The Bible is clear that God loves men and women equally.

So does it really matter who leads and who submits in a local church, especially in this day and age?

We'll hear what the Bible has to say today on Truth for Life as Alistair Begg continues our study in 1 Timothy.

We're in chapter 2.

We had begun to notice the fact that Paul's clear instructions in 11 and 12 were not grounded in any cultural or pragmatic concerns that he was espousing,

but rather were grounded in the doctrine of creation, in foundational elements that had to do with the way God had set things up from the very beginning of time.

And that on account of this, we could be very clear concerning the timelessness of his instruction.

In other words, there was no way that we could sidestep what he was saying by suggesting that somehow or another he was lost in a cultural time warp, and that had he been living today, he would not have written as he did.

In verse 14, Paul is referring to the tragic consequences of women breaking out of the pattern that God had established insofar as she led rather than she followed.

And that's his point of emphasis here. She should have been following and she took the position of leadership, and consequently sin entered the world through a reversal of God-given roles.

Paul is not absolving Adam from responsibility far from it. Eve was deceived, but Adam, as we noted, sinned willfully, he sinned with his eyes wide open.

Now there are basic fundamental truths in these first three chapters of Genesis, and they will repay your careful study.

Amongst them, we notice this, that although she was created second, the woman sinned first.

Although she was intended as a helper for her husband, she instead led him into sin.

And besides being responsible for his own disobedience, Adam failed insofar as he failed to take the lead in doing what was right.

He abrogated his responsibilities just as much as Eve superseded hers.

And the consequences of this are chronical for us in Genesis 3.

There are implications which immediately came to man, and I use the word generically there, man, man, and women, as a result of the fall of man into sin.

Prior to the fall, and it's important to understand that it was prior to the fall, women's principal task was childbearing and the care or for family.

There will be people who come to you and say, the only reason that it is the way it is is because of sin.

But if there hadn't been sinned, then it wouldn't have been this way. Just read your Bible and you'll be able to respond to that.

Prior to the fall, the primary task and responsibility burdened given to women is to bear children and to care for her family.

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