Adorned with Good Works

In this week’s message from 1 Timothy 2, we see that godly women adorn themselves with good works rather than outward display. Paul does not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man in the church, and he grounds this in creation, not culture. God richly gifts women for service, and we honor his design for his glory.

Well, we’re going to continue our study in 1 Timothy chapter 2, so if you would turn with me to that really wonderful book that teaches us how we’re to behave in the household of God. 1 Timothy, and we’re going to look at chapter 2 today, continuing chapter 2.

And let me say, because we do week-to-week exposition, we take the next passage, and I know today is Mother’s Day. We usually continue with whatever passage we come to. And it seemed a little interesting to me today because on Mother’s Day we celebrate the women that’s changed our lives, wives and mothers and daughters and people and women in general.

We recognize that God gifts women in the same way that He gifts men, richly and wonderfully. And He gives them ministry to do that’s rich and wonderful. And we don’t want to minimize that.

But as we come to this passage that we have this morning, we also recognize that this is a difficult passage for a number of women. I mean, a number of women have found this passage difficult. In fact, one preacher said, when you preach this passage, you can expect it to raise hackles and blood pressure.

And so this is one of those passages that we come to. It’s just what we happen to come to today on Mother’s Day. So if I were going to arrange it, I would have probably… We’re not going to look at verse 15. We’re going to look at verses 9 through 14, if I can hurry through this this morning.

I’ve got a pair of glasses that almost works, so I’m hoping that I can read my notes. Anyway, I forgot my glasses this morning. My wife kindly provided these for me. She kept them in her purse, but it’s a level or two lower than what I usually use.

So here we are. I’m coming to the text this morning. We’ll look at verse 15, that very interesting verse, next week, how women are saved through bearing of children. A very interesting, difficult verse, one of the more difficult verses in the Bible to translate, to understand, and to interpret. But today we’re going to look at verses 9 through 14. This is God’s holy, inerrant word.

The Text1 Timothy 2:9–14

Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.

Let’s ask God to bless the reading of His Word and that we may be instructed rightly through it.

Father, we do thank You for the preciousness of giving us a revelation from You and not leaving us to ourselves, but giving us guidance in how we’re to worship You. Please bless us today as we look at this passage this morning. Thank You, Father, for this word. Teach us through it, we pray, in Christ’s name. Amen.

Lifting Up Holy Hands

Well, back in verse 8, we commented on this somewhat, but I need to read it again because it connects directly.

Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.

We’ve talked about the struggle that was taking place in the church at Ephesus with false teaching. These false teachers were deliberately creating a disturbance in the church, apparently. It was creating a lot of dissension.

Paul addresses that very directly here by what are men to be doing in worship, times of worship. They’re not to be arguing. They’re not to be angry. They’re not to be struggling with dissension. They are to lifting up holy hands. They are to pray.

He wants men in every place, and every place means every house of God, every assembly of the church. They’re to come together in the house of God and the assembly of church for the purpose of worshiping God.

We spent some time on lifting up holy hands a month or two back, so I’m not going to go through that at all. But when you call attention to your hands, the two things that stand out here is they need to be holy. That is, the things that you’re doing in your life. You lift up hands to the Lord. The actions that you do needs to be washed in the blood of the Lamb, purified by the Word of God, by the blood of Christ, sanctified through His Word. We need to be offering up service to the Lord that is holy.

And so I just wanted to mention that because verse 9 begins with likewise. Just as the men are to be praying without dissension, Paul commands the women in the church in their worship of the Lord, as they offer prayers to the Lord, as they worship the Lord, they’re to do that without calling attention to themselves, without being ostentatious in some way, to call attention to themselves.

And that’s the main idea. And I’m going to fly over this verse because there’s a lot in this passage.

But likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly, discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness.

So just as men are to serve the Lord, women are to serve the Lord. Anyone who makes a claim to godliness should be adorning themselves with good works.

Braided Hair and Gold or Pearls

Now, I should just mention, this passage isn’t saying that the girls shouldn’t show up with pigtails. That’s not the idea here. Or that it’s improper for a lady to wear jewelry. That’s really not the idea here.

What was happening in the first century is that wealthy women displayed their wealth in public, and they did that through the hairstyles that they used, really ornate, intricately braided hair that was braided with jewelry and pearls and all sorts of decorative things like that, that separated them from ordinary people. When they came into a church, it would catch people’s eyes.

And it would also, because of the expensive clothing that they wore and this fancy hairstyle, which would take hours and hours for someone to do. You’re talking about, for a person to braid, a young person or a person, if you’re going to braid your hair into a few braids, it’s going to take you 15 minutes. But to do these kinds of hairstyles would take eight hours to start, just for starters.

And so there were incredibly elaborate hairstyles to make them stand out, to call attention to themselves, and to make them seem different from people that they probably thought were beneath them. Well, that’s not a Christian focus.

Modestly and Discreetly

So when it talks about that word discreetly and modest, the word for modest, those words are important, and they’re important for us to understand what worship is about.

That first word, modest, in Greek talks about a sense of propriety or modesty that keeps you from doing something that is wrong. That’s the kind of idea. It’s the idea that keeps you from calling attention to yourself, that would keep you from hindering other people’s worship. A godly woman coming into worship wouldn’t want to wear clothing that would cause a temptation to someone and distract them from worship.

The interesting part of that word, which has to do also with reverence of the Lord, the interesting part of that is that it conveys the idea that a woman would feel grief if she thought she was distracting someone from truly worshiping God in the worship service.

A godly woman is there to worship the Lord. She loves the Lord and she wants everyone to worship the Lord. And so if anything that she does that would distract someone from that purpose would cause her grief. It’s that restraining element within her that would keep her from doing that.

And discreetly has to do with wisdom, what is appropriate and right for the situation. So I’m not going to go any further than that because we don’t have a problem with dress, particularly here, or that issue.

By Means of Good Works

The emphasis, though, is how a woman is to bear ornament. What should decorate a woman and make her to call it, if you’re going to call attention at all, the attention is actually given to the Lord. Her life is decorated, it’s made beautiful by the things she does.

A godly woman’s life is decorated not with the gold or pearls, but by means of good works. That’s what a godly woman does. She does many good and wonderful works.

And it’s interesting that this passage begins by calling attention to the work that women do for the Lord. That’s part of the context of this passage. Women do wonderful things, serve the Lord in many, many wonderful ways. They’re gifted by God with pretty much all the gifts are given to women as well as men. And so they are gifted and they need to use their gifts in the service of the Lord. So that’s all given.

And then we come to the two verses that I want to focus our attention on this morning, and that is beginning in verse 11.

A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness, but I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.

Well, here’s a verse that definitely is one we need to talk about. Not that any of you aspire to preach. I don’t know of that happening here, but I expect that some of you have attended churches where women have been on the pastoral staff.

Saddleback and Fern Creek

And that is an issue that is for several years now in the Southern Baptist Convention. It’s been a significant issue back beginning in 2020. And the Southern Baptist Church disfellowshipped a couple of churches a couple of years ago.

Among those was Saddleback Church in California. It was the largest church in the United States. It was a Southern Baptist church. They took a female teaching pastor named Stacie Wood, which caused a controversy that was brought up with a lot of discussion in the Southern Baptist conventions.

I think around 2023, Saddleback was disfellowshipped. They appealed it, and their disfellowship was held up by an 83% vote in the convention. So they’re no longer a part of the Southern Baptist Church, and the reason they’re no longer a part is because of the fact that they hired a woman to be one of their teaching pastors.

What’s the problem there? Why would they do that? Well, our doctrinal statement, the doctrinal statement of Mayflower Hills Baptist Church, is given to us by the statement that was written in the year 2000. The Southern Baptist statement is actually our doctrinal statement.

And I clipped the quote from that that’s relevant to that, but I’m either not going to be able to see it, to read it, or I’m not going to be able to find it. But it basically says that while both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men qualified by the scripture. That’s what it says.

And so, because of that, they were disfellowshipped. They didn’t agree with that statement. The struggle with the Southern Baptists is, do we make everybody toe the line on an issue like this with our statement? And so, after a great deal of debate, they ended up disfellowshipping Saddleback.

They also disfellowshipped another small church in Alabama, Fern Creek Baptist. That one, I don’t know why it was brought up, because there’s lots of Southern Baptist churches with women on the pastoral staff across the country. But this church had a female senior pastor. Her name is Linda Popham, but again, I can’t hardly see my notes, but I think that’s right.

And they were disfellowshipped by a vote of about 91%. She had been serving the church as senior pastor for 30 years, part of the Southern Baptists. It was interesting, and the reason I mentioned her, this church, is because she is a very conservative in her teaching. She believes in the authority of the Word of God and the inerrancy of the Bible. She toes the line very faithfully to the Southern Baptist Convention.

She did all of these things, and yet she was a woman who set herself as a pastor, and you have to deal with verse 12,

I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man,

which disqualifies her from the next section in chapter 3, where you have elders who have to teach. So you have that situation.

So it’s interesting. I’m going to talk about verse 12 and what it means and why someone who believes the Bible is inerrant might think that it’s okay to become a preacher when you have a verse that seems as clear as this seems to me. I’m going to talk about that in a moment.

But before I do that, I want to point out something that is easily overlooked that we find in verse 11. That’s what’s going on here. My notes are also messed up, so out of order.

So, I want to look at verse 11.

A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.

Now, when we look at that verse and when we talk about it, I think the thing that we tend to see is quietness and submissiveness, and we miss that part in the middle, which is the verbal idea, which is the most important part. A woman must be taught, must receive instruction.

And the Greek word there is the Greek word that’s a cognate of the Greek word for be a disciple. A woman must learn as a disciple of the Lord. Because when we come together and worship, women are to be learners. They’re to be learning just like every disciple of the Lord is to learn. And they’re to learn so that they can act properly, that their giftedness is made the most of, and that they’re able to serve the Lord with the greatest ability and strength.

So it’s an important thing, and that was unique in the first century. Because in Roman culture, as a rule, women didn’t attend any schools. In Jewish culture, women were not taught. But in the New Testament, beginning with Jesus, women became disciples and were taught as disciples. And that continues here. This is an important part of this.

She should be quiet. She shouldn’t be speaking out and making a lot of complaining or disagreeing with what’s being taught. She should receive it with respect. That’s the idea.

But she is to be taught, which was a big thing at this time. It’s important. But not to teach, he says, not to teach.

So let’s go back to Linda Popham, who apparently has a pretty high view of the Word of God and yet doesn’t think this verse applies to her. How does a person like that argue? If you have attended a church where they have pastoral staff, you’ve probably heard some of the arguments why this verse wouldn’t apply. So I’m going to talk about that for a moment and then see if that argument holds up.

I think if you look at the history, women taking pastoral positions happened, first of all, in liberal churches, where they don’t believe the Word of God. They don’t have a high respect for the Word of God. They say this verse doesn’t matter because Paul probably didn’t write it in the first place, and if he did, he’s just expressing his own bias, his own prejudices. And so it didn’t apply.

But I’m not concerned about any of the liberal churches. I’m concerned about people who take the Bible seriously and what they think. So I want to deal with those arguments because you’re going to hear them more and more if you haven’t heard them already.

And so I want to try to give what a lady like this might say, or what some theologians and Bible teachers do say, and try to make the argument as strong as possible for them before we take another deeper look at it, so that we can deal with this honestly. I don’t want to be setting up a straw man to knock down. I want the real thing here.

So what did they do? They believe and teach that this commandment is a temporary commandment, that Paul is doing something for and giving this instruction to the church at Ephesus that no longer applies to us. And though the arguments vary somewhat in the way they get there, most of them have to do with this.

Putting Out a House Fire

And so let me present an argument they would have. They would say that what’s happening in the first century in Ephesus is that the Apostle Paul is putting out a house fire. There’s a crisis there that he’s dealing with. The crisis is false teachers have come into the church.

We know that’s true, don’t we? Because we’ve been studying that. It tells us that quite plainly in chapter 1 and verse 3.

And as these false teachers disrupted the church, making the church spiritually sick, some of them are mentioned by name. Hymenaeus is mentioned in chapter 1, and he’s also mentioned in 2 Timothy 2:16. It says in 2 Timothy 2:16 that their talk was spreading like gangrene. And Hymenaeus is named particularly, and Philetus. These are some of the names of these false teachers.

And they were spreading this, and it says in 1 Timothy 4:1 that false teachers were listening to deceitful spirits, 1 to 5, deceitful spirits and the doctrines of demons. This is the teaching of demons.

And it tells us in the next chapter, when it’s talking about widows, that some of the younger widows have already turned aside to follow Satan, which is to say that they are listening to this false teaching and being affected by it. And it also says that there are gossips and busybodies talking about things not proper.

Some of the women in the church apparently were influenced by these false teachers, perhaps disrupting the services. As the preacher is preaching truth, they’re disrupting the service in order to say these kinds of things. And Paul needs to give this exhortation to help put out this fire in the church.

And so it’s a temporary situation. And he corrects this for this church, but this situation doesn’t apply to every church. So that’s part of the argument.

The Argument from Grammar

And then they try to tie it down with a grammatical argument. And I find that particularly interesting. They would translate this as something like, I’m not presently allowing.

In the Greek, when you study this in the Greek, when it says in verse 12,

I do not allow a woman to teach.

Paul wrote those words in Greek in the present tense, present active indicative. And so they make the argument that Paul had lots of choices. If he wanted to make sure that this was a permanent command for all the ages, he could have done that in a lot of different ways. There are several grammatical forms that you can make to say a command. This is just a simple statement, present tense.

A little short on sleep too, I’m afraid. So he could have made this, for example, an aorist subjunctive or a future indicative, or the normal way to make a commandment is to put it in the imperative mood. Any of those things would work, but he didn’t do any of those things. He has a simple present tense.

And so they say it’s for the present moment. He was talking about this situation in the present. It doesn’t apply to the future. It was there to meet this need in the church. It doesn’t apply to future things.

And you see something like that, and they think, well, that’s pretty good. I mean, do they make the argument? That sounds pretty convincing.

So let’s take a deeper look at this. Let’s look at this a little closer.

Putting Out the Fire

First of all, let’s think about putting out the fire. There’s no question that what they’re talking about here is part of the situation that was taking place in Ephesus. That was a true situation.

There were heretics teaching the church. They were leading the church astray. There were women who was affected by it. All that was part of the historical situation. And that situation Paul is addressing in some of his language here certainly has to do with, because of the situation there.

Does that mean that this exhortation that he gives in verse 12 doesn’t apply to future churches or future times because it was based on that situation? Well, no, it doesn’t.

I mean, an analogy might be, in a particular city, you might have an apartment building that catches fire. And numerous people die in that fire. It’s a terrible tragedy.

It’s a situation that the city council would take up. And they would consider some of the reasons that might have brought about this tragedy, and they might make policy so that other apartment buildings wouldn’t do the same kinds of things that took place there that caused the problem. And that would apply generally from that time on. It could be a permanent requirement.

That’s a normal thing that happens, and it certainly happens in the Bible. There are numerous things that come about because of a situation. Paul makes commandments that has to do with that particular situation that apply to churches so that other churches throughout the ages won’t be affected by that same kind of problem.

So certainly not. Just because it’s a local situation that might initiate this commandment doesn’t mean that that commandment isn’t universally applied to all of us.

The Tense of the Verb

What about that tense of the verb, the fact that it’s present tense? The argument from grammar. The question is, the fact that it’s present active indicative, does that mean that it’s temporary and it doesn’t apply to the church universal through the ages? And the answer to that is just straight no. And let me see if I can convince you of that.

Why is that true? Why is it true that it doesn’t matter that this is in present tense? Because Paul gives lots of exhortations in the present indicative active. And here’s one that’s relevant, Romans 12:1 and 2. Listen to this and think about it. This is all present active indicative.

Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Do you think that’s for the timeless, for the ages? Of course it is. That applies to every one of us. And yet it’s exactly the same. It’s in present active indicative.

Do you know how many times Paul uses the present active indicative in the 13 epistles that he writes? 1,429 times. So if this meant that it’s all temporary because it’s in present tense, nothing that he says, hardly, would last past the first century. See, obviously that’s something that’s not true. It doesn’t apply.

Timeless uses of the present tense is everywhere, and it has to do with the struggle and the temptation. The very first verse of chapter 2,

I urge that entreaties and prayers and petitions and thanksgiving be made on behalf of all men.

That’s because of the circumstance that was going on in Ephesus, and it is timeless. It’s something that every church should do. We should be praying for all peoples, that people come to faith and to the Lord. So these arguments don’t hold up.

Putting a Period There

They do a number of other things. Sometimes they argue, I don’t allow a woman to teach, and they put a period there, or exercise authority over a man, and separate it from the second part. So they say, I don’t allow a woman to teach anything.

And so obviously that has to be temporary, because Paul instructs women to teach, older women to teach younger women. There are many examples in the Bible of women carrying out ministry, which includes teaching. So how could that hold up?

But that’s just a violation of the way this verse reads. The way it reads in English is the way it reads; the grammar is just as consistent in Greek. Women are not to teach or to exercise authority over men. They’re not to teach men. They’re not to exercise authority like an elder would over the men in the church. And so there’s many other things, but I think that’s the gist of how they go.

What happens is that when you come to the Word of God and you have something that you want it to say, there’s always a great temptation to bend it, to find the little things that might make it say what you want it to say. But we should never, ever do that.

The Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword.

The Word of God equips the man of God in every way to serve the Lord. But the Word of God must be read and interpreted faithfully. We need to receive it, every one of us.

A gloss is those little footnotes in the margin that you might have in your Bible. I have a Bible that’s filled with notes on the bottom. That’s not the Word of God. That’s commentary on the Word of God. In my writings at home, I have Bibles that I have lots of margin notes. The margin notes is the things that I believe about the text.

When I come to a verse in the Bible, I must lay that down. I must let the Word of God tell me what it means. I must be faithful to do that and not shape it to what I want it to mean. I must come to the Word of God honestly and lay down my own gloss so that I can receive the truth.

Women are gifted with spiritual gifts. They’re spiritually equal to men in every way, as Paul writes in Galatians 3. And if you look at 1 Corinthians 12, for example, they have spiritual gifts that are to be used.

Women can evangelize. They can teach. I’ve known women who love the Lord and they love to talk about the Lord with people. And women who have led people to the Lord, that’s a wonderful, legitimate business of women. Women can pray and dedicate themselves to prayer.

Part of what took place in the New Testament church was that women would become actively involved in the ministry there, involved in prayer and service. But they weren’t elders or preachers in the church. That was the one separation.

So when you go back to this verse and you think about that present tense, how do you know that it endures or whether it’s temporary? Well, you do that by the context. And in this passage, it’s very clear, because Paul grounds it. He tells us the reason for this commandment in verses 13 and 14. He says,

For it was Adam.

Why is it that women aren’t to have authority over men and to teach men?

Because it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.

That’s his reason. Because Adam was first created, he had primogeniture over Eve. He had the right to rule as the firstborn.

And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.

How long does the command last? It lasts as long as men and women are children of Adam and Eve, because that’s what he grounds this on. He doesn’t say the reason for this is because of the crisis in the church. He doesn’t say the reason for this is for any other reason. It’s grounded in the creation story.

In the New Testament, women serve the Lord in many, many ways. Here’s some notable names: Priscilla and Phoebe and Junia and Euodia and Syntyche and Mary and Tryphaena and Tryphosa and Persis. Paul says, these are my fellow workers. These are my co-laborers in the Lord. They’re serving the Lord with him.

And Priscilla, you might remember, in Acts 18, there was a man who came. His name was Apollos, and he was a very gifted, eloquent man, it says, who knew the Bible really well and was a powerful preacher. But he didn’t have a complete knowledge. His knowledge was limited to what he had learned through John the Baptist.

And so Priscilla and her husband Aquila (Priscilla’s name is given first) give counsel to Apollos.

They took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

In 1 Timothy 2, we’re talking about public corporate worship in the church. And women aren’t to preach. They’re not to preach or have authority over men like an elder. But they are to serve God in lots of ways. And that even includes teaching men in informal situations, though I have to say, that’s a difficult task. It’s probably challenging work.

Nevertheless, God allows. That’s a good example of that kind of thing. It’s not every situation. It’s this situation for the glory of God. For the glory of God. Because this is God’s order.

Let me stop here because I’ve gone over again and stumbled around enough. Important passage. This passage, I’ve probably raised lots of questions. I’ve done a lot of study and only shared a tiny little bit of it. If anyone has questions, we can take it up on a Sunday evening or a Wednesday evening.

But this morning, we need to take this time and give thanks to the Lord for His grace that He’s given us, the provision that He’s made for us. And we need to respect the leadership that God provides, every one of us does. So let’s pray.

Father, we thank You for this word from You. We ask, Lord, for the abundant measure of Your Spirit to help us grasp this truth. It’s important. It’s an issue that is causing division in the church at large, within the Southern Baptist Convention. We ask, Father, for help and grace to appreciate Your Word. Guide us, Lord, into the truth. Help us, dear Savior. We thank You for Your mercies and grace in Christ.

And we pray, Father, that You help us to be obedient to Your Word, to value it, to recognize that it is Your Word. And when You have given word to us through the Apostle Paul, You mean for us to hear it, to submit to it. Father, for men and for women, we ask, Father, for the grace to do that very thing, that we may be strengthened in the faith. Help us, Lord Jesus, in Christ’s name. Amen.