Beacon Sunday Service: February 16, 2025

I'm going to be reading Titus chapter 2 verses 3 to 5. Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may instruct the young women in sensibility to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be slandered. Let's pray together. Father, we're very grateful to be gathered in your name in your house to give you the worship that you're due. And I pray, Father God, that as your word is proclaimed, Lord, that every single one of us would just be fed by it, would be sharpened through it, and that we would be equipped really to shine your light brightly in and through the world around us.

And I pray that you would help us to really feed off of these truths. We know that you're a God whose will is perfect. You don't make any mistakes, and in your truth is wisdom that we can't quite fathom. So I pray that you would fill our hearts both with a zeal to esteem your word greatly and to magnify the person of Christ, not only in our profession, but also in our lives. So we pray for your help this morning. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Go ahead and just take a seat for yourselves. Well, any time a person starts to read the Bible or begins a Bible reading plan on New Year's Day, they typically start with Genesis chapter 1. And I trust that everyone in the room, unless you're a brand new believer, you've at least read Genesis 1 at some point in your lives.

Correct? Okay. So for today's sermon, I'm going to start by reading a verse of the Bible that you've likely read many times. Genesis chapter 1, verse 31 reads, and God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. So on the first five days of creation, God had spoken everything into existence, light, later the sun, the moon, the stars, the waters, the expanse of the sky, the vegetation of the land, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and all the land animals. And the narrative of each of the days of creation ends with a repeated phrase, and you can see that on the slide. God saw that it was good. And on the sixth day, God had created his what you would call the pies de resistance, right?

Like man, both male and female. So he created them in his very image. And then God gave his image bearers a charge to be fruitful, to multiply and have dominion over the earth. Why? So that the whole world would be filled with the glory of God, in and through his creation, and especially in and through man, male and female. At the end of the six days, God observed all of his handiw.

And no wonder, because the creator is perfect, and he is perfect in beauty. And the design of his creation reflected this perfection perfectly. So at the end of the sixth day, God called this completed work of creation very good. And Genesis 1 is a summary of all of God's perfect work of creation. But then a significant thing happened on the sixth day prior to God calling his creative work very good. Okay, so Genesis 2 takes us briefly backward and gives us a fuller account of the events of the day. And in Genesis 2, there was one thing that had been found incomplete. And there was one thing that had been found lacking. There was no suitable helper or partner for man. And you guys have read about this before.

And for the first time, God used the words not good in reference to the design of his creation. Genesis 2 18 reads, Then Yahweh God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him. So Adam and Eve had been created, or Adam had been created by God and for God to love God and to serve God, to magnify God. And it was to that end that Adam had been created. Adam's service to God, however, was not complete in and of itself. And God says it's not good for him to be alone. So God had the perfect fit, the perfect design, the perfect complement for Adam. And then Eve was created by God and for God to love God and to serve God and to glorify God as a suitable helper for Adam.

And so together, male and female, they would properly reflect the God in whose image that they had been created. So the creation of man was the highlight of Genesis chapter 1. And then the highlight of Genesis chapter 2 was the creation of Eve. And Eve was created for Adam. Eve was created to help Adam. The woman had been taken out of the man. She was made of the exact same stuff of man, but was made very different from man. And though they were equal in worth and in value, that they were they were together image bearers of God, and they were equally image bearers of God, they had different roles to play in glorifying Yahweh God. So Eve, the first wife, was primarily created to help Adam. She was helped created to help Adam, her husband, fulfill his duty in glorifying God the Creator.

So Eve made up what was lacking in Adam. Amen.

So they were different, but together they were complete and they were whole. And they would come together in one flesh, and in their togetherness, their oneness was perfect. It was complete, it was good. In fact, it's at this juncture, God declares everything to be very good. And this was God's perfect, complementary and wonderful design. So male and female, God had created them, equal in worth, equal in value, different in function. You guys tracking with that, right? So in Genesis chapter three, though, sin enters the picture and throws everything into chaos. So we don't know how much time Adam and Eve spent together in the Garden of Eden, sinless and perfect in unity, but we do know that this sinless perfection was somewhat short-lived.

Okay, we don't really know like how long. So man and woman were deceived into sin and they became cursed. Man who had been created to fruitfully and joyfully till the soil would now work hard, fruitlessly, and the ground would produce thorns and thistles. Okay. And then the woman will be cursed with excruciatingly painful childbearing. I can only imagine. I've never experienced it. And an equally painful child rearing. And an equally cursed, almost bipolar desire to both control her husband and to be controlled by her husband. Genesis 3.16 reads, to the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your pain and conception. In pain you will bear children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.

The Hebrew word for desire there is repeat after me.

You have to have the Teshucha. Okay. And that means an intense desire or longing. And then the word is like a deep-seated inclination or pull towards something or someone. So it can be interpreted as like a strong desire to consume and to be consumed. So it's kind of like an English word cleave, which is one of the silliest words in the world. It's like a double meaning, almost contradictory, right? What does cleave mean? It means both to put together and also means to split apart, right? So teshucha is a rich word used only three times in the entire new test Old Testament. In Genesis 4.7, it's used in describing both sin's desire for Cain and Cain's desire for sin. Make sense? And Song of Solomon 7.10 reads, I am my beloved's, and in the NIV will say, and he is mine, and his desire is for me.

The verse is actually only four words in the Hebrew. I, beloved, me, Teshucha. So it's very rich. So the word teshuchcha is like packed with meaning. And woman would teshucha for man. So remember, woman was created for man, and without sin there had been perfect unity, and she had fulfilled this role perfectly for maybe like a week. I don't know, right? And with great delight. And in return, she had been perfectly loved and perfectly delighted in. But at the fall, there would exist in the woman not only that innate desire to help and to be loved, but an even fiercer desire to control and to subdue. So Eve had been created as a suitable helper, but she would now also be hardwired to reign as queen, as a center of man's world.

Eve had originally been designed to help Adam glorify God, but now she would fiercely desire for Adam to make her the center of his world. So what a crazy juxtaposition, right? A hard wiring, both to help and to rule and control. So great was the corruption of man, great was the fall of man, great was the chaos and the confusion that ensued, great was the curse on all of humanity, and great was the curse on all women for all time. Because from the moment of that first disobedience, every daughter of Eve, for much of the rest of human history, she would suffer great abuse, great oppression, much exploitation. Women would be treated as trophies, as property and the objects of man's lusts. And that's what all women for all time would suffer to varying degrees.

And we see many cases of her victimization as the weaker vessel, even in the narrative of the scriptures, both the old and new testaments. I actually wonder in the Garden of Eden were Adam and Eve equally strong. But at the curse, she became weak. The Bible doesn't say. But from that point on, she's a weaker vessel, right? But sin wouldn't cause her to be the victim only. Woman, she too would be a rebel and an aggressor, because Romans 3 23, all have sinned, fall short of the glory of God. And in an equally damaging way, every daughter of Eve would also be a fiery rebel. She would rebel against the purpose for which she had been created, to be that suitable helper, to be a nurturer, to be a responsible bearer of children.

And instead of seeking to honor God as a suitable helper and a godly mother, every daughter of Eve would be to varying degrees, very vexatious, contentious, to be a gossip, a slanderer, a manipulator, a ruiner of homes, her own, as well as the home as well as the home of others. So in some cases, even as a seductress, and there are plenty of examples in history for this, plenty of examples in the narrative narratives of the scripture. So King Solomon, in all of his wisdom, wrote about the sins of such women.

Proverbs 7, 10 to 11. Behold, a woman comes to meet him, the fool, dressed as a harlot, cunning of heart, she is boisterous, spunky, rebellious, her feet do not dwell at home. Proverbs 21, 19. It is better to live in a desert land than with a contentious and vexing woman. So there's a very clear explanation of why women are sinned against, and why women sin against their husbands, against their children, and ultimately against God. So sin is that bad. Sin is that horrible, sin is that all-encompassing and all corrupting. So, but as you guys know, everything changed with the arrival of Jesus Christ. That's the gospel, right? Men and women would now once again be able to glorify and magnify God and accurately bear his image.

Men and women could now be restored to godliness. And Apostle Paul, in his short letter to Titus, he twice makes a reference to how everything has changed. Okay? So what happened when salvation came to all men? Fallen man and fallen women have been restored to their purpose. The grace of God, Titus 2, 11 to 12, would now both instruct, like both the redeemed man and the redeemed woman to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, to live sensibly, righteously, and godly according to the purpose of their original design. Sin-tainted men and women who had once been Titus 3:3, foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending their lives in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another.

Well, what happened when the kindness of God appeared? Redeemed men and women were saved, they were washed, they were regenerated, and they were made new. How? By the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So in the epistle to Titus, we see a picture of what the saints were like before Jesus, and then how they were radically changed with the arrival of Jesus. The old ways were gone, the new had come. So what does that mean for us? Well, you and I have been created by God and for God to love God, to serve God, just like Adam and Eve. But like Adam and Eve, we all fell short of that purpose, but through the second Adam Christ Jesus, you and I who have been created by God and for God can now love God, can serve God, and we can glorify God by fulfilling our purpose and filling the earth with his glory.

So has the purpose changed? No. The means and the ability to fulfill it has changed. But the purpose remains the same. And what is it? To magnify and glorify God on earth. So while we're on earth, we are man or woman. Amen. There isn't another gender. And that's a completely different sermon. We're either male or female. In heaven, there is no such distinction. Just as there will be in heaven, no rich, no poor, no slave, no free, nor free, nor king, there's only one king. And he's the king of kings, Lord of Lords, right? There's no king or peasant. There will be no husband or wife. There will be no marriage. Matthew 22, 30, Jesus says that the saints will be like the genderless angels. But even better, the saints will actually not just be servants, we will be co-heirs with Christ.

So in justified standing before God, there is no male or female. So in eternity, there will be no male or female. Does that make sense? Okay? But while you and I are here on earth, guess what? There exists male, there is female, and male and female together magnify and exalt our God, in whose image we have been made in a complimentary and beautiful way. Amen. So we've been in the epistle of Titus since October, and you guys have to remember Titus was left on the island of Crete to help establish the churches there. Okay? And what's interesting about the Cretan society is that it was more egalitarian than many other Mediterranean societies. It's all over the history books. Okay, so on the island of Crete, women enjoyed more status, and they were more equal to men compared to other cultures.

Crete celebrated women. Goddesses were readily more worshipped in Crete than in the other than all the other Greco-Roman like male gods. Okay. In Crete, there were a lot of priestesses. There were women warriors and women archers, and even political leaders who are women. So Cretan women were a more liberated woman. Okay, and what was typical of the liberated Cretan women at dinners and at banquets was that they would drink heavily. And then in drunkenness, they would frequently engage in all kinds of sexual promiscuity. Okay, you guys tracking? That's the setting of Crete. And it was to Christian women living in that context that Paul writes. And I'm gonna read Titus 2, 3 to 5, the passage again.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved too much wine, teaching what is good. Why? So that they may instruct the young women in sensibility to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be slandered. So in these three verses, Paul lists nine things that are to characterize the Christian women in the church. The first four are expectations for all the women of the church, but then especially of the older women. The older women were then to disciple younger women without hypocrisy in those things. And here you notice something very practical.

You guys notice that? The older women were the ones charged with that task. And it's very practical and very wise. Why? Because then it preserves a healthy distance in the relationships between the men and the women in the church. That's a very practical reason. But it's also practical in that it would carry much more weight for a man to tell, or for a woman to tell another woman, hey, be subject to your husband, than for a man to say the same things, right? If a woman came up here and says, ladies, we need to be subject to our husbands. If I were to say that, how dare you, right? Like, it's a different response. So you can visualize God's expectations for women in this way. Okay? So nine expectations listed here.

The first four are what God expects, all saved, all redeemed, all renewed Christian women. But those four things are especially to be modeled by the women who had presumably been walking with the Lord longer. Okay? So this is for all women, but especially those who are older. And older is a little bit relative. In parts of scripture, it's 60 plus. But we're all pretty far from it. So I'll just say, like, if you're married with kids, older women. All right. And younger women at the same time. So the latter five things on the indent are things that the older women to be emphasizing and actively teaching in their discipleship of the younger women. And again, we have to remember in the context of the letter Paul's writing, the norm of most women of that time was marriage and children.

And obviously, in today's context, there are many Christian women who are not married, and then their families that they don't they don't have kids. But just even from this passage, there's a lot that we can glean, generally from this list on not only who God is, but also on what he expects of all the women, whether you're single or married or married and with kids. Okay. So the first of the four things that are to exemplify a mature older woman is the quality of being reverent in her behavior. The word herepace, repeat after me, hero prepace. Hira prepes. So that means reverent, okay? And this is the only time in the entire Bible where this word is used. It's very common in all secular writing, but this is the only place in the Bible.

Why only here? But it actually, because it fits the context unique to the Christian Cretan woman. Okay? So hero prepes comes from the combining of the words Huron, which is a temple, and then prepain, which means to be fitting. So it describes the external behavior appropriate to a priestess at a temple and performing her religious duties. I mean, you can almost visualize, right? Like, oh, and she's just like ministering to the ladies that are there. She's a priestess at a temple. Remember, Crete had a lot of temples devoted to various goddesses, with priestesses serving in them. And the behavior of the Cretan priestess in the temple was very different from the behavior of the typical Cretan woman.

I mean, it's assumed, right? Like you can't expect like a nun to act like a party animal girl at a war in the world, right? It's a very different image. So when you think nun, you you have a certain level of piety. But that was a word. So the priestess carried herself well, and she lived in a way that was appropriate to her religious standing. Okay. So the expectation for the Cretan Christian woman was this. Carry yourself and conduct yourself here a prepes as at a sacred temple with reverence. So this Christian woman was to be reverent in all aspects of her behavior. If it's not befitting of the priestess, you can't engage in it. Christian women were to be holy women as they were to be set apart and different from the women of the world in speech and conduct and in posture.

So a couple of years ago, I was at a church softball tournament. Our church's uh, this is previous church, our church's ladies were playing against the ladies of another church. And a bunch of the ladies on the other team, they cussed like sailors. I was actually very shocked, because this was not a small church, and this was not speech that was appropriate, even like with little children around, but this was speech that was coming from these women who are Christians coming from the same church. And that was very disturbing to me, because these ladies' behavior was not reverent in their conduct. There were kids around, okay? And I guess at the church, it was just fine for people to speak like the world, to be hip, to be cool, but it was inappropriate.

The second thing that was to be markedly different in all Christian women was in subjects of their conversations. Okay, similar. They were not to be malicious gossips, and Paul described this in two words may, which means not, and diabalos. Guess what that means? Devil, okay? So not devil is literally the word. Okay, so this quality of me diabolus is very important. If a godly man in the church wanted to serve as a deacon, but his wife was a diabolus, he would be disqualified. 1 Timothy 3 11. In the church of Ephesus, there was a problem with a lot of old ladies. I don't know why they had so many widows, but they had a lot of widows. But these ladies, these widows, they would sit around with idle speech and gossip.

And this had to be stopped. And that's 1 Timothy 5. Because what happens when malicious gossip goes unchecked? Literally, the devil happens. See that? Paul writes about this taking place in 1 Timothy 5, 13. It reads, these old widows, and at the same time, they also learn to be idle, and they go from house to house, and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention. Therefore, I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and then give the enemy no opportunity for reviling. For some of these ladies have already turned aside after Satan. Pretty strong words. Interesting reason to get married, but that's a different sermon. Okay, churches, so churches are ruined by malicious gossip.

Because what happens? Satan gets a foothold into the church when gossip happens. Churches are divided and destroyed by slander and false accusations. So to be fair, this is a problem with men too. Okay, it's not just the women, but this is something that women are to especially fight against. Because typically more men are in the field, busy working, and they're not sitting around as much, generally speaking, right? So we're not to give the devil a foothold. So Christian women were not to be malicious gossips. Third, women were not to be enslaved to much wine or to anything that dulls her sobriety. So supposedly Crete had very good wine. You could look it up on the internet. Wine from Crete today is actually famous.

Cretan wineries today are award-winning. In first century BC, the great Roman Emperor general Pompeii, you guys heard of him? He wrote that he preferred Cretan wine. It's inscribed. Okay. So he he wrote, Cretan wine is the most exceptional. That's what he wrote. So remember, wine was an entertainment of the day in the Greco-Roman world. And apparently Crete had the good stuff. Okay. Wine was the social anchor point of the day when the Cretans had plenty of it. And though enslavement to wine was characteristic of the Cretan woman, the Christian Cretan women were not supposed to be this way. So the Christian women were not to engage in anything that would hinder her sobriety. Any entertainment, any thing just to dull the senses, to cause one to be lacking in judgment and to be idle, the Christian woman were not supposed to be this way.

The Christian women were to deny ungodliness, worldly desires, Titus 2, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly, no matter what the women around them were engaging in. Okay, and fourthly, while being reverent in her behavior, while abstaining from gossip and drunkenness, the older women were to disdevote themselves to teaching the younger women. There was a great need for the older women of the church to disciple the younger women of the church. And this has always been the case. Would you guys agree? Like there's a great need for women. Okay. In some Asian countries, there are churches that are 95% women. One of my friends, he got saved in China, and he went to church, and he was like, What kind of a place is this?

It was all ladies. Like 90, he said he said 99. I think it's a little exaggeration. But it's like 90 plus percent is women. Um I've been to regions in Indonesia where I did not meet a single church leader who was a man because they had a severe shortage of Christian men. So even the pastors were all ladies. Even in the United States, the statistics tell us that like 61% of those gathered in churches in America today are women. 61%. So if the older women of the church ever desire to serve the church, is there ever a shortage of need? Absolutely not. So here's a here's a here's a push. A lot of times the temptation in the name of fellowship is for ladies to get together and just hang out. But what the women that God is desiring of the women is to be equipped so that they can equip.

Amen. So here in Titus, the older women are charged in teaching the younger women of the church. And what were the older women to teach the younger women? The apostle Paul focuses on five things. Okay. So first and foremost, the older women are to teach the younger women sensibility. Sensibility is it's been a repeated word here in Titus. It's very important that it's mentioned actually twice in this instruction. Sensibility has been important to this epistle. Sensibility was to characterize the overseer and the elder. Sensibility was to characterize the older men. It was to be urged to younger men. And here it's mentioned twice. Okay. In chapter two, it's actually mentioned six times, sensible, sensible, sensible, sensible, sensible.

Okay? It's very, it's a very important word. It reads, instruct the women, young women in sensibility. And he describes what is that? To love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be slandered. So we talked about the word sensibility on two previous occasions, and the Greek word is repeat after me, so frona. Sofrona. And basically you can understand it as restraint. Okay, like restraint of your husband and your children. Not like that, but restraint. And it means to be self-controlled and restraining of what is corrupt and sincers in the flesh. So whatever comes instinctively, you're supposed to sofrona.

Okay. Older men were to be told to be sofrona and not to be selfish, but to be sacrificial, to be tender, to be gentle, and to lead by serving. Why? Because sin damage that in the man, right? Men are selfish. Men are prone to self-absorption. Younger men will be told to be so frona. Why? Because the various lusts of the flesh and the vices were very common to young men. So what did women need to be sensible in, to exercise restraint in? Remember the curse of Eve. After the fall, all of her daughters were cursed with the Teshucha. So remember that? For their husbands. To control, to dominate, to lead, all the while desiring to be led, to be protected, to love, to be loved, and to be served. And wanted.

Right? So it's almost like a spiritual bipolarity that women have. So the older women were lived in such a way that the younger women would were reminded that their priority was in loving and nurturing every member of her family. Women needed to sofrona the flesh and to love their husbands and their children. Now here's an interesting question. Who's better at loving their spouse and their children? Men or women. You can answer honestly. Absolutely women. Hands down. Okay? Well, duh. Women are naturally more inclined to do this. Amen. So isn't a woman hardwired to love and to nurture? Yes. But what's interesting in this passage, this is the only place in the entire Bible that exhorts the wife to love her husband.

Did you guys know this? The only place in the entire Bible where loving a husband is mentioned. But this is not with the agape sacrificial, selfless, unconditional love. Women are more hardwired to do that. But this is a phileo love. It's a family brotherly love. Husbands are commanded to agape love their wives all over the Bible. You guys know this, right? Husbands are commanded to love their wives selflessly, sacrificially. Husbands are never commanded to phileo love their wives. It's always agape. But the word that is used here for the wife's love and her love as a mother is a phalao love. A love devoted to the building up and the edifying of the family, building up and edifying of the family.

So in the one place where the wife is exhorted to love, she is exhorted to philaleo love. If she is overbearing, if she is controlling, even if it's in the name of love for her family, her lack of sofrona will have disastrous effects. And then she falls prey into the devil's traps. So Satan's desire for each and every family is for him, he desires to divide and conquer. But the godly woman is to build up her family insensibility by restraining the things that she's hardwired to do, to dominate, to control, to nag into submission, each and every member of her family, so that she rules as queen so as to validate her worth and her existence. Are you guys tracking? You're like, oh my goodness, right?

Pretty intense stuff. I was sharing with Becky as we're brushing our teeth as we're not like crazy stuff. I don't bring her up to like I'm gonna get in trouble. Next. So then the younger women are to be instructed to be pure. It's referring in this context to sexual purity, to marital faithfulness, modesty of dress, adornment. Okay? So both 1 Timothy 2, 9 to 10, 1 Peter 3, 3, it also addresses this. So for a woman, there was to be no hint of anything perverse. She's supposed to be modest. She's supposed to be pure. Okay. Now we get to a very sensitive part of the verse. Women are to prioritize being workers at home. Literally, the Greek word means good manager of the household. So what does this mean?

There are some who hold to the view that all Christian women are to be stay-at-home mothers. There are some who take that even a step further to say that a working woman is a compromised woman and she is in sin. There are people and there are some churches that actually hold that position. Now, I will say that a woman's priority is first and foremost her family, and the family is the proving ground of her salvation. And it's the place where most of her sanctification also happens. You guys, you guys, that's that's not hard to follow, right? So the family is the proving ground of her salvation and the place where she is most sanctified. And that's why a point like 1 Timothy 2.15. If you guys have ever read this and been confused, she will be saved through the bearing of children.

There's an entire village in Russia where a pastor went and he was shocked because they all had 11 plus kids. And they're like, they took this verse literally. The more children, the more salvation. But clearly, that can't, that's not, that can't be what this means, right? But she will be saved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith in love and sanctification with self-restraint. Women are not saved by the act of birthing a human. Amen. Okay? That would make no theological sense. And that would be so out of place in the context of the rest of scripture. That's kind of funny. The more children, the more salvation. Okay. But again, the primary means of sanctification and testing is in the place of her most intimate relationships.

The home. So the Christian woman is to prioritize her family more than she prioritizes material goods, status, worth, or dislike towards kids. Material goods, status, worth, I'll throw validation in there. Or dislike of her children. Oftentimes, those are the reasons given for women in their pursuit of their professional careers.

Or the realistic woman.

The arrogant woman, I refuse to be only known as a wife and as a mother. The why you are working as a woman is way more important than what you are doing in your work.

In the event you are a married woman with children, you have to ask and answer honestly. Why am I working? Am I working for family or despite family? Why am I working? And obviously, if you're a single woman, you're not having to wrestle with this as much because you're just saving money. But as a working woman, why am I working? Am I working for my family or despite family? Because women have worked all throughout history. They just never got paid for it, right? The hardest working women in the world are all on the continent of Africa. Those women, they get up at the crack of dawn. They're just not paid for it, right? But why you feel the need to work is way more important to think about than any kind of validation or reward you receive, because that takes you away realistically from your most intimate place of relationships, your proving ground.

Okay. So that passage is not saying don't work. So in the context of the letter to Titus, who is in Crete, remember that all the Cretans were in their own words, chapter one, verse 12, always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. Cretan women were drunkards. The women were often very lewd. They were busybodies. Cretan women generally were an entitled bunch whose primary pleasure was in socializing. So the Bible, the section calls them lazy gluttons. So here's an important passage to look at hermeneutically when we're studying through a passage like this. Was Paul instructing the woman in the field to come inside? Or was he instructing the lazy woman sitting on her couch on her butt to get up and be productive?

Clearly it's the latter. Right? So if a person never says the Bible says for a woman not to work, yeah, you're like, well, I know the context. That's not what he's saying. So here's a John Stott says that I might uh that I feel like it might be helpful. It would not be legitimate to base on this word either a stay-at-home stereotype for all women or a prohibition of wives being also professional women. What is rather affirmed that is that if a woman accepts the vocation of marriage and has a husband and children, she will love and not neglect them. JP Phillips' words, home lover sums up well what Paul has in mind. What he is opposing is not a wife's pursuit of a profession, but the habit of being idle and going about from house to house.

The eighth characteristic is kind. And I'm not going to spend much time on it. This should be pretty self-explanatory. Okay, don't be mean. But to close, I'm going to focus on this last one. In theory, all wives agree with this last one. If you are a wife, you've probably vowed to unconditionally do this last one. But in practice, curse of Eve. Right? Raise your hand, wives, if you've vowed this, that you will submit to your husband. Thank you, Vicky. You vowed to this, right? So the expectation for Christian married women is that they are subject to their husbands. And that can be a whole sermon series in and of itself that I hope a lady teacher will come and give. Okay. But I'm just going to close with a few thoughts.

In his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul adds actually extra color. He says that Christian wives are to be subject to their husbands at to the Lord Jesus himself. And to be subject to their husbands in everything. Have you read this verse before? You have, right? Men don't nod your heads. Okay. What does everything mean? I looked it up in the dictionary. Have you ever looked up the word everything in the dictionary? This is what it means. All things. All that exists. All that is related to a subject. So when Paul says wives are to be subject in everything, what does he mean? In everything. Now, obviously, where the husband is leading a wife to sin, the wife is not called to follow that. So for now, leaving all the exceptional situations and circumstances aside on a day-to-day basis, here's a question for the wives.

Are you being subject to your husbands in everything? Household matters, relationship with the in-laws, raising of your children, finances, big decisions, small decisions, spiritual matters. Here's an important question, wives. In your head, who is the boss at home?

The Bible calls you a home manager. You're not the chief executive officer of the home. I liken it to like a lot of women, they're like, I need to marry my knight in shining armor. Wonderful. I hope it happens that way. But if your husband is the knight in shining armor, you're a squire. Your chief purpose is to make him look good. That's a biblical instruction here. Okay. Who is the head of your family? Are you being subject to your husbands and everything as a church is subject to Christ? Do you go as far as regarding your husband as Lord over you in this earthly life? Now some women are like, what?

Now, wisdom teaches us that everything is not literal, it's figurative. But are you subject to your husbands in practice or in theory only? Now the point is not for you to like from here on to address your husband as Lord, okay. But in your heart's attitudes towards him, regarding your husband as the earthly Lord for whom you've been created, is that your posture? So that with Adam, your husband can also say, She is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. We truly are one. So here's a very uncomfortable but important charge to the wife. You have vowed to help and to submit to your husbands. Amen. Unconditionally. And that's your biblical role for your Christian marriage. So single ladies, single lady, I'm gonna say, choose wisely.

Because that vow, once it's made, it's permanent. Now, when someone preaches like this, there's some objection that grows in your heart, right? There's like a restless rumbling, defenses are going up, your faces are turning red, and I know that the voice in your head is getting all sassed up. Like, I don't know, right? Well, if my husband were to lead me and love me like Jesus, then of course I'd be subject to him and everything. Submission would be easy. If homeboy would lead properly, right? That's the attitude in your heads. Hopefully, not in your heart. Submission will be much easier if you're married to the perfect, selfless Christian gentleman. But 1 Peter 3 says that wives are to be subject even to the non-Christian husband.

Obviously, up to the point where he forces her to commit a sin. Now, before you husbands get too excited about this point in the sermon, yeah, preach. The biblical call is way less for wives to back down. It's always more for the husbands to stand up. You guys follow? The biblical comparison for you is Jesus. So the call is less for the wives to back down and restrain themselves. The call is for the husband to take that leadership role seriously, so the wife can't help but to follow, where the restraint of the curse of Eve is a lot easier. Because they're also hardwired to respond appropriately when led. So Kevin DeYoung, he recently wrote, submission is not something forcibly taken, it's something freely given.

So here's a question to the husbands. Are you worthy of her respect and submission? Or is she submitting to you only out of obedience to God? Are you leading her in a way where her submission, her adoration and affections are natural response to the Christ-like leadership that she sees in you? And that's that's a very uncomfortable question to think about. Everything that goes wrong in my marriage, I will say 100%, it is my fault. It is my responsibility. I am in charge of my family's happiness. Even in I'll stop there. Okay.

I was just kidding. No, that wouldn't change. There's a lot to chew on here. Amen. There's a lot to meditate on. So please chew and meditate thoroughly through all of this. And to close, I want to just remind you of two things. Okay. The first is a positive reminder, and the second one is kind of a negative reminder. One, all that is written in the scriptures, especially when it comes to the intimate relationships that you and I have, are they for good? Yes. God wrote those things in his wisdom. Right? Trust and obey. Even when all the instinctive, natural and fleshly stuff, wants to distrust it, wants to just object to it. So trust and obey. And that's the positive. The second is this. It's a reminder and a warning.

What happens when Christian women do not heed, and they simply regard or they disregard the section of scripture as oppressive or outdated or backward or even evil. Some women would look at this and say, This is what the male chauvinist pigs in the name of religion use to oppress women. So they call this evil. What does it say in verse 5? The consequence is cosmic treason. The word of God is slandered. So may we be a people, both men and women who hold the word of God in the highest of esteems. Amen. And may the word of God never be slandered in our church and in our lives and in your marriages. Right? So I actually, whenever a sermon like this is preached, I feel more burdened because I'm like, man, am I am I leading where I could tell the men of our church to follow Christ, lead your wives, like I'm following Christ and I'm leading my family.

But the bar is a scriptures. It's not any spiritual leader's model. It helps when the spiritual leader's modeling is pretty good. But the bar is a scripture. May you and I just do our best to uphold that bar in theology, in life, in response. Amen? Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would help us to be a godly people. I pray for much grace on our women. There is so much. There are so many voices in our day and age that tell them to do the very opposite of what we saw here today in the text. So I pray for much wisdom and much grace. And I pray especially for the men of our church that you would raise up an army of godly Christ-like men so that we would have a naturally an army of godly women to follow.

So we pray for just a good, just chewing and mulling over all of the stuff that we've seen. Bless our church. May you bear fruit in it. May you bear fruit through it so that the people around us really would know that you are a God who is good, who designs everything good. Very good. And pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.