This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Lewis
Harold, assistant pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland
County in Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Lewis as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
If you were going for a cheap, kind of slutty, inviting look,
you nailed it. That was the way he addressed
it. Didn't have to say another word,
didn't have to say another word. Never accused her of anything,
just basically gave a man's opinion of what she looked like.
That's all. And I think as fathers we should
do that. We should give our opinion.
We understand how the male mind works and we have to impart that
to our kids. We joined Pastor Lewis in the
middle of a recounting of a story of a father talking with
his daughter about some immodest clothing choices that she was
making. Well, this kind of talk might be
antiquated. We know as fathers that God has
called us to speak the truth in love to our children.
Now we must season these times of truthful speaking with the
love of God. When our children know that we
love them, we can say some of the most difficult things in the
world to them. Now here's Pastor Lewis in the
Book of First Timothy, chapter 2, with today's edition of
Living Waters of Grace. I heard one teacher say that,
you know, in the church now, there's more announcements and
things of that nature than there is prayer.
And we really need to focus on prayer.
I'm glad that we have so many avenues here in this church that
offer prayer. So many, so many.
And you can all plug yourselves into it.
We invite you to plug yourselves into those avenues.
A prayer because every one of those groups, whether it's a
Thursday night Zoom group or whether it's the Thursday night
group that meets here to pray about certain things.
The all of the Bible studies that should include prayer.
I'm sure it does. When those things happen, that
is all in worship to God. It's all in worship to God.
So we pray because he died for all and his death was sufficient
for all, but it's only efficient for those who believe, for those
who believe. And then he goes to verse 8.
And as we move to verse 8, we come to see now that we're now
moving into an issue which is seen as being controversial, but
it's not really controversial. If it is rightly divided, it's
not really controversial. The world makes things
controversial, but it's the word of God.
It's the word of God. And before we even go there, I
just want to go to second Timothy real quick.
Chapter 3, Second Timothy chapter 3, we're going to just
look at verse. Just going to read for verse 16.
All Scripture, not some, not parts of it.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is
profitable for doctrine and for reproof, for correction, for
instruction and righteousness. We just talked about that, that
the man of God or the woman of God may be complete, thoroughly
equipped for every good work. So what we're about to go in
here into here, this is not Paul's opinion.
This is not just Paul's opinion. All scripture is inspired by
God. It's in the Canon of Scripture.
This is coming from God. So he, she, he says here in
verse 8, I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting
up holy hands without wrath and doubting.
Let's stop there, he said. I desire, therefore, that the
men pray everywhere. Now he's talking about not just
mankind, meaning everybody. He's talking about men as in
male gender, that they pray. And Paul is saying here that men
should lead prayer in public services.
Men should lead prayer. I know growing up I didn't see a
lot of men leading prayer in public services.
It was mostly in women. I just see a lot of men leading
it. But Paul says here that men
should lead prayer. We know women will pray, but
Paul's saying we want to see more men praying.
Men pray leading. And now this is not a
prohibition to say that women shouldn't pray in public.
That's not what this is saying. And we want to get to that over
in verse 9. But here he is making a point to
say that men should be praying and should be leading and
praying in public services, lifting up holy hands without
wrath and doubting. So Paul's mentioned in three,
three things that are essential. And we know with men praying in
public, three things. First of all, he says lifting up
holy hands and lifting up holy hands is actually cultural.
It's Jewish culture that the men at that particular time when
they prayed, they would pray extending their hands to heaven.
Now that gesture of extending the hands of heaven, when you
look at it, it really has a lot of different meaning or
connotations to it. First of all, it's the
connotation of surrender. It's surrender when a man lifts
his hands, when a police officer tells a suspect to come out with
your hands up, that means you are surrendering, that that
person is surrendering to the authority of that police
officer. He's surrendering.
He is putting himself into custody, willingly putting
himself into custody of that police officer.
And that's exactly what we're doing when we lift our hands to
the Lord. Back in the Old Testament, this
was a sign of surrender to God. God, I surrender, I place myself
under your authority. So the prayers that go up are
prayers to the Lord submitting to his authority.
And there's several scriptures that talk about the lifting of
the hands. Turn with me really quick to
Psalm 63 and look at verse four. He says thus I will bless you
while I live. I will lift up my hands in your
name and then go to Psalm 134 and Psalm 134 reads this way.
Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord.
And we know we read the story back in First Kings chapter 8
and 22 that when Solomon prayed and he dedicated to temple, he
lifted up his hands to heaven that he prayed.
When David prayed several times it's mentioned that he lifted up
his hands to the Lord when he prayed.
So that is a, it's a cultural position.
But I just want to mention that we need to understand the
lifting of the hands. It's an outward expression of
where our hearts should be. It's not that important what we
do with our hands. Now, God is more interested in
the position of your heart when we pray.
And then he goes in and he goes into that.
So he says without wrath and without wrath means that it's,
you know, you first of all, you, you, the hands that you're
lifting up have to be holy hands.
So it's got to be pure hands, right?
Hands that we, we're not talking about, you know, practicing sin
and then coming up and lifting your hands to pray.
You know, that doesn't mean that if you have sin that you can't
pray, you repent. And the repentance cleanses us.
We confess, and that cleanses us before God and we can lift up
our hands and pray. It's about lifting up cleansed
hands. That means the heart is cleansed
from whatever sin is morally or spiritually cleansed.
But it's without wrath. And without wrath simply means
without anger. It's without resentment.
We should be praying without resentment.
I shouldn't be up here praying and knowing I got something
against that brother sitting back there or something against
a sister sitting over there. Can't pray like that.
I got to go make it right with them first.
I got to go make it right with them and then I can pray.
I don't want my prayers hindered by having all these ungodly
things in my heart towards someone else, have an ought in
my heart against a brother. I can't pray that way, Davis
said. If I regard iniquity in my
heart, he won't hear me. God won't hear me.
So we have to have pure hearts and clean hands when we pray.
And he said, and doubting, doubting actually means that we
must pray in faith. We shouldn't be praying
doubting. James said that when you pray,
you know you, you, you should be praying without doubting.
You ask without doubting. He said he who doubts is like a
wave of the sea tossed to and fro by the wind.
It it's an unstable person who doubts.
When we pray, we pray believing. We pray believing, so we pray
without doubt. So then we go on to verse 9.
And this is where things get kind of interesting because he
says here in like manner also, and don't miss that line, in
like manner also, in like manner also, women adorn themselves in
modest apparel with propriety and moderation, not with braided
hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing.
So what is he saying here? This is actually evidence to
some degree that women can pray in public.
It's fine for women to pray in public because he said in like
manner. Also, in other words, in the
same way, when women pray, their praying should be with, you
know, adorning themselves in modest apparel.
Men should pray with their hearts, not having wickedness or
anger or art in their hearts. He emphasized that for men, not
that anybody should, but that's what he emphasized for men.
And but for women, he said when you pray, if you want to, you
know, when you pray, have modest apparel, have modest clothes on.
Now, let's not know we, we don't have to exaggerate this and
think that this means that a woman can never wear braided
hair or never have gold or pearls on or wear nice clothes.
That's not what Paul is saying here.
What he is saying is that when we pray before the people that
the women should be dressed in a way that God is being glorified
and not someone looking at what they're wearing.
It should be tasteful clothing. And, and, and I thank God that
we don't have that issue here. We don't have the issue of a, we
don't have a clothing issue here.
We don't have people coming in here dressing worldly.
I, I, I just don't see that here.
But what Paul is saying is that women should be dressing in ways
that professes godliness, a way that shows that you are godly.
So he says here, first of all, it should be modest apparel and
that emphasizes appropriate dress.
You know, you have. We have to help men to be
focused on the right thing because men are visual.
We're very visual and our and, and, and we notice things very
quickly. So women, you dress in ways that
doesn't call attention to anything negative, Then we don't
worry about that. It it, it's, it's tasteful
dressing. And, and so Paul is saying just
dress in a way that's, that's tasteful.
And then it says that the word propriety that means in or
shamefacedness, that means that you're, you're, you're dressing
in a way that's giving reverence and respect to God.
And then the word moderation and that means that you're dressing,
you're using sound judgment and inner self-control.
When you dress sound judgment and inner self-control with
moderation, it should be a spiritual radar on the inside of
you that tells you what is good and proper dress, what is good
and proper dress before we leave home.
We all have mirrors before we leave home.
You know, am I dressed appropriately now?
I have that. You know, when we're, you know,
when kids are younger mothers and fathers, we have to help our
teenage daughters with that help, assist.
We have to have feedback for our teenage daughters.
And part of the reason why is because society is putting out
clothes. I mean, almost forcing young
people to dress in ways that's not godly, almost forces them to
they're like, what's the options out there?
What can you buy and where can you buy it that's appropriate.
But I think that, you know, but we have to, but we have to give
assistance to our young teenage girls when it comes to dressing.
Told me before I worked in pharmaceuticals and, and I was
in an office waiting to see a doctor and there was another
pharmaceutical Rep in there from another company.
And she came in and she, we're sitting down talking.
I knew that she was saved and we were talking about the things of
the Lord and some kind of way the discussion got on clothing,
appropriate clothing. She has a, you know, she was
dealing with a teenage issue with her 14 year old daughter
and her daughter came downstairs one day.
Well, her daughter came downstairs.
They asked her mother and father if she can go to the mall with
some friends. And of course, you know, they
trusted her and they trusted her friends.
So they said sure, yeah, absolutely.
So she went upstairs to get dressed.
And when she came downstairs, they both had a strange look on
their face, very surprised look on their face.
And the teenage daughter looked at him and like, what?
What's wrong? What, what, what, what's wrong?
You know, he's how do I look? And the father, not the mother,
the father, he said, well, what were you shooting for when you
got dressed? Let me ask you that.
What were you going for? If you were going for a academic
look, if you were going for a studious look, you missed it.
If you were going for a cheap, kind of slutty, inviting look,
you nailed it. That was the way he addressed
it. Didn't have to say another word,
didn't have to say another word. Never accused her of anything.
Just basically gave a man's opinion of what she looked like.
That's all. And I think as fathers, we
should do that. We should give our opinion.
We understand how the male mind works and we have to impart that
to our kids because a lot of 14 year olds really don't realize
that they're dressing in that way because that's just the
styles that's out there. They see it all over the place.
But godliness is something different.
Now, the reason why he mentioned this, the braiding of the hair
and the gold and the perils. Again, remember, as we said at
the top of this, this is Ephesus, the city of Ephesus.
There was a lot of worldliness in the city of Ephesus and in
the temples they had temple prostitutes.
These women dressed in ways to try to attract attention to
themselves. So they would put on these kind
of things, the braiding of their hair and put glitter in their
hair and, and, and, and, and they would, and they would have
the jewelry on and all the things that would attract
attention to themselves so that they can, you know, do their
business. But Paul is saying when you
dress there should be a difference.
People should be able to see a difference that you are not one
of these women. You know that that that's
working in the temple, but that you are a woman professing
godliness. And that's what he's saying here
in verse 10. But that which is proper for
women professing godliness with good works.
In other words, if you're going to dress, cover yourself in
something, cover yourself with the good works.
Let people see that. Let that be what you adorn
yourself with, not the showing of flesh.
And then in verse 11, he says let a woman learn in silence
with all submission. And verse 12 says, and I do not
permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man, but to be
in silence. OK, let's stop there now He says
let a woman learn in silence. Again, keep in mind that at that
particular time, you know, he was given instruction in church
about church order. And he was trying to help them
to understand what is proper order and what is out of order.
And apparently whatever was happening here.
And he also mentioned this and to a letter, in a letter to the
Corinthians as well, when he said that, look, these women
need to learn how to be quiet during the service.
These are women. And you got to remember, they
sit apart. You know, the men sit on one
side, women sit on the other side.
You know, so if they're women, they have a question.
They just thought it was OK to just, you know, hey, excuse me,
you know, what does that mean? Or or holler to her husband
that's sitting on the other side of the room.
Hey, John, what is he talking about?
This is joint service. Obviously that would be
disruptive and Paul's addressing that they can learn, but learn
in silence. Learn in silence.
In fact, in First Corinthians, in First Corinthians 1434, I
think he says let's let's turn it real quick, First Corinthians
chapter 14 and 34. And he said, let your women keep
silence in the churches for they are not permitted to speak, but
they are to be submissive as the law also says.
And if they want to learn something, let them ask their
own husbands at home for the shameful for a woman to speak in
church. That doesn't mean that women
have to totally keep their mouth shut.
But join the service. You know, he's saying don't be
disruptive. It's a shame for women to be
disruptive in service and to interfere or interrupt with the
flow of the Spirit as the word of God is going forth.
That is, that's disturbing it, it's disruptive.
So that's what Paul's talking about that not saying that women
can't talk in church. That's not what it's saying.
Join the service. Be respectful.
And these are things that obviously we understand because
we grew up in the church. But this is Ephesus.
They didn't have this kind of order initially.
They weren't used to this. So that's why Paul gave the
instruction. And even now sometimes it's
appropriate to give that instruction because from time to
time you might see someone that may not have a lot of experience
in church who could be disruptive.
And then in verse 12 it says, now I do not permit a woman to
teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.
And again, does that mean that women can never teach in the
church? No, what it means is that in a
mixed congregation like this, a woman should not be the teacher.
A man should teach the doctrine of Jesus Christ.
We are taught in Titus chapter 2, verses 3 and four that women
or the older women are to teach the younger women.
That's where women teach women teach women, women teach men,
not stand up in a congregation like this and teach men because
when because the Bible says that we are under the authority.
A woman is under the authority of a man.
Man is over woman, Christ is over man, and God is over
Christ. So women are under the authority
of the men here in the church, the pastors or the teachers,
because once someone is teaching, we're under that
authority. We're under that authority, and
women should not be placed in that position.
That's just positioning. We're not talking about ability,
OK? We're not talking about ability.
Can women teach? Absolutely.
They're capable of teaching. We're not talking about ability.
We're talking about church order is what he's calling church
order. This is what's appropriate in
the church, and I do not permit a woman to teach or have
authority over a man, but to be in silence.
Verse 13, Now he gives his reason, a reason for saying that
in verse 13 he says Adam was formed first, then Eve.
So it's the order of creation that he goes back to.
He refers to the order of creation.
Adam was first, the man was first, and then Eve.
Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into
transgression. So what is he saying here?
What he's saying? He's not saying that Adam wasn't
wrong. He's not saying that Adam wasn't
wrong. He's not saying that Adam's sin
was any less than Eve's sin. But what he is saying is that
Adam's sin wide with his eyes wide open because he had the
law. He had the instruction.
He just went and followed his wife who had overstepped him and
made a independent decision. And because of that, sin came
into the world. So he says Adam was first.
That's the order of creation. So then he goes on and he says
it was a woman that fell into transgression.
So women can teach, but they should teach.
Women should teach women. Older women should teach the
younger women, teach them how to love their husbands, how to love
their children. We need that.
Is that any less important or
significant than what Clark or I or anybody else that stands up
here does? Absolutely not.
It's important when women teach other women how to be godly
women. That is important.
It's significant, very important.
Here on Living Waters of Grace, we're in the books of First and
Second Timothy. Pastor Lewis Harrell is walking
us through these letters written from Paul to Timothy.
Toward the end of these letters, Paul is anticipating that his
time here on earth is coming to a close.
He's giving some final words of advice to his mentee.
Paul writes in Second Timothy 4, verse seven.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have
kept the faith. Wherever you are in your journey
of faith with God, our hope is that you have the willingness to
fight for what's true, not compromising, but holding fast
to the Word of God. Paul was reminding Timothy of
this. And it's a good reminder for you
and for me today, too. For helpful input throughout
this series, why not listen to all of these teachings from
First and Second Timothy on our website?
Go to calvarychapelonline.com to access teachings, download our
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Living Waters of Grace.