Sermon Tone Analysis

1 Tim 2:8-14

No Girls Allowed!

I’d like to answer the simple question, “What can women do in a worship service?”

On one hand, this question sounds awkward or unusual because God created men and women as co-equal persons.

Both genders equally express God’s image and both share equally important roles in fulfilling God’s plans and purposes for the world.

On the other hand, though both genders share equally important roles in God’s purposes, he has assigned certain responsibilities to men and other responsibilities to women.

By doing so, he has not elevated or valued one as more important than the other, nor has he indicated that one is more intelligent and capable or prone to sin.

Both reflect God’s image to the same degree, and both fill equally important roles and purposes in the world, though these roles are different and distinct to some degree.

God has assigned to men the domestic/family responsibility of guiding, protecting, and providing for the home.

He has assigned to women the parallel responsibility of bearing and caring for children and supporting or assisting her husband.

These are different and distinct roles but equally important.

Now, there is a sense in which a church is a spiritual family, since we are brothers and sisters in Christ.

This being the case, the Bible teaches that God has assigned some distinct roles to men and women in the church as well as in the home, though we’re often unsure what this distinction entails.

In a church like ours, some may feel that women can do a lot of things in a worship service but aren’t sure where Scripture says this.

Others may feel that women should have a reduced role because the NT says that “women should be silent,” yet these are unsure how ‘silent’ women should be because total silence seems unreasonable.

We must be faithful to God’s plan and confident in our practice.

We need to answer this question from Scripture so we can be faithful to God’s plan and confident in our practices when we worship God together as a church.

We don’t want to silence women unnecessarily on the one hand, nor do we want to assign them roles which contradict Scripture.

We don’t want to be more restrictive than the Bible, nor do we want to be uncertain about what we allow and encourage women to do.

As I explain what women can do, I will generally explain what they should do rather than what they can do, since women are equally important members and participants to men in the church.

God does not merely allow or permit them to do things as though they are secondary members.

Either they should do something, or they should not, and if they should, then they should do so wholeheartedly and not as a secondary participant.

Before we look at some clear New Testament teaching, I will provide some background from the OT period and also from the intertestamental period, which was the 400 years between the OT and NT, just prior to the start of the church era.

With this background, I will highlight a potential tendency people to limit the role of women in worshiping God more than God does.

We tend to limit the role of women in worship – perhaps too much.

Though this tendency may arise for some well-intended reasons, such as a desire to uphold male headship or leadership against a culture and world that rejects this God-given value, there is no virtue in being “more careful” or “strict” than God himself.

During the intertestamental period, Jews worshipped God at a rebuilt temple (called the “Second Temple” since it was another temple built after Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed by invaders).

This temple featured a space called “The Court of the Women.”

Both men and women could enter this space, but only men could move further into other areas.

Jews practiced similar limitations for women in their worship at local synagogues, too, and rabbis also prohibited women from participating in public prayers, only permitting them to pray privately at home.

This limitation of women in public worship was a new development, not even derived from the OT law.

Instead, this limitation was just one of many instances of how Jewish religious leaders had developed extra-strict practices and then enforced such practices as though such teachings represented how God wanted them to worship him.

Jesus spoke out dogmatically and passionately against such extrabiblical requirements, which he criticized as “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt 15:9).

There is no virtue in being stricter than Christ.

Being so is just as risky or problematic as disobeying him.

Knowing this background should cause us to pause and smile widely when we about the prayer meetings recorded in the NT book of Acts as a backdrop and prelude to the start of the church.

Luke tells us that the men who had been the closest followers of Christ gathered together for a prayer meeting, and they did so “with the women” (Acts 1:14).

This brief little phrase tells us that these men did not ask the women to leave the room and it also indicates that the women prayed, too, just as the men prayed.

They did not follow the extra-strict protocols for a prayer meeting which the rabbis had insisted upon.

So, what can women do in a church worship service?

I’m glad you asked!

Women should not be pastors.

The NT consistently portrays pastors as men and never as women.

And according to the personal requirements for being a pastor given by Paul, pastors can only be men because only men can be husbands and fathers (1 Tim 3:2-5; Tit 1:6).

By pastor, I am referring to the leading role in the structure of a church.

The NT refers to such persons by various terms, including bishop (“overseer”), elder(“leading man”), and pastor (“shepherd”).

I will explain one key function of a pastor in a few moments, but since a pastor (or pastors) leads a church, women should not do things in a worship service, for instance, which are essentially or exclusively associated with this pastoral role.

In the simplest sense, then, women should not exercise ultimate oversight or be the final decision-maker in things pertaining to a worship service.

Pastors should carry this responsibility.

This does not mean that women cannot have a significant role in planning and conducting a worship service, but rather that pastors should be the primary leader and take ultimate responsibility for what is said and whatever occurs.

In my church experience over the past four decades, I’ve noticed a tendency for churches to bundle together numerous church functions as “leadership” and then limit those functions to men as a result.

Though we do generally allow women to play instruments and sing songs (which is not “being silent”), we tend to prohibit other functions such as being a greeter, an usher, or giving announcements.

Yet there’s no compelling reason to be so restrictive since these functions are not inherently “pastoral leadership” in nature.

I am aware of no clear biblical teaching, for instance, which prevents a women from serving as an usher.

That being said, I’d like to highlight four specific functions which women should do just as well as men in any given church worship gathering.

These functions are singing, giving testimonies, praying, and reading Scripture.

After I give the biblical rationale for why women should do these things in the church, I will present one thing which women should not do in a church worship service, and that is teach and interpret Scripture.

Women should sing.

(Eph 5:19)

According to Eph 5:19, every member in a church gathering should speak to one another through songs.

Doing so includes playing musical instruments by logical and reasonable extension, but it primarily includes the actual verbal communication of lyrics, too.

Furthermore, the NT never goes further to specify “music leadership” as an exclusive pastoral function.

Though we may add “leadership” to any function and designate it as such, Scripture does not attach this concept to musical practices in a worship service.

This simple observation indicates that either a man or woman could serve as a director, speaker, or vocalist in those moments when a congregation sings, as someone who serves us all by introducing a song, singing a song, making comments about a song, or encouraging and helping us sing better.

For this reason, there is great value in involving both men and women in our worship team.

Doing so is a very biblical practice and an appropriate way for both men and women to serve in the church.

Women should give testimonies.

(Eph 5:20)

According to Eph 5:20, every member should also be available and willing to “give thanks” when we are gathered together for worship.

This result of being “filled with the Spirit” is just as much a verbal expression as singing is, a fact which we may easily overlook.

This word (eucharisteo) means more than to feel thankful but includes expressing thanks in an outward, verbal way.

So, when the church is gathered for worship, men and women alike should be given equal opportunities to express their thanks to God through public testimonies.

These testimonies should include testimonies about answered prayer, notable blessings and intervention from God, encouragement and insights from Scripture, and recounting their conversion to faith in Christ.

Women should pray.

(Acts 1:14; 1 Cor 11:5, 13; 1 Tim 2:1, 8-9)

According to the NT, as we already noticed from Acts 1:14, women and men prayed together from the earliest moments – and even before – of the start of the church.

Not only were they both present in the same room during moments of prayer but they both actually prayed.

By prayer we are referring to the basic but religious practice of speaking to God in a worshipful way – approaching and speaking to him as God.

The NT doesn’t forbid women from praying in a public worship service, but it rather assumes they will do so and encourages the same.

That said, Scripture does provide two helpful guidelines to keep in mind as women participate in worship.

According to 1 Cor 11, ladies should pray in a “head-covered” way.

In some cultures, this entails an actual garment or hat on the head and in other cultures this entails noticeably long hair, both serving as a visual reminder that though they are praying just as the men are praying, they have not disregarded or usurped the role of men as leaders in the church and home.

Though not every culture expects such a visual reminder, the NT is very clear that what matters is not the outward form (which may differ between cultures) but the inner disposition of a woman’s heart.

When she prays, she should do so in a way that exhibits a submissive spirit not a forceful or belligerent one.

A woman should not be domineering, forceful, or interruptive in her prayers or other speaking in the church but should participate with the approval and support of both her husband and pastors.

Paul explains this further in 1 Tim 2:8-10, in which he urges both men and women in the church to pray in the public gatherings of the church.

In these verses, he encourages women to make choices that will not draw undue attention to themselves.

He uses gawdy, attention-getting jewelry or hairstyles and flamboyant, noticeably expensive clothing as choices to avoid.

Instead, he encourages making apparel choices which are balanced, reasonable, and appropriate for worship, since worshiping God together as a church is not the time to make an attention-getting fashion statement but is rather a time to direct our thoughts and hearts towards God.

We should be careful not to create a rigid set of rules and regulations on this point but should encourage one another to make wise choices in this regard, allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us.

In 1 Tim 2:8, Paul also gives similar guidelines to men who pray, encouraging them to “lift up their hands,” and to do so with hearts that are holy, at peace with God and neighbor (“without wrath”), and confident in God (“without doubting”).

As such, men should avoid angry outbursts, vengeful diatribes, bitter or sarcastic words, and inappropriate humor as they are worshiping God.

Women should read Scripture.

(1 Cor 11:5)

In the earliest NT years, God enabled various church members to prophesy.

Most literally, to prophesy means “to speak the words of another.”

When the Bible mentions prophecy, it refers to how certain people have spoken the words of God for other people to hear.

Some believers suggest that there are different kinds of prophecy.

For instance, some suggest a distinction between “foretelling” and “forthtelling.”

To be sure, some prophecy in the Bible is “foretelling” because it foretells what will happen in the future.