Saved Through Childbearing Sermon

This being Mother's Day, we're going to try to tackle one of the most difficult passages
in the New Testament to interpret.
We're going to be brave, and we're going to do this together, and the passage that I'm
referring to is 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 15, if we can bring that verse up.
Women will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness
with propriety.
Women will be saved through childbearing if they continue through childbearing, or they
will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with
propriety.
Interesting verse, don't you think?
And at first glance, it would appear as if what Paul is saying, that if a woman is to
be saved, she's got to have children.
Now that's okay for those of you that have had children, but for those of you that have
not had children, that makes it look pretty bad.
You've got to remember that one of the elementary principles of biblical interpretation is that
scripture must interpret scripture.
You can never take a single verse and make a theory out of that unless it agrees with
the rest of scripture.
And the idea that somehow or another you cannot be saved without bearing children is obviously
a flawed notion because it is at odds with the rest of scripture because how are we saved?
We're saved by grace, through faith, in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Besides that, the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 among other places talks about being
single as being the preferred state over marriage.
That's in the context of what he describes as the present or the impending distress.
So no matter which way you slice it or dice it, this particular verse cannot possibly
mean that you are saved by having a child.
So what's Paul talking about then and what are the implications of that for you and me
on this Mother's Day?
Well let me start off by saying that generally speaking there are three interpretations given
to this particular verse.
I'll walk through those very quickly.
The first interpretation is that the passage actually refers to Mary giving birth to Jesus.
And the reason people come up with that is because in the Greek it actually says she
will be saved through the childbirth.
It's not hard to make a leap from there that she could refer to Mary and that the childbirth
could be changed into the birth of a child.
That would certainly agree with the thrust of scripture but most commentators will agree
that you have to do too much linguistic twisting in order for that interpretation to stay in.
And so it's no longer very popular today.
Second interpretation is that women will actually be kept safe through the process of childbirth.
She will be saved through the childbirth that is to say God will keep her safe in the process
of giving birth.
That's an interpretation that has been gaining popularity and it's got some biblical warrant
because you will recall that when the Lord placed judgment on Eve after the fall in Genesis
chapter 3 he said this, "I will greatly increase your pain in childbearing with pain you will
give birth to children."
And so this interpretation is viewed as the gospel diminishing the judgment on woman because
of sin the promise is that God will keep her safe in the process of bearing children.
I think that's a legitimate interpretation and some very prominent people lean towards
that interpretation in this day and age.
But there's still a third interpretation and it's one that I happen to lean towards
personally and that is this.
Woman demonstrates her faith by submitting to God's creation order for life.
Let me say that one more time.
A woman demonstrates her faith by submitting to God's creation order for her life.
Now I'll explain that more in just a moment or two but the reason I personally lean towards
that interpretation and I'm not asking you to agree with me although you may of course
is because I think it best fits the context of the passage in your bulletins this morning
is an insert it's on the other side of the welcome sheet with the whole chapter printed
out for you.
We should be so kind as to take that out and I want to show you a couple of things in terms
of the context of this particular passage.
If you look at it closely and perhaps you have read it previously and are familiar with
it then you might discover that the emphasis of Paul in 1 Timothy chapter 2 is on orderly
life.
Order in society, order in relations between men and women, and order in the church.
That's why he begins in verse 1 and 2 with the admonition I urge then that requests prayers
intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone for kings and all those in authority.
So there's a call to prayer but now notice the reason that he gives that we are to pray
for those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.
This is good and pleases god our savior who wants all men to be saved and to come to a
knowledge of the truth.
Now it's true of course that social chaos can bring people to their knees.
You know there never were more people in church than after the towers fell in New York City
in 9/11 at least not in the United States and not for many years.
Social chaos can bring people to their knees but social chaos by and large is extremely
destructive to evangelism or to the growth of the church or even to its well-being.
Witness the nation of Syria or the nation of Iraq.
There used to be hundreds of thousands of Christian believers in those countries.
There's practically nobody of faith left because of the economic the social and the military
chaos that has been happening in that particular country.
So Paul says pray for the nation to be at rest so that people can come to faith because
this is pleasing to God.
Then a little bit further on down in verse 8 he now addresses men and women and he says
he wants men to pray without quarreling and without how does he word it without anger
or disputing.
And then he talks about women that they ought to be concentrating on good deeds instead
of being preoccupied with the frivolities of outward appearance.
And then he comes to the passage that has been extremely contentious in recent years
in virtually all denominations and that is the relationship between men and women in
ministry in church.
Let's read those verses I'll put them on the screen but you can follow along.
He says a woman should learn in quietness and full submission.
I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man.
She must be silent for Adam was formed first then Eve and Adam was not the one deceived.
It was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.
And then he gets to verse 15 which is our text women will be saved through childbearing
if they continue in faith love and holiness with propriety.
A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.
I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man.
She must be silent.
Now them there slight words people.
They are highly contentious and it's not my purpose to spend a lot of time on those verses
other than to point out to you that there are predominantly two levels of interpretation
that are common in the western church today.
And the first is what I would call the traditional view.
The traditional view takes these verses at face value and would argue that primary leadership
positions in the church particularly the office of teacher ought to be in the hands of men.
The reason given Adam was created first Adam was not deceived Eve was deceived.
And for that reason until relatively recently virtually all the Christian church everywhere
limited offices of leadership to men and excluded women.
In North America that began to change in 1956 when the United Methodist Church moved towards
ordaining women into office and leadership positions.
And presently that has spread from denomination to denomination but there are churches that
are holdouts.
The Roman Catholic Church is very strong about limiting the priesthood to males.
Most conservative very evangelical churches are very keen on limiting the role of women
in leadership.
Now the objection to the traditional interpretation in this day and age of equality however that
is perceived of course is what about women and what about their gifts.
What do you do with women in the New Testament who clearly have been given a prophetic gift
who exercise a prophetic gift in the context of community and who clearly are not so quiet.
Very interesting question.
That's the traditional view it's been losing ground and people who subscribe to the traditional
view don't necessarily do that because they hate women or think men are better than women.
They do that out of a respect for the teaching of scripture.
Very important to understand that.
I'm sure there are misogynist people there are people who you know have all the wrong
reasons but it's wrong to think that people are just old fashioned because they hold this
particular view.
Part of respect is understanding that and giving that ground.
So that's the traditional view.
Then there is what I would call the culturally conditioned view that has been gaining a lot
of popularity in recent decades in particular and that holds to the position that this position
is not universally intended by Paul for all Christians everywhere but rather that this
particular prohibition is geared to the local Ephesian church situation.
And that school of thought believes that there was a movement among women in the city of
Ephesus where they were pushing themselves forward into leadership positions in the church.
They were coming up with wrong theories about that and Paul says for the sake of the well-being
of the church these women are not allowed to exercise leadership.
The leadership needs to be exercised by men.
So according to that view then that applied in a particular situation it doesn't apply
universally.
God has created men and women equal with equal gifts that ought to be used equally in the
body of Christ.
That's extremely popular today.
The difficulty with that view is that Paul does not anchor his argument, listen carefully,
he doesn't anchor his argument in culture or the changing values of a society.
What does he anchor his argument in?
He anchors his argument in the creation story, Adam was created first, Adam was not deceived,
the woman was therefore primary leadership and teaching positions need to be male he
says in orientation.
Well the conflict between these two views has been profound just for the record.
Our own denomination spent 20 years arguing back and forth at its annual synod about whether
or not women should be allowed first to be deacons then whether they should be allowed
to be elders and more recently whether they should be allowed to be pastors and the argument
has gone back and forth before eventually these offices have been opened up to women
but it came at the loss of about a quarter of our denomination's membership.
That's how many people left when those offices were opened.
Again not just because people were ordinary or old fashioned, I'm sure there were some
of those too, but because people were committed to the teaching of scripture.
How do you hold a high view of scripture?
How do you understand the relationship between the sexes particularly in a day and age where
equality with men and women is no longer seen as simply questions of equal pay for equal
jobs or equal recognition for giftedness but a diminishing of all differences between men
and women because that's where our culture has been going.
Well as I said I'm not interested in getting into the argument though I have some thoughts
on the subject as you might imagine but I'm interested in having us understand is that
rather than getting caught up in the battle of words we need to understand the biblical
world and life view out of which this kind of teaching emerges because that will not
only help us understand what Paul means about women being saved through childbearing but
it will enable us to embrace a biblical way of life in a society that is rapidly taking
us in a totally different direction so fast that most of us don't even have a clue about
what is happening in the world particularly in academia and now increasingly in political
systems.
Often you will be the oddity if you support a biblical traditional view of marriage and
childbearing you realize that that's how the world is changing all around us.
So in the time that remains what I want to do is I want to walk you through a biblical
world and life view under the headings of creation fall redemption.
I want to show you what God designed in creation.
Want to show you how the fall messed up creation want to show you how in Christ that is being
restored and redeemed and then talk about the implications of that for men and women
husbands and wives in the world today and we're going to try to do that all before the
day is finished so bear with me understand I can't possibly do justice to the whole
complicated area can't answer all of your questions you will have thoughts that come
to you questions that will come to you that I cannot possibly address in this setting
we're going to fly over it pretty quickly you're welcome to tackle me on it later but
let's try to grapple with a big picture of what the Bible says is the relationship between
men and women not just in the church but particularly in marriage and then what it means that a
woman is saved through the bearing of children.
So let's begin with the creation story I trust you're familiar with it the creation story
is described for us in Genesis 1 and 2 and if there is one truth that permeates all of
scripture is that creation is the product of a creator he knew what he was doing he
had a plan and he had a purpose and he developed it deliberately and when it comes to the issue
of marriage particularly or the relationship between men and women there are three aspects
in the creation story that really stand out and that most of us will take for granted
but that is being increasingly challenged by the world around us because they reject
a creator God and when you reject a creator God then you go down the garden path according
to Romans chapter 1 that ends you up in a lot of wrong notions and philosophies so first
of all when you go through the creation story the first thing that becomes very clear if
we can get that slide up please is that God created two specific genders male and female
so God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female
he created them to this day what's the first question that a couple will ask when a child
is born or when they have the first ultrasound is it a boy or a girl for generations that
was not a hard thing to figure out because gender is first of all rooted in biology a
girl looks differently from a boy and then it permeates all of life and so for many many
years a boy was a boy and a girl was a girl but increasingly in this day and age there
is the idea that gender is fluid a boy may be a boy on the outside but be like a girl
on the inside and vice versa those are huge issues in this day and age the the state of
North Carolina is being challenged by the federal government because they have passed
laws saying that bathrooms are to be available only to people of their biological gender
and the federal government is threatening them to withhold millions of dollars of federal
funding because the move today of course is that you can pick whatever bathroom you self
identify with in terms of gender now we don't have a lot of time to talk about that and
I've talked about this before but I want to show you just really quickly that Leon Poddles
and I've mentioned this before in his book the church impotent to feminization of Christianity
identifies the core issues of masculinity and femininity across the world in different
societies regardless of who the people are and how they live he identifies two significant
distinguishing characteristics that are uniquely masculine and two that are feminine the masculine
ones you see there they are separation and differentiation that is to say the masculine
principle is to take a stand over against and you see that in two boys who can you know
knuckle it out and fight it out and then put their arms around each other and walk away
you'll very seldom see girls do the same thing for reasons that I will show you in just a
moment you see it in guys having a great respect for the person who stands out among the crowd
because masculinity is all about separating from it's all about being different from it's
all about taking a stand now the feminine principle that he says and this is a universal
one is one of communion and integration that is to say a minimizing of differences and
a bringing together of people that's why you'll often hear people talk about the fact that
if women ruled the world we wouldn't have so much war because somehow or another they
think women will unite everybody the fallacy there of course is that this principle of
communion and integration comes to expression in the fact that among women if you're not
part of the group you're on the outside and being on the outside means that you can get
treated very nastily because you're a threat to the cohesiveness of the group now understand
that these particular things which biblically are hugely important are part and parcel of
being equipped for different gender roles in the world and in marriage we could talk
about that a lot we need to move on i want to show you next that the second thing that
we discover if we can put that slide up is that in the creation story god instituted
marriage the bible is very clear genesis 2 verse 18 the lord god said it's not good for
the man to be alone i will make a helper suitable for him marriage was not just a social contract
that we came by accidentally in the process of evolution it was part of god's original
design you know the creation story how adam was alone god said it's not good all the animals
passed by adam there wasn't any helper suitable for him god put him to sleep created eve
out of his rib brought the two together and he said this is bone of my bones and flesh
of my flesh they found each other as complementary in the relationship purpose of marriage scripture
spells out very clearly is to provide companionship it's to provide support it's to be a place
for the conceiving and nurture of the next generation we'll come back to very important
and it's also a model of christ's relationship with the church that's why in the new age
there's not going to be any marriage because in that day marriage will have served its
function marriage will have been fulfilled in the union between christ and his people
we will be wed to him collectively as his people for all eternity god instituted marriage
and then the third aspect of the creation story is that god created a particular structure
within marriage genesis 2 18 again the lord god said it's not good for the man to be alone
i will make a helper suitable for him now in the literature of recent years a lot of
emphasis has gone into this word helper because in scripture god is often described as a helper
and people use that to say that it doesn't mean that eve came along adam to help him
but rather that she was i i i can't quite follow all of the arguments there but if you
follow scripture certainly when you come to the new testament there's no question about
what was the structure that god ordained for marriage man has a unique leadership ability
and is supposed to use his strength and his power to protect his wife and his children
the woman is to be safe under that umbrella and she is to be able to bear children and
nurture them being looked after and being provided for so that the next generation can
grow up because god's purpose in the creation story you will recall was to build a people
that loved him a people that love each other and a people that developed a culture on the
face of the earth that honored god and obeyed him in every way and marriage was a significant
component of that story a lot of you will have heard this quote and i found out just
recently that it's from matthew henry the great bible commentator he said women were
created from the rib of man to be beside him not from his head to top him nor from his
feet to be trampled by him but from under his arm to be protected by him and near his
heart to be loved by him that's about as good as it gets in my book so that's creation only
lasted for genesis one and two and then we get into genesis three what happens in genesis
three it all goes to pot real fast so in the fall listen to this if creation was an orchestra
that played off the same score sheet with different instruments and followed a common
conductor then what happened in the fall of man was that everybody began to play off their
own score sheet ignored the conductor and instead of making symphony they now ended
up making cacophony a horrendous sound i remember back in my college radio station days we had
a tape of half a dozen violins all playing out of tune together and any time we wanted
to scare somebody we played it for them because it made you go like this it was that horrendous
so in the fall of man three things happened just really quickly we broke our relationship
with god we broke our relationship with each other and we broke our relationship with ourselves
in other words we got broken and in getting broken on the inside we lost our sense of
who we are and we lost our sense of what we were to be and if you listen to the arguments
today about gender identity and homosexuality and all the issues related to it you will
find that it flows out of a deep pain and a deep brokenness that we ought to have a
great deal of sympathy for because the fall has done a terrific number on the human race
and because we're broken inside we get broken in relationships and because we get broken
in relationships we end up particularly in the context of marriage in what i call the
battle of the sexes nobody trusts the other the man instead of using his strength to provide
a safe environment for his wife and for his children now uses his strength to pursue his
own ambitions he becomes a taker rather than a giver and the woman feeling violated by
his lack of security and love dealing with her own brokenness now refuses to submit to
his authority and she becomes a person who battles for her own place for her own right
and for her own existence you cannot understand what is happening in society at large unless
you really understand what is happening here the bible talks about that in the verse that
we quoted earlier genesis 3 17 we read it earlier i will greatly increase your pains
in childbearing with pain you will give birth to children then it goes on to say your desire
will be for your husband and he will rule over you now notice carefully your desire
will be for your husband this is god's judgment to eve after she sinned she was rebellious
in rejecting god's authority and in rejecting her husband's authority god says your desire
will be to your husband and he will rule over you now you look at that verse and you say
well that's not so bad girls have often wanted to be with a guy that's not quite what the
word desire means here the new living translation captures it much better when it says you will
desire to control your husband that's the word desire and he will rule over you anybody
here ever fight it out in marriage as to who's going to be the boss and who's going to call
the shots how are you going to spend the money how are you going to spend your time you know
in a decent marriage with people who are reasonably mature you can come to some kind of an agreement
or trust but we all know that if we've been there the battle of the sexes can be vicious
and a lot of us have just simply given up trying to fight it because we know that we
cannot win isn't that true that's the fall of man and apart from god's grace it spirals
down into pain and confusion till you get to the point where even the very concept of
marriage is being rejected why do so many people want to live together and why when
they live together are they afraid to enter into marriage because they know things will
change once they get married and they may not be able to sustain it so why not just
do what we're doing broken people form broken relationships and broken relationships eventually
go down the tube that's genesis 1 and 2 and now genesis 3 thank god the bible doesn't
stop there or we'd all be in big trouble because what is the topic of the rest of the bible
it's the story of redemption that is to say god's desire to bring people back to himself
and redemption in the bible happens as you know through faith in jesus and when you and
i come to faith in jesus there's a number of things that we commit ourselves to we acknowledge
that we all like sheep have gone astray we have gone each one of us is own way we come
to jesus in repentance and faith and we invite him into our hearts and lives asking him to
change us so that we come back under god's authority and when we come back under god's
authority there's again a number of things that happen as a result of coming to faith
we're restored in our relationship with god we have the potential of being restored in
our relationships with one another and restored in relationship with myself the cycle reverses
as i learn what my identity is in god and that i matter to him and that he is a plan
and a purpose for my life i've got something i can give to my friends or to my spouses
when i learn what it is to be in christ i can be a giver rather than a taker and i can
now start contracting relationships that yield to the authority of god for my life knowing
that god designed for life to work according to his original creation purposes and that's
what's really important to understand salvation isn't just about going to heaven someday salvation
is being restored to what god had intended originally and that he then eventually wants
to take even beyond that in the new heavens and in the new earth and so relationally being
restored in christ for a man means that he embraces his masculinity and masculinity i
think is greatly described by robert lewis in authentic manhood a lot of you men here
have been through those courses some of you a number of times as rejecting passivity accepting
responsibility leading courageously and looking for god's reward won't take a lot of time
at this but diagrammatically i've shown you this one before but it's really worth looking
at the those two bell curves represent the range of masculinity differentiation and separation
this representing the bell curve of the feminine which is integration and communion i've talked
about this before if this is the norm for each person than here are your extremes on
either end of that bell curve that is to say a lot of people get hung up because they don't
want to be like their mother or they don't want to be like their father or they don't
want to be like somebody that they don't like very much that's not who decides who you are
god decides who you are and if you're on this end of the masculine you've got an extra dose
of testosterone and you've got the qualities that come with testosterone if you're on this
end you've got an extra dose of estrogen because both men and women have have both
hormones in their bodies and if this is the guy you know the man's man this is the creative
artist the sensitive person who is every bit as masculine as the other dude but who often
gets terrorized depending on what group of people that he hangs around with are you with
me here the same thing is true on the feminine side there is a huge range of femininity a
girl on this end of the spectrum leads towards the testosterone side of things a girl on
this end which you know you would call the more typically girly girl if you will she
leans towards the estrogen side the communion the integration the getting along with each
other the nurture the giving of life very important distinction to make understand too
that because of the fall people go off the scale on either end now you're dealing with
the products of the fall and when you're dealing with the products of the fall it's a whole
other story because that needs to be healed and that needs to be restored so if God calls
you to be a man he calls you in the words of Robert Lewis and in the courses that many
of us have followed to take your God-given gifts of masculinity and you lead your family
not for selfish purposes but to provide an umbrella of cherishing and protection so that
your wife and your children can flourish John Piper preacher that a lot of you know puts
it this way very good quote I think at the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of
benevolent responsibility to lead provide for and protect women in ways appropriate
to a man's different differing relationships at the heart of mature masculinity is a sense
of benevolent responsibility to lead provide for and protect women in ways appropriate
to man's differing relationships brings us then to women because to be restored as a
woman then means embracing your femininity we looked at that a moment ago it means recognizing
first of all that God has created you as a woman and that that is an identity that is
a gift to you uniquely designed for you and you have been equipped to bear life now not
all women bear children nor do they need to because there are other callings in life than
bearing children but bearing children is indeed a noble calling that ought to be embraced
and it serves an important kingdom principle that most people forget namely that God wants
to people his new creation with people and being co-creators with God as husbands and
wives in families is an incredible privilege to people the kingdom of God we don't always
understand that every person that God calls into the world that becomes a Christian and
that grows in maturity and faith becomes an example of God's amazing redeeming grace that's
an incredible gift and again not every woman is called to participate in that but every
woman has the skills of communion and integration and she can exercise those gifts to bring
together if not her family her friends her community because that is part of what she
has called to do the Apostle Paul summarizing this in the book of Titus describes it this
way he talks about older women teaching younger women he says then they can train the younger
women to love their husbands and children to be self-controlled and pure to be busy
at home interesting word it's domestic to be kind and to be subject to their husbands
so that no one will malign the word of God doesn't mean you can't have a job outside
the home doesn't mean that you can't participate in life outside of the home but it means that
when all has been said and done there is something in you that has made you uniquely equipped
for the process of caring for people providing service to them doing good works and making
bringing the next generation into the world and enabling them to have a good start and
a good foundation Phil Hamburg when he comes here on Saturday he's gonna do seminar on
the rage in children they told us a while back when we were skyping with him that he
now has teachers coming to his organizations for workshops in how to provide holding therapy
for children in school whose rage is out of control and people don't know what to do with
them and because he's an attachment specialist he will tell us that it's rooted in broken
relationships a failure to bond early in life and that's an incredibly important task not
just for fathers but especially for mothers motherhood is an incredible gift that God
gives not to all women but to many and if he calls you to that it's something that we
need to embrace gladly and with joy that's not easy because it provides limitations why
did Eve fall into sin because she wanted to get away from God's authority not only she
wanted to get away from Adam's authority don't know how many of you here have ever heard
of the Lilith tale anybody here she is part of a teaching in extreme feminism she is thought
to have been in a mythology in a mythological way the first wife of I bet you didn't know
that Adam had a first wife did you well supposedly her name was Lilith she was created out of
the dust just like Adam was to be his equal but then she refused to submit to his authority
and she got exiled from the garden now remember this is a myth but it's a myth that people
latch on to to try to get away from a biblical view of womanhood submitting to God's purpose
for your life is hard for men because it's contrary to nature it's also hard for women
because it's contrary to nature society fights you on every front but if we are to walk with
Jesus and to embrace him then he will give us grace to fulfill our calling and that you
see brings us back to 1 Timothy 2 verse 15 where Paul says that woman will be saved through
childbearing no having children does not make you a Christian and if you don't have children
it doesn't mean your chances for salvation are any less than any other woman what it
does mean that a woman demonstrates her faith by receiving and accepting God's calling on
her life and if that calling is to be married then she submits to marriage if that calling
is to be submitted to her husband then she submits to her husband if that calling is
to get pregnant and bear children she will submit to that calling even if that is accompanied
by fear by pain and the risk of life and limb because remember historically childbirth a
lot of people lost their lives giving birth to children if that means putting your life
on hold because your children need you and you feel like you're being everybody's servant
you do that not because you have a martyr complex but because you know that in Christ
you are participating in the raising of the next generation for the glory of God it's
an incredibly noble calling but both men and women in that calling needs God needs God's
grace first of all to heal the broken places inside that prevent intimacy secondly to do
relationships in a God-honoring way and then thirdly to live that out in terms of family
life and while this has always been important in society I want to tell you prophetically
it's never been more important than today because the very institution of marriage the
very notion of family the very notion of how we raise our children is increasingly being
taken away from individuals and put into the hands of the experts and we are raising a
generation of very broken people and that generation of very broken people will provide
great opportunity for the proclamation of the gospel she will be saved through childbearing
if how does the rest of the verse go if they continue in faith love and holiness with propriety