How Does Childbirth Save Women?

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:04.000 | Welcome back to this new week on the podcast, week number 530 for us.

00:00:08.000 | Number 530, that's amazing. Thanks for being a part of this podcast

00:00:12.000 | over the past decade and thank you for praying for God to

00:00:16.000 | sustain us in this work. Last Monday we talked about

00:00:20.000 | the value and dignity of womanhood, a really important episode in a world

00:00:24.000 | just blind to God's glorious and intentional design for male and female creatures.

00:00:28.000 | That was the APJ 1909. And we celebrated

00:00:32.000 | the incredible glories of motherhood as well. On motherhood, I often

00:00:36.000 | recommend one episode from seven years ago. We recorded it

00:00:40.000 | and I'll never forget it. It's titled, "I Want Kids, My Husband Doesn't."

00:00:44.000 | APJ 908. It's just a great classic episode in the archive

00:00:48.000 | on the glories of motherhood. And as always, you'll find

00:00:52.000 | our archive at AskPastorJohn.com and there you can search for

00:00:56.000 | episodes 908 and 1909. Speaking of

00:01:00.000 | the glories of motherhood, we have an international question today about 1 Timothy

00:01:04.000 | 2:15, an important text, a curious text, that we

00:01:08.000 | haven't touched on in about four years now. And we should and we will

00:01:12.000 | because today's question is from a listener to the podcast named Luba, L-U-B-A,

00:01:16.000 | Luba, who asks, "Pastor John, can you please comment on 1 Timothy 2:15?

00:01:20.000 | What are we as women supposed to be saved from in childbirth

00:01:24.000 | and what does this mean for women who will never have children? This verse is

00:01:28.000 | highly discussed among us Christians inside of Russia.

00:01:32.000 | Thank you for your wisdom. In this context right here in

00:01:36.000 | 1 Timothy 2, Paul is making the case

00:01:40.000 | that qualified men, spiritually

00:01:44.000 | qualified men, should be the authoritative

00:01:48.000 | teachers, or you could say pastors, elders, in

00:01:52.000 | the church rather than women. Now we've addressed

00:01:56.000 | that issue several times in Ask Pastor John, but

00:02:00.000 | this time the issue is different.

00:02:04.000 | Here's the text at the end of verse 15

00:02:08.000 | with a very puzzling sentence. I'll read the whole two

00:02:12.000 | verses and then underline that last sentence

00:02:16.000 | that she's asking about. "I do not permit a woman to teach

00:02:20.000 | and exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain

00:02:24.000 | quiet, for Adam was formed first,

00:02:28.000 | then Eve, and Adam was not deceived,

00:02:32.000 | but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor." Now here's

00:02:36.000 | the sentence. "Yet she will be

00:02:40.000 | saved through childbearing

00:02:44.000 | if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control."

00:02:48.000 | What is the meaning of verse 15? "Yet

00:02:52.000 | she will be saved through childbearing

00:02:56.000 | if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control."

00:03:00.000 | She. Who's she?

00:03:04.000 | She shall be saved refers to the woman, or

00:03:08.000 | Eve, in verse 14, but

00:03:12.000 | I think Paul means for us to generalize it—I think Luba

00:03:16.000 | is right to make that inference—to generalize it

00:03:20.000 | because he shifts from the singular "she"

00:03:24.000 | to the plural "they" in the very next

00:03:28.000 | phrase. He says, "She will be saved through childbearing

00:03:32.000 | if they continue

00:03:36.000 | in faith," and the natural way to take this

00:03:40.000 | "they" is women in general, so I think

00:03:44.000 | she's right to ask the question. She's asking the way she's

00:03:48.000 | asking it. So what does it mean that women in general

00:03:52.000 | will be saved through childbearing if they continue in

00:03:56.000 | faith and love and holiness with self-control? And

00:04:00.000 | what about women who never have children? How does the verse apply

00:04:04.000 | to them? Some have suggested

00:04:08.000 | that "through childbearing" refers to the birth of

00:04:12.000 | Jesus. Since a woman bore the Savior,

00:04:16.000 | we could say that women are saved through that

00:04:20.000 | childbearing, but that's unlikely

00:04:24.000 | because, among other reasons, the only other

00:04:28.000 | use of this Greek word "childbearing" is found in 1 Timothy

00:04:32.000 | 5, verse 14, where it simply

00:04:36.000 | means ordinary childbearing among women

00:04:40.000 | in general. It says, "So I would have the younger widows marry

00:04:44.000 | and bear children," childbearing.

00:04:48.000 | So I don't think that's what it refers to.

00:04:52.000 | What then does it mean, "She will be saved through childbearing"?

00:04:56.000 | And here I'm happy to give credit

00:05:00.000 | to Henry Alford, a British scholar who died in

00:05:04.000 | 1871, who pointed me to a text

00:05:08.000 | in 1 Corinthians that I think holds the key

00:05:12.000 | to Paul's meaning here. So the key question is,

00:05:16.000 | what does "through" mean when

00:05:20.000 | Paul says, "She will be saved"—women in general

00:05:24.000 | will be saved—"through childbearing"?

00:05:28.000 | I think what gets most of us off

00:05:32.000 | on the wrong foot is that we almost

00:05:36.000 | all jump to the conclusion that "through"

00:05:40.000 | means "by means of." "She will be

00:05:44.000 | saved by means of childbearing."

00:05:48.000 | And then we cast about for how that could be the case. There is another

00:05:52.000 | possibility for what "through" means, and that was

00:05:56.000 | the clue I saw in 1 Corinthians 3.15,

00:06:00.000 | where Paul uses this very word

00:06:04.000 | in a similar situation, and it means something very

00:06:08.000 | different. So here's what Paul is

00:06:12.000 | talking about there. You remember he's talking about the judgment

00:06:16.000 | according to our works, in particular whether

00:06:20.000 | we've taught true things in the context of the church. And he says there's

00:06:24.000 | wood, there's hay, there's stubble, and if

00:06:28.000 | some of your works are wood, hay, and stubble, they're going to be burned up

00:06:32.000 | at the judgment. And then he holds out hope that the person

00:06:36.000 | himself, even though the wood, hay, and stubble of his works

00:06:40.000 | gets burned up, might be saved, even though

00:06:44.000 | he has not lived the life that

00:06:48.000 | he should have lived in any perfect way. He says

00:06:52.000 | it like this. "If anyone's work is burned up,

00:06:56.000 | he will suffer loss, though he himself

00:07:00.000 | will be saved, but only as

00:07:04.000 | through fire." So there's that

00:07:08.000 | saved idea and through idea.

00:07:12.000 | Now what's the meaning of "through" here, which is the same word

00:07:16.000 | used in 1 Timothy 2.15? It does not

00:07:20.000 | mean "by means of." You say, "by means of fire."

00:07:24.000 | He will be saved, what,

00:07:28.000 | through fire, in the sense that fire

00:07:32.000 | is threatening him, and he comes through

00:07:36.000 | it safe. It means virtually in spite

00:07:40.000 | of fire. Even though he is under the threat

00:07:44.000 | of fire, yet he will be saved. He will come

00:07:48.000 | through it saved. So my suggestion

00:07:52.000 | is that this is the way we should try to

00:07:56.000 | understand the word "through" in 1 Timothy 2.15

00:08:00.000 | when Paul says, "She will be saved through childbearing."

00:08:04.000 | Now how would that work? She will be saved in spite

00:08:08.000 | of childbearing. Sounds kind of odd.

00:08:12.000 | Or through childbearing, the way a person comes through

00:08:16.000 | some threatening circumstance. Well,

00:08:20.000 | go back to Genesis 3 and remind yourself

00:08:24.000 | what happened after Adam and Eve sinned,

00:08:28.000 | which is the context here in 1 Timothy 2. What happened

00:08:32.000 | was that both of them were told that the curse of

00:08:36.000 | sin would fall on each of them in their

00:08:40.000 | respective special role. Adam

00:08:44.000 | in his farming work, sweat of his face,

00:08:48.000 | and Eve in her childbearing. So Genesis 3.16

00:08:52.000 | says, "To the woman God said,

00:08:56.000 | 'I will surely multiply your pain in

00:09:00.000 | childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth

00:09:04.000 | children.'" Now let's let that sink in for a

00:09:08.000 | minute. How that must have landed on women

00:09:12.000 | for centuries, especially before

00:09:16.000 | modern medicine. No hygiene,

00:09:20.000 | no spinal blocks, no episiotomies,

00:09:24.000 | no sutures, no cesareans, no antibiotics,

00:09:28.000 | no painkillers, and often

00:09:32.000 | no recovery. Untold numbers

00:09:36.000 | of women died in childbirth, and

00:09:40.000 | countless more suffered the rest of their lives from wounds

00:09:44.000 | tearing that prevented childbirth or any kind of normal

00:09:48.000 | sexual life. In other words, there were aspects of

00:09:52.000 | childbearing that felt like a curse from God

00:09:56.000 | because, in a sense, they were.

00:10:00.000 | And often that burden lasted a lifetime,

00:10:04.000 | not just in the moment of birth.

00:10:08.000 | How easy it would have been for women

00:10:12.000 | in Paul's day, for example, or through the centuries

00:10:16.000 | to despair and feel that God was against them.

00:10:20.000 | He's just against them. He was their cursor,

00:10:24.000 | not their savior. The pain of childbearing, the misery of its

00:10:28.000 | long-term effects, often was a reminder of God's

00:10:32.000 | displeasure over Eve's sin. Now I think that

00:10:36.000 | is what Paul is responding to.

00:10:40.000 | And his response was gospel hope.

00:10:44.000 | In other words, no to the curse. No!

00:10:48.000 | These pains of childbearing, even

00:10:52.000 | if they last a lifetime, are not

00:10:56.000 | God's word, his final word

00:11:00.000 | to women. God intends to save.

00:11:04.000 | They will be saved through the fiery trials

00:11:08.000 | of childbearing, through the apparent curse of childbearing.

00:11:12.000 | In spite of childbearing being part of God's curse on sin,

00:11:16.000 | women will be saved through it.

00:11:20.000 | And then Paul adds, "If they continue

00:11:24.000 | in faith and love and holiness with self-control," which simply

00:11:28.000 | means, I think, if they're Christians, that's

00:11:32.000 | the link with the Savior. She's justified by faith.

00:11:36.000 | Then love and holiness and self-control are simply the fruit

00:11:40.000 | of faith that confirm that it's real for men and women.

00:11:44.000 | She is a real Christian, and that's how

00:11:48.000 | she will be saved in spite of the

00:11:52.000 | curse of painful reminders of the curse

00:11:56.000 | of God in childbearing through

00:12:00.000 | Eve's disobedience. So in answer

00:12:04.000 | to Luba's question about, "Well, what does this mean for women who

00:12:08.000 | have never had children or will have children?"

00:12:12.000 | It means this. Though they may never

00:12:16.000 | have tasted the pain of childbearing

00:12:20.000 | in their own bodies, they still

00:12:24.000 | might feel a solidarity with all

00:12:28.000 | women under the curse of the pain of childbearing

00:12:32.000 | because of sin entering the world. And so

00:12:36.000 | they can share in the same hope as women

00:12:40.000 | who have had children, namely the hope that in spite of pain,

00:12:44.000 | women have to endure in spite of that pain

00:12:48.000 | because of the fall. Nevertheless, God is for

00:12:52.000 | them, not against them. And if they trust in

00:12:56.000 | Jesus Christ and walk in lives of holiness,

00:13:00.000 | they will be saved.

00:13:03.000 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the excellent question all the way from Russia.

00:13:07.000 | You can ask a question of your own, search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast all at

00:13:11.000 | AskPastorJohn.com. Well, what is this thing we

00:13:15.000 | call Christian hedonism? And what's the best, simple,

00:13:19.000 | short definition of Christian hedonism? Well, Pastor John has his

00:13:23.000 | favorite version of it, and we're going to hear it next time. "Christian Hedonism in Two

00:13:27.000 | Minutes." I'm your host, Roderick E. We'll see you Wednesday.

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How Does Childbirth Save Women?

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