Chapter 6
Texts Prohibiting the Public Ministry of Women
We come now to the two passages that, more than any other biblical texts, have been used to justify institutional discrimination against women in the church. On the basis of these prohibitions, women, who have comprised the greater part of the Church across the centuries, have been denied entrance into the sanctum sanctorum of ministerial leadership. Furthermore, for Spirit-filled women themselves, the use made of these texts has snuffed out any stirring they might have felt in terms of a call to preach, or the exercise of their spiritual gifts in public ministry. The Church has been immeasurably weakened, having been deprived of the potential contribution that gifted women might otherwise have made. In short, the interpretation of these texts have done more mischief than any others in the entire New Testament. And it has all been so unnecessary.
The tragedy is that these passages have been ripped out of context with no regard for the unique situations represented in the churches at Corinth and Ephesus, and thus have been distorted in their meaning and perverted in their intention. Nothing is more important for us, if we would do
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justice to the apostle Paul, than "handling accurately the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15, NASB). Let us turn out attention now to a close analysis of each troubling passage.
THE QUESTION OF SILENCE
Let the women keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but let them subject themselves, just as the Law also says. And if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church (1 Cor. 14:34-35, NASB).
These verses appear, at first reading, to contradict everything that Paul has taught and practiced to this point. How can he acknowledge women praying and prophesying in public worship without one word of prohibition or condemnation in chapter 11 and then command them to keep silent in chapter 14? How were the women who worked alongside him as diakonos — fellow ministers whom he so warmly commends in Romans 16, as well as in other places — to exercise their ministry in the church if such a gag rule were in place? Is he, in this instance, capitulating to social convention and entrenched patriarchal tradition, thus falling under his own indictment of the Galatians when he asked, "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (3:3, NASB).
Adding to our difficulty is the rationale given in this passage for silencing women: "just as the Law also says." What law? None in the Old Testament. To the contrary, the laws of Moses were noteworthy for their egalitarian application; that is, they applied to rich and poor, bond and free, and men and women alike. The "Law" here mentioned refers rather to the Talmudic "Traditions of the Elders," which, as we have already seen, forbade women from participation in all public gatherings.
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How, then do we reconcile 1 Cor. 14:34-35 with the advent of the age of the Spirit in which women as well as men have the freedom to preach? (Acts 2:16-18). Furthermore, how do we harmonize this restrictive directive with the even-handed way Paul treats men and women in all the other passages we have surveyed to this point? We answer: with great difficulty.
Scholars and biblical interpreters have struggled with these questions for generations. Some dismiss the problem altogether by asserting that these verses were not written by Paul but represent later interpolations by copyists.1 There is some textual support for this position in that the Bezan codex (D) and related early Western Greek manuscripts place verses 34-35 at the end of the chapter. This suggests that these verses may have originated as a copyist's "editorializing" that was eventually incorporated into the text itself in different places.2 This argument has some merit in that these two verses appear to be an interruption to the flow of the passage. They do not fit in the immediate context. They intrude, as it were, "off the wall." They do reflect, however, a later ecclesiology in which male dominance had reasserted itself quite forcefully in the Church.
It is risky, however, to simply strike out disagreeable passages on the basis of textual evidence alone. Likewise, we must reject all attempts to superimpose a wooden consistency upon the Scriptures by such artificial devises, lest the integrity and trustworthiness of God's Word be undermined. In any case, this passage is part of the received canon of sacred Scriptures that the Church holds as authoritative in all matters relating to faith and practice. And it must be dealt with.
Most New Testament commentators before the 1960s agree with Clarence T. Craig, who writes the exegisis of this passage in The Interpreter's Bible, "There is no question but that Paul believed in the definite subordination of women (Col. 3:18) and
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was convinced that the emancipation of women . . . would be a violation of the divine order."3 The question must be asked, however, whether this interpretation is an unbiased one or whether it emerges from unexamined patriarchal presuppositions. Today many are looking at the old texts more carefully, trying to let them speak for themselves in their first-century context. Their research has brought about some strikingly fresh insights that can only be described as revolutionary. Liberated from a religious and cultural bias against women, New Testament scholars have begun to see that there are nondiscriminatory ways to interpret these passages. Let us see what they are discovering.
R. K. McGregor Wright interprets this passage (1 Cor. 14:34-35) in a novel way. He holds that Paul is exposing and opposing certain men in the Corinthian church who are seeking to bar women from participation in public worship. Paul often states an opponent's position before destroying it (see Romans 6:1ff). In this case he first quotes them and their traditionalist rationale in 14:34-35. Then he repudiates their harsh limitation in the next verse (v.36) by asking, in effect, "What? Was it only from you men that the word of God first went forth? Or has it come to you only?" This rhetorical question can only be answered: "Of course not!"4 While Wright's solution removes the contradiction in Paul's attitude toward women in ministry, it suffers from a common interpretive trap called eisegesis; that is, he reads more into the text than the context warrants. Furthermore, his interpretation won't work at all when applied to the parallel passage in 1 Tim. 2:11-15.
The weight of textual, contextual, and historical evidence suggests that these verses do represent Paul's attempt to deal with a unique set of problems that were threatening to discredit the gospel and destroy the church at Corinth. So it is of vital importance that we try to understand
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what was going on, both in the city of Corinth and in the church, if we are to make sense of these verses.
Our problem in interpreting such a passage is much like that of listening in on a telephone conversation. We have access to only half of the dialogue. We can only surmise what the party on the other end is saying by analyzing the response of the one to whom we are listening. This is our dilemma when we read Paul's letters. We can hear, loud and clear, his answers, but we have to reconstruct the questions. We can see his response to problems, but we are often at a loss to understand the underlying issues. Added to our interpretive challenge is that the church at Corinth was like no church we have known. There was no building, no pastor, no constitution or church government, no long-standing tradition, not even any Gospels since they had not yet been written, and certainly no New Testament such as we have. All they had as worship resources were a scroll or two of the Hebrew Scriptures and an earlier letter from Paul that we no longer possess (see 1 Cor. 5:11).
Furthermore, the city of Corinth was like no other we have ever seen. Far from being a secular city, it overflowed with all sorts of exotic religions, including the worship of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, in whose service were some 1,000 cult prostitutes. Of particular interest to us was another well-developed and enormously popular religion devoted to the worship of Bacchus, also known as Dionysus, who is variously described as the "god of wine," the "god of dance," and the "god of madness."5 One tradition claimed that Bacchus turned water into wine at his annual festival.
Women, especially, were attracted to the Dionysian cult because they found in its exuberant worship complete freedom to express themselves fully in a way denied them by repressive conventional society. Consequently, they went wild. Numerous descriptions from antiquity have
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survived that describe women, loosened by wine, caught up in religious ecstasy. They engaged in spirited sensuous dancing, accompanied by flutes, cymbals, and drums, sometimes stripping naked. They would shout and speak in unintelligible languages, the "tongues of Bacchus" according to Aristophanes. Such unintelligible speech, uttered at the height of frenetic motion and emotion, was well-known throughout the ancient world. Inscriptions survive that refer to religious women's chanting and shrill cries. Their religious ecstasy sometimes spilled over into sexual promiscuity. Devotees of Bacchus, both men and women, believed it was only when they were "out of their minds" that the soul was released from the body so that they could then enter into mystic communion with the gods. Even among many pagan Corinthians such religious behavior was regarded as outrageous.
Paul asked the Corinthians, "If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your mind?" (14:23). Many would have responded, "Yes, and we would have it no other way." That was all they knew, coming so recently from their kind of pagan religious background. Hence the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is mediated principally through the Word — words intelligibly spoken and clearly understood — was in danger of being lost in the noise of exuberant worship and the confusion of ecstatic utterances.
Paul's overall purpose, in chapter 14, is to bring some semblance of order into the church (v.40) so that believers might be edified (vv.1-4) and so that unbelievers might be converted (v.25). His rationale is grounded in a theological conviction that "God is not a God of confusion but of peace" (v.33, NASB). This must have been quite a revelation, given the way they were accustomed to thinking about their gods. While not prohibiting glossolalia (unintelligible speech) outright,
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verse 1 sets the agenda for the first half of the chapter (vv. 1-25): "Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy" (v.1, emphasis added). In the second section (vv. 27-36) he suggests rules ordering their worship. He gives instructions to the glossolalists (vv. 27-28), prophets (vv. 29-33), and wives (vv. 34-36). He concludes with a fervent appeal for everything to be "done properly and in an orderly manner" (v.40, NASB).
"Let the women keep silent in the churches" (v. 34, NASB, emphasis added). The use of the definite article in the Greek focuses attention upon a specific group of women, not all women. Which women? Those who, through exuberant and chaotic speech, were creating confusion and disorder in the services. From verse 35 we see that Paul's instruction was directed to married women.
There were several words that Paul could have chosen for "silence."6 One was phimoo, which means "to muzzle, tie shut." Jesus used it as a command to quiet the unclean spirit (Mark 1:25). Another word for silence is hesuchia, signifying "stillness and quietness." Paul uses this word in 1 Timothy 2:11 when advising women how to study. But he did not use it here. Instead, Paul selected the Greek verb sigao, which means a "voluntary silence." It was used to describe Jesus' silence when He stood before Pilate (Mark 14:61) and the silence of the apostles and elders at the Jerusalem Council as Paul and Barnabas reported the reception the gospel received among the Gentiles (Acts 15:12). It is the same word that Paul addresses to men in 1 Cor. 14:28, "let him keep silent in the church" (NASB, emphasis added). If both commands are taken out of context and generalized for the whole church at all times, then we would have a church of Trappist monks where everyone is silent all the time! Such blanket silence, however, can hardly be Paul's intention for either men or women.
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What about his double command for women not to speak, in both verses 34 and 35? There are many Greek words that can be translated "speak." Five denote a special kind of speaking like preaching, and 25 others can be translated as simply "speak," "say," or "teach." He did not forbid women to preach, teach, pray, sing, or testify in public worship, he wrote that women are not to laleo, which has a broad range of meanings. It can mean both intelligible speech (v.3), or unintelligible tongues (v.4). But of all the verbs translated as "speak," only laleo can mean simply "talk" or "chatter." Paul is not prohibiting "praying or prophesying" (11:5, NASB) but is prohibiting noisy, idle conversation during the worship service, "for it is improper for a woman to speak [converse, talk] in church (v.35, NASB).
Why was this instruction directed primarily to married women? Because in Greek society, as in Jewish, women were shut up their homes most of the time and had no opportunity to socialize. So when they found such a warm welcome within these newly formed Christian communities, they were drawn out and encouraged to participate and socialize. The net result was noise and confusion, which made an intelligible and ordered worship service an impossibility. It is also likely that, given their Dionysian past, the women in the congregation were given to more extreme expression of glossolalia than were the men.
He follows up by telling them to "subject themselves" (NASB), which has incorrectly been assumed to be yet another submissionism text addressed to wives (Eph. 5:22; Col. 3:18). The male traditionalist bias of the King James Version translators comes brazenly through when they render it "for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience." Hupotassomai means nothing of the sort. It is exactly the same word Paul uses two verses earlier when he writes, "and the spirits of
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prophets are subject to prophets" (v.32, KJV). And it is the same word Paul uses when he counsels all the believers, male and female, to "be subject to one another in the fear of Christ" (Eph. 5:21, NASB). One can hardly be obedient to every member in a congregation! Hupotassomai means a voluntary submission of one's rights. In this case Paul is asking women to restrain themselves for the sake of an ordered worship service.
The next phrase reads, "as the law also says." What law? Nomos, the Greek word for law, is used in a variety of ways in the New Testament, such as the "law of Moses," the "law of God," the "law of sin and of death," the "law of the Spirit of life," and the "law . . . . in my members." The Jews often referred to rabbinic tradition as "the law." The "law" simply means those general principles that apply in a given situation. So verse 34 can be paraphrased in this way: "Let the women voluntarily cease from idle chatter and noisy conversation and maintain a reverent attentiveness during worship, as 'the law' of common courtesy and social convention dictates."
In the next verse, Paul appends a further restriction: "And if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home" (v.35, NASB). We must recall that most of the women in that time were uneducated, illiterate, and totally ignorant of the Word of God. They had been denied access to any public forum where serious inquiry into great spiritual truth and intellectual ideas were pursued. Even their past experiences of pagan religious ecstasy had not prepared them for this. All one has to do is recall their introduction to college or graduate school to understand what a heady experience it can be to be exposed to new truth and great ideas.
For the first time, believing women in Corinth not only found themselves in a spiritually charged and intellectually stimulating setting but also were welcomed as full and
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equal participants. Naturally, they were full of questions and felt the freedom to voice them. Thirty years of experience as a teacher of Bible and theology, in church and college, has taught me how quickly spirited discussion can get out of hand, moving from honest inquiry to debate, to pontifical statements, to disputations, to the hubbub of innumerable subgroups, and finally to utter chaos if not checked. That is precisely why the church, in its historical development, moved increasingly away from Paul's Corinthian congregational model of the community of the Spirit or body life (cf. 1 Corinthians 12) where each ministers "for the common good" (v.7), to a more structured hierarchical service led by select official ministers, while the people — both women and men — were relegated to more passive roles as listeners. Walter Liefeld points to a speech by the elder Cato around 200 B.C. in which there are many parallels to Paul's counsel in this passage. He summarizes it as follows:
The occasion was the discussion of a law . . . that severely limited women's public appearances and activities. The Roman matrons were demonstrating against this and "could not be kept at home by advice or modesty or their husbands orders." They "dared even to approach and appeal to the consuls." Their actions were considered "shameful." They should not have been "running out into the streets and blocking the roads and speaking to other women's husbands." Cato says he should have said to them, "Could you not have made the same requests, each of your own husband, at home?" The speech continues to oppose women's public appearance and speaking, accusing them of seeking not only liberty but license.7
And so, in light of the historical situation in Corinth, we are justified in paraphrasing Paul's intentions (vv. 34-35) in this manner: "True, you women have the freedom to
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express yourselves fully in the congregation of Christ — and I do want to encourage you to pray publicly and prophesy for the edification of all [11:5; 12:5]. However, for the sake of an ordered church service, restrain yourselves from undue exhibitionism in the exercise of spiritual gifts. Avoid idle conversation once the service has begun, and hold your questions until you can discuss them fully in the privacy of your home with your husband. Be careful to observe accepted social convention in dress and personal decorum in church in order that all may worship in a proper manner and that no unnecessary offense come upon the gospel" (11:5-10).
Seen in this light, Paul was dealing constructively with a local problem situation that ought not to be construed as instituting a universal rule prohibiting women, in perpetuity, from participating actively in worship or from exercising a meaningful ministry.
THE QUESTION OF AUTHORITY
Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; 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 she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty (1 Tim. 2:11-15).
These verses present even more problems than the Corinthian passage. There is, in verses 11-12, not only a restatement of the injunction against women speaking in church but also a further rule: "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man." Strange that he would make this kind of rule in the church where Priscilla had engaged in such an effective ministry of instructing Apollos concerning the gospel of Jesus Christ (Acts 18:2-3, 18, 24-28), especially
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since he also sends them his greetings (2 Timothy 4:19). The rationale given for silencing women is to cite the order of creation (v.13) by which Jewish males defended female subordination; that is, since man was created first, he has preeminence over women. We have already seen, in our study of 1 Cor. 11:8-12, that Paul rejects this argument out of hand. First, it does not reflect the believing woman's standing "in the Lord." Second, it ignores the fact that, after Adam, God himself reversed the order of creation.
A second reason for enjoining silence upon women is offered in 1 Tim. 2:14, which, again, owes its genesis not to any clear teaching found in either Testament but to rabbinical tradition; that is, since "the woman was deceived and became a transgressor," she cannot be trusted with either teaching offices or leadership roles. If, however, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1), why were Christian women required to live under Eve's curse (Gen. 3:16)? paul himself, however, draws quite the opposite conclusion from the Genesis story of the Fall in his other letters, as we noted previously. He affirms that "just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned . . . death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam" (Romans 5:12, 14). Adam, rather than Eve, was most responsible for the entrance of sin and death into the world. Eve was deceived but Adam was not. He disobeyed with his eyes wide open. His was a knowing, deliberate, and dispassionate act of sin. Therefore his guilt was the greater.
This restrictive passage concludes with what appears to be a patronizing statement: "But women shall be preserved through the bearing of children in they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint" (1 Tim. 2:15, NASB).
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The implication is that both a woman's salvation and her worth as a human being are dependent upon her biological function as a bearer of children. Where, then, does this leave the single or the barren woman? While this demeaning view was prevalent in Judaism, it is impossible to imagine Jesus expressing such a low estimate of a woman's status before God.
So then, what do we make of this difficult passage that has been used across nearly 2,000 years to deny women their full rights as "fellow citizens with the saints" (Eph. 2:19, NASB), and that so patently contradicts the overwhelming weight of both Jesus' and Paul's teaching elsewhere? Toss them out? Reject them as Holy Scripture? Marcion, an influential second-century Gnostic Christian, did just that. He was the first in church history to propose a canon of sacred Scripture for Christians (ca. A.D. 150). While he included the other 10 letters of Paul, he rejected the Pastorals (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus) simply because he did not believe they came from Paul's hand. He noted, correctly, that they differed radically in style and content from Paul's unquestionably genuine letters.
Many New Testament scholars agree, and they argue persuasively that the Pastoral Epistles do not come directly from the hand of Paul but from "Paulinists," students of Paul in the late first or early second century A.D. One of their grounds for rejecting Pauline authorship is this teaching concerning women that appears to contradict Paul's egalitarian teachings in his other letters. Yet it does reflect a second-century ecclesiology when the church, in its efforts to combat heresies in which women played a conspicuous role, reverted to prohibiting women from teaching or exercising any leadership roles.
While we do admit that linguistically and stylistically there are many differences between the Pastorals and his other letters, we are persuaded that they were written by Paul,
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albeit late in his life when his concerns were concentrated more upon preserving the integrity of the gospel than upon its propagation. Writing from prison in Rome, and thus no longer able to directly participate in evangelism and church planting, his attention was now focused upon strengthening his young churches, particularly in "sound doctrine." In any case, we believe the Pastoral Epistles to be inspired ("God-breathed") Holy Scripture and thus must be taken at face value and with utmost seriousness.
The gospel, then as now, did not come into a religious vacuum. As in our discussion of 1 Cor. 14:34-35, we are greatly helped in our understanding of this restrictive passage when we reconstruct the other side of Paul's conversation with Timothy. This church at Ephesus, of which Timothy was the pastoral leader, was born in a storm of conflict and established in the midst of competing pagan religions (Acts 19:1-7, 9, 13-19, 23-41; 20:17-31; 1 Cor. 16:8-9; Eph. 4:14; 5:6-12). We see clearly from reading 1 and 2 Timothy that, a decade later, the church continued to battle with all sorts of
strange doctrines, . . . myths and endless genealogies . . . mere speculation . . .fruitless discussion . . . blasphem[y] . . . doctrines of demons . . . men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods . . . worldly fables . . . controversial questions and disputes about words . . . constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain . . . men who have gone astray from the truth saying that the resurrection has already taken place . . . those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses . . . evil people and impostors . . .wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths (1 Tim. 1:3-4, 6, 20; 4:1, 3, 7; 6:4-5; 2 Tim. 2:18, 23; 3:6, 13; 4:3-4, NASB).
The church at Ephesus was, theologically speaking,
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a "house of horrors!" While the church at Corinth wrestled with moral and ethical problems, the church at Ephesus was plagued by all sorts of strange philosophical mythologies.
Ephesus was a dynamic, diverse, and multicultural seacoast city of enormous prestige and influence. The city offered a smorgasbord of exotic religions, imported from all parts of the world. Included among these were highly unorthodox strains of Jewish teaching ("pay no attention to Jewish myths" [Titus 1:14, NIV]). Even as the disciples and earliest Christians could not escape their Jewish background, with all of its religious limitations and cultural distortions, neither were the Gentile believers able to quickly transcend their pagan presuppositions upon becoming Christians. Consequently, the first generation of Ephesian Christians represented a syncretistic blend of the gospel and all sorts of other religious ideas foreign to the truth as Paul and Timothy preached it in Christ Jesus. Paul understood the problem these new converts were having, for he acknowledged that he was "formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief (1 Tim. 1:13). Paul knew from his own experience that false theology leads to wrong living. Hence the enormous importance he placed upon "sound teaching . . . conforming to godliness" (v. 10; 6:3, NASB).
How, then does Paul propose to counteract heresy and promote the true faith? His general response to the multiple heresies that troubled the church begins in 1 Tim. 2:1-7, where he urges prayers to be made on behalf of all people to a gracious God "who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (v.4).
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Why? So that "we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity" (v.2). This was in sharp contrast to the raucous noise of quarrels and conflict that disturbed the peace of the church.
Behind 1 Tim. 2:5-6 lies a particular strain of pagan mythology that is important to note, particularly as we deal with the matter of women preaching. Richard and Catherine Clark Kroeger have made an exhaustive study of the philosophical and religious ideas that dominated the Mediterranean world of that day.8 Goddess worship, to which women were especially drawn, was prevalent. It worshiped the "female spiritual principle" in deity. Goddesses were also embraced as mediators who enabled devotees to attain a mystic union with the deity, often through sexual intercourse with a sacred prostitute. Even Hellenized Judaism regarded Wisdom (Sophia) as a female principle of mediatorship.
Many of the Gnostic gospels taught that the women who accompanied Jesus were receivers of special revelation hidden from the male disciples and that they functioned as mediators — those who had an "inside track" with God (precursors of later Roman Catholic veneration of Mary and the saints as mediators). It is not surprising, then, that women were attracted to such religions in that they bestowed upon them dignity and self-esteem by accenting and elevating the female principle in deity. And it led women into all sorts of doctrinal and behavioral extremes. Hippolytus of Rome, during the second century A.D., condemned those who "magnify these wretched women [priestesses, prophetesses, goddesses] above the Apostles and every gift of Grace, so that some of them presume to assert that there is in them something superior to Christ."9
It was this widespread and deeply held notion of female mediators, both human and divine, that led Paul to
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affirm categorically that "there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (v.5, NASB). Furthermore, it is against this general religious background that Paul's specific instructions to women, in the verses that follow, must be read.
After the general entreaty for all people to pray comes more specific applications: "I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument" (v.8). This is followed by suggesting that "women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing . . . as is proper for women who profess reverence for God" (vv. 9-10). Thus Christian women would not be mistaken for the thousands of sacred prostitutes and the devotees of goddess worship, who paraded themselves in gaudy and skimpy attire.
The revolutionary nature of the next verse has been utterly lost to us when Paul says, "Let a woman quietly [or in silence] receive instruction [learn] with entire submissiveness" (v.11, NASB). We have been conditioned to focus upon "silence" and "submissiveness." Not so the original readers. They heard Paul say something absolutely unprecedented in human history. He not only approves of women receiving instruction, being educated, but also commands it. Most translations do not give the verse the imperative force that it has in the Greek. Paul does not say that women "may learn" or "should learn" but that "a woman must learn." The Greek verb for learn, manthano, is the word used for those attending rabbinical schools.
Suggesting that women possessed the ability to learn, much less had a right to an education, shattered conventional stereotypes. As we have already seen, in Judaism women never had the privilege of even hearing the Law read, much less an opportunity to learn to read and study the Law for themselves. So Paul's unprecedented command enabled women, so long excluded from academic
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and intellectual pursuits, to pursue an education. They, too, were worthy of both hearing and studying the Word of God, along with the whole range of truth encompassed by it.
Paul's desire that Christian women be instructed in the faith was at once radical in design and difficult in execution. Neither men nor women were ready for it: men were not accustomed to teaching women, and women were not accustomed to the focus and disciplines inherent in learning. And so Paul adds that they should receive instruction "in silence" and "with full submission." Unfortunately, this has a derogatory ring in our culture; we assume it means, "Shut up and listen to what the teacher has to say!" Not so in that day. Paul would have used a different word if he had this in mind, as he did when he told Titus that the troublemakers in his church "must be silenced [epistomizein]" (Titus 1:11).
The word he uses here, however, is hesuchia, a beautiful expression in the Greek. In both Jewish and Greek academies, silence was the respectful attention necessary for learning. It was the kind of silence that fell over the crowd, following the uproar precipitated by Paul's visit to the Temple, when he began to speak to them in the Hebrew dialect (Acts 21:40). Simon, son of Gamaliel, Paul's teacher, notes: "All my days have I grown up among the Sages and I have found naught better for a man than silence; and not the expounding [of Law] is the chief thing but the doing [of it]; and he that multiples words occasions sin."10
"Silence" is a quality of spirit, not only repeatedly enjoined by the apostle for men and women, but highly prized by all who desire to learn the deep things of God (1 Thess. 4:11; 2 Thess. 3:12; 1 Tim. 2:2). Ignatius, who was martyred for his faith during the reign of Emperor Trajan, around A.D. 108, wrote that "it is better to be silent and be real,
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than to talk and to be unreal."11 Clement of Alexandria, one of the second century's influential Church fathers, saw silence as a virtue for both men and women: "Woman and man are to go to church decently attired, with natural step, embracing silence, possessing unfeigned love, pure in body, pure in heart, fit to pray to God."12 So the silence enjoined for women is the same as for men. It does not prohibit them from speaking in church or teaching but only applies when they are in the voluntary position of those receiving instruction. Likewise, "with full submission" does not mean "in submission to men" but in submission to the teacher. They should subject themselves quietly to their instructors "as befits women making a claim to godliness (v.10, NASB).
We turn now to the verse that has done more to damage the church than any other, the apparent prohibition that has virtually disenfranchised women and has denied them the opportunity to respond fully to the call of God upon their lives and to exercise their special gifts to the fullest: "But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet" (1 Timothy 2:12, NASB). It is the biblical fait accompli: the clear, unequivocable basis for denying active ministerial and leadership roles to women. Or is it?
In issuing this particular directive, Paul was speaking to a specific problem that was tearing apart the church at Ephesus. Some form of the word "teaching" (didasko) appears 24 times in 1 and 2 Timothy. Most of its usages occur in the context of "false teaching." It is clear that women were involved in many aspects of the manifold problems that afflicted the church. Young widows were engaging in gossip, living self-indulgent lives, and were turning to occult practices. "Worldly fables" (or "myths") were being spread by "old women" (1 Tim. 4:7, NASB). This occurred because women, denied the disciplined thinking involved
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in a formal education, were most susceptible to whatever exotic idea or sensational philosophy might catch their attention. They had no background in the Word of God by which to evaluate and judge theological claims or philosophical speculations. So they were being seduced by all sorts of false doctrines and knew no better than to propagate them enthusiastically. Paul recalls, from his own experience, the harm which untutored ignorance can bring to an otherwise productive ministry of the gospel of Christ (1 Tim. 1:12-14).
For the sake of the integrity of the gospel and the survival of the church, it was necessary for him to lay down verse 12 as an interim limitation. Unable to read or write, having been denied an opportunity to hear and study the Law, they simply did not have the intellectual sophistication or spiritual understanding to be in the position of exercising authority as teachers. Most English translations, however, give the verse a male-chauvinistic force that is unwarranted in the Greek when they render it, as does the King James Version, "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence" (v.12). The verb translated "authority" (authentein) occurs only here in the New Testament. In secular Greek it signified "to commit a murder," to kill with one's own hands." It suggested monarchial authority where one has life-or-death power over another. It is, therefore, best translated in this context as "dominate." Such dominance is ruled out by Jesus in all Kingdom relationships (Mark 10:42-45). So verse 12 does not forbid women from exercising leadership (exousia) over men but only from domineering them in an aggressive and brazen way.
Paul is not speaking of either men or women as a class here. The verse reads literally, "I do not permit a woman dominance of a man." Since the Greek noun for man (aneir) is in the genitive or possessive case, it should be rendered "of" instead of "over," as it is in most places in the New Testament.
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Although commonly translated as a permanent injunction, it does not read that way in the Greek. The Greek verb is in the present active indicative case and ought to be translated, "I am not presently permitting a woman to teach . . ."
Therefore, Paul had no intention whatsoever of laying down a timeless and universal principle prohibiting women from either teaching (preaching) or exercising positions of leadership in the church. Rather, he was cautioning women from assuming roles for which they were neither trained nor equipped at that time. He was encouraging them to be submissive and quiet learners until they had been fully instructed in "true doctrine," after which they would then be qualified and competent to exercise the authority of one who teaches sound doctrine.
Then Paul suggests an analogy whereby they could see what might happen if women persisted in being too aggressive in propagating their ignorance: "For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve" (v.13, NASB). Since neither of the Genesis accounts of creation implies a male-dominance hierarchy, we believe that Paul is not suggesting one here either but is merely pointing out a historical fact. "And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived, fell into transgression" (v.14, NASB). Paul is not saying that because Eve was the first one to transgress that somehow her sin was more reprehensible than that of Adam (see Romans 5:12ff).
Rather, Paul is reminding them of the way sin was actually introduced into the world. Eve was the first to fall into transgression, having been "deceived." She then led (taught?) Adam into the very same transgression. Consequently, unlearned women in Ephesus ran the risk of being likewise "deceived" and then of propagating their false doctrines to ignorant and susceptible men, like Adam. Instead of affirming male dominance and devaluing the
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woman because she was "first deceived," the way Paul put the case, in this passage, casts the man in a negative light as the one who is easily led astray. Even though Adam was first created, he succumbed to the persuasion of a woman's "teaching" without so much as a whisper of objection! Paul is thus paying women a left-handed compliment by acknowledging how effective their teaching can be. His only concern is that they first become dedicated and submissive learners so that later they will be equipped to exercise a responsible role as able teachers of the gospel.13
Something else, rather intriguing, may be going on here, giving rise to Paul's reference to Adam and Eve in this context. We learn from the writings of the Church fathers, dating back to the early second century A.D., that they were battling a deeply rooted, widespread, and exceedingly diverse set of heresies that went under the general name of gnosticism (gnosis means "knowledge"). These were Christians who, in a sincere but misguided desire to rise to a higher spiritual plane, professed to have inside information that would enable the soul to ascend into the heavenly places and thus escape the corruption of the world represented in all that was physical and material. Blending various elements of Platonic philosophy and Eastern mysticism in with the Christian gospel, they created a vast library of extracanonical gospels and sacred writings that, until recently, could be accessed only through the diatribes against them by the early Christian apologists such as Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian.
An incredible discovery was made in December of 1945, however, which opened up this murky and ancient heresy for closer investigation. Two years before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, copies of more than 50 Gnostic texts dating back to the first centuries of the Christian era were found in the Egyptian desert near the town of Nag Hammadi. They include a collection of early Christian
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extracanonical gospels and other writings attributed to Jesus, His disciples, and the women who followed Him, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Secret Book of James, The Secret Book of John, and Apocalypse of Paul, the Dialogue of the Savior, and many more. This was an extraordinary find. Now scholars are able to read the complete Gnostic texts for themselves.14
Of particular interest to us is the way some Gnostic sects reinterpreted the Adam and Eve story according to its "deeper meaning." They applied what artists today would call a "creative imagination" to the "shimmering surface of the symbols" in the Genesis account, in an effort to discover its hidden spiritual truth. Rather than being condemned, Eve is praised for her desire to reach for understanding of divine things, represented in the tree of knowledge. Or as Elaine Pagels puts it, "Whereas the orthodox often blamed Eve for the fall and pointed to women's submission as appropriate punishment, gnostics often depicted Eve . . . as the source of spiritual awakening."15 One such sect had a sacred book called The Gospel of Eve. In another Gnostic text called Reality of the Rulers, Eve rather than Adam is represented as the one who was created first, and thus was the higher and more spiritually enlightened being: "And when he [Adam] saw her [Eve], he said, 'It is you who have given me life: you shall be called Mother of the Living; for it is she who is my Mother. It is she who is the Physician, and the Woman, and She Who Has Given Birth.'"16
It is entirely possible that such a rewriting of the Genesis account may have been one of the "myths" being propagated in Ephesus. Desperate to throw off the curse of inferiority and eager for validation as females, some Christian women may have venerated Eve as the higher being, the original spiritual principle and mother of all living. Furthermore, women may have been most responsible for
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teaching such myths in Ephesus. If this is the case, then Paul's response in 1 Tim. 2:12-13 makes very good sense. We could paraphrase it as follows: "You have been taught by your Gnostic teachers that Eve was formed first and then Adam, and that spiritual enlightenment, which would enable the both of them to become like gods, came through Eve. The Genesis account clearly shows, however, that 'it was Adam who was first created and then Eve.' And it was not Adam who was deceived, but 'the woman being quite deceived, fell into transgression.'"
Then Paul points out that Eve, being deceived, taught Adam "false doctrine." Unfortunately, Adam learned his lesson all too well. He joined Eve in her disobedience, which, in turn, brought sin and death into the world like a flood. Such a chain reaction of being deceived and then teaching false doctrine could likewise destroy the church at Ephesus. It is to break that deadly cycle that Paul says, "But I am not presently allowing a woman to teach false doctrine and exercise domineering authority over men, thus leading them also into sin" (2:12, paraphrase).
Paul's passage on teaching women ends with a curious verse: "Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty" (v.15). We reject, out of hand, the implication that there is something inherently redemptive about childbearing or that only mothers are worthy of dignity, honor, and respect as equal heirs of the grace of God. Again, a look at the original language helps us sort out this opaque verse. It reads, literally, "But she will be saved through her childbearing, if they remain in faith . . ." The change in pronouns from singular to plural is significant. Who is the she who will be saved? Some hold that Paul is referring to Eve, since he has just spoken of her. The salvation being described is not spiritual but physiological; that is,
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even though Eve died, humanity was preserved (saved) through her childbearing.
A more likely interpretation is that Paul is referring to the protevangelium, the promise made to Eve that one of her "seed" would "bruise you [the serpent] on the head" (Gen. 3:15, NASB). Even as sin came into the world through a woman, so did the Savior come into the world through a woman. This was the interpretation given by Irenaeus in the second century A.D. in Against Heresies when he wrote: "And thus also it was that the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith."17
Now comes the second pronoun in the verse, "If they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint" (NASB, emphasis added). Who are the they? All to whom Paul has been speaking in this extended passage (vv.8-15), both men and women. The lifting of the curse upon Eve through the obedience of Mary brings salvation and blessing to all, both men and women, as long as "they continue in faith and love and sanctity."
In summary, we can confidently affirm that, rather than limiting women's ministerial role in the church, this marvelous passage actually champions it. After all, Paul would hardly have commanded women to be instructed in the faith if he never intended for them to graduate and become teachers and preachers in their own right. His special instructions to women, temporarily restricting them from teaching, had as its ultimate aim that they might indeed become fully informed and spiritually grounded "teachers" of the gospel. To freeze these "interim instructions" as timeless truth, rip them out of their particular historical context, and then make them binding upon all women for all time is to distort the Word of God and pervert the
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essence of the gospel, which is that "all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28).
I feel constrained to point out at least two flagrant flaws in the logic of those who hold that these passages, restricting women's roles in Corinth and Ephesus, represent Paul's permanent and universal intention for the Church. First, it is clear that when it comes to Paul's command, "Let the women keep silent in the churches" (1 Cor. 14:34), nobody takes it literally! To the contrary, even the most patriarchal traditionalist churches would be irreparably crippled if women ceased to "speak" — that is, witness, testify, sing, teach, counsel, comfort, encourage, and serve in all sorts of ministries.
Now here is the question: If we are not willing to interpret this injunction against women speaking in church literally, then on what basis do we draw the line at the point of women preaching? If women cannot be trusted to preach and teach the Word to adults, should they be allowed to shoulder the bulk of responsibility for leading and teaching children who are at the most impressionable and vulnerable stage of their lives?
Second, most Evangelicals who hold that 1 Tim. 2:11-15 represents a permanent injunction against women in ministerial leadership roles stop short of making the same claim for the verses immediately preceding (vv. 9-10), which specifically forbid women from braiding their hair and from wearing gold, pearls, or costly garments. Likewise, Paul's counsel to Timothy, in this same letter, to "no longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments" (5:23, NASB) is not taken as a command for all ministers to partake of alcoholic beverages. It is understood that this represented sound medicinal advice appropriate to that time and situation where water was not fit to drink. The same could be said for Paul's directives concerning slaves and
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masters (6:1-2) and his long instructions on how to deal with widows (5:9-16).
On what hermeneutical grounds, therefore, are most of Paul's specific instructions to that particular church at Ephesus deemed as applicable only to that time, culture and specific local situation, and yet 1 Tim. 2:12 is lifted up as a law binding upon all churches for all time? Once we have placed these texts in context and have candidly faced up to what was going on in the troubled churches to which they were addressed, we can no longer, in good conscience, rip them out of context and use them as scriptural cudgels to hammer women into a position of subservient passivity and inferior standing within the Body of Christ.
We began our study by noting that positions supporting male dominance and female subordination in the home and church are indeed "biblical"; that is, they can be supported by isolated texts in the Bible. Our question from the beginning of this study, however, has been this: Do these texts, which have been used to institutionalize discrimination against women, represent the overall revelation of Scripture, which finds its fullest and final expression in Jesus?
Our analysis thus far leads us to only one possible answer: No! These texts do not represent God's original intention for humankind. Neither are they representative of the overall teaching and practice of the apostle Paul. Most decisively, they find no support whatsoever in the teaching or example of Jesus. And, for the Christian interpreter, the life, teachings, and example of Jesus are the ultimate criteria by which everything else in the Bible is evaluated and judged.
It is important, finally, to see that our analysis of these problem passages does not represent an off-the-wall, strange hermeneutic but is in line with some of the best evangelical scholarship today. The "Danvers Statement"
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cited earlier, which reaffirms patriarchal hierarchy in church and home, sent a shock wave rippling through the evangelical community when it was first published in early 1989.18 While praised by traditionalists, it alarmed many other leading Evangelicals who saw it as a giant leap backward into a narrow and truncated distortion of biblical teaching concerning women. Furthermore, they perceived it to be a reactionary effort justifying the continuing scandal of discrimination against women in church and society.
Consequently, these concerned Evangelicals banded together and formed a new organization called Christians for Biblical Equality. Supporting it is an impressive and growing coalition of scholars and leaders that also reads like a who's who list of Evangelicals, including Myron Augsburger, F.F. Bruce, Donald Buteyn, Anthony Campolo, Edward Dayton, Paul De Vries, Gary W. Demarest, Louis Evans, Vernon Grounds, David Allen Hubbard, Richard C. Halverson, David L. McKenna, Donn D. Moomaw, Ronald J. Sider, Lewis Smedes, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, Timothy Weber, and Kenneth Kantzer, senior editor of Christianity Today.19 They, too, have published a statement that upholds the position we have advanced and defended regarding full biblical equality, in home, church, and society for women and men. We conclude our analysis of the texts that seem to restrict the role of women in church with their affirmation regarding "community":
1. In the church, spiritual gifts of women and men are to be recognized, developed and used in serving and teaching ministries at all levels of involvement: as small group leaders, counselors, facilitators, administrators, ushers, communion servers, and board members, and in pastoral care, teaching, preaching, and worship.
In so doing, the church will honor God as the source of spiritual gifts. The church will also fulfill
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God's mandate of stewardship without the appalling loss to God's kingdom that results when half of the church's members are excluded from positions of responsibility.
2. In the church, public recognition is to be given to both women and men who exercise ministries of service and leadership. In so doing, the church will model the unity and harmony that should characterize the community of believers. In a world fractured by discrimination and segregation, the church will dissociate itself from worldly or pagan devices designed to make women feel inferior for being female. It will help prevent their departure from the church or their rejection of the Christian faith.20
Chapter 7 || Table of Contents
1. See R. Scroggs, "Paul and the Eschatological Woman," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 40 (1972): 283-303; 42 (1974): 532-37. [BACK]
2. The Interpreter's Bible, George Arthur Buttrick, ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1953), 10:213. [BACK]
4. R.K. McGregor Wright, "A Response to the Danvers Statement," Part II, "Women Leaders in the New Testament," 4. An unpublished paper delivered to the Christians for Biblical Equality Conference, St. Paul, in 1989, and distributed by the same. [BACK]
5. See Richard and Catherine Clark Kroeger, "Pandemonium and Silence at Corinth," The Reformed Journal (June 1988), 6-11. Also C.K. Barrett, The New Testament Backgrounds (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), chap. 6, "Mystery Religions"; Robert C. Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 330. [BACK]
6. For a more complete word study on these verses, see Bristow, What Paul Really Said, 61-66. [BACK]
7. Walter L. Liefeld, "Women, Submission, and Ministry in 1 Corinthians," Women, Authority, and the Bible, 141-42. [BACK]
8. Richard and Catherine Clark Kroeger, "May Women Teach? Heresy in the Pastoral Epistles" (unpublished paper that may be obtained from Christians for Biblical Equality, 380 Lafayette Freeway, Suite 122, St. Paul, MN 55107-1216). See also Richard and Catherine Clark Kroeger, I Suffer Not a Woman: Rethinking I Timothy 2:11-15 in Light of Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992). [BACK]
9. Kroeger, "May Women Teach?" [BACK]
10. Spencer, Beyond the Curse, 77. [BACK]
13. For a fuller treatment of the positions advanced, see Spencer, Beyond the Curse, 71-91; and Bristow, What Paul Really Said, 67-75. [BACK]
14. For an excellent introduction to the Nag Hammadi literature, see Pagels, Gnostic Gospels, and her more recent book, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York: Random House, 1989). Also Marvin W. Meyer, The Secret Teachings of Jesus (New York: Random House, 1984). For a helpful summary of Eastern religious teachings and Gnostic myths that pertain to 1 Tim. 2:11-15, see two unpublished papers by Richard and Catherine Clark Kroeger titled "May Women Teach? Heresy in the Pastoral Epistles" and "Women Elders: Sinners or Servants?" (Distributed by Christians for Biblical Equality, 380 Lafayette Freeway, Suite 122, St. Paul, MN 55107-1216). [BACK]
15. Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, 68. [BACK]
17. Spencer, Beyond the Curse, 93. [BACK]
18. Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, "The Danvers Statement," Christianity Today (Jan. 13, 1989), 43-44. [BACK]
19. Christians for Biblical Equality, "Men, Women & Biblical Equality," statement published in Christianity Today (Apr. 9, 1990), 36-37. [BACK]