1 Timothy 2:8-15 | Submit to Authority

Opening to 1 Timothy 2

If you have a Bible, go and grab it and open it to the book of 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy. In the past couple of weeks, we've been looking at Paul exhorting Timothy on various matters. Two weeks ago, we saw him encourage Timothy to submit to his authorities in society and offer prayer towards them. Now he talks about submission in the church in relation to different genders. So we'll be looking at 1 Timothy, chapter 2, verses 8 through 15.

Therefore, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument. Also, the women are to dress themselves in modest clothing, with decency and good sense, not with elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls, or expensive apparel, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess to worship God. A woman is to learn quietly with full submission. I do not allow a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; instead, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed. But she will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with good sense. — 1 Timothy 2:8-15 (CSB)

Let's pray. Lord, we ask this morning, even with a passage that can be as contentious today as this, we ask Lord that you would help us to preach the whole counsel of God, all of it, with confidence, not just that it's true, but also that it's good. We need your Spirit to help us. We ask that you speak now in Jesus' name, amen.

Gender Expectations: Society vs. Scripture

Recently there's a movie, I don't know if you've seen it, called *Barbie*. And in it, one of the characters, named Gloria, played by America Ferrera, goes on a monologue, detailing the difficulties of being a woman in 21st century America. She said, quote:

"It is literally impossible to be a woman. Like we always have to be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong. You have to be thin, but not too thin. You can never say you want to be thin. And you have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the time. You have to be a career woman, but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane. But if you point that out, your kids are complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much, or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be part of the sisterhood. But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that, but also always be grateful. You never have to get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard. It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you. I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us."

I wonder if reading 1 Timothy 2:8 through 15 makes you feel like Gloria did in the movie *Barbie*. Bigoted expectations that seem to contradict themselves, till they mutate into some unbearable burden. Gender rules can seem so cumbersome that it might feel better to just throw the system out altogether, to exist in some limbo state where gender doesn't matter anymore, where equality equals sameness, when we look past the oppressive categories of gender altogether.

But the truth is that gender is real. Whether it's Gloria's monologue or Paul's letter here in 1 Timothy 2, everyone acknowledges that gender is a real factor in our society and actually both recognize that there needs to be a better way forward. The problem with Gloria and the movie *Barbie* is that it doesn't actually offer a real solution. At the end of the movie, Barbie's still in charge. Men exist in a matriarchal society where they're put in submission. And yet nothing changes. Nobody learns anything. Barbie continues to live in a society with imbalanced gender expectation.

In contrast, the Bible offers a real remedy to the gender confusion that ills our society today. Not just because it's right, but because it's good. That God actually uniquely designed each gender to display the glory of God in ways that the other can't. That the other can't. I'm not going to have time this morning to unpack everything here. Talking about gender roles in a sermon or in a church or in America is like walking on a tightrope with both sides sawing away at the rope. So I'm just going to ask that you grant me some goodwill and grace this morning. And we'll have some time in the evening during our prayer service to be able to have some Q&A in case you guys want to unpack some of this stuff more.

Biblical Definitions of Masculinity and Femininity

Before we begin, I just want to define, really quickly, biblical masculinity and femininity. Paul is talking about a very specific context here within the church, but operates within a broader framework or a broader pattern of viewing biblical masculinity and femininity. So here's how one church tries to define these roles. I'm happy to unpack that more in some later time, but keep those in the background as we walk through this passage here.

Biblical masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to tend God's creation, provide for and protect others, and express loving, sacrificial leadership in particular contexts prescribed by God's Word. Let's say that one more time: biblical masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to tend God's creation, provide for and protect others, and express loving, sacrificial leadership in particular contexts prescribed by God's Word.

Biblical femininity is displayed in a gracious disposition to cultivate life, to help others flourish, and to affirm, receive, and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men. And as I said, worthy men, not all men, worthy men, in particular contexts prescribed by God's Word. Let's say that one more time: biblical femininity is displayed in a gracious disposition to cultivate life, to help others flourish, and to affirm, receive, and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men, in particular contexts prescribed by God's Word.

So this morning, I'm going to walk through Paul's commands to each gender in this specific particular context. So we talked about particular contexts in God's Word. This context of Paul speaking to you is in the church, and see how God's unique design is a pattern for men and women actually highlight the unique gifts and blessings of both. In other words, there are ways that women are able to glorify God that men don't, and there are ways that men uniquely glorify God that women can't. The difference is by design, and it's good. So here's a main idea for us this morning: live a holy life according to your God-given gender, live a holy life according to your God-given gender. One command to men here, and two commands to women in this passage.

Men: Pray Peacefully

First, men, pray peacefully. Let's read verse 8:

Therefore, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument. — 1 Timothy 2:8 (CSB)

Men are told what to do here. They are to pray that men in authority are to recognize a greater authority than themselves. That while men are called to lead, to provide, and protect, their authority begins with recognizing a greater authority. The hands that they use for their work shouldn't be limited to what they accomplish, but should be lifted up to acknowledge the one who is above them all. 1 Corinthians 11 says that man is the head of the woman, but Christ is the head of the man. See, the best kind of authority that exists in your life submits to their greater authority. If someone is at the top of their own food chain, that's a dictator, not a leader. The best leaders begin by being a follower. They understand that they are accountable under the authority of someone greater than themselves. If you ever follow a leader who doesn't think that they're accountable to anyone else, expect abuse. An unaccountable authority will inevitably lead to various kinds of abuse.

And the picture here of men lifting up their hands is more than just a picture of submission to God. It's actually one of intercession. See, the great high priest would go into the temple to intercede or to go before the Lord on behalf of the people. And when he would go before the Lord, the public intercession on behalf of God's people would look like the great high priest lifting up their hands to God. And that's exactly what God wants men to do: to pray publicly, to lift their hands like the great high priest would, but not just in the temple in Jerusalem, but in every place. That my job as a pastor when I have the privilege of praying for saints is to lift my hands and go before the Lord in prayer. That I don't have to go to Jerusalem to do that. There's no pilgrimage necessary. You don't even necessarily have to do that in a church building. That the good news of the gospel, that Christ died for sinners, so changed the paradigm of worship that you don't need to walk into a holy place, you can pray in every place.

Even in Los Angeles, you know, LA gets a bad rap, I travel a lot to different states all the time. California is like the piñata morally for the rest of the country. It makes fun of Los Angeles, but, you know, I smile, I laugh along with them, sometimes I'll make a joke about having 7,000 faithful in the city or whatever it may be and it kills amongst the Southerners. But the truth is that if God were to decide to wipe out the wicked, the whole earth would be empty. The problem isn't the streets. The problem is our hearts, it's our sin, all of us are guilty. And what washes our hands clean, what enables us to lift up holy hands, isn't our own blood, sweat, and tears, it's Christ's blood poured out for us. His sacrifice on the cross, receiving the punishment that we deserved is what cleanses us of our sin. And that's what saves us and grants us access to lift our holy hands to the Lord. When we pray to the Lord, God hears every single word in every place.

But this verse isn't just about what men are to do in public worship or where they are to pray, but how they are to pray. They are to pray without anger or argument, anger or quarreling or argument. That men are to pray, not just with the confidence that Christ has granted them access to the throne of God, but with a clean conscience that they are living a holy life. You see, anger and arguments are interpersonal. This is more than just the way that you approach God, that your personal life is intertwined with your prayer life. It's about how you treat others. 1 Peter actually picks up on this very idea, not talking about the context of the church, but talking about the context of marriage, says this in 1 Peter 3:

Husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker partner, showing them honor as coheirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered. — 1 Peter 3:7 (CSB)

Notice how he interrelates the way that a husband respects his wife with his prayer life? In other words, it's not just about whether or not your wife is doing what you say, it's whether or not you understand her, right, that's a high bar. That means that you spend as much time in her space until it gets through your thick skull. If you don't do that, and then you show up at church and you raise your hands up in worship, or you pray to the Lord, or you go to your prayer closet, Peter is saying, God will not hear you. He doesn't listen to that. God does not accept hypocrisy, to put it bluntly, a man characterized by disrespecting his wife, or any other person in the church has no business leading prayers in the church. God will not hear his prayers. We're not talking about being holier than thou, we're talking about not being a hypocrite. Psalm 55:21 describes a man whose buttery words are smooth, but war is in his heart. His words are softer than oil, but they are drawn swords. If that describes you, the Lord is against you. You can't go before God on behalf of the people while simultaneously using your power, your leadership, your authority, your anger, and your arguments to put others down. Godly manhood doesn't clamp down on people, it lifts up prayers. You have a responsibility to use your power to build up, to use your hands to bring others into the presence of God, and in other words, being a man biblically has nothing to do with machismo, muscles, or money. Spiritual leadership starts with prayer, not power. Biblical masculinity submits to your savior, prays publicly, and avoids anger and arguments. That's the call for men.

Women: Dress Decently

Number two, women, dress decently, dress decently. Let's read verses 9 through 10.

Also, the women are to dress themselves in modest clothing, with decency and good sense, not with elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls, or expensive apparel, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess to worship God. — 1 Timothy 2:9-10 (CSB)

Paul's admonition here can feel like a pastor rampaging through your wardrobe, or hitting you with Christian mean girl energy. So I just want to have a quick pause here before we get into the particulars and try to examine the principle that Paul is trying to preserve here. Paul's primary burden isn't to tell women to dress worse. He's not trying to say, hey, don't look beautiful. He's trying to get you to dress up. The question isn't whether you look beautiful or not, but what is making you look beautiful? This isn't about policing what you show, but whether how you dress reflects your soul. Paul is talking here about women who have dressed in elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls, expensive apparel. He's not saying that you need to awkwardly take off your necklace or take off your earrings right now. He's trying to do, he's describing people in the Roman oligarchy. That's what these items represent. People that are in the upper echelon, the capital, known for their extravagance, their wealth, and their sexual promiscuity. You see, their dress communicates something about their value. It draws the eye. It communicates desirability, and their outward extravagance points to their own worth. In other words, you want to know that I'm someone worth paying attention to, look at me.

As much as we may try to deny it, beauty has a real effect. I'm not talking about your own inherent beauty and worth as a woman made in God's image. That is unshakably and immovably true. But as much as we may try to deny it, societal standards of beauty do affect the way that we're treated, the way that we're viewed, and the way that we're valued. Attention feels good. That's exactly what Paul is calling our attention to. Pay attention to what feeds attention. Now, it can become a weird circular trap to then go from having attention to then being modest and feeling neglected to then feeling beautiful, but critiqued by the fashion police with everything that you wear. I'm not trying to get you to completely overhaul your wardrobe or do a Ph.D. examination of different textiles or whatever, whether or not you're showing enough shoulder. It's not Paul's emphasis either, whether you're promiscuous or you're prudish, both still obsess about outward appearance. What God wants to do isn't get you to hyper-scrutinize every single thing you wear. God wants to free you from the pendulum swings of outward appearance. God wants women to dress modestly, not with outward riches or extravagance, but with good works, as is fitting for women who profess to worship God. That the true value of a Christian woman should not be determined by the number of layers of clothing on her body, whether you go up or down. But that should be valued based on her good works. See what Paul's doing there? He's changing how women are supposed to be valued, from her sensuality to her spirituality, from how she looks to what she does, and external extravagance, wearing things that draw the eye, distracts from the beauty of her actions.

See, this is not primarily about stressing for men to prevent them from stumbling. I'm so broken-hearted by the number of conversations that make it sound as though women become these mistresses, they're just going to lead men astray. That's not what Paul is emphasizing here. This isn't about violating some form of sisterhood, where you're trying to step out from the masses and let your girls down. This is about letting a woman's spiritual beauty shine, dressing yourself with good works. In other words, the call to modesty should be liberating you to focus on godliness, not burdening you with anxiety of others' perceptions of you. Isn't that what we all want, to be judged by the quality of our character? Christian women express their faith in God by placing their trust, not in outward appearance, but in holiness.

So, where's the line? That's a question that always comes up with modesty conversations. How do you determine whether you're dressing modestly or not? I want to be really clear that the line in 1 Timothy 2 is decency and good sense, your self-control, decency and good sense. In other words, be decent. That's not a clear line on every single little thing. And personally, as your pastor, I have zero desire to be evaluating your wardrobe and giving you a thumbs up or thumbs down on every single article of clothing. I've no desire to do that. But just because the line is blurry doesn't mean that the principle isn't there. You want to be dressed with decency, with good sense or self-control. So here's the general line that I would draw. If I were counseling you, don't be distracting. Don't be distracting. If the point of the elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls and expensive apparel is that it draws the eye in a way that distracts or entices others, then you want to dress in a way that lets your appearance fall into the background compared to your righteousness. That means if you walk into church next Sunday draped with 50 trench coats, you are distracting. Don't do that, right? The point is, don't be distracting. You're going to look different depending on your culture and your time. There's a time in the United States even 50 years ago where women wearing pants would be super scandalous. Nowadays it doesn't really matter. We can talk about ankles, powder, wigs, all sorts of stuff. It changes depending on the culture. The point is, you don't want to be distracting regardless of where you are. The principle of modesty and good work still remains. There's a line, right? Make sure you respect it. The problem with extravagance is that it distracts us from what really matters.

So if I could turn this on the men for a second, if I could ask you, do you focus on what's beautiful? Like truly beautiful. Do you, as men, pay your attention towards the things that are actually worthy of your praise? Would your social media feed reflect extravagance or decency? Would the way that you treat others, show that you value their good works or their outward appearance? People are not idiots. They know what gives them your attention. Men, we are called to live our lives in such a way that makes holiness look and feel beautiful. And it makes righteousness something that's desirable, where women are praised and noticed for their good works, not their good looks. Men are to pray peacefully, and women are to dress decently.

Women: Learn Submissively

And lastly, number three, women study submissively, study submissively. Look at verse 11 through 12.

A woman is to learn quietly with full submission. I do not allow a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; instead, she is to remain quiet. — 1 Timothy 2:11-12 (CSB)

Now, what in the world do we do with this? Before we evaluate Paul's reasoning for why he provides this prohibition for women, we need to be able to clarify what Paul is asking women to do and not to do. He tells women here to learn quietly with full submission, which looks, specifically, like not teaching or exercising authority over a man, but remaining quiet. The church in Ephesus, to which Paul's writing, they seem to be dealing with issues inside the church where extravagantly dressed women were usurping pastoral authority and speaking and teaching contrary to the word of God. That seems to be what's going on. Paul's saying, stop that.

Now, when Paul says he doesn't allow the woman to teach, it doesn't mean that women don't ever speak to other Christian men in a corrective fashion. In that sense, women teach all the time, and let me encourage you as your pastor, I need you to speak. I need that in my own life. Men need that in their life. We need you to teach us and correct us. We have clear biblical examples of women doing exactly that. In Acts 18:24-28, a Paulist teaches in this same church in Ephesus. And then afterwards, Priscilla and Aquila, two women take a Paulist to the side and explain to him the way of God more accurately. What would you call that? Well, one word that you might want to use for something like that is teaching. That is not a violation of 1 Timothy 2. It's actually appropriate for a Paulist to be taught, to be corrected doctrinally, by two godly, educated, competent, teachers. I want that kind of teaching. I need that kind of teaching. We need women in this church who love the Lord, who study Scripture, are able to listen to sermons I preach and say, "That doesn't sound right." I'll be able to pull me aside and say, "That's incorrect," or stand up in a member's meeting and say, "Hey, this isn't true, or hey, we need to be careful about this." We need godly, competent, confident sisters. That's what we need. I'll call that teaching with a lowercase T, teaching with a lowercase T.

So then, what does it mean when Paul tells Timothy the women are to be quiet? This helps us here as well. 1 Timothy 2, same chapter earlier in the verse, we looked at this passage two weeks ago. Paul talks about Christians living a tranquil and quiet, same word, life, in all godliness and dignity. He says that in reference to a Christian's submission to their government. Now does that mean that a Christian shouldn't ever seek to speak out against injustice in society? Absolutely not. We have a category for that. We understand that there's a difference between being rebellious and being submissive. See, being submissive doesn't mean that you don't ever speak. So here's the analogy that I would give, just as a quick example. People understand that when you sit in court, you don't disrespect the judge by speaking out of turn. Instead, you should remain quiet. If the judge is presiding, you just stand up in the middle of the stands and start talking or start making your own declarations innocent. The judge is going to look at you like you're an idiot, you're being disruptive. It's not helpful, right? And so you are to remain quiet. In the church, we understand that we should not be speaking out of turn while the pastor is preaching. This is not a town hall meeting where anyone can stand up and say their peace. 1 Corinthians 14:40 says that:

But everything is to be done decently and in order. — 1 Corinthians 14:40 (CSB)

So Paul is rejecting disruptive, disrespectful teaching from women in the church in Ephesus. And some would like it if I just left that there. But Paul says more than that. Paul doesn't just tell these specific disruptive women to stop teaching false things. He forbids all women in the church from teaching or exercising authority over a man. This is more than just whether or not a woman can stand up and disrupt service. This is talking about the pastoral office and the pastoral function. The woman is not to teach or exercise spiritual authority over a man. Now who has the primary responsibility to teach in a church? A pastor, right, a pastor exercises his authority by opening God's word and teaching it week after week after week. And Paul is teaching women here that they are not to occupy that role or that function. Women are not to be pastors or exercise that kind of pastoral authority through formal, while called, capital T teaching. And the reason why we know that's more than just a situational solution here is because of Paul's rationale for why a woman is not permitted to teach or exercise authority over a man. See that in verse 13.

The Hope of Salvation through Perseverance

For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed. — 1 Timothy 2:13-14 (CSB)

Paul gives two reasons why a woman is not permitted to teach or exercise authority. And both of them go all the way back to Genesis. In other words, Paul is not appealing to some kind of situational problem that requires a situational solution. He's going back to the very core of your identity in your gender. He's going back to the way that things were created, which is point number one. The first reason actually, creation, creation. Adam was formed first, then Eve. There is an order in creation. And Adam was created first. In fact, before sin enters into the world, God said in Genesis 2:18:

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.” — Genesis 2:18 (CSB)

That is before the fall. The woman is created and God calls her a helper. And the Lord took one of Adam's ribs and made a woman. That's why Adam calls her woman because she was taken out from man. See, this is the way that it was designed from the beginning. There is a creation order there. See, in creation's order, there's a pattern. Adam's formed first, then Eve. And that picture indicates something about the pattern of authority. Adam leads, Eve helps. But it's not just creation, it's also the fall. That's the second reason. Adam was not deceived. The woman was deceived. Adam was not deceived. Eve was deceived. Now, this is not a statement that women are more gullible than men. In fact, in most cases, I would argue the opposite to be the case. This is not talking about women in their own genetics or in their designs, I'm not being more susceptible to influence or things like that. Nor is it saying that men are somehow absolved from their sin as though Adam wasn't responsible for what was going on in the garden. Both of them fall into sin and both of them are cursed because of their sin. The woman is cursed with painful labor and childbirth. And the man is cursed with painful labor in working the ground and growing thorns and thistles as he works the ground. This isn't about cosmic finger pointing. Paul is not saying it was Eve's fault. That's not what he's doing. At the end of the day, if man is supposed to be an authority over Eve, then even if Eve was deceived first, it's the man's fault. Right? He's an authority over her. He should have taught her better. He was clearly around while the serpent was deceiving Eve. He has responsibility. The point isn't that Eve did something. The point is about how God and Adam approached Adam and Eve. Notice in every single case there, there's a passive tense. Adam was formed first, then Eve. In other words, when God creates the world, he creates an order. Adam first, then Eve. Satan does the opposite of that. Right? He goes for Eve first, deceives her, and then Eve goes to Adam. Satan the serpent, when trying to deceive humanity, plunge them into darkness, flips the order. He goes for Eve first, then Adam. As one scholar wrote, God established an order of creation and Satan subverted that order. Does that make sense? Turn to the ordering? Adam first, then Eve. Serpent goes Eve first, then Adam. And so the issue for Paul isn't that the women are teaching wrong things, but that when a woman exercises authority or teaches the church as a whole, which is what a pastor does, she is doing the same thing that Satan did during the fall. You're flipping the order. She is subverting the pattern of creation. That God has a good order in creation that reality follows, a man leads, a woman helps. And the pictures of both creation and fall help us see the natural pattern that exists in each gender. Adam is created, then Eve. Adam leads, Eve helps together as a unit, as one body. He starts to multiply fully earth and subdue it. At the curse, Adam is cursed with painful labor, producing seed from the earth. Eve is cursed with painful labor, producing seed, being children. And those pictures help us see a broader pattern. A man provides, protects, and leads. A woman affirms, receives, and nurtures. And that's just the way that the world generally works. And this pattern that informs how authority works in the home and in the church. Paul's prescription that women are not to teach or exercise authority over men. Women are not to be pastors or teach in churches, because that authoritative leading office best reflects the pattern of creation, which is reserved for men. Pastors lead and teach, and that best fits the pattern for men. That does not mean that women lose their agency or their right to speak, or even have a part to play in the life of the church. They have an essential role in the life of the church. In fact, when people talk about abuses of authority, about needing women in the highest levels of leadership, did you know that we have women in the highest levels of leadership at our church? Because you guys are part of the members' meetings that we have in our church. Every single member's meeting we have, women are part of the last stop in our church's decision making. You have a representative, authoritative role in the church. In your ability to say no. In the highest level of responsibility, congregation as a whole. Second, we need women to teach. Titus 2:4-5, women are called to teach the younger women how they ought to live. We need competent women. So the restriction of the pastoral office to men is not about competence. It's about the structure of the church, harmonizing with the melody of God's created order, following the pattern of how God created the world. This is not about prescribing what women may or may not do in every single context in every single place. Happy to talk about that more later. This is not saying that women cannot be sheriffs in a police department, or can be the president of the United States. We're not talking about any of that. What we're talking about, though, is a pattern that is true in existence society. This is not about women submitting to men in every single context in every single place. That's why the definitions for biblical masculinity and femininity talk about the proper context. If you're under an unworthy man, you should exercise your responsibility by rejecting bad kinds of authority. What we're talking about is a pattern that God designed, and that society and life generally leans in that direction. That's not to say that women cannot be smarter than men. That's not to say that there aren't women in the gym who bench more than I do. But generally, we know that men have stronger bodies because they work the ground. We know that women by design are able to produce children which men cannot do. Those pictures provide patterns for society to follow. The problem is when we take those patterns and we make them principles, it doesn't account for the flexibility of those kinds of exceptions. Where abuses can happen. Or where there's cases where those patterns need to be subverted because of another distortion that comes up. It doesn't negate the truthfulness of that pattern. Elizabeth Elliott was a missionary whose husband died on the field. She ended up coming back and becoming a really prolific author and teacher as well. She's actually speaking to a class in Gordon-Conwell Seminary, where she's speaking to literally hundreds of seminarian men that are training to be pastors. And she said this while she was talking to them, quote:

"I am better versed in Hebrew and Greek than any of you, as well as multiple languages. I have more communication skills than do any of you, male or female. Uncomfortable speaking from large crowds and skillful in one-to-one conversations. I have a depth of understanding of God born of suffering. A few of you will match. My gift in this is far beyond most of you." I love that. "And yet, God has not called me to use those gifts in an ordained capacity. Does that mean they are of any less worth? I know that not to be true. Because calling is different than giftedness or even desire." I love that. I'm learning even boldness from Elizabeth Elliott right now. When establishing the authority of men and the submission of women, and you think about the idea of the creation in the fall, it can end up with this disregarding women altogether, or viewing women as a problem, especially for contexts like Timothy in which he's dealing with. He's having to interact with rebellious women every single week. They're seeing it disrupt his authority and disrupt the service. And so Paul reminds Timothy of the hope that all women have in verse 15.

But she will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with good sense. — 1 Timothy 2:15 (CSB)

What in the world does that mean, saved through childbearing? That is a complicated question. One thing that we know for sure that Paul doesn't mean is salvation by giving birth to kids. That's not what Paul means. We know plenty of godly women who have not experienced the joy of bearing children, whether that's through a mission or through tragedy. That's not what Paul is talking about here when he talks about childbearing. And I don't think that Paul is necessarily here talking about Eve giving birth or Mary giving birth because he moves from the singular to the plural there. Notice that he says "she will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with good sense." Paul is saying something to every woman that happens to be a Christian in the world today. Saying continue in faith, love, and holiness with good sense. You will be saved through childbearing. So I think a lot of people get confused because they get caught up in what that word childbearing could mean. I think a more important question is what the word *through* means. What does it mean to be saved *through* childbearing? You can see a few places in Scripture where the word saved and through show up together. And the most obvious example is in 1 Corinthians 3:13-15.

each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved—but only as through fire. — 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 (CSB)

"Will be saved *through* fire." It's not the fire itself saves the person. It's not like fire is the active agent that's causing the salvation to happen. But the fire encapsulates the trials that one endures. It reveals the quality of one's works. In the same way the woman will be saved through childbearing. Not because childbearing itself saves you, but because labor represents the most tangible sign of the fall for the woman. Pain in childbearing. When God curses the woman after the fall says you will experience painful labor. It would be like Paul if he were to encourage the man and say, "but the man will be saved through thorns and thistles." It's not about the action itself, it's about what the thing represents. Labor here represents all the effects of the fall in this world that despite our sin, we will be saved through the effects of the fallen world. Through persevering, through pain, through agony, through difficulty. If we continue in faith, love and holiness with good sense, the same word that's used earlier in talking about a woman's dress also refers to her obedience. With good sense. In other words, you should look like who you are. And Paul is encouraging you if you continue to walk righteously, if you continue to follow Jesus, if you continue to go after him, you will be saved no matter what negative effects of the fall come at you. No matter what happens to you, you will be saved through childbearing. And who are we? We are those who are formed by God. Those who are deceived by sin. Those who are redeemed by Christ. Christ redeems all the consequences of a fall. Christ saves you, male and female, through his finished sacrificial work on the cross. In fact, the cross carries both pictures of a fall for both genders. That God in the curses for sin will put the very means of salvation. That through labor, through the pain of childbearing, that the seed would come. And through the labor of the ground, God would raise up a seed. The new Adam to redeem all of creation. The seed of the woman would hang on the seed of the earth, the tree, with a crown of thorns, and bear the sins of humanity on his shoulders. And looking at Christ's example, suffering through the worst effects of sin, we know that we too will also be saved through childbearing.

Through the promised Seed, who lived the perfect life that we could never live, and who redeems all of us to be able to live and follow him. All of sin can work together to try to chain us to this broken, fading, cursed world. You can feel the worst effects of all of sin, sickness, even death itself. And it will try to chain you to this world that's falling away and the promise of the gospel in 1 Timothy 2:15 is that you will be saved through all of it. Through the worst pains that this world can offer. The worst parts of the curse of sin you will still be saved through the worst fire, even through the flames of hell itself, because of the grace of Christ. So keep going. Keep continuing in Christ and faith, love, and holiness. Don't fall away and let that inner holiness reflect in your conduct, in your good works, in your humility, in your godly manhood and your womanhood. And as we live godly, gendered lives to the Lord, we bring Him glory. That's what God calls us to do. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that you would help us to be able to not just believe these words to be true, but to believe that's good. Help us to live godly lives that truly seek and follow after you. Give us the strength to be able to recognize what our proper roles are and the humility of being able to follow in those steps. We ask for clarity and for conviction. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.