1 Timothy lesson 14 start

Alright, we are in lesson 14 of the Timothy class. I guess we've been parsing and doing little chunks of chapter 2. And I always think it's good to kind of get a reference. Many times we focus so much on this one little piece and we sometimes lose how that fits in with the rest of the chapter or even the epistle itself. So I want to go through and I'm just going to read, it shouldn't take us long, I just want to read beginning at verse 1 and going through verse 15 of 1st Timothy. I just want to do it to frame where we're at, put this whole section together, because I think it's important, because it's, we'll ask the question at the end of this. So, first of all, and this is the beginning of verse 1 of 1st Timothy, chapter 2.

First of all, then, I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority. so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth. For there is one God and one mediator, also between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed, a preacher and an apostle, I'm telling the truth, I'm not lying, as a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Therefore, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and dissension.

Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garment. but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women, making a claim to godliness. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.

For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.

So again, these are, if you remember, Timothy and Titus were Paul's epistles to Timothy, who was in charge of the church at Ephesus, and Titus was at the church in Crete. So these are what we reference as pastoral epistles. And what does that mean? That means that he's giving Timothy and Titus guidance on how to basically run or organize or carry on with the churches both in Ephesus and Asia Minor for Timothy. and for Titus and Crete. So these are pastoral. These are things that, again, how does the church run? How does the body function? How do you set up, like in Titus, elders, beacons, and different things like that. So these are pastoral. And so, questions I have just reading the whole section.

First of all, are these verses dealing with unbelievers? No. No. Second, do these verses deal with salvation, typically? No. No. What is generally being brought out by these verses? Order. order, how to run things, how you run the church in Ephesus. So again, it's really, we see at the beginning, what is God's desire for everyone, that's it, everyone should come to know the Lord, how believers relate in the world, and order in the body or the church.

So that's what this whole section is dealing with. So it's not about salvation, which I think is important because when we get into some of these difficult verses, Coming out of the Brethren, these were very difficult verses when you combine them with others. Was it culturally only for that time? Was it for all time in the organization of the church? There are several things that have got to be quite a bit of discussion on all these things. But the key, and I think JD may have brought it out a few weeks ago too, that these are not about salvation. So this isn't about salvation, this is about order.

How does the church run? How does it function? How did Paul envision the churches in Ephesus in Asia Minor? For Timothy, how do you run it? How does this look when the church is now growing? How does it function? You now have a growing body of believers. How does that work?

It's just like anything. If you start, I'm finding this out actually now with, I'm starting a new company. I've always been by myself, well actually for the last 20, some odd years, 25 years, by myself. Easy. Now I've got a partner. Well, just adding one partner created a whole level of different organization for me.

So think of now the church starting in Ephesus and the body starting to grow. They're operational things that have to be brought out so it functions. This is a whole new thing. Because before it was the synagogue and all the Jewish leaders. You don't have that central synagogue or Jewish leadership. Now it's individuals. Now it's bodies that are set up in all the different regions. How does that function? This is what Paul is getting at in these verses. How does this function? How do you do this?

How do you maintain order now? The Jewish was very organized, very ordered. Now you don't have an order. local men who are now becoming elders. What does that mean even? What does that mean? What is their authority? All these things, if you put it into perspective of what's going on right now, this is all new to them. And they don't know what to do, basically. So Paul is giving them guidance on, now, this is how it functions.

So again, some of these are somewhat difficult, especially in today's society, when you read it, how it can be offensive or be a challenge. But we've been through several of the challenging ones. We still have a few today. So, let's get to the questions. That's kind of as a framework. I read this because, again, this is organizational. This is how Paul envisioned the church in Ephesus in Asia Minor to function.

And the verses we're really covering today are 14 and 15. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. But the woman will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity and with self-restraint. And we'll get into some of the, actually the words are important here and how they're translated. Finding the differences between the NASB and the King James, actually you'll see some differences, I think are kind of interesting, and we'll actually come up with the reasoning or how you interpret the verses. So, what is the reason for the above position of the man in the church and that of the woman? So the position is expressed in a couple sections of the passage.

In verse 8, therefore I want the men in every place to pray. So it starts out with men. Well, first we talked about all men should know, and he's putting out the call to all men to come to know the Lord. That's in the first section. Then he gets, after it's available to everybody, He then says, therefore, okay, so this truth is done, that God is available to anybody and everybody, and God's desire is that everybody comes to know the Lord. And then he goes, therefore, I want men in every place to pray.

Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing. And again, somewhat in verse 12, but I do not allow the woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. So, what does Paul then state is the foundational reason for these instructions? Why does he say, begin with men, pray, and then I want women to adorn themselves and the other stuff, and then not to teach or have authority over a man? What is it? We see it a little bit here in these verses, but why is this order? Why is he laying it out this way? What is the basis for it? Isn't it just the basis of creation? Go ahead.

Adam had dominion, but the woman was deceived. But Adam came out in great grace and said, Eve, the mother of all living. You're getting a lot of the topics, yes. Yeah. I think it's a simple answer is verse 13, for it was Adam who was first created and then Eve. That's my answer. For it was Adam who was created first and then Eve.

So it was, again, organizational. Remember, that's why my whole spiel on this, it's organizational. We're talking about the church and the organization. What was the very first thing? God created man and then he created Eve. And then you take a look at what God had Adam do before Eve shows up, like naming animals. It was his environment, and he was in charge of it, and he was given the responsibility to say, well, that's a tiger, and that's a worm, and that kind of stuff. he was put in a position by God to be, this was a creation that was designed specifically for him. Yeah, and he was the one who laid out the order, he was the one.

I still go back to, I still don't understand this at all, and it just is an amazement to me, is the fact that Adam's with God by himself. And walking day by day with him. It's not enough. And then it's not enough. Yeah. What do you mean? What do you mean? I still don't understand that. You're walking with the God of the universe, and yet it's not enough. But he realized that they were too different. They were not the same.

And that there had to be somebody that would be like him to complement and fulfill him. So I think that's why when you get down to Paul's epistles, you find out that Paul's whole thrust is to teach believers that they have been elevated from a creation standpoint to now have access and fellowship with the God of the universe.

Adam wasn't in that position. I don't know how to say it, it's almost like your dog. You love your dog and he's great and he's right beside you and everything, but he's not the same. And it's kind of with God and man at that point. They were together, but they weren't the same. Or another example would be like yourself and say your 10-year-old son. We're the same, but we're not on the same level.

So this all falls back, again, to order. That's why the whole order thing. We now go back to the beginning of this with Adam and Eve. Adam came first. It said he was in charge of naming everything. He walked with the Lord, did everything. How long was that?

I don't know. But then ultimately, God says, you need a helpmate. I'm going to fulfill you with a woman. One thought. Adam is not absolved of guilt in the fall here. We're going to get to that. But go ahead and read it. I won't spoil. Well, I can spoil a little bit, too. I love how Adam's first thing is, well, you gave me the woman. Yeah. And shit, it was her. He's got a lot of shoulder to carry. You guys have never been guilty of that. No, we're going to get to that. Yeah, that's cool. But there is a difference, which we'll see in the questions coming up on the words and what it means on being deceived. And there is a difference, actually. And it does put more, actually, onto Eve a little bit. Yeah.

It seems like that all of the other beings that God created all were male and female. that they could reproduce, but Adam didn't have anybody to reproduce with. Yeah, well, but that was kind of in the vein of you need somebody to fulfill you. I mean, again, I still can't reconcile that in my brain, that it wasn't enough to be walking around in the garden with God every day, and then suddenly like, I need somebody. You have to scream, it's not good for man to be alone.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I know. But that's what God says. So he knew, obviously, he created Adam. Sure. And so he knew his need. And he knew what was going to transpire anyway. But it was like, I think he needed, that's another thing, just thinking about it. Did he need Adam just to be there alone with God for him to suddenly realize that he needed, it wasn't good for him to be alone? He wouldn't have failed without you. No, I don't think so. Yeah, I think ultimately he would. Ultimately, he wouldn't. Yeah, he's cut out of the same material. Yeah. So, question two.

Adam was not deceived, apeteo. Eve was deceived, extapeteo. What's the difference in these two words? So, it's a little Greeky-geeky thing, but it really does make a difference in how you interpret these verses. This comes from verse 14, and it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. You kind of get that. I think this is kind of the pointy part. It was her, but there are differences in these words, which isn't very important.

The translations are also different too. The NSAB has a translation for Adam and Eve as deceived. However, in the Greek, there are two different words that have two different meanings. So the first deceived in the translation, apoteo, is to cheat, deceive, or beguile. So, the second instance of the word is ex-epiteo, to completely or thoroughly deceive. So, it's kind of like levels of deceit. You know, you were deceived.

Somebody said something and you believed it. Okay. But the person who first did it was completely deceived. They were wrong. And now they're trying to pass it on to you. That's a different thing. fell and was deceived, completely deceived. And then she goes, hey Adam, come here. And then he's like, oh, okay. He was deceived. It wasn't completely based on what Eve had done. He's now just falling too. Here's Eve, and she's telling me this, oh wow, okay, and he was deceived by it. Again, it's kind of the elevation of the two. Eve was completely deceived and fell, and then she brings it to Adam, and he listens to her and is deceived.

So it's kind of a harsher, if you can say, deception, is what Eve did. to Adam. So it's a little bit of geeky stuff, but it does show a difference that Eve was the one orderly, fell first, and was completely deceived. I would say too that Adam, having been created in the six days of creation and watched what God was doing and given dominion and naming animals and doing all that, Eve wasn't involved in any of that. And so her capacity to be deceived, she didn't have that kind of intimacy with the creator that Adam did and saw what he did, even the fact that he created Eve just for him. I can see Eve being deceived because she doesn't have a full understanding of who Creator God is.

Yeah, somewhat. But how long were Adam and Eve together before they fell? I don't know. Two weeks. Could have been two weeks or millennia. I have a question. Would you think this analogy would apply? Because I've thought somewhat about these verses, but not in depth as today.

It's almost like fishing. Like, there's a fly on the top of the water, you know, and Adam, like, went up and looked at it. He was deceived. He thought it was a real thing. Like, this could be a thing. But Eve took the bait. Yeah. Is that fair to say? Yeah, she took hook, line, and sinker. And when she's on the hook, she hauls Adam over and gets him hooked too. Yeah. Oh yeah, I was just looking back in Genesis 2. This is before Eve was created. It's kind of along the lines of what Mike was saying. God told just Adam before Eve was even created.

And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die. And then in chapter 3, verse 17, after they took the bite, to Adam he said, so God is holding Adam accountable for both of them, because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat of it. Then comes the cursing. So I mean, he still was holding Adam responsible, even though Eve was the one that was deceived. Well, hence why we are, as a human race, condemned because of Adam and what he did. And so it's not that he's scot-free. Like I said, it's two levels of deceit. She was completely deceived. And we'll get into that a little bit further here. understanding of what CME is. How so? Well, that was the fault.

That was, you know, never thought about that. all of our sin is based on them eating of the tree. All of our fall was based on them eating from the tree of knowledge of truth and good neighbor. And I heard a quote from Darby once, he said, sin is the And that was it, it doubted. See men willfully sin.

Say that again. Boy, that's really... It reminds me of when Satan, or the servant, says to Eve, did God really say? Yeah. Yeah. He's actually... Have God said? Yeah. Kind of twisting or making her question God. Right. Right. I have a couple, you know... Quotes actually from these words, actually. Zodiatis has, when you look at Apateo and Exapateo, in the mind of Paul, when Satan directly deals with man, he endeavors to thoroughly deceive.

This Satan did to Eve while she simply deceived her husband in persuading him to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree. So again, the completeness of the deceit to Eve by the serpent. And then, now I'm going to pass this on to my husband. So Kelly has, the man may have been in certain sense worse. He followed the woman in wrong against God, where he ought to have led her in obedience, and he did it knowingly. And she was beguiled outright. He was not.

Her weakness, therefore, and its dangerous effect on man are argued as an additional plea, why she should be in quietness, neither teaching nor ruling, let her own sphere be at home. She was beguiled, so there's some limitation on teaching now, which we've seen. I also saw from Ryrie, Paul is not saying that Adam was blameless, Romans 5, 12 through 21, but that Eve's being deceived and taking leadership from Adam are reasons for women not assuming the office of teacher. This office in the church involved authoritative teaching of doctrine. So I think that was a good, that's why we have the verses we've already said about should a woman teach men? So these are all kind of the result of the fall, and that she was fully beguiled or deceived, and then she passed it on and Adam fell too. So there's a lot of times where people say that full deception is squarely on a woman, which is not true.

Romans 5.12 puts it squarely. on Adam.

Yeah, that's what I was saying. Adam is not blameless. No, he's not. It's through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin. All of that is very difficult to kind of understand. These are hard verses, but he wasn't just this guy that went along.

No. He bought in fully, and it was his ultimate fault. at the end of it No, I mean, and by no means by these two words, they're both deceived. They're both deceived, yeah. And she was completely deceived by the serpent, and then she passes it on, and then he's deceived by, oh, my wife is telling me this, you know? Okay, well, he should have known better.

He had the same command, don't eat from the tree. Now he's listening to Eve going, that's okay. Oh, really? I'm going to listen to you instead of God. So he's every bit as guilty. Even more so, probably. That's what Kelly was saying, that in the end, he may be worse. Definitely, that to be true.

In Genesis 126, God said, let us make man in our own image and likeness. Let him rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky. over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. God created man in his own image, and the image of God he created male and female, he created them." It's interesting that God gave incredible authority to Adam, and when he sinned, he didn't take that authority away from him.

He left that in place for order. Well, maybe I'll ask this question. I said, what are your thoughts with respect to the order Paul lays out here for men and women in the church? What are your thoughts? Legitimate? Questionable? No question about it. No question. Yeah. And in today's society, it's kind of hard to say these things. But it was for order.

And we'll get, I guess, a little bit deeper in these next questions, but it's, you know, the deception is, and remember we're talking about, we've just gotten done with women should not teach men. Well, what was that? It's because of this, what happened in the beginning with Eve completely being deceived and then, quote, teaching the man. and telling him, oh, it's okay, you can eat at that tree. So, the root of the verses ahead of this, and that's why I read the whole section, is because the order that what happened here, that she beguiled him, so now the order that Paul wants is a woman should not teach a man.

Yes. I have an example. This last week, my sister finally cornered did you vote for? And I told her, I said, well, America ain't ready for a woman president. And that was, that was, that was the worst thing I could have said because, but, but I was able to come out and grace with her, you know, I said, You know, I got somebody to pray for now.

Well, we have to put this in perspective, too, in that this is an order within the church. Right. It is not about anything of organization over a nation, a city, whatever. This is within the church. I'm not sure she's a Christian. Yeah, but I mean, it's fine if we have a woman president or anybody as president. It really doesn't matter. We're talking about specific order within the church, not within the country, not within the state, not within the city, not within any of that.

It's within the body of Christ. And at the end of the day, we have to remember that our citizenship is in heaven. So, you can be from anywhere. You know, Miles isn't here this morning, but you can be Canadian. I had to have that conversation with a young Canadian kid when I was up there. That's a little lower status, but that's okay. Miles did not exist. Yeah, our citizenship is in heaven. That's where we belong. And the way that this, we're happy, obviously, because Trump's principles and policies more represent us more than the opposition.

But these verses before this have us pray for all those that are in opposition to those principles as well. And that is a salvation verse. Well, yeah. I mean, it's foresight. That's why I said at the beginning of it is that God desires all men to come to know Christ. So yes, there's salvation in that. But it is right. Again, it's order. It's talking about the first part of this, and that's where we're at. This whole thing is about order.

And what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to pray for our leaders. Yeah. So yes, we are supposed to pray. But that's order. That's general order and the thought that everybody should come to know the Lord. And that's just everything now we're in the body. Now we're in the body.

Yeah. My thought was, to go back to that, we fight not against flesh and blood, but against principality and powers. From the very beginning, as soon as we move away from God's Word, we're in trouble. Oh yeah. We also think, too, and I think some of the things going on today, culturally and all that, they're trying everything they can to pull away from what God's Word is. everything that the world is, is against what we see in Scripture. So we have to maintain this, and that's why Paul laid this all out, it's for order, so we don't fall into what the world is. And I think that's, yeah, I mean, we have to stick to the Word, even though it may be difficult sometimes. And it goes against what the world is doing, and everything is against what the world is going against. So, yeah, good point. All right, what are we on? Question three.

The woman being deceived describes a condition, explains. So this is from verse 14. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. So what is the condition that Eve was in after being deceived? I think she came into possession of a conscience. The sin? Because of the sin. Yeah, so let me ask it another way. What did Eve fall into? Sin, right? What does the verse say? Fourteen. Transgression. She fell into transgression. She fell into transgression. So... Very mean. So... What? Hamartia, a fault, mistake, error, sin. So sin... Received a sin nature. Say it again, sorry. Received a sin nature. She... Didn't have it before. She was innocent. Yeah, so she, well, so we get into words again. So, I would go to, well, we can say the word was ginemi in the perfect tense, which verb when used with n, as it is here, often signifying the coming or falling into a condition.

One could render the expression has fallen into transgression. So that was one, but zodiatis, the word, having placed herself in the state of the transgression. So, she placed herself into transgression. So, first thing is, what does transgression mean? It's an act of sin. What's that? It's the act of sin. Well, it's the violation of the law. It's the act. It's the act.

So, my favorite, who do we go to? Oh, going to the dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Nothing better than Merriam-Webster to figure out what the word is. Is that St. Merriam? Yes, yes. I don't think actually it does, you know, sometimes it has almost biblical references in the definition. So I think, you know, probably when Merriam-Webster was first done, you know, all the words today are probably nowhere near what biblical, but in the old, Merriam-Webster probably was more biblically based. So Mary Webster, before transgression, infringement or violation of a law, command, or duty?

Yeah. I think that's pretty good. See, I think, and that's, you have to make the distinction between that and Amartya, which means to miss the mark. Miss the mark, which is sin. Yeah. So this is the act of transgression. This is the act, not the sin, but this is the act.

She fell into this act of Violating a law, violating a rule. It wasn't a law, it was God's direction. So she fell into this. She willingly went against a rule that God had set up, don't eat of the tree of good and evil. So she fell into transgression. And then we go to Zodiac, it's a word for parabasis, meaning transgression, wrongdoing, or law-breaking. So that's what she fell into. She fell into breaking the law, breaking the rule, breaking what God had said.

There was only one at that time. Just the one thing. See, that's the thing. Our entire human race fell because of one law. One law. And it's like, oh come on, really? There's so much in this. You could point out that this points out that God is wholly unjust. He can't tolerate I gave you one thing to do, and you missed. And so it really says that he can't tolerate that. He can't be in association with that. We now fell out of that communion or that relationship with him because of one thing. Well, that seems stupid, but that shows that he is perfectly holy. He can't be around that.

Oh, I was listening to you, I forgot my thought. You know, that word, ginomai, is an interesting word because you see it a lot when you study identification truths. It means to come into a state of being that you weren't before. So, Eve was not in the condition of transgression. But once she, Genomai, fell into that, she was stuck there. And changed. Totally changed her. But it says that Genomai, to come into existence, or into any state. which was not in existence before. Yeah. So she had no sin until that point. Yeah. By going in there, she totally separated herself from who she was and being a creature of the Creator. Right.

Well, that's the separation now. What wrongdoing or transgression did Eve do and against who? I think Adam became a different We're talking about Eve. Talk about Eve. It reminds me of Romans 1.25. I'll just put her name in there. Eve exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator. She just believed Satan and his twisting of the word. Let's see where it was at.

It's kind of in her thought process. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom. She took some and ate it. So it was like a little thought process before she actually took the bite.

Well, it's kind of almost like the James, the progression. You see it, and then you progress down to sin. You know, you lust after it. You know, really? That, oh. You know, and then you fulfill that desire. You know, I think, too, that then as today, God wants us to just believe in death. And so, She gets tempted, and really what the temptation was, was to say to her, you can't believe God. He's lying to you. And she bought it. And when she did that, she was vulnerable.

It's just like us. The greatest saying ever that's never changed is, did God say? He still uses that same plan. I think it's important here, and sometimes we think of Eve, and we've talked about Eve and Adam and deceiving him. Who did Eve transgress?

God. It's God. You know, that was the sin. That was missing the mark. That was the one thing. She missed the mark with God. God said, don't do this. It wasn't that Adam said, don't eat of this. It was God who said it. And so she violated or transgressed that one rule that he put out there. And so it was a transgression against God. And that's really the key. She fell under the transgression against God.

All right, we can end and then let's pray and then we will start with question four next week. All right, heaven and father, we thank you. Thanks for this time. We thank you again just for seeing the beginning of how we as a human race fell and you gave us only one rules to follow.

And we failed. And you knew that. You knew that because before the first human or earth was created, you and your son had already laid out a plan of salvation through Christ's finished work on the cross and to redeem the human race and those who believe. So we realized that you knew if you gave us 10 laws, we break all 10, or whatever. We were always susceptible to transgressing your rules.

And yet, you provided the gift of salvation through belief in the finished work of your Son on the cross. And we just thank you for that. We thank you for that love that is shown for us on the cross. And we thank you for this scripture about talking about order. in the church, and we thank you that you didn't leave us orderless.

You are a God of order, and that you want your body to function efficiently and for you. So we just thank you for these verses, even though sometimes challenging, and we just thank you again and pray for Mike as he gives us the message in the next meeting, and may all that we say and do this day honor and glorify you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.