1. THE DIFFICULT PASSAGES

I want to start this week’s discussion by showing you two passages that I can almost guarantee you have never heard used in a sermon.

1 Timothy 2:8–12 (ESV)

8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling;

9 likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire,

10 but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.

11 Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.

12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.

1 Corinthians 14:33–35 (ESV)

33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,

34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says.

35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

From these two verses, you can understand why one of my sisters thinks that the Apostle Paul was a male chauvinist.

These passages must be counterbalanced with the fact that no one was a more liberator of women than our Lord Jesus.  And right behind Him was the Apostle Paul.  But it wasn’t always that way with Paul.  Not until he got saved from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes did Paul ever see women the way Jesus did.

So, let’s look at…

2. PAUL’S VIEW OF WOMEN BEFORE HE MET JESUS

In Philippians chapter 3, verses 5 and 6 Paul describes who he was before he came to know Jesus.

Philippians 3:5–6 (ESV)

5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;

6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

“circumcised on the eighth day,”

Only strictly religious families circumcise their sons exactly on the eighth day. So, from this one statement, we know that he came from a family that was highly religious.

“of the people of Israel,”

King James says stock of Israel. From this statement, we know that there was a certain nationalistic pride.

“of the tribe of Benjamin”

This was the most prized of all the tribes, so prized that when men of Israel went to war right before they went into battle they would raise her fist and cry, “For Benjamin.” And Paul was from this prized tribe of Benjamin.

“a Hebrew of Hebrews;”

—— cream of the crop He was Hebrew in his way of living, his way of eating, his way of thinking.

“ as to the law, a Pharisee;”

— —which was the strictest sect of all the sects

“as to zeal,”

The word zeal is the Greek word zealot, which describes the right wing of the political party among the Jews which he endorsed that today we would call ethnic cleansing. But, in that particular time it was not ethnic cleansing; it was a religious cleansing. The job of this particular right wing extreme party was to expunge anything from the land that variated from Judaism. And that’s why the next part of the verse says concerning zeal…

“a persecutor of the church;”

The Greek word for persecuted means to hunt them like animals, to torture them or to even kill them

“as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

A statement which no one understands because there were 613 laws in the Torah. 613 laws which was impossible to keep all. But, Paul is saying as far as to the law, I kept them as good as any person has ever kept them.

From this understanding that Paul gave us before he was saved, tomorrow I will show you the social implications regarding the way that he lived his life