Dennis Tuuri

That word is found today. The scripture reading is 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 9-15. Our subject is the role of women. Their behavior in the house of God. 1 Timothy 2:9-15.

In like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly array, but with becometh women professing godliness with good works. Let the women learn in silence with all subjection.

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, and then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith, and charity, and holiness with sobriety.

Let us pray. Father, we pray that you would indeed open our ears to hear the words of this scripture. Give me clarity of speech, Lord God, that I might speak forth the truths of this and nothing else and yet the whole truth. And we pray, Lord God, that we might hear these things not just to satisfy or even to satisfy intellectual curiosity, but to certainly reform our intellects, that we might reform our lives, and that our volitions may be moved by your Holy Spirit to walk and consecrate all our actions to the truths we learned today. We ask this in the name and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

How did you spend your day of preparation? What’s the day of preparation? Well, in the gospel accounts, the day of preparation was the term that was used in God’s word to describe the day prior to the Sabbath. It all days really are marked in a sense by the preeminent day of days, the Sabbath day each week, the Lord’s day, the Christian Sabbath.

And the day prior to the Sabbath, we can still refer to for way of exhortation to us to properly prepare as a day of preparation. And now that’s not all we do on Saturday, but certainly it should be a part of what you do and really a focus as the day goes on towards the evening.

How did you spend your day of preparation? I imagine that if you’re like our household, you certainly get the clothes ready. If you got younger children who are not necessarily always in a place where they have their clothes ready, you want to make sure everybody’s got their clothes ready for the next day. Clean clothes are to be had, etc. So, clothing is one of the things we do. But this scripture we see today gives us a regulative principle about clothing. I suppose we could look at it that way.

You know, in reformed circles, the regulative principle refers specifically to the acts of worship. And I remember Doug H. years ago talking about the Puritans. Now, the regulative principle really extends far broader than worship. It means that all of our lives would be regulated by the word of God. And here we see in this text, among other things, the extensiveness of God’s command word. It relates even to our dress. And so, God regulates how we dress according to the scriptures and how we see dress.

But the text goes on to talk not just about dress and not even primarily about dress. Really the day of preparation according to this text which speaks of worship again, the household of God and behavior in the institutional church and by way of extension principles for all of life or truths from all of life and the truthgiver. This text not only refers not directly or primarily to clothes. It does talk about clothes but really it says that our adornments, women’s adornments, and by way of application, all people are to be with other things. And we’re going to talk about that now.

The subtitle of this is one of those hard things. Remember, we said that as we go through this book, we don’t want to avoid—I’m actually sort of I’m kind of driven to look at the hard text passages and understand what they mean. So, here we have one. Women will be saved. They will be saved. The women will be saved in childbirth if they continue in faith. What does that mean? And we’ll talk about that as well.

But understand that the primary context for this is the role of women in the context of the church. This is both—I suppose in a nice symbolic picture here. The instructions about women found in these verses are preceded and followed by instructions about men. We’ve talked about prayer in the first half of chapter 2. And we’re going to talk about and so men as those who pray. The men should pray with holy hands, not with wrath or dispute. And then we’re going to talk about officers. We already have talked about officers. In chapter 3 though, this text is followed by the next thing. It’s good if a man seek the office of bishop. Faithful saying again.

So men before and after this context of women here. And so this speaks specifically of their adornments for church and also of their function or their role in the context of the worship service.

So on the outline we’ve got the adornments of women in the house of God and then we have talk about the function of women in the house of God and then the reasons attached to the statement of function in this text and those reasons include that hard saying of women being saved in childbearing that we’ll spend a little bit of time on and then we’ll look at application of the text with some practical illustrations but lessons to kind of tie it all together and hopefully you’ll as you go through this think about your particular preparations for Lord’s Day worship from now on.

Now it’s interesting that as I said this context for this is men praying and men ruling. Okay. Chapter 2 and 3. And then you got women in the middle of that and the women are not to teach or to exercise dominion or rule over men. So we could see here that really both functions of men are distinguished from the function of women in the context of the middle. So women aren’t supposed to pray and by praying teach.

There’s a connection there in the scriptures. The Levites were to teach and to pray. They’re kind of one function, bundled together, but they’re differentiated in our thinking, but they’re sort of bundled together. So the women can’t do that and they can’t be bishops or rule. And both those things are put together. And all this in the context of some tremendous foundational principles of Christian life and particularly Christian marriage found in the first few chapters of the book of Genesis.

Okay. Now, men, you know, the reason I’m giving you a little overview first before we get to the text. Men are to pray, but they’re not to pray in anger or disputing. Men in their sinful condition are frustrated and as a result hate God. We’re frustrated that disputing word. Remember, it’s not external conversation. It’s the internal dialogue in our head. When we come and when Deacon Garrett comes to pray and when you pray along with him, when men—when you lead in prayer in your homes or if you’re called on to pray in the church, you’re not supposed to have this internal dialogue that is, you know, kind of disputing what God has given you in the context of your life.

That’s what we tend to do. Frustrations about—we were driving to church today and we’re in the van and the van doesn’t corner well. It doesn’t have good shocks, you know, it’s a van. It’s not a nice little road hugging car and I always review my sermon on the way to church and I’m always kind of buzzing like this, you know, and jerking around and you get frustrated. So men’s lives are filled with frustrations from God and his providence to remind us that our role is submission to him and we get upset by that first.

It starts in the head and then it can actually move out in wrath usually directed at our fellow men or our wives whatever it is but ultimately against God and so men are always trying to rebel against the authority of God and their sinfulness. Women do the same thing but their thing is a little different. That’s shown not in wrath or internal disputing. Usually it’s it’s shown instead in a rebellious attempt to dominate their husbands or to exercise authority or teach men.

Okay? So, Adam sins directly kind of so to speak against God. Eve sins against God, but that’s manifested by way of her rebellion of man’s authority. So, you got God, man, woman, and it kind of it’s like a, you know, a rebellion chain, I guess, is a way to think of it. And so, here in the middle, after men and their sin are talked about primarily in the context of prayer, women and their particular potential to sin is talked about in the context of their behavior and their function in the household of God.

Okay, now to the text. Let’s look first at verse 9. We’re going to talk about the adornments of women in the household of God. And what I’ve put on your outline to help you out here is that they’re to be externally ordered, not ostentatious or chaotic. I could say.

Verse 9, in like manner also. So he’s correlating this back to the role of the men in prayer and their role being bounded by their need to not be wrathful or have internal disputings. In like manner, the women adorn themselves in modest apparel. Okay, with shamefacedness and sobriety. Three terms are used that we need to talk about a little bit.

They’re to adorn themselves in modest apparel. The word adorn is the root word is cosmos. Orderliness is what it means. Okay? So they’re to be adorned having order in a modest apparel. Apparel means let down. It refers to clothes. Okay. So, what kind of clothes? They’re to adorn themselves with clothes in a modest way. But the word modest is really the same word in a different form as this word adorn. So really a better translation would be they’re to adorn themselves with adorning apparel. It doesn’t mean modest. It means adorning apparel. Orderly apparel as opposed to chaotic apparel. Now you can get the inference of modest from that word.

But understand that really there’s an emphasis here on this orderliness given through the double repetition of different forms of this word cosmos. So you’re to adorn yourself with adorning apparel, well-arranged apparel. Now you know I don’t know what you’re wearing today. So I don’t, I’m not trying to step on anybody’s toes. I can’t see good enough to see what you’ve got on in detail. So, I’m not talking about you. I’m just talking about the text to be well ordered, serenely ordered, so to speak, not a lot of chaos in the terms of your dress.

And as a result of that, an inference of that is with a degree of modesty. Okay. So, this modest apparel also is to be in the context of shamefacedness and sobriety. A regulative principle of dress is that it’s supposed to be orderly. It should have by way of orderly there things that are beautiful. The world is beautiful because it is ordered. Well, God’s not speaking against beauty here. He’s speaking against chaos or kind of bizarre way of dressing. And then secondly, he wants that regulative principle of dress to say that it should be with a certain degree of shamefacedness.

What that word means is a proper reserve with a sense of shame. Okay. One commentator says it means respectful timidity in the presence of superiors in its original Greek usage, penitent respect to one who has been wronged with a sense of unworthiness, a blend of modesty and humility. Okay, so your dress should be in the context of modesty and humility.

You know, we were again at the Canons of Dort a week or so ago. Actually the preparation for this last week which we didn’t have our class but in the preparation for it in the third and fourth head of doctrine it says that God didn’t have to save anybody. He wasn’t under obligation to save man even if Adam had been perfect. It was not the obligation of God to reward him for his righteousness.

Why? Because God made Adam. He made him to do that. You know, Adam’s just doing what he’s supposed to do. There’s no merit in Adam’s work as he performs it well. So, forget the fall. Before the fall, the relationship we have with God is a gracious relationship. Grace precedes the fall. Any covenant between a superior and an inferior is a covenant of grace because the superior is under no obligation to do anything for the inferior.

God made Adam. He do what he wants to with him. See, man has no claim on God even in his unfallen state. Now with the fall, we know man has absolutely no claim on God. That’s clear to us. Well, I’m saying that because women and by way of extension all of us, I think, should have a degree of shamefacedness. But in women’s clothing, it should reflect the fact that they understand this, that they understand that they have no claims on God.

And so they have a sense of shame or a sense of sensitivity and humility as they approach God in worship. God calls you, you’re going to get ready the day before. Put your clothes in order. And that should be with a sense of I’m going to meet with God. And you know, he doesn’t owe me anything. And both by way of my creation and my redemption, I owe him everything. And so my dress should reflect that to God. And it should have a sense of that as well to men because Paul talks about the relationship here, the functional superiority, inferiority of women and men here. And so there’s a degree of that as well in the clothing for women.

So you know, that’s another part of the regulative principle. And the third term that God uses is sobriety. Sobriety, we’ve talked about this before. The qualifications for elders, it means soundness of mind, to have a sound mind, literally translated not to be insane, not to be irrational and again chaotic.

So, your clothing should indicate a soundness of mind. Okay? It should indicate a self-control. You know, when men don’t control themselves or women don’t control themselves or rather submit to the control of the Holy Spirit, they become irrational. All sin is irrational. You look at what Adam and Eve did. Irrational in the context of their situation. And you try to figure it out. You see people sin, you try to figure it out, they try to figure it out.

They give you excuses, rationalizations, blame shifts. There’s never a good logical reason because sin is irrational. And so there’s a sense in which the clothing that women wear is to be regulated with this sense of self-control. Okay? Or the control of the Holy Spirit. A control of passions is another connotation of the Greek word to have your passions and your emotions, your desires under control.

And of course, you don’t want to cause other people to sin in that sobriety mode either. In other words, your clothing should not be part of an inducement to men to lose self-control. Now, that’s really not the stress here. The stress is on your own relationship to God. Women, it’s talking about how you dress in relationship ultimately to God only secondarily in terms of men.

So those are the three principles. I know there’s another one put in here as well and that is that so I’ve got here you know you’re supposed to adorn yourselves with order and not ostentatiously. He talks about how your adornment is not to be with these external things that he lists. Adorn yourselves in modest apparel with shamefacedness and sobriety not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly array.

Now, there is a lot of scriptures, and I’ve listed a lot of them on your outline there that refer to clothes, and I won’t bother to look up all of them, but I do want to talk about a couple to help us understand this text. We take it as a given that the scriptures don’t contradict themselves, right? I mean, if you find something here that is radically out of place with every place else in scripture, then you’re interpreting it wrong.

So, when we read that women will be saved through childbearing, and we think, well, maybe that means that childbearing is the meritorious action that merits God’s blessing and salvation to us. We know that’s wrong because the rest of scriptures say that isn’t the case. That we’re saved by grace and through faith and that not of yourselves. It’s a gift of God. So, it regulates us.

And so, here we could say, well, the adornments are to be with these qualities reflected in the clothes and we’re never to have these costly apparel. Well, there’s a problem with that and that is that throughout the scriptures costly or good-looking clothes are commended to us.

I mean in Genesis 24 for instance Abraham sends his servant out looking for a daughter and the servant goes out and the servant brings forth jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment and gives them to Rebecca and he gives also to her brother and to her mother precious things. Well, this is a godly picture of seeking a wife for one’s son and the wife is to be decked out in what you know is sent by way of the servant and that is jewels of gold and jewels of silver and raiment, costly stuff the sort of stuff that Paul refers to here, it seems anyway.

Again in Psalm 45 you know we’ve talked about this somewhere it’s a wedding picture it can be used very appropriate in weddings. The king’s daughter is all glorious within. Her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework. The virgins or companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee. So here she’s got beautiful glorious clothing on and that’s not seen as a negative thing.

Proverbs 31, that Proverbs woman you some of you have been studying. What does she do? She makes herself coverings of tapestry. Her clothing is silk and purple. And I’ve not done the word study on those words, but I would assume that silk and purple means these pretty fine clothes that she’s having for herself and her family. See? So, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with good clothes. The scriptures say over and over again, it’s a picture of the blessing of God.

Even in Isaiah 3, there’s all kinds of lists there about good things. And it doesn’t say that these good things that are listed in Isaiah 3 in verse 19 and following, all kinds of fine ornaments. It doesn’t say these are necessarily bad, but what it says is God’s going to take them away because they represent the pride and haughtiness of Israel. And that’s kind of the point of this text.

It isn’t to say that you’re not ever to wear these things, but it says that your adornment before God as you come to worship should never be in these things. These things are not your adornment before God. These things reflect the righteousness of Christ, but they’re not your own righteousness.

In Isaiah 3, we read—I referenced this before, but again—we read that the Lord says, “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walked with stretch forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet, therefore, I’m going to bring these judgments. I’m going to take away all this fine clothing.” I’m going to take it away because they become haughty in that fine clothing is what the text says.

Jeremiah chapter 2 says, “Can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number.” You know, I bet you I’m sure that every wife here knows can remember what her wedding dress was. Can a woman forget that kind of thing? It’s supposed to be a beautiful day. It’s supposed to be a nice dress. And it doesn’t say you shouldn’t remember them. It says you should remember them. But my people have forgotten me days without number. He’s correlating himself to that dress.

The dress is the picture of God’s glory. You’re all glorious within. And so you have this garment of gold according to the psalm. And so these texts tell us that, you know, good clothing is not bad, but the good clothing can become how you see yourself adorned before God, and that is evil and wicked.

Isaiah 61, I’ll greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God. He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. Okay, the garments of salvation is what you’re to have. And that by way of the spirit’s work in your life results in the orderliness, the adorning adornments. It results in the soundness of what you have on, the self-control exhibited by your dress. And it results with that shamefacedness, the sense of shame and humility that you owe God everything as you come to worship him. Those are the adornments of salvation that the Holy Spirit has wrought in your life.

One final illustration of this principle in Ezekiel 16: God describes how he made Israel and how he found her aborted and he took her and he washed her off and cleaned her up and caused her to grow up. In verse 10, I clothed thee with embroidered work and I shod thee with badger skin and I girded thee about with fine linen and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments and I put bracelets upon thine hands and a chain on thine neck and I put a jewel on thy forehead and earrings in thine ears and a beautiful crown upon thine head.

Thus was thou decked with gold and silver and thy raiment was of fine linen and silk and embroidered work. Thou did eat fine flour and honey and oil and thou was exceeding beautiful and prospered into a kingdom.

Now I know he’s talking here about a kingdom, but you know the thing that he’s saying has to be true in its application to make it a truth of kingdom life and prosperity. So this isn’t a bad thing. But what happens is that Israel then forgets God. Verse 15, thou dost trust in thine own beauty and as a result played the harlot. See, so I think what Paul is saying here is, yeah, nice clothes, well-ordered clothes, but if you’re really going to exhibit what the garments of salvation are, you will not be putting your trust in external fine garments.

Now, I think by way of application of the text, we can say that there are probably times in which your money is very poorly spent on beautiful garments. Beautiful garments are the sign of maturation and development of a family, a person, and a culture. And to try to pretend that we’re there as a culture when most of us would have to go into great debt to buy the kind of clothing we’ve just talked about would be sin for you to adorn yourself that way.

And even if you had the money, it may and probably is not the best use of kingdom wealth today in the context of our setting and in the context of the specific setting written to, first in First Timothy. But I don’t think we want to think here that nice clothes are a bad deal. They’re not. Paul’s just putting the emphasis here on the garments of salvation, the fruit of the spirit in terms of these attitudes.

So, there’s that kind of adornment. But secondly, let me also say before I move on to the internal—actually kind of putting together the internal and external. But the other thing that First Timothy tells us in this regulative principle of dress is how to dress, not an emphasis on those things. But then verse 10, but which becometh women professing godliness, good works, good works. Okay.

So, all those nice attitudes are fine, but the other external thing you’re supposed to do is not to put the emphasis on the clothes, but to put an emphasis on good works. Good works are very, very important in the scriptures. Very important. The scriptures tell us that good works are to be sought after by God’s people.

Titus 2:14 says that Jesus gave himself for us he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people. And how are we going to be characterized? Zealous of good works. Zealous of good works. Titus 3:8 says that they which have believed in God that they might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.

1 Peter 2 says, “You’re supposed to have your conversation honest among the Gentiles that they may glorify God as a result of your good works. Good works. Works are good. Good works are very important in the life of the Christian. What I’m saying is that we want to not just women but men and women be zealous for good works or else we’re in violation of God’s word. Plain and simple. That’s his commandment to us.

Now yesterday, and I’m not, you know, again, don’t want to single people out one way or the other, but you know, it’s commendable that a number of people yesterday prepared for the Sabbath day and the Lord’s day to meet with him with good works. They went and worked at getting the garage sale ready. And I think some of you helped the Foersters move. Those are good works.

And that is a very proper exercise for the day of preparation to prepare yourself with the garments that you’ll come to wear being those good works. And we want to train our kids from the earliest days to be zealous of good works. And you train them by word and you train them by deed. And you know, I know it’s real easy to grumble. I know we’re busy. I know we got lots of things to do. And I know that sometimes the last thing it seems like we should be doing is doing good works.

And I’m not saying do good works to, you know, to the detriment of your family, ladies. But I am saying that when you do good works and have your family in order too, that is very highly acceptable and pleasing to God. That is correct preparation for meeting with the Lord. And if you’ve got a choice between, you know, getting your dress sewed that day, a really nice pretty dress or doing good works for someone else, then this scripture I think tells us that your values, your priorities should be for the good works first before the external adornments very clearly, very clearly taught.

And if our minds kind of, you know, bristle against that I think we bristle against the word of God. Good works very important. Now, you know, there’s more scriptures. Look them up. Good Sabbath day activity. Look up these scriptures I’ve given you and many of them relate to good works in that second under B of the outline and you’ll see that there are a lot of good works other than just going and helping with the garage sale, helping people move.

When you care for your children and when you submit to your husband and when you learn to love your kids or you teach people to love their children and their husbands, those are all good works according to the scriptures. There’s no distinction here. The submissiveness that’s called is a good work. But we don’t want to just restrict it to those things.

Tabitha or Dorcas—said it’s a woman who did go good works for people. And then they bring out to Peter and they show him all the clothes she made for everybody else. You see picture of, you know, the godly woman who busied herself in good works. Okay, so that’s you know how God says our clothing should be regulated. Women particularly but there are applications there for men as well.

Now it’s interesting in this turn if you will to a parallel passage in First Peter 3 verses 1 and following. 1 Peter 3. Instructions to wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. Verse two, that they which obey not the word, will they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair of wearing of gold or putting on of apparel. So in other words, he’s clearly putting out of apparel there, you know.

So he’s not saying that you’re never to do that because then you would be in violation of other commandments. He didn’t put a period on apparel. Verse four, but let it be the hidden man of the heart and that which is most which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.

And then verse five, that the holy women of old adorn themselves how? By being in subjection unto their own husbands. You see, subjection is an adornment of good work. And then in verse 7, there’s the correlary, and I don’t want to leave this out, but I don’t want to stress it either. Husbands, of course, you have instructions there, but anyway, there’s correlation here I think between what Peter writes and what Paul writes, a double witness to the importance of these particular manifestations of the garments of salvation in your life.

In Timothy we read that your clothing is to be in the context of your adornment is in the context of shamefacedness and sobriety. And in First Peter verse two we have chaste conversation coupled with fear. There’s a relationship between fear and shamefacedness. And the sobriety is coupled to I believe and can be seen in conjunction with chaste or sober, self-controlled behavior.

Again, Timothy tells us that women are to be in subjection, in silence. Okay? And Peter says in verse four that the women are to be meek. That’s a word meaning submission under the harness and with a quiet spirit. Okay? Correlating to Timothy’s with subjection and silence.

And then both of them speak of submission in the context of their own husband. And Peter directly, Timothy by way of implication in terms of not teaching or exercising authority over men and then showing the example of a woman who had sought to exercise dominion over her husband, Adam or Eve over Adam. So these things are really important, these sets of things that go together: shamefacedness and sobriety; subjection and silence; and then the working out of that in the context of the home and of the church. Okay.

So we read in these texts of how we’re to adorn ourselves, how women are to adorn themselves and also that adornment being accompanied by the manifestations of the garments of salvation. And then it goes on then to speak after then the section dealing with the adornments to speak of the function of women in the house of God. So he tells what the primary emphasis is, how you prepare for the Lord’s day and then secondarily he says that functionally you can’t do what the men do. It’s really kind of that simple.

We read that in verse 11 then the function part starts: that the women learn in silence with all subjection. And that’s really the statement and he goes on then to buttress that statement by explaining a little more. I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over man. And then he gives the reasons for this. Adam was first formed than Eve. Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

So he says functionally women cannot teach or exercise dominion by way of teaching, prayer, leading in the service is what he’s the specific reference is men and so that’s their functional relationship as given in this particular text. The women are to learn in silence with all subjection.

Now notice that the text tells us that the women are to learn. You know men want to move on to the subjection and silence but the first part of that is very important. You know, Paul gets a bad rap by the feminists. But, you know, Paul says that women are to learn in the context of the worship service. They’re not to sit there as, you know, stocks and blocks or bumps on logs as they are in some cultures.

Women are kept away from the mysteries of, you know, the worldviews and all this sort of stuff. But in Christianity, the women are supposed to learn the scriptures. Very important that we go over that real quickly. But understand that in pagan cultures, women were severely dominated by twisted, perverted, sinful men. And as this culture gets more and more pagan, that’s what’s going to happen, you know, because women may assert rights, but at the end of the day, the men are bigger and stronger, and at the end of the day, you know, they end up settling the argument that might start with words in a sinful way.

And so, there’s a real subjection, an ungodly subjection that women are put under the rule of men. But here, Paul elevates the status of women because they’re to learn. Now, they’re supposed to learn a particular way. They’re supposed to learn in silence, not by way of instruction, but they’re to learn nonetheless. And they’re learning is also to be characterized by a submissiveness.

So that’s really pretty clear, I think.

So, let’s go on to the reasons for why this is to be done. Paul, in addition to giving the command, gives reasons why this command is to be performed or obeyed or what the reasoning behind it is.

By the way, he says, “I suffer not a woman to teach.” He doesn’t suffer it because the law of God doesn’t suffer it. That’s clear from other texts. We won’t look him up, but he’s not saying it’s a personal opinion. He’s saying, “I don’t let this happen. I’m an apostle and I rule by the word of God and the word of God doesn’t let this happen and so I don’t let this happen as well.”

Well, okay. And if a woman is to try to teach or lead in prayer and a service, she is by way of implication from the text exercising dominion or usurping authority over men. Okay? And she’s not supposed to do that. And he gives two reasons why this is the way it is. And the first reason is by way of creation itself. I mean without the fall in consideration, man was formed first and woman was taken out of man.

And so the very order of creation, man first and then woman, indicates the functional superiority of men and the need for women to be in subjection to men. Another fact from the creation account is that Adam himself names the woman. He is ish and he says she’s going to be Isha. Okay, he gives her a name that the name itself indicates that she comes from man for his purposes according to the providence of God and his naming her indicates a covenantal authority over her.

We don’t think of names that way, but biblically to name something is to exert an authority covenantally over it. Okay? So men by virtue of Adam naming Eve exert a covenantal authority over women. And he’s bringing all this creation account stuff into an understanding of women’s role in the context of the institutional church.

By the way, today, Adam also gave her a second name after the fall, and after God’s pronouncements to them, that is when Adam then names woman Eve, mother of all living, which is, you know, an amazing faith on his part to God’s promise of redemption. But at any event, he names her not just names her once, he names her twice, indicating covenantal authority over her.

Now, she is given to him, of course, as a helpmate. We could say a lot about that, but we won’t. We’ve heard about that before. But the idea is that they really are a unit and when that unit becomes perverted and twisted then the effects on both men and women are severe. They really operate together.

In the context of the creation itself it tells us the need that man has for woman. Of course Hayatha Longfellow in Hayatha wrote this. He said, “As unto the bow the cord is, so unto the man is woman. Though she bends him, she obeys him.” And there is something of, you know, the biblical account there of God’s creation of woman for man that tells us about. So you think of a bow to shoot arrows and the man is like the bow and the woman’s like the cord. Longfellow says, and she bends him, but you know, she’s at his command. She’s part of the bow.

She’s not the bow itself. And the bow without the string is useless. And so the string without the bow is useless. And so they work together in that way. But under the functional or covenantal headship of men.

Now I wanted to read a couple of quotes here about the creation of Adam and Eve or of Eve rather being taken. Well maybe I won’t. We probably shouldn’t do that. No time. I’ll move on. You know all that stuff anyway. You know about Eve. Her very position in terms of the part of the body of Adam that she was taken from indicates a subordination to Adam and yet not a domination of Adam.

Matthew Henry has some real good things to say about that. That she wasn’t taken out of his head nor out of his feet but out of his side under his protection equal with him yet under his protection of covenantal authority. Well, that’s the very thing that Paul is all calling all that imagery into being when he talks about the need for women to learn in submission in silence.

In the context of the institutional church. He brings all that teaching from Genesis 2, Genesis 3 into this text. And we want to bring all that in when we think of it as well. But of course, he doesn’t just leave it at that. He doesn’t just say the creation, the preeminence of man in creation. No, he goes on to talk about the fall as well.

In verse 14. Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. This is a second word here to the need for women to learn in submission and silence. And the second reason is the kind is the historical account in Genesis given of the fall itself and how woman subverts the role of God by listening to the serpent and then entering up into the transgression.

So there’s a sense in which the account given in Genesis places in a time sequence the preeminence of the first fall, the transgression of the woman. And now she also is under the hedge of Adam. He’s got his culpability. But the stress that Paul is placing here is upon her leading and eating of the forbidden fruit. And she is pictured in the text in Genesis 3 as being culpable here of rebellion not just against her husband, but of course against God himself preeminently.

She looks and sees that the fruit is good. She’s replacing God. In the language of Genesis because God when he creates things looks and sees and she now is shown in opposition to that looking and seeing that something that he told him not to eat was good for her to obtain a twisted sort of knowledge you see and she takes the fruit. The scriptures tell us the way that God took the rib from Adam’s side and formed a wife for Adam—okay so the language that’s used, the specific correlation of these terms I believe shows Eve’s culpability in her rebellion against God in looking in the context being informed by the serpent and then in taking what she shouldn’t have taken.

And they even continue that imagery by they try to make for themselves garments after the fall. Adam and Eve do what does God do correctively to them? The very first thing when he gets back and they say well yeah we understand we’re a little startled by what we look like to each other so we dressed them. He redresses them. He asserts his preeminence in their providence.

Now, I know there’s a picture of the sacrifice of Christ involved, but don’t miss in looking at that myth that God is reasserting his preeminence over the provision for the creature. That ultimately it’s not their provision, it’s his provision. Take off those clothes. I’ve got these clothes for you. And in the context of our discussion on clothing and garments, the adornments of salvation, it’s not our curse. It’s not our abilities to, you know, make up for our fallen estate. It’s the garments of salvation. That’s what Paul is telling women.

Yeah, wear nice clothes, but when you wear nice clothes, realize these are a picture of my grace to you and humble yourselves in shamefacedness with soundness of mind under that fact as you dress. The curse is talked about here as well as the creation.

Now, it’s very interesting that the and I, you know, it doesn’t use the word curse in Genesis 3. The ground is cursed. The serpent is cursed. Adam and Eve get things placed on them, but they’re not specifically identified as curses. What does he tell the woman? He says to the woman, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

So what God tells Eve is that her particular punishment is that in the exercise of childbearing, which is essential to her being as a woman. There’s going to be a lot of pain. Childbearing is not the punishment. Pain in childbearing is the punishment. And then secondly, the punishment has to do with her relationship in terms of submission to her husband.

Now, people think different things about this text and I can’t tell you I know determinatively what that last half means. Thy desire shall be to thy husband. Some people say that she’s going to want—she’s going to be submissive to man in spite of the fact that he’s a jerk. So women, you know, stay with people that beat them up all the time.

They think that Susan Fox has taught and I think rather convincingly—I’m rather convinced of this, but I cannot proclaim it to you that I am 100% convinced this is the correct interpretation. But she says no, that the urge for woman is to dominate her husband. Now, she says that because a little while later in the text, God will tell Cain that sin is at your door and it has a desire to dominate you, but you’ve got to deal with it. And it’s the same word used. The word is only used, I think, in those two places. Maybe one other place, this urge.

But Susan Fox says, well, if sin is trying to exercise control over Cain, then if we’re going to be consistent, then the woman wants to exercise control over her husband. And I think that has some merit to it. Now, again, it’s like the childbearing. The relationship of the woman to the man is good, and that’s not the punishment. The punishment is that relationship becomes twisted.

So, what is Paul do when he’s talking about—when he’s giving a theology of women in 1 Timothy 2 he talks about the way they dress he talks about the adornments of salvation by implication and then he speaks specifically of the two elements of the punishment of women from the garden. He speaks of their submission to men, not you know denying that sinful urge to dominate or usurp authority, and then he speaks of childbearing. See, I’m setting you up for understanding of why this is in here in the context of childbearing to deal with this difficult hard saying that women are saved in childbearing.

Okay. So, but first of all the leadup to that is that God has given us a regulative principle of dress and what it should mean and what it shouldn’t mean, what the character qualities of the garments of salvation are. He tells women about their function in the institutional church reminding them that they’ve been saved and that punishment has now been changed to the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ.

He gives them the reasons for that though that it still results as a result of her creation and her sin in the garden. And then he talks about this hard saying of childbearing. How she’ll be saved in childbearing.

Now some people think that this means you be saved in the middle of childbearing. You won’t get die in the middle of childbirth. That’s not what it’s talking about here. The word the preposition that’s used here can and I think in this text does refer not of intermediate action. She won’t be saved by way of childbearing or in the context of childbearing, but rather she’ll be saved in the context of this is her life, not the specific implication of the act itself or that it is somehow the means of grace for her.

Paul is talking about women and he’s talking about a theology of them based upon their creation and their fall and then their redemption. And what he’s saying quite simply is that it is of the essence of women to engage in motherhood as it is the essence of man to engage in vocation or calling.

What is Adam’s punishment? It doesn’t refer to kids. It refers to vocation. It refers to his gathering food. It refers to his providing for his family and his beautification of the world. And it says that in pain, with difficulty, with sweat, just like she’s going to sweat and be painful in childbearing. You’re going to sweat and be painful as you exercise vocation. It is of what a man is about to exercise vocation.

Now, some men can’t. You know, some men for the providence of God, disabilities, whatever it is, they can’t do it. So, it doesn’t mean that if you’re somehow unable to fulfill that task, you’re wrong. But it’s talking about humanity here.