came from man… for this reason…the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head.” The order of creation is very purposeful and foundational to relationships in the family and the church. God created gender and even the order of creation mattered to him, so it ought to matter to us as well.

Let me show you how we apply this at Grace Church. First of all, we limit the role of elders to men for we believe this follows all of the Scripture’s teaching on church leadership and the distinct roles of men and women. But eldership is the only role that we limit to men. Otherwise, women can serve in any way in our church. For example, every week that we have sharing time, we usually have several women sharing a story or Scripture with the whole congregation. This is allowed because the Bible is very clear that women are permitted to pray and prophesy in a public worship setting. Very often, what is shared during what we call sharing time would take the form of what the Bible calls prophecy. We strongly encourage women to share in this way. It is permissible because prophesy is less authoritative than teaching. It would take a whole other sermon to explain this, but if you read 1 Cor. 14, it will shed some light on the subject.

3. The naming of the human race: God named the human race “Man,” not “Woman”.

The key text for this point is Genesis 5:2. “When they were created, he [God] called them ‘man.’” In Scripture, we see all of the time that naming people was far more important than it is today. We typically don’t name our children based upon what their name means, but usually the biggest consideration is whether or not we like the sound of the name. But in the bible, people were often named based upon the circumstances of their birth. Hannah named Samuel “the Lord hears” because the Lord listened to her prayer for a child. The closest type of symbol in our culture would be last names. When a woman takes the last name of her husband, it is a symbol of coming under his authority and protection. This is why it is so common for wives to keep their last name or else do the endless hyphenation thing. What happens when two people with hyphenated names marry one another? Do they now have four hyphenated last names? I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that it is a sin for wives not to take their husbands last name, but I will say this. I have never met a woman who understood the Biblical teaching on gender roles who did not also take her husband’s last name. The two go seem to go hand in hand.

4. The naming of woman: Adam named Eve, Eve did not name Adam. (Genesis 2:23)

When Adam first laid eyes on his new wife, he famously said, “This is now bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’ for she was taken out of man.” This is a play on words in the Hebrew language that actually comes across in the English rendering, "She shall be called Isha [woman] because she was taken out of Ish [man]." He named her ‘woman’ in chapter two and then in chapter three he gave her the name ‘Eve’. “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living” (Genesis 3:20). The one who assigns a name to a person is always the one with the greater authority.

5. Primary accountability: God called Adam first to account after the fall. (Genesis 3:9)

Who was the first one who ate of the forbidden fruit? Eve was tempted first and in turn tempted Adam to eat also. You would think that God would have approached Eve first since she led the way into sin, but instead God approached Adam first. “But the LORD God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’” (Gen. 3:9) Why did God hold Adam to a higher level of accountability? Partly due he the fact of everything we have been talking about the last two weeks. God placed Adam in charge of his creation. God charged Adam with not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God did not repeat this command to Eve after she was created, but Adam was responsible to instruct Eve about this important command—indeed, it was the only restriction placed on the new couple. Adam was given the command, Eve violated the command first, yet God held Adam primarily accountable. The Lord was much more direct with Adam. The Lord restated the command not to eat the fruit. To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you.”

This primary degree of accountability is seen in our next point.

6. The representation: Adam, not Eve, had a special role in representing the human race. Have you ever done something really dumb and then beat yourself up about it afterwards? On Wednesday, Tony and I were hanging some drywall. I measured and cut the piece around the window, but when we went to attach it, guess what? It didn’t fit right. Man, I hate when I do that. It’s pretty basic stuff, isn’t it? You measure four inches here and transfer that four inches over here, cut on the line and…whoops, what happened?! I hate when I do stupid stuff like that.

Can I tell you about one of the dumbest things I have ever done? I had this friend who liked exotic investments and kept trying to get me to invest in his latest scheme. He wanted me to invest in diamond mines in Sierra Leone, Africa. But here’s the catch—American citizens can’t invest in this company, so I had to purchase an offshore corporation in Antigua, a Caribbean nation that specialized in tax havens. Can you see the red flags going up here? Caribbean tax havens…diamond mines, small African country run by war lords…are the alarms going off in your head? Good for you, cuz they weren’t going off in mine! Are you curious how it all turned out? Thanks to that investment, we were able to buy our present house with cash. Ha—hardly! I lost about $3,000 on that deal. It was a dumb deal and I felt so dumb, even though it happened eighteen years ago. Have you made some big mistakes like that and ten years later you’re still kicking yourself in the bottom? Well no matter how dumb of a thing you did or how bad it was, none of our dumb mistakes hold a candle to what Adam did. Adam was responsible for the fall of the entire human race from that point forward.

Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin… (Rom 5:12)

For as in Adam, all die… (1 Cor. 15:22)

Remember that Eve ate first and Adam second, yet Eve is not mentioned in these verses. Adam was the human representative and his failure to lead his wife and obey the Lord led to the corruption of all mankind. This is a heavy burden, but it shows the degree of headship that the Lord gave to men through Adam.

7. The purpose: Eve was created as a helper for Adam, not Adam as a helper for Eve.

I will make a helper suitable for him. (Gen 2:18)

Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. (1 Cor. 11:9)

8. The mystery: Marriage from the beginning of Creation was a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:32-33)

That’s only eight point from the ten point outline, but I will leave the other two when we talk about Genesis chapter three.

Last week I gave you a long list of horrible things that result from diminishing the God-given worth of women and this week I want to give some more examples of what happens when we diminish the God-given roles between men and women. The first example happened in my own home. Ethan has been wrestling for the past two years and has been in about a dozen matches. I wrestled for two years in high school and have a high appreciation for this grueling sport. Karen, on the other hand, has not been too fond of it, especially when she saw that girls were wrestling against the boys. Out of the twelve matches, Ethan wrestled a girl twice. I wasn’t crazy about the idea, but I figured if the girls and their parents want to risk getting hurt, then it’s not my problem. Karen expressed her feeling to me about wrestling girls on several occasions but I refused to heed her advice. One day last March out of the blue Karen was given ammunition that would blow holes in my weak argument. This Spring a female wrestler advanced to the state wrestling tournament in Minnesota and John Piper wrote an article[ii] soundly condemning it. Here is one of his many good arguments.

Come on, dads, have some courage. Just say, "Over my dead body are you going to wrestle a girl." Of course, they will call you prudish. But everything in you knows better.

Yes, I am talking to the boys' fathers. If the girls' fathers don't care how boys manhandle their daughters, you will have to take the lead. Give your sons a bigger, noble vision of what it is to be a man. Men don't fight against women. They fight for women.

Long before I finished reading the article I knew that he was right. Worse, I knew that he was right before I read the article, but I had repressed my belief because I lacked the courage to take a stand. This story touches our topic in several ways. The most obvious is that I failed my son. I missed the perfect opportunity to teach him about protecting women and fighting for them, but never against them. I believe that the way men treat women is mostly learned in the home when they were children. Second, I failed God by refusing to take a stand on something that I knew was wrong. I rationalized it in my mind because two years ago Ethan was only seven years old and this past year he was only eight. I knew that wrestling girls would eventually be a problem, but my excuse was that I didn’t think he was at that crisis point yet. But that was the perfect time to teach this lesson because it would not have been about improperly touching a girl per se, but more about protecting them. I intentionally put off teaching him an important lesson, and by extension, teaching my whole family. Third, I failed my wife. Many times before she had shared her struggle about Ethan wresting girls, but I refused to listen. And when she shared, she did it beautifully. She didn’t nag. She spoke respectfully and in the end, allowed me to make the decision. In every way as a wife she succeeded and in every way as a husband and father, I failed. Thankfully, the sting of failure tends to diminish when you learn the lesson.

I fully realize that there are bigger issues with our God-created gender roles than the drama playing out in my house, but that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? Discipling and training our children is all about the little things. We can’t sit around and wait for the perfect “teachable moment.” If we can’t see the small teachable moments there is every reason to believe we will not see the bigger one.

We know that women are paced in danger when we diminish their worth, but we fail to realize they are placed in danger when we diminish their roles. Wrestling girls is one example and so is the issue of women in the military. About ten years ago I read an article about women going through bootcamp in the army. Part of your training is being able to throw a grenade a safe distance so it will not blow you up. That seems like a good thing to learn, wouldn’t you agree? Apparently, not all women recruits could throw the grenade far enough. Want to guess how they solved the problem? Did they decide that women should not be in combat? No, they decided to lower the standard of what is considered a safe distance. Feminist ideology has decided that women deserve equal treatment to men, which has led to placing them in harm’s way in the military. But a Biblical view of women is the best way to protect women. The feminists, including evangelical feminists, continue to throw off Biblical restraints that also to serve to protect them.

An improper view of Biblical roles between men and women leads to multiple marriage problems. You are likely to end up with one of two extremes. On the one extreme you have a feminist marriage where the wives are domineering and the husbands are weak and effeminate or on the other extreme you get sinful patriarchy where the husbands are harsh and abusive husbands and the wives are enabling and sometimes battered.

In the middle you find a balance called Biblical manhood and womanhood where husbands are responsible. Loving leaders and the wives are submissive, loving supporters. Scripture takes us back again and again to a place where men have the leadership roles in the church and family and where women, though fully equal in every way, have the responsibility of submission. All of these beliefs are firmly grounded in Creation and Genesis. Gender roles truly began in the book of Genesis.

Before we move to final application, first I want to resolve the dilemma from the beginning of the message. In regard to 1 Timothy I said, “How can we on the one hand say that women can break the command not to wear gold jewelry but in the same breath insist that women cannot hold positions of teaching authority in the church?” This is a false dichotomy, because the context of the command not to wear gold jewelry was the principle of modesty. The point about gold jewelry, braided hair and expensive clothes is not to be ostentatious or immodest. It also may have been a warning not to dress like a prostitute.

Chapter on modesty by C.J. Mahaney.

My parents were committed to raising modest daughters. They educated us about how men are stimulated visually. They examined any article of clothing that came into the house, giving it a thumbs up or sending us straight back to the store with the receipt. I’ll admit it was frustrating to spend hours at the mall and have nothing to show for it. There were moments when that frivolous, selfish desire for cool, tight jeans overtook my desire to serve others. That’s when Mom and Dad would remind me of the young men who were trying to glorify God. My clothes could either help or hinder them. When they put it like that, I was quickly saddened by my selfishness.[iii]

So there really is not a dilemma between these two verses. In fact, dressing modestly is a good way for women and young girls to obey this passage.

Beyond the issue of modesty, let me ask some following questions of the women, as I did last week of the men. Ladies, how are you doing in obeying these commands? Wives, are you able to submit to your husband “as to the Lord”? Is your marriage increasingly a picture of the gospel of Christ? What does this look like in the every day activities of your household? Many of the women here are probably gifted leaders, surpassing most of the men in this regard—are you gladly and joyfully willing to use your leadership gifts in every area of the church except as elder? Does that please you or does it bother you? Women and young ladies—are you willing to live according to the principle of modesty as obedience to Christ, even if you can’t wear the latest fashions in the process? I challenge every woman and young girl to read this fifteen page chapter on modesty.

In Mahaney’s book he has an example of a teenage girl’s diary from 1892 and one from the 1990’s. Here is the one from 1892.

Resolved, not to talk about myself or feelings. To think before speaking. To

work seriously. To be self restrained in conversation and actions. Not to let

my thoughts wander. To be dignified. Interest myself more in others.

And the one from the 1990’s.

I will try to make myself better in any way I possibly can with the help of my

budget and baby-sitting money. I will lose weight, get new lenses, already got

new haircut, good makeup, new clothes and accessories.

Remember that in all of these things, we do not obey to earn favor with God, but rather we obey because we have already been given favor by God. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey my commandments.” This kind of obedience is motivated by gospel love, not by parental or pastoral guilt.

Rich Maurer

July 5, 2009