1 Timothy 2, the part of the chapter that I'd like to focus is there beginning in verse number 11 where the Bible reads that, "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection, but I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence for Adam was first formed, then Eve and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding, she she shall be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety." What I want to preach about tonight is the subject of woman preachers. You say, "Why preach on this subject?" Today there's a trend toward a lot more women becoming pastors and women becoming preachers. I think part of this is just that our culture in general seeks to blur the lines between men and women.
Now the roles of men are being taken over by women in many cases and the roles of women are being taking over by men and this is not God's will or God's plan. God has designed there to be a difference and a distinction between man and woman. He made them at the beginning, male and female and he does not want them to be meshed and intertwined and mingled. He wants there to be a clear difference. That's why he said that our clothing should be different as men and women. That's why he said that our hair should be different. We live different lifestyles as men and women. It's not that men are better than women. They aren't. It's not that men have more value than women. They don't, but rather men and women had different roles in society, different roles in a church, different roles in a family and we should not tell women to be like me in order to have the same value as men. You know, ladies, you can have the same value as men just by being a lady. You don't have to become like men in order to have value.
It's bizarre that this teaching is called feminism that tells women, "If you want to be to your full potential, you must dress like a man. You must live like a man. You must go to work like a man." How is that feminist? It should be called masculism because it's telling women to be masculine. It's telling women to live as men. It doesn't make any sense, but today, the United Methodist denomination, 50% of their pastors are women. Today the Baptist denomination in Brazil, the main Baptist denomination in Brazil ordains women to be pastors of churches today. Preachers like Joyce Meyer are famous and well know and are best selling authors and popular preachers today and they come into churches and preach in the church. Is is biblical? What does the Bible say? Look down at your Bible in 1 Timothy 2:11.
By the way, just a quick reminder, I'm not the author of the Bible. Everybody remember that? Yeah, and it's funny how people will get upset at me and I love what Moses and Aaron are constantly saying in the book of Numbers, "Don't get mad at us." Moses and Aaron are constantly saying, "Who are we? Don't get mad at us. It's the Lord that you're mad at." The Bible says, "He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit." The Bible says in 1 Timothy 2:11, "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection, but I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, be in silence."
Flip over if you would to 1 Corinthians 14. 1 Corinthians 14, a little bit later I'm going to get into what type of instances and circumstances would be appropriate for a woman to preach or prophesy, but we definitely know that it's not in the church and we definitely know that it's not a public preaching ministry, because look what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14:34, it says, "Let your women keep silence in the churches for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience as also sayeth the law and if they will learn anything let them ask their husbands at home for it is a shame for women to speak in the church."
Isn't it just bizarre that we have these explicit statements in scripture and yet today, I just saw recently and advertisement for a seminary and they're trying to get women to come to the seminary and they want them to train to be preachers and it was advertisement for women to come to seminary and to be trained to be a pastor, to be trained to be a bishop or an elder of a church and what does the Bible say? The Bible's crystal clear on this. There's no debate. "What do you think about this debate about women?" There is no debate. The Bible says that women are supposed to keep silence in the church. He says it so many different ways just to make sure that you don't misunderstand. He says, "Let your women keep silence in the churches." That's one way of saying it, but then just to make sure that you understood it, "It's not permitted unto them to speak." Then just in case you didn't get that, "They're commanded to be under obedience." Does that sound like they're the ruler if they're commanded to be under obedience? No.
The Bible says let the elder, elder means pastor of bishop, "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine." The Bible's clear here that that position is not for a lady. It says in verse 35, "And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home" and just in case you didn't get it the first three times, it says it a fourth time, "For it is a shame for women to speak in the church."
A lot of people misunderstand this teaching and they'll say, "Well are you saying that they just have to walk in the building and just be silent, that they cannot fellowship before the service?" They'll say, "Are you saying that they can't chit chat before the service? Are you saying that they can't sing the songs? Is that what you're saying?" Here's what we have to keep in mind, a few things. Number one, first of all, the church is not the building. Church means congregation, so it's not saying that women are not permitted to speak in this building. It's saying that they cannot speak in the church, meaning the general assembly, the gathering the congregation when we're gathered together.
Another thing that I want you to know, flip back to 1 Timothy 2 just because I want you to lay eyes on this and see it very clearly for yourself, if we go back to 1 Timothy 2, we can help understand what God's teaching. It says in 1 Timothy 2:11, "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." Therefore, obviously before the service, before the congregation begins the service, there's chatting and talking going on. That's perfectly legitimate and then when we all sing praises to God, of course the ladies should also lift up their voices and sing praises unto God, but wait a minute. When it's learning time, it's silence time.
See what I mean? What it's saying is that they are to learn in silence and that's why it talks about in 1 Corinthians 14:35, also what we just looked at, it says, "If they will learn anything." It says, "When the learning are going on, they are not permitted to speak." When the learning is happening, they are to be in silence. When the preaching of God's word is taking place, first of all it's not for a woman to be doing the preaching and second of all, it's not for women to be speaking.
The Bible's really clear on this. Even if they were to have a question, they are not to ask that question in the church, number one. Number two, even if the want to ask that question to their husband, they should wait until they get home. They should not in the service be talking. By the way, this is why I don't believe that women should say "Amen" during the preaching either, simply because Amen and I talked about this in the Spanish class this morning, what "Amen" actually means, it means truly or verily.
In fact, when you read in your Bible, where it says, "Verily, verily I say unto you," that's a pretty common statement in the Bible, basically that's from the word Amen. If you read that in the Greek new testament, it's like "Amen, amen, I say unto you" but that would sound kind of weird in English if we said it that way. A lot of people don't understand what the word Amen means, but Amen basically means, "That's true." When I'm preaching and I say something that you agree with, that you believe in and you say, "Amen." You're saying, "That's right, that's true. That's the truth." Here's the thing. When the preaching is going on, women should not express their opinion about the sermon, even if it's a positive opinion. Of course, the heart is in the right place. I did one time, I was preaching one time and a woman actually disagreed with me in the middle of my preaching. I said something and she said I was wrong. I kind of blew up a little bit.
There could be times when a woman's just agreeing. You know what? The heart's in the right place, of course, but in reality if we're going to be true to scripture, then basically we would say, okay, when it's time for learning, that's a time for women to keep silence. That's a time to learn in silence. Again, this is not being down on women. This is not being down on anybody. We love women in our church, but we need to follow scripture and understand that this church has been, is and always will be a man-run church and it's a church that's led by a male pastor and, of course, we should seek to make sure that we stay a million miles from this doctrine of a woman preacher or women usurping authority over man or teaching and so forth.
This is crystal clear. In the Bible, I don't understand where the Joyce Meyers of this world get off, but they... Well, okay, I'll tell you where they get this from because you have to ask yourself. Surely they must have some justification for it. You ask yourself, how does a woman become a pastor in light of these scriptures, especially because one to the qualifications is that they be the husband of one wife and because one of the qualifications for being a pastor is that they rule their house. We know that those are things that would apply unto men.
You say why do these women become preachers in spite of what scripture says. Here's what I was told by one of these liberal churches where a woman was doing the preaching and a woman was pastoring. Here's what they said. Go back to 1 Corinthians 14 so you can understand their bizarre logic and I'm just going to prove to you that it's false. In 1 Corinthians 14, and by the way, I thought to myself maybe this verse has been changed in the modern versions. I was wondering, how do they get around this? I was thinking maybe this verse has been changed in the modern version. I looked this verse up in all the modern versions and it says the same thing as the King James.
They all say the same thing. They word it a little different, but in essence, they're saying the same thing. Here's how they get around it. It says in 1 Corinthians 14:34, "Let your women keep silence in the churches for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience as also sayeth the law." Here's what they say, "Well see the reason why they had to keep silence because that was the law at that time, like basically that the secular world had a law at that time that said, hey, women aren't allowed to speak in assemblies and they were just being told, hey we need to follow that secular law. That was never one of God's law, never the Bible's law."
Wait a minute. First of all, when the Bible says they are commanded to be under obedience as also sayeth the law, he's not talking about the law of Corinth. He's not talking about the law of Greece. He's talking about God's law, saying also the law because the Bible calls the Old Testament the law. Let's for a moment pretend, let's go into la la fantasy land and pretend that there really way a law like that. Notice what it says at the end there of verse 34, "As also sayeth the law." So he's not saying they're supposed to be silent because that's what the law says. He says, "No, no, no, they're supposed to be silent in the church and the law also teaches that." In addition to what? What he's teaching right now.
Not only that, but we have 1 Timothy 2, we have two clear witnesses, 1 Timothy 2, 1 Corinthians 14, both clearly saying the same thing, so we know that it means what it says. It says what it means. Go to Revelation 2 and look at verse 18, Revelation 2:18, "And unto the angel of the church and Thyatira right, these things things sayeth the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire and his feet are like fine brass. I know thy works and charity and service and faith and thy patience and thy works and the last to be more than the first, notwithstanding I have a few things against thee because thous sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols and I gave her space to repent of her fornication and she repented" on out.
In the church of Thyatira, there was a women teaching and she was teaching a lot of wicked things. She was teaching it's okay to commit fornication. You say no one would ever teach that. There are churches today that teach that. There are churches today that say that fornication is okay because they say, "Well, in the new versions, it actually just says," I don't even like to use the word, it says immorality instead of saying fornication. They say, "Well, you know, that could just mean you don't love each other." There are religions out there and churches out there that teach it's okay to commit fornication.
This woman is teaching it's okay to teach fornication and she's teaching it's okay to eat things sacrificed unto idols. Obviously, that was the colossal problem. She's teaching these wicked things, but I cannot help but notice the exact similarity and working between verse 20 and what was said in 1 Timothy 2 because notice what it says. It says, "Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess to teach." That phrase, "Which calleth herself a prophetess" skip over that just for one second and it would basically say, "Thou sufferest that woman Jezebel to teach." That's the sentence. "Which calleth herself a prophetess" is like a little parenthetical statement thrown in there, just telling you what she calls herself, a prophetess. It says, "Thou sufferest that woman Jezebel to teach." What did Paul say, "I suffer not a woman to teach." Do you think that's a coincidence?
In 1 Timothy 2, he says, "I suffer not a woman to teach" and then he says, "I have something against you. You suffer this woman to teach" and then it talks about the bad things that she was teaching. You say, "Well, but what if there was a woman and she's teaching good things?" He just said, "I suffer not a woman to teach." In the church, they should not be teaching or preaching, they should not be pastors. That's the negative aspect of the sermon.
Now let's look at the positive side of the sermon. Go to Acts 2. When I say that I'm against woman preachers, what I'm saying is that women should not stand up in the church and preach a sermon. They should not stand up in the church and teach the Bible. In fact, I don't believe that they should be teaching the Bible to men in any situation. They should not usurp authority over the man and teach man. They shouldn't speak in the church. They shouldn't preach in the church. They should learn in silence. That's pretty clear. That's what we mean when we say that we're against women preachers. I am against Joyce Meyer today. She needs to sit down and shut up and let a man do the preaching. That is what the Bible says.
Another problem with Joyce Meyer and this is indicative of everything about her character is that she has short hair and the Bible says that it is a shame for a man to have long hair, but if a woman have long hair, it is a glory unto her for her hair is given her for a covering and the he says that any woman who prays or prophesies having her head uncovered, meaning short hair, dishonors her head. The Bible clearly states that men should have short hair, ladies should have long hair and it speaks volumes about you when you're a man who has long hair or when you're a woman who has short hair. It says something about who you are.
You say, "I'm not like that." Well then don't send the wrong message with your hair because it does send a message. When you see a woman with short hair, it gives off an heir of I am a bossy woman. I just wanted to use the word bossy because I saw something in the news about somebody saying we shouldn't use the word bossy, so it just makes me want to use it more. A woman with short hair says I'm not in subjection to my husband. You say, "Wait a minute, that's not the message I want to send." Then don't have short hair because the Bible says it dishonors your head, dishonors your husband when you have short hair. That's another problem.
Isn't it interesting that a woman who's getting up and usurping the authority of a man, usurping the position of a man as being a preacher of God's word, isn't it interesting that she also has short hair. It kind of makes sense doesn't it. Let's see a positive side. What type preaching should women be doing? In reality, this might surprise you, but there is a type of preaching that women should be doing and a few different types of teaching and preaching that women should be doing biblically. We know it's not in the church, though. Are we agreed upon that? We know that the preaching or speaking or prophesying that they do should not be during the learning time, during the preaching time, during the time of the service, but what type of preaching should they do?
In Acts 2, let me give you a little background. In Acts 2 this is the Day of Pentecost where they're all with one accord in one place. They're all assembled together and the Bible makes it clear when it talks about the 120 disciples of that early church that they were both men and women there. The Bible talks about the fact that they go out and they are preaching God's word in the streets of Jerusalem to the devout men and women that have gathered from all over the world for the feat of Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks. They've all come there and they are being preached to by the disciples. When they are preaching to them, the Bible says that they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance. It lists 17 foreign languages that they spake. They weren't talking in a language that no one understood. This wasn't a heavenly language.
They're speaking foreign languages and the people who had gathered from all over the world, they said, "We do hear them speak, every man in our own tongue. We're hearing God's word in the language wherein we were born." They were amazed at that. A hundred and twenty people were giving the gospel in the streets to thousands of people who had gathered to hear. A lot of people are mistaken and they say Peter preached and 3,000 people got saved. That's not what happened in Acts 2. A hundred and twenty people preached and 3,000 people got saved and it was men and women that did the preaching here.
I'll prove it to you. You say, "I don't think the women were preaching the gospel under these people that were gathered." Let me prove to you that they were. It says in Acts 2:16, "But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." He's saying this is a fulfillment of the prophecy found in the book of Joel "And it shall come to pass" verse 17 "In the last days sayeth God I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh and your sons" and your what?
Church: Daughters.
Pastor: "Daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams and on my servants and on my handmaidens," another feminine term there, "Handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my spirit and they shall prophesy." You say, "Wait a minute, I'm confused Pastor Anderson. In 1 Corinthians 14, he said, "Women should not speak in the church. In 1 Timothy 2, it said they should keep silence in the church. It's not permitted unto them to speak. Now all of a sudden God's spirit is coming upon ladies that are prophesying, handmaidens and daughters that are prophesying." Here's the difference. This is not pastoring. This is not preaching in the church. This is soul winning is what's happening. Soul winning and I strongly encourage every lady to be involved in soul winning. There are some churches where the ladies don't do any of the soul winning. It's only the man that do the soul winning. I strongly believe that the ladies should also be involved in the soul winning of the church.
Go if you would to Philippians 2. Let me show you another example of this. You see if we look at the biblical definition of the word preaching or the biblical definition of the word prophesying, and by the way, those two words are used interchangeably in the Bible, they both pretty mean the same thing. When you're preaching God's word, you're proclaiming God's word, usually unto the lost. When you're prophesying, you're also proclaiming the word of God. A lot of people wrongly think that prophesying is a prediction of the future. Often when we preach the Bible, there are predictions about the future, but prophesying, I'll prove it to you in a little bit, that prophesying does not always mean predicting the future. It just means any time you're preaching God's word, even if there is no prediction of future events involved.
In Philippians 2, let me turn there, this is the Apostle Paul speaking. I'm sorry, I said chapter 2, it's chapter 4, Philippians changer 4. It says in verse 2, "I beseech Euodia and I beseech Syntyche that they be of the same mind in the Lord and I intreat thee also true yolk fellow help those women which labored with me in the gospel and Clement also and with other my fellow laborers whose names are in the Book of Life." Notice he said, "Help the women which labored with me in the gospel." He didn't say the women which labor with me in the kitchen. He didn't say the women which labor with me in the nursery. He said, "The women which labor with me in the gospel." You see, women today have a part and they have a stake in winning souls to Jesus Christ and in preaching the gospel to the lost and when the Bible says, "Go ye therefore and preach the gospel to every creature," that's a command to men and women. That's a command to boy and girl.
Women today should be involved in soul winning. A lot of churches, they teach, hey, women don't need to do any soul winning. I understand that men and women often have different lifestyles and often women are highly pregnant or they're the weaker vessel. A lot of times, women are not going to spend as much time out there in the heat and so forth, but honestly, I do not believe it's right for women to just completely abstain from soul winning. I think women need to be out doing some soul winning because I think it's just part of the Christian life.
By the way, door to door soul winning I believe is the most effective way to be a soul winner, by far. Being out, knocking the doors in the highways and hedges, compelling them to come in, going out and preaching the gospel to the lost, but let me say this. There are also other opportunities in our lives to preach the gospel. We come into contact with people all the... I know that my wife comes into contact with a lot of lost people just through the course of different home school groups, just through the course of being involved with different food co-ops. We have a lot of lost people that we come into contact with. Both she and I need to be preaching the gospel to those people.
I don't think it's wrong for her take the Bible outside of the church setting and preach the gospel unto a man or a woman, to just open the Bible and preach the gospel unto the lost. You say, "I want to be a woman preacher." Great. Come to Faithful Word Baptist Church, be silent during the preaching and then go out and preach the gospel to the lost and there are other ladies in our church who love soul winning. I thank God that from the time our churches started until now, we've always been a church that had a lot of ladies who love to go soul winning. I love that about our church. I love the fact that our church is not just men who go soul winning, that there are so many ladies in our church that do a lot of great soul winning and they do a great job out door to door soul winning and also when visitors come and they're not saved, a lot of ladies in our church will approach visitors, open the Bible, give them the guide.
Praise the Lord for a woman that will give the gospel to a visitor when the service has ended. Praise the Lord for a woman who will go out with another lady and knock doors and preach the gospel. Praise the Lord for ladies that will give the gospel to those with whom they come into contact, maybe at the park when they have the kids playing at the park or maybe when they're at a food co-op, maybe at the grocery store, people that they come into contact with through the piano lesson, through whatever, science class for the home schoolers or whatever. Hey, we need ladies upon whom the spirit of God will come and they will preach the gospel to the lost, but we don't need a female preacher.
I don't know what else to tell you if you can't see the difference. There's a big difference between a woman getting behind this pulpit and leading our church or preaching a sermon to our church or teaching the Bible to our church. There's a big different between that and a woman going out and being a soul winner and preaching the gospel. Look, a woman who goes out and is a soul winner, she's following the model of the book of Acts. You say, "Well just because they did it." Peter said unto the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, he said that that was a fulfillment of what God preached in the book of Joel and he said his spirit came upon them and they preached in Acts 2.
What other type of preaching should women do? Go to Proverbs 31. This is the chapter of the virtuous woman, Proverbs 31. First of all, we started out by saying that women should not be pastors, they should not be preaching the Bible in the sense of getting up in front of a crowd, getting of a crown, getting up in front of a congregation, getting up on TV and preaching Bible, but then we show that one area where they should definitely be involved in preaching is soul winning. That's an area where God has called them to be used to win souls.
By the way, there's a famous woman teacher, author named Gail Riplinger and she's done a lot of study on the King James Bible. I have to say this. A lot of her materials on the King James Bible are very interesting and very informative. A lot of her stuff on the King James Bible is complete fraud and complete lies. I'm sorry to burst your bubble. I have some of her books and I've read some of her books and, like I said, I liked a lot of stuff in her books, but you know what, a lot of it is just downright fraudulent and it's just a lie. I don't know what else to tell you.
Here's the thing. A lot of Baptist churches will have her come and teach on the King James Bible in the church. Look, just because she's fundamental Baptist, just because she's King James only, it's not right for her to get up and preach in a Baptist church or to teach in an Baptist church or to give you a seminar. It's like you find another way to package it. "Well, she's not really preaching. She's not really teaching. She's just giving a seminar." If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck and she should not be getting up and preaching God's word in any church or teaching or giving a seminar or anything. A man should be teaching on that subject of the King James Bible.
Let me tell you some of the things that are fraudulent about her materials. I just want to be honest with you. In her book, she gives all these quotes from Westcott and Hort and she gives quotes from a lot of people that are behind the modern versions and there's no question about it. The modern versions are ungodly and these men Westcott and Hort were wicked men. They were used of the devil to corrupt scripture, but she'll literally have a quote from these guys with about ellipses in a single sentence. She'll have a quote... I don't know if you understand what I mean, but it'll have like two words, dot, dot, dot, one word, dot, dot, dot, three words, dot, dot, dot, two words. It's like she's making her own quote that they never even said by just cutting out huge chunks of what they said and just making these quotes. I went and looked up those original quotes and they were not saying what she said they were saying.
She said, by the way, and this is when I really realized, wow, this woman's materials have a lot of false information in them. I don't have it in the pulpit. The Greek New Testament put out by the Trinitarian Bible Society, okay, she claims, and by the way that Greek New Testament put out by the Trinitarian Bible Society is the exact Greek underlying the King James New Testament. It has two typos in it. One of them is that they forgot to put the amen at book of Ephesians. That one was pretty easy to fix because I just took out my pen and just wrote amen. Then another place they accidentally put the Lord instead of Got, the word of the Lord instead of the word of God. Didn't even change the meaning, between the word of the Lord and the word of God. That was a typo. It was a mistake. Then they forgot the amen.
She claimed in her book Hazardous Materials that that Trinitarian Bible Society Greek New Testament had 54 discrepancies between the King James and that Greek New Testament. I looked up all 54 of them, 52 of them were not legitimate, 52 of them did not exist and they were made up. I guess she just doesn't think that anybody's going to go and do the homework and figure it out. Look, I appreciate her being King James only, but it doesn't really help when she has things like that out there that say, "Oh, there's 54 differences between this Greek New Testament and the English King James Version and you look it up and 52 of them are ridiculous. Fifty-two of them are just spellings. Some of them just seemed like she's fabricating them out of thin air. I don't know where she's even getting them.
I was being honest as I went thought the 54 and I said two of these are legitimate, the missing amen at the end of Ephesians and you know why there's a missing amen? Because in that 1611 edition, they forgot the amen at the end of Ephesians and so the Trinitarian Bible Society New Testament repeats that same error. That King James 1611 edition, just because it has typos in it doesn't mean it's not the word of God and just because the Trinitarian Bible Society Greek New Testament textus receptis has two typos in it, you can't, "That book's a fraud." It has two typos in it" that don't even change any meaning whatsoever. Beware of her materials. If you want to look at her materials, just be sure you fact check what's in those materials and when you see a quote that has a bunch of ellipses in it, where things are being removed from that quote. You could make me say whatever you wanted just by taking one word that I say, skip the next ten I say, dot, dot, dot. You could make me pretty much say whatever you want me to say.
I could say, "Satan was cast out of Heaven for wanting to be God. He is not God." You could just take that and say, "Satan, dot, dot, dot, is, dot, dot, dot, God." Look what he's teaching. That's the kind of stupidity that you'll find in some of these books. Here's the thing. We don't need a woman teacher anyway because we need to have a man preaching that and teaching that anyway. I just wanted to say that about that just to let you know where I stand on that.
Does the mean that we don't women? No. Does it mean that women don't have a great role to perform? Look, in many ways the job that ladies perform in this world in many ways is more important than men. Have you ever heard this saying? The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Ladies have such a critical important job of raising the children. They're raising the next generation of preachers. They're raising the men of God that will pastor and be bishops and elders. They have an important job and if you think about it, while you're out plumbing all day, while you're out doing electrical all day, while you're out landscaping all day, in may ways, wives have a more meaningful job because they're investing in those young lives and they're like, "I'm changing poopy diapers and cooking and cleaning." At least they are spending time shaping and molding the next generation. They have a very important job.
You know what? It's a respectable job and that's why the Bible says we should give honor unto our wives as unto the weaker vessel. We should honor her. Why? Because it's honorable to be a housewife. It's honorable to be a mother. It's honorable to be a lady and when we open the door for ladies and we treat them with courtesy and respect, we understand that they're valuable to unto us, but that does not change scriptural teaching about authority and about roles in society. You know, I don't have my wife walking 20 steps behind me in a Burka and treat her in a disrespectful manner, but I still do rule over my wife, but I rule over her in a loving way. I nourish and cherish her. I love, I adore my wife. I respect her. I think she's a Godly and virtuous woman, but wait a minute. She's not the boss in the home. Who wants her to preach this Wednesday night. I'm sure it would be an awesome sermon, but it's not biblical. That's why her way to preach is she writes the sermon is I preach it. I'm kidding. That does not happen.
You know what, I will be honest with you. I have gotten some sermon ideas from my wife. I'd say 90 some percent of them are my idea, but she does sometimes tell me, "Hey, I was reading this in the Bible. It's a great idea" and I'll run with it. I'll do it. The Bible teaches very clearly that, yes, women do have a preaching role when it comes to the gospel, when it comes to soul winning, when it comes to evangelizing the lost. They have an important role. Not only that, look at Proverbs 31:1. I told you I was going to prove to you that prophesying isn't always predicting the future. Look at Proverbs 31:1, "The word of King Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him." This chapter Proverbs 31 is teaching that Solomon received, Lemuel received, but it's probably name for Solomon, maybe a nickname for Solomon, but whoever Lemuel is, it's a teaching that he received from his mother and it's called the prophecy that his mother taught him.
Is there any prediction of future events in this chapter? No, it's just teaching of God's word and so it is important that ladies teach their children the word of God. Is it their job to teach the word of God in church. Is it their job to sit down grown men and teach them the word of God? No. Is it their job to be the pastor? No. Soul winning, yes and teaching the Bible to the children, yes. My wife on a daily basis reads the Bible unto the children. She sits them down, lines them up and reads them the Bible and often in addition to just reading the scripture, she will expound the scripture unto the children. I'll often do the same thing. I'll read the Bible out loud to them and if I come to something where I feel like they need to learn this truth, then I will expound it to them and preach it to them and she'll do the same thing and that is very biblical. In the home, does it say women keep silence in the home? It says women keep silence in the churches.
Then it says as we go on here in Proverbs 31, the words of King Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him, "What my son and what the son of my womb and what the son of my vows give not thy strength unto women nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings. It is not for kings on Lemuel, it is not for kinds to drink wine nor for princes strong drink." She's teaching her son the dangers of alcohol. She warns him of the dangers of alcohol and then she goes on to describe to him what he should look for in a wife, how to find a virtuous woman. These are good types of things for a mother to teach her children.
Let's turn to one more scripture tonight. Let's got to Titus 2, last place we're going to turn, Titus 2. The title of the sermon tonight is Woman Preachers. Are they bad? Well, when it comes to being a pastor or being behind the pulpit in the church, yes. In a word, yes, but when it comes to soul winning and one on one teaching of other ladies and teaching children, it's a very Godly and righteous thing. You say, "I'm just a woman and I have a burning desire to teach." You know what? That harvest truly is plentiest, but the laborers are few. "I just want to teach God's word." You know what, you go knock those doors and you teach God's word and you can teach people how to be saved, you can teach them about baptism, teach them why they should come to church and disciple them and help them, but you got to keep this within the bounds that the scriptures have set for us. "I just really want to teach."
I was speaking at the college a few weeks ago, the South Mountain Community College and I was teaching about the difference in roles between me and women. It turned out my next door neighbor was the one who ran this club at South Mountain College and so I was invited to speak in this lunch time club and he said, "I want you to speak on the roles of men and women" because he said, "I liked it when you taught on that in the class." He's my next door neighbor and he invited me to speak there. So I spoke and as I was speaking, this woman said, I say woman, she was a very young woman. These are young people. It's a junior college, so 18, 19 years old. She said, "But I've just wanted to teach my whole life. I just wanted to be a teacher. She wants to have a career and be a teacher."
I said, "You know what? If you get married and have children you're going to be a teacher, especially if you home school, which I believe that you should. My wife's a teacher." She's like, "Yeah, but I never wanted to be a teacher." This girl's like, "I wanted to be a teacher my whole life." I'm not trying to destroy your dream, okay? Teach your children and I told that to her. As I preached the word of God and I showed all these scriptures and I talked because this girl said she was a Christian. I asked her, I said, "What is a Godly Christian young man came along and he just wanted to marry you and he said, "I want you to quit college and not be a teacher and I want you just be my wife and stay home and raise the kids, would you take him up on that." She said, "Yes, I would, in a heartbeat. "
The whole class burst out laughing. She just finished telling us how it's all about the career. It's all about this. Deep down, she would love to have somebody pay all the bills. She would love to be able to stay home. I said, "Look, teach your children." You always talk about smaller class sizes. It's a smaller class size. Our class size isn't that small. We have seven and one on the way. You can really be a teacher. "Yeah, I always wanted to be a cook." Well, you know. I don't think any woman said, "I always wanted to clean bathrooms." Well, you can do that. We're not going to kill your dream. I'm just joking.
Being a mother, being a wife, being a homemaker, obviously there is some aspects to it that are a little bit of a menial task of cleaning, maybe cooking some of the same things over and over, but there are a lot of parts of it that are just really fulfilling and really interesting and just teaching your children and spending time with your children and cooking can be fun. You can cook a lot of nice meals and so forth. What does the Bible say in Titus 2:3? It says, "The aged women likewise that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things." By the way, when we think if drunkedness, we often think of men, but a lot of times women are drunkards as well. This is something that men and women need to be aware of alcohol, both need to be aware of alcohol. It says, "Not given to much wine.
Teachers of good things that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discrete, chaste keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands that the word of God be not blasphemed." These are the type of the things that the ladies in the church that are older or more experienced should teach under the ladies that are a little bit younger and inexperienced. What are they teaching? Are they expounding to them necessarily that the Greek text underlying the King James Version of the Bible or are they expounding unto them the intricacies of Bible prophecy or are they teaching them to be good wives, to be good mothers, to love their husbands, to love their children? By the way, if you're smart, ladies, you should learn things from my wife because there are a lot of things that my wife knows a lot about and there are other ladies in our church, too, that have a lot of wisdom about different areas of life and instead of going to the world, you should try to learn things from the ladies in this church.
There are a lot of Godly ladies in our church to learn soul winning from, to learn cooking from, to learn just being a wife and just being a mother and just to learn things from. The Bible says that the aged women and I'm not saying you're aged honey. I know your birthday's coming up Tuesday, but you're still very young, but I'm saying there are a lot of things that ladies should just teach unto other ladies by example and even just giving advice and saying, "Let me help you be a better wife. Let me help you be a better mother. Let me help you understand how to cook or how to manage the chores. Hey, let me help you with home schooling." Some women are a little bit daunted by the idea of home schooling and maybe they don't know where to begin and other ladies can provide wisdom and guidance on that. It's not that we want women today to just be completely ignorant and they don't have anything to say, they don't have anything to teach, they don't have anything to bring to the table.
That's not what we're saying at all. They can be used mightily of God in soul winning. They can be used mightily of God to raise children and to raise the next generation of preachers They can be used mightily of God to be a Godly influence on women in the church who maybe haven't been saved as long, don't have as much experience in marriage, don't have as much experience in parenting. They can be used greatly of God. They have every bit as much value as men, but they are not men and men are not women. We need to stop giving into our society's bizarre tendency to try to get men to act like women and to try to get women to act like men and there needs to be a difference today between the two.
We need to stop confounding men and women and our society has just blurred the lines and the queers are out of the closet and it's just you have men who act like women, women who act like men and hey, there's no difference. Who here thinks I'm the strongest man in the world? I'm not, not even close. Wait a minute, no woman can beat me at arm wrestling and I'll issue the challenge that I've issued over and over again. I challenge any woman to come up here right now and arm wrestle me and I will win. I said that at South Mountain College. I had a few women come up and challenge me. At South Mountain, they take me up on it. I've had two women take me up on it here at church and they went down. When I was at South Mountain, usually every time I issue that challenge, one or two girls will take me up on it and it's easy.
It's like taking candy from a baby. This guy, last time I was there, he said, "I know a woman that can beat you. I'm going to call her right now." I said, "Is she taking steroids?" He said, "No." I said, "Then call her. I'll beat her." If she's on steroids, all bets are off. If she's taking male hormones. If she's taking testosterone and she's turning herself into more of a male type anatomy, but I said if she's a woman and she's not on steroids, I don't care. Call her up. Bring her down. Come on down. You're going down. She never showed. You say, well, I guess we'll never know. No, I already know. I already know what the outcome would have been.
Anyway, I'm just saying, again, I'm not trying to be down, I'm just saying I could beat any woman at arm wrestling that's here tonight because of the simple fact that men are just a long stronger than women when it comes to upper body strength. Lower body strength, there's not as big of a disparity between the strength of men and women, but when it comes to upper body strength, men have much more upper body strength. That is just a difference right there. There are things that women are better at. There are things that men are better at. There are tests of recognizing 3D images and turning them in space and it's just a fact that men do better at that test of manipulating a 3D object in space.
There was a Harvard study that came out that said that men were better at math and science. You kind of see that in high school, that men more gravitate towards those things. Then there are a lot of other things that women are better at. For example, I was just reading a book this week and it talked about how women are much better at reading body language. Women can read people. Men, we're kind of like, a lot of stuff's just going over our head of what people are really thinking. We're not as observant, but saying women can observe intricacies in body language, so a lot of times women, they're better at telling when the kids are lying.
When you study body language there are certain mannerisms that people do when they're lying, certain things that will happen with their eyes. I don't want to give away all the tricks, because I want to know when you're lying. There are certain things that will change. It said that women are much more perceptive of that body language. They're much more observant of things so they can read people better and read the signals and they are better at telling who's telling the truth and who's not in some cases because they can read those signals. They can just get the hint about this, that or the other from people's body language.
You've heard of a mother's intuition. Moms can figure out when the kids are up to no good. Sometimes it's a little easier to pull the wool over dad's eyes. It's not that men are better than women, but they have different strengths and weaknesses. They have different skills and different roles and we're going to all be a lot happier if we're in the roles that God made for us and whether it makes us happy or not, it's what the Bible says. We just need to obey it. We just need to live by it and not question and say, "Well, why can't women preach. What about Deborah? What about this? What about that?"
I think it's funny when people are like, "What about preachers like Esther and Ruth." Hello? Have you read Esther and Ruth. They weren't preachers. Esther was just a woman who was one of the kings many wives and talked to her husband said, "Save my people." Ruth didn't do any preaching. Ruth was one who just, it was a love story in the book of Ruth. It's a story about a woman who was faithful to her mother in law and stayed with her and she switched from the Gods of Moab to worship the true and living God. It's a story about a woman being saved.
It's a story about a woman being faithful to her mother in law. It's a story about a woman finding a husband and having a child and raising up a Godly child that would be in the lineage of David and be in the lineage of Jesus Christ, but people just throw that out there. True, Deborah was a prophetess, but we've already shown what is appropriate prophesying for women. By the way, you won't find Deborah being a leader of man. Deborah takes one man aside, Barak and says, "You need to go out and do this. You need to go out and preach." People would come to her privately for counsel.
They would come to her and get her judgment on things and she was judging the people, but she wasn't standing up and preaching to the congregation and rallying the troops. She wasn't Joan of Arc in men's clothes leading troops into battle. She was one that spoke unto Barak and said, "God's called you to go." He said, "I'll only go if you go with me." She rebuked him for his cowardess and said, "Now the victory is going to go to the hand of woman because you wouldn't do it alone because you're leaning on me to do it." She didn't even want to lead. She wanted Barak to lead and I will not pronounce it Barak. She wanted Barak to lead. She told him to lead. He didn't have the guts and she rebuked him for that and Jael was the one who got the glory, not even Deborah. It was Jael, the woman who assassinate Sisera in his sleep.
We can sit there and pull out stories from the old testament and scriptures from the old testament and say what about this and what about that, but look. We both saw it. It was crystal clear. 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2 in the New Testament, God made it really clear what's expected in the church. Let's just accept it. Let's just believe it. I love being a man and women ought to love being women. I think if we were to ask the women in here, would you prefer to be a man, I don't think they'd say yes. They don't want to be a man just like we don't want to be women. Lets not let society make us feminine as men or masculine as women. Let's just be who God made us to be.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father we thank you so much for your word, Lord and we thank you for loving us for creating us differently. I thank God that you've created us male and female and also that you've created us all with different talents and abilities and we all have different skills and we're all used in a special way by you to do the specific jobs that you've ordained us to do. Lord help us to do those jobs to the best of our ability and to serve you with all our heart and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
