PART II: WHAT DOES IT MEAN THAT WOMEN ARE TO BE “QUIET” (1 Timothy 2:11-15)?
LIBERTY AND LOVE #86
So some say that we should not let women take leadership roles in church because of what Paul said in 1 Timothy 2:11-15: “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” (NIV). But if you don’t know what Paul meant in verse 15, doesn’t that tell you something? “But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” No one knows for sure what Paul means in verse 15.
This letter was written to a young man named Timothy in Ephesus where he was facing problems of which we are not completely aware. So to use this text to contradict all that the New Testament says about the role of women in the church is a mistake because this is a very difficult passage. And one of the first rules of Bible interpretation is that you interpret the difficult verses through the clear ones. Paul clearly allows women to teach throughout the New Testament.
Someone asks, “What does it mean when he says they are not to teach?” You tell me what it means that they will “be saved through childbearing” and I’ll tell you what the word “teach” means. It seems obvious to me that he is talking about wives domineering their husbands. But even if I’m wrong and there was a certain kind of woman in Ephesus where Timothy was that Paul was telling not to teach, that does not mean you can take that and say that Paul intended it for all churches for all time when he clearly let women teach in other situations.
Again, this is a difficult passage, and anyone who says it’s not simply isn’t reading it honestly and thoroughly. And no matter what you believe about it, if you take the “this means all women for all time” position, you do not interpret it consistently. You don’t believe that women have to be quiet in all situations. You cannot prove in any way, shape or form that this is talking about a church service. So if Paul is saying that women cannot teach as a general rule, then they cannot teach anywhere where men are present. So long female professors! Surely anyone can see how ludicrous that position is.
So just because I cannot answer everything about this text doesn’t mean I don’t know what the text means. And even if I don’t know what it means, I know what it does not mean. It does not mean that women cannot in any circumstance teach or have authority over a man. I don’t know for sure what verse 15 means. But I know what it does not mean. It does not mean that women have to bear children or that they are saved by bearing children rather than by Christ. That would contradict the rest of the New Testament. I don’t have to know what it does mean to know what it does not mean.
At what point does a boy become a man? In some cultures he becomes a man at twelve years old. Do you actually believe that a 40-year-old Christian woman could not teach a Bible class or preach a sermon because there was a 12-year-old boy in the audience? If so, then that means you believe she cannot teach him because she has to be “in submission” to him. Read the verses again. A 40 year old woman in submission to a 12-year-old boy. Or a 16-year-old boy. Or a 20 year old man. That is the ridiculousness that legalism gets into.
Your church has a right to interpret this passage wrongly in sincerity, but you cannot make rules for God and think that everyone who does not apply it the way you do is wrong. I think the New Testament allows women to do anything in church that men can do.
Dewayne Dunaway
