Introduction
It’s
been nearly 20 years since I first met my best friend Dave at a church we both
attended. Our families became quick friends and we spent lots of time together;
weekends, holidays, vacations, etc. Unfortunately, Dave died suddenly more than
10 years ago. I still remember so many of the great conversations we had over
the short time we had together. Dave was a super smart scientist and a godly
man, husband and father. He eventually became an elder at our church and he
took to the duties with all seriousness and humility. We often spent time talking
about some of the policies of the church and whether or not they were biblical;
biblical leadership was very important to him. One of the things that bothered
him about our church was their position on the role of women in the Church.
Like many churches, they insisted that women would not be allowed to teach in
the church from the pulpit. We talked about it together for hours and studied
the Scriptures together but just couldn’t reconcile our church’s position with
the biblical evidence and the historical context. It just didn’t make sense to
either one of us but we just couldn’t get anyone else from the elder board to
consider that they might be wrong. We finally gave up and chalked it up to a
lost battle and didn’t want to risk disunity among the leadership or
congregation. I started seminary just shortly before Dave died and I think he
would have been so pleased to know that I had many brilliant professors—including
some awesome women! In fact, one of those amazing women was the chair for my
oral examination. She was also my professor for two semesters of Hebrew. As
hard as that class was, I loved going because she was such a great teacher. At
some point during each class, she would take the text we were studying and
diverge into a brilliantly composed sermon. She is a freakishly smart
professor, an eloquent speaker, values her students and is passionately in love
with God. However, this past week, it would appear that she encountered someone
who didn’t believe women should be allowed to teach in the church. Back 20
years ago Dave and I gave up on this topic because it just seemed like we had
no way of getting past a church leadership that wasn’t open to the possibility
that the text they were relying on for their position might have a different
meaning than they were convinced it had. Ultimately, it seemed like we didn’t
have a voice in the matter. Well it may be 20 years later, but I now have a
voice and I’m going to use it. Not surprisingly, the basis for not allowing
women to teach in the church comes primarily from seven verses in Paul’s first
letter to Timothy. So if the Church is going to take the chance of offending
God who may have gifted a woman to teach by barring her from doing so all based
on a handful of verses, then we better be darn sure we’re right. I discussed
this topic with my professor after completing my oral board examinations and
asked her if this was a matter that I should be willing to divide a church over
if I ever found myself in that position. I won’t forget her answer. She didn’t
say yes or no. She said, in essence, that it was my duty as a pastor to
properly divide God’s Word to the best of my ability and humbly teach it to the
people irrespective of who might be offended by what I say. I’m going to do my
best to do that here.
Subject Text
1 Timothy 2:9-15
9I also want women to dress
modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls
or expensive clothes, 10but with good deeds,
appropriate for women who profess to worship God. 11A woman should learn in
quietness and full submission. 12I do not permit a woman to teach
or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13For Adam was formed first, then
Eve. 14And Adam was not the one
deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.
15But women will be saved
through childbearing--if they continue in faith, love and
holiness with propriety.
Context
Some
of you might be wondering why I always include a “context” section in my
lessons and why I make such a fuss about it all the time. Well this lesson is
exactly why! It is the failure to properly understand the context that has
caused so much confusion and division over our subject text. I will enumerate
the guidelines for biblical interpretation below but you can find these same
guidelines listed on my web page under the permanent heading of: “Rules for
Biblical Interpretation.”
- The Bible was written
long ago;
- To people of a
different culture;
- Who lived in a
different part of the world; and
- Spoke a different
language.
And what does recognizing,
understanding and considering these four elements create? Context! The general
rule for biblical interpretation is always Context, Context, Context! Why is
establishing the context for our subject text particularly important in this
lesson? Unlike the Gospels, which are four biographies of Jesus, or the Book of
Acts, which is a record of the actions (aka “Acts”) of Jesus’ apostles, our
subject text is part of a personal letter from one person, Paul, to another,
Timothy. And we are jumping right into the midst of the text of the letter.
Think about that for just a minute—we don’t know either Paul or Timothy
personally outside of what the biblical text tells us or what some other
historical texts might tell us. Yet we have before us a letter that one has
written to the other. We can’t possibly begin to establish sound church and
doctrinal positions from a letter between two friends who are complete strangers
to us unless we are confident that we know the context of their conversation to
the greatest extent possible in order to avoid any misunderstandings or
miscommunications. Look, most of us know exactly what it feels like to have our
words taken out of context so let’s do the hard work of making sure we don’t
take the biblical text out of context. It’s not a perfect science and can be
extremely tedious and time consuming but it is
God’s Word so there is no excuse not to commit ourselves to understanding the
context to the best of our abilities.
Ephesus
In
the ancient world, Ephesus was the capital of the province of Asia during the
Roman occupation. Ancient Ephesus was located at the mouth of the Cayster River
on the western coast of modern day Turkey along the Aegean Sea. Ephesus was one
of the greatest seaports of the entire ancient world. Although Jerusalem still
maintained its religious prominence in the ancient world, Ephesus’ significance
in the growth of Christianity cannot be overstated. “By the first century A. D.
the city had grown to around 250,000 citizens and was perhaps the third largest
city in the east behind Alexandria and Antioch on the Orontes (Syria).”[1]
Some believe
that Ephesus was originally founded by the legendary Amazons (a mythical race
of female warriors). It may have acquired its name from the goddess Artemis
Ephesia who was believed to be the virginal goddess of the hunt (perhaps the remaining
vestiges of her Amazonian roots). After the arrival of the Greeks in Ephesus,
the people of Ephesus began making sacrifices to the Anatolian goddess Cybele
(goddess of earth and fertility known as the Great Mother) who was later
identified with the Greek goddess Artemis. Eventually, their respective
attributes were combined into one goddess—the goddess Artemis. She became the
mother and ruler of everything. Animal sacrifices where offered to the goddess
at the Temple of Artemis which at one time was considered one of the Seven
Wonders of the World and would receive visitors from around the world. Goddess
worship was big business in Ephesus. In fact, silversmiths and coppersmiths
enjoyed a lucrative business fashioning jewelry pieces and temple statues not
as trinkets or souvenirs but as offerings for worshippers who visited the
temple. You can see just how important the business was when you read about
Paul’s preaching in Ephesus recorded in the Book of Acts (Acts 20:23-40). As
more and more people began turning to Christianity and discarding the various
pagan cults, the idol-making business began to suffer which led to what is
known as the “Riot in Ephesus” instigated by a silversmith named Demetrius. Later,
Paul would warn Timothy about Alexander the coppersmith (some translations say
“metalsmith”) in Ephesus who Paul said caused him much trouble (2 Tim 4:14).
Although
Ephesus was the center for goddess worship, men still enjoyed greater respect
than did women. Not uncommon throughout the provinces of Asia-minor during the
first century, women were expected to be submissive wives that properly managed
all household duties and raised the children. Furthermore, women were, for the
most part, significantly less educated than were men.
The Relationship of Paul and Timothy
Paul
and Timothy’s relationship runs much deeper than friendship and even though the
biblical text doesn’t explicitly say so, Paul was grooming Timothy to succeed
him. Paul wrote his first letter to Timothy probably around 64 A. D. just a few
years before Paul’s final Roman imprisonment and execution probably in 67 A. D.
Paul spent a considerable time in Ephesus building and directing the Church and
set Timothy in place there to maintain Church order, combat false teachings and
gave him detailed instructions with respect to church leadership and oversight.
Extra-biblical texts reveal that eventually Timothy became the first Bishop of
the churches in the provinces of Asia-minor. When Paul came to the end of his
life, it was Timothy who was charged by Paul to carry on the duties of ministry
first begun by him (2 Tim 3:10-4:5). Paul was charging Timothy to carry out the
duties of his office within the context of the Church in Ephesus and while
there are general principles to be gleaned from Paul’s letter to Timothy that
can be applied to all churches everywhere and at all times, some were intended
to deal with the issues specific to Timothy’s place and time.
Final Contextual Considerations
We
must always be careful not to use the excuse of “context” as a license for
anything unbiblical. Nevertheless, we need to try and see Ephesus and the
ancient world the way it was when Paul wrote his letters to Timothy. We must be
willing to understand that there was a dynamic that existed in a culture
obsessed with goddess worship where women were generally uneducated and that
Paul’s instructions to Timothy were formed and informed, in part, by that
dynamic. “This is not a matter of interpreting Scripture by culture, which can
relativize God’s Word. Rather, Scripture stands over and often against its
contemporary culture. Obviously we will better be able to apply Scripture in
our own situation if we understand how it was intended to be applied to its
own. Culture, then, is not a control, but a target. Discernment of what
biblical practices should be transferred unchanged and repeated in an identical
manner in our very different culture is sharpened by an accurate understanding
of the original cultural target, if
(that word is important here) it can be determined. This may help us also
determine the functional reasons why certain commands and practices were put in
Scripture, where they dealt with real life situations.”[2]
Having established, hopefully, a better understanding of the context for Paul’s
instructions to Timothy, let’s begin taking a closer look at our subject text
and try to understand what Paul is really saying.
Text
Analysis
When
v. 9 starts with “I also want…,” we must first understand what Paul is adding
to his desire in v. 9. In V. 8 Paul is
giving instruction to men for the way they should relate to God in prayer (with
lifted “holy hands”) and the proper attitude toward humanity (without anger and
disputing). Having, in part, established the proper conduct of men in v. 8,
Paul begins to outline the proper conduct of women in v. 9.
V. 9
is a general principle that applied to Christian women in the general society
not just within the church itself. The personal demeanor outwardly, in this
case, reflected a general demarcation point that created a distinction between
Christian women and the other women in Ephesus. “Having dealt with the
disruptive men [anger and disputing], Paul turns to disruptive women; just as
the men are to stop fighting, women are to dress appropriately…It would appear
that the women were dressing immodestly to the point that it was causing
disruption; they were becoming preoccupied with the externals of beauty (the
clothing being condemned is opulent, the jewelry excessive) and neglecting
things that were truly important such as doing good deeds. Therefore, Paul says
that they are to dress in a way that is in keeping with their Christian
character and to concentrate on what is most important. While their dress is an
issue, their attitude is Paul’s true concern.”[3]
Paul
shifts his attention in v. 10 from the proper outward appearance of women to
the proper actions of women. I have often been criticized for the emphasis I
place on the actions/behaviors of those who profess to be followers of Jesus
Christ, implying that our actions have a direct bearing on our salvation.
Nothing could be farther from the truth! Our salvation has nothing whatsoever
to do with our actions. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves or assist
in our own salvation. Our actions, however, speak volumes about what we say we
believe. “According to Paul’s instruction, what is to be noticeable about
Christian women (and men) is not showy apparel, which sends an unsettling
message (even to outsiders), but the power of God in spiritual deeds. Good deeds
speaks of genuine Christianity, the observable lifestyle that flows out of
faith in Christ. This is the appropriate
‘adornment’ for those who profess to be genuine Christians.”[4]
People
see in v. 11 an instructive that remains constant through all times. However,
this is a long term solution of an issue that was specific to that particular
culture as I identified above. Women were generally far less educated than men.
Consequently, if that ignorance was going to be reversed effectively, women
needed to be willingly compliant in the process of learning and growing in
their faith. “When Paul said that women could learn, he was affirming their
recognition as teachable members of the church. Christian women were given
‘equal rights’ with men when it came to studying Holy Scriptures. This was an
amazing freedom for many of the Jewish and Gentile women who had become
Christians...Some may have overreacted, flaunting their freedom and disrupting
the church service. In addition, some of the women may have been converts from
the cult of temple prostitution, so widespread in these major cities. These
women were immature in the faith and doctrine of Christianity…The Ephesian
church had a particular problem with false teachers…Evidently, the women were
especially susceptible to the false teachings because they did not yet have
enough biblical knowledge to discern the truth.”[5]
How
v. 12 came to be interpreted as the prohibition of all women at all times
against teaching men is a mystery to me. Grammatically, Paul’s instruction is a
present tense command that carries far less force in the Greek than does its
English translation. Paul is saying that based on the exigent circumstances
facing the Church because of false teachers, the need was for more learners not
more teachers. Paul clearly says: “I do not permit…”. He does not say “I will
never permit…” or “You should never permit…”. Paul was addressing a matter that
the Church was facing at that time
and in that place and it is only to
the extent that the Church at any other time or in some other place faces
similar circumstances that Paul’s prohibition should be applied in the same
way.
The
Greek word, authentein, translated as
“authority” is a hapax legomenon, meaning it occurs only once in this form in
the New Testament. In this case it is a prohibition against women seizing
authority from men or domineering men. However, this cannot be seen as license
for men to be domineering over women. It is matter of having the proper
attitude of humility and respect for one another in the spirit of seeking the
greatest good for the other specifically and the community at large more
generally. It is not “An absolute prohibition of women teaching but as a
repudiation of allowing them to domineer and lay down the law.”[6]
The command for women to be silent is a continuation of the command in v. 11
for women to attend primarily to learning.
Vv.
13-14 are often used as the justification to support that Paul’s instruction
transcends the immediate culture to include all succeeding cultures because he
appeals to the creation narrative as though only women can be deceived as was Eve
and men are merely victims of that deception as was Adam. If that’s what you
believe then I want to challenge you to reread Genesis and write down the exact
timeline of events surround the creation of Adam, the creation of Eve, the
prohibition against eating the forbidden fruit, Eve’s deception and Adam’s
disobedience. I think you’ll see that Paul is not making an argument from the
principles of God’s created order. Instead, Paul is making an argument that what
is occurring in the Ephesian church is analogous to the original events that
led to the fall of humanity.
“Just as Eve was deceived in the Garden of Eden, so
the women in the church were being deceived by false teachers. Just as Adam was
the first human created by God, so the men in the church in Ephesus should be
the first to speak and teach, because they had more training. Eve should have
turned to Adam for advice about Satan’s words to her because Adam had more
experience with God’s instructions…This view, then, stresses that Paul’s
teaching here is not universal; rather, it applies to churches with similar
problems…Paul was not excusing Adam for his part in the fall. On the contrary,
in his letter to the Romans, Paul placed the primary blame for humanity’s
sinful nature on Adam (Rom 5:12-21). Eve had not been told directly by God
about the trees—Adam had instructed her. In turn, God instructed Adam about the
trees before Eve was created. For Eve, the struggle was over whether to submit
to Adam’s command or to the serpent’s words that seemed to offer her knowledge
and understanding. But when Adam ate of the fruit, he directly disobeyed God.
He was not deceived; he sinned outright…This verse should not be taken to prove
that women are more gullible than men in general. In Ephesus, due to the
persuasiveness of the male false teachers, some women were gullible. Paul
didn’t use this verse to say women were easily deceived, but to point out that
Eve should have submitted to Adam in her particular situation.”[7]
If there
is confusion about any verse in our subject text, I would have to say it is v.
15. It seems like a complete tangent to our subject text. The Greek word that
translates “saved” can also be translated as “restored.” However, that doesn’t
seem to make the verse any less confusing. If we accept the translation as
“saved” then it might be necessary to reconsider the translation of the Greek
word for “childbearing,” another hapax legomenon, in light of the definite
article “the” that precedes it in the Greek text so that the reading would be
that the woman would be saved through the
birth. This is perhaps a cryptic
allusion to the salvation that would come as a result of the birth of Christ.
However, that seems like an unnecessarily vague reference to Christ from Paul
who is normally anything but vague when it comes to proclaiming the salvation
message of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, the conditions to that salvation, faith,
love and holiness with propriety, seem to contradict Paul’s instruction
elsewhere that salvation is by faith alone and not conditional on any works
(i.e. love and holiness with propriety) and would lead one to believe that Paul
intends something else here. Instead, it is likely that Paul is reacting to the
teachings of the false teachers deceiving the women of Ephesus. Because Paul and
the early church regularly battled the teachings and influence of the Gnostics
who discouraged childbearing, this is more likely Paul’s purpose in v. 15.
“‘Childbearing and marriage were forbidden by certain Gnostic groups because
they pulled the soul-atoms back into material bodies instead of liberating them
to ascend to their ultimate source.’”[8]
[9]
Paul wants to emphasize that “Women who fulfill their God-given roles of
childbearing and child rearing are demonstrating true commitment and obedience
to Christ. One of the most important roles for a wife and mother is to care for
her family. This seems to be the most legitimate interpretation in light of the
larger context…The women of Ephesus were abandoning their God-given purpose
because of the false teachers. So Paul is telling them that caring for their
families…was one way for them to remain effective and to live faithful lives of
service. By means of bearing children, raising them, and fulfilling their
design, women would be saved from the
evils of Ephesian society and maintain a pure testimony to the lordship of
Christ.”[10]
Application
The
goal of this lesson is not to insist that my way is right and all others are
wrong. The purpose of this lesson is to suggest that we must always consider
why we believe what we believe (see lesson titled: “Know Why You Believe What
You Believe” Parts 1 & 2 at: http://seredinski.blogspot.com/2012/03/know-why-you-believe-what-you-believe.html
and http://seredinski.blogspot.com/2012/03/know-why-you-believe-what-you-believe_28.html
respectively) and have
the humility to adjust long held beliefs in the face of reasonable evidence to
the contrary.
“Whether
because women were uneducated and thus particularly susceptible to error, or
because their seizing authority would have injured the church’s witness in a
tense social situation, or (most likely) both, the specific situation Paul
addresses invites his specific response. Paul again provides a short-range
solution and a long-range solution. The short-range solution is: They should
not take ruling positions as teachers in the church. The long-range solution
is: Let them learn.”[11]
There
have been many women in my life who have taught me many spiritual truths
especially the women professors I learned under during my years in Seminary. It
is puzzling, especially in our American culture, that there is still an
unwillingness to acknowledge that God has called competent and qualified women
to ministry that might include teaching men simply because one specific
biblical text says that women should not teach, even after receiving reasonable
evidence that the context suggests an alternative understanding and purpose of
the text. Do you find it at all curious that the same people who would deny
that women can teach men, are the same people who have no problem allowing
these same women to teach children? I wonder, which do you suppose has the
greater potential to be destructive to the Church? Think about it—men can (if
they choose) find out for themselves whether or not what they are being taught
is correct or not. Children will simply accept what their “Sunday school”
teacher tells them as true without the means to acquire the tools to discern
whether what they are being taught is, in fact, true.
The
matter of women having authority over men is a different matter than that of
teaching men. The authority in view in our subject text is a domineering
authority and this type of authority is not acceptable for men either. The
biblical concept of authority in leadership whether it is that of a husband in
the household or an elder or pastor in the church is not a license to rule but
an obligation to serve those God has given to our care. True biblical authority
is not a danger in anyone’s hand, a man or a woman, because such a person
understands that they themselves are first and foremost under the supreme
authority of Jesus Christ. Taken seriously, that reality should rightly
moderate any desire for inappropriate authority in a man or a woman.
I
have no doubt that I did little to resolve this issue since theologians much
smarter than me have written countless treatises arguing the same point for
decades. Yet many churches refuse to consider the possibility that God has
called some amazing women to ministry leadership. At the start of this lesson I
told you about the many conversations I had with my friend Dave on this matter
and the one thing we finally agreed on was that neither one of us was willing
to stand before God and try to explain why we turned away someone He called to
ministry who was competent and qualified simply because she was a woman. Now, I
fully recognize that some of you are living in a culture where it would be detrimental
to the witness of the Church if a woman were to be placed in a position of
leadership over men. However, what I hope you can take away from this lesson is
the understanding that such a practice is not strictly prohibited biblically.
Furthermore, perhaps I’ve given you some useful information to defend that
position if the matter should ever arise in your particular cultural context.
Again, we must be extremely careful not to allow our own respective cultures to
inform the meaning of Scripture. We must also recognize that some Scripture was
written with the ancient biblical time and place specifically in mind and it is
our duty to try and discern if such a Scripture applies the same way in our own
time and place.
[1]
Craig A. Evans & Stanley E. Porter, eds., Dictionary of New Testament Background, (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2000), p. 319.
[2]
Walter L. Liefeld, 1 & 2 Timothy,
Titus—The NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999),
pp. 107-108.
[3]
William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles—Word
Biblical Commentary, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2000), pp. 108-109.
[4]
Philip H. Towner, 1-2 Timothy &
Titus—The IVP New Testament Commentary Series, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP
Academic, 1994), pp. 71-72.
[5]
Bruce Baron, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, Dave Veerman, Life Application New Testament Commentary,
(Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), pp. 938-939.
[6]
Colin Brown, gen. ed., New International
Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 3, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1986), p. 1066.
[7]
Bruce Barton, et al., Life Application
NTC, pp. 939-940.
[8]
Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, p. 146.
[9]
Gnosticism is believed to predate Christianity. However, it began to influence
the Church beginning late in the first century and more significantly in the
second and third centuries A. D. The religion makes a distinction between the
evil god of this world that is identified with the God of the Old Testament and
the abstract, higher form of God revealed by Jesus Christ. Gnostics regard this
world as the creation of a series of evil powers who desire to keep the human
soul trapped in an evil physical body. Gnosticism preaches a hidden wisdom or knowledge
only to a select group as the necessary means to escape from this evil world.
This is salvation according to Gnostics. Consequently, anything that is done to
satisfy or perpetuate the material world, i.e. marriage, sexual relations,
childbearing, was considered evil and not allowed by many Gnostic sects.
[10]
Ibid., p. 940.
[11]
Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, Daniel G. Reid, eds., Dictionary of Paul and his Letters,
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), p. 591.
No comments:
Post a Comment