"You're Not Arguing With Us But With God"

A fellow member of Equality Central Forum (a forum for Christians who believe in full male-female equality in society, church and home) recently shared the answer she (her first name is Helen) received from a well-known ministry in response to a letter she wrote them.  Helen has given me permission to reprint and comment here on part of the letter she received.

This ministry (I'll give it a generic name: "Bible Preaching") promotes, among other things, the authority and leadership of males in all aspects of Christian life.   I quote here a few paragraphs of their response to Helen's letter:  

God’s Word and His law is the reason why women should not be in positions of authority over the man. You do not have a complaint against [Bible Preaching] as to this point, you have a complaint against God. For the Bible clearly states that wives are to be subject unto their own husbands, Colossians 3:18, (as opposed to any other man). If she is to be subject under his authority, how than can she rule over others? In Exodus 18:21 we see that it is MEN who fear God, that should be set over the people to rule. . .

You claim that you are a Christian and that you believe in the Bible as much as we do, and yet you have asked us to “focus on John 3:16 and not 1 Timothy 2:12.” Do you despise the command of 1 Timothy 2:12? It is a verse in the Bible which you claim to believe in, and yet you encourage us to disregard a part of it. This is wrong of you to do. You cannot choose which principles and commands that you are going to follow. . .  Please, I ask you, to repent of this mindset, to subject yourself unto God, and to desist from disregarding the verses in Scripture which do not correlate with your chosen lifestyle. Ultimately, as I have said, you are not angry with us for our beliefs and practices, you are angry at God. And from this, you must repent. (Emphasis in original.)

Notice what is being said here.  Helen is accused of "disregarding" 1 Timothy 2:12 simply because she says it should not be focused on in the same way John 3:16 is.  John 3:16 is one of the key verses in which Christ describes the nature of salvation:  "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believed in Him should not perish but have eternal life."  1 Timothy 2:12, on the other hand, is not about salvation, but is where Paul talks about his own policy with regards to a certain aspect of male-female relations, stating (in the ESV version that Bible Preaching prefers) "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet." 

According to Bible Preaching, simply by stating that 1 Timothy 2:12 should not be as much of a focus as John 3:16, Helen is going so far as to "despise" 1 Timothy 2:12.  Are these really the same?  I hardly think so.  What I think is that the "privileging one's position" silencing technique is being used here:  in essence, "you-can't-disagree-because-GOD!" 

In other words, the Bible Preaching writer equates Bible Preaching's position with God's own position, using God's authority to render that position unassailable.  "You're not angry with us, but with God."  But what assumptions are implicit in such a statement?  Three at least: 

1.  "We are not interpreting the Bible, but just telling you exactly what it means."  

The problem with this is that the nature of reading anything not written by ourselves is interpretation.  Anyone who conveys a message to anyone else must encode the message in language and then speak or write it to the listener or reader, who, finally, decodes the message in his or her own mind.  Since pure-thought communication is impossible, the encoding/decoding process of language is the best way we have to convey thoughts to one another, but it is not perfect.   "I didn't mean that the way you took it!' can happen even between two close friends chatting over coffee.  How much more can it happen when the original message must be translated out of its original ancient language and conveyed into an entirely different modern language?

David A. deSilva, in his book Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity, puts it this way:

The readers of the New Testament shared certain values. . . and ways of ordering the world. . . Modern readers, too, are fully enculturated into a set of values, ways of relating and so forth.  Without taking some care to recover the culture of the first-century Greco-Roman writers and addressees, we will simply read the texts from the perspective of our cultural norms and codes. . . This task is essential as a check against our imposition of our own cultural, theological and social contexts onto the text. (p. 18, emphasis added.)

It's a mistake to think that we ourselves have no social/cultural perspective through which we decode the messages of the New Testament.  As theologian and minister N. T. Wright says in his essay How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?"  :

"There is, indeed, an evangelical assumption, common in some circles, that evangelicals do not have any tradition. We simply open the scripture, read what it says, and take it as applying to ourselves: there the matter ends, and we do not have any ‘tradition’. This is rather like the frequent Anglican assumption (being an Anglican myself I rather cherish this) that Anglicans have no doctrine peculiar to themselves: it is merely that if something is true the Church of England believes it. This, though not itself a refutation of the claim not to have any ‘tradition’, is for the moment sufficient indication of the inherent unlikeliness of the claim’s truth, and I am confident that most people, facing the question explicitly, will not wish that the claim be pressed. But I still find two things to be the case, both of which give me some cause for concern. First, there is an implied, and quite unwarranted, positivism: we imagine that we are ‘reading the text, straight’, and that if somebody disagrees with us it must be because they, unlike we ourselves, are secretly using ‘presuppositions’ of this or that sort. This is simply naïve, and actually astonishingly arrogant and dangerous. It fuels the second point, which is that evangelicals often use the phrase ‘authority of scripture’ when they mean the authority of evangelical, or Protestant, theology, since the assumption is made that we (evangelicals, or Protestants) are the ones who know and believe what the Bible is saying. And, though there is more than a grain of truth in such claims, they are by no means the whole truth, and to imagine that they are is to move from theology to ideology. If we are not careful, the phrase ‘authority of scripture’ can, by such routes, come to mean simply ‘the authority of evangelical tradition, as opposed to Catholic or rationalist ones.’" (Emphasis added.)

To decide that we are not interpreting the Bible, but just "reading it straight," as Wright puts it, is to close our eyes to the nature of our own humanity.  It is to assume for ourselves an objectivity that we are actually incapable of holding or sustaining.  In fact, it is a kind of blindness, a "log" in our own eye that we have no way of seeing past in order to remove the "speck" from the eye of another (Matthew 7:5).

Bible Preaching's letter writer thinks he (or she) sees a speck in Helen's eye.  But in asserting that he or she is not interpreting the text being used to find the speck, the letter writer is unaware of the log that must be removed from his own eye before the presence of any actual speck in Helen's eye can be verified. 

2.  "Disagreeing with us is sin against God."

Notice how much shaming is going on in Bible Preaching's statements above.  Helen is accused of not subjecting herself to God, of disregarding God's commands, and of being angry with God.  And she is told-- twice! -- that she needs to repent. 

The writer of the Bible Preaching letter has taken it upon him- or herself to determine Helen's spiritual state, and then has set himself up as her spiritual authority by telling her she "must" repent.  This, in fact, is spiritually abusive behavior:

When religion, God or the Bible are used to uphold a person or movement's real or perceived authority in ways that control or coerce, bringing shame, harm or misery to those perceived to be under that authority, this is spiritual abuse.

The Bible Preaching writer answering Helen's letter actually has no authority over Helen of any kind.  But the letter assumes authority* and then uses it in an attempt to shame and silence.  And this leads us to the third and most damaging assumption of all:

3.  "We are God's spokesman; we know God's mind and speak with God's voice."

Perhaps Bible Preaching's writer didn't intend this implication.  But to say "You are not arguing with us but with God, and you need to repent," does in fact imply that Bible Preaching is God's spokesman on earth.  It implies, "We could not possibly be wrong about what we believe God is saying in this text.  We know what God meant, and we have the right to take it upon ourselves to enforce that meaning."  The Old Testament prophets spoke for God, but Hebrews 1:1-2 says:

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

There are no Old-Testament-style prophets in the New-Covenant kingdom which Jesus came to bring.  Instead, Jesus said, "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth." (John 16:13, emphasis added.)   All believers have the Holy Spirit.  Bible Preaching is not the final arbiter of God's truth or God's message in the Scriptures.   Jesus's life, words and actions are God's ultimate message to us-- and the Holy Spirit is our ultimate Teacher of that message.

This is why Helen said that John 3:16 should be given greater focus than 1 Timothy 2:12.  She was doing nothing more than placing the emphasis of Scripture where Scripture itself places it.   This is not disregarding 1 Timothy 2:12, but seeking to put it in its proper place within the overarching message.  And that overarching message really doesn't have much to do with women being silent or not having authority.  Instead, it's about what Christ has done in and for His people, setting them all -- men and women alike-- free from bondage to become a "royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:9).

God did not, to put it in schoolyard vernacular, "die and leave Bible Preaching in charge."  God sent His Son with this message:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

If Christ did not come to condemn, who are we to communicate shame and condemnation to our brothers or sisters in Christ?  We Christians should bow in humility before the Son and His message, not turn ourselves into policemen to enforce what we think the message is about, on everyone else.

Particularly when the message is coming across as more about restricting women than about setting human beings free.

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*Assuming and then abusing authority is probably actually much closer to what Paul meant in 1 Timothy 2:12 when he used the Greek word "authentein" to describe what he didn't want a woman to do to a man.  When Paul said it shouldn't be done to a man, did he mean it was ok to do it to a woman?  Is Bible Preaching's insistence on the letter of 1 Timothy 2:12 actually a violation of its spirit?

What About "Women Be Silent in the Church"?

So far on this blog I have addressed nearly every Bible verse used to restrict women or keep them under male authority-- except 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 The passage states:

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.

The main reason I have left this verse alone is that I'm not completely sure how best to interpret it myself.  There are so many different positions about it, among complementarians and egalitarians alike.  The position of many complementarians is similar to the one presented in Got Questions.Org: that since 1 Corinthians 11:5 expects women to pray and prophesy aloud in church, the verse cannot require complete silence by women in church-- but that the verse should be interpreted through the lens of 1 Timothy 2:12, in which Paul's words "I do not permit a woman to teach or assume authority over a man" are interpreted to mean "God forbids any woman to ever teach or exercise any sort of authority over any man in church." Thus,  in this view,1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is read closely with its immediate context of receiving and interpreting gifts of tongues and prophecy:

1 Corinthians 14:34 is not commanding women to be absolutely silent in the church all the time. It is only saying that women should not participate when tongues and/or prophecy is being interpreted and tested (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22;1 John 4:1). This is in agreement with 1 Timothy 2:11-12 which says that women should not teach or have authority over men. If women were involved in deciding whether a prophecy was truly from God, they would be disobeying what the Bible says in 1 Timothy 2:11-12. Therefore, Paul tells women to be silent when tongues and prophecy are being interpreted so that they will not be disobeying God’s Word.


Another complementarian viewpoint is that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is to be read as virtually synonymous with 1 Timothy 2:12 -- that it forbids women only from authoritative or pastoral speaking in church.  Wayne Jackson's article in The Christian Courier states:

This does not demand that a woman be absolutely silent at church. Rather, in harmony with what the apostle taught elsewhere (1 Tim. 2:12), the woman is not to speak or teach in any way that violates her gender role. She is not to occupy the position of a public teacher,in such a capacity as to stand before the church and function as the teacher (or co-teacher) of a group containing adult men. In assuming this official capacity, she has stepped beyond her authorized sphere, and she violates scripture.

Both of these interpretations aim for consistency between 1 Timothy 2:12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.  However, they both tend to gloss over the fact that 1 Timothy 2:12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 really aren't talking about the same things.  The Greek words for "silence" are different in the two texts, for instance:  the Timothy verse is about women "learning" with quiet hearts and minds, while the Corinthians verse says nothing about learning and uses a word for "silence" which really does mean "shut up."  They also ignore the fact that the word used for "authority" in 1 Timothy 2:11-15 is not used anywhere in the New Testament to mean the normal exercise of legitimate authority, such as would be used to test prophecies or teach publicly.*  Additionally, Paul's first letter to the Corinthians was written many years before his first letter to Timothy, so how could he expect the Corinthians to use 1 Timothy in order to understand what he meant?

Hard complementarians/patriarchalists are much stricter.  They conclude that the reference to women's prayer and prophecy in 1 Corinthians 11:5 must be interpreted in light of "women be silent" in 14:34-35, and not the other way around.  Thus, women can speak aloud in small-group meetings or prayer meetings, but are not to speak aloud in a regular Sunday meeting of the church at all-- not even, apparently, to make a prayer request or give an announcement.  M.Div. Steve Atkerson at the NTRF website states:

[W]omen are to remain silent with respect to speaking to the assembled church. The context is clear about what is being regulated: situations where only one person is up addressing the whole church (“one at a time,” 14:27 & “in turn,” 14:31). . . that which is being prohibited is public speaking intended for the whole church to hear. . . In God’s household, it is disgraceful for a woman to speak to the gathering of the church. . . . Women may evidently pray in prayer meetings and speak or prophesy at evangelistic events. However, during the regular, weekly, Lord’s Day meetings of the whole church they are not to speak out publicly.

He does, however, give this qualifier:

The silence requirement would therefore not apply to congregational singing, whispered comments not intended for the whole church, laughing, playing an instrument, chatting during the fellowship of the Lord’s Supper, etc.

These views all agree that women are to be restricted from speaking to some degree.  However, they cannot agree on the extent of the restriction.  To some extent, though, all of the above interpretations forbid women's full participation in the ministries and giftings of the church.

On the egalitarian side there are three basic camps.  The first is that since Paul's context here is order in church services, he enjoins silence upon women because they were disrupting the service in some way: possibly by asking questions aloud which interrupted the speaker, which would be why he asks wives to wait and "ask their husbands at home."  This is the position taken by Rev. Dr. Christopher R. Smith
in his blog The New Creation and the Ministry of Women.  He says:

But the word Paul uses for “remain silent” is sigaō, and . . . we can now make better sense of Paul’s statement in its context.

This part of 1 Corinthians is about maintaining good order in worship: “Everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.” And so Paul says about those who would speak in tongues, “If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet (sigaō) in the church and speak to himself and to God.” Rather than confuse the group with unintelligible speech, would-be speakers should refrain from saying what they otherwise might. . .

We should understand Paul’s comments about women speakers in this light. It’s not that Paul is calling for “silence,” the absence of speech or sound, but rather for propriety and good order. Apparently there is something the women in Corinth would otherwise “want to inquire about.” (We’ll explore in our next post what this might have been.) But the community gathering is not the time or the place for this, so the women should refrain from questioning or challenging the speaker. Instead, Paul says, “let them ask their husbands at home”—a third-person imperative, granting them permission to do something that was not typical in this culture. In other words, rather than this being a restriction on women, it’s actually an empowerment of them.

This view allows women's full participation in the church on the basis that the New Testament passage reflects a temporary, situational restriction that need not continue now that the specific situation has ceased.

A second egalitarian position is that these two verses were actually not in the original text.  This is the view held by Dr. Philip B. Payne, who has online articles here showing his detailed textual scholarship.  The fact is that our earliest dated manuscripts of this portion of the New Testament date after 300 AD.  All of these contain verses 34-35, but several manuscripts omit them from just after verse 33 and insert them at the end of verse 40.  This would indicate that they probably were written in the margin at some point after the original text was written.  Theologian Todd Derstine (who is actually a complementarian!) of America's Prophetic Destiny endorses Philip Payne's position that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is actually an interpolation:

The hypothesis that that these verses were not in Paul’s original letter helps to explain why none of the Apostolic Fathers—Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Polycrates—or Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Athenagoras, Shepherd of Hermas, the Gnostic Gospels or second century pseudepigraphae, Tatian, or Clement of Alexandria or Hippolytus ever make reference to them. Clement of Alexandria has it in his head that both men and women should “embrace silence” at church, but extols Miriam as Moses’ associate in commanding the host of Israel as a prophetess, which together implies his text of I Cor 14 did not have vv. 34-35. Tertullian (Bap. 15.17) [early 3rd century], then, is our first Christian writer to clearly show his awareness, not to mention wholeheartedly acceptance of, this pseudo-Pauline policy of feminine silence. . . 

It is as if whoever invented these verses wanted the church of God to disqualify the role of women in the church and reinterpret the inclusiveness implied in 14.5, 14.18, 14.24, and 14.31. We are led to ask the question, “What part of all didn’t he understand?” If v. 34’s unqualified silencing of women were true, then the “all” and “every one of you” in vv. 5, 18, 24, and 31 force us to understand Paul’s letters as being only addressed to the men in the congregation, which is ludicrous in the extreme and contrary to the prominence given to women throughout his epistles and in the book of Acts written by Paul’s most faithful companion, Luke. Ironically, it reflects the same kind of thinking towards women reflected in Talmudic literature which had its inception during the second century, that women were somehow not endowed by their Creator with the same ability as men to appreciate the Torah or truth in general. And frankly, the church fathers, beginning with Tertullian and culminating with Jerome, display this very same kind of perverse marginalization of gender, sex, marriage, and women characteristic of all false religiosity.

This view says we needn't take this passage into account because it wasn't in the original text, and thus reflects a rule that God did not intend to be there.

The third egalitarian position is that verses 34-35 were actually Paul's quotation of words written or said to him by the Corinthians themselves, which he then decisively refutes.  This view is explained beautifully by Pastor Wade Burleson of Istoria Ministries Blog, as follows:

Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians in Greek. The written Greek language does not use "italics" like we do in our English to identify a quote. To know that something is a quotation: (a). The author must identify that what he is writing is a quotation (something Paul does elsewhere), or (b). the quotation must be so familiar to the audience that no identification of the quote is necessary, or (c). the author uses a Greek eta after the quotation to then refute it. I believe the latter two ways are precisely how the Apostle Paul identifies he is quoting someone else in I Corinthians 14:34-35. . . 

The quotation in I Corinthians 14:34-35 is consistent to the law of the Jews in Corinth, but it is absolutely contrary to the teaching and the practice of the Apostle Paul.

Paul REFUTES the Jewish quotation in I Corinthians 14:34-35 twice in the very next verse (v. 36) by using the Greek letter eta. Go look in your interlinear Greek/English Bible and find the stand alone Greek letter eta in v. 36. You will see the eta twice in that one verse. It looks like this: η The Greek eta has two possible markings that cause it to be translated with either the English word "or," or with the English equilavent of what we mean when we make a sound with our mouths like "PFFFFFFFFFFFFT!" This means "That's ridiculous!" or "Are you kidding me?" or "Nonsense!" This latter meaning, in my opinion, is precisely what Paul is saying (twice) in I Corinthians 14:36 in response to the Jewish quotation he has just given I Corinthians 14:35-36. The original Greek text has no markings, so the translation of η must be made by translators based on other facts than the markings of the Greek letter. I believe the context, the culture of Corinth, and the radical nature of New Covenant worship taught by Paul (and resisted by the Corinthian Jews zealous for the Law) demands the η be translated with a "PFFFFFFFFFFFT!" instead of "or" (as is done in the NAS).

M.Div. Dennis J. Preato, whose article on the God's Word to Women website does an excellent job of summarizing the various positions on this verse, also holds to the quotation viewpoint.  He explains why the textual variant of the verses having been moved in some manuscripts might be compatible with this view:

David W. Odell-Scott, Professor of Philosophy at Kent State University, offers a possible solution to the interpolation debate. He suggests that the editors of the Western manuscripts deleted the verses from their normal location between verses 33 and 36, and moved them in order to shield the verses from Paul's rebuke that begins in verse 36. He suspects "the editors shrewdly manipulated the text to serve their purposes," and that they "sought to render the text in such a way that it would be consistent with what the editors expected to find in scripture," meaning that the editors of the Western text did not view Paul's rebuke of the silence and subordination of women as a "viable possibility" given the historical culture and society's norm of that day. Odell-Scott actually views verses 34-35 as a quotation that Paul repeats word for word in order to rebuke. . . .

A substantial body of internal and external evidence exists to conclude that verses 34-35 could not have been authored by Paul. Internally, there is not one verse in the Old Testament that Paul could quote to support such a declaration. Nor is Paul alluding to any general Genesis passage to support a view opposite from his stated declaration in 1 Corinthians that women can pray and prophesy in church.

As previously discussed, Paul is quite specific when referring to the Old Testament to prove his point. The extensive, eternal evidence points to the fact that Paul is quoting a saying from the Oral Law of the Jews that prohibited women from speaking in the synagogue.

Oral Jewish laws do not constitute Scripture and are not authoritative for the body of Christ. Scholars also point out that Paul never appeals to the "law" as guidance for the Christian Church. Scripture tells us that God calls and uses anyone to minister regardless of gender. Paul has just finished telling the Corinthians that women can pray and prophesy in church. In verse 36, Paul corrects the Judaizers' error. Therefore, interpreting verses 34-35 as a quotation with an immediate rebuke remains a contextually viable and the preferred option.

This view shows that the rule need not be followed because Paul never intended to make the rule at all, but instead intended to refute it.

Each of these positions has reasons why they disagree with the others.  The hard-complementarian/patriarchal NTRF site linked above has extensive material attempting to show why all of the other positions, including those of softer complementarians, are wrong; you're welcome to review his material further if you like.  But all of these views, as far as I can see, have one thing in common:  they accept (at least for purposes of argument) that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 should be read as some sort of rule that the New Testament sets forth, which either needs to be either followed in whatever sense it was intended, or dismissed as unintended.

For me, the fact that there is no actual place anywhere in the Old Testament that Paul could have cited as "law" where God commands women to be submissive to their husbands or forbids women to speak publicly; that Anna spoke publicly in the Temple on the occasion of Christ's infancy dedication, and was not rebuked for doing so (Luke 2:36); that women such as Phoebe (Romans 16:1) would have had to speak publicly in the church in order to read Paul's letter aloud to the church at Rome (and probably authoritatively answer questions about what Paul meant!); and that the words of Mary, Mother of Christ, are included in our New Testaments as definite speech that we receive as God-inspired and therefore authoritative-- all do seem to indicate that Paul could not have intended to forbid women from speaking in church, and with teaching authority.

Another issue is that when we read these verses, we somehow miss what is happening in terms of the reason being set forth for the supposed rule.  But the passage actually says "FOR [the reason that] it is shameful [or disgraceful] for a woman to speak in church."  And due to our historical and global distance from the passage, we tend to miss what was really being said.  The Middle East at the time of Paul was an honor-shame culture, and by definition, this meant that behavior was viewed in terms of "the opinions and norms of one's group" rather than according to our more individualistic ideals of right and wrong.  No matter who wrote the words in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 into our Bibles, these phrases actually reflect a very real fact of the time/place in which they were written: it was actually considered shameful in the ancient Middle-Eastern honor-shame culture, for a woman to speak in a public place so that anyone but her husband or other immediate family members could hear her.

David A. DeSilva's book Honor, Shame, Patronage & Purity examines 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 in light of this misunderstood dynamic: 

Readers living in the United States or Western Europe may recognize immediately that we live at some distance from the honor culture of the first-century Greco-Roman world (including the Semitic peoples in the East). . . Typically we do not talk about honor and shame much. . .

[W]e should mention the ways in which gender roles impinge on conceptions of honorable behavior. In the ancient world, as in many traditional cultures today, women and men have different arenas for the preservation and acquisition of honor, and different standards for honorable activity. Men occupy the public spaces, while women are generally directed toward the private spaces of home and
hearth. When they leave the home, they are careful to avoid conversation with other men. . . [W]e do find a good deal of space given over to promoting (or simply reflecting) the larger society’s view of female honor within the pages of the New Testament.

[Passages like 1 Cor. 14:34-35] continue to be the topic of endless debate, but relevant for our concern here is the fact that they reflect the same conviction articulated by Plutarch, namely that a woman’s words are for her husband’s ears, not for the public ear.

I would consider it likely that the passages limiting women’s public voice and presence are introduced as part of the early church leaders’ attempts to show outsiders that the Christian movement is not subversive but inculcates the same “family values” (with regard to women, children and slaves in the household) as the dominant, non-Christian culture. The reason for this is first to diminish the slander against the Christian group (namely that it “turned the world upside down” and was a source of instability and trouble for “good” people), and second, to make the group more attractive to the people around it.

The fact is that in modern Western cultures such as that of the United States, it cannot be said by any stretch of the imagination that it is actually "shameful" or "disgraceful" (which again are by definition references to human social values, not to moral standards, whether divine or human) for women to speak in church! Even in Christian subcultures like evangelicalism, we may have some sense from the text that a woman standing up in church to speak may be breaking some sort of divine rule-- but we have no deep-seated, culturally inbred sense of human shame or disgrace-- no feeling that something dishonorable in the sight of society is happening.   In fact, what really brings shame on the church in the eyes of the surrounding culture today is when women are forbidden to speak.   Christians in fact often feel defensive or protective of women-silencing traditions precisely because we know how bad these practices look to outsiders. Our sense of shame, as far as it goes in our non-honor/shame society, works against silencing women, not for silencing them.

When the reason for a rule ceases, what does/should that mean for the rule?  If whoever wrote these words was trying to prevent cultural shame and disgrace upon the church, should they now be used as a reason for the church to incur shame and disgrace?

So I don't think this verse should be read as restricting or silencing women today.  But the real issue for me goes even deeper than this.  The fact is that not even the strictest hard complementarian reads this verse as forbidding women to say anything in church at all.  And yet this is what the "plain sense" of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 does in fact say.  Women are to "keep silent" for they are "not permitted to speak."  Not "not permitted to speak publicly."  Not "not to participate in the interpretation of tongues."  Not "not to speak as a teacher of adult men."  Not to speak.  That's what it says.

Apparently even hard complementarians today recognize the dehumanization and disenfranchisement from their own centers of worship and Christian community which women would experience if they were required to be completely mute from the time they walked into the church meeting until the time they walked out again.  So-- no one takes this verse at its "plain sense."  Everyone decides that that can't be what it means.  Everyone allows some compassion, some feeling for women, some sense of Jesus' commandment "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (Luke 6:31) to soften the absolute prohibition set forth in the "plain sense" of these verses.  In short, we allow ourselves to be guided by a sense of right and wrong, as Jesus Himself taught right and wrong, in our reading of these verses-- no matter what the actual words say about what is shameful.  Because the fact is that though Jesus often ignored His society's assessment of what was shameful-- from the woman at the well to the woman who cried on His feet, He did it to affirm women and lift them up, not to silence them.

So here's what it boils down to for me.  Did Paul, in writing his letters, really intend to impose a new, much stricter Law on the people of the New Covenant-- particularly with regards to the behavior of women-- than ever was pronounced by Moses to the people of the Old Covenant?  And if all of us find a particular supposed "law" to be so harsh/unjust in its literal understanding that we find some way to soften it and make it at least a little more equitable-- could obedience to law really be what the New Covenant is about?

Should we even be reading the New Testament in this way? 

Christian author and minister Frank Viola probably says it best:

The New Testament should never be handled as a manual of floatable doctrines and isolated teachings. The New Testament is a whole. It’s essentially a story. What is written in the letters of Paul and others is part of that story. The New Testament story contains a consistent message. It’s the message of the New Covenant. This covenant is not an updating of the Old Covenant. It doesn’t include a new set of rules to replace the old set of rules. . . 

In short, the New Covenant erases all social and class distinctions. And it has afforded all to receive the Spirit and serve as priests in God’s house. That includes women. . . [W]hatever the “limiting passages” mean, they cannot in any way overturn the New Covenant. Neither can they contradict the entire thrust of the New Testament. Hence, the idea that women are excluded from speaking in God’s house is a catastrophic breach of the New Covenant.

Isn't Christianity supposed to be about following Jesus?  Jesus said, "A new commandment I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, you are also to love one another."  John 13:34.  And then He showed how He loved us-- by going to the Cross.  Not by making restrictive rules to silence women.  In fact, His first act in the New Creation He had inaugurated with His Resurrection, was to commission women to testify of Him.

His commandments are not burdensome, because they are about love, not law.  His yoke is easy-- because it's about love, not law.  Who were the ones who tied up heavy burdens for others to carry?  The Pharisees.  Not Jesus.

"Women be silent in church" is a heavy burden.

So how can it be from Christ?

Therefore, I will take my stand here in the same place I took in my post "But That's What the Bible Says":

[T]here's something wrong with the way we look at the Bible, when we read a small set of texts in ways that jar with its overarching truths. There's something wrong with holding the nature or treatment of women, or the character of God, hostage to a verse.  There's something wrong with righteously standing on obedience to the Bible while treating fellow human beings less than righteously.

Women shouldn't have to "keep silent in church."  It's contrary to "righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Romans 14:17).  And it's contrary to "love one another, as I have loved you."

For me, that's all there is to it.


----------------
*For my own take on 1 Timothy 2:12, see my four-part series beginning here.

The Bible and the Nature of Woman

[Note:  this is another reposting of a piece I wrote for the Take Heart Project.]

The message of most forms of Christianity is that women are in some way or other subordinate to men.  Women cannot be ministers or elders.  Women are to be "helpmeets" to their husbands and to be under male authority.  This is the traditional way of reading the passages in the Bible that mention women, and many Christians who think they are just reading the "plain sense" of the Bible are unaware of how much the way a passage reads to them, is informed by tradition.

I'd like to re-examine God’s plan and purpose for women.  The best place to start is at the beginning– Genesis 1. What is the first thing the Bible says about women?

“And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and . . . over all the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth on the earth.” Gen. 1:26-28.

Is there any distinction made here between the male and the female? No, what we see is identical treatment of the man and the woman, and identical status of the man and the woman before God. He formed them both to be in His image and to have dominion, and then he told them to be fruitful and multiply and rule the other creatures.

Of course we must be careful not to take these commands in an unqualified state. The life and writings of the Apostle Paul make it clear that not every individual must “be fruitful” by having offspring. Indeed, in the New Testament, being “fruitful” in terms of having children is not mentioned; what is important is “bearing fruit,“ which means good character and good deeds that help grow the Kingdom of God. Nor does “subdue the earth” give us the right to mistreat our fellow creatures; we are to be good stewards over the creation. But what I want to note here is that Genesis Chapter 2 must be read in light of Genesis Chapter 1. The woman, no less than the man, is given rulership. There is no hint in Genesis 1 that the man is to rule over the woman.

It is in the next chapter that we see the words “help meet” (please note that these are two words, not one):

“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him an help meet for him.” Genesis 2:18.

It is important here to note that the name “Adam” is simply the Hebrew word for “human.” Genesis 5:2 says, “Male and female He created them, and blessed them, and called their name “adam” (human) in the day when they were created.” Woman is not an afterthought that God happened to have. When God made the “adam,” the male and female human were in God’s mind from the beginning. But he created one “adam” alone at first, for a reason. Genesis 2:19-20 says that God deliberately brought the animals to the adam to name them, “but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.”

God then causes the adam to fall asleep, and he takes “one of his ribs” (the original Hebrew says “from his side”), and makes a woman. She is made of the exact same substance as Adam, so that he cannot claim her nature as different from his in any way. Adam recognizes what God intended him to recognize– that no other creature is of Adam’s own nature, but this woman is. And this is where the word “man” as in “male” is first used by Adam in regard to himself, ”This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” v. 23.

But what does “help meet for him” really mean?

The word “help” is the Hebrew word “ezer.” It means “help,” but not in the modern English sense of “assistant.” The word actually refers to someone who renders strong aid to someone who needs it. Most of the other times that the word “ezer” is used in the Old Testament, it refers to God. In Psalm 33:20, for instance: ”Our soul waiteth for the Lord; He is our help (“ezer”) and our shield.” An “ezer” is not someone who is subordinate to the one helped. God as “ezer” is above the humans who cry for Him to be their “help.”

But the woman is not a “help” from a superior position, as God is, so the text in Genesis 2 adds a modification. The woman is a “help meet for him.” ”Meet” in the KJV is an old word meaning “suitable to” or “corresponding to.” The Hebrew word is “kenedgo,” which literally means “facing him,” or “as in front of him.” The idea is that here is a help (strong aid) that is not above Adam, as God is, but is face-to-face with him. Equal partnership is strongly implied by this phrase.

God makes the woman because one “adam” alone is not good. The “adam” needs a strong aid that stands face-to face with him. God wants the “adam” to recognize this strong, face-to-face aid for what she is, so God makes sure the “adam” knows that this being is not like one of the animals, but is of his own substance and nature. Genesis 2 then concludes with a parenthetical– that it is because of this manner of creation that man and woman are to join in marriage and be “one flesh.” There is still no hint of subordination of Eve to Adam. In fact, the later subordination of the woman to the man is clearly shown in Genesis 3:16 to be the result of sin.

Some Bible teachers will tell you that because Adam was made first, and because he named the animals, this means he was in a position of authority over Eve. But the Bible clearly shows that the reason God had Adam name the animals was not because of authority, but because God wanted to show Adam that there was no “facing-him-strong-aid” to be found among the animals. And even if naming something implied authority over it, Adam did not name Eve till after the Fall– in Genesis 3:20. When Adam said, “She shall be called Woman, for she was taken out of Man,” he was not naming the woman. He was simply distinguishing both himself and her from one another as male and female. The Hebrew word for “called” in that verse is a different word from the word used when he “named” the animals and (after the Fall) “named” Eve. If the idea of “naming” has any meaning of “authority” at all, then it is interesting to note that Adam did not name Eve until after sin had entered the world and after God told Eve, “he shall rule over you.” (Notice, too, that God did not give a command to the man, “See that you rule over her,“ but merely made a statement to the woman, “He shall rule over you.“ Male rule, like thorns and thistles and pain in childbirth, was a consequence of the Fall, not a command of God.)

Nor is there any indication that being made first put Adam in authority over Eve. If being made first implied authority, then the fish and the birds would rule the land animals, and the land animals would rule the humans! No, God made the human alone at first so that God could show the human how much he needed an “ezer kenedgo.”

Many Christians would reply here that 1 Timothy 2:12-15 says that a woman can’t teach or have authority over a man because Adam was made first and Eve was deceived.  They use this passage to interpret Genesis 2 and 3 and conclude that a woman was made to be subordinate.  Some read this passage to indicate that women are more easily deceived than men are.  But since the early chapters of Genesis do not actually say this, reading a particular interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 back into them is against the principles of Bible interpretation I outlined in my last post.

The 1 Timothy 2 passage actually starts in verse 11, where Paul says, “Let the woman learn.” Women were not allowed to learn theology in either ancient Judaism or ancient Greek cultures, and even Roman women did not usually receive more than a very basic education. Paul’s letter to Timothy was written in Ephesus, where there would most likely be women of all three backgrounds in the church. Paul qualifies the word “learn” with “in silence and all subjection.“ The word “silence” there is the Greek word “heschusia,“ which doesn’t mean absolute “silence” but simply “quietness.” (It is the same word Paul uses a few verses earlier in 1 Tim. 2:2, when he says “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life.“) The word for “subjection” is the noun form of the word used in Ephesians 5:21, “submitting yourselves to one another.“ It conveys the idea of voluntary yielding or cooperation, and though it is often used in the sense of yielding to authority, it does not always convey that meaning. The two words used together convey the kind of attitude any student should have, of quiet receptiveness and yielding to teaching.

The word “usurp authority” that Paul uses in verse 12 is not the Greek word for normal authority, which is “exousia.” This word is “authentein,” and its meaning had to do with taking dominion over or dominating another. If Paul had meant that women could never have any legitimate authority, he would have used some form of “exousia,” not “authentein.” The two words are not synonymous.

Verses 13-14 then go on with “For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” Paul may be using the creation order to make the point that because Adam was made first, it is especially inappropriate for a woman to take illegitimate authority over a man– but as we have seen, there really is nothing in the story of the creation that makes the woman subordinate to the man either. They were created with equal authority to rule the creation, with her as his “face-to-face strong aid.” But another point, and one that fits especially well with Paul’s statement that a woman should be allowed to learn, is that Adam’s being formed first apparently goes hand-in-hand with Adam’s not being deceived. What does being formed first have to do with not being deceived? It makes sense in this context that Paul may have meant that being formed first meant Adam had more learning and experience than Eve, and that this prevented Adam from being deceived. Adam had, after all, named the animals. He would therefore have seen and named the serpent. He, much more than Eve, was in a position to recognize the serpent’s words for what they were. (If anything, this makes Adam more culpable, which may be why Paul places the responsibility for the Fall on Adam, in Romans 5:12.)

Be that as it may, this passage in 1 Timothy 2 does not say that woman is to be subordinate to man because man was made first. It does not say that all women are easily deceived. It simply says that Eve was formed later and was deceived. This Epistle is Paul’s advice to Timothy on principles of correct conduct and order, in a church threatened by false teaching (1 Tim. 1:3 & 3:15). In that context, Paul counsels that women be allowed to learn the doctrines of the faith and that they should not seize dominion over men. Should we go further than this and say Paul was making a blanket prohibition against any woman ever having an authoritative teaching position in any church? Paul himself said in 1 Corinthians 4:6 to “not think above what was written.” To say that forbidding women to take illegitimate authority, also means that they can have no legitimate authority, or that this is because they are more easily deceived, is to go way above and beyond what is actually written.

[Note:  I have done a five-part analysis of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 that begins here and is a more in-depth analysis of those verses.]

I must also address here 1 Corinthians 11:7-8, which many Christian read as saying the woman was made for the man and is therefore secondary to him, and that while the man is the image and glory of God, the woman is only the glory of man.

First of all, that word “for” does not mean “for the use of” as in “I made a cake for you.” The word in the ancient Greek means “for the sake of” or “because of.” This is exactly what Genesis 2 says– the man needed to not be alone, and the woman was made because he had this need. She is not “for” the man’s use, she is “because of” his need. This does not imply any subordination of the woman. On the contrary, the one who needs help is the one in the weaker position, not the one who comes to give help! This does not mean Paul is saying men are subordinate to women either– but it does say a lot about the interdependence God intends men and women to have to one another.

Secondly, as far as “glory” is concerned– we are accustomed to think of this word in terms of the splendor and divine beauty of God. But 2 Corinthians 3:18 says that all believers shine with this kind of glory: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (Emphasis added.)

This passage is not about that kind of glory, for it would be in direct contradiction to 2 Cor. 3:18 to say men have God’s glory but women have man’s glory. No, there is another meaning of the word “glory” in the ancient Greek, and that has to do with reputation, or the good opinion of others.

This passage has to be read in the light of the rest of 1 Corinthians 11. The Corinthian church was a large, cosmopolitan center in the Roman Empire, in which a large number of cultures mingled and which had a reputation as the “Sin City” of those times. The young church was comprised of peoples from a variety of backgrounds, and at the time Paul wrote the letter this church was struggling with a variety of matters, one of which was its reputation in the eyes of the community. It helps to understand that the cultures of Israel, Greece and Rome were honor-shame cultures. They tended to think of behavior more in terms of honor and dishonor, in contrast to our way of thinking in more terms of right and wrong. It wasn’t enough, for instance, for a woman to be faithful to her husband; she had to avoid even the slightest appearance of loose morals. This means that women did not go out in public alone; they did not talk to men who were not their husbands, and so on. A woman’s behavior was a direct reflection on her husband’s reputation, and when we see the word “glory” in a text that contains words having to do with honor and shame, we know that the meaning of “glory“ in that text is within that honor-shame context. From the context of 1 Cor. 11, it seems extremely likely that “reputation” is what Paul is talking about when he says “glory.”

Paul starts this section of his letter by praising the Corinthians for keeping the “ordinances, as I delivered them to you.” (verse 1.) This word “ordinances” is translated as “traditions” everywhere else in the New Testament, and it means the ways in which human cultures work out the Scriptures in practical applications. Paul uses this word sometimes negatively (Colossians 2:8), and sometimes positively, as in this passage; but “traditions” are clearly not on the same par as God’s commandments and are to be repudiated whenever they clash with the revealed will of God.

1 Cor 11 is mainly about whether women should cover their heads when they pray or prophesy in public, and Paul speaks of this matter in terms of tradition and not commandment. The passage is full of the kinds of words that communicate the honor-shame culture: ”disgrace,” “proper,” “dishonor,” and so on. It is in light of this that Paul speaks of man being “the image and glory of God.” Paul does NOT deny the truth of Genesis 1:26-27 that male and female are both the image of God; he does not say the woman is the image of the man– but Paul has to deal with the very real fact that in that culture, a woman’s behavior was viewed almost entirely in terms of how it affected her husband (or if she was unmarried, her father). The woman’s deeds, in the eyes of the culture, reflected not on God, but on the man in her life. In that culture, the only women who did not cover their heads in public were prostitutes. This is why Paul says women should wear head coverings, in order not to be seen as prostitutes in that culture, and thus to bring shame on their husbands or fathers.

The point is that “glory” as Paul uses it here is not about the nature of man or woman at all– it’s about cultural reputations. The principle that applies today is that we should not act in ways that reflect poorly on our loved ones. But we do not live in an honor-shame culture. Since God looks not on the outward appearance but on the heart (1 Sam. 16:7), we need not follow the practices of those Middle-Eastern cultures that focused so much on outward appearance that even innocent actions (such as simply talking to a man who is not your husband) were deeply frowned upon. In any event, the wearing of head coverings was part of that culture, not part of ours. The view of woman as being only important in relation to her husband and father was also a cultural, not a divinely sanctioned, thing. Jesus always treated women as valuable individuals in their own right, regardless of how talking to a woman in public was viewed by his disciples or anyone else! (See the story of the woman at the well in John 4.) Paul gave weight to matters of reputation when necessary for the growth of the church, but he, too, treated women as valuable individuals in their own right (notice, for instance, all the women he honors by name in Romans 16).

Today a woman may give glory to God by her deeds in ways that were not possible then. Her nature as the image of God is no longer obscured by ancient cultural ways of thinking about women. Christian women can be assured that they were not created to be subordinate to men, but to be their equal partners from the day God made them.

[More analysis of 1 Corinthians 11, including the "man is the head of woman" text, will be covered in my upcoming reposting of my "The Bible and Male Headship" series from the Take Heart Project.]

Does The New Testament Teach that Women Should Be Housekeepers?

Here’s Titus 2:3-5 in the NIV (1984) translation:

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be
slanderers or addicted to much wine,but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the
younger women to love their husbands and children,  to be self-controlled and pure, to
be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will
malign the word of God.

Here it is in the King James Version:

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false
accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the
young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet,
chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God
be not blasphemed.

And in the New American Standard:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips
nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good,  so that they may encourage the
young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible,
pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of
God will not be dishonored.

All three versions make it sound like what Paul asking Titus to do is make sure young
women learn to be homemakers, or housekeepers.  On the basis of this verse, many
Christians today say that a woman’s God-given special domain is the home-- that God’s
ideal is that women marry, stay home and keep house.   But the actual Greek word
there does not mean “busy at home” or “workers at home.  The KJV “keepers at home"
is much closer, but only if we understand that the word “keeper” in the age of King
James did not mean someone who stayed in a place and kept it clean.  

The actual word is “oikouros,” a combination of the word “oik,” meaning "house," and
the word “ouros,” meaning "guard."  The word for the "gardener" whom Mary Magdalene
thought she was speaking at the Resurrection (John 20:15) was that same word "ouros"
combined with the word for "garden."  Mary Magdalene asked the man if he had moved
the body.  Why?  Because he had the authority to do so!  Being the "ouros" of
something was a position of responsibility with accompanying authority.  The “keeper of
the garden” was not merely the man who pruned the shrubbery.   He had the power to
take bodies out of the tombs and put them back again.  He guarded and protected the
tombs and managed the interment of the bodies.  He was in charge of the garden.

“Oikouros" – “guard of the home” is not about being "domestic." The same word “guard”
in verb rather than noun construction, is part of "phroureo" in 1 Peter 1:5. "Phroureo"
combines "phr" ("before" or "above") with "oureo" ("to guard/watch") and means "to
watch over." 1 Pet 1:5 in the NIV translates, "shielded [phroureo] by God's power."  God
is our “Ouros.”  This is not a word that implies subordination.

The statement in Titus that women should "guard the home" was based on the
historical/cultural understanding shared between Paul and his readers (in this case,
Titus) that the home was considered the wife's special domain.  In the first-century
Greco-Roman culture, the pater familias (ruling father) was the chief authority in the
family—but when it came to the actual running of the domestic side of the household,
he deferred to his wife.  This understanding is also present when Paul says in 1 Timothy
5:14, “So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes
and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander.”  (NIV 1984-- The New American
Standard renders it “keep house.”)  But the word translated “manage their homes”  or
“keep house” is actually that same word “oik” for house combined with “despotes,”
which means “to rule”!  Paul was telling Timothy that younger widows should marry and
rule their houses, which was the cultural expectation.

This cultural expectation is reflected in the repetition of the thought in both 1 Timothy
5:14 and Titus 2:5 that the purpose for Paul’s teaching  is “so that no one will malign the
word of God” or “to give the enemy no opportunity for slander.”  Paul expresses in both
verses this same basic idea, in light of which he counsels in Titus 2:5 that women
should be “subject to their husbands” (the word does not mean “be obedient,” as the
KJV translates it, but is the same word used in Ephesians 5:21-22 meaning “voluntarily
yield.”)  Paul, Timothy and Titus all understood that the surrounding culture expected
wives to be obedient to their husbands (although, as I said, the husband deferred to his
wife in the running of the house).  Paul was counseling that wives instead voluntarily yield to their husbands as a Christian act, for the sake of the good name of the Christian
community.

This is clearly seen when looking at Titus 2:3-5 in its immediate context. Paul goes on in
Titus 2 to talk about two more groups: young men and slaves. At the end of each
section he repeats, in slightly different words, the same concept: In verse 8 he says that
if the young men will be self-controlled, then "those who oppose you will be ashamed
because they have nothing bad to say about us." Then in verse 10 he says that if slaves
will please their masters and not steal, then "in every way they will make the teaching
about God our Savior attractive."

Paul was interested in how the gospel message appeared to the surrounding culture.
That's what he was telling Titus: to make sure everyone behaved themselves according to
the bounds of propriety. Otherwise, the young church in Crete might fail.

Some Christians, misreading the KJV where it says "so that the word be not
blasphemed," think the verse is saying that wives not being submissive is somehow
directly "blaspheming" the word of God. But the context shows that this is not what Paul
was talking about.  He meant that if wives were not submissive to their husbands, the
surrounding culture would think there was something wrong with Christianity.

In order to give no offense to the non-Christians surrounding the young churches, Paul
asked both Timothy and Titus to make sure that women were doing their culturally
mandated jobs.  This included authority to rule, protect and guard their homes.   He was
not saying that the cultural structure of pater familias and subordinate wife was God’s
own mandate for all time.   And he certainly was not saying that God’s divine plan and
design for all women in all ages was that they be housekeepers.


Update: August 2012:


I must correct one point in the above.  It seems that many manuscripts do have “oikourgos,” “working at home.” According to Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, “oikourgos” is a combination of “oikos, (house) and a root of ergon (work).” Vines’ then goes on to say, “Some mss. have oikouros, watching or keeping the home (oikos and ouros, a keeper).” There is a slight textual variation, therefore, that can go either way.  But even if what Paul originally wrote was “working at home” (which is not certain), this does not erase the historical context and the immediate literary context of the passage. Nor does it fundamentally alter the meaning. Paul was telling Titus to advise people in different walks of life to do their culturally-perceived duty. For wives, this included both working in (or guarding/keeping) the home and being submissive to their husbands. As I went on to say, the immediate context proves this is the case, as Paul gives Titus the same advice in different words to give young men and to slaves– do your duty as society expects you to, and it will give the gospel and its followers a good name.

What Paul is certainly not doing is telling women that God designed them as cooks and house cleaners, and that’s what they should always do. If that’s what he had meant, he never would have sent Phoebe as his spokesperson to bear his letter to the Romans (Romans 16:1-2), or commended so many other women for working hard for the gospel. Nor do I believe he was advocating husband-rule as a divine mandate, any more than he was advocating slavery as a divine mandate.

5-Step Analysis of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 - Conclusion

In Part 3 we did the first half of Step Five of my analysis: an examination of the meaning of the original Greek words and grammar. Finally, now, we come to the conclusion-- my interpretation, in which I will go phrase by phrase from the Concordant Literal translation used at the end of Part 3.

“Let a woman be learning in quietness with all subjection.”
There is a question at this point as to whether Paul is referring to “woman” as a collective or as singular. The switch from the plural “women” in the preceding verse to the indefinite singular “woman” in this verse appears to indicate a change of subject. Paul therefore may be no longer talking about "women" in general, but about "a woman" in particular. If so, he does not name this particular woman, so whether he means women in general, or one specific woman, cannot be conclusively stated. However, there are very good reasons to think he might be talking about just one woman, which I will detail below.

In any event, since “Let be learning” is the only verb form in the entire passage which is in the command form, I believe this sentence is the controlling sentence of this passage. Whatever else Paul says, he says in view of the need for “a woman” to "learn." In a society where women were largely denied education, Paul’s command that she is to learn sounds a clear counter-cultural note. “Quietness” and "subjection," according to their Greek meanings, do not denote silence and subordination, but rather that she should have an attitude of receptivity and willingness to yield, as is fitting for any student.

“Now I am not permitting a woman to be teaching nor yet to be domineering over a man, but to be in quietness.”
Notice that Paul does not say, “Timothy, do not permit a woman.” Nor does he say, "A woman is forbidden." Instead, Paul uses the word “I” and puts the verb in present tense, indicating a current action. Since Paul looked upon the church at Ephesus as uniquely his church, and since Timothy’s ministry there is a temporary measure during Paul’s absence-- and since Timothy’s main role was to stop false teaching-- I believe Paul is giving Timothy Paul’s own authority to act for Paul in a specific situation of false teaching by “a woman,” the effect of which is to domineer over “a man” (indefinite noun again). It is unlikely Paul is making any kind of policy about all women being forbidden to teach, or to teach in church meetings, because the facts are on the table that Paul did indeed permit women to teach and commended them for teaching. Junia was “outstanding among the apostles,” and it would be impossible to be an apostle (one who has the role of planting churches) without teaching church groups about Christ. And Paul simply cannot be forbidding women to “have authority” because that is not what the word “authenteo” means. What is clear is that false teaching is a real problem in the church at Ephesus and that Paul’s main purpose in writing to Timothy was to deal with this issue.

As I mentioned, it is the norm in Koine Greek, when one refers to “woman” and “man” together, that they are married to one another. Given the Greek construction, Paul could be saying, “Now I am not permitting this certain woman to be teaching-and-domineering over her husband, but to be learning in quietness.” If Paul is talking about women in general, and not a particular woman, it is a puzzle as to why he switches from the plural “women” in verses 9 and 10, to the singular “a woman” in verse 11. Be that as it may, I will also take into account that Paul might be speaking of “woman” in a generic sense, meaning “all the women in the church.”

“For Adam was first molded, thereafter Eve, and Adam was not seduced.”
As I stated in Part 3, I believe Paul is using Adam and Eve an example. The word “for” in the Greek includes the meaning “for example.“ Also, Paul specifically states in 1 Cor. 10:11 that he considers the Old Testament stories to be “for an example” and “for instruction” to the Christian churches. He says nothing about using them to “ground” a teaching of his, in order to render that teaching timeless and universal. In 2 Cor. 11:3 Paul specifically refers to Eve as an example, in a situation having to do with a particular circumstance of false teaching that he was afraid would deceive the Corinthian church. His reference to Eve there has nothing to do with “grounding” anything Paul is saying in order to make it timeless and universal.

It is most likely here in 1 Timothy 2 as well, that the reference to Adam and Eve is being used as an example only. There is no particular reason to believe that the Creation order set up a pre-Fall authority hierarchy of Adam over Eve, which Paul is claiming should be followed in this letter to Timothy. There is nothing in the actual Creation texts that says so. The only real way to read a Creation-order based hierarchy in Genesis 1 and 2 is to read it in from 1 Timothy 2:11-15. To then use the Creation-order hierarchy you have read into Genesis, as a “grounding” of hierarchy in 1 Timothy 2, is circular reasoning: Genesis 1 and 2 say there’s a hierarchy because 1 Timothy 2 says so, and 1 Timothy 2 says there’s a hierarchy because Genesis 1and 2 say so. But that only works as long as you stay inside the circle.

The emphasis on Adam being “first molded” is more significant in light of the fact that “Adam was not seduced.” That is what the actual text of 1 Timothy 2:13-14 says. If we then look at this in light of the controlling idea “let a woman learn,“ the most likely idea is that since Adam was made before Eve, he had learning (experience in naming the animals, for example) that Eve was lacking. Adam, unlike Eve, had seen the serpent before, because he had named it. Because of this, he was "not seduced" (or "deceived"). He still sinned, but not through deception.

The situation is probably similar in the problem Paul is addressing. An unlearned woman or women are teaching deception because she/they have not had adequate learning before beginning to teach.

I don’t believe Paul’s idea here is to blame Eve for the first sin, because in his letter to the Romans he places the responsibility squarely on Adam. Here he says that Eve sinned because she was deceived, but Adam sinned even though he knew better. The situation for women in Ephesus parallels this. They have not been permitted to learn and therefore, like Eve, they have become deceived.

(Paul may also, as a side note, be asserting this orthodox idea of the order of creation in refutation of the proto-Gnostic teaching that Eve was created first, that the Fall was a good thing, and that Eve was the wise one who led Adam into enlightenment. But in any case, it all appears related to the “teaching-and-domineering” of an unlearned woman or women.)

“. . . yet the woman, being deluded, has come to be in the transgression.”
Here is the phrase that supports the notion that Paul is talking about one woman in a current situation. Since Paul was a teacher and a scholar, we must believe that he chose the exact verb form he meant to use. This verb form refers to an ongoing state of affairs that continues into the present. But how can he say of Eve, “she has come to be, and still is, in the transgression”? And why does he first speak of Adam and Eve by name, but then switch to “Adam” and “the woman”?

There is a common grammar structure in Koine Greek where a statement will begin with an indefinite singular noun (such as “a woman”), and then the noun will be repeated with a definite article later on. When this happens, both nouns are to be construed as referring to the same person or thing. An example of this occurs in John 4:7-9: “A woman of Samaria” in verse 7 is the same person as “the woman of Samaria” in verse 9. So when Paul says “the woman” instead of “Eve,” the grammatical construction refers back to “a woman” in the preceding sentence.

The only way Paul could be speaking of Eve as still being in transgression, is if he is referring to Eve in a typological sense as representing all women, with Eve’s sin as a type for all women’s sin. He does do something like this with Adam in Romans 5. So it may be possible that he is doing that with Eve here. But it’s also possible that he is talking about a particular woman but not referring to her by name, out of grace, in order to protect her.

“Yet she shall be saved through the child bearing, if ever they should be remaining in faith and love and holiness with sanity.”
We can only assume Paul knew what he was doing in switching from “she” to “they” in the same phrase. The two pronouns could not both be referring to "women in general."

“She” can mean either Eve, or a particular woman who is practicing false teaching and domineering over her husband. “The childbearing” (or "the chilbirth") refers to the bearing of the “seed of woman” as referred to in the Adam and Eve story-- ie., the Christ. So-- if this is about one particular woman who is in transgression, “they” probably means she and her husband together. If this woman will join with her husband in faith, love and holiness with clear-headedness (rejecting the false teaching), she will be saved by Christ, out of her current transgression.

If “she” means Eve, then “they” probably means the women of the church-- her daughters, who, if they continue in faith, love and holiness with clear-headedness, will bring the salvation that comes through the birth of Christ, to Eve (as a metaphor for womankind).

But in any event, there is no compelling reason to interpret these verses as saying, "Let women keep quiet, for God forbids them to ever teach or have any authority over men in the church. Women's role is to learn and to teach other women, but they can never teach men, because they were created second and moreover became deceived. But they will be saved from deception if they will accept their place and have babies in submission and holiness." This is simply not what the passage says.

The question that remains is, why did more accurate readings become so obscured? I think there is a reason for that.

Recent research indicates that during the earliest years of the church, when believers were meeting in houses, women had prominent roles in house leadership. The house was, after all, the woman’s particular domain. 1 Corinthians 1:11 refers to “those of Chloe’s household.” And Colossians 4:15 says “Greet Nympha, and the church that meets at her house.” These women were almost certainly leaders of house churches. If not, Paul would have been extremely remiss in greeting only the hostess of a church that met at her house, but neglecting to greet the actual leader!

But over the years, churches began to grow too large to meet in homes, and at the same time, as Christianity became more accepted, it also became more organized and structured. The idea of women doing anything in public was still shameful in much of the culture. Desiring to spread the gospel, churches followed the advice of Paul in fitting in with the surrounding cultures except in areas of conscience. “What shall we do with our woman leaders?” was the thought on the mind of the church as a whole. It became convenient to find a Scriptural basis for women not teaching-- and by this time, Paul’s letters had been around long enough for the situations in which he wrote to begin to be forgotten.

The rest, as they say, is history.

So. . . Having interpreted the Scriptures in this way, it still remains to find its application for us as part of the New Creation kingdom of God, living in the modern world. Even though Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 2:11-15 are most likely a situational mandate referring to a particular policy he set for a particular church at one particular time, this is still part of the God-inspired canon of Scripture, and there is still something we can learn from it today.

I believe there are timeless principles that are being conveyed even within this time-bound passage. Once we understand what Paul was probably really saying to Timothy, and what Paul probably wasn’t really saying-- then we can then figure out how Paul’s words might apply to us.

Here are the principles that I think we can deduce from this passage, which can be applied today:

1. All Christians, male and female, are to be taught the basic doctrines of their faith.

2. The doctrines of the faith are to be received in a quiet, receptive, yielding state of mind.

3. It’s important that a Christian learn the basics of the faith before attempting to become a teacher of others.

4. Teaching that domineers over others is not acceptable.

5. A person who is “deluded” or “deceived” can still be saved by Christ.

What I cannot see in this passage is any reason to restrict all women in the church today, as Paul restricted women (or a woman) in first-century Ephesus. The situations that existed in first-century Ephesus do not exist today. Christian women today are not uneducated; they are not influenced by the worship of Artemis, and they are not imbibing the teachings of gnosticism.

Which brings us to principle #6: Church leaders can set policies for their individual churches, to deal with specific situations there at specific times, which need not apply to all churches everywhere.

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I am indepted to Cheryl Schatz's website, Women in Ministry, for her insights into this passage.

5-Step Analysis of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 - Part 3

This series continues here with Step 5: Determine the most likely meaning of the passage in question, with a view towards the meaning of the words in their original language, along with grammar and construction.

I'll start with the word meanings, grammar and construction. This gets pretty detailed, so if you get bored, feel free to wait for Part 4, where I'll do the "determine the most likely meaning" part.

I'm not a Greek scholar myself, so I'm indebted to Suzanne McCarthy and Philip Payne for their information on the words and grammar of this passage of Scripture.

But the place to start is with English translations. Here is the passage in the KJV:

11. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
12. But I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
13. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
14. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
15. Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

Here is the passage in the TNIV:

11. A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.
12. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. 13. For Adam was formed first, then Eve.
14. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.
15. But women will be saved through childbearing-- if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

How close are either of these versions to the wording in the actual Greek?

In verse 11 the KJV says “in silence,“ but the Greek words do not denote absolute silence, but means something more like “in quietness” or “in peace.“ The KJV also uses the definite article “the” before “woman” in verse 11, and before “man” in the second sentence. In the original, there is no definite article here before either “woman” or “man.” In the absence of a definite article, a noun can mean one general thing (“a woman”) or a collective set of things (“womankind”) or a particular thing (“this certain woman”). The grammatical construction of a particular passage will give additional clues as to which is meant.

The TNIV uses the indefinite article “a” to denote this, and renders “silence” more accurately as “quietness.”

It’s also important to notice that the word “learn” is the only word in this passage that is in the imperative (command) tense.

In verse 12, the word translated “suffer” or “permit,“ is a Greek word that usually connoted a temporary state of affairs. In the tense Paul uses, it does not imply “I never permit” so much as “I am not giving permission.” It is not worded as a command, but as a statement of what “I” -- Paul-- does.

Both these translations avoid “exercise authority” in verse 12. Some translations render it this way, as I mentioned in Part 2-- but the Greek word for the normal use of authority is not used here. The Greek verb is “authentein” (authenteo in the verb conjugation). This word appears only once in the New Testament, in this verse. No Greek dictionary or lexicon gives “have authority” or “exercise authority” as a possible translation of this word. Here are the possible definitions from a well-known lexicon:

1) one who with his own hands kills another or himself
2) one who acts on his own authority, autocratic
3) an absolute master
4) to govern, exercise dominion over one

Clearly what “a woman” is forbidden to do is not simply to “have authority.” The TNIV renders it “assume authority over” and the KJV says “usurp authority over” -- both of which are closer to the actual verb meaning-- to seize authority that has not been granted, to domineer. Also, that conjunction word between “teach” and “usurp authority” in the original is a is a word that links the two verbs together, giving them the same weight in the sentence. “Teach” by itself is not what is being addressed here. It is “teach-and-domineer,” as a unit.

Verse 13 is fairly terse and simple. Adam was formed first, then Eve. The issue is not what this verse says, but how Paul is using this information.

In verse 14, Neither version above accurately renders the verb tense in “was in the transgression” or “became a sinner.” Both of these are past tense, denoting something that happened in the past. But the actual verb tense is the perfect tense, and is better rendered “has come to be in sin.” The perfect tense refers to a present, ongoing state of affairs-- implying not only that “the woman” (and the definite article does appear in the original this time) not only was in sin, but still is. Note also that while both Adam and Eve are referred to in one sentence, in the following sentence it switches to “Adam” and “the woman.”

In verse 15 the TNIV takes what in the last sentence are actually two distinct pronouns (“she“ and “they“), and puts in the word “women” for “she,” obscuring the difference which is clear in the original. The KJV does accurately show the Greek pronouns here: “she” shall be saved if “they” continue in faith, etc. It is not common in Greek any more than in English to switch from a singular to a plural pronoun in the middle of sentence when referring to the same noun. Paul was an educated man and a scholar. It is very unlikely that he would have made such an amateur mistake. Since the original says first “she” and then “they,” Paul is almost certainly referring to two different nouns from earlier in the text-- not the same one.

The Greek also includes the definite article “the” before the word “childbearing.”
“Childbearing” can also be rendered “childbirth.” “The childbearing” is most likely to mean not just childbearing in general, but a specific childbearing or childbirth. In fact, since the passage makes reference to Eve, whose “seed” was to “crush the serpent’s head,” it is quite likely that Paul is referring to “the childbearing” in terms of this “seed”-- that is, the birth of the Christ. The word “saved” here is a word that means “spiritual salvation.” It is the word commonly used when speaking of what Christ came to do for humanity. Having a baby cannot save anyone. But the birth of the Child can save everyone.

We must also note that the words for “woman” and “man” in the Greek could also mean “wife” and “husband.” There are no separate words for “wife” or “husband” in the Greek. In fact, some English translations say, “I do not permit a wife to teach . . . a husband.” It is actually the norm in Koine Greek, when a man and a woman are being discussed together in the same passage, for the reader to consider them related by marriage (since there are no separate words for “husband” and “wife” in the Greek.) The translators must do their best with the context, to figure out which is meant. But when a the context is ambiguous (as this one manifestly is!) it’s hard to be sure.

Finally, there is the word “subjection,” which is the noun form of the verb “hupotasso,“ meaning “to yield, give in to, cooperate with.“ In the voice in which it is used here, it carries a connation of voluntary yielding. Twice in the Epistles it is used in this voice to denote an attitude all Christians should have towards one another (Eph. 5:21, 1 Peter 5:5). The word does not mean “obedience” -- there is another Greek word for that which Paul distinguishes from this word. He never uses the Greek word for “obey” as an instruction to wives or women about husbands or men.

Now, to bring this all together, here is a translation from the Concordant Literal New Testament, which closely follows the Greek in terms of singular and plural pronouns, actual verb tenses, etc.

Let a woman be learning in quietness with all subjection. Now I am not permitting a woman to be teaching nor yet to be domineering over a man, but to be in quietness. For Adam was first molded, thereafter Eve, and Adam was not seduced, yet the woman, being deluded, has come to be in the transgression Yet she shall be saved through the child bearing, if ever they should be remaining in faith and love and holiness with sanity.
　
So-- having looked closely at the original Greek, what is the most likely meaning of this passage? That will be covered in Part 4.