DISCLAIMER: The following only represents the views of the author and does not reflect the views of Island ECC.
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(Continued from Part 4)
“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.” – 1 Timothy 2.11-15
For this discussion, the following passage will be broken up into three sections: (1) women learning in quietness, (2) not permitting women to teach or assume authority over man, and (3) Adam and Eve as an analogy.
(1) “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission”
Verse 11 harkens back to the discourse on 1 Corinthians 14.33-35 and draws on similar themes. However the cultural climate in Ephesus was different from Corinth and had different issues. While women in Corinth lacked education and opportunity, it has been well documented that women in Ephesus were highly educated and held high positions of authority. There is inscriptional evidence that women were superintendents of schools (gymnasiarchos), mayors (prytanis), principal civic officials (stephanophoros) and even principal tax officers of the city (dekaprotos).
According to Michael Grant, “Roman women of the late Republic possessed a freedom and independence almost unparalleled until the present century… women never attained such pinnacles of power again.” None more so than Ephesus, which gave greater freedom and empowerment to women than anywhere else in the empire.
Another differentiating characteristic of Ephesus was the worship of goddesses. In Ephesus: Artemis (Diana), Aphrodite, Athene, Cybele, Demeter and Isis were all worshipped, and in most of these religions women held the premier positions of authority.
Of particular interest is the cult of Artemis, because this was the group that most scholars believe Paul spoke against. It is believed that Artemis rejected the attentions of other male gods and instead found the company of human male companions. Artemis and her female adherents were thus superior to all men, and this was played out in the “feast of the Lord of Streets,” where a priestess of Artemis would chase a man. If Paul’s exhortation in 1 Timothy 2.11 was meant to challenge the culture of the day, then he would have had to challenge the matriarchal culture that was spearheaded by the belief systems of the cult of Artemis.
Also, it is important to note where this passage sits in the letter of 1 Timothy. Paul is giving practical advice to his apprentice Timothy about how to Pastor the church of Ephesus. Paul’s concerns are spelled out in 1 Timothy 1.3-4, “…stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies.” Almost 50% of the letter is devoted to the issue of false teaching. Therefore it is possible that the exhortation to “quietness” and “submission” was a direct response to the incorrect doctrine being taught by women who asserted their power and dominated leadership of the church.
Almost 50% of the letter is devoted to the issue of false teaching. Therefore it is possible that the exhortation to “quietness” and “submission” was a direct response to the incorrect doctrine being taught by women who asserted their power and dominated leadership of the church.
(2) “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man”
The whole debate on the topic of women in ministry is centered on the two verbs here in verse 12. The first verb, “to teach”, is best seen as a context-specific directive because of the cultural forces that existed in Ephesus which likely resulted in false teaching by some women. If this verb is taken as an ageless truth then Paul completely ignores some of the women he co-labored with, namely Priscilla.
The first verb, “to teach”, is best seen as a context-specific directive because of the cultural forces that existed in Ephesus which likely resulted in false teaching by some women. If this verb is taken as an ageless truth then Paul completely ignores some of the women he co-labored with, namely Priscilla.
Also, the verb’s syntactical position at the beginning of the sentence (in greek it would read: to teach, woman I do not permit) signifies an emphasis and a distinction from the second verb of the verse. Paul is not simply disallowing authoritative teaching over men, which some have interpreted. He is prohibiting two actions: teaching and assuming authority. Therefore if one were to understand this verse as a timeless teaching, they would have to forbid women from every form of teaching, not just the teaching of men. Again it is much more probable that Paul is addressing a specific situation wherein women were teaching false doctrine.
The second verb, “to assume authority over a man”, must be further clarified. What exactly does “authority” mean? The earliest translations of the Bible translated the greek authentein as “dominate”. “There is a virtually unbroken tradition, stemming from the oldest versions and running down to the twenty-first century, that translates authentein as ‘to dominate’ rather than ‘to exercise authority over.”
The term authentien is only used here in the New Testament, but it was used fairly often in Roman writings. In the first century AD, authentes came to be defined as “the mastermind of a murder committed by others.” If Paul simply wanted to prohibit exercising authority, there were a whole host of other words he could have used such as “rule” (occurred 12 times) or “govern” (occurred 47 times). Instead, Paul picked an obscure word to communicate a specific message to a particular audience. He used a word that was understood to carry a nuance of being a mastermind of a crime because the false teaching women were committing a grave crime by leading men astray.
(3) Adam and Eve
Paul makes a move from his prohibition discourse to an illustration using the narrative of Adam and Eve. “For Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2.13). Some have argued that the order of creation (Adam first, then Eve) was used to illustrate that Eve was deceived because she was less educated than Adam in all spiritual things, and Paul was warning that a similar thing might be occurring in Ephesus. These women who assumed leadership were leading the church astray with false doctrine because they were less educated in all spiritual things. Therefore they were to be quiet and submissive (1 Timothy 2.11).
However, as the historical and cultural context has shown, Ephesus was a city where women were educated and empowered. The worship of Artemis, who was the pride of Ephesus (Acts 19.34), elevated women and made them superior to men. For that reason it is unlikely that Paul brought up the creation order of Adam and Eve to demonstrate that women were less educated. Instead the more probable explanation is that Paul brought up the creation order to remind the Ephesians that Eve was created to be Adam’s partner, not to rule over him. “If the sense of 1 Timothy 2.12 is that women are not permitted to teach men in a domineering fashion, then 1 Timothy 2.13 would provide the explanation: that Eve was created as Adam’s partner and not his boss.” (Belleville, Teaching and Usurping Authority, 222)
For that reason it is unlikely that Paul brought up the creation order of Adam and Eve to demonstrate that women were less educated. Instead the more probable explanation is that Paul brought up the creation order to remind the Ephesians that Eve was created to be Adam’s partner, not to rule over him.
This leads to the next verse, “And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner” (1 Timothy 2.14) A commonly held belief in first century Ephesus was that women were the primal source of all life and that special revelation through certain women brought true knowledge for mankind. The result was likely an elevation of the female gender and a growing antipathy for the male gender.
This line of thinking definitely made its way into the Ephesian church and influenced much of the teaching. So perhaps Paul was not merely making a statement about the gullibility of women, but instead reminding women that while sin came into the world through one man (cf. Romans 5.12, 1 Corinthians 15.21), women also played a part in the fall and were responsible too.
“But women will be saved through childbearing — if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety” (1 Timothy 2.15). Dr. Sandra Glahn offers a great explanation of this verse after doing extensive study on the subject. The goddess Artemis was traditionally known as the goddess of fertility, however cities in Asia Minor often “personalized” their own gods or goddesses. Artemis of Ephesus was the polar opposite of the fertility goddess-version of Artemis, instead Artemis of Ephesus was a virgin in the strictest sense. The story goes that Artemis was watching her mother give birth to her brothers for nine days. After seeing her mother writhe in pain for nine days she goes to her father and asks to be made immune to Aphrodite’s arrows so that she will never have to have sex.
This forms the premise of the worship of Artemis. Any woman going through any sort of transition, like giving birth, would go to the temple of Artemis and pray for protection. So when these women came to faith in Christ, there was still lingering fear that if they were to get pregnant they would die. “I think it’s very possible that Paul is promising that the wives here, who have just left Artemis worship and are terrified, are not going to die in childbirth if they follow Christ.” So the “saved” is not about salvation, but rather about the protection that Christ provides, so long as they continue in “faith, love and holiness” (1 Timothy 2.15b).
So when these women came to faith in Christ, there was still lingering fear that if they were to get pregnant they would die… So the “saved” is not about salvation, but rather about the protection that Christ provides, so long as they continue in “faith, love and holiness” (1 Timothy 2.15b).
So what?
The debate about women in ministry has garnered more attention in the past 100 years than in the 1000 years of church history preceding that. This can be directly correlated to the growing feminist movement in modern culture, calling into question all systems of hierarchy and inequality. It is especially important for the church to be able to engage this discussion with scriptural authority and conviction no matter what side of the debate they land.
What I have tried to show is that perhaps there is room for a mediating position: where complementarity is maintained in marriage to reflect the Trinity, and at the same time preserve the priesthood of the believer and allow for joint egalitarian church leadership.
… perhaps there is room for a mediating position: where complementarity is maintained in marriage to reflect the Trinity, and at the same time preserve the priesthood of the believer and allow for joint egalitarian church leadership.
This was done by differentiating instructions for marriage and instructions for church leadership. When the analogy of the family was no longer used as the primary justification for a hierarchical church structure, only two passages were left up to debate: 1 Corinthians 14.33-35 and 1 Timothy 2.11-15.
Paul’s instruction in 1 Corinthians must be understood in light of his argument, which was for orderly conduct in worship. In that sense his command was both universal and specific: orderly worship was the universal command whereas the silencing of women was specific for the Corinthian church.
Lastly, we engaged in an examination of 1 Timothy 2 and found that the matriarchal culture of Ephesus heavily influenced by the worship of Artemis was what caused Paul to prohibit women from teaching. In all this Paul was trying to protect the Ephesian church from false teaching, a theme that ran through his entire letter.
At the heart of this entire issue is whether the Holy Spirit gives specific gifts of leadership and authority on the basis of gender, or whether the Holy Spirit gives gifts by grace for the purpose of building up the church.
At the heart of this entire issue is whether the Holy Spirit gives specific gifts of leadership and authority on the basis of gender, or whether the Holy Spirit gives gifts by grace for the purpose of building up the church.
Dr. Gordon Fee summarizes it best, “What is at stake is whether God the Holy Spirit, in his gifting the people of God, ever makes gender a prior requirement for certain kinds of gifting, [the] biblical data we do have seems clear: the Spirit does not.”
The Holy Spirit has shown that He gives gifts of teaching and leadership to women such as Priscilla, Phoebe and Junia, and it is my conviction that the Holy Spirit continues to do the same today.