95-41 – High View of Women – Part II

This sermon is Part I of the series "High View of Women" by Dr. Chuck Betters.

“This series, I believe, is needed, because frankly I think today our culture expresses a low view of womanhood. I do not claim to be an expert on womanhood, clearly, I am not, but I believe the Word of God is, so it is from that context I share these messages…” — from Part I of High View of Women 

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Welcome to In His Grip with Dr. Chuck F. Betters, produced by Mark Inc. Ministries. Each In His Grip message is designed to help turn your hearts toward Jesus and equip you to walk by faith. Let's join Dr. Betters as he preaches today's message.

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This is the second in a series of messages that I've entitled The High View of Woman. The last time we were together, we talked about the directions in which feminist theology is going. And that is a label, by the way. It's a label that is used very commonly. Just as we talk about evangelical theology or orthodox theology or liberal theology or fundamentalist theology, there is a real discipline called feminist theology. And feminist theology basically comes in three different forms. There are three different directions in which feminist theology is going. The first is the liberal view, the liberal view that sees a model of progress within a capitalist society like ours that works for political reform to ensure equal rights. And really the target of this theology is the middle class. And on the surface, it sounds good. The second view or direction in which feminist theology is going is what is called the socialist or Marxist view. In this view, they follow the Marxist assumptions and teach that women can and should achieve full equality. And to do so, there must be a marriage, so to speak, between labor and the ownership of corporations. And in this particular view, by the way, they see a double burden that is placed on a woman who works for a capitalistic society or a patriarchal society and also has to be a homemaker or a housewife, one who cares for her family. But that socialist or Marxist view basically teaches that women ought to and should achieve full equality by the integration of labor and ownership. And then there's a third view that is called the romantic or the idealistic view that basically says women simply are superior to men. Bottom line is that men are inferior, women are superior, and all of theology and philosophy and government ought to revolve around the fact that women simply are more superior to men. Now, as this fleshes its way out in terms of the way scriptures are interpreted, and this is what women are being taught in seminaries, and women who come out of these seminaries that occupy the pulpits of many of our mainline denominations, and who, in the opinion of our denomination and this preacher, as we interpret scripture, violate scripture by occupying places of pulpit ministry that are reserved exclusively for men. Nonetheless, when they're in these pulpit ministries, they translate scriptures a certain way. For example, they will say that there are no differences in the roles or functions of men and women. That the passages that we see that are in the Bible that clearly delineate between the roles of men and women are simply culturally determined and are therefore to be ignored. And so they come out and they teach in their pulpits and they teach in their classes and they're taught in seminary that because of the feminist slant, because of the feminist hermeneutic or science of interpretation, that certain scriptures are simply culturally determined and are therefore to be ignored. Then there are some who say, well, there are clear distinctions in scripture. There are clear delineations between the roles of men and women. However, they are not scripture. Only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John constitute scripture in the New Testament. They speak of the life of Christ, and most of the New Testament is to be ignored simply because it was written by the Apostle Paul. There's another view, and if you'll take your Bibles, hold your place in 1 Corinthians and go over to 1 Timothy chapter 2. I'll show you what they do with this. Another view takes a passage like 1 Timothy chapter 2, where we have in verse 11 a passage that is a very controversial passage, and here's what these proponents of this new hermeneutic, this new ideology, this new dynamic of scriptural interpretation do with it. Now let's look at the passage, first of all, 1 Timothy chapter 2, beginning with verse 11. It 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. But women will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety. Now take that passage to the local headquarters of the feminist movement and see how far you get on that one. Now here's what they'll do with a passage like that. They'll say that there is an alleged context in which this passage is to be interpreted. And here's the context they come up with. They say that the people to whom this letter was addressed, the women in particular to whom this letter was addressed, were actually holding fertility rights in which men were being killed. Because women, they viewed in that particular time set, the women were superior to the men, so the women were congregating and holding fertility rites in which the men were being sacrificed. Or they say perhaps the context is some great heresy was being taught by women. And therefore Paul is restricting their silence to only heretical doctrine. So either it's a fertility rite and Paul's trying to silence that fertility rite, or it's some heretical doctrine and Paul's trying to silence that heretical doctrine, and he's simply saying that in that context, in that context alone, those women are to be particularly silent. And it is forbidden for them to teach the men. But the context, the alleged context that they concoct for this story, is far from what actually happened in that first century church. Or, watch this, watch what they do, where Paul says, notice the words there, I do not permit a woman to have authority over men. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. You see that phrase there in verse 12? Do you see that phrase? Now, what they'll do with that particular phrase is they'll say, Well, let's change the order of the words. Let's reinvent the word authority and reconstitute it, change the wording around a little bit, and we'll create a whole new context that makes perfect sense. And here's what they do with that. I do not permit a woman to have authority over men by changing the word order, rearranging a few syllables, taking what the scriptures actually say and biasing it to your presuppositions. I do not permit a woman to have authority over men, translates. I do not permit a woman to say that they have authored men. In other words, I do not permit a woman to say that she came first. Somehow or another, the feminist hermeneutic has come up with this alleged context in which the women in the first century church were saying that Adam wasn't the first one created, that it was Eve who was the first one created, and man came out of Eve. It was the reverse order of what the scriptures actually teach. So they come up with this whole new interpretation because they come into the text with presuppositions and they say, since it doesn't fit my presuppositions, then I need to change the word order, change the hermeneutic, change the principles, and interpret it the way I want it interpreted. Now, given the controversy of these passages that certainly do have a contextual framework, and given the fact that there are denominations such as ours that clearly restrict the roles and the functions of women within the ecclesiastical framework, and given the grave interpretations or misinterpretations that have arisen concerning the chain of command within the home, it is of great importance that we revisit these passages and not simply dodge them because we are uncomfortable with them or because we're afraid we might be politically incorrect. Now, when you go back to the passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, all scripture must be placed within context. You cannot ever analyze scripture without its context. The New Testament view of women was an absolutely foreign concept to the first century Jewish woman, to the first century Jewish Christian. The way the New Testament paints and portrays women, when you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, when you read the epistles of Paul, when you read the pastoral epistles, when you read the general epistles, and even when you read the book of Revelation and you see how the message of the first century Christian to the issue of womanhood is addressed, it was an absolutely foreign and revolutionary concept to the idea of womanhood in the first century. Let me give you some examples. You see, in the first century you have the Greek influence and you have the Roman influence in addition to the Jewish influence. So you have the Greek or Hellenistic influence that viewed women a certain way. It was interesting when I did a little research on Greek literature that was literature written during the period in which these words were written. It was interesting how they viewed women in the Greek culture. Listen to some of this, ladies, and ask yourself whether or not you'd like to live in this kind of a world. These are actual quotes coming out of Greek literature in the first century. For example, Athenian women are inferior and are to be guarded by dogs in a separate chamber. They weren't even allowed in the same room. Here's another one. Women are fickle, contentious. They are to be insulted. They are, listen, nature's greatest misfit. How you like that? Here's a good one. To teach a woman is to increase the poison of a dangerous serpent. How you like that matters? The house in which a woman has the final say is doomed. I see some of you agree with that one. All right. The normal fate of a woman is to be despised and oppressed, especially if she does not enjoy the protection of a man. We have harlots for our pleasure, concubines for daily physical use, and wives to bring up legitimate children and to be faithful stewards in the home. Divorce and adultery are to be commonplace. The woman exists for the pleasure of the man, not the man for the pleasure of the woman. Now that's how the Greeks thought. That is Greek literature that characterizes the Greek view of womanhood in the first century in which Paul wrote these words. Now let's turn to the Roman world. In the Roman world, the picture was a little better. In fact, the position of a housewife was viewed in high regard in the Roman world. They had no special chamber in which the women were kept like the Greek women, and they were free to come and go and to appear in public as they pleased. The trend in the Roman world was that women were to pursue education and even pursue the use of arms like the men were. Roman marriage was always monogamous, although divorce was frequent and contributed significantly to the moral corruption of Rome. So the picture in the Roman society was a little different than in the Greek society. Well, let's back up a little bit. Let's look at women in the Old Testament. In other words, the scriptures that the New Testament Christian had in hand before the New Testament was finalized was the Old Testament. How were women viewed in the Old Testament? When you read the scriptures categorically, especially when you read the rabbis and you read the rabbinical literature surrounding it, women were legally no more than chattel. They were considered to be property of men in Israel. In marriage, the woman passed from the dominion of her father to the dominion of her husband with an appropriate payment. They called it a dowry that was given by the father to the new bridegroom. The Leverite marriage could be rejected by the man, but it could not be rejected by the woman. Rest was a duty on the Sabbath for everyone except women, although they tried to give women rest on the Sabbath. In every respect, her husband was her lord. He determined her portion at the sacrificial meals, how much she got to eat. Fidelity was demanded of her alone, although adultery was frowned upon by the men. But the women committing adultery was a greater sin than the men. Polygamy was commonplace, and it placed a heavy burden on the wife. She could appear in public in everyday life. Her daughters had the rights to the inheritance only if there were no sons. But now when you move through the Old Testament, you come to the intertestamental period between the close of the Old Testament and the opening of the New Testament. And that, by the way, is the period where Judaism was born. Now you say, I thought Judaism was in the Old Testament. Judaism as a socio-religious institution was not really born until the end of the Old Testament era. It was during that period between, that 400 years between the close of the Old Testament and the opening of the New Testament, that the political and social and religious structure into which Jesus came, known as Judaism, was born. There we are dependent upon the rabbis. We're dependent on their literature to tell us what social life looked like in Judaism. Let me give you some illustrations of how the Jews in that intertestamental period, in that period that we now call Judaism, let me tell you how they viewed women. Women were to be openly despised. Here's a quote from a rabbi: Happy is the man whose children are males, and woe to him whose children are females. Rarely do you find a girl called the daughter of Abraham, but continuously you see the sons being called sons of Abraham. The rabbi said that women are greedy, inquisitive, lazy, vain, and frivolous. Uh-huh. Here's one for you. Quote: Ten gab of empty-headedness have come upon the world. Nine have been received from women, and one from the rest of the world. You getting a picture? Here's a quote: Many women, much witchcraft. This is Judaism. This is the framework into which Jesus came. This is the religious structure into which he appeared. It was commonplace for women to precede the caskets in funerals. You want to know why? Because it was implied that they were the ones responsible for the deaths in the first place. Conversation should not be held with a woman, even if she is your own woman. Quote, may the words of the Torah, that's the law books, may the words of the Torah be burned rather than hand them over to a woman. The man who teaches his daughter the Torah teaches her extravagance. She was not to bear witness, she was not to teach her children, she was not to pray at the table. In the temple she was to sit behind a screen in the court of the women, separate from the men. Every once in a while, though, you find in wisdom literature and some of the rabbis a court of praise periodically, like Proverbs 31, who can find a virtuous woman? Or some of the rabbinical quotes, as the sun rises on the heavenly hill of the Lord, so does the beauty of a righteous woman in the well-ordered household of her husband. Occasionally you'll hear someone say, Her husband is adorned by her, but she is not adorned by her husband. Marriage was a duty for loyal Jews. It was required for ordination to be a rabbi. Refusing to bear children was tantamount to shedding blood or despising the image of God. And if there were no children after ten years, another marriage could be contracted and the husband was free to divorce his first wife. The rights of divorce belonged almost exclusively to the man. There were two schools of thought. Some said if immorality existed, then the man was free to divorce her. But then there was another school of thought that said a man could divorce his wife for any reason. If she burned the dinner, she gave too much salt on his food or whatever, she was to be let go. He was free to divorce her for any reason. But now we come to Christianity. You have this Greek influence, this Roman influence, this Old Testament Jewish influence, and Judaism's influence. You have this image of womanhood, suddenly onto the pages of world history comes the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you come to the New Testament, there are some drastic changes that take place in the view of womanhood. Two foundational precepts emerge. First, it is the order of creation that God has ordained one woman and one man to become one flesh in an inviolable, monogamous relationship. Clearly, that is taught in the scriptures. Clearly, those are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ when he returns us to creation order. Secondly, the Lordship of Jesus Christ radically removes all differences that separate men and women. This was a revolutionary view of womanhood. This was a whole new picture, the high view of womanhood, in an age in which women were considered to be no more than property or chattel. Jesus is portrayed in the Gospels as the Savior to the oppressed, to the downcast of society. And frequently, frequently, when you read his parables, frequently when you study the language that Jesus uses in the parables, he turns to the everyday needs and cares and concerns of women in his parables. He considers the propriety of Jewish social life, for example, and he does not broach it lightly because, for example, when he raises the daughter of Jairus, he does not go into her bedchamber alone. He takes witnesses with him. So he honors certain structures and propriety in Jewish social life. Yet he breaks with religious custom by speaking to women in public, not only women, but the woman at the well. Not only the woman at the well, but a Samaritan woman, the half-breeds, the despised, the dogs of society. He teaches women. He calls them the daughters of Abraham. He often speaks in behalf of women. He even breaks the Sabbath to heal a woman. And he does not even shun the unclean women who had the issues of blood. He is often seen surrounded by a band of women who sit under his feet. They are present with him at his death. They are eyewitnesses of his resurrection. And there is not one derogatory word ever spoken by Jesus to women or about women. This was revolutionary. When you come to the first century Christian community, there was no doubt whatsoever that by the end of that first century, full membership in the church was given to women. As men were called brothers, when you read the scriptures, women are called sisters. Yet there is a new age at hand where women and men find equality in Christ, but in a tension with restrictive roles. The same Paul, who would write in Galatians chapter 3 that concerning salvation there is neither male nor female, also writes in Ephesians 5.22 that wives are to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. He says in this passage in 1 Corinthians 11, I want you to realize in verse 3 that the head of every man is Christ, the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Now we know from Scripture there are clear limits to human authority. We know that the priesthood belongs to all believers, male or female. Galatians 3.26, the passage that we read this morning tells us that. In the family realm, wives and husbands were to be in a mutual submission to each other, but the limits of that submission was as unto the Lord. Never in Scripture is a man required or a woman required to obey their partner whenever they are being asked to violate some moral principle. Nowhere in Scripture is a woman required to submit to her husband who asks her to do something or commands her to do something immoral or something that is contrary to the word of God. Those limitations are clearly placed on Scripture. In the family realm, in the personal realm, in the church realm, elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those who work in preaching and teaching. So there's a role or a chain of command in our personal lives, submitting ourselves to the Lordship of Christ, in our family life, husband-wife relationships, parent-child relationships, Ephesians 6 as children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your mother and father, which is the first commandment with a promise. So we have this chain of command within the church, within the family. We even have it in government. Romans 13 tells us that, that everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. And yet the following limitation is placed on that. Acts 5, 29, Peter and the other apostle replied, We must obey God rather than man. So whenever the government requires of us something immoral, we are required to obey God rather than to obey the government. The limits of authority apply across the board. What is this principle of headship? What does he mean in 1 Corinthians? Do you have your passage there, 1 Corinthians 11? I praise you, verse 2, for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I pass them on to you. Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ. That is, he is sovereign. Christ is sovereign over every man, he's sovereign over the elect, he's sovereign over the non-elect. There is not one man, woman, or child who's ever lived, who is not under the sovereign and providential hand of an omnipotent God. And then he says, and the head of the woman is man. Now hold that passage. The head of Christ is God. So we have these bookends as we talked about the last time. We look at how it's phrased. The way this is phrased calls for a careful look at those bookends. Once we understand the meaning of the bookends, we will understand the spirit of the man in headship and the attitude of the woman in submission. The best place in which these two concepts come together are in that great hymn in Philippians chapter 2, where the attitude of submission is clearly shown to us in how the Lord Jesus Christ submitted to his Father. He gave up his rights to power and authority and yielded himself and became obedient unto death. When we understand the sovereignty of Christ, when we understand the attitude of submission displayed by Christ, then all of a sudden that section that says the head of the woman is man takes on a whole new meaning. All of a sudden, ladies, you are not talking about submitting to your husband simply because you want to obey Scripture. It talks about reverencing God in an act of worship displayed in intimacy that you establish within your home. The attitude of Christ in bowing to the cross, in giving up his rights to the throne of glory, becomes a shared intimacy between you and Christ. Your relationship to your husband, your relationship to the authority structure under which you live becomes one of shared intimacy. It becomes one of an act of worship. I would even go as far as to say it has nothing to do with your husband. It has nothing to do with what kind of a man he is or is not. It has everything to do with your relationship to Christ. The attitude of Philippians 2, the kenosis or the self-emptying of Christ in giving up his rights to the throne, becomes the attitude of submission that generates an intimacy with God you never dreamed possible. That's why Peter would say, even if you live with an unbelieving husband, and remember what we talked about, the limits of authority are very clear in Scripture. We're not talking about women submitting to abusive situations. But Peter even talks about a husband, perhaps, who might be, as society would call him, a good man. Maybe not a saved man, but a man who has a moral base per se. But he's not a Christian, and he's content to dwell with you. The scripture says that you are to display a spirit of intimacy with Christ in that relationship that so models intimacy with God that your husband can't help but see that there is something unique and special about you. Peter calls it the ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. It never says in the sight of your husband of great price. It says in the sight of God. You see, you're transcending something here. You're going past your husband and you're entering into a shared intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ. When a man models the kind of headship that loves his wife as Christ loves the church, his wife has little trouble with modeling biblical submission. Headship never means domination. Headship never means abuse. And submission is to be voluntary. To refuse to place oneself under another's authority is to deny the very fabric of life as God has created it. You say, how do you know that? Because our supreme example is Jesus Christ, and he placed himself voluntarily under authority, yielded his rights, went to a cross, even though he didn't deserve it. Now look at verse 4. There's a Corinthian problem here. And here's the context: every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head. It is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off. And if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. This has nothing to do with hair coverings. This passage has nothing to do with how long your hair is or whether or not you should wear veils or anything like that. Paul is dealing with a culturally relevant problem that has a principle attached to it, and here it is. First thing you want to notice is it says that men pray and prophesy, and so do women. Paul does not say here women cannot pray or prophesy. Now that's clearly, clearly the opposite of what they learned in the Greco, Roman, Hellenistic, Judaisc world. Paul says, if a man prays or prophesies, and then he gives limitations, but then he turns and says, and if a woman prays or prophesies. Clearly, women were allowed to not only pray, but prophesy, not only within the context of their private lives, but also within their public lives. Now this has confused a lot of people. People have looked at that and said, Is that not license for women to occupy pulpits in churches? This has nothing to do with pulpits in churches. This has everything to do with a public disclosure of your ministry. Public sharing in context that Scripture limits your ministry to men and to women. What does he say here? The context of Corinth is that Paul is concerned about the public ministry of the Word. That's the context of verses 4 to 6. He said, let's talk about how the public ministry of the Word is to be exercised. He's talking about Christians who come to worship. It is just as important, he says, that a man should be uncovered in the public ministry of the Word as a woman should be covered. Both men and women were free to exercise public ministries. That was revolutionary. But the way a man or a woman appeared in Corinth marked their attitude toward the principle of headship and submission. You say, what do you mean? Well, what I'm trying to say to you is that dress is nothing new in context. People make statements by the way they dress and the way they appear in public all the time, don't we? You've been following the NBA playoffs? How many of you have seen Dennis Rodman? What color is his hair today? Who knows? Orange, yellow, it's been blue, it's been red, it's been orange, it's been yellow, it's been green, he's got tattoos all over his body. The coach pulls him out of the lineup, sits him down on the bench because he refused to join the team in a meeting during a timeout. He takes his shoes off, puts a towel under his head, and protests by sitting there and just basically saying, I don't really care what you say or think, I'm just gonna sit here. Now let me ask you a question. Is he making a statement with the way he wears his hair? Is he making a statement with the tattoos? Is he making a statement concerning the attitude of his heart by the way he appears in public? And the answer to that categorically is yes. That's exactly what he's doing. Well, it's nothing new. That's what they were doing here too. Prostitutes in the temples at Corinth, women prostitutes, never veiled themselves. They always were unveiled. For a Christian woman to appear in public in Corinth that way was to show herself to be a disgrace and a shame, and more importantly, to show that she had no principle of headship operative in her life. But notice what Paul says in verse 6. If it's a disgrace, if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, in some places it wasn't. The length of her hair did not matter. Whether or not she wore a veil did not matter. In some cultures it didn't matter. In Corinth, it did. What Paul is saying is the way in which you physically appear in a worship service is demonstrating whether or not you are holding to a principle of headship or submission in your life. And he was saying that to the Corinthian people. So the issue is not the hair, the issue is not the veil, the issue is the attitude of the heart. The question then becomes not only for the Corinthian women, but also for you: is there a principle of headship operative in your life? Is there a principle of intimacy with Christ that is demonstrated by the way in which you reverence those who are in authority over you in your life? And that equally applies to men and to women. In some cultures, such as ours, it's virtually unimportant whether or not women wear head coverings. It doesn't really matter. But in Corinth, it was a sign of the principle of headship and work in her life and her attitude toward Christ. Now the problem's further complicated. Look at verse 7. A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God. But the woman is the glory of man. Now, without delving into that any further, what would you immediately say a woman is not, based on just what those verses say? If a man is the glory of God and a woman is the glory of man, then what does it say concerning the woman in her relationship to God? You would conclude from that that the woman could not possibly be the glory of God, right? That somehow or another she was inferior to the man, that he is the glory of God, and she is the glory of him. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man, neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. You look at a passage like that and you say, well, he sounds just like the Greeks. Women are nothing more than chattel. Women are nothing more than just to exercise the pleasure of men. That seems to be what Paul is saying there. Yet when you go back to Genesis chapter 5 and you look at verses 1 and 2, it tells us that this is the written account of Adam's line. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. And when they were created, he called them man. He called them man. Paul is taking us now back to creation. In verses 7 through 9, he's going right back to creation. He's saying, let's look at the creation principle. And when you look at the creation principle, Paul is not saying that males alone are for the glory of God. Both men and women are to reflect the glory of God, but they're going to do it in different ways. Men are not going to reflect the glory of God the same way that women reflect the glory of God. Although they both are required to reflect the glory of God, they are going to do it in different roles. And that's where we get ourselves into a heap of trouble. Because we fail to see what those roles are. What does Paul mean when he says that a man is the image and the glory of God? To say that someone is the glory of someone else literally means someone or something in which I take delight. To say that man is the glory of God, it means very simply that we take delight in man. God takes delight in us. We take delight in him, in reflecting him. God takes delight in man. And listen, God takes delight in males and God takes delight in females. He created them in his image. He created them two separate species, that is, male and female, but one in terms of reflecting his glory. Paul is taking us all the way back to creation, and he is saying God delights in man, both male and female. He takes delight in them as they seek to reflect his glory. Men are to reflect the glory of God publicly. Listen closely now. Here's where the role distinctions come in. Men are to reflect the glory of God in their public ministry. Women are to reflect the glory of God in privacy. And there is a difference. Men are to reflect the glory of God publicly. That's why Paul says their heads are to be unveiled. No covering. Openly declaring that in which God takes delight. That's why he says to the men, don't cover your heads. Lay them bare. Because in your public ministry, you are to reflect the glory of God. No coverings. Men are to reflect the nature of God in the public ministry of the word. In his home as the husband to his wife and father to his children, he reflects the glory of God. In his church, as pastors and elders, we reflect the glory of God. In the world as the witness to the truth, we reflect the glory of God. But now when he talks about women, he says, you too are to reflect the image and the glory of God. But there's another way in which you're to do it that is different from the way men do it. You're both required to reflect the image and the glory of God, but in different roles. Women are to reflect the nature of God. Listen, in private intimacy with God. In private intimacy with God. That's how Christ did it. Christ reflected the glory and the image of God every time he communed with his Father. Every time he calls a lost soul to himself. Can there be any greater intimacy than the still small voice of the Holy Spirit drawing sinners to the cross? Can there be any more intimate moment than when Jesus Christ, in the form of the Spirit of God, speaks to your heart, touches you in a way you've never been touched before? Speaks to you in a voice, spiritually in your heart that says, I love you, I care for you, you are mine. Can there be any greater intimacy than the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Man coming together? Paul says, now that is how the woman is to cultivate the glory of God in that kind of shared intimacy with her Savior. By wearing the veil, the Corinthian woman was saying, I am a woman under authority who is seeking to reflect the image and the glory of God by establishing an intimacy with my husband that can be given to no other man. It is an act of worship. Not worship of my husband, but worship of my God. And as I cultivate that intimacy, I am saying I am not for sale. I am his. In my personal and private work with God, in my personal and private devotion to God, I am seeking to reflect the glory of salvation and the glory of redemption. That is why she wears the veil publicly. She is symbolizing that the intimate delight God takes in his elect people is the same intimate delight that she takes in her husband. Verses 8 and 9, Paul argues that a woman was taken from man that she might fully share his nature. God did not create two species, she was created for her husband. Notice what Paul says: the woman was created for the man. You say, wait a minute. Does that mean for his use? Scripture refers to the woman as the helpmeet of man. Does that mean she's just his assistant? You know what the word helpmeet means? It means completer. A woman is a completer of a man. Now, what's that tell you about a man before his woman? Before the marriage takes place? What's it tell you about Adam before Eve arrived? What's that say about Adam before Eve arrived? If she was his completer, what's that say about Adam before God created her? He was what? Incomplete. God says, you need to be completed. You're incomplete. Paul goes back to that and says, Men, get this message. Without your wife, you are incomplete. And as she cultivates that intimacy, as she develops that oneness that transcends what you do publicly, and in that private intimacy, that private devotion between her and her God in relationship to you, she reflects the very image and the glory of God. So at Corinth, what Paul was saying is as you appear in that public setting, you are reflecting a principle of headship, a principle of submission. Look at verse 10. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head. What's that mean? Some say, well, it's because the angels are watching. And I say, so what? The angels are watching. The angels will serve us, the Bible says. And then all of a sudden it occurred to me how do angels appear before God? How do the angels appear before God? When you read Isaiah chapter 6, you can write this down, verse 1. It says, In the year that King Isaiah died, I Isaiah, Saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and a train of his robe filled the temple. Got the picture? Above him were seraphs, these are angels. Each with six wings, with two wings they covered their faces. With two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying and they were calling to one another: holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. Now, women, don't take from that that you are to go down into your relationship with your husband, cover your face before him and say, Holy, holy, holy, you are Almighty. The whole earth is full of your glory, husband. That's not what he's talking about. You see, even when the angels appear before God, there is an aura of submission, an aura of worship, an aura of reverence. It is not to your husband you are to have that aura of reverence. It is to God. It is that intimacy that belongs only to Him. He says, because of the angels, you need the principle of ownership on your head. And it's not your husband who owns you, it's your God who owns you. You know, I think about my own marriage. We've been married now since 1969. And I can honestly tell you that I treat my wife, and she will tell you this, and I think she already has told you this, I treat her with equality and respect and dignity. Young man asked me yesterday whether or not my wife, when she teaches, ever asked me for input into her teaching, and I say yes. But I also ask her for input into my teaching. There are sermon illustrations that come from her. She doesn't prepare these messages, but there's a lot of her in them. Because there's an intimacy and a respect that I say, you have the image and the glory of God on you. And as my wife. And over the years I have. And vice versa. A woman cultivates spiritual intimacy in her home by cultivating spiritual love. Before she's my wife, she's my sister in the Lord. I have to see her on the same level as Galatians 3 says I ought to see her. There is neither male nor female in Christ. She is one with me in that regard. Spiritual love. Intimacy is cultivated in sexual unity. Because I want to tell you something, friends. Sexual unity has nothing to do with whether or not the organs are working correctly. The Bible clearly tells us that a relationship between a man and a woman in the context of marriage is an act of worship. It's not an animalistic expression, it's an act of worship. That is why outside of marriage it's wrong, it's immoral, it breaks the law. But that intimacy can be cultivated as an act of worship to God in bearing children. I can tell you there is no greater moment of intimacy than to be together when your children are born. I remember all four of our children being born. We lived in those archaic days when the husband wasn't allowed to be present. And my wife had cesareans so that I wasn't able to even hold the children for seven days. It was awful. It was terrible. I remember when the doctor broke the rules and brought Dan up to us and snuck him into the room, and I got to hold him immediately after he was born. I mean, that was just incredible. I remember watching Heidi being born through a glass of an emergency door because they had to do an emergency C-section. And they held her up. I couldn't even tell whether it was a boy or a girl. The nurse brought her out and basically walked past me and said, beautiful. And I said, What is it? Those are intimate moments when we bear our children. I remember when Mark was born. I remember being able to hold him because the rules had changed. I remember how proud I was. I remember when Chuck was born. Had no hair on his head. What a beautiful, beautiful moment this was. But that was shared intimacy. Shared intimacy. I can't imagine being in a marital relationship filled with strife and tension and bearing children in that context. How awful that would be. The intimacy of faithfulness. My wife has never had to worry whether or not I was going to commit adultery with somebody else. Nor did I ever have to worry about her doing it. And I learned to respect her intuition and her judgments. I learned to back off when she said, watch out, that person's dangerous. I learned to listen to that sixth sense because there's an intimacy in her that says, I am going to be faithful to you, and I want you to be faithful to me. There's an intimacy of shared joy when we're able to laugh together. And we've had some moments where we've been able to laugh together in our 27 years. Great privileges of shared joy. There's an intimacy in shared pain. Something that draws you closer than anything else is how you're able to handle not only the joy, but the pain. There's an intimacy of encouragement to hope. An encouragement that says, this is not all there is. There's more to come. I can't tell you how many times I've been flat on my face where she has moved me ahead, moved me ahead, moved me ahead, forced me to do things I didn't want to do, and vice versa. There have been many times where I have forced her to do things that she didn't want to do because it was for her good. There's the intimacy of a mother-son relationship. Nothing can touch that. There's the intimacy of a mother-daughter relationship. Nothing can express that. There's the intimacy of spiritual mothering, where a woman, even though she may not be within the context of a marriage, may not even have children of her own, is able to minister and mother others spiritually. The older women, teaching the younger women, feeding and developing and nurturing. And all of this intimacy, friends, is a shared intimacy where a woman in her private life is reflecting the image and the glory of God. She is saying, I am not for sale, I belong to Him. There is full equality in the marriage. And as we close, look at verse 11. Now imagine you are either Greek, Roman, in the Judaism framework, Old Testament Jew. Ask yourself, how would you have interpreted this passage? How could anyone in their right mind, how could any feminist, any of those who hold to the feminist hermeneutic, how could they ever speak evil of Paul? Look what he said in verse 11. In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman, but everything comes from God. Now is that clear? What is he saying? There is no inferior, there is no superior. That both reflect the image and the glory of God. What a revolutionary statement. In marriage there are no inferiors, we are equal as persons, distinct as sexes, functioning in a divinely given order to reflect as a man the nature of God and as a woman the glory of his salvation. He says, judge for yourself, verse 13. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it's disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it's to her glory, for long hair is given to her as a covering? Can't tell you what some fundamentalist preachers have done with that. If you take that passage out of the Bible, some of them don't have anything to preach on anymore. They stand up in their pulpits empty, they don't have anything to preach on because the whole context, they say, is whether or not a man has long or short hair. This has nothing to do with long or short hair. This has everything to do with the principle of headship and authority. And here's the conclusion, verse 16. If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice, nor do the churches of God. How's that for a conclusion? You got a problem with this? There is no alternative practice. God has ordained from creation that men and women are both to reflect the image and the glory of God, but in different ways, in different roles, in different functions. Are you cultivating that private intimacy in your marriage? Are you nurturing and fostering an attitude of submission to God by the way in which you reverence your husband? Are you men reflecting the image and the glory of God by the way in which you publicly demonstrate his lordship in your life? Just as we as men are to model Jesus Christ, so women are to model the church, and that relationship between the two makes either one worthless without the other. Imagine Jesus without the church. Imagine the church without Jesus. They don't make sense. Jesus lives and dies for the church because he loves her. The church lives and dies for Jesus because we love him. Can there be any greater model? Can there be any greater revolutionary thought given the context of submission as an act of reverence? Would you stand, join hands with those around you as we close the service in prayer?

SPEAKER_02 55:02

Now may the grace of God, the love of our Lord and our Savior, Jesus the Christ, the very presence, person, and power of his Holy Spirit, abide with each of you now until Christ comes again and forevermore. And all God's people said it.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

You have been listening to In Hiscript, featuring the preaching and teaching ministry of Dr. Chuck F. Betters and produced by Mark East Ministries. Mark East Ministries exists to offer help and hope to hurting people by pointing them to the promises of God and the comfort of his word. Through In His Script, ask Dr. Betters, Daily Treasure, and Help and Hope. We provide free, faith-based resources for those walking through suffering, grief, confusion, and seasons of easy needs. To learn more about Dr. Better's export resources or contact, visit N-A-R-C-N-C-Four. May you rest today in the assurance that you can be trusted, even when you do not understand this.