Well, good afternoon.

The guy that preached this morning left all of his notes up here. We don’t want to hear that sermon.

I’m kidding. I led worship this morning for Hope to fill in for their guy, and so their associate preached this morning, Carson. He did a good job.

And I just thanked them for their graciousness in letting us be here. So it was good just to be able to see their church and thank them for their kindness. We’re going to be in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. If you turn there with me in your Bibles, 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

1 Corinthians chapter 11, verses 1 through 16.

Starting in verse 2, there’s kind of a weird break in the way that they’ve broken that up. But really, we’re starting in verse 2.

Well, we’ll start in verse 1. Be imitators of me as I am of Christ. Verse 2. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and you maintain the traditions even as I delivered them. To you. Maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you. Paul will say plainly later on that God is a God of order. So God’s not a God of chaos. And you can see it in the fabric of the universe. Planets, they revolve around the sun and they’re held at just the right gravitational pull. And it’s becoming springtime. And we see how God has times and seasons for everything. You see how biologically a newborn baby is born and grows up and goes through life stages. So God is a God of order. He expects order in governments. He expects order in societies. God expects order in home. And God expects order in the church. So a lot of what we’re going to see here is a God of order. And what Paul is talking about in Corinthians is really the Corinthians being out of order. You know, out of order in terms of God’s expectations. And he’s particularly talking about a well-ordered church in terms of relationships between men and women. So, if you want a well-ordered church, churches are inevitably made up of families. You have to have well-ordered families that are made up of well-ordered marriages. And people who understand what it means to be men and women. So that’s exactly and explicitly what Paul’s talking about. So when he says, I commend you, he’s saying, you guys have done a good job of maintaining the traditions that I’ve given you. Now, when we think of tradition, sometimes we think, well, traditions, like we all go to Grandma’s house on Christmas Eve, like traditions. Paul’s not talking on a surface level when he uses that. No. He’s talking about the body of doctrine of the Christian faith, but also the practical application of it as he showed them how to integrate Christianity into their lives. What good would it be to know the gospel, know the truths of the gospel, doctrine, if you didn’t know what it looked like on the ground, worked out in your life. So, Paul having been with the Corinthians, he showed them, hey, this is how you would apply the Christian faith in this situation. This is what it looks like principally for this to work out. And this is how you would apply the Christian faith in this situation. So, what Paul’s talking about in this section, and he’ll talk about it more as we keep going, is how you maintain proper tradition as you gather for church, when you come together for public worship. So, there’s a theological reason, but then there’s the practical application of that reason. So, Paul doesn’t have these preferences about, hey, paint the walls this color, because I’m Paul and I like this color, so that’s what you need to do. So, everything Paul’s saying, it’s very much so rooted in a Christocentric theology. Christ is the center. That’s what he’s talking about.

What he’s talking about in this section are the very good, and I’m going to call them good, I’m even going to call them beautiful,

differences, distinctions, between men and women, men and women, more particularly, between husband and wife. Okay? There are God-given, God-ordained distinctions between males and females. And that’s what Paul’s talking about. Now, I will say that the ESV, which I always preach out of, has chosen to translate gune, which can mean women or wife, as wife, not woman, and it has chosen to translate anir as husband, husband, instead of men or man. And I think that’s a translation choice that I agree with because I think what Paul’s principally talking about is how men and women relate to one another in the context of marriage. So, I do not have a role as a man

in the relationship with another man’s wife. I do not play a role there. So, as we talk about this, understanding, we’re talking about chiefly what’s appropriate in the home, which expresses itself in society, but what should be seen among men and women in the church. Okay? That’s what we’re talking about. Verse 3. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head, covered, dishonors his head. But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered, dishonors her head. Since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory, the glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Nine. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. So Paul starts with this argument from Trinitarian theology, or what’s called often the divine order. Okay? And he says, that God, meaning more particularly God the Father, is the head of Jesus Christ the Son. Okay? And this has been used often by Jehovah’s Witnesses or other people say, so see, Jesus really isn’t God because this says that God is the head of Christ. But that’s a total misunderstanding of the context and the point of what Paul’s talking about. Our own statement of faith. We use the New Hampshire, Statement of Faith. It’s on our website. And that statement reads that Jesus is equal in divine perfection and executing distinct but harmonious offices. The Nicene Creed dealt with this issue by saying Jesus is very God of very God. In other words, when we’re talking about the essence of Jesus, His personhood, when we’re talking about the essence of the Father, we’re not different. So Jesus is very God of very God. All the attributes that make God the Father, God the Father, so also Jesus is the Son. So it’s not that God the Father is a little more God than Jesus the Son. They’re both God. Jesus Himself said, I am. In doing so, He was equating Himself with the God of the Old Testament. Oftentimes, the New Testament refers to Jesus quite plainly as God. So they’re equal in Godhood, yet the Father, Father, and the Son are distinctly different in their roles and in their responsibilities. That doesn’t devalue Jesus. Jesus did what? He clothed Himself in human flesh.

Jesus obeyed whose will? The Father’s will. Jesus bled and died on the cross. So we see Jesus quite gladly carrying out a distinct office and role that was not the role, or responsibility, or office of the Father. We don’t read Jesus feels denigrated. Dad made me do this because He thinks He’s better than me. There is a good and beautiful distinction

that illuminates the unity of the Trinity when we see God the Father being God the Father in willing and overseeing, giving leadership and authority over Jesus.

And so, as He came and obeyed the Father’s will. So there’s a harmonious unity in the charge that the Father has over the submission, subordination of the Son. Okay? Come down the next line. Christ is the head of man. So we’re talking chronology here. The Bible tells us that Jesus was never created, but He was begotten. So what do we believe as Christians? That Jesus is the, the eternal Son of the Father. So yes, it is true, Jesus is the Son of God, but He was never created. There was never a point in time in which He was created. He’s the eternally begotten Son of God. That’s His office. That’s His distinct person within the Trinity. Who was created next? Chronologically. Well, the man was.

God said, let us make man in our image. And I think more pointedly, we understand that who is it that we are, that we are created to be like, is Christ.

Chronologically, who comes after the man?

The woman. Chronologically true. So that He says, man is the head of woman. Or again, I prefer the ESV, husband is the head of his wife. So while both men and women are created to know and be known by God, this passage makes, this God organization, ordained distinction between men and women, not in terms of innate worth or personhood. Men count a little bit more than women. Men are a little bit more valuable than women. Not what it’s saying. God loves men more than He loves women. Not what it’s saying. And in terms of the Gospel, if we look at Galatians 3.28, Paul says there, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male, or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. So nothing about Christian theology, nothing in the New Testament is saying men are superior creatures. That’s not at all what’s being taught. That’s not at all what’s being taught. What we’re being taught is in this little blip in time in which you and I live, God has a certain order in which He expects men and women to relate to one another. And there’s a distinction in that men, husbands are called to exercise loving, gentle leadership, and I’ll even use the word authority, for the good of a wife who should submit to that loving leadership and authority, which is for her good, which is for the good of the family. So if it’s a good and beautiful distinction in the Trinity, I think we must say on the basis of these verses, it’s a good and beautiful distinction among men and women.

Paul’s not advocating a personal preference. He’s not advocating a cultural preference. Paul is really demanding obedience to a tradition or a truth that he is showing is rooted in the fabric of the universe. It’s rooted in even the Trinity.

And he says, if you are a man or a woman, you need to show up to corporate worship. There’s the practical application. One doing the one thing and the other not doing the other thing. And if we disobey or disregard this head covering thing that Paul’s telling them to do, they’re not throwing off Paul’s preferences. They’re throwing off a God-ordained distinction between men and women. Okay? So if a woman choose to disregard, she is shaming her head, the man. And if you shame the head, the man, well, that shames his head, Christ, and that shames God. So also the man, if he chooses not to play his role, he shames his head, which shames God ultimately. So that’s what we’re talking about. Why are we talking about head coverings though? Why in the world are we talking about head coverings? Here’s why we’re talking about head coverings. Head coverings were in, the first century, Paul’s time, they were a clear social, cultural distinction of men and women. Okay? So again, that’s why this is coming in in both Roman Greco culture, so that would have been the entire Roman Empire, Gentiles, not Jews, but so also Jewish culture, what would have been normal and appropriate would have been for women to wear head coverings and for men to not so. Okay? Okay? I want to read you a few different remarks by some theologians whose expertise are in first century

culture context. Okay? This is Bruce Winters. Bruce Winters says, one, this is an interesting point, during religious ceremonies, that being pagan religious ceremonies, pagan Roman men with high social status pulled their togas over their heads when they led prayers or offerings or sacrifices. So Paul commanded Christian men not to cover their heads during their times of corporate worship like the socially elite pagans did. Okay? So we see what? We’re supposed to be different. But this gets to the heart of it here in these next two things he says. A woman’s covering her head socially indicated she was married. The thin head scarf or head covering symbolized a married woman’s modesty and chastity and submission to her husband. It was one way in which a wife honored her husband. Okay? He says also, there was at this time, and you’re going to say, hold on, that sounds a lot like the 21st century. There was a new kind of wife emerging in the Roman world. One who rebelled against the cultural milieu or cultural norms that allowed husbands but not wives to be sexually promiscuous. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that, but in Roman era time it would have been normal for a man to cheat on his wife and that was normal expected. What he’s saying, is this, there is this rising, we’ll call it a feminist movement where women were saying, well, I can be married, but I get to do whatever I want to do with my body too. He says one way in which such wives would flaunt that freedom would be by removing their veils. So a Christian wife should not deliberately remove her veil by praying or prophesying during a time of corporate worship because that would contentiously identify her with these other promiscuous women.

Okay? So you see what’s going on here. Paul’s not being stuffy. Paul’s not saying, do this because I said so. He’s not saying, do this because men are better than women. He’s saying, do this because in the place and time in which you live, you want to honor these beautiful distinctions about who God has made men to be and fulfill that role. And so women, you want to be culturally appropriate. Be distinct so you can also be and fulfill the role that God has called you to fulfill as a woman. I think this passage is timely for us in the 21st century because as it was in this time period, so we can say it is in the 21st century, a war on gender, a war on modesty, a war on chastity and fidelity in marriage. So as we see that happening in the 21st century, it was happening in Paul’s day. And here’s what that reminds us is what the Ecclesiastes writer says. There’s nothing new under the sun. There’s nothing new under the sun. Just a bunch of fancy repackagings as John Piper says. Godlessness, it feels exciting. It feels so revolutionary. It feels so original, doesn’t it, in the moment. But it ends in shame. It ends in God. Being dishonored.

As Paul has been arguing and he’ll argue here and he’ll do it on a number of different fronts, God’s people are called to be separate. We’re called to be separate and uphold biblical truths, theological truths, in life and practice. And that plays out in husbands gently loving, leading their wives and wives gladly submitting to their head, the husband.

And I think there’s a question of, okay, why? Here’s my why. Because marriage and family are the most important human institutions that God created. And He created those human institutions for His glory. And God only gets glory when you and I fulfill our roles as He intended. So is it any surprise then that the nuclear family is under the sun? Is it under such threat today? It has been.

We’re not going into politics or into anything. It’s just a matter of fact. The movement Black Lives Matter. I don’t know if they still have it on their website, but they did for a long time. One of their missions was really to deconstruct the nuclear family in the home. It was the community gets to raise your child. So there is a war on

biblical norms. Not, not cultural norms that people make up. Not any religious leaders preferences, but quite literally, as Paul has shown, it comes from the fabric of the universe. That’s what’s being warred upon.

And, you know, I know I bring it up because it’s in my face all the time. So sorry, but at the pregnancy center, I meet with men throughout the week who are set up for failure. Why? Because, like most men in our society, they have never seen another man show them what it means to be a man. In the same way as girls and women come in, they have never seen, ever seen what it looks like to be a wife or a mother. And I’m not saying those are exclusively the categories that men and women are supposed to fulfill. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that those are the chief responsibilities and privileges that men and women are supposed to carry and yet they’re absent in our society. Which tells you something, doesn’t it? That the world and Satan love to bury the truth as much as possible.

Men, you’re supposed to lead your families practically and spiritually. Family is God’s design for you to raise up godly generations. I think that men were supposed to lead our wives on a number of different fronts. I think basically, and I just mean at a basic level, you should be a good friend to your wife. You should emotionally support her and care about her. I think there’s a romantic aspect of marriage. You should care about the future of your family and making practical decisions financially.

We could come up with a million examples where you have to make decisions in life that affect the people who live under your own roof with jobs and this or that. Men, you should be, and we say this all the time, we’re going to keep saying it, the spiritual leader in your home. What do we find to be true in the church today? Women lead their family to churches and they’re lucky if they can drag their husband to church. What do we find again? God’s beautiful order turned on its head. So God’s not arbitrary. And I say that to men all the time. If he’s telling you to be in a covenant marriage relationship, if he’s telling you to be a committed father, it’s for your own good. God’s not arbitrary. It’s like Paul’s not being arbitrary. It’s for your good. In other words, if you and I fulfilled the roles that God called us to fill as men and women, we would, one, have order, which is good. You look at a lot of families today, what isn’t there? Order. Order. Order. Good. Good peace in the home. There’s not that. It’s true for a lot of families in the church. Secondly, I think in addition to order, you have fulfillment. God wants you to be fulfilled in the very thing you are. If you are a woman, if you are a man, God wants you to thrive in that. And so when you understand and love the how and the why, God wants you to be a man or a woman and relate to other people like that, there’s fulfillment that you can only have that’s greater than any other fulfillment you could possibly have. Otherwise, God’s not arbitrary. It’s fulfilling and orderly for us to obey God in these ways.

So, going on, in saying that

the man is the head of the woman,

the Scripture nowhere affirms that man is a capable creature in and of himself.

Nowhere at all.

And quite clearly and plainly, the Scriptures say, God says, man needs a helper.

It’s to God’s praise when a woman fulfills that role in marriage and family. And you know what it does? This doesn’t just tell us a lot about what men and women are. It tells us a lot about what men and women aren’t.

Women aren’t objects. They’re objects of a man’s sexual fantasies. Women do not exist to fulfill that in however way you can think it up or want it. Women are not push-over servant slaves to just do what you want and snap your finger. So men, if we’re not obeying God’s Word, we run the risk of abusing women that way. And I think in the same way when a woman does not understand that God’s good desire for her is to be a strong helper in the home,

a great wife, she thinks, well, the only way that I can matter is if I let a man do what he wants to me and I allow him to tell me to do whatever I want to do. But it’s not true at all, is it? If we go to Proverbs chapter 31,

Proverbs chapter 31, I think is really terribly undervalued because it’s usually read at the funeral of a woman who passes away. And that’s a good sentiment, but really Proverbs chapter 31 I think is a great blueprint for a woman while she’s alive. You know, like, oh, what a good thing to read at a funeral. And what we find in there,

chapter 31, verse 30, he says,

So what is the kind of wife you should want to be? What is it the kind of mother you want to be? What is it just the kind of woman you want to be? A woman who fears God. That’s what it says. And I love Proverbs 31 because if you read through it, you don’t find that she’s just some creature, mindless creature in a corner waiting for a husband to like, do this woman. You find that she’s brilliant and she’s smart and she buys and sells and she’s able to make things and she barters and her children praise her and her husband is praising the gates for her. You find this amazing woman who in her mind, her thriving helps her family thrive. So there’s so much to be said about the strength, the beauty that women have that men don’t have. And if you want to be a man that thrives, you need to have one of these kind of women under your roof or you’re going to be a garbage kind of man.

Now the only caveat here, and Paul talked about this a few sermons ago, it would be celibacy. Like if God’s given you the special calling in life and God has given you that special gift and you don’t need to be in a marriage relationship, praise God for that. We’re talking about nine out of ten times men need to get married and women need to get married and we need to relate to one another. And so the Bible has a lot to say about it then because it matters. It matters. We find this beautiful team happening here.

So beauty, sex, submission to one’s husband should be reciprocated with love and leadership from a husband who’s in submission to Christ. Christ who is in submission to God. So if a wife is submitting out of obedience to God to a man who is submitting to Christ, who lived according to the will of God, we find good for all and glory for God. It goes down and up. You see that? So Paul can write quite plainly in Colossians 3, verse 18, Wives, submit to your husbands, as is what? It’s fitting in the Lord.

Husbands, love your wives. Here’s the sinful temptation. Don’t you dare, don’t you dare be harsh with them.

Verse 10 in chapter 11 says that is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her husband. On her head because of the angels. Because of the angels.

So that sounds cryptic and strange as not. The question I want to ask from that is who are you seeking to please with your given masculinity or femininity? You or God? Because the angels in heaven, we’re told in different places, peer into what God’s doing on earth. In other words, it’s like Paul said, hey, do you realize that not only Jesus, but the whole host of heaven, they’re watching what you do?

Do you want to do something that’s so offensive against God and dishonoring? Do you not realize that the very presence of heaven is often peering in to watch what you do? Don’t you realize this matters in a great degree to God if you’re being godly men or if you’re being godly women? They’re watching from afar off to see in what ways the church is glorifying God in these good and beautiful distinctions between men and women. So, are we showing God’s way with a godly witness in church life, but in how we carry a biblical model of manhood, womanhood,

being a husband, being a wife? Last point. On that, our head coverings for today. Okay? And so you have to wrestle with this. And I was reading this and like, Lord, if this is teaching that, then I’m going to get up Sunday and I’ll say, women, you got to wear some head coverings because the Bible says so. I don’t believe that the Bible says that and teaches that. Okay? And here’s why. And I think I’ve explained it already.

Head covering, head coverings were in the first century. Remember, Rome rules everything. Rome has the whole world, right? So when you talk about Paul’s world, you’re talking about all of that. And everywhere you go, that’s the way that femininity and masculinity would have been seen differently. So if you said to Paul, hey, Paul, could you imagine a world? I know you’ve never heard of this before, nor has, you know, centuries past. But if you imagine a world where head coverings don’t infer masculinity, or femininity, or leadership, or loving, like, gentle submission, like, could you imagine that they should still do it? I’d have a hard time believing Paul would say, oh, absolutely. No matter what, everybody should do the head covering things. I think it’s a cultural appropriation of a biblical truth. I think it’s a cultural appropriation of a biblical truth. So I don’t believe

that head coverings are transcultural. I believe the principle of glorifying God through fulfilling our roles as husbands and wives, that is transcultural. And we need to be good stewards of, you know, our lives and what it looks like to be Christians in every culture and context in which we live to say, am I fulfilling a biblical mandate to be a man or a woman, to be a husband or a wife in a way that pleases God?

Okay, verse 11.

Verse 11. Paul goes on to say, nevertheless in the Lord,

woman is not independent of man, nor is man of woman. For as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman.

So it may be here that man has a certain priority in terms of leadership and charge and being the head. And again, the illustration is a principle. It’s a plain one. Think about a head on a body. You wouldn’t say, oh, that head. The head’s what it’s all about. Who cares about the heart? Like if you break your arm, who cares? It’s an arm. Your head’s fine. Like the head’s important and it has a function to lead, but you care about your whole body. Right?

That’s the case, I think Paul’s setting forth. At the same time, he’s saying, you’re not independent of one another.

Besides Adam, literally just, Adam, every man ever, every man in this room, you are dependent on a woman to get into this world. You know that?

Your mother chose to carry you for nine, ten months. And if it’s anything like Jessica’s, that’s grueling. That is grueling. More than that, she kept you alive when you were entirely helpless. She nurtured you.

So don’t get so high on the horse and thinking, oh, I’m up here and she’s down there. Paul says, nope. You’re not independent of one another. You need her physically. As she needs you.

And obviously, in reproduction, men and women need one another for that. But practically, I want to say practically, there are just simply things, things that women bring to the table that men don’t. My wife has a perspective on things that I need when I’m acting a fool. Alright? When I am getting aggressive or harsh or I want to deal with something, what can my wife say? Like, hey, no, what’s wrong with you? Like, women just bring things to the table that men don’t. Men bring things to the table that women don’t. And that’s a good thing in that there’s an interdependence in the way that they don’t, they don’t conflict. They complement. It’s like a puzzle piece. When God says in Genesis to be her helper, to be his helper, you could translate to correspond. Men and women are different. Anybody wants to argue men and women aren’t different. But the Bible says they correspond to one another. They fit together really good. So it’s not an unfortunate, like necessary evil that there’s this, there’s this, there’s this headship thing going on. It’s a beautiful thing from God when we see that we’re made to work together. We’re made to correspond, to go through life together. He says, quite plainly in verse 12, for as a woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman and all things are what? He says they’re from God. They’re from God. So again, does God do things that are not for our benefit? He does not. And so I want to say two different things here. One would be if we hear that, and again, we do live in a radically like feminist society. We live in a me first society. I think there’s a temptation by most people with this to sneer at it. Okay. And I think that’s pride in the same way that it would be prideful for a man to think he can dominate. All right. But I want, I want to say these two things. Let’s let Scripture tell us how men and women should act and relate to one another, not culture. All right. Secondly, let’s not let bad experiences shape it. So if we were to say, oh yes, I see that, but I lived through or I know this horrid experience where this husband and wife did not do all this. So that’s my license. That’s my license and justification to believe it’s not true. Well, that, well, friends, we would have to just go ahead and flush the gospel down the toilet because everything in Scripture that’s good and true, none of us attain to yet. Jesus is a savior for my sins. Oh, I sinned again. He must not be a savior. We can’t say that. So, so though we constantly fail as Christians to meet that standard, we still have to strive for it in spirit and in our failures, ask God to open our minds up and take us further and deeper into it. And that’s what we’re doing. And that really matters for us because we do live in a time of radical feminism. We live in a time of extreme gender confusion, not only confusion, but that confusion is celebrated. And I do think it’s important to mince words here. He said man and women are not independent of one another. He did not say men and men are independent of one another or not. He did not say women and women. Men and men are independent of one another. He’s talking about men and women.

God’s design is what? Plainly, men and women

to depend on one another in a relational bond of marriage. I’m not a biologist and you’re probably not either. You know what a man is and so do I. You know what a woman is and so do I. And Jesus is calling you. He’s calling His church to uphold those beautiful distinctions between masculinity and femininity. Now, we can make straw men about masculinity is toxic. Well, it can be if you’re not in Christ. Right? So you can do that or we can say let’s just come to the Bible and look to Jesus and see what it looks like for a man and a woman to love one another with the love of Christ. Verse 13-14. And we’ll close this. He says in verse 13, Judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, is it a disgrace for him? But if a woman has long hair, it is her glory for her hair is given to her for covering. So when Paul says judge for yourselves, I take Paul to mean come on folks. You know what to do. You know what a man is and you know what a woman is. You know what femininity is. You know what masculinity is. I’ve been clear about the roles that men should play. I’ve been clear about the roles that women should play. And you can give a million examples and we can’t do it. But think about the difference between a woman who has long flowing beautiful hair. Okay. And a man who has long hair. Now, you know good and well there’s just an innate difference in that. Women’s hair is beautiful. And partly in the culture in the first century,

hair was considered a sexual organ because it was attractive. When a woman’s hair is done right, it’s pretty. Men aren’t pretty.

When you see like a million dollar sports car, do you see like a hairy man laying on that car in his trunks? You don’t.

If you saw it, you would go, oh, like that’s gross. What do you usually see exploited? What do you see exploited?

The femininity of women. A woman entirely inappropriately dressed. Why? Because there’s a difference between masculinity. There’s a difference between femininity. A woman who has beautiful flowing hair and some surfer dude that has, you know, long, you know, blonde hair. You’re like, it’s long, but it’s masculine. Paul says like, you know, this is true. It’s written in nature. You know, this is true. And again, there’s caveats here that we could go through. Like, what about if in one culture, men have long hair and women have shorter hair? Like, OK, but in that cultural, you know what the expression means. So we have to be faithful. Here we are in 2022. We know what’s feminine and we know what’s masculine. It is entirely feminine. It’s entirely wrong. You know, if you know, I don’t listen to his music, to my own credit, but like One Direction, that boy band, Harry Styles is the lead singer. He loves to show up in award shows now, like in just a straight up women’s dress. And he talks about like loving the feeling of it. So he’s this dude. He just like wears women’s dress. That’s feminine. That’s wrong. You shouldn’t waffle on that. You should say, hey, that’s wrong. That’s that’s women’s garb. Right. Right. So so Paul’s saying it doesn’t take a biologist to say that’s masculine. That’s feminine. Y’all need to honor that to the glory of God. What’s the point?

Order and fulfilling your God given existence as a man or a woman. In that Christ himself would be glorified in you. If you’re a man glorified in you. If you’re a woman, I want to obey this because it’s in the Bible and it’s good and we shouldn’t apologize for the things we read in the Bible, right? If it’s in the Bible, I’m going to love it and I’m going to stand on it.

Verse 16 here. Paul says, if anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God. And if you want to be contentious and you want to try to be witty and you’re trying to argue and get a bunch of little spits and spats about what it does and doesn’t mean and try to justify why a man can look like a woman or a woman can look like a man. Paul’s saying, hey, we don’t have that custom in the church. In all the churches, we obey the plain written word of God. We honor the distinctions. Okay? We honor the interdependence. So when men and women recognize their distinctions, but they also depend on one another the same way, we have godly marriages, we have godly parenting, we have a godly society that shows Christ-likeness, obedience to God, which disciples for the glory of God.

Amen? Amen? Okay, let’s pray.

Lord, help us just obey Your Word and love Your Word and be willing to get down into

the parts of it that require thinking, parts of it that require us to put our pride behind us, parts of it, Lord, that look different from culture, parts of it that may ask us to lose favor with culture

and just love You and do what honors You, God. Amen? So I pray that for our marriages that we would be men that lead, protect, provide for, point to Christ, make decisions that honor You, that we would be men who love our wives and value and treasure them. And Lord, we would have women that respect and submit to good leadership and wives that encourage and assist their husbands. And we would, Lord, have this blessed interdependence that glorifies You. And Lord, help us as husbands and wives to be gracious and forgiving when we fail to uphold those roles as we ought. And Lord, surely we all have. But Lord, we thank You that Your grace is greater than our sin and that You keep us, Lord. So we just pray that over us today and we pray it, Lord, for Your glory. And it’s in Jesus’ name that I pray these things. Amen.