[0:00] If you have a Bible with you, then I would invite you to open up to 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter 2.
[0:20] ! If you don't have a Bible with you, then grab one of the Bibles in the chairs that are scattered around and you can find 1 Timothy chapter 2. Those connect cards I told you about earlier will be tucked in probably to just the right spot for 1 Timothy chapter 2.
[0:34] We're actually going to spend some time in 1 Timothy as well as Ephesians chapter 5 if you want to find that. But we're going to begin this morning by reading from 1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 8 through 15.
[0:45] And as I read these verses, I am well aware that there are things in these verses that might be uncomfortable for those of you who are not familiar with this passage.
[0:57] But it's that sense of discomfort though that tells us that we need to work hard to understand God's Word and then long to be submissive to God's Word.
[1:10] So, would you stand here at your feet as we read 1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 8 through 15. Paul says to Timothy and to the church in Ephesus where Timothy is residing.
[1:25] I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.
[1:36] Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control. Not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness with good works.
[1:56] Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet.
[2:07] For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet, she will be saved through childbearing.
[2:21] If they continue in faith, love, holiness, with self-control. Father, I thank you that Paul penned these words.
[2:33] Difficult as certain aspects of this passage are for us to understand. I'm thankful that we have this paragraph in your Word.
[2:45] And I pray this morning that not only would you help us to rightly understand it, but you would help us to see how we might live as men and women made in your image for your glory.
[3:01] We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. You guys can take a seat. Amen. So this morning we are finishing a four-part series. Trying to answer the question, what is biblical masculinity and what is biblical femininity?
[3:18] And we have defined these terms over the last couple of weeks. We recognize that being a man and being a woman, these are immutable truths, unchangeable truths about every individual.
[3:32] That women are those who under normal circumstances are capable of conceiving a child, giving birth to a child, and then nursing that child and keeping that child healthy.
[3:46] That's what it means to be a woman. And in answer to that difficult question, or a question that seems difficult to our culture, what is a woman?
[3:56] We see that clear answer in Scripture. We live in a fallen world, and so we have to add that caveat in normal circumstances because we know that many women are unable to conceive or unable to carry a baby to term or unable then to nourish that baby with their own body.
[4:12] We understand all of those things because we live in a fallen world, and we were even warned. He was told that there would be an increase of pain in childbearing, and that includes all of those things.
[4:24] All of those are a result of sin entering into the world. But we know, we know instinctively, we know from God's Word, that there are clear differences between men and women.
[4:37] And these biological differences, though, reveal to us that we also have differing roles. And we see that in the Garden of Eden. We've talked about that over the last few weeks.
[4:47] Even in the Garden prior to the fall, Adam and Eve had different roles. And then after the fall, though those roles were complicated, though sin would bring a lot of trouble and friction between men and women, nevertheless, those differing roles endured.
[5:05] We saw that Adam was formed, and then God looked at his creation and said, It's not good for him to be alone, that God determined to make a suitable helper.
[5:15] That is one who corresponds to him. The beauty of us being made male and female is that as men, we are lacking in many areas. And not just because we're sinful, we are lacking by God's design.
[5:30] There are things that we are not capable of doing, and then there are proclivities, strengths, weaknesses that we have. Just as men. And God created women to offset those weaknesses with their own unique strengths.
[5:47] So that when we see men and women together, together, we complement each other. There are strengths that men have that women generally lack. There are strengths that women have that men generally lack.
[6:00] And we need one another. We can't live in isolation from one another. We need one another. And as a consequence of that, we have differing understandings, differing definitions of what it means to live out our manhood and our womanhood.
[6:18] That it's one thing to say that we recognize who is a man and who is a woman, but then to ask the question, what does it mean to live biblically as a man?
[6:29] What should we pursue uniquely as a woman? And know what does it mean biblically to live as a woman? What should a woman pursue? What should she desire uniquely as a woman?
[6:42] I've said every week that in most ways, men and women are similar. We're all human beings. We're all created in God's image. In most ways, we are similar. In most ways, we are the same.
[6:54] But we are different in some important ways that define what it means to be a man or a woman. And so how do we live out those differences?
[7:07] We need a clear biblical understanding of biblical masculinity and biblical femininity because we are bombarded with false images of what those things should look like.
[7:17] And they come from all sides of the spectrum. They come from the right politically. They come from the left politically. We are bombarded with false notions of what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman, and what we ought to pursue as those who are made male and female.
[7:35] And so it has been important for us to give descriptions of biblical masculinity and biblical femininity. And I want to read those for you one more time this morning.
[7:46] The first I borrowed from John Piper from a book that you'll find out in our foyer called What's the Difference? I encourage you to grab a copy. We've got about ten copies out there. It'll be free if you want one.
[7:57] And he says this about biblical masculinity. He says, At the heart of biblical masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for, and protect women in ways that are appropriate to a man's differing relationships.
[8:16] And then the description of biblical femininity is an adaptation. I altered a bit from what's found in that book, added a bit, and this is what our description of biblical femininity is.
[8:29] At the heart of mature femininity are freeing dispositions to nurture life and to affirm strength and leadership in worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman's differing relationships.
[8:43] And so we spent two weeks ago all of our time unpacking that definition of biblical masculinity. And then last week we spent our time unpacking that description of biblical femininity.
[8:56] And this morning I want to just press in to some areas of application. I want to help us to see, but how do we live this out practically? What do we do? In all the different spheres of life, in all the different areas in which we live out our lives, how can we apply, how can we live out these definitions of masculinity and femininity?
[9:18] Because it is very easy to slip into unbiblical, distorted forms of manhood and womanhood. It's easy to do that. And so we need to know in some concrete, practical ways, how can we apply these descriptions?
[9:33] How can we apply the biblical model of manhood and womanhood in the different spheres of life in which we live? So we're going to consider three primary spheres in which we experience most of life.
[9:45] The first is the family. The second, for believers, is the church. And then thirdly, life in the world more broadly and more generally.
[9:56] And that will include your relationships with your neighbors, your relationships with your coworkers, all sorts of other relationships out in the world. And as we move through these, the biblical instruction that we get becomes less and less specific.
[10:12] So we have very clear, very straightforward, specific, detailed instructions for both men and women as how to live as husbands and wives in a godly marriage.
[10:23] And we have it in multiple places in the New Testament. But then as we move to the church, we have a handful of passages. We have some clear directives, some clear commands, but it's not quite as detailed as what we get on marriage.
[10:38] And then as we move into the world, what we are left to do is to take the principles that we see lying behind how we live in our homes and in the church. And we have to find culturally appropriate ways of applying those principles more generally in our lives in very few specifics in how to do that.
[11:00] So I'll move from giving you a lot of specifics in marriage to when we talk about how we live this out in the world around us, there will be some generalities and some encouragements for you to pursue some general patterns in your lives.
[11:13] So let's start with the family. And I primarily mind, obviously, the marriage relationship between a man and a woman. How do biblical masculinity and biblical femininity, how do they play themselves out within the home?
[11:28] And to see that, the clearest place for us to see that is in Ephesians chapter 5. So hold your place because we're coming back to 1 Timothy 2. And turn, if you can find it, to Ephesians chapter 5.
[11:41] Now Ephesians chapter 5 verses 22 through 33 give us instructions, more detailed instructions. It's a long passage on how husbands and wives are to conduct themselves in the home.
[11:56] And it begins with instructions directed toward wives. Wives, verse 22, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
[12:11] Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. And then verse 33, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
[12:26] So a wife's role in marriage is described using this terminology of submission and respect. Now there are two things that we can do with that that would be wrong. On one hand, we could dismiss it.
[12:40] We could say, I don't like that. That sounds old-fashioned to me, and I don't want to deal with that. So we can try to find ways to get around this passage.
[12:53] And scholars have done that. You can imagine biblical scholars and preachers of all sorts, if they want to find a way around the passage, around having to actually live it out, there are lots of avenues that can be taken.
[13:07] One of the primary ways of avoiding what this passage says is to point to the verse before this passage and note that it says we are to submit to one another. And therefore you often hear people say it's mutual submission, that both husband and wife are to submit because the verse beforehand says that they are to submit to one another.
[13:26] But that's a misunderstanding of the passage. And it doesn't fit with the pattern that we see throughout the New Testament. When Paul says that we are to submit to one another, the whole point of everything from verse 22 all the way down through verse 10 in chapter 6 is then to lay out the patterns of that submission.
[13:46] The point of submit to one another is not every individual submits to every other individual. That doesn't even make sense. The point is, yes, everyone submits to someone. Everyone.
[13:56] And let me give you some of the relationships in which that takes place. Wives submit to husbands. Children obey parents.
[14:07] Right? These are ways in which the submission takes place. No one who reads this passage argues that it should be reciprocal, mutual between children and parents.
[14:19] Nobody reads it that way. So why would we read the instructions on husbands and wives that way? Because we don't like what it says. But the Word of God says what the Word of God says.
[14:30] Our task is to understand it correctly and then respond obediently. So some try to make their way around it in that way. Others try to make their way around this passage by saying, well, that's just Paul.
[14:42] And Paul is sort of wrapped up in a first century world. And what he says here would have been good and helpful for them. But that's very much tied to the first century culture.
[14:54] And so we can sort of set some of these things aside because we've moved on from that. We no longer live in that culture. And so some of these instructions no longer apply.
[15:05] And they would point to the fact that within these instructions on submission, slaves are commanded to obey their masters. And clearly we don't have slavery today in the modern Western world, or so we're told, although we know that slavery still exists in many forms.
[15:24] But we're told we reject slavery. And so since we reject slavery, can we not also reject these instructions to wives and husbands? There's a lot of things that I think are wrong with that particular objection.
[15:39] The first thing that's wrong with it is that to draw the parallel between ancient Roman slavery and the slavery system that existed in America, and that we, thank God, were able to get rid of.
[15:54] We had to fight a war to get rid of that. And then decades and decades of laws being passed and cases being tried in courts. It took a long time for us to begin to move past those things and get rid of that slavery in our past as Americans, but to draw a direct parallel between what Paul is talking about here and what all of us as Americans, what enters into our minds the moment that we think of slavery, that's inaccurate.
[16:19] Slavery in the ancient world was, first of all, ubiquitous. It was everywhere. It was unavoidable. There was no culture untouched by slavery.
[16:30] In fact, still in the world today, many cultures accept slavery as a norm. Slavery has been normal throughout all of human history, and it is only because of the activism and work of Christians, convinced that all people are created in the image of God.
[16:47] All people are of equal value. These are biblical teachings. These are not teachings you find in other cultures. These are biblical teachings that still permeate our society.
[16:59] When those who wrote the Declaration of Independence said these truths are self-evident, that all men are created equal. Though they failed to apply that immediately, when they wrote that, they said that these truths were self-evident, and they are not self-evident, because they are not evident to the vast majority of cultures that have existed throughout human history.
[17:21] They're not self-evident. And the truth that all men are created equal, that's revealed in Scripture. And the framers and the signers of the Declaration of Independence were so steeped in biblical language and biblical ideas that they didn't even recognize sometimes that the things that they were saying were not self-evident.
[17:49] They were a part of this Christian background that they had grown up in. It's like the fish. Does the fish know it's in water most of the time? No. And some of them lived and breathed in this ideological climate in which it seemed obvious that all men are created equal, and that should be obvious to all people, but it's not obvious to all people.
[18:12] It's not. It's a biblical truth. So, it took a great deal of fighting, arguing, writing, pursuing this biblical truth for it to be expressed in any sort of way in our modern society.
[18:30] That was not even on the radar in the first century. Paul, as he's writing these letters, is not looking to transform the culture. He's looking to sanctify the church.
[18:40] And the kind of slavery that he's dealing with is not only ubiquitous, but it comes in many, many forms in the Roman world. Most slaves were people who had been captured in foreign wars.
[18:55] Some slaves were people who had sold themselves into a form of slavery so they could be guaranteed shelter and food and all those sorts of things. Many slaves in the first century were actually experts in their trade.
[19:10] artists, poets, writers. It's hard to make money doing that. So, you become a slave of a wealthy person who provides you with everything that you need.
[19:21] It's just that everything that you produce is produced in their honor from then on. There are lots of forms of slavery in the ancient Greco-Roman world. And it's not an institution that is uniform or going to be taken down by the Christian church.
[19:41] What Paul recognizes is that there are Christians among the slave class and Christians among the class of slave owners. And Paul gives instructions to both of them.
[19:54] To the slaves, he says, look, you have a master. And we're supposed to submit to those who are over us. It's more parallel to modern work relationships than it is to American slavery.
[20:09] There's a better parallel there. So today we would look at people and say to workers, if your boss comes in and tells you to do something, if it's not morally wrong, then as a Christian you're obligated to submit to those in authority over you.
[20:25] So that we're dealing with something that is ubiquitous, that is not like the kind of slavery that we think of. And the Apostle Paul is giving instructions, practical lessons for life here, for both slaves and slave masters.
[20:40] He instructs the slave masters not to be abusive and to recognize that Christian slaves are their brothers. What Paul does in his letters when he addresses slavery is he undermines it without trying to overthrow it.
[20:59] He tells, for instance, Philemon, who's a slave owner, to receive Onesimus, his slave, as a brother. Receive him back to you.
[21:10] As a brother. Not receive him as your slave, as your lurker, but greet him, receive him, love him as a brother in Christ. Paul is undermining it without trying to topple it and tear it down, which is not something that would have been even on his radar.
[21:28] So for us to say, well, these instructions no longer apply, therefore nothing that Paul says in this chapter or in this section should apply anymore is misleading.
[21:38] The instructions to slaves and masters do still apply, but we wouldn't call it that today. We would talk mainly about bosses and workers, bosses and employees.
[21:53] So we cannot dismiss what Paul says to husbands and wives on the grounds that, oh, this is first century thinking, and we don't have to deal with this anymore.
[22:04] No. What Paul says in this passage to husbands and wives is relevant for us today. So what do we do with it? A wives' role is described in terms of submission and honor or respect, but then a husband's role is described primarily in terms of love.
[22:23] One of the things that is interesting to recognize here is that the husband is recognized as the leader. He is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, but he's never commanded to leave.
[22:35] Do you know what I'm saying? If you read through the passage, you'll see that three times the husband is commanded to love his wife. Never once is he commanded to lead his wife.
[22:48] Because a husband's role as the head of the home is natural. It's normal. You don't make a husband the head of his home. He just is.
[22:59] And he will lead well by loving, or he will lead poorly by not loving. And one way to not love is to refuse to actively lead.
[23:12] When a man chooses not to actively lead in his home, he's still leading. He's just leading very poorly. That men are commanded here, husbands are commanded to lead by loving.
[23:27] Loving is what we do in order to lead our families. And love is teased out for us. He'll explain for us.
[23:38] Husbands should love their wives, verse 25, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. The love of a husband for his wife is a sacrificial love.
[23:49] It's a love that's willing to give up our prized career pursuits if it's better for our wives and our families. It's a love that's willing to set aside our hobbies in order to devote time to our wives and to our children.
[24:07] It's a self-sacrificing love. Christ laid down his life. When a husband is unwilling to lay aside his comforts, his preferences, and his personal dreams for the good of his life, he's fallen far, far short of the example that Christ has given to us.
[24:31] When a husband leads by loving, then the role of a wife is not difficult at all.
[24:43] It's just not hard. Many women find these commands onerous, difficult, not because they actually are, but because they're married to someone who makes them difficult.
[24:57] That's the real issue oftentimes. Yes, there are sinful heart issues for women. If you have a gut reaction against these passages, something's going on in your heart, you need to check that, test it, see what's happening.
[25:14] But as I've observed things over the years in counseling, many couples, the women who struggle with these commands are usually those who have husbands who do not lead in a loving way.
[25:27] So how might a husband, besides sacrificing some of his own dreams and goals and pleasures, how might he lead in a loving way?
[25:43] How might a husband be in real, concrete, practical ways the spiritual leader of his home in such a way that it is a joy and a delight for his wife to follow his lead?
[25:54] How might he do that? One of the problems that I've encountered over the years is that oftentimes it is the wives who are more spiritually mature than their husbands.
[26:06] The wives have more biblical knowledge than their husbands. They've been to more ladies' Bible studies. Right? They've read more books. They've spent more time in God's Word. And they find themselves more spiritually mature than their husbands.
[26:21] And then this pattern gets established where there's an acknowledgement that, yeah, he's the head, but practically in every way the wives lead out in spiritual matters.
[26:33] What do we do in those situations? You can't snap your fingers and change that overnight. Right? We can't, like the Matrix, download knowledge into our minds. That'd be fantastic.
[26:45] You know, just download the Bible into our heads. We can't do that. So, how does a man lead if his wife knows more scripture than him? Or sometimes, honestly, practically, sometimes a wife is just smarter than her husband.
[27:00] Just more intelligent. Can comprehend things faster. They'll do the same Bible study. She understands it more readily, more deeply than he does. How in the world is he supposed to lead when he can't keep up intellectually with our theological knowledge?
[27:17] knowledge. This is more common than you might realize. And I don't really know why. I don't know if it's something in our culture. I don't know if, I don't know if it has to do with our lifestyles and the time that is available.
[27:32] I really don't know, but it's common. So, how does a man lead in his home, how does he lead his wife in a way that she can joyfully follow him if she's more spiritually mature? But what we have to recognize as men is it's not our jobs to know more.
[27:47] It's not our jobs to be the smartest person in the room that's nowhere commanded. Leadership is not, spiritual leadership is not, it's not about knowing more of the Bible.
[28:00] It's not about being able to conjure up more theological talking points. It's being the one to initiate spiritual exercises in the home. who is the one in your home that insists that you go to church and you be active in church?
[28:18] Who is the one that insists that you do more than just a surface level participation in church life, showing up on Sundays and then taking off? Who is the one pushing and desiring to be more integrated into the body of Christ?
[28:34] Who is the one who initiates prayer time more often? I'm not saying a wife can never say to her husband, hey, I think we need to spend some time in prayer. Of course you can.
[28:44] But who is the one in your household who most often initiates that? Who gathers the family together for family worship or family Bible study? Who's the primary initiator of spiritual exercises in your home?
[29:02] A man doesn't even need to be able to read to lead his family in Bible study. He can gather them together and say, we need to talk about God's word together.
[29:16] And then he can say to his wife, would you please read from the Gospel of Matthew or John from this chapter? And then he can begin to ask his family, what does that mean?
[29:30] What do you think that means? How might we apply that to our lives? You don't have to be able to read to lead in that way, much less have a deeper theological knowledge than everybody else in your household to lead in that way.
[29:44] Husbands, take the initiative, and wives, joyfully, joyfully hand over that initiative. How does a wife, as Paul says, respect her husband?
[30:00] By joyfully, joyfully, allowing them to lead? And of course, these instructions are limited.
[30:12] Like this language of submission and loving in this way, these are limited to the husband-wife relationship. Wives submit to your own husbands, right?
[30:24] Let her see to you that she respects her husband. Paul is not demanding that all women submit to all men. Paul is not demanding that all men love all women as Christ loved the church.
[30:40] He's not demanding that women give the same kind of respect that they do their husband to all the men around them. That's why in our description of masculinity and femininity, in both definitions, we say this, in ways that are appropriate, first, to a man's differing relationships, and then secondly, in ways appropriate to a woman's differing relationships.
[31:05] They're differing relationships, right? And the obligations that a man and woman have at home do not apply more broadly to society at large.
[31:16] Which is not to say, though, that the distinctions between men and women or between masculinity and femininity do not play themselves out in other areas of our lives. women and women and women have a church.
[31:30] That there are distinct roles for men and women within the church that actually reflect the roles that we see in the home. Which makes sense, because Paul refers to the church as the household of God.
[31:45] Therefore, it would make sense that at least in some ways, the distinct roles of husbands and wives would find some sort of corollary between men and women within the church.
[31:58] Corollary, though. Not a precise, exact correspondence, of course. Differing relationships. But within the church, we see also a pattern of male leadership.
[32:12] We see it in the passage that we read from earlier. Paul gives instructions to men in verse 8. He gives instructions to women in verses 9 through 11.
[32:25] And then in verse 12, he says something that is upsetting to some, but if we understand it rightly, helps us to see how masculinity and femininity play themselves out within the context of the church.
[32:39] He says in verse 12, I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. Now pause for a moment there.
[32:50] And I want us to just think about this. This is in respect to men, to teach men or to exercise authority over men. Women are commanded in Paul's letters to teach women.
[33:01] Women are commanded to teach children. Women are not barred from all teaching. Women are supposed to participate in evangelism, sharing the gospel with men and women out in the world.
[33:15] None of that is what Paul has in mind. What he says here is within the context of the local church. He's not saying that a woman cannot teach a math class at the local community college, right?
[33:27] I mean, that has nothing to do with what Paul is saying. He's talking about life within the church, and within the church there are two activities that are restricted to men, and that is the teaching or preaching of the word to the whole congregation, and then the exercising of authority over the congregation.
[33:45] congregation. Those are the two activities that Paul restricts to men here. And wouldn't you know the two primary things that make pastors pastors is that they teach God's word to the church, and they exercise authority over the church.
[34:02] Like, that's what Andy and I, that's what we do as elders. We do other stuff, right? But those are the things that we are called and set apart to do as elders, as pastors, within the body of Christ.
[34:18] There may be a lot of other practical things that we have to do, but those are the things that we are set apart to do on behalf of the church. Which means that the role of pastor, the role of elder, is restricted to men.
[34:36] Now, it's remarkable that before Paul gives this piece of advice, this instruction here, first, he says that he wants women to learn quietly and with all submission.
[34:48] Now, for us, the revolutionary part of that phrase is quietly and with all submission. That's what we go, whoa, wait, what? But in Paul's world, it's simply the command for women to learn that is revolutionary.
[35:05] The vast majority of people in the first century were not literate. and those that were, 99% of the time, were men. Formal education was restricted to men and would continue to be restricted to men for centuries.
[35:23] Christianity is unique in that it doesn't merely allow women to participate in the learning process. It commands them to. Women are to learn.
[35:36] Learn God's word. But like everyone else in the church, they are to learn in ways that are appropriate to their roles in submission to the elders within the church.
[35:50] And the elders are men. Called qualified men. You might say, but why? Why is that the case? Well, Paul tells us why, and it goes back to creation.
[36:03] He says, because, verse 13, reason why this needs to be the case is because Adam was formed first and then Eve. Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
[36:17] What does he mean by that? Well, he refers first to the order of creation. The creation of Adam first in Genesis chapter 2 is an indication of his authority as a man within his family and over his wife.
[36:35] That's what Paul tells us. But secondly, we saw when we looked at the fall that the fall was Adam's failure, not Eve's. That Paul says here, Eve was deceived, not Adam.
[36:50] Adam was the one who was given the command directly from God not to eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He communicated that command to his wife. Adam was there and stood by as Eve was tempted and as Satan contradicted that command and twisted God's word.
[37:08] And Adam said nothing. And what Paul tells us here is he was not deceived. The woman was deceived. Deceived by Satan. She had received the command directly from God.
[37:20] And Satan was able by his wisdom and his cunning to deceiver and to twist things. And yet Adam stood undeceived and he participated and he ate the fruit of the tree knowing full well the consequences of his actions.
[37:36] Understanding fully. And that's what happens when men fail to leave, provide for, and protect.
[37:48] That's what happens. And Paul gives us a reminder in the garden, when Adam and Eve did not attend to their God-ordained roles as men and women, destruction is true.
[38:03] And in the church, when we do not attend to our God-ordained roles as men and women, destruction, confusion will always follow.
[38:14] All men, all women within the church are responsible to learn, to grow in faith. And yet, this task of overseeing the church, and Paul goes on to describe in the very next passage in this letter, this task of overseeing the church and of proclaiming God's word to the whole church, is one that is restricted to call and qualified men, because the church is the household of God.
[38:50] There are clear instructions for us in how we are to live our lives as men and women in the home. There are less, but equally clear instructions about how to live on our lives as men and women in the church.
[39:07] But when we move out beyond the church walls and we move into the world, things get very confusing and very murky. Because most of the people that we interact with are not interested in our pursuit of biblical masculinity and biblical femininity.
[39:25] And indeed, we'll often oppose the things that we do in our pursuit of that. And we will find ourselves very limited in our ability to try to live out these roles.
[39:36] So I want to remind you of something. Back to our definitions, our descriptions again. Both of them begin with these words, at the heart of.
[39:50] Again, we're talking about not a detailed list of demands and commands, but something that lies at the center of what it is to be masculine or feminine. And then for masculinity, there is a sense of benevolent responsibility to do these things.
[40:08] A sense of responsibility. So that a man ought to feel a sense of responsibility to guard and protect women around him from danger.
[40:19] He will not always be permitted to do that. He should have a sense of responsibility to do that, though. A sense of it. A desire. Now, likewise, in our description of femininity, there are freeing dispositions.
[40:37] Dispositions, that is, desires. Right? I want to live this out. I want to nurture life. I want to affirm strength and leadership in worthy men.
[40:49] I want to do those things. But sometimes, you will not be able to. It's unconstant. It's unconstant. You won't be able to. Or if you try to, you will be labeled.
[41:03] You will be marginalized. It will be difficult. When we come to applying these truths more broadly in the world, we need to understand that what is of greatest concern is our desires, our dispositions, and our goals as we relate to other people.
[41:22] That's what's important. There are constantly changing cultural norms for how we express masculinity and femininity. When I was growing up, men always opened the door for women.
[41:37] Always. Now, gosh, 50% of the time, a woman holds the door open for me and she sees me coming. That's okay. That's alright. That was a cultural way of expressing, hey, I care for you.
[41:51] I want to open this door as a sign of my care and concern for you. It was. It's less of that today. There are constantly changing cultural expressions of masculinity and femininity and wisdom will guide us as we seek in differing ways, in differing relationships, in differing contexts!
[42:14] To live out our lives as godly men and women. You will find yourself oftentimes within the broader world, you will find yourself having great difficulty expressing who you are as a man or as a woman distinctly.
[42:29] It's not the difficulty that matters. It's the desire and the disposition that matters. Men always long for and desire to be in a protective role over others around you.
[42:48] Always. Ladies, always desire and have a disposition to nurture life and goodness and kindness and others around you.
[43:00] Always have that disposition and desire. And sometimes that will open a path for you to minister to others and sometimes that will shut doors in your face.
[43:17] And both of those are okay. It's okay. we live in a confused, mixed up world and that confusion even makes its way into us and into the church at times.
[43:30] And so we will have to let wisdom guide us as we seek ways in which to apply these truths in the broader world.
[43:40] what we don't want to do is try to make a one-to-one correspondence to men and women in marriage and men and women out in the world or men and women in the church and men and women out in the world.
[43:52] We don't want to press things that far that leads to legalism. But we want to be open to seeing to discerning ways in which men can be providers and protectors in the broader world and women can nurture life and affirm strength in others in the broader world.
[44:14] For me to give you a list of things to do would draw us perilously close to legalism and I won't do it. I won't do it because we don't receive that detailed instruction from the word outside of the home in the church.
[44:29] But I would encourage you ladies cultivate this disposition and men take this responsibility upon yourself.
[44:41] But I would really be remiss if I want to close with this. I would be remiss if I didn't do exactly what Paul does and remind us of the foundation because God's design for masculinity and femininity for men and women is not arbitrary.
[45:00] It's not without purpose. We saw a lot of that in the first week as we look at things as we look at God's design. But I want you to see what he does in this passage in 1 Timothy 2 as we close.
[45:14] Because not only does he say Adam was formed first than Eve Adam was not the one deceived it was the woman who deceived but verse 15 says yet despite all the things that happened in the fall yet still she and that singular will be saved through child Mary if they that's plural continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.
[45:42] Paul is reminding us that the plan from the beginning after the fall after sin entered into the world was to rescue women and men through a child born of a woman that was always the plan that was always the plan that men and women functioning as men and women make it possible for this saving redeeming rescuing child to enter into the world and how do we all of us men and women Paul is focused on women here but how do we benefit personally from that Christ came into the world born of a woman born under the law that he might redeem those under the law how do we how can we be among the redeemed he tells us they will be saved through this child if they continue in faith without faith it is impossible to please God we are justified by faith apart from works of the law it is faith in him that leads to your redemption it is faith in Christ
[47:07] God's plan all along it is faith in the seed of the woman that saves you and love and holiness and self control which display themselves in masculinity and femininity in unique ways in our lives as men and women these are the natural outgrowth these flow out from the hearts of those who put their faith in Christ and that means that means that means that means that means that means that means that means that means that means that means that means that means that means that means that means that means that means