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.


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

Male Headship: a Comparison with Christian Teachings of Long Ago

Over the last three years or so, I have read a number of essays online in support of male headship in the church and home, and interacted with many supporters of male headship in comments on forums and blogs.  The comments made to me and others by supporters of male headship as God's divine plan and design, usually fall into a few general categories.  These are as follows:

That the Church has traditionally, for 2000 years prior to the the current age, supported male headship.

That there is nothing wrong with male headship itself, and that protests against it are really about the abuse of male headship by some men, and not male headship itself.

That those who oppose male headship are capitulating to our modern, godless culture.

That women are designed by God to be under male headship and are happiest when they embrace that design.

That the early chapters of the Book of Genesis establish God's principle of male headship. 

That the entire Bible clearly and plainly supports male headship, and those who resist it are going against the Word of God. 

I have by and large addressed the actual substance of most of these arguments in many of my blog posts here.  Today I'd like to look at them in another way.

I want to make it clear from the start that I am not judging the motives of any of my complementarian brothers and sisters, except insofar as I am commenting on common motives of the human race in general, in its fallen condition which I and my fellow egalitarians also share.  I am not comparing the morals of complementarianism or of complementarians, to the morals of any other group.  I am not calling anyone a racist.  I am not questioning the sincerity of anyone's Christianity or the way they follow Christ.  

But I want to look at the arguments above, by comparing them to the arguments of another group from 150 years ago in the United States.  I want to point out that the makers of those 150-year-old arguments were, according to every criteria an evangelical Christian would use  today, devoted and upstanding followers of Christ.  Many of the people who sincerely made these arguments will, I have no doubt, meet us one day in the new heavens and new earth, as our brothers and sisters, lovers of Christ and dearly loved by Him.  But they were mistaken-- and I believe every reader of mine, egalitarian or complementarian, Christian or non-Christian, will agree that they were mistaken.

I refer to the arguments in the book (available at Google Books online) called A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical and Historical View of Slavery, by John Henry Hopkins, D.D., L.L.D., New York: WI Pooley & Co. (1864).


Before beginning, however, I would like to state why I am making this comparison by quoting egalitarian Christian leader Kevin Giles, who attended a complementarian Christian conference in Melbourne, Australia in October 2010.  His thoughts are recorded on Google Docs in this reply entitled "Kevin Giles replies to the Melbourne Hierarchical-Complementarians," and he states on pages 32-33 this profound thought regarding human sinfulness and weakness as it has played out historically for thousands of years (human weakness in which I share just like everyone else):

"Once [human] power over others is attained, it is only relinquished when it becomes impossible to maintain.  The more pressure applied to share power, the more reasons are thought up to justify the power held, and the more hostility to opponents is shown. . .  [I]n the southern states of America in the 19th century evangelicals led the opposition to the emancipation of the slaves, insisting the Bible sanctioned and endorsed slavery. . . They found much in scripture to support their ideas.  Nearly all the evangelical clergy in the Old South were convinced that slavery was taught in the Bible, and many in the northern states as well.  It took a civil war and the loss of over a million lives before these Christian men were forced to give up their power over their black slaves, and it took nearly 150 years before the Southern Baptists openly admitted they had been wrong to appeal to the Bible to justify slavery.  Men resist at all costs giving up power over others.  Another example is Apartheid.  In South Africa the Apartheid ideology was devised and institutionalized by Reformed Christians.  They wrote extensively, arguing that the Bible taught the separation of the races and that some should rule over others.  Appeal was made to a supposed 'order of creation' that set white men over black and coloured people.  These white Reformed Christians only relinquished power when the economic and political pressures became impossible to withstand.  Now in South Africa is is hard to find a Reformed pastor or theologian who is not ashamed that such repeated and insistent appeal to the Bible was made to justify what is unjustifiable.  It is undeniable that as a general principal, men resist at all cost giving up power over others.  And if they are Christians, try to find justification for their power by appeal to the Bible."  [Emphasis added.]


As a white person, I belong to a race that has, male and female alike, historically resisted at all costs giving up power over others.   Recognizing me as a fellow-traveler in human frailty, my readers will, I hope-- in a spirit of intellectual detachment-- simply read the general arguments listed below, followed by quotes from Rev. Hopkins' book in a similar vein, and see the similarities.  (All emphasized words in the quotes below were emphasized in the original.)

The Church has traditionally, for 2000 years prior to the the current age, supported male headship.

"But the Word of God has not changed; the doctrine of the Apostles has not changed. . . I do not respect your departure from the old and well-settled rule of the Church. . . . I know that the doctrine of that Church was clear and unanimous on the lawfulness of slavery for eighteen centuries together . . ." p. 47.

 There is nothing wrong with male headship itself, and protests against it are really about the abuse of male headship by some men, and not male headship itself. 

"[My] whole object . . . was to prove, from the Bible, that in the relation of master and slave there was necessarily no sin whatever.  The sin, if any, lay in the treatment of the slave, and not in the relation itself.  Of course, it was liable to abuse, as all human relations must be. But . . . thousands of our Christian brethren who held slaves were treating them with kindness and justice, according to the Apostle's rule. . .  I held it to be a cruel and absurd charge to accuse them as sinners against the Divine law, when they were only doing what the Word of God allowed, under the Constitution and established code of their country."  p. 45.

Those who oppose male headship are capitulating to our modern, godless culture. 

"Who are we, that in our modern wisdom presume to set aside the Word of God . . . and invent for ourselves a 'higher law' than those holy Scriptures which are given to us as 'a light to our feet and a lamp to our paths,' in the darkness of a sinful and polluted world?" p. 16.

"In religious truth or reverence for the Bible, the age in which we live is prolific in daring and impious innovation. . . We have heard the increasing clamor against the Bible, sometimes from the devotees of geological speculation, sometimes from the bold deniers of miracle and prophecy, and, not least upon the list, from the loud-tongued apostles of anti-slavery." p.48.

Women are designed by God to be under male headship and are happiest when they embrace that design.

"The eldest son of a royal family is in due time king, and his brothers forthwith become his subjects.  Why should not the same principle obtain in the races of mankind, if the Almighty has so willed it?  The Anglo-Saxon race is king; why should not the African race be subject, and subject in the way for which it is best adapted, and in which it may be more safe, more useful and more happy than in any other which has yet been opened to it, in the annals of the world?" p. 32.

The early chapters of the Book of Genesis establish God's principle of male headship. 

"The first appearance of slavery in the Bible is the wonderful prediction of the patriarch Noah: 'Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren' . . . the fulfillment was reserved for his posterity, after they had lost the knowledge of God and become utterly polluted by the abominations of heathen idolatry.  The Almighty, foreseeing this total degradation of the race, ordered them to servitude or slavery under the descendants of Shem and Japeth, doubtless because He judged it to be their fittest condition.  And all history proves how accurately the prediction has been accomplished, even to the present day."  p. 7.

The entire Bible clearly and plainly supports male headship, and those who resist it are going against the Word of God. 

"[We must refer] the question to the only infallible criterion -- the Word of God. . . . I proceed, accordingly, to the evidence of the sacred Scriptures, which, long ago, produced complete conviction in my own mind, and must, as I regard it, be equally conclusive to every candid and sincere inquirer." p. 7.

"[We condemn] the loud and bitter denunciations of our anti-slavery preachers and politicians, calling themselves Christians. . . For they. . . set themselves against the Word of God in this matter. . . . " p. 16.


Having finished this, I'm very much afraid that I cannot help but have given offense-- and I sincerely apologize.  But I believe this comparison is one that I, in all honestly and in my best integrity, have to make.  If anyone thinks I am pointing fingers, my last blog post "My Wish-I-Hadn'ts" will show you that my other three fingers are to the best of my ability, pointing back straight at me.

I know that our Lord Jesus has mercy on us all.

The Message of God's Kingdom: Foundational Equality

Luke 3:4-6 tells of how the ministry of Jesus began with the appearance of John the Baptist, preaching a message from Isaiah 40:4:

A voice of one calling in the desert,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God’s salvation.'

This passage speaks in terms of land, roads and paths as a metaphor for God's salvation. God will fill up the low places and bring down the high places, straighten the crooked and smooth the rough. It envisions the coming God's salvation (the coming of the Messiah which John was proclaiming) in terms of a great leveling. Applying the metaphor to humanity, then:  the message is that human differences in status, one higher and one lower, will no longer matter. Paul speaks of the same sort of thing in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29: "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him."

And this isn't just about everyone being the same in what we call "spiritual salvation" -- being saved by grace through faith. Joel prophesied this in Joel 2:28-29 (which Peter then preached in Acts 2:16-21 as having been fulfilled):

I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

Not just in salvation, but in the pouring out of the Spirit, God promises to bless all His people.  "There is no favoritism with God," says Ephesians 6:9 (which, as Retha over at Biblical Personhood so beautifully points out, is the concluding sentence of Paul's household codes in Ephesians, showing us that Paul was teaching his readers how to work within a human system of favoritism, not God's).

In the Old Covenant, God set aside one people, then one family out of one tribe of those people for priesthood, and another family out of another tribe of those people for kingship.  But now we are in the New Covenant.  Members of every tribe and language and people and nation are made into "a kingdom and priests to serve our God."  Revelation 5:9-10.  Peter said in Acts 10:34, after God had poured out His Spirit on Gentiles, "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts those from every nation who fear him and do what is right."

Paul states this as a foundational truth of the Kingdom of God in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17: "So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view [other translations say, "according to the flesh"].  Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.  The old is gone, the new is here!"  Paul tells the Galatians that he "opposed [Peter] to his face. . . for before certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles.  But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles. . . ." (Galatians 2:11-12).  Peter was regarding both the Gentiles and himself from a worldly point of view, or according to the flesh.

But Paul explains later in the same letter, "So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. . . there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. . . . [W]hen the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship."  Galatians 3:28-4:5  A footnote in my Bible adds, "The Greek word for adoption to sonship is a legal term referring to the full legal standing of an adopted male heir in Roman culture."  Paul is saying that all who are in Christ Jesus-- Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female-- have received the same promise of the adoption to sonship.  No one who has faith in Christ has any lesser legal standing, powers or privileges than anyone else. 

This is why Paul counsels the believers in Philippians 2:3, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves." Jesus had taught in Matthew 18:2-4, Mark 10:15 and Luke 18:7 that everyone who wants to enter the Kingdom of God must do it as a little child.  Little children had no status, powers or privileges in that day, so Jesus' words amounted to a statement that we all must lay down our earthly status, powers and privileges in order to enter the new creation Kingdom.

The essence of the Kingdom message is this:  "Stop looking at yourself in terms of status, or lack thereof.  Stop regarding others in terms of their power or position.  Stop expecting to be treated with respect based on your status in the world, and learn to treat all others with respect-- regardless of their status in the world." Paul made it especially clear that he understood this when he refused to have followers who said, "I am of Paul," stating that those who insisted on distinguishing leaders or having jealousy of place or position were "mere infants" and "still worldly."  This idea is so pervasive throughout the entire New Testament that it must be regarded as one of its foundational teachings.

But many Christians believe that God, universally and timelessly, has chosen men to have leadership authority in the church and home, and women to be followers under that authority.   Some even consider it an essential tenet of Christianity that men are meant to lead and women are meant to follow-- so much so that they question whether those who disagree are truly committed to biblical Christianity.  They base this doctrine on a few short texts: 1 Timothy 2:12-15, 1 Corinthians 11:3, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, Ephesians 5:22-23, Colossians 3:18, Titus 2:4-5 and 1 Peter 3:1-6.  They believe these seven texts create an exception to the Kingdom message of no favoritism: that in this one area, we are to view certain believers according to the flesh.   They say that Galatians 3:28 refers only to spiritual salvation.  They say that Joel 2:28-29 and Acts 2:16-21 restrict the outpouring of the Spirit to only what is mentioned in those verses: prophecy, visions and dreams.  They say that God does not and will not pour out any spiritual leadership gifts upon women, except so that they may lead other women.

Apparently the idea is that though we must become as little children to enter the Kingdom, the Kingdom itself then confers upon men, based on their maleness alone, new powers, privileges and status that women cannot have.

What we tend to forget is that we're in a completely different situation than the original readers of the New Testament.  We live in a society where men no longer are considered to have primacy and power, and where women are no longer relegated to the home and children.   It's easy, therefore, to read these verses as if they were against the mutuality of our culture: as if they were counter-cultural statements about God's divine plan for the Kingdom-- statements that place male authority firmly within the Kingdom, to be held against all modern cultural changes.

But how would these passages read if you had always lived in a society where women were required to be not just submissive, but obedient to their husbands?  Where freeborn little boys grew up knowing they would one day become masters of their homes, wives, children and slaves?  Where women were not only forbidden to teach (except in the temples of their goddesses), but viewed as less than fully virtuous if they spoke in public at all?

I think if we lived in those days, it would be much clearer that in light of the Kingdom principle that all believers have the same status before God, the New Testament writers were teaching believers to make necessary concessions for the sake of the church's reputation in the cultures they lived in, and yet without compromising new-creation mutuality.   If you were a new believer in the early 1st century, might you not be saying, "My husband/master has become a believer and has laid down his earthly status.  Does this mean I still have to follow the Emperor's law and obey him?"  Peter's words in 1 Peter 2:12-13 encapsulate the New Testament response: "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds. . . Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human authority."  

As I look back upon history, it seems to me that the Kingdom principle of the equality of believers has had a profound effect, over time, on the notion of the equality of all human beings.  It is not that our modern culture, by insisting on the full, functional equality of women, has somehow corrupted the Kingdom message as it should be understood in the church.  On the contrary-- the church, ever since the passing of the first Apostles, has been finding ways to exclude women from Kingdom equality.  But our Western cultures today, having imbibed deeply of the Kingdom teaching of equality and applied it to all humanity, are now calling out the church on her hypocrisy.

Maybe it's time we listened.

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.

What Does a Christian Egalitarian Marriage Look Like?

I walked into a Christian book store the other day, and happened to look at the section on marriage.  And guess what?  Every book on the shelf was some variation on "husbands, here's how to lead your wives/wives, here's how to submit to your husband's authority."  Not one book on the shelves said, "Here's how to be co-leaders together of your home and family.  Here's how to live in mutuality as best friends and partners, deferring to one another in love." 

Books on egalitarian Christian marriage do exist (there's a great list at Christian Egalitarian Marriage) but from what I understand, most Christian book stores simply will not carry them.  It's not surprising, then, that there's a lack of understanding of what Christian egalitarian marriage actually looks like in practice.  Myths are promulgated:  "Egalitarians think men and women are exactly alike, so Christian egalitarians allow for no differences in what men and women do in the home."  Or:  "Christian egalitarian marriages are about both parties making sure the other party does exactly half of the work.  They're about claiming rights, not about giving and serving as Christians should."

I can't tell you what every Christian egalitarian marriage looks like.  You see, far from trying to make men and women exactly alike, Christian egalitarian marriage actually celebrates differences-- not just differences between the sexes, but differences in individuals.  There are no boxes that anyone has to squeeze into saying, "This is how you're supposed to act as a man; this is what you're supposed to be as a woman."  Each marriage is a unique relationship between two unique people. 

So what I can do is tell you what my own marriage looks like.  Since my husband and I stopped trying to be complementarian (the gender-roles model where the husband is the leader), everything has felt so much more natural-- as we have simply been who we are rather than tried to be what we believed we were supposed to be.  But in many ways our marriage doesn't look that different from what it used to.  In fact, if you're in a happy complementarian marriage, it may not look all that different from your own.

When we go somewhere in the car, my husband usually drives, unless he's very tired or sick.  He usually comes around the car and opens my door for me to get in.  When we're out for a walk, if a tree branch is leaning over the path, my husband is the one who lifts it out of the way for me to walk by.  If we are climbing up a steep path, he offers me a hand up. My husband brings me flowers on special occasions, and sometimes "just because." 

I don't bring him flowers, because they don't bless him the way they do me. 

I cry during movies.  He doesn't.   I like jewelry and talking on the phone.  He likes watching pro wrestling.

I do almost all the cooking and laundry.  He takes out the garbage and puts together furniture.  We focus on giving to and pleasing one another, not whether all the chores are divided equally.

But it's an egalitarian marriage.  So what is it, exactly, that makes it different from a complementarian marriage?

First, as I said-- we don't feel constrained to do or be anything that we are not.  The traditional-sounding male/female differences above are things we do because they work for us, being who we are.  But there is no requirement that it be like this.  Here are some other dynamics of our marriage that aren't quite so traditional:

He does almost all the grocery shopping, since he doesn't mind it, and I have always hated it. In the summers, I'm the one that barbecues out doors, since I enjoy it and he hates it.

If he's home when I'm at work, he makes lunch for me to come home to.

I do the yard work, since his back prevents him.

We each do about half the dishes (when we're not making the kids do them!)

He's not really into sports-- and neither am I. I'm not really into shopping, and I don't care for "chick flicks." Neither does he.

We both like old movies, comic books and Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" novels.

Being egalitarian doesn't mean we don't believe males and females are different, or that we don't celebrate our differences.  What it does mean is that he doesn't have to do or like everything considered masculine, nor do I have to do or like everything considered feminine.

But if you're complementarian, you may be shaking your head and saying, "But we don't put ourselves in stereotyped boxes either.  We embrace individuality too!"

Here, then, is the real difference. 

We are co-leaders of our family.  We no longer consider him to be in authority over me.  I submit to him, yes-- but only as all Christians are to submit to one another, esteeming the other more than ourselves, just as Ephesians 5:21 and Philippians 2:3-4 say to do.  In that same sense, he submits to me too.

I take the lead in the everyday finances, because he's not that good with figures.

He takes the lead when we're getting to and from places, since I can get lost merely walking across a parking lot.

We make all major decisions together.  Since each of us starts out willing to yield to the other, any disagreements are usually resolved in favor of who the issue is more important to.  But if we disagree, we have to talk and pray until we find consensus.  He doesn't have an "I make the final decision if we disagree" trump card.

On the other hand, since back in our complementarian days, he never actually used this trump card, this makes no practical difference.  We have always sought consensus.  He has never wanted to override me.  

In short, our marriage has not changed all that much in its outward appearance.  The difference is in our attitudes.  I can no longer coast along, letting the responsibility for everything rest on him.  I have to step up and take responsibility alongside him, shouldering with him the adult load.  Any rules that we set for the household and children, we must both be fully willing to enforce.  And once we got used to this, we both liked it much better.  I am truly his "ezer kenegdo" -- his "face-to-face strong aid," which is what the word translated "help meet" in Genesis 2:20 (KJV) actually means-- and this means he is truly not alone.  "Bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh" doesn't mean "he's the hero and I'm his sidekick."  It means we are two strong individuals together, who have found that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  We have our goals and dreams together-- and we have our goals and dreams as individuals.  We each support the other in both.

Our 24th anniversary was this week.  And I'd say that in mutual respect, dignity and love, we are more one than ever.

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.