Message by Josh Mutter – June 29, 2025
TWO THINGS
1. We should be committed to giving one another the benefit of the doubt.
2. We should expect charity from one another, not uniformity.
QUESTION: How should we understand the passages in the New Testament that address the role of women?
THE RESURRECTION
Romans 16:1-2 (NIV) I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.
– The resurrection weaves women into the story of church leadership from the start.
1 TIMOTHY 2:8-15
1 Timothy 2:12 (NIV) I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
– Paul envisions a community where men and women share equally in God’s mission.
1 Timothy 2:8-15 (NIV) Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
EPHESIANS 5:21-30
Ephesians 5:21 (NIV) Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
– Paul calls us to relationships shaped by love and centred on Jesus.
Ephesians 5:21-28 (NIV) Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
CLOSING THOUGHT
True welcome creates space to belong, not just to be present.
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