All right, well, we've been working our way through First Timothy, and we are here,
First Timothy 2, 8 to 15 this morning.
And this is, of course, a famous passage about gender in the church,
and it's famous because it's controversial.
And even as I was reading it when I finished, I looked up and saw the expressions on people's faces,
and immediately realized that everybody knows it's fame because of its controversy.
There's, of course, debate and disagreement about this passage,
and it's hard for a modern person who's grown up in the 20th and 21st century to read this and to hear it.
And that's because in verse 12 and 13, it calls on women, quote, to be quiet in the church and submissive.
And I want you to remember as we dig into it that we've got 30 minutes, right? Remember that.
And we really need a semester course, actually, on this passage,
because this passage, Paul, very quickly, without giving any details,
gives you an entire theology of gender from creation to new creation in two verses.
And we can't do all of it today, but we'll do some of it.
And so let me say today is going to be just slightly different than usual
because we're going to be a little bit heavier on Bible interpretation,
on just getting into the weeds of Scripture a little bit,
because we've got to do that to be able to understand, I think, very clearly what Paul is saying in 1 Timothy 2,
because it's very easy for a modern person to completely misunderstand for all of us.
And so we've got to do that.
And let me say, too, if you're not a Christian this morning and you're coming and exploring Christianity
and you're curious in the claims, and this is a passage that will be especially strange to you
as a modern person that's coming in to explore the claims of faith,
because the Bible often hits very hard against our modern intuitions
and the consciousness that we've developed over the course of the 20th and 21st century.
And what Paul's going to do here is go back to the beginning of time
and say that there's a real reason that men and women have different roles.
And so we've got to see that.
We're going to see two things this morning.
How to read the Bible first and secondly, the nature of men and women.
And then all of that, the big point is that what we do has got to correspond to what we are.
Okay, so let's dive in.
First, how to read the Bible.
If you look down at verse 8, you will see that Paul uses in the ESV, it's the word then or therefore,
I desire therefore.
And that means what he's about to say about men and women is being connected to everything he said already.
So he's making an argument and he's picking up on that argument to enter into a talk about men and women.
But what is he already said that leads him to this?
Okay, well, verse 7 and before, I'm an apostle.
I've got authority.
I'm talking to Timothy, a pastor.
And the whole of 1st Timothy is really a book about the instructions of how to do life inside the church,
amongst the church family.
And even if you hop back to verse 2, which is really the thesis, the subject of the rest of this chapter,
verse 1, I should say, and 2,
I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for everybody.
Meaning that the context is that Paul is saying, I'm talking about how you act within the Sunday worship service.
He's talking about that context.
And earlier he's saying, this is how prayers are to be conducted and thanksgiving and supplications.
Who do you pray for? How do you pray? Who prays?
And he's picking back up with that.
So everything that we read here is about what goes on in the context of public worship amongst the people of God.
That's what this section is about.
And so you can see that verse 8, verse 9, how should prayers happen?
Men lifting holy hands in prayer don't fight with one another.
Women, when you come to worship and you're in prayer and you're amidst the people of God, where modest clothing will come back to that in just a moment.
Verse 11 and 12, women, when you come to worship, you're not permitted to teach.
And so all three of these commands that he gives, verse 8, verse 9, verse 12,
are all about what happens in the midst of this context.
Now, you come to that still and you say, well, what does it mean exactly?
And this is where there's a real opportunity. Now, if there's any opportunity for rehearsing what it looks like to read the Bible well,
it's a passage like this.
And John Stott in his great commentary on this book, he does that.
He reminds us of two ways to always, two things, to always keep in your head as you read scripture.
And one is this, you've always got to pay attention to the history or the context.
Right? That's the first principle. And so that simply means that in every passage,
there is a specific audience in the first century in the New Testament.
And you've got to think along the lens or the mindset of that first audience, that particular audience.
Who was writing? Who were they writing to? Why would they say this in that particular time?
Right? So context is always incredibly important.
As an example, verse nine, it says to women, don't come to worship with braided hair,
with gold earrings or pearls around your neck.
Okay? Now, why? Why? What you've got to do is you've got to go and say,
the principle of history matters so much in understanding what he's saying.
Because you can probably intuit very easily, he's not saying to every one of you,
do not wear pearls to church, do not braid your hair at church.
No, not at all. What is he saying?
He's saying that in this context, in this time of the first century,
to do that is to step into the worship space in the dress of extravagance.
Because that's what it looked like to be wealthy in the time.
And there's probably even more to it than that, but I won't get into it.
But in that moment, he's saying, look, women, when you come to church,
don't dress in such a way that you're expressing your immense wealth if you have it.
Because there are poor women coming to worship in Ephesus.
And you see, it's incredibly modern. He's saying there needs to be an equality of modesty.
Right? Where this is about coming into the presence of God, not about extravagance.
And so be modest. And the same thing with men, he's saying,
the principle of context, lifting holy hands. Right?
If you don't pay attention, you might think, well, every time I pray,
my hands have to be in the air.
But that's not what he's saying, although lifting holy hands is a practice of worship
throughout the whole Bible, and we would do well to recover it probably.
But he's not saying we have to do that every time we pray.
Instead, it's a principle. He's saying, men, when you come to worship, don't fight.
And the reason is because the whole first chapter was about men quarreling over theology.
And he's saying, when you come to the worship context,
this is not the space to be pointing fingers at each other and talking about these issues.
Right? You're coming into the presence of God.
Women be modest. Men, stop fighting. Stop quarreling. Right?
That's the principle of history.
Secondly, you also have to have the principle of harmony.
And the principle of harmony is that at the same time,
if you only focus on context and history and fail to realize you've got to read every passage
in the light of the whole Bible all the time, then you might end up dismissing what Paul says,
because it's mere cultural. It's merely cultural. Right?
And so the principle of harmony says because God wrote the entire Bible,
Genesis to Revelation, every single chapter, every single verse interprets all the other ones.
And so every passage you read, you've also got to say, what does this mean in light of the whole Bible?
Right? And so we could come back to verse eight and nine and see very clearly what's Paul saying.
Well, over and over again throughout scripture, Old Testament, New Testament,
New Testament, men don't quarrel, don't come into worship.
Matthew chapter five, Jesus says, if you are angry with your brother and you come to the altar,
meaning you come into the worship space, stop right there and go and reconcile before you enter the
worship, into worship. Right? It's the same idea. Women be modest. Men be modest. It's for everybody,
because we see that all across the Bible. Right?
So the principle of history and the principle of harmony are so important, especially here.
You know, if you don't do that, the pitfalls in this passage alone would be on the one hand.
If you don't pay attention to context and history, then you might end up reading it in a literalistic
way, a literalism, saying, women, every time you come to worship, if there's braided hair,
you're in trouble. Right? And of course, that's silly. That's ridiculous. That would be to miss
the entire point of the passage. Men, every time you pray, if you pray without your hands in the air,
then you've not really prayed. And of course, that's not the point of all. That's a literalism
that can happen if you miss context. But if you miss the whole Bible, the harmony, then what happens?
Then you start to say things like, well, look, this is Paul talking to a specific people at a
specific time, and we all know better now. You know, we've grown. Our ethics have changed. We've
evolved. We know that now none of this is really true anymore. This was for one time and one place.
And the Bible won't let us do that either. And Paul won't let us do that in this passage. Instead,
as we jump into the meat, point two, we've got to have a reading that is from above, you might say,
meaning a reading that recognizes that scriptures come down to me, that it's from God. And so all
of its God's word, and so that means I've got to be willing to hear God speak to me, because this
is God speaking for all time, for every century. And at the same time, God also calls me to use
reason, to use Christian reason, disciplined reason to understand every single passage.
All right, well, let's do that. Point two, the nature of men and women, verses 12 to 15 here,
verses 10 to 15, I should say. Verse 12, Paul comes and he says,
I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Now, we've already said
that this is in the context of the worship space. That's what he's talking about. And so this word
to teach here is another way to say preaching. He's talking here about what I'm doing right now,
the act of public preaching. And also with that, I think implicitly from other passages,
like 1 Corinthians, he's talking about the administration of the sacraments. Those are
the two things that he has in mind here. And immediately, if you don't read with a principle
of harmony with the whole Bible, you might hear him saying, women, when they cross the threshold
of the building door, have to be silent. He says, I require a woman to be silent in church.
And that's not at all what he's saying. He's not talking at all about absolute silence. And we
know that because in 1 Corinthians 11, he talks about how men and women both prophesy and pray
in worship. And so he talks about giving instructions when women and men prophesy and pray. And that
gets us into another sticky topic, the head coverings in that passage. But in the context,
he's saying men and women are both prophesying and praying. And we know, of course, all across
the New Testament that women are singing and we have examples of women responding orally
in the midst of worship to the teaching. We have women interpreting and things like that.
And this is probably prophesying, by the way, in a season where speaking in tongues was normative
in the first century church. We've got examples from the Old Testament of Deborah
and Hilda, 1 Corinthians, 1 Kings, I should say, 22, Priscilla and Lydia having huge roles
in the life of the early church. We have very clear examples of women being charged to go
preach the gospel in the public sphere as missionaries. And so we've got Philippians 4,
2 to 3, Eodia and Sintiqi. Paul says, these are my fellow laborers in the gospel that they came
alongside and proclaimed the gospel in the public square alongside of me. So this is not a command
for women to be silent in any absolute way. He's specifically talking here about preaching in the
administration of the sacraments. He's restricting the teaching office, in other words, to men.
And, by the way, ordained men. So it's not saying that men can preach in administration
sacraments and women can't. It's saying that only called by God ordained men. And we see that very
clearly in the next chapter can do this. So it also restricts the office to only certain men,
not all men. Now, look, the principle of history. I want to say this because you'll probably come
across this if you want to dig into this passage more, or maybe you have in the past. There have
been a lot of books written. A lot of trees have been killed on 1st Timothy 2.12. And one of the
big movements in the literature, if you go look for it, is that many people will say, and there's
truth to this, Ephesus was the center of a particular temple, the temple of Diana. And Diana was a
goddess in the Greco-Roman pantheon. And in that center, it may be the case, although this is
highly speculative, that women were exclusively in charge of all the clerical rights in the midst
of the temple of Diana. And so Paul knows that. And there may be women that have been converted
to Christ who are coming from the temple of Diana. And so he's saying it can't be like it was in the
temple of Diana in the life of the church. Now, people have, and that may be true, and it's helpful.
But what people have done is they've used that particular contextual mark to say, look, this is
cultural, first century, Ephesus only, right? And there are truths there. But at the same time,
we immediately know all you've got to do is read the next verse to know that Paul will not let you
do that. He won't let us do that, right? And because you come to the very next verse, verses 13 to 15,
and he gives us the reasons why this is the case. And what does he do? He says, to understand this,
you've got to have a theology of creation. You've got to go back to the doctrine of creation,
if you want to understand it, okay? So here it is. And we'll spend the rest of our brief time on this.
He gives us three reasons why he's giving this command, that men are to be in the teaching office.
He's administering the sacraments, preaching on Sundays, okay? Three reasons. One, verse 13,
because Adam was created first in Eve's second. That's the first reason. Second reason he gives,
verse 14, because Adam was not deceived, Eve was. Reason three, but she will be saved by childbearing.
So those are his three reasons, his three claims, and of course they all come within a doctrine,
an idea of what happened at the beginning of time, all right? So he's pointing us all the way back,
and he's saying there's a real why here. Now look, you may be here today. Many of you, I know,
and I know where you are. I know you're from the past, and I know that you're okay. You read this
passage, and you're okay. You hear Paul. But it may be that you haven't asked the why question,
and you actually need to, because that's where Paul goes. And it may be here today that you're
struggling to hear this and read this and say, I don't know what to do with this. And Paul says,
you need to hear an answer to the why question, because as modern people, that's what we come to.
We come in, we read this, and we say, look, I don't know how you can get around what Paul says.
The command seems rather clear, but why? But why, Paul? Why is this the way? Why has God
ordained it like this? Why? And that's exactly actually what Paul does. He anticipates that.
And so he doesn't spell it out for you. He assumes so much, but he takes you back to a doctrine of
creation. In other words, a superficial way to look at these three reasons would be something like
this. You know, Adam is first, Eve is second, meaning men have authority over women in the church,
because men were made first, and therefore are superior to women. And that's superficial. Paul
says, no, that's not it. Or the second one would be Eve was deceived, not Adam. You see, a woman
brought sin into the world, not the man, it was her fault. Therefore, he's got to be the guy who
gives her instruction. No, not what Paul is pointing to at all. Or the third would be, but she will
be saved by childbearing, which is a text of immense mystery. What does that mean? Well, it sounds
like from a modern reading that he's saying women are made for the home and nothing else, childbearing,
or whatever it might be. No, that's not what Paul's doing here. Okay, instead, we've got to go for
the next few minutes back to the creation to hear it correctly. Okay, and here it is, claim one,
the creation story. Adam was made first, then Eve. What does he mean by that? Why does he say
Adam was created first and then Eve? And here's why. When you go to Genesis one,
you might notice very clearly, as Christians have for century after century, that the creation
days are in order from the lesser to the greater. So from day one to day six, you have a movement
that climaxes on day six, from sky and land and darkness and light all the way to vegetation,
then to animals, but then to humans, day six, climax, the image of God. Well, Genesis two,
what it does is it comes down close reading on day six, and it does actually the same exact
thing as Genesis one. You see, when you're in a tuned reader, you start to realize that what's
happening in Genesis two is different than what a modern person sees superficially on first glance
at Adam first, Eve second. Instead, what happened, Adam, in Genesis two, were told, was made first,
and he was, quote, formed from the dust. And that's a word formed that shows up in Genesis one,
when God said that he was going to form and fill creation. And so the first three days of creation
correspond to God's work of forming things, and the second three days of filling, but the climax
is on the second three days. And that's why in chapter two, it says Adam was formed, picking up on
that same idea. He was first, he corresponds to the first three days, but she, the man of dust,
you see, but she, what does it say? It's a different verb. She was fashioned out of a human,
out of a man. And that verb, fashioned, is a verb of artistic expression. And in the same
sense of Genesis one, what is it saying? It's not saying Adam came first, you know, and so he's
better. No, it's saying Adam came first, and so she's better. That's actually the point. You see,
it's saying that whatever comes last in the creation order is the climax of creation.
Adam and Eve are human. They're both the image of God, male and female. They're ontologically to use
a philosophical term in terms of being exactly equal in dignity before God, but she is the climax.
She is the great point of creation. She comes second, you see. Now, what does that have to do
with being a pastor and preaching in the sacraments? What it has to do with this,
would the first and second come a role differentiation? In the beginning, Adam was made
first. He was given a role. She was made as the climax, and she was given a role. And what is
Adam's role? It's right back in Genesis 2.15, and Adam is told to, quote, work and keep the garden of
Eden. Now, those verbs, and I told you we were going to get into the weeds today, so stick with me
for a moment. Those verbs to work and to keep show up only a few other times in the Old Testament,
and they do it in the first five books. And what are those the verbs for? Those are the verbs that
God gives to the priest in Leviticus. The priest's job is to work and to keep the garden, because the
temple looks like a garden all throughout the Old Testament. And you see, that means that Adam,
made of dust, was given the job to be the priest of creation. And what is the priest's job? The
priest's job is to care for, to guard, and to protect the temple of God until, until God fully
comes down, and the new creation springs forth. And you see in that, that the Garden of Eden was
a temporary moment. If you've studied biblical theology or anything, you know that the Garden
of Eden was temporary. It was all about something to come. And what was to come was the full coming
of the kingdom of God. And until then, Adam was made to be the priest, to guard and protect the
space that is the temple of God, Eden. And that's why every temple across the Bible looks like a
garden, and gardens look like temples, because Eden was the temple of God on earth, and Adam was the
priest of that temple. But she's given a role too, the climax of creation. She's given a role, Eve.
She's not the priest. She's made to help the priest, yes, the helper. But you know, there's only one
person that that word helper is used up throughout the rest of the Bible, and that's God himself.
He's the only other person who takes that title. And that means that, that she symbolizes something.
When Eve, the climax of creation is made, she's a symbol. You see, he's a priest, and he's temporary
in that role. That role is about guarding something until the fullness of the kingdom would come.
But she's the second. She's the climax. You see, Eve symbolizes the fullness of the coming
of the kingdom. She is new creation, symbolically. If Adam is a man of the dust, a man of creation,
Eve, she is the woman, the creature of new creation. She symbolizes everything that the world is meant
to become when God fully comes down. And you see, that's the order from the lesser to the greater.
She's the climax. She's the symbol of new creation. That's why, by the way, you know, if you don't
have this reading, by the way, if you don't have this in your mind, it's very difficult to read
the gender passages in the New Testament. For instance, in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says, woman is the
glory of man. Why? Because Eve is the revelation of the glory of creation. She is man's climax.
She is creation's climax. She is a symbol of what is to come. She is a symbol of the fullness
of God that is to come. Now, here's the takeaways. There's a role difference then between men and
women from the very beginning, as it pertains to the church or in the Old Testament, the temple.
Where were they at the beginning in the temple? Where are we here? The church. It's talking about
ordination and priesthood. Who can be the priest? And Adam can be a priest because he's been charged
with guarding, protecting, and caring for creation's glory until God should fully come.
And the woman is not charged with that. Why? Not because she's subordinate in some way of being,
but because she is the symbol of the climax of creation. So every single week when a man
stands here, he's meant to be like a new Adam, giving and guarding the word of God for the
sake of the woman, the bride. And all of us are the bride. And you say, this sacred ordering
is about picturing the story of redemption in even the way we relate to one another in the midst
of the worship space. That there's a sign of creation and new creation, even through man and
woman, through gender. You see, gender and the theology of gender, what it means runs all the
way to the bottom of what we are. It points to the whole story of all of history, where to look at
women, in other words, and we're to see in them a symbol of the ultimate glory that is to come.
By the way, you can even see this, the Old Testament. I won't do any details, but if we had a
semester, of course, we could go through the Old Testament and see how male and female physiology
are also taken by the Bible to manifest these two realities. Leviticus 13 to 15 in the Song of
Songs, talk about a woman in such ways that point us to see her as the Garden of Eden symbolized.
She is like the temple. She is the glory of God's presence. Let me prove this to you one more way.
I have more than that, but we're running out of time. In Genesis 2, Adam is named Adam for a
reason. Adam is just a direct translation from a Hebrew term that is A-D-A-M. Why? Because the
Hebrew term for the ground is the word Adam-Mah. It's just Adam with an H on the end, meaning
the first human, which is a male, is of the ground. He's closely related to the stuff. He's of creation,
but when woman, the pinnacle of creation is made, the name of what a human is changes in Genesis 2.
Now, Adam is no longer called Adam. He's called Ish and Isha in the Hebrew. I give that to you,
because that's a name change when she's made. The word Ish in Hebrew is almost identical to the word
fire. Remember the context? These are Israelites being given this book by Moses thousands of
years ago who knew Hebrew and who knew what all this meant, who were around sacrificing the
Levitical priesthood. They understood this. They could see this, that when man and woman are called
Ish because of the woman, it makes you think of fire. That was the point. Why? Because every
single time God comes down in the Old Testament and fills up the temple, how does He do it?
He comes as fire. He comes in the burning bush. He comes as the great cloud of smoke. He comes
into the temple and fire consumes the offering. In other words, you see, when the woman is made,
it's saying she is a sign of the fullness of God's presence that is to come. She is the glory of
Adam. Adam is, in other words, exists to serve and protect her, the temple, like he exists to serve
and protect the temple itself until the full coming of God in the end. You see? Now, you come
to the New Testament as we start to close here. And when you look at Ephesians 5, it does this,
marriage. How should men and women relate to marriage? Well, women submit to men, but men also
submit to women, Paul says, in Ephesians 5. How do men submit to women? They submit to women as Jesus
submitted himself to the bride herself, the church. And you see, from the very beginning,
the role of pastor and congregant has always meant to illustrate marriage, because marriage
illustrates creation, because it's all about the movement from creation to new creation.
And so the relationship that is between pastor and congregation is mimicking, symbolizing one
that is like Adam and Eve, Christ and the bride. Not that the minister is like Christ,
but that he's called to be a new Adam. He's called to guard and to protect and to care for
the bride until Jesus comes to get her. So the reason why men are called to the teaching office
is not thin, it's thick. It runs all the way into the depths of creation order itself.
That's why in Revelation 21 and 22, when it talks about the coming of the full glory of Jesus down
to earth, there's going to be a wedding. And in that wedding, who does the great second Adam
marry? He marries the church. And how is the church described? As bride and as the city of God,
the new Jerusalem. And you know that bride is feminine, you know that. And the city of God
is also a feminine concept in the Greek text, as is the new Jerusalem. Remember, Galatians
calls the new Jerusalem the mother, the mother of the church, right? These are all feminine
concepts because they actually play on creation order from the very beginning. Now look, if you
have all that in mind, we can do claim two and three in two minutes, because they all fall into place
when you understand that creation theology of gender. And claim two is this, she was deceived,
not Adam. So men have to preach. Well, do you know what that's saying? It's taking you back to Genesis
two, sorry, Genesis three, verse six, when it says that when the woman was deceived, he was with her.
And what does that mean? It means that she was deceived, not him. Meaning he knew exactly what
was happening when the serpent came. He was with her. And so he let the temple of God itself,
the bride, Eve, the point of creation, the climax, he let that temple be corrupted by the serpent.
You see what it's saying? It's not saying that it was Eve's fault, it's saying it was Adam's fault.
It's saying that the priest failed. He did not do what he was charged to do. Every time a pastor
fails to protect a church from false teaching or whatever it is, or public moral failure,
that is, it's akin. It's like Adam all over again, failing to stand by the bride,
because she was deceived, he was not. He was the one that brings sin into the world, because he
knew exactly what was happening. You see? All right, claim three as we close them.
Claim three, she will be saved through childbearing. Now look, again, if you've got this theology of
creation in your head, then you can probably guess what this means. Eve, not woman, a couple
translations get this wrong, because they turn that she will be saved, to women will be saved.
They make it plural, but it's not plural, it's singular. She, Eve will be saved through childbearing.
What does that mean? Adam was there that day. He watched the bride, the temple of God, the climax
of creation fall, and he did nothing. And now she will be saved through childbearing. But not only
she, did you notice at the very end in verse 15, it says, she will be saved through childbearing
if they continue in faith. So it switches it. It's not only she, but they, meaning Adam and Eve,
both, man and woman, both will be saved through childbearing. Why? It's saying, it's trying to
take you back to Genesis 3.15. And if you remember Genesis 3.15, it's that if Adam would have done
his job, if Adam would have stood by her and not let this happen, then the kingdom of God would
have come. The covenant would have been fulfilled that we would be in a time already of new creation,
of the new heavens and the new earth come down. But he failed. And now in Genesis 3.15, we're told
that who is going to usher in the kingdom? She will save them how by childbearing, meaning that one
day the seed of the woman, the one child, will come to crush the head of the serpent. You see,
it's talking about Jesus. She will save the world by the Son that she will give birth to. That's
what it's saying here, that she has been called to a holy task. Woman, Eve, Mary, as representative
woman, she is called to bring the Messiah. And so she will save the world how by childbearing,
they will be saved through, you see, this is the last word. When you're looking at Genesis 3,
and you see Adam there with Eve, the symbol of creation, the symbol of the temple, the groom
and the bride, the whole story of creation, the whole story of redemption unfolds right there.
And if you're a Bible reader, if you're a Christian today and you've worked through the
Bible carefully, maybe you've noticed this before. When she's deceived and there's now sin, death,
and transgression that has entered the holy temple, the woman and the temple itself eaten,
when you look at your Bible, what do you expect a true priest to do in that moment?
You know, when sin comes down, when Satan comes down and he deceives the bride, and he tries to
steal the bride away from God, what do you expect a true priest to do? And if you've read through the
Bible, you've read through the Old Testament and looked at the sacrificial system, you've read
through the Gospels and read the story, what do you expect the true priest to do? You expect Adam
to turn into give his life for her. He should have died, life for life, death for sin, right there
to protect God, to do the role of the priest. And instead, what does he do? He says she did it.
He blames her and he shifts the blame. And that means that from the very beginning,
very beginning, you're looking for a priest that's better than Adam. You're looking for a priest
that would protect the bride all the way to the end. And that's Jesus Christ who would give himself
for her. And every single time we gather in worship as modern people today, 21st century,
first century, no matter where it is in history, when the pastor gives the bread and wine and he
gives the word of God to the people, this is a tiny little reflection of the movement of the great
groom protecting, guarding and keeping the bride until the day that the true groom should return.
See, the reason a pastor is a man because he's called to be a new Adam, he's called to work
in ways that Adam failed and he can only do that in the light of Jesus imperfectly. And so there's
a real thick reason why it's fitting here for a man to serve in this way. He's meant to do the dirty
work, the work of sacrifice, the work of protection, the work of guarding. So as modern people, we're
called to look and see in all of this the point of history and not to balk at it, but to submit to
it and glory in it because it is the story of redemption in the way that God has ordered it.
Let's pray. Father, we ask now in all our questions that you would come and meet with us. We know,
Lord, that this is only dipping our toe in the water. And so we pray, Lord, in the midst of this
difficult to digest both concept and biblical interpretation that you would help us.
And so we ask for that in Christ's name. Amen.