Can the roles of men and women in the church be understood without causing division? Join Pastor Brandon as we unpack the complex subject of gender roles within the church, focusing on 1 Timothy, chapter 2. Through a balanced lens leaning toward complementarianism, we examine Paul's instructions to both men and women, emphasizing their significance without going to extremes. From Paul's radical idea that women should learn God's word alongside men to his advice on modesty and the importance of internal virtue over outward appearance, we aim to uncover the essence of these teachings while fostering a spirit of unity and love.
Discover how to navigate theological debates about gender roles while upholding the core tenets of Christianity, such as salvation through Christ and the inerrancy of the Bible. We'll also highlight Paul's guidance for living a life marked by godliness and dignity, and the importance of prayer for all people, especially leaders. Pastor Brandon encourages listeners to be exemplary in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, suggesting a way forward that is grounded in charity amidst disagreements. Tune in for an episode that seeks not only to clarify but also to build bridges within our faith communities.
Can the roles of men and women in the church be understood without causing division? Join Pastor Brandon as we unpack the complex subject of gender roles within the church, focusing on 1 Timothy, chapter 2. Through a balanced lens leaning toward complementarianism, we examine Paul's instructions to both men and women, emphasizing their significance without going to extremes. From Paul's radical idea that women should learn God's word alongside men to his advice on modesty and the importance of internal virtue over outward appearance, we aim to uncover the essence of these teachings while fostering a spirit of unity and love.
Discover how to navigate theological debates about gender roles while upholding the core tenets of Christianity, such as salvation through Christ and the inerrancy of the Bible. We'll also highlight Paul's guidance for living a life marked by godliness and dignity, and the importance of prayer for all people, especially leaders. Pastor Brandon encourages listeners to be exemplary in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, suggesting a way forward that is grounded in charity amidst disagreements. Tune in for an episode that seeks not only to clarify but also to build bridges within our faith communities.
Well, everybody, welcome back to the Bible Breakdown podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today. 1 Timothy, chapter 2, and today is probably going to be the last time a few of y'all listen to this podcast. I have loved you. I will miss you. It's going to be great because we're going to call today's title Extreme Feminism Beware. Extreme Feminism, beware. Hang on, it's going to get better, but it's going to get worse. First, you ready.
Speaker 1:
Well, before we do any of that, if you like what we're doing here, if you did like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast before you listen to today's episode and, as always, make sure you join us at the Bible Breakdown Discussion on Facebook. Because, man, then, what we find and this is one of those that divide people so very much in the body of Christ? Now, I think it's important for us to lay down some groundwork before we get into this topic, because this was something that, for a really long time, was not debated in the church. It's only been a hot, hot button topic, probably the last 50 to 60 years, and the church has been around for 2000 years, okay, so. So there's a lot going on here, but I think it's important for us to realize we don't know exactly who said it, a guy named Augustine. St Augustine gets credit for it, but I don't think he's actually the first one to say this.
Speaker 1:
But once upon a time someone said that in the essentials we have unity and the non-essentials we have liberty, but in all things we show charity or love. Let me say it again In the essentials we have unity, in the non-essentials we have liberty, freedom, and in all things we show love. There's a lot of things in the Bible that say these are the things that define what a Christ follower is. These are the things that define what a Christian is. Those are the things we have to have unity on. That salvation is through Christ alone, that salvation is given to us by the finished work of Christ on the cross. We receive Christ for our salvation. The infallibility, inerrancy of God's word, things like this, that Jesus Christ is the son of God, that there's a trinity father, son, spirit these things are considered to be essentials of our faith.
Speaker 1:
There's a lot of things that's in the Bible that are important but they're not salvation based. For instance, there are some people that say that when you read Genesis 1 and 2, that is talking about a literal 24 hour period. There are seven 24 hour periods and all of creation happened in six days, one day of rest. Those are called young earth creationists. There's other people that say that that was a metaphor, talking about seven timeframes, and it was God putting something in a way we can understand. But it wasn't considered to be seven 24 hour periods, but seven epochs timeframes. Those are called old earth creationists.
Speaker 1:
Is that an important conversation? Yes, it's a very important conversation. Is it a salvation question? I don't think so, because I think both of them say that God did it. Both of them say that God's word is fully inspired. It's just how you interpret that scripture is a little bit different.
Speaker 1:
Well, today is going to be one of those that I consider to be not a salvation issue, not an essential issue, but a non-essential, very important topic, but a non-essential issue. So I want you and us to develop some ground rules and this is all the qualification I'm going to give it, because I don't want to take away the sharpness of God's word by a thousand qualifications but it's to say to have a healthy debate on what this scripture means. I'm going to give you both sides and then I will give you my opinion when we get through with it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're about to, are you ready? Here we go.
Speaker 1:
First Timothy, chapter two, verse one, says this I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people, ask God to help them, intercede on their behalf and give thanks to them. Pray this way for Kings and all who are in authority, so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. This is good and pleases God, our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth, for there is one God and one mediator who can reconcile God and humanity the man, jesus Christ. He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave the world. That at just the right time. And I have been chosen as a preacher and an apostle to teach the Gentiles this message about faith and truth. I'm not exaggerating, I'm just telling the truth. I love that, by the way, where you say hey, listen, I'm not exaggerating, it's just. Is the truth, and the truth is worth telling. All right.
Speaker 1:
Verse eight in every place of worship I want men to pray with holy hands lifted to God, free from anger and controversy. Number nine I want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes. For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do. Women should learn quietly and submissively. I do not let women teach or have authority over them. Let them listen quietly, for God made Adam first, and afterward he made Eve. And it is not Adam who was deceived by Satan. It was the woman who was deceived, and sin was the result. But all women will be saved through child-rearing, assuming they continue to live in faith, love, holiness and modesty.
Speaker 1:
Well, that's all we've got for today. May the Lord be with you. Nope, we have got a lot to break down. So if you don't care about this topic, then may the Lord be with you. Nope, we have got a lot to break down. So if you don't care about this topic, then may the Lord be with you. I pray blessings on you today and you're welcome to go, but if this has divided you in so many ways.
Speaker 1:
I want to break down a few of these things and this is why we have this podcast is to dive into these topics and to just take time on it. So I'm going to break down a few things and this will be really good that, if you don't have a Bible to pause, go get a Bible so that you can look at it. As we're going through this and as always, we're not gonna be able to get into the depth of everything that's there, so make sure you do your own study on this and make sure that you take time and you think through this. Okay, here is the two things that people think, and then I'm going to break it down for you.
Speaker 1:
Number one is you have a group of people called egalitarianism I know it's a big old word, egalitarianism. Then you have another side over here called complementarianism. So egalitarians, complementarians, egalitarians, say they use the book of Galatians to say that in Christ there is no Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free. All are one in Christ. So they say that because that verse says there is neither male nor female. Therefore, that all of the ways that God has set up the family, the household of faith, all of that is null and void. And now anybody can do anything in all of life and in all of things. There is no difference between men and women and all this kind of stuff. And so they can do whatever they want to do. And so they take this verse and they don't really do anything with it. These verses, they just say well, I don't know what this is. This has to do something to do with what was going on in Ephesus at the time. Men and women there are no gender roles at all they can do whatever. That's egalitarianism. That's extreme egalitarianism.
Speaker 1:
Okay, you've got complementarians, and the extreme complementarians say the best place for a woman is in the kitchen. They are supposed to be totally submissive to all men, everywhere, at all times. That's done. That's extreme complementarianism. Can I tell you, extreme complementarians love this chapter. Extreme egalitarians hate this chapter. So where is it? Obviously, with most things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Now I'm gonna go ahead and offend you and then I hopefully can win you back. If you had far, far left is egalitarians and far, far right is complementarians. I'm somewhere in the middle, but lean toward complementarianism. Okay, but I'm not extreme. I want to help you see what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:
Let's break this scripture down together. First, paul knows this is controversial. So he says in verse eight free from anger or controversy. So he says I want men to pray with holy hands, not to be angry and not to have controversy. So he's talking to men to not give into controversy. So there's something that's being said here that he knows is already going to offend all the women. There's something else here that's going to be spicy for the men too.
Speaker 1:
Then he goes in verse nine through 11, verse nine through 10, and he talks about women. He said hey, women, you don't have to just dress all crazy to be beautiful. Let your actions speak louder than what's on the outside. Now you got to remember they're living in a very paganistic city and in this very paganistic city that they're living in, a lot of the way they would dress and adorn their hair and all this kind of stuff would be a symbol of not just wealth but paganistic worship. And so he's saying we don't do that in the church, like we don't worship God with what we wear, we worship God with how we worship, we lift our hands and this kind of stuff. And so he's given them permission to not have to follow the paganistic rituals in order to be holy before God. But then he's also saying hey, we don't come to church to impress one another, we come to church to worship God. So he's taking the pressure off of them. And then there's a wonderful verse here that nobody looks at, and that is verse 11.
Speaker 1:
Says women should learn, but they should learn quietly and submissively. Do you know how absolutely scandalous that verse was? Because during this time, very patriarchal society and that's not always a bad thing, but in this very patriarchal society, women were considered second-class citizens. They were not allowed to learn. Learning was for men, and it wasn't because they thought women were worthless, it was because in this particular way that the world was structured.
Speaker 1:
In the home, women were in charge of a lot of things. They were in charge of raising the kids, they were in charge of educating the kids, they were in charge of making sure the house ran. So their education was in the things of the home. That was their domain. In the secular world, the marketplace, the men, that's their domain. Their job was to bring home finances, or whatever we just call it, bringing home the bacon, their job was to do that. And so they learned all of those things and all of that kind of stuff. That was their world. This was the women's world. So the women were not disrespected as far as and they couldn't learn. They had a different place where they learned how to do different things. A guy was a fish out of water in the home where they learned how to do different things. A guy was a fish out of water in the home. A lady was a fish out of water outside the home.
Speaker 1:
It's the way it was, but the scandalous phrase that Paul says women should learn. So what Paul's telling Timothy is they have every right to know God's word, to know how to worship, to know how to do all these things, that they should not be limited to just being in the home. Absolutely, they can learn. And there's actually another place in the in God's word and Titus, where he actually puts it on as first Corinthians or Titus, where, where he puts it on the husbands husbands, teach your wives all the things that you've been learning, that she hasn't learned. It's up to you to bring your wife along and to disciple your wife. What an amazing thing.
Speaker 1:
This is not downplaying women. It is uplifting them and saying you now can sit right there in the church and you can learn right there. But he's saying but I need you to do it quietly and submissively, so don't try to take over, don't try to take charge, but become a student and learn all the things that you've been wanting to learn this whole time. And then he says the phrase that gets everybody twisted. He says I don't let women teach men or have authority over them. Let them listen quietly.
Speaker 1:
And why does he say that? He says because God made Adam first, and afterward he made Eve. So, in other words, go all the way back to Adam and Eve when the Bible said that God and he said it is not good for him to be alone, so he made Eve, who was a suitable helpmate, and that together they made a team. So in no way is Paul saying God, adam is awesome, eve is not. He's saying they have different roles and different functions. Adam needs Eve, Eve needs Adam. And so he immediately goes back to the Garden of Eden to say that both have value and both work best in different roles. And so he said the way God set it up is that Adam was the spiritual authority of Eve and in that Adam thrives and Eve thrives. And so the order of the home is that the wives was to love their husbands, and then the husbands are supposed to love their wives as Christ loved the church, and so it's not a position of worth, it's a position of office and difference, and so that's what Paul is actually saying. He's saying put order in the church so that women can learn and so that men can lead, and so this is how this works out for me.
Speaker 1:
I feel like that in every situation, there needs to be an overall pastor of a congregation, and that that pastor needs to be male, not because women aren't awesome and not because women can't lead and all that kind of stuff. We know that's not true, but it's because it's an office, it's a responsibility. That's what I think Christian manhood is is the glad acceptance of responsibility that we are responsible for all the things that are under us. We don't lead because we have the right, because we're men. We have the responsibility because it's what God's called us to do. So the overall authority of a church should be a male pastor Under. That authority is where then he can give authority to those with the gifts that they have and that they can do the work of ministry. That includes men and women because it says do not let them have authority over the men, over the male leader. And so, in my opinion, you can't have women who teach and do these other things as long as they are submitted under the authority of a male leader. Not because anyone's better than anyone else, but because it is the divine order that God has set up in the church.
Speaker 1:
Now, what do you do if you disagree with me? Nothing, it's okay if you disagree with me, because in my opinion, this is a freedom situation. Because also, it says in verse 15, women will be saved through childbearing, assuming they continue to live in faith. That's not saying women don't have value. It's saying women will be saved through childbearing, assuming they continue to live in faith. That's not saying women don't have value. It's saying women, you have got the greatest value, that your greatest ministry is the next generation. So he's very much giving ministry to these ladies.
Speaker 1:
And so what I want to encourage you to do you may not agree with me on this, but I want to encourage you to not cheapen God's word by throwing all this out, but to see it for what it is that, if you're an egalitarian, I don't want you to throw this out because I want you to see that what Paul is saying here is he's saying women, you have every right to learn. Women, you have got an amazing ministry of raising up the next generation, along with other things you do. But also, men, you have a responsibility as well, and your responsibility is to lead these women so that they can thrive in their ministry. If you're a complementaria, that means women can't do anything. Let me challenge you that. It's actually bringing women into the house of God so that they can learn. And you're right, the overall leadership needs to be a man, because of the way God set it up. But it's not a position of dominance and domineering, but it's a position of the glad acceptance of responsibility to lead those around.
Speaker 1:
And what I love about this is this is where the Apostle Paul is encouraging Timothy, because, just like now, back then, all of this is mixed up, but what he's saying is he's like Timothy, you've been called to do this, you've been called to make sense of this, and so what do we do with this information?
Speaker 1:
The information is is that doing life with God is hard, it's sticky, it's different, it's complicated, but when we do it together, god always gets the glory, and sometimes we disagree on the non-essentials, but we always agree on the essentials and in all things we show love.
Speaker 1:
Let's pray together, god, thank you so much for today. Thank you that, god. Even in the hard things, even in the areas where we're learning and we're growing, we trust you things. Even in the areas where we're learning and we're growing, we trust you. We trust you, we trust that you lead us, we trust that you guide us and we trust, lord, that you have a way of working it all out in the end. We celebrate you today In Jesus' name. We pray Amen. And what God's Word says in 1 Timothy 4, verse 12, do not let anyone think less of you because you are a complementarian, an egalitarian, young, whatever you are, but be an example to all believers in what you say and what you live, in your love, your faith and your purity. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for 1 Timothy, chapter 3.
