Male and Female Church Roles, Part 3

Introduction and Review of Foundational Passages on Male and Female Roles

0:03 This adult Sunday school class was held on June 26, 1988 at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:14 We again extend very cordial Christian greetings to those of you who are visiting with us on the way in this morning. I saw faces that were new to me and I assume you are visiting with us either as those accompanying friends and members of the church or those who have come as total strangers and we do welcome you in Christ's name. It is a particular delight to welcome Pastor and Mrs. Donnelly into our midst this morning.

0:44 As most of you know, Pastor Donnelly will be ministering the word of God to us in the evening hour of worship. Now for the sake of those of you who are visiting, so you will not be totally at a loss as to what we are doing in the class and how we set about to do it. A word of explanation and review is in order. This is not, under ordinary circumstances, another preaching session, though occasionally the teaching does slip into preaching and we make no apology for that.

1:16 But the basic format of the class is that of a classroom in which I seek involvement from you and interaction with you as we study the word of God together. And the subject matter that we are considering, at this time, is the first major subdivision of a broad topic that we have settled upon entitled Crucial Issues Facing the People of God. And the first major crucial issue that we are addressing is the matter of male and female identity, roles, and functions. A matter which is indeed of very crucial importance to the people of God living,

2:00 in an age in which male and female identity, distinctives, roles, and functions are not only blurred, but are aggressively attacked as something that ought to be utterly obliterated. And so if we are to follow the directives of Romans 12 and not to be conformed to this present age, we must have our minds deeply affected and influenced by the teaching of the word of God with respect to this crucial subject. Now after laying some very basic foundational issues out of Genesis 1-3,

2:41 we then examine together the most strategic passage in all of the New Testament, or perhaps in all of the word of God, regarding the whole question of the divinely instituted hierarchy of male and female relationships. And when someone tell me, please, what is that passage which is the most crucial in all of the New Testament, if not in all of the Word of God? A passage which clearly establishes a divinely instituted hierarchy of male headship and female subordination.

3:21 All right, Tim? Well, 1 Corinthians 11, 8 through 10 give the rationale for that hierarchy, but the statement of the hierarchy itself is found where?

3:35 Doug? No? That's an application of it to the realm of the church. All right, Ron?

3:44 All right, 1 Corinthians 11, 3. Now, just as you have a handle on John 3, 16, Romans 6, 23, Romans 3, 23, you ought to have a handle on the address of that verse, so that if you're ever questioned on the whole matter of the divinely instituted hierarchy of male and female roles, and relationships, you will be able to turn immediately to 1 Corinthians 11, 3. As Paul is about to deal with a very practical subject, namely the head covering at Corinth, whatever that is or was,

4:24 he does not attack the specific problem without setting it in a very broad theological context, and that context is the divinely instituted hierarchical... structure that exists as we find it in these words, verse 3.

4:43 But I would have you know, this is something that every believer ought to understand, that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. And so the apostle states this divinely instituted structure, of male headship and female subordination, which has another expression, the subordination of Christ, the incarnate Lord, the Messiah, to God the Father,

5:25 in the outworking of redemptive plan and purpose, Christ is subject to the Father, the man is subject to Christ, the woman is subject to the man. And in so doing, Paul...

5:38 underscores, you see, that the most practical questions ultimately have theological roots. And we will never address the practical questions properly unless our theological framework is what it ought to be. All right, having then examined that crucial passage, we are now moving on to see if the scriptures teach us whether anything in the event of the fall or in the great privileges, that answers our question of redemptive, divine truth, and the dynamics of redemptive grace cancel this divinely instituted hierarchy. So, we asked that question, first of all, with regard to the home or to the domestic sphere,

6:25 and we saw, as we looked at several pivotal passages in Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Peter, those three in particular, and then several secondary passages, that the rest of the word of God, that this pattern is not cancelled by the fall, nor is it in any way negated by redemptive grace. Rather, redemptive grace underscores it, validates it, sanctifies it, and elevates it so that the very relationship of female subordination and male headship are reflective of this higher and more glorious relationship of Christ and His Church. Now then, we are

The Primary Passages on Male and Female Roles in the Church

7:09 coming to what I hope will be our last study in this second area of application. Are the results of the fall, or the privileges and the dynamics of redemptive grace, in any way intended to overturn this divinely instituted hierarchy of male headship and female subordination in any way? In the Church or in the ecclesiastical realm? And in addressing that subject, we have said that there is one passage that stands at the head of the class. And what is that passage?

7:57 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 8 to 15. And Jerry, why do we give precedence to this passage above all others as being the most crucial passage in addressing this matter? All right. According to chapter 3, verses 14 and 15, the express purpose of this portion of the Word of God is to direct the behavior of the people of God in the house of God so that the very subject matter is the very issue we are concerned to address within the family

8:37 of God in which, according to redemptive privilege, there is neither male nor female, slave, bondman, freeman, Jew, Greek, everyone has equal redemptive privilege, equal communion with the Father, equal endowment of the spirit of adoption, etc., should there still be the maintenance of this hierarchical structure as far as leadership and authoritative instruction in the Church. And according to 1 Timothy chapter 2, which is in a context of dealing with behavior in the house of God, the Word of God is very clear, and we'll not go back

9:18 over the specifics. Then we said the passage of second rank that must always be considered in this connection is found where? Our second rank passage. Howard?

9:32 Very good. 1 Corinthians 14, verses 33b to 38. All right. Now, with reference to that passage, we'll start with 1 Corinthians 14, verses 33b to 38.

Context of 1 Corinthians 14: Spiritual Gifts and Public Worship

9:48 Someone tell us, what is the general context within which this segment is found? There is a setting in which these particular verses that we're concerned to examine is found. What is that general setting? Right, so it is in the context of a discussion of spiritual gifts. Chapter 12, he deals with some general perspectives on spiritual gifts, particularly

10:25 as they relate to the whole subject of God. The diversity of gifts within the one body. Chapter 13, he deals with the fact that love must be both the motivating power impelling the exercise of all gifts, and must be the grace that is dominant in the lives of those who would exercise gifts. And then in chapter 14, he takes up more particularly two specific gifts. Not exclusively, but the focus is upon

10:58 two gifts. One is the grace that is dominant in the lives of those who would exercise gifts. two gifts in chapter 14. And what are those two gifts? All right, George? Tongues and prophecy.

11:08 Well, how do you know that's so? Because you heard somebody say it last week? Yes.

11:14 And why did someone say it and get away with it? All right. And as you read through, you find that there is mention after mention after mention of tongues and prophecy. So in the first 25 verses, he deals basically with the relative worth of tongues and prophecy. If you have to make a

11:36 choice, you could have either one. Which one should you take? Paul says prophecy's got it hands down. And that's the basic argument of the first 25 verses. So he's concerned to show the

11:48 relative worth. But then in chapter 14 and verse 26, he begins to take up the matter of apostolic directives regulating the use of these gifts in the world. The public assembly. How are these gifts to be regulated so the great end of corporate edification is to be realized? Well, in verses 26 through 33a, he answers the question how they are to be

12:18 exercised. Notice what he does. He says everything's to be done unto edifying, and then he takes up tongue speaking. If any man speaks in a tongue, let it be by two, by the most three, and that in turn.

12:31 Let one interpret. If there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church. Let him speak to himself and to God alone. How are tongue speakers to function in the church? He gives

12:43 specific, detailed directives. Then how are prophets to exercise their gifts in the church? Verse 29. And let the prophets speak by two or three, and let the others discern. But if a revelation be made to another

13:00 sitting by, let the first keep silence. For you all can prophesy, one by one, that all may learn, and all may be exhorted. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. Now, notice the progression of thought. Having dealt with the relative worth of tongues and prophecy,

13:22 and saying prophecy has a higher worth, and he gives the reasons why, he now deals with how tongues and prophecy can be exercised in the Corinthian assembly unto optimum edification. Now, beginning in verse 33b, he's going to take up the question, who should exercise the gifts of tongues and of prophecy, and by implication, any other authoritative speaking of the word of God. How? Verses 26 to 33a,

14:00 who, in verse 33b and following, as in all the churches of the saints, let the women keep silence in the churches. For it is not permitted unto them to speak, but let them be in subjection, as also saith the law. And if they would learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church. And if they would learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church.

14:30 And if they would learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church. What? Was it from you that the word of God went forth? Or came it unto you alone? If any man thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual,

14:44 let him take knowledge of the things which I write unto you, that they are the commandment of the Lord. But if any man is ignorant, let him be ignorant, or a variant reading. But if any man knows not, or if any man acknowledges not, he is not acknowledged. All right, now briefly to review what we saw in this specific passage set in this context that I trust is very plain to you from the text.

The Prohibition of Women's Public Speaking in the Church

15:14 If you had to state in your own words, what is the heart of the apostle's answer to the question, who should exercise these gifts of tongues and prophecy? In the church, what is Paul's answer? Give it to me in your own words. Anyone want to venture a stab at it? We're all so modest this morning.

15:46 All right, Jerry? All right. And since there are no androgynous creatures on the face of the earth that are neither on air or bune, that's androgynous, you see, a mixture of both. There are a lot of people trying to be, but God still makes us all male and female. If he says that the women are not to speak,

16:11 the flip side of that is that the males only are to speak in the church. No female is to speak in the mixed assembly unto general edification in the exercise of any God-given gift of public utterance. Now, did women have the gift of prophecy at this time in the history of the church? Yes or no? I hear a lot of voices, but I didn't see any hands.

16:44 Who asserts must prove. So that's why I want to see a hand. All right. Nate, what's your answer? Yay or nay? All right. Prove it. Okay.

17:00 Somebody want to bail him out? He's trying to find an example in Acts. All right. Pardon? All right. She was speaking, but there's no indication she had a gift of prophecy.

17:11 We're talking now about did women have a gift of prophesying? All right. Doug? All right. Where's that found? Give us the location. All right.

17:38 All right. Did women praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonors her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she were shaven? Now, without really torturing the word of God, it's obvious Paul acknowledges that at this point in God's dealings with his people, and in particular there at Corinth, there were women who had a gift of prophecy. A woman prophesying.

18:09 All right. Two other indications that women had a gift of prophecy in the New Testament. All right, Beth? All right. Acts chapter 21. Acts chapter 21 and verse 9. Speaking of Philip, Luke writes,

18:27 Now, this man had four virgin daughters who prophesied. Now, if they engaged in the act of prophesying, they obviously had the gift of prophecy. You can't prophesy. Why, if you don't have the gift of prophecy? All right. So, they obviously had the gift of prophecy.

18:48 Now, one other clear New Testament passage that teaches that women in the apostolic period had the gift of prophecy. You've got two of them. Now, we want the threefold cord that cannot be broken. All right, Elmer?

19:00 All right. Acts chapter 2 and verse 17. There is no indication that when the Spirit of God came in power upon the 120 in the upper room, that the women who were a part of that waiting, praying assembly did not speak in other languages as the Spirit gave utterance. And when people thought they'd all been bending their elbow too much too early and said, These are drunk with wine, Peter says, No.

19:32 Verse 15 of Acts 2. These are not drunken, as you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which hath been spoken through the prophet Joel. And may I say, when latter-day theology, people who tell you that the so-called new charismatic movement is the last-day blessing and use this passage, remember, Peter said 2,000 years ago, This is that which was prophesied by Joel.

20:01 It's already come to pass. You see it? This is that which hath been spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall be in the last days, saith God, I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

20:19 So here are three clear references in the New Testament to the fact that there were women in apostolic times who had the gift of prophecy. However, in a very chapter dealing with the exercise of those gifts unto optimum edification, Paul, by the inspiration of the Spirit, unequivocally prohibits, the exercise of that gift. Look at the language again. As in all the churches of the saints, let the women keep silence.

20:54 Now, what does it mean to keep silence in the context? Can you see two other references to keeping silence within a very short distance upward in the text? If you think you find the other two, have found them, raise your hand. All right, Norman?

21:15 All right. So here's a man, who can speak in a language, all right? And if there's no interpreters, he's to be silent. What's that mean?

21:33 Keep his mouth shut. Make no vocables. Zip his lip. Very clear, isn't it?

21:41 Or isn't it? Do you see that in your own Bible? All right. And what's the next use, Norman?

21:50 All right. All right. So though the prophet would speak in the known, given vernacular or language, and he has this afflatus, the Spirit of God has come upon him, giving him a revelation, he's going to prophesy, and he's just banging at the seams. Another prophet's already got the floor and prophesying.

22:14 What's God say to tell this fellow to do? Keep his mouth shut. And if he said, Oh, I just couldn't hold it in. The Spirit of God was upon me so mightily.

22:22 He said, No. The Spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. God doesn't work in the context of frenzy and absence of self-control, for the fruit of the Spirit is what? Self-control.

22:38 So when a woman says, Whoa, but this is such a powerful anointing on me. I don't know what her anointing came from that didn't come from God, because the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. So you see, in the two previous instances, keep silence is obvious. The tongue speaker is to keep his mouth shut if there's no interpreter.

22:59 The prophet, someone else is prophesying, he's to keep his mouth shut till that man's done. Now he uses the same language and says, as in all the churches, let the women keep silence. Obviously, then, he is forbidding any kind of public utterance in the exercise of any God-given gift. We're not questioning that God may give a woman a gift to teach.

23:28 In this context, even a gift of prophetic utterance and a gift to speak in a language not acquired or learned in an ordinary manner. And yet even where God gave that gift or those gifts, she was not to exercise them in the public assembly. The prohibition with respect to that is unequivocal. It is universal.

23:52 It is unqualified. Let the women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted. It is not handed over to them. Same verb used in 1st Timothy 2.

24:06 I permit not a woman to teach. It is not permitted unto them to speak. Now, if someone says, ah, he's only prohibiting, speaking, that is getting up and talking off the cuff. He's not prohibiting teaching.

24:20 He's not prohibiting exhorting. Just sort of talking and chatting. That's what he's prohibiting. How do we know that the word to speak there does not mean just chatting, just talking off the cuff?

24:34 All right, Doug. All right. May I say, though, we can have light from another passage, Doug. Can you hold off on that from 1st Corinthians 14 itself?

24:49 How do we know what the word to speak means? Jonathan. All right. How many times do you remember is the verb laleho and its various forms used in 1st Corinthians 14?

25:07 24 times. And without exception, it is referring to utterance in conjunction with God-given gifts. So when he says she is not permitted to speak, we cannot put an entirely different significance upon that verb. That is to twist the scriptures not to interpret the scriptures.

Four Reasons for the Prohibition of Women's Public Speaking

25:33 All right. Now then, in the light of this, Paul gives some reasons. And this is where we concluded last week. And we've done a little more extensive review and I've done it for several reasons.

25:45 One of which is I want you to have a firm grasp on this material so that you could sit down with anyone uninstructed with your own English Bible and work your way through with them in terms of these vital issues. Now, why is the woman not permitted to speak? There are at least four and possibly five reasons given right in this passage. Okay.

26:08 What is the first? Any order will do. Look at the passage. See if you see them.

26:14 Five reasons. Four, possibly five reasons why women are not permitted to speak in the mixed assembly of God's people. All right. Ernest has taken us down through all four that are very clear in the text.

26:46 Notice the first. It would violate the God. I'm sorry. It would violate the universal apostolic practice.

26:55 Verse 33. As in all the churches of the Saints, let the women keep silence. Now, were the churches of the New Testament under apostolic guidance locked into one well-defined cultural framework or across the Roman Empire, was the church of New Testament times multi-ethnic, multicultural? What do you think?

27:28 Multi. That's right. And yet, in all the churches, wherever the apostles gave directives as Christ peculiarly commissioned leaders in the church, this was the universal practice. If it was a culture where women were well-educated and refined and given tremendous places of influence, if it was in a culture where women were sinfully and wickedly demeaned and treated as chattel, it mattered not with respect to this directive.

28:03 Whatever the gospel did to elevate the place of women where women were demeaned and they were in many places to which the gospel came, treated like chattel, and they were in many places or in places where women had influence that God never intended they should have, it made no difference. This is not a culturally conditioned directive, as in all the churches of the saints. And it's that very point that Paul is emphasizing in verse 36. What was it from you that the word of God went forth?

28:39 Are you folks the Jerusalem church where God had originally deposited the entire apostolate and from which the blueprints of the church, as it were, began to be framed and formed by the wisdom and inspiration of Christ mediated through the apostles? And the answer is obvious, of course not. The gospel came to them in the course of a missionary journey of a converted Jew. The word of God did not go forth from them, or did it come unto you alone?

29:09 Are you the only church in the whole world free then to think you can set up your own practice indifferent to the universal perspectives and practices of the churches? So first of all, it violates, this would violate the universal apostolic practice. Secondly, look at the text, it would violate the God-assigned position of woman's submission. Look at the language.

29:34 Let the women keep silence in the church. It is not permitted unto them to speak, but let them be in subjection. Here's our word again. You remember we did our word study on hupotasso and its relative words.

29:52 Let them be in subjection as also saith the law. For women to speak is to assume an authoritative role over the men to whom they speak and overturns the divinely instituted hierarchy of male headship and female subordination. That must not be done even when people are so under the impress of the Spirit as to have their speech organs and their minds be the direct instruments of immediate revelation. And that's what prophecy is.

30:28 That's what it means in the Old Testament. That's what it means in the New Testament. And he said even at that point, God gives no gift in the dynamics of grace to obliterate what was instituted in creation. Never, never.

30:46 Redemption is the new creation. And it will enhance all that God ordained in the original creation, not cancel it, not negate it. And so he says, as saith also the law, most likely referring to the very things he expands in 1 Corinthians 11, one of the brethren mentioned earlier, verses 8 through 10. Reason number three, it would violate holy propriety.

31:14 Notice verse 35, if they would learn anything, and we hope to get to that this morning, let them ask their own husbands or their own menfolk at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church. What is shame? Would someone like to define shame? What do you feel?

31:34 What is that emotion? What is that state of the soul that we call shame? Hard to define, isn't it? We know what it is.

31:50 It's hard to define. Whatever shame is, it's always associated with discomfort. And you're ill at ease. When you're ashamed or in the presence of something shameful.

32:03 So Paul says that a woman speaking in the church will send a shiver of discomfort through an assembly of godly men and women. When a woman overturns her proper place, when she refuses the expression of this divinely instituted hierarchy, even when under the impress of the Holy Spirit with prophecy or tongues or any other gift of public utterance that in other situations could be exercised unto edification, it is a shameful thing. And it is that which gives a sense of shamefulness

32:47 to the assembly of the people of God. And then, fourthly, it would be a blatant refusal of the authority of Christ. Verse 37. If any man thinks himself, a prophet or spiritual, let him take knowledge of the things that I write unto you, that they are the commandment of the Lord.

33:07 So when someone says, but we're so in the Spirit, we're not bound by these rules. We're not bound up in the Spirit that as women we can speak without overturning God's institutes. You see, false and elevated claims to spirituality cover some of the most blatant, carnality in the church. And Paul says the mark of someone who's a true mouthpiece of God, truly under the influence of the Spirit in his thinking and his actions, this will be the evidence.

33:48 When he hears the apostolic directive, let the women keep silence, buttress by all these reasons, rooted in the creation ordinance of the instituted hierarchy, rooted in the apostolic practice of the churches, rooted in the sense of the shame that a woman taking this position brings, he says, if anyone is spiritual or a prophet, he will surely recognize in this the very entole, the very commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And so defiance of these directives

Defiance of Apostolic Teaching and the Rise of Christian Feminism

34:26 is nothing short of defiance of Jesus Christ, the sole and supreme head in his church. Now, we must be careful. There are some people who do this in ignorance, all right? So don't assume that because you have a friend who stands up in the mixed assembly of God's people and gives a word of exhortation, she's a woman, don't assume she's got a clenched fist in Christ's face. She

34:55 may be poorly taught. And you can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that.

34:58 You may have to be like Priscilla and Aquila and draw near kindly and graciously and teach unto her the way of God more perfectly. However, once the matter has been laid out and someone says, I don't care what Paul said. You all remember Pastor Brevard's testimony when he went into his pastor and began to discuss this matter of women preachers and turned to 1 Timothy 2, where the apostle said, I permit not, same verb, I permit not a woman to teach. The pastor said, oh, that doesn't bother me. That's just Paul saying, I permit not. That's not

35:33 the Lord. So that doesn't bother me at all. That was Paul in his prejudice against women. But Jesus nowhere forbade it. Well, the apostle says that Jesus is speaking through him. For the

35:46 church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself, the chief cornerstone. And then the fifth possible reason is if the variant reading is right, any defiance of this divine apostolic order may indeed be an indication that someone has no saving knowledge of God. But if any man knows not or any man does not acknowledge, he is not acknowledged. The scripture says of apostolic teaching, they that know God hear us. They that know God hear us. And defiance of clear apostolic teaching,

36:29 as a pattern of life in any area, may indeed be an indication of an unregenerate heart that has never had its native enmity to God subdued by the grace of God. And I'm personally convinced that in the churches founded on the message of easy believism, where people have been brought into the church with a shallow gospel, where they were told to trust Christ as saviour, there was no preaching of repentance, no preaching of the Lord, and there was no preaching of repentance. This is a natural war between the two. For one, if one is going to preach against the other, if one is going to preach against the other, lordship of Christ, no preaching that faith and discipleship are congruous realities in the heart of every truly regenerate sinner. What happens when you bring into the church people whose hearts

37:14 have never been brought to fundamental submission to the word and to the rule of Jesus Christ as king, at the point at which submission to him means they have to be different, they have to be marked, they have to deny themselves, they show their true colors, and they follow the desire of their own hearts and the patterns of the world, and yet they can point to the day they were, quote, saved. And you see, it's in an evangelicalism built on easy believism that so-called Christian feminism has taken its roots and is proliferating like a plague. The church is a church. The church is a church.

37:54 The chickens are coming home to roost. You see, and it's the rotten foundation of shallow believism that has left the climate open for the encroachment of a wicked, godless, humanistic feminism into the church, now given a sprinkling of respectable scholarship by people like the Mickelsons and others who talk about Greek words meaning this and Greek words meaning that, and people look at that and say, well, I don't know any Greek, it must, you know, I mean, they've got Ph.D. and they've got dissertations, and they are twisting the word of God. And the most godly,

38:32 sanctified scholarship through the years has seen one fundamental teaching in a passage like this, and now, alas, it takes the brilliance of twentieth-century, half-converted women to really teach us what the Bible means. So along comes Virginia Mollenkot and Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty and Ariel, and they are now telling us what the Bible means. They've missed it for centuries. You say, Pastor, you're being a little sarcastic. Yes, there is a place for it.

Interpreting "Ask Their Own Husbands at Home" (1 Corinthians 14:35)

39:04 May God have mercy upon us that we will not waffle on this issue in the light of the clear teaching of the Word. Now, we have a problem. Verse 35. And if they would learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home.

39:27 Here's a woman who hears this read, and she says to one of the elders that morning, Elder Demetrius, do you want to prophesy? Do you want to speak in tongues?

39:48 He says, you want to ask a question? That's fine. You want to learn? Any woman wills to learn? That's fine.

39:57 He doesn't say she's self-deceived. Women can't learn. If Paul were writing as a prejudiced rabbi, that's what he would have said. Don't waste your time. Women are too stupid to learn.

40:07 That was rabbinical prejudice. Paul doesn't write. He says in 1 Timothy 2, the first positive thing he says is, I want the women to learn. I want the women to learn.

40:18 And he says the same thing here. And if they are willing to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands, or possibly their own males, could be husbands, father, single women. You remember living at home, 1 Corinthians 7, you had the more tight-knit family structure. Let them ask their own husband or their own menfolk at home, for it is sure that they will learn.

40:42 Let them ask their own husbands or their own menfolk at home, shame for a woman to speak in the church. All right? What do we do then with that passage? It says, if they would learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home. Therefore, to allow women to even ask a question in a class

40:57 like this is a violation of the scripture. So hereby, this morning, June 26, the elders decree, no woman can ever ask a question again in an adult class in Trinity Church. I have tongue-in-cheek, obviously. I'm not making such a decree. I've been given no such authority, and we don't make decrees. You know that. As

41:22 elders, if we were to adopt a new policy, we'd call a meeting, we'd lay out all the rationale for it, seek to secure your judgment and your hearty consent to that direction. What do we do then with this passage? Look at it. See if you can find some clues as to what he's talking about. Just look at it for a little bit. Look what comes before. Look what follows

41:49 after. Look what follows after. Look what follows after. Look what follows after. Look what follows

41:49 before. Look what follows after. Look what follows after. Look what follows after. Look what follows after.

41:50 As the reason appended to this non-questioning of the women. All right, any hints or clues as to what we might be talking about in here yet? All right, yes, George, you got a little hint?

42:22 All right, so you're saying that the setting envisioned is one in which there is more structure to it, and in which a woman standing up and asking a question would be indecorous or indecorous disruption. All right, let me see what would happen if you tried to do that this morning as a male. Would you get away with that? No, you wouldn't, would you?

42:54 So I like that approach, but there's somebody smart enough to say, well, what happens if a man does it, see? But that's a clue. It may well be that there's a situation that's envisioned in this class that is materially different from our structure. And I think you've got a clue there, George, so let's hold on to that, all right? But I

43:17 just want to show you there's a weakness if you try to make that your big knockout punch. That may be a little jab, but that's not your right cross that's going to put the man on the deck for ten, all right? All right, someone else find a clue in there somewhere. All right, Jonathan?

43:34 It could be that let them ask their own husbands at home. It could be a suggestion. Here's another way you can...

43:55 Okay, so by so doing, you're submitting to your husband's judgment whether or not that question was even a proper one to ask. And you're showing your deference to your husband's headship, all right? Anyone else see any clues in here? All right, Ron? Then we'll come up to you, Pete.

44:25 You can't ignore that you've got a four coming there, right? And whenever we see a four, we ask for it. We ask what is the four there for, okay? So you're on to one of the very vital clues.

44:52 And look at it closely now. Whatever this asking questions is in the assembly, it is in the context of something that is shameful because a woman is now...

45:05 Either that term to speak means universal prohibition of all forms of making vocables by a woman. Anyone want to live with that? Is a woman to say the amen at the giving of thanks according to verse, what, verse 16? If you bless with the Spirit, how shall he that fills the place of the unlearned say the amen at the giving of thy thanks?

45:37 When you women add your affirmation at the end of the public prayers, when the brethren have led in prayer and you say, amen, so be it, Lord. My brother was my mouthpiece expressing my desires. Is that speaking? Is that speaking?

45:55 But is that speaking according to the passage here? Are you taking any role of authoritative proclamation when you say your amen? What about when you fulfill the mandate of 1 Peter 2.5? We are a spiritual house, a royal priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God.

46:15 You speak, albeit in musical tones, when you offer your praise, singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs. So you see, the prohibition cannot be universal. That would contradict the woman's duty to say her amen, to render her praise. So it has to be in the context of speaking that partakes of what?

46:38 Of the element of authoritative instruction. And because our time is getting away from us, let me give you what is my tentative understanding of the passage. And to let you know it's not bizarre, as I've rooted around in all of my commentaries, I found several other proven responsibilities. I found several guides who take the same position.

The Synagogue Context and Shameful Questioning

46:59 Because the early church, and this can be demonstrated historically, and then there are also indications, particularly in the pastoral epistles, that this is so, took much of its overall structure of its life from the synagogue. Not from the temple worship, but from the synagogue. Apparently, one of the situations in the synagogue, and you see some of this in the book of Acts, there could be free debate and discussion among the men. In the synagogue.

47:27 So that one man could, after the reading of a passage, begin to teach or instruct. Another could challenge and enter in to debate and discussion with him. Now if that's so, then you see what you would have here is a woman who really wants to teach. But she says, wait a minute, what I'll do is I'll just ask a question.

47:50 But in asking her questions, she's just like the people, and I think you can relate to this, in the President's News Conference.

47:58 They ain't asking.

48:00 They're making speeches. Expressing opinions! Right? And everything in you says, wait a minute, questions!

48:09 Not tell the President how to run the country. And you get mad at Donaldson. Why? Under the guise of asking questions, he overturns the authority of the President.

48:18 You didn't turn on the television set to hear Donaldson spew out what he thinks. You turned on to hear what the President meant. And you sense that he is overturning the authority. He's not giving honor to the King.

48:31 He's treating him as an equal, debating with him. Calling the President to account to him. Some pipsqueak reporter. Right?

48:40 Now, apparently it's that kind of setting that was found in the synagogue and may well have carried over into the New Testament church. And it would appear that it's that kind of questioning that is being forbidden. If the woman says, oh yes, I want to learn. And he says, all right.

49:00 If you really want. To learn. You don't want to make a speech. And under the guise of asking questions, challenge the instituted authority of the male prophets and teachers and tongue speakers.

49:14 If you really have a will to learn, it's comfortably in the privacy of your home with your daddy or your husband.

49:23 So ask your own menfolk at home if you really will to learn, not will to make a speech. And not under the guise of questions. Overturn the instituted authority. Because he goes on to say, for it is shameful for a woman to speak.

49:43 What's shameful? Let me ask you. Is it shameful when in this class, under instituted proven male leadership, one of your elders, there is an opening up of the class for questions and input. And one of our sisters raises her hand, is called upon.

50:02 Ask. Ask a legitimate question. Do you feel a shiver of shame go through this assembly? I don't.

50:10 I feel a sense of honor. That our sisters recognize God gave them gray matter. He didn't fill their head full of sawdust. Filled it full of gray matter.

50:21 And he's given them the Holy Spirit. And they have an inquisitive mind. And they have thinking faculties and critical faculties. They are to prove all things.

50:29 To hold fast only that which is good. So it would appear to me. And it's my own tendency. To hold fast only that which is good.

50:35 And it is that kind of questioning that becomes a platform for challenging as a peer the official public teacher or speaker that Paul is forbidding. Now, because our time is slipping away very quickly, let me just read a couple of the old writers.

Commentary Support and Analogy of Propriety

50:56 I don't advocate that you buy a set of Adam Clark and that you follow the theology of Adam Clark at many points, but sometimes in desperation I even turn to an old Arminian commentator and get some help. Now, listen to Adam Clark on this very portion. He writes, let your women keep silence in the churches. And then he goes on.

51:21 It's not permitted for them to speak. And all right, here we are. It is a shame for women to speak in the church. The Jews would not suffer a woman to read in the synagogue, though a servant or even a child.

51:37 A child had this permission. But the apostle refers to irregular conduct, such conduct as proved that they were not under obedience. He says, so the conduct he is prohibiting is a conduct that would indicate that they were not under obedience. Lenski, the Lutheran commentator, writes, women are not even to ask questions in the public assemblies and thus start discussions.

52:07 And in this way, secure opportunity to speak publicly. And then old Matthew Henry on the same passage says, now, as it is a woman's duty to learn in subjection, it's the man's duty to keep up his superiority by being able to instruct her. If it be her duty to ask her husband at home, it is his concern and duty to endeavor at least to be able to answer her inquiries. For if it be a shame for her to ask her husband at home, it is his concern and duty to endeavor for her to speak in the church where she is to be silent, it's a shame for him to be silent when he should speak, and not to be able to give an answer when she asks him at home.

52:48 We have here the reason for this injunction. It is God's law and commandment that they should be under obedience, verse 34. They are placed in subordination to the man, and it's a shame for them to do anything that looks like an affectation of changing ranks. Which speaking in public seems to imply, at least in that age and among that people, as would public teaching much more.

53:17 So the apostle concludes, it was a shame for women to speak in the church, in the assembly. Shame is the mind's uneasy reflection on having done something indecent. Isn't that a good definition of the feeling of shame? Shame is the mind's uneasy reflection.

53:39 Shame is the mind's uneasy reflection on having done an indecent thing. And what more indecent than for a woman to quit her rank, renounce the subordination of her sex, or do what in common account had such aspect in appearance. Note, our spirit and conduct should be suitable to our rank. The natural distinctions God has made, we should observe.

54:04 Those he has placed in subjection to others should not set themselves, on a level, nor affect or assume superiority. The woman was made subject to the man, and she should keep her station, and be content with it. Let me give another parallel. Would it not be shameful if a new convert, age 18, just out of high school, save six months ago, were sitting in this class, and when I opened up for questions, he sought to dominate, and even in his question, be a Sam Donaldson and be my instructor.

54:38 Wouldn't you feel a sense of shame? You'd say, who is this squirt? Trying to teach our pastor, or one of our pastors. Doesn't he have any sense of propriety?

54:50 You'd feel that same sense, that it was an overt, even though he were a male, you'd sense it was shameful. Why? Because it was overturning God's order. Yea, ye younger, be subject unto the elder.

Application to Trinity Baptist Church's Practice

55:02 Yea, all of you be clothed with humility. So I lay before you that that's my understanding of this passage. And I and my fellow elders do not presently believe that we are violating the letter or the spirit of this passage when we allow our sisters to ask questions and make contributions when we ask for them in this class context. Alright?

55:25 So we're not ignoring this. We're not embarrassed by it. To the best of our present light, we have a good conscience that we are keeping the letter and the spirit of this passage. Now, if there's a sister, here, who says, Well, as I study it, I just feel I can't bring myself to even ask a question.

55:45 Well, don't violate your conscience. We're not saying women must make contributions in this class. All we're saying is we believe women may, in the spirit and in the form in which we do that, without violating the letter or the spirit of this passage. Alright, any question on that?

56:04 I hope it carries your judgment, at least as a tentative conclusion on the passage. Any of the other elders want to add anything to what I've said? I hope you'll say amen to what I've said. Unless I'm going to be in bad trouble, because I only bounced it off one elder and a visiting elder.

Prayer for Grace, Correction, and the Church

56:25 So at least you've heard the counsel of three elders today on the matter. Well, let's pray and ask God to help us that by his grace we may walk in the light of his word and know that these directives are for our good as well as for God's glory. Our Father, we are so thankful for the privilege that has been ours to sit with our Bibles opened upon our laps, to sit in this place in the consciousness that we are your people, indwelt individually and corporately by the Spirit, the Spirit who has been given to lead us

57:10 into an understanding of your truth. And our Father, if in anything I have wrongly represented your mind, correct me that I in turn may even make where necessary public corrections, that if together we have rightly discovered your mind in the Scriptures, we then ask for grace to run in the way of your commandments. We pray for any of our dear women who have knowingly or perhaps subtly and unknowingly been infected, with the aggressive and Christ-dishonoring so-called feminism of our day, which would utterly destroy

57:52 all that is distinctly feminine. O Father, deal in grace and in mercy with them. For any, our Father, whose fundamental rebellion against you may be brought into focus by these words, show them the true state of their hearts and bring them to repentance and submission to your dear Son. Lord, have mercy upon the evangelical church where you are wounded in the house of your friends.

58:24 O our Father, we cannot speak of these things lightly. We see the word of our Lord Jesus defied and cast to one side, and we are grieved. Have mercy. Turn the hearts of your people to yourself.

58:43 We plead all of these things through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.