3. Women and Leadership in the Church: 1 Timothy 2:9-15

From the earliest days of the New Testament church, most Christians have believed on the basis of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 that the New Testament places certain restrictions on the ministry of women in the church. It is not surprising that in the contemporary debate over the role of women in the church, this passage more than any other has polarized interpreters. The passage says, "Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty."

The significance of this passage lies in the fact that it specifically addresses the question of the role of women within the church by stating unequivocally: "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent." It is not surprising that this passage has been examined at great length by evangelicals who oppose or limit the full participation of women in the ministry of the church, as well as by those who support it.

In light of the immediate and wider context of the pastoral epistles,⁷¹ Paul’s intent is not to prohibit women from participating in the general teaching ministry of the church ("they [women] are to teach what is good," Titus 2:3), but rather to restrain women from aspiring to the restricted teaching role of the leader of the congregation. The reason for Paul’s ruling is that the exercise of a headship function by a woman is incompatible with the submissive role which God at the creation assigned to women in the home and in the church.

Paul’s teachings regarding the role of women in the church appear to have been occasioned by False Teachers who sowed dissension (1 Tim 1:4-6; 6:4-5; cf. 2 Tim 2:14, 16-17, 23-24) by teaching abstinence from certain foods, from marriage, and probably from sex altogether (1 Tim 4:1-3). These false teachers had persuaded many women to follow them in their ascetic program (1 Tim 5:15; 2 Tim 3:6-7). Apparently they were encouraging women to discard their submissive role in favor of a more Egalitarian status with men. This is suggested by their encouragement to abstain from marriage (1 Tim 4:3), which indicates they probably denigrated traditional female roles. Paul’s counsel in 1 Timothy 5:14 to young widows "to marry, bear children, rule their household" may also reflect his effort to counteract these false teachers by affirming traditional female roles in order to "give the enemy no occasion to revile us" (1 Tim 5:14).

The situation in Ephesus is remarkably similar to that of Corinth. In both metropolitan cities, church members appear to have been influenced by false teachers who promoted the removal of role distinctions between men and women. Most likely it was the need to counteract these false teachings that occasioned Paul’s teaching about the roles of men and women in church ministry.

Contemporary Relevance. Paul’s teachings on the role of women are relevant today, because in some ways the contemporary emancipation of women may closely reflect that of his time.⁷² If, as numerous scholars argue, Paul’s opponents in the pastoral epistles included "women [who] were in the forefront of the libertarian trend"⁷³ as evidenced by their extravagant dress, the "forsaking of domestic roles such as raising children in order to assume such a prominent role in congregational life–as teaching,"⁷⁴ then Paul was addressing a situation strikingly similar to the one existing today.

The existence of a "Women's Liberation" movement in early Christianity is implied not only by Paul’s strictness (1 Tim 2:11-12; 5:13; 2 Tim 3:6; 1 Cor 11:5-10; 14:34), but also by such post-New Testament documents as the fictional Acts of Paul (about a.d. 185). In this book, Paul commissions a woman, Thecla, to be a preacher and teacher of the Word of Godword of God. "Go and teach the word of God," he says. Thecla obeys by going away to Iconium, where she "went into the house of Onesiphorus . . . and taught the oracles of God."⁷⁵

The attempt of this apocryphal document to present Paul, not as forbidding but as commissioning a woman to be an official teacher of the Word of God in the church, offers an additional indication of the possible existence of a feminist movement in Paul’s time.⁷⁶ If such a movement existed at that time, then Paul’s instruction on the role of women in the church would be particularly relevant to our time, when the feminist movement is gaining strength within the church.

Wives or Women? To defend his thesis that male headship applies only to the home and not to the church, the author interprets 1 Timothy 2:8-15 like the previous two Pauline passages. In his view, this passage also applies only to "the relationship of husbands and wives and not men and women in general."⁷⁷ His arguments are similar to those already examined. For example, his first argument is that when "gyne and Aneraner are found paired in close proximity, the reference is consistently to wife and husband and not women and men in general."⁷⁸ He has used this argument with the two previous passages. The rest of his arguments are designed to buttress his contention that Paul’s ruling applies exclusively to husband-wife relationships.

Surprisingly, his arguments apparently did not persuade the very editor of the symposium, despite the fact that she argues for the same Egalitarianegalitarian view. She correctly observes, "The text itself seems to be discussing attitudes in worship rather than the marriage relationship."⁷⁹ She recognizes that the purpose of 1 Timothy is not to instruct Timothy on how husbands and wives should relate to one another but on "how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tim 3:14-15).

Our author’s attempt to differentiate between wives and women on the basis of the dual meaning of gyne is a legitimate academic exercise but is totally foreign to Paul’s thought. For the apostle the role of a wife in the home serves as a paradigm for the role of women in the church because, after all, the church is an extended spiritual family, the household of God. To this fundamental biblical concept we shall return shortly.

Had Paul intended to confine his prohibition in verse 12 only to the relationship of a wife to her husband, then he likely would have used a definite article or a possessive pronoun with man: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over her man." This is how the apostle expressed himself when writing specifically about husband-wife relationships: "Wives, be subject to your (Greek idiois) husbands" (Eph 5:22; Col 3:18). But such a possessive pronoun is absent from 1 Timothy 2:12.

The context is abundantly clear. Paul addresses men and women in general as members of the church and not just husbands and wives, as he does in Ephesians 5:22-23 and Colossians 3:18-19. The apostle calls upon all men, not just husbands, to lift up holy hands in prayer (1 Tim 2:8). He summons all women, not just wives, to dress modestly (1 Tim 2:9). Similarly Paul prohibits all women, not just wives, to teach authoritatively as the head of the congregation (1 Tim 2:12). This Teaching may not be popular, but it has the merit of being true to Scripture.