So my previous post on Women. The Church. The Family. And You. didn't quite satisfy some. That is to be expected. The issue of concern centers around how does that view explicitly deal with Paul's teaching in 1 Timothy. So I am going to address that here today.
Paul wrote:
Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. 1 Timothy 2:11-12 (ESV)1 Timothy definitely gives the harshest perspective against the view that women should be able to serve in whatever way they are gifted as I expressed in my previous article.
I would point out that Paul contradicts this teaching in his letter to the Christians in Corinth where he gives instructions on women prophesying (1 Corinthians 11:5). So the issue comes down to which passage supersedes the other. I would go with the one where he tells a woman to prophesy means that women can speak. So that makes me view 1 Timothy 2:12 as a command specific to something that was happening in Ephesus. They may have had unruly women or something of that sort. We honestly don't know.
But what we do know for sure is that we have examples of Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, leading in the Old Testament.
In the New Testament, you have the examples of Phoebe, Euodia, Syntyche, Junia, and Priscilla leading.
Every one of these people would appear to be violators of the teaching of Paul to Timothy to be silent. So those examples tell me that what we had going on in the letter to Timothy was something different.
So we have this letter to Timothy in Ephesus that is difficult. I get that.
But I find the story of Jesus restoring all things to be more compelling. Our salvation has already begun. The church is the restored community of God. In that light, we should live like it. That's why we strive for holiness, etc. We are an example to the world of what God intends for the world to be like.
Now, moving on to the childbearing one passage that follows.
For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. 1 Timothy 2:13-15 (ESV)Again, we are obviously dealing with a church community that has some problem among the women where they were supposed to stay silent. We aren't given an understanding of what that problem is though.
Paul is emphasizing that women are saved through Jesus like any of us are saved in case people in the audience were confused, which may have been in doubt since there seemed to have been some sort of crisis among the women. But women, like anyone else, are saved through faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
But the sticky part is that childbearing word in the passage. To accept this just without thinking deeply about it, we would have to say that women who can't have babies are going to hell. That doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the teaching of Scripture, so maybe this passage carries a different meaning than women without childbearing are doomed.
What if the imagery here is pertinent? He's talking about how through Eve, one woman, sin came into the world. But also through the childbrith of Mary, one woman, Jesus came into the world. So it is through the childbirth of a woman that salvation comes just like through the sin of Eve, sin came.
From Ben Witherington:
"There are these further problems with your interpretation of 1 Tim. 2.8-15: 1) why exactly do you ignore the fact that vs. 15 speaks of ‘the child bearing’ with the definite article? Do you really think that the definite article has no weight here? Paul is surely referring to one specific childbearing, not the act of childbearing in general, for which we would have expected a different grammatical construction. The church fathers often recognized an Eve — Mary contrast here, as I am sure you know. If this is right, then it is not a comment on women in general and their roles, it is telling us that just as the fall came through Eve, so redemption came through Mary. The curse was reversed through Mary. 3) Paul says nothing here about women being in submission to men. The submission referred to in vs. 11 is coupled with the learning in quietness that they must do. It has to do with submission to the teaching of authorized teachers, whoever they may be. BTW Genesis while speaking of an order to creation does not connect this with the submission of women to men; 4) obviously 1 Tim.2.12 is the big bone of contention— I would have thought that with the ‘not…. nor’ construction here and the fact that Paul is correcting problems caused by both men and women in 2.8-15 that these facts would have favored a negative reading of both infinitives here— referring to unauthorized teaching and the usurping of authority. ‘Authentein’ in a pejorative context like this where abuses are being dealt with can certainly refer to the heavy handed use or abuse of authority or power or privilege."This echoes the idea that Paul expressed in Romans, "Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 5:18-21 (ESV)
"I recognize that other readings of this text are possible, but there is no knock down argument which rules out the possibilities I have outlined above and will present at length in my commentary on the Pastorals coming out this fall. In other words, you can’t rule out my interpretation and I cannot definitively rule out yours. This being the case, it would be better to recognize and accept this fact while we agree to disagree as brothers in Christ."
