Corinth, 21st century (courtesy Wikipedia)

By Spencer D Gear

When we come to discuss the controversial issue of women in public ministry in a mixed congregation of males and females, there are two sections of Scripture that are trotted out as old chestnuts to oppose women in ministry. They are:

1 Cor. 14:33-35 (ESV) [2]: For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

1 Tim. 2:12: I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.

Mary Lee Cagle (& husband Henry), Pioneer Preacher, Church of the Nazarene

Courtesy Encyclopedia of Alabama

This inquiry will deal primarily with passages in I Corinthians as I have examined the I Timothy passage in my paper, “Must Women Never Teach Men in the Church? (An interpretation of I Timothy 2:9-15).”

I am left with some significant questions from the biblical text of I Corinthians. These questions are not driven by a contemporary feminist agenda that has influenced me. They are based on an examination of the Bible, following my observation that some gifted women are being under-used or not allowed to function according to their verbal gifts in the evangelical church.

• Questions that need good biblical answers

1. The God of truth

God/Jesus is the God of truth/truthfulness. See Isa. 45:19 and John 14:6. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (John 15:26; 16:13). God’s word is truth (John 17:17; Ps. 119:142, 160).

Billy Graham has called his daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, “the best preacher in the family,” yet Anne Lotz has experienced some shocking harassment (abuse?) by pastors in the evangelical community.  Here’s an example:

“Anne Graham Lotz [Billy Graham’s daughter] learned this lesson personally as she began her itinerant ministry 13 years ago. She was addressing a convention of 800 pastors. As she walked to the lectern, Anne was shocked to see that many of the pastors had turned their chairs around and put their backs to her. She managed to share her message but was shaken. She asked herself, Was the inaudible voice I had heard from these men, in essence saying, ‘Anne, you don’t belong in the pulpit when men are present’ authentic or not? Wanting to follow God’s plan for her life, Anne went home and opened her Bible. As Anne read, the Lord told her that He put the words in her mouth and that she was not responsible for the reaction of her audience. God confirmed the call in her life. Anne, you are not accountable to your audience; you are accountable to Me” [available from: Christian Broadcasting Network].

2.  God seems to contradict himself in I Corinthians if we accept the traditional view of closing down women in verbal ministry among men. 

This is what I mean!

a.  Women can speak

Elizabeth Hooten, a Quaker woman preacher

Courtesy Google

God’s Word states that women can speak in the church — they can pray and prophesy according to I Cor. 11: 5, “But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head — it is the same as if her head were shaven.” Here a woman in the church is able to pray and prophesy. The head covering is another issue, but not considered here as it is not relevant to the primary topic of the validity or otherwise of women in public ministry.

It is possible to pray without opening the mouth, but I do not know how a woman can prophesy in the church gathering with her mouth closed.

We know what is involved in praying, but what does the Scripture mean when it says that a woman is able to prophesy? Surely that can’t be done through silence! Here is not the place for a detailed examination of the gift of prophecy. Let’s check out a few evangelical commentators for their views:

John MacArthur Jr., a prominent expository preacher, contends that “prophecy is the proclaiming of [God’s] [4] Word. The gift of prophecy is the Spirit-given and Spirit-empowered ability to proclaim the Word effectively.” [5] However, to get over the difficulty of prophesying meaning women proclaiming the Word in the local church, he claims that in I Cor. 11:5, Paul “makes no mention here of a church at worship or in the time of formal teaching. Perhaps he has in view praying or prophesying in public places, rather than in the worship of the congregation” [6]

What a way to weasel out of one’s unsustainable position! There is not a shred of evidence in the immediate context that this refers to a woman’s praying and prophesying in public and not in the church gathering. But in I Cor. 11:18 it is very clear that Paul is addressing a situation “when you come together as a church.” It is clear from passages such as I Cor. 14:29 that prophecy is delivered in the assembly/church gathering where “the others weigh what is said.”

Wayne Grudem, a noted theologian, concludes that the gift of prophecy “should be defined not as ‘predicting the future,’ nor as ‘proclaiming a word from the Lord,’ nor as ‘powerful preaching’ – but rather as ‘telling something that God has spontaneously brought to mind.’” [7]

Charles Hodge, an evangelical theologian and commentator of another era (A D 1797-1878) claimed that the “praying and prophesying [of I Cor. 11:5] were the two principal exercises in the public worship of the early Christians. The latter term . . . included all forms of address dictated by the Holy Spirit.” [8] The nature of the gift of prophecy, he writes, “is clearly exhibited in the 14th ch. [of I Corinthians]. It consisted in occasional inspiration and revelations, not merely or generally relating to the future, . . . but either in some new communications relating to faith or duty, or simply an immediate impulse and aid from the Holy Spirit. . .” [9]

Gordon Fee, a contemporary Bible scholar and exegete, states that

“The two verbs ‘pray and prophesy’ make it certain that the problem has to do with the assembly at worship. One may pray privately; but not so with prophecy. This was the primary form of inspired speech, directed toward the community [of believers] for its edification and encouragement (cf. 14:1-5).” [10] Specifically, the gift of prophecy “consisted of spontaneous, Spirit-inspired, intelligible messages, orally delivered in the gathered assembly, intended for the edification or encouragement of the people.” [11]

Therefore, we can conclude that for women to prophesy, it meant that they gave an oral message in a church gathering. They could not prophesy and remain silent at the same time.

b. Each one (male and female) may be involved in public ministry

The Greek, adelphos (brother) [12], here in the plural means brothers and sisters. [13] If you want a technical description, see this footnote. [14] A careful examination of the meaning of “brothers” cannot make it refer to males only here.

It is clear that when brothers and sisters come together in the church gathering, all of them, male and female, have the opportunity for public, verbal ministry in “a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation.” None of these ministries can be exercised without speaking.”

But we have this problem . . .

c. Women cannot speak

First Corinthians 14:33-35 states, “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”

What are women supposed to do, according to this passage? They “should keep silent.” This is an accurate translation of the Greek, sigaw. [15] Being a present tense command, the meaning is that women are to continue to keep silent. It is the same verb as that used in I Cor. 14: 28 where, if nobody is present in the church gathering to interpret “tongues,” the person moved upon to exercise the gift of tongues is to “keep silent.”

What are women not permitted to do in the church? They are not “to speak.” This is the standard Greek verb for speaking, lalein (from lalew), meaning “speak . . . to have and use the faculty of speech, in contrast to one who is incapable of speaking.” [16]

B. God is the God of truth and does not speak with a forked-tongue. 

This is the problem. How is it that the God of truth, who does not lie, tells women that they can verbally express their ministries in the church gathering (11:5 and 14:26), and yet in 14:33-35 he tells them to “keep silent”?

Isn’t this contradictory and in opposition to the very nature of the God of truth?

C. Speak and be silent do not make sense.

Could something else be going on here that relates to our understanding of the text and its application to all churches for all times? The evidence points in that direction.

Take a look at these verses and their context:

1.  There was confusion in the Corinthian church (14:33) and God wanted peace instead of disorder.

2.  Could it be that the women were contributing to this confusion by engaging in speaking that was disrupting the church gathering?  This was not happening in just one church (Corinth), but also “in all the churches of the saints” (14:33).  It was a widespread occurrence in the early Gentile church and Paul was forced to address it.
3.  This problem of women contributing to disorder and confusion in the church gathering, is suggested by 14:35 where the women are told that “if there is anything they desire to learn” then they should “ask their husbands at home.” Were they seeking to learn in the church gathering and it was resulting in rowdy confusion?
4.  If “it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church,” it cannot mean that she cannot speak at all for all times in all churches throughout church history, as 11:5 and 14:26 make clear. It has to mean that it is shameful for a woman to engage in disruptive behaviour while in the church gathering and so contribute to the confusion in the church meeting. This is a silencing of the women in “all the churches of the saints” (v. 33). The inference is that it applied to all of the churches as women seem to have been the culprits in creating the confusion. For one suggestion of what might have been going on, see this endnote. [17]  The corollory is that if men were contributing to similar disorder and confusion when the church gathered, men would be given instructions to “shut up” in the gathering.  But this was not a permanent instruction for silence, but simply to deal with an occurrence in some early church gatherings.

5.  This temporary silence of women in all the churches would stop the confusion, quit the disruption and “all things” would then “be done decently and in order” (v. 40).

6.  It is a tragedy that this passage has been applied to all women in all churches throughout the existence of the church, to silence women in public ministry among a mixed audience of men and women. 

D.  A more reasonable understanding

While the above explanation may not be acceptable to those who hold firmly to the conservative, traditionalist view of the silence of women in the church’s mixed gathering, I cannot see any other way out of it, without making God a liar or a perpetrator of contradictory messages. Such would be blasphemy!
This also seems a more reasonable explanation in light of God’s views of the change of women in ministry in the New Covenant.  Let’s take a look at what the Word says!

E.  The New Covenant and women

A limitation on female ministry seems to contradict the principle of mutuality in equality established elsewhere in the Pauline epistles (eg. 1 Cor. 11:5, 14:26, Gal. 3:28, Eph. 5:21).

A critical dimension of understanding the Bible is that God, being the God of all knowledge, is not going to give fragmented teachings in Old and New Testaments that contradict one another. He is the God of truth.

Therefore, it should not be surprising that God would tell us in advance what would happen with the coming of the New Covenant. He prophesied through the prophet Joel what to expect with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions” (Joel 2:28).

Gal. 3:28 affirms the mutuality of male and female in the New Covenant: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

The Old Covenant had very different rules for men and women. There were special privileges given to certain male Jews and not to male Gentiles. Some had larger functions than others (e.g. the Levites). Women had a diminished role in ministry. The Old Testament congregation had almost no function.

This changed with the New Covenant. The law of God is written on the human heart. The Spirit indwells people who repent, believe and trust Jesus as their only Lord and Saviour – Jews and Gentiles, men and women, slaves and non-slaves. Ministerial classes of people are abandoned as the Spirit gifts all people for possible public ministry. That includes male and female.

If women are to be silenced from public ministry in the church, including ministry among men, it will violate God’s New Covenant that “your daughters shall prophesy.” The New Covenant has done away with the silencing of women in public ministry among a mixed audience of male and female.
Does this include women in a teaching ministry of men? My paper on I Timothy 2: 9-15 demonstrates that the women who were silenced from teaching in that Ephesian church (see I Tim. 1:3) addressed in I Tim. 2, were silenced from teaching false doctrine. It was not a permanent cessation of women Bible teachers among all people.

F. Some practical issues

Catherine Booth, courtesy Wikipedia

1.    If women are excluded from a significant ministry in every church today (as they are in many evangelical churches), this will have ramifications at a deep level in the local, national and international church. Should not this restriction have been included in the Pauline passages dealing with the churches’ teaching ministry (eg. Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12, Eph. 4)?  Except for the one sentence in 1 Tim. 2:12, the gifts of the Spirit to the church have never been differentiated on the basis of gender in the entire New Testament.

2.    Some of Paul’s writings make the teaching ministry available to all believers, including women. In Colossians 3:16, “teaching and admonishing” is the responsibility of “one another,” which must obviously include male and female. If “teaching and admonishing” are restricted to males only, consistency of interpretation should require that compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, bearing with, forgiveness and love (Col. 3:12-14, NIV) must be practised by males only. Such a conclusion regarding Christian character is untenable. See also 1 Cor. 14:26 where “each one” (male and female) in the church is encouraged to minister via a psalm, teaching, revelation, tongue and interpretation when the church gathers. If women are restricted from teaching, consistency of interpretation requires their silence with psalms, revelations, tongues and interpretations.

3.    According to the remainder of Scripture, salvation is obtained by grace through faith. I Tim. 2:15 links salvation to having babies. How is this possible?

4. What would happen if the mission field withdrew all of the women who are active in teaching and in other public ministries in mission churches?

5. Why is it that some of these very same women, when they return to Australia on furlough, are not able to exercise the same kinds of verbal ministries that they practise on the mission field? I am embarrassed to see women forced to do missionary meetings with women only when at home on furlough, when that is not their role on the mission field. We have to quit this hypocrisy immediately! Are we prepared for the missionary fallout if we forced all female missionaries to have no public, verbal ministry among men in the missionary churches?

6. There is the added problem on the mission field when the Bible is translated into the language of those people. They see women preaching and teaching in pioneer missions, but the Bible (in its traditional understanding) says that women should remain silent and not teach when men are present in the church. This creates a clanger of hypocrisy.

The better solution is for the church to have its theology of women in ministry so fixed that the pioneer missionary’s actions agree with consistent biblical interpration of the controversial passages.

Appendix A.  Can women be elders or deacons?

Sarah Righter Major, preacher, The Brethren Church; courtesy newsworks.org

The Pastoral Epistles of First & Second Timothy & Titus are commonly referred to as a handbook for church leaders or a manual on church government. This is misleading. These purposes seem “to miss their occasion rather widely and simply cannot account for a large amount of the material. . . They reflect church structures in the fourth decade of the church as Paul is correcting some theological and behavioral abuses. But church structures as such are not his concern.” [18]

The “elders” term used in I Tim. 3:3; 5:17 and Titus 1:5-7 interchanges “episkopos” (overseer) and “presbyteros” (elder). See also Acts 20:17, 28. Therefore, “the term elders is probably a covering term for both overseers [bishops/elders] and deacons. In any case, the grammar of Titus 1:5 and 7 demand that elder and overseer are interchangeable terms.” [19] I accept this explanation as the most consistent with the biblical data.

It is very difficult to build a job description for elders and deacons from the material in Timothy and Titus. Paul seemed to be more interested in the qualifications for these roles than in designating a range of duties.

It should be simple enough to exclude women elders since one of the qualifications is “husband of but one wife” (1 Tim. 3:2, 12 NIV). Surely this is enough to exclude women from this kind of ministry!

But there are further difficulties!

1. The preference for ministry is for believers to remain single (1 Cor. 7:32-35). Paul to Timothy says that these elders and deacons have the responsibility to “take care of God’s church” (1 Tim. 3:5 NIV). They are very demanding and responsible positions. Paul (and presumable Timothy and Titus), as single men, would be excluded from this type of leadership ministry in the church. “Should marriage be made a universal requirement for Christian leadership, all single men would become disqualified, in contradiction to Paul’s explicit instructions in 1 Corinthians 7:32-35.” [20] This does not seem to be a satisfactory solution.

2. Jesus himself would be unqualified for such a position of leadership as an elder or a deacon if marriage was required.

This type of problem shows the necessity to “interpret all related teachings on a given subject comprehensively rather than to proof-text one passage as if it were the sole teaching on the subject. In this case, it becomes obvious that the requirements set down in 1 Timothy 3 are not exhaustive. They neither include consideration of single men and of women as elders and deacons, nor do they forbid it.” [21]

3. There are good reasons why the Ephesian women were not included in the “overseers” or “deacons” because one of the qualifications was being “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2). The Ephesian women who were engaged in heretical teaching were obviously excluded. According to I Tim. 2:9-15, the solution for these women who were teaching heresy was:

  to become learners (2:11);

to stop acting as teachers with the assumed authority of recognised teachers (2:12);

  “Just as Eve rather than Adam was deceived into error, unqualified persons will get themselves and the church into trouble (vv. 13-14)”;

  “Yet as Eve became the means and the first beneficiary of promised salvation, so Ephesian women will legitimately aspire to maturity and competency and to positions of service in the church (v. 15).” [22]

“The exclusion of the Ephesian women from teaching positions is not final. Just like the fall, which was not a terminally disqualifying transgression for the woman, so the necessity for the Ephesian women to learn in silence is a temporary restriction that will lead to avenues of service, once their training has resulted in the maturing of their faith, love, sanctification, and sound judgment.” [23]

[I am indebted to Bible exegetes and teachers Gilbert Bilezikian, Gordon Fee and M. D. Roberts [24] for helping me to clarify much of my thinking on women in ministry, in light of this sometimes confusing material.]

4. Let’s go a little further afield than I Corinthians!  If we examine Rom. 16:1, we note that Phoebe the deaconess is designated by the masculine, “diakonos” (deacon/servant). Paul used the Greek masculine, “diakonos,” in 1 Tim. 3:8 (cf. 3:11) to indicate male deacons, but there is clear biblical evidence here that the masculine “diakonos” was used for both men and women.

5. What about Romans 16:7?

This verse reads: “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me” (ESV). The NIV translates as: “Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” These two different translations show some of the dimensions of the difficulties in translating this verse.

Literally, the Greek reads, word-for-word (English translation): “Greet Andronicus and Junia/the kinsmen of me and fellow-captives of me who are notable among/in/by the apostles who also before me have been in Christ.”

The controversy surrounds the gender of Junia, relating to the phrase, “among the apostles.” If Junia is feminine and she is among the apostles, this makes her a female apostle.

This is a brief examination of these 3 points.              

a. The gender of Junia.

The Greek form, Jounian (from Junias), depending on the Greek accent given to it, could be either masculine or feminine. So the person could be a man, Junianus, or a woman, Junia. “Interpreters from the thirteenth to the middle of the twentieth century generally favored the masculine identification, but it appears that commentators before the thirteenth century were unanimous in favor of the feminine identification; and scholars have recently again inclined decisively to this same view. And for probably good reason. . . The Latin ‘Junia’ was a very common name. Probably, then, ‘Junia’ was the wife of Andronicus (note the other husband and wife pairs in this list, Prisca and Aquila [v. 3] and [probably], Philologus and Julia [v. 15].” [25] 

b. Is Junia a female apostle?

The phrase “esteemed/notable by the apostles” is a possible Greek construction as in the ESV. [26] But it is more natural to translate as “esteemed/notable among the apostles,” as with the NIV. Why is it more natural? See this footnote.[27] Andronicus and Junia were probably a husband and wife team of apostles. [28]

c. Junia is therefore a female apostle.

This means that Junia was a female apostle, not one of the Twelve, but one of the ministry gifts of Christ to the church (See Eph. 4:11) – an apostle who was a woman.

6. What was the role of such apostles? I have addressed some of these issues in my article, Are there apostles in the 21st century? By way of summary, in the New Testament, apostles and associates (as per Eph. 4:11) probably did (pioneer) missionary work.

Conclusion

My purpose in trying to seek biblical clarity on this controversial subject has not been driven by my culture’s feminist movement’s agendas or the drive for ordination of women in many, especially liberal, churches. I have been forced back to the inerrant Scriptures by:

1. the glaring contradictions I saw in interpretations of I Cor. 11:5; 14:26, 31 when compared with the traditional interpretations of I Cor. 14:34-35 and 1 Tim. 2:11-15.
2. the Spirit-gifted women I see in the church who have been silenced.
3. the crisis of conscience I experienced when I saw the way women had been excluded from ministry on the basis of an interpretation of I Cor. 14:34-35 that had not considered the wider context of I Corinthians.
   

In spite of the traditional, conservative understanding of closing down women in public ministry to men or to a mixed audience, the biblical evidence points to gifted women having a vocal public ministry among men and women.

This is a range of my articles on women in ministry (there may be a repeat of information in some of them):

 Anti-women in ministry juices flowing

 Women in ministry in church history

 Women in ministry: an overview of some biblical passages

 Women in ministry in I Corinthians: A brief inquiry

 Women wrongly closed down in ministry

 Amazing contemporary opposition to women in public ministry

 The heresy of women preachers?

 Women bishops – how to get the Christians up in arms!

 Are women supposed to be permanently silent in the church gathering?

 Must women never teach men in the church?

 In support of women in ministry see:
http://www.warc.ch/dp/walk/01.html
http://www.lamp.ac.uk/~noy/roman18.htm
http://www.theologymatters.com/TMIssues/Janfeb00.pdf
http://www.womenpriests.org/classic/brooten.asp
For a contrary view on Junia see:
http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1163

Endnotes

[2] The ESV is The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton Illinois: Crossway Bibles, 2001. This is a highly recommended translation of Scripture. In this paper, all quotations will be from the ESV unless otherwise indicated.

[4] “That” was the word used but it referred to “God’s Word” in the earlier part of the sentence.

[5] MacArthur (1984:303).

[6] MacArthur (1984:256).

[7] Grudem (1994:1049, emphasis in the original).

[8] Hodge (1974:208).

[9] Hodge (1974:247).

[10] Fee (1987:505-506).

[11] Fee (1987:595).

[12] Here it is the plural, adelphoi (brothers) in the vocative case (of addressing somebody).

[13] For other examples of the word being “used by Christians in their relations with each other,” see Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 5:11; Eph. 6:23; 1 Tim 6:2; Acts 6:3; 9:30; 10:23; Rev. 1:9; 12:10 (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:16).

[14] “The vocative adelphoi occurs more times (21) in 1 Corinthians than in any of the other letters, although proportionately it appears more often in 1 Thessalonians (14) and 2 Thessalonians (7). . . Although it means ‘brothers,’ it is clear from the evidence of this letter (11:2-16) and Phil. 4:1-3 that women were participants in the worship of the community and would have been included in the ‘brothers’ being addressed. The latter passage is particularly telling since in v. 1 Paul uses the vocative adelphoi, and then directly addresses two women in the very next sentence. It is therefore not pedantic, but culturally sound and biblically sensitive, for us to translate this vocative ‘brothers and sisters’” [Fee 1987:52, n. 22. Please note that Fee refers the use of “brothers” in 14:26 to his explanation of “brothers” in 1:10].

[15]  The verbal form is sigatwsan, 3rd person, singular, present active imperative of sigaw , meaning “say nothing, keep silent” (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:757).

[16] Arndt & Gingrich 1957:464.

[17] Gordon Fee states,

    “The most commonly held view is that which sees the problem as some form of disruptive speech. Support is found in v. 35, that if the women wish to learn anything, they should ask their own husbands at home. Various scenarios are proposed: that the setting was something like the Jewish synagogue, with women on one side and men on the other and the women shouting out disruptive questions about what was being said in a prophecy or tongue; or that they were asking questions of men other than their own husbands; or that they were simply ‘‘chattering’’so loudly that it had a disruptive effect.
“The biggest difficulty with this view is that it assumes a ‘church service’ of a more ‘orderly’ sort than the rest of this argument presupposes. If the basic problem is with their ‘all speaking in tongues’ in some way, one may assume on the basis of 11:5 that this also included the women; furthermore, in such disarray how can mere ‘chatter’ have a disruptive effect? The suggestion that the early house churches assumed a synagogue pattern is pure speculation; it seems remote at best” (Fee 1987:703).

[18] Fee (1988:21).

[19] Fee (1988:22).

[20] Bilezikian (1985:188).

[21] Bilezikian (1985:188-189).

[22] Bilezikian (1985:183).

[23] Bilezikian (1985:183).

[24] Gilbert Bilezikia; two publications by Gordon Fee; and M. D. Roberts.

[25] Moo (1996:921-922).

[26] This is using the preposition, en, in its instrumental sense.

[27] “With a plural object [apostles], en often means ‘among’; and if Paul had wanted to say that Andronicus and Junia were esteemed ‘by’ the apostles, we would have expected him to use a simple dative [case] or [the preposition] hupo with the genitive [case]. The word epistemoi (‘splendid,’ ‘prominent,’ ‘outstanding’; only here in the NT in this sense [cf. also Matt. 27:16]) also favors this rendering” (Moo 1996:923, n. 39).

[28] Gordon Fee says that that Rom. 16:7 refers to “probably Andronicus and his wife [Junia]” (Fee 1987:729, n. 80).

References

Arndt, W F & Gingrich, F W (transl & adapt. of W Bauer), 1957. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, limited edition licensed to Zondervan Publishing House.

Bilezikian, G, 1985. Beyond sex roles: A guide for the study of female roles in the Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House.

ESV, 2001. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton Illinois: Crossway Bibles.

Fee, G D, 1987. The First Epistle to the Corinthians (The New International Commentary on the New Testament, F. F. Bruce, (gen.ed.).  Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Fee, GD, 1988. 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus (New International Biblical Commentary).  Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrikson Publishers.

Grudem, W, 1994. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press.

Hodge, C, 1974. A Commentary on 1 & 2 Corinthians. Edinburgh: The Banner of  Truth Trust.

MacArthur Jr., J, 1984. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: I Corinthians. Chicago: Moody  Press.

Moo, D G, 1996. The Epistle to the Romans (The New International Commentary on  the New Testament).  Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Roberts, MD, 1983, “Women Shall Be Saved: A Closer Look at 1 Timothy 2:15,” The Reformed Journal,  April 1983.

“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (I Corinthians 12:7).

Copyright (c) 2012 Spencer D. Gear.  This document last updated at Date: 14 October 2015.

Photograph of Anne Graham Lotz (photo courtesy Wikipedia)

By Spencer D. Gear

An interpretation of I Timothy 2:9-15

A.  Introduction

Raise the issue of women in ministry, particularly women pastors or preachers to a mixed audience of men and women, and you are likely to be howled down in many evangelical churches.  That has happened to this preacher on a number of  occasions when he raised his views in support of women’s giftedness, teaching and preaching, being expressed publicly in the church.  This anti-women-in-ministry view often comes with the accusation, “You wouldn’t be thinking like this if it were not for the way the contemporary feminist movement has influenced you.”

Then comes the support for silence of women from evangelical leaders: I Tim. 2:12 affirms that a woman’s “teaching has no authority apart from the approval of the elders. . .  Paul did not forbid women to bring any teaching whatsoever.  We have seen that all may bring a word of instruction.  What he spoke of was the continuing, authoritative teaching which structures the faith of the church” [1a] and he forbade women from that kind of teaching.  John MacArthur is very definite: “Women may be highly gifted teachers and leaders, but those gifts are not to be exercised over men and in the services of the church.  That is true not because women are spiritually inferior to men, but because God’s law commands it.” [1b]

This paper is not driven by any feminist agenda — there is no such motivation for pursuing this subject.  It was prepared for the specific purpose of providing a grammatical, historical & cultural interpretation of I Tim. 2:9-15.  On the practical level, I have seen many gifted women teachers ignored and avoided because of the contemporary church’s views of women teachers.  Add to this the pathetic preaching by some males who are given preference over gifted female teachers in the congregation.

Pragmatism does not drive this exegesis, but something is wrong when some evangelical churches give preference to incompetent males in the pulpit when gifted women teachers are in the pew and do not have a role in public ministry.

Now we must get down to the passage at hand: In this I Timothy 2 passage, the verse that stands out and creates controversy in the evangelical church  is v. 12, “But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” [2]

These are the apostle Paul’s own words. He is not quoting opponents. The statement is clear. Paul seems to be laying down a universal rule (norm) for all Christians in all ages. But is he?

Consult a range of evangelical scholars on this verse and you’ll read statements like these:

Donald Guthrie: “The teaching of Christian doctrine . . . is confined by Paul to the male sex, and this has been the almost invariable practice in the subsequent history of the church.” [3]

William Hendriksen contends that these words mean,

Let a woman not enter a sphere of activity for which by dint of her very creation she is not suited. Let not a bird try to dwell under water. Let not a fish try to live on land. Let not a woman yearn to exercise authority over a man by lecturing him in public worship. For the sake both of herself and of the spiritual welfare of the church such unholy tampering with divine authority is forbidden.  In the service of the Word on the day of the Lord a woman should learn, not teach. She should be silent, remain calm . . . She should not cause her voice to be heard. [4]

R. C. H. Lenski: “No woman may step into the place of the man without violating the very Word she would try to teach to both women and men.” [5]

Albert Barnes:

On every consideration it was improper, and to be expressly prohibited, for women to conduct the devotions of the church. . . It does not refer merely to acts of public preaching, but to all acts of speaking, or even asking questions, when the church is assembled for public worship. No rule in the New Testament is more positive than this. [6]

These commentators, all of whom are male, support traditional roles for women in the church and argue that female teachers are prohibited from functioning in the church.

Those who favour an egalitarian (i.e.. equality of male and female) interpretation, point out the apparent contradictions between 1 Tim. 2:12 and other Scriptures such as Gal. 3:28 (neither male nor female, all are one in Christ) and I Cor. 11:5 (women praying and prophesying). Those who describe themselves as biblical feminists contend that these verses in 1 Tim. 2 were conditioned by the culture of the first century and the verses are limited, therefore, to the historical situation of the Ephesian church (where Timothy was located. See 1 Tim. 1:3). Others reject these verses, claiming they were not written by Paul, and therefore can be ignored.

Few biblical passages have been subjected to so many different interpretations as has 1 Tim. 2:9-15. To be a consistent exegete of the Scriptures and for the sake of gifted women who have been handicapped by the traditional interpretation, I enter this minefield of controversy in an endeavour to discover what the text meant for the original hearers or readers. By application, what does this mean for women who are gifted and want to minister today?

When the contents of this passage are examined closely and the broader context (especially of the pastoral epistles) is taken into consideration, many of the problems of interpretation are open to a solution.

Here’s a contemporary example of how women preachers have been treated by male evangelical preachers.

Billy Graham has called his daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, “the best preacher in the family,” [6a] yet Anne Lotz has experienced some shocking harassment (abuse?) by pastors in the evangelical community.    Here’s an example:

Anne Graham Lotz (Billy Graham’s daughter) wrote in the Washington Post (September 17, 2008),

Jesus Calls Women to Serve and Lead

What legitimate, Biblical role do women have within the church? That question demanded an answer early in my ministry when I accepted an invitation to address a large convention of pastors.

When I stood in the lectern at the convention center, many of the 800 church leaders present turned their chairs around and put their backs to me. When I concluded my message, I was shaking. I was hurt and surprised that godly men would find what I was doing so offensive that they would stage such a demonstration, especially when I was an invited guest. And I was confused. Had I stepped out of the Biblical role for a woman? While all agree that women are free to help in the kitchen, or in the nursery, or in a secretary’s chair, is it unacceptable for a woman to take a leadership or teaching position?

When I went home, I told the Lord that I had never had a problem with women serving in any capacity within the church. I knew that the New Testament declared that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28) And God emphatically promised, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy… (Acts 2:17) But the problem the pastors obviously had was now my problem. And so I humbly asked God to either convict me of wrongdoing or to confirm His call in my life. The story of Mary Magdalene came to mind, so I turned to John 20.

Read what Anne Graham Lotz said about the September 11 disaster.

What are the problems with this passage from I Timothy 2? (This survey will not be comprehensive).

B.  Problems in the passage

1.    There is continuing disagreement among New Testament scholars as to exactly what Paul prohibits in this passage. Does he forbid women from teaching men only, or is it a comprehensive prohibition against female teaching of any kind? The problem is compounded by Paul’s failure to use the common word for “authority” (exousia) in verse 12. However, whichever interpretation one favours, the end result is that some kind of restriction is placed on the teaching ministry of women in the church.

2.    A limitation on female ministry seems to contradict the principle of “mutuality in equality” established elsewhere in the Pauline epistles (e.g.. 1 Cor. 11:5, 14:26, Gal. 3:28, Eph. 5:21).

3.    If women are excluded from a significant ministry of every church, this will have ramifications at a deep level in the local church. Should not this restriction have been included in the Pauline passages dealing with the churches’ teaching ministry (e.g.. Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12, Eph. 4)? Except for this one sentence in 1 Tim. 2:12, the gifts of the Spirit to the church have never been  differentiated on the basis of sex in the entire New Testament.

4.    Some of Paul’s writings make the teaching ministry available to all believers, including women. In Colossians 3:16, “teaching and admonishing” is the responsibility of “one another,” which must obviously include male and female. If “teaching and admonishing” are restricted to males only, consistency of interpretation requires that compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, bearing with, forgiveness and love (Col. 3:12-14) must be practised by males only. Such a conclusion regarding Christian character is untenable. See also 1 Cor. 14:26 where “each one” (male and female) in the church is encouraged to minister via a psalm, teaching, revelation, tongue and interpretation when the church gathers. If women are restricted from teaching, consistency of interpretation requires their silence with psalms, revelations, tongues and interpretations.

Paul affirmed the teaching ministry of women (Acts 18:26, Titus 2:3) and commended women in ministry (Rom. 16:1-15; 1 Cor. 11:5, 16:16; Phil. 4:2ff.).

5.  According to the remainder of Scripture, salvation is obtained by grace through faith. First Tim. 2:15 links salvation to having babies: “. . . Yet she will be saved through child-bearing . . .”  How is this possible?

The above difficulties concerning the interpretation of 1 Tim. 2:9-15 should be a warning not to proof-text a verse in isolation from the biblical context. A satisfactory explanation of the passage demands more than a superficial reading.

C.  Possible solutions

1.    The Purpose of 1 Timothy

The epistle begins (1:3) and ends (6:20-21) with a concern about false teaching. The issue of false teachers and their teaching, mentioned throughout the letter (chs. 1, 4, 5, 6), also appears in the wider context of the pastoral epistles (2 Tim. chs. 2-4 and Titus chs. 1 and 3). The purpose, then, of 1 Timothy was to provide instructions to combat the Ephesian heresy which Timothy encountered. Within this context, I propose that 1 Tim. 2:12 is not a universal norm applied to every Christian church, but a specific direction given to Timothy to correct the Ephesian error.

2.    The Ephesian Heresy

Since the inception of the Christian church, not all Christians at the time of conversion immediately have discarded all of their previous beliefs and behaviours. It has been the responsibility of Christian leadership since the first century to refute and correct error. Several of the New Testament epistles were written to combat heresy (e.g.. Colossians, 1 John and Galatians), and the early church fathers in the later history of the church’s development spent much time and energy in opposing erroneous doctrines. The pastoral epistles return us to the theme of correction of heresy.

a.  Its Nature

Those embracing false doctrines at Ephesus were involved in “worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called ‘knowledge’ (gnosis)” (1 Tim. 6:20-21). This Gnostic heresy included

elaborate systems of intermediate beings who bridged the gap between God and man, complete with astounding genealogies and fantastic myths about these primordial beings. Other Gnostics were considerably closer to Jewish traditions and gave exaggerated roles to Adam, Eve, Cain and Seth. [7]

See 1 Tim. 1:4, 4:3, 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:18, 23, 3:6-8, 4:5, 14, Titus 3:9.

The Ephesian church was pioneered in the midst of confrontations with occult and pagan practices (Acts 19:9, 13, 18-19, 27). The apostle Paul warned of the “savage wolves” who would attack the believers (Acts 20:29-30). He exhorted them not to be “tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness, in deceitful scheming” (Eph. 4:14). However, the Ephesian church reeled under the impact of various kinds of false teachings, influencing many to defect from the faith (cf. 2 Tim. 1:15, 4:14-15).

Some of the prime targets of the false teachers were women who listened to anybody, without coming to a knowledge of the truth (2 Tim. 3:6-9).

However, there is every indication that women were involved in propagating this Gnostic heresy through their roles of mediatorship (suggested by 1 Tim. 2:5-9). The city of Ephesus contained thousands of female prostitutes associated with the temples of Artemis (or Diana) and Aphrodite (Venus). It was considered a commendable duty to be a temple prostitute. There was a long tradition in ancient religions of female figures serving as mediators. Women were supposed to possess a special affinity for the divine. This “mystic-sexual principle” was evident in early Christian heresies. [8]

Some sects revered Eve as the mediator who brought divine enlightenment to human beings. They said that secret gnosis was given to Eve by the serpent, making her the originator of the knowledge of good and evil. It was even proposed that Adam received life through Eve’s instruction. [9]

A Gnostic sect, the Nicolaitans, promoted heretical views in Ephesus (see Revelation 2:6). They revered a book which, they claimed, was the work of Noah’s wife, Noria. Sexual immorality was exalted because of its sacred nature, they said. [10]

If the heresy of 1 Timothy involved Gnostic groups, women probably were among their teachers. Many early Christian writers showed that “women performed all churchly roles within many Christian gnostic groups.” It is reasonable, then, to conclude that women in Ephesus were teaching heresy. [11]

A compounding problem was that

virtually without exception, female teachers among the Greeks were courtesans (prostitutes). Active in every major school of philosophy, these (prostitutes) made it evident in the course of their lectures that they were available afterwards for a second occupation. [12]

False teachers were prohibiting marriage (1 Tim. 4:3) and may have encouraged women to leave their homes and meet together (1 Tim. 5:13).

All of this concern for public reputation, model domestic life, appropriate décor, and maternal domestic roles of women, clearly implies that the opposition Paul and Timothy faced in Ephesus, constitutes an assault on marriage, and what were considered appropriate models and roles for women. [13]

b.  Correction Procedures

The apostle is adamant about what should be done with false teachers: “Instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines” (1 Tim. 1:3). They “must be silenced” and reproved severely (Titus 1:11, 13). Could it be that this is the meaning of 1 Tim. 2:12? Since women were involved in practising and teaching errors which plagued the Ephesian church, they were forbidden from teaching, as a temporary measure, until they received adequate instruction (1 Tim. 2:11). One view is that “evidently the ban on teaching by women had been issued as one of several emergency measures during an extremely critical period in the history of the Ephesian church.” [14]

At the core of Paul’s strategy was the elimination of all unqualified or deviant would-be teachers, both male and female, so that the church’s teaching ministry would be carried out exclusively by a small retinue of approved “faithful men” who would be able to take from Timothy the teaching he had himself received from Paul and transmit it to others (2 Tim. 2:2). Thus, neither women nor all men could teach in Ephesus, but only a group of trained and carefully selected individuals. [15]

D. The text

Elizabeth Hooton (1600-1672): First Quaker woman preacher

Mrs Elizabeth Hooton Warren (19c engraving after 1772 painting by John Singleton Copley or an associate public domain)

The above contextual and historical background provides a framework for the interpretation of the biblical text of 1 Tim. 2:9-15.

    1.  Verses 9 & 10

The “likewise” of verse 9 and the “therefore” of verse 8, seem to indicate that the remarks about female teachers (vv. 9-15) are linked to Paul’s concern that Christ be proclaimed as the only mediator between human beings and God (vv. 5-8).

In the cultural settings of the first century AD, external adornments for women, such as pearls, gold jewellery, hair styling and expensive provocative clothing, indicated material extravagance and sexual infidelity. These verses were “intended specifically to protect women from the enticements of the false teachers, from the temptations of sexual infidelity within the Graeco-Roman culture.” [16] Paul encouraged women to dress and wear adornments that promoted high moral standards, so that the church would have an honourable reputation.

The specifics of these verses related only to the Ephesian heresy. By application (not interpretation), contemporary believers are warned against identifying with (conforming to) questionable worldly standards in external dress.

   2.  Verses 11 & 12

Being in the same paragraph as vv. 9 and 10, the statements in these verses are a response to the false teaching and its use of women at Ephesus. The proposed interpretation here is that these are instructions addressed to a crisis situation with relevance only to the Ephesian heresy. They are not universal instructions to be applied to women in ministry in all churches at all times in all places. However, wherever false doctrine is being taught, it must be silenced is the general principle being taught.

To combat heretical teachings by women, Paul instructed all women in the Ephesian situation to become “quiet and submissive learners instead of struggling to assert themselves as teachers.” [17] This is not the silence of the passive, mute woman in the synagogue, but the quietness of the disciple who receives instruction without self-assertion. The word for “silence” or “quietness” in verses 11 and 12 is the same word as in 1 Tim. 2:2, where it indicates “quietness.” To prevent the spread of heresy, women were prohibited from teaching, temporarily, until they became instructed in the Word.

These instructions in vv. 11-12 are

directed against women who, having been touched or captivated by the false teachings, at least to some degree, are abusing the normal opportunities women had within the church for participation in the exercising of teaching and authority within the ministry. [18]

Interpretation of verse 12 is complicated by the use of an unusual word for “authority” (authentein). This is the only time the word appears in the entire New Testament, and it is used infrequently in the ancient Greek literature. Its meaning is not clear, although New Testament scholars are currently “in an extended debate on the issue and all of the evidence has not yet been assessed.” [19] One thing is sure: This word represents a departure from Paul’s normal vocabulary for “authority” (exousia) in the church. The choice of this unusual term seems to indicate that a different meaning was intended.

The uncertainty about its meaning is seen in the various translations: “to usurp authority” (KJV); “to have authority” (RSV, NIV); “to exercise authority” (ESV, NASB); “to domineer” (NEB). The Greek lexicons translate it as: (a) “to have authority, domineer over someone,” [20] and (b) “to govern one, exercise dominion over one.” [21] The leading theological word studies [22] do not deal with the word, except to quote the lexicons.

Catherine Kroeger proposes that the word, authentein, describes “both the erotic and the murderous,” [23] but other scholars reject this conclusion. [24] A tentative suggestion is that the word means to “domineer or usurp authority.” [25] This understanding is consistent with the interpretation of verses 11 & 12 offered in this article.

These injunctions are directed against women involved in false teaching, who have sought to abuse proper exercise of authority in the church, not denied by Paul elsewhere to women, by usurpation and domination of the male leaders and teachers in the church at Ephesus. [26]

3.    Verses 13 & 14

These verses give the rationale for the instructions of verses 11 & 12. The rationale is: (a) Adam was created before Eve and (b) Eve, not Adam, was deceived and she sinned. There are some interpreters of this passage who assume that because the apostle Paul referred back to the creation account of Genesis 2 and 3, these instructions are absolute for all people at all times.

However, such an assumption must be challenged. In 1 Cor. 11:7-9, an allusion to Genesis 2 is made. Why? To support Paul’s argument that in the Corinthian context, women were to have their heads covered in worship. This was not a universal command. Also in 1 Cor. 11, Paul makes the point that man is the “image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man” (1 Cor. 11:7). But he does not say that woman was not created in the image of God. To assert such would be to deny the Scriptures (Gen. 1:27). Therefore, Paul’s point in 1 Cor. 11 was to choose aspects of the creation account to support his argument that women were to wear head coverings in worship. He was deliberately selective.

The same is true for 1 Tim. 2:13-14. Elsewhere (Rom. 5 and 1 Cor. 15), Paul attributes sin and death to Adam, not Eve. So, why does he focus on Eve’s part in 1 Tim. 2?

Many Gnostic groups (perhaps those in Ephesus) distorted the Genesis account by glorifying Eve as the one who brings life and knowledge. Epiphanius told of one group that “pretended that the fact of having been the first to eat of the fruit of knowledge (gnosis) was for Eve a great privilege.” [27]  For some Gnostics,

the Genesis accounts were enormously embellished, and sometimes they gave to Eve a prior existence in which she consorted with the celestial beings both sexually and intellectually. She was even credited with being the instructor through whom Adam received life. [28]

To silence the Ephesian female heretics, Paul needed to refute their use of Eve as a revealer of truth to man. Adam was not deceived (1 Tim. 2:14) because “having been created first, he had received God’s command in person. His chronological primacy did not make him more righteous but more knowledgeable and therefore less susceptible to deception.” [29]

The point of this passage is deception. Adam was not deceived because, being first, he was better taught. Eve was deceived because she came later and did not have Adam’s experience. Likewise, unqualified teachers bring a greater risk of deception and false teaching into the church. [30]

Eve’s error was that she took leadership initiative for which she was unqualified. Adam is not absolved of responsibility for the fall (see Rom. 5:1-14, 18-19; 1 Cor. 15:22), nor are qualified women excluded from holding positions of leadership. The principle of the passage (1 Tim. 2:13-14) is that leadership positions should be entrusted to qualified people only. [31]

4.  Verse 15

Most recent interpretations that focus on the exclusion of women teachers (2:12) in the church, with the supporting reasons (2:13-14) often ignore verse 15. In fact, verse 15 requires verse 14 for its subject.

To ignore the immediate context and the historical situation of Ephesus has resulted in many diverse, even contradictory interpretations. I endorse Mark D. Roberts’ view that this verse “presents the most theologically perplexing claims of the entire passage.” [32] An example of Bible translations confirms this:

•  “Not withstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety” (KJV);
• “Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty” (RSV);
• “Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control” (ESV);
• “But women will be kept safe through childbirth, if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety” (NIV);
• “But women shall be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint” (NASB).

Literally from the Greek, the verse reads, “But she will be saved through the [her] child-bearing, if they remain in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety.”

a. Interpretation Difficulties

1. How do we account for the change from the singular, “she will be saved,” to the plural, “if they remain”?

2. How is it possible for a woman to receive eternal salvation through childbearing when Paul’s teaching is salvation through Christ (Rom. 5:9, 10:9)?

3. What is the meaning of “saved” (sozo)?

b. Possible Solutions

1. To overcome the difficulty of “childbearing regeneration,” one interpretation is, “She will be saved by means of The Childbirth” (i.e.., the birth of Christ). [33] I reject this view because it does not harmonise with the context and disagrees with the “clearest and most likely meaning of the word for childbearing.” [34]

2. “She will come safely through child-birth” (similar to the NIV translation) is another explanation. The context does not endorse such a view and human experience refutes it. Many godly women have died in childbirth.

3. Dr. David M. Sholer [35] provides an interesting alternative. The singular, “she will be saved” refers back to vv. 13 and 14, Eve. Thus, it is grammatically natural to shift from the singular “woman” as woman-kind, to the plural “women.” While the verb “to save” can have a range of meanings, the apostle Paul’s “virtually inevitable sense is that of salvation of God in Christ.” This is confirmed by the next clause, “If they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” This latter clause “would make little sense otherwise, ” says Sholer.

But how can this mean eternal salvation? Dr. Sholer points out that Paul is addressing a threat or challenge to a “woman’s domestic role of decency and propriety in the Graeco-Roman society. . . The opponents against whom Paul is writing and warning Timothy, forbid marriage.” It would not be surprising that Paul also dwells at length on marriage concerns when he addresses the plight of widows in the church (1 Tim. 5:3-16). A similar concern is also addressed in Titus 2:3-5.

What does this point to? It appears that there was an assault on maternal domestic roles for women and their public reputation. To refute this heresy, Dr. Sholer concluded that verse 15 means that “women find their place among the saved, assuming their continuation of faith, love and holiness, through engagement in their maternal and domestic roles.”

4. Mark Roberts [36] believes that “as long as we understand ‘she shall be saved through childbearing’ as referring to a woman’s eternal salvation from sin and death, we face what seems to be a glaring contradiction in Pauline teaching.” [37] He proposes the following solutions:

(a) Could sozo (“I save”) have another meaning than eternal salvation? It has in Mark 5:34: “Your faith has made you well,” where sozo refers to the restoration of a woman to health and wholeness. Sozo has such a meaning in 1 Tim. 2:15, “Woman will be saved through childbearing, not from death, but from the theological condition which outlaws her teaching. She shall be saved into ecclesiastical wholeness.” [38]

(b) How can childbearing achieve such salvation (wholeness)? The answer is found in 1 Cor. 11, where Paul says that women should wear veils, partly because of the created order in Genesis 2 — man prior to woman (1 Cor. 11:8-9). However, after using this argument from creation, Paul shows another side of the issue in 1 Cor. 11:11-12.

Seen “in the Lord,” that is, from a Christian point of view, men and women depend upon each other. The created order with man as source of woman is offset or balanced by the natural order with woman as the source of man. In the act of childbearing woman illustrates her natural, divinely ordained preeminence over man, even as man showed his preeminence over woman in creation. [39]

Whatever the ramifications of the woman being created second, these are cancelled through her giving birth.

(c) Why the change from the singular, “She will be saved” [literal] to the plural, “They continue”?

Paul uses the plural verb “they continue” . . . to emphasize that particular women, not womankind, must live appropriate Christian lives if they are to teach. Whereas woman shall be restored because woman bears children, specific women shall be restored only if they themselves act as Christians should. . . In 1 Timothy the failure of Ephesian women to “continue in faith,” not their femaleness, demands their silence. These women will be saved, thus permitted to preach, only if their thoughts and actions deserve this responsibility. Of course the same standard applies to any man as well. [40]

Thus, 1 Tim. 2:15 is not an explanation of how a woman can earn eternal salvation, but a theological response to Paul’s argument for the temporary silence of women teachers.

Roberts’ paraphrase of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 (with corroborating evidence from the book of Titus) helpfully brings a coherent summary of conclusions:

Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness (not with loud disputes as some Ephesian women do). For the time being I am not permitting any woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved from that which demands her silence and will someday be able to teach. This is possible because through child-bearing woman counterbalances the created priority of man and produces the “seed” which bruises the serpent’s head, namely Jesus Christ. But woman will be restored only when individual women continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty, thereby demonstrating the maturity of faith demanded of any Christian teacher. [41]

E. Conclusion

First Timothy 2:9-15 is not a command to prevent all women from teaching in the church for all times. Paul’s intention was not to place a permanent limitation on women in the ministry. Rather, these verses were addressed to a problem situation in Ephesus where women were teaching heresy.  I endorse Mark D. Roberts conclusion:   “So today, if women fail to continue in faith and love and holiness with modesty — like men who fail similarly — they should not teach. Ones like these, whether female or male, need to learn in silence and to practice what they learn. But if women have learned, if they have persevered in the Christian faith, if the Holy Spirit has gifted them for teaching, let us not quench the ministry of the Spirit through women. . . We must encourage our sisters as they seek to serve Christ in his frighteningly patriarchal church.” [42]

In support of women in ministry see:
http://opinion.crossdaily.com/archive.php?OpinionID=35
http://www.nccg.org/pdf/church2.pdf
http://www.warc.ch/dp/walk/01.html
http://www.lamp.ac.uk/~noy/roman18.htm
http://www.theologymatters.com/TMIssues/Janfeb00.pdf
http://www.womenpriests.org/classic/brooten.htm
For a contrary view on Junia see:
http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1163

Endnotes:

1a.  James B. Hurley, Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981, p. 248.

1b.  John MacArthur, Jr., Different By Design.  Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books, 1994, p. 139.

2. Unless otherwise indicated, all Bible quotations are from the New American Standard Bible. Anaheim, California: J. B. McCabe Company, 1977,

3. Donald Guthrie, The Pastoral Epistles (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, General Ed., R. V. G. Tasker). London: The Tyndale Press, 1957, p. 76.

4. William Hendriksen, I & II Timothy and Titus (New Testament Commentary). Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1960, p. 109, emphasis in original.

5. In D. Edmond Hiebert, First Timothy. Chicago: Moody Press, 1957, pp. 60-61.

6. Albert Barnes, Barnes’ Notes on the New Testament (complete and unabridged in one vol.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 1962, p. 782.

6a.  Wendy Murray Zoba 1999, “Angel in the pulpit: Though she eschews the title, even her father says that daughter Anne Graham Lotz is the best preacher in the family,” Christianity Today, April 5, Available from: http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/1999/april5/9t4057.html [cited 29 March 2006]

6b. Anne Graham Lotz on The Christian Broadcasting Network, “700 Club,” July 31, 2003, available from: <http://www.cbn.com/700club/profiles/annegrahamlotz2.asp>.  [As of 24 June 2006, this link was no longer on line.]

7. Richard and Catherine Clark Kroeger, “May Woman Teach? Heresy in the Pastoral Epistles,” The Reformed Journal, October 1980, p. 15.

8. Ibid., pp. 15-16.

9. Ibid., p. 16.

10. Ibid.

11. Mark D. Roberts, “Women Shall Be Saved: A Closer Look at 1 Timothy 2:15,” The Reformed Journal, April 1983, p. 19.

12. Catherine C. Kroeger, “Ancient Heresies and a Strange Greek Verb,” The Reformed Journal, March 1979, p. 14.

13. From an address given by Dr. David M. Sholer, Dean of the Seminary, Professor of New Testament, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Chicago, “The Place of Women in the Church’s Ministry: 1 Timothy 2:9-15.” The address was delivered at Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia, on March 15, 1985, sponsored by Zadok Centre, Canberra, Australia, and available on cassette tape.

14. Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles: A Guide for the Study of Female Roles in the Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1985, p. 261.

15. Ibid., p. 182.

16. Sholer.

17. Bilezikian, p. 179.

18. Sholer.

19. Ibid.

20. William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957, p. 120.

21. Joseph Henry Thayer, Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Associated Publishers and Authors Inc., n.d. p. 84.

22. Colin Brown (Gen. ed.), The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (3 vols.) Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1978; and Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (10 vols.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1976.

23. Kroeger, “Ancient Heresies,” p. 14.

24. Sholer.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Kroeger, “May Women Teach?”

28. Ibid.

29. Bilezikian, p. 259.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid., p. 260.

32. Roberts, p. 19.

33. Hendriksen, p. 111.

34. Sholer.

35. Ibid.

36. Roberts, pp. 18-22.

37. Ibid., p. 19.

38. Ibid., p. 20.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid., p. 21.

41. Ibid., p. 22.

42. Ibid.

1 Cor. 12:14 (ESV),

“For the body does not consist of one member but of many.”

Copyright © 2013 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 1 May 2016.