1 Timothy 2 and Women in Ministry

1 Timothy is significantly different in several ways from Paul's other letters. I'm not just talking style, although it is true that the Greek vocabulary and style of 1 Timothy and Titus are significantly different from Paul's other letters. Luke Timothy Johnson suggests Paul may have used a different amanuensis. Some hypothesis of this sort seems necessary to explain the differences if Paul was in fact its author.

Of course the majority of scholars think these letters are pseudonymous and thus written long after Paul was dead. I will not link my argument to that interpretation for several reasons. And of course, even if 1 Timothy were pseudonymous, it is in Scripture and therefore must be treated as authoritative in the manner of Scripture all the same.

However, the differences are real whether we go with pseudonymity or not, and they have bearing on how we integrate 1 Timothy with the rest of Paul's writings. It is my hermeneutical contention that no single passage of Scripture holds unfiltered authority without taking into account the rest of Scripture. It is easy to show that everyone does this in their appropriation the Bible, no matter how conservative or literalistic one may claim to be in interpretation. But this is not the place to show this.

1. The advice to widows in 1 Timothy 5 is a good example of changes from 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians, Paul very clearly prefers that widows remain single (1 Cor. 7:8-9, 39-40). Indeed, he puts his own singleness as the ideal for ministry "because the time has been shortened" (1 Cor. 7:29). He is living under the expectation that Christ will return shortly and marriage is a distraction. In 1 Thessalonians 4, he plays catch up on the topic of resurrection--apparently he focused so much on the coming of Christ that he did not talk much about what happens to believers who die in the meantime.

Not so in 1 Timothy. In 1 Timothy, it is only widows over sixty who are to be put on the list of those supported by the community as "true" widows (5:9). Assuming Paul as author, he has apparently become very pessimistic about the ability of widows to stay single. Now younger widows are counseled to remarry so that they do not become gossips and busybodies (5:13-14). Married women are urged to take care of younger widows until they remarry (5:16).

Again, assuming Paul as author, what has happened here since 1 Corinthians? For one thing, Paul does not have the same heightened sense of Christ's immanent return that he had in 1 Corinthians. He now can distinguish "later times" when people leave "the faith" (4:1, here using faith in a different way than he normally does in his earlier letters). Paul himself would belong to the early times of the faith, so he is presumably thinking of a time after he has passed from the scene. He talks of people forbidding marriage in those later times--an interesting change of trajectory again from 1 Corinthians 7. In 1 Cor. 7 Paul's trajectory is away from marriage. In 1 Timothy it is toward marriage.

Assuming Paul as author, 1 Timothy 5 has all the feel of someone who has been burned by experience. No longer optimistic about widows staying single, he pragmatically caves in to advise them to remarry. 1 Timothy 5 is thus highly practical and, given its obvious shift from Paul's earlier writings, cannot be taken as absolute in character. It is rather a very pragmatic application of principles to a particular cultural situation.

2. What we are seeing here is a move toward insitutionalization. Evangelicals usually date 1 Timothy to a time after Paul's release from Rome in the final years of his ministry (I find this dating highly problematic, but will go with it). In that sense, Paul sees that he will no longer be around to mediate the Spirit's voice to his churches. In that light it is understandable that the Pastorals begin to focus on the "example" and "deposit" of "teaching" (1 Tim. 1:10, 16; 4:6, 16; 6:3, 20) Paul is leaving to the church after him--a focus and vocabulary we largely do not find in his earlier letters.

Just to mention another difference between 1 Timothy and Paul's earlier letters, 1 Timothy 1 talks about the law in an unusual way for Paul. Here the law does not show us our need for faith in order to be justified or saved (1 Timothy does not seem to use any of these words in the typical Pauline ways). Rather the law largely refers to the 10 commandments and is an ethical standard that righteous people keep and criminals don't (1:9). It is a de-Judaized law that amounts to a moral code of behavior. In a way, such an approach seems to fit the institutionalization of Christianity, buckling down for the long haul of history.

The structures that 1 Timothy 3 sets down fit into this basic feel to 1 Timothy. Now we need standards for leaders, here overseers and deacons. Those against women in ministry often note that these lists are oriented around men. We no longer have the pneumatic world of the early Paul, where women seem to be part of the ministerial cadre (Priscilla, Phoebe, Lydia, Euodia, Syntyche). Given the rest of the tone of 1 Timothy toward women, we are probably right to see these lists as leaving women out of church leadership.

But it is equally important to realize that this is a change from the earlier Paul. Romans 16:1 refers to Phoebe as a diakonos of the church at Cenchrea. This is a word with a masculine ending, the same word as 1 Tim. 3:8 and the same word used of Timothy himself in 1 Tim. 4:6. When we look at the big picture of Paul's writings, 1 Timothy is the departure from the norm, not the other way around. The person who uses 1 Timothy as the lens through which to understand the rest of Paul does great violence to the rest of Paul.

3. When we now approach the passage on women in 1 Timothy 2:11-15, we should do so with this sense that 1 Timothy as a whole is a different bird. Assuming Paul as author, this is still a different Paul than we have seen before. He is preparing the church for a time when he will not be there and he is probably creating structures that will avoid pitfalls that he has experienced.

For those evangelicals who read 1 Timothy as a pseudonymous writing, it is a presentation of Paul's authority to a later generation where the characteristics of the "later times" are in fact the present (4:1ff). It is a time when all the apostles have died and free wheeling charismatic prophesy is a major source of false teaching. It is a world where itinerant teachers are a major problem.

In fact, we should see such false teachers as an element in the equation even when we assume Pauline authorship (cf. 1 Tim. 6:3-10). 2 Timothy 3:6 speaks of "weak willed women" who serve as conduits for false teaching. Perhaps this is the type of widow that 1 Timothy 5 has in mind. A connection between women being easily deceived (1 Tim. 2:14) and false teachers would be natural. One might hypothesize a situation at Ephesus where women are a major element in the false teaching equation.

1 Corinthians 7 and 11 may already deal with certain wives who were causing tensions in the Christian community because of their new found empowerment in Christ. Were some of them wanting to use Christianity as an excuse to leave their husbands (1 Cor. 7:10-11) or at least to stop having sex with them (1 Cor. 7:4)? Were some of them taking their veils off in worship (1 Cor. 11:5)?

The importance of wives being in subordination to their husbands becomes institutionalized in 1 Tim. 2:9-15. These verses are usually translated as "women" rather than "wives," but the overall sense of 1 Timothy pushes us to see wives primarily in view. Their primary identity in the world of 1 Timothy is formulated in relation to a husband. The word gyne can mean either, but the cultural assumption here clearly pushes us away from seeing a woman having significant identity independent of a man.

Further, the argument of 2:13-15 presupposes a married woman. A wife is not to teach a husband because of the relationship between Adam and Eve--a husband-wife pair. And the woman will be saved from transgression through childbearing--obviously a wife in view here. I therefore believe the current majority skews this passage when they treat it primarily in terms of male-female relationships in general. It is woman-as-wifed who is primarily in view, since this is how 1 Timothy conceptualizes woman.

The proper woman/wife thus looks like the person of 1:9-10. The proper woman/wife learns in quietness and submission. And the proper woman/wife does not teach her husband. She certainly does not take the authoritative role. Apparently gone are the days when a Priscilla might teach an Apollos (Acts 18:26). Assuming Pauline authorship, Paul has apparently learned better. But the variance between Paul's earlier context and 1 Timothy shows that these structures cannot be timeless--Paul himself apparently has not always followed them. They have to be a concession to pragmatics.

4. The arguments used to substantiate these roles for husband and wife are the creational order of Adam and Eve and Eve's propensity to be deceived. Here we should note that biblical arguments are often as enculturated as biblical injunctions are. Who today would put speckled rods in front of animals in the process of giving birth to try to result in speckled offspring (Gen. 30:37-43)? And how does the fact that God is one imply that the mediation of angels makes the law inferior to Christ (Gal. 3:19-20)?

But we do not wish to link the women in ministry issue with the question of male-headship. Is it possible for a wife to be a minister without "taking authority over her husband"? Certainly--especially in our culture even if it was far more difficult in theirs! The priority of Adam over Eve can be retained with a female minister even if one does not see husband-headship as a cultural matter.

The question of wives teaching is slightly different. Here 1 Timothy 2:14 argues from the fact that Eve rather than Adam was the one deceived. The logic seems to be that women are more easily deceived than men and thus that they should not instruct men.

But clearly this is not always true. We mentioned in our post on 1 Corinthians that patriarchal cultures--including the biblical culture--generally had room for the woman who was "male-like" in her leadership. We would thus go against the precedent of the rest of Scripture to make this an exceptionless principle anyway.

Also, the argument in 1 Tim. 2:14-15 is blasphemous if we take it too strongly. "The woman, having been deceived, has come to be in transgression. But she will be saved through childbearing if they remain in faith and love and holiness with sobriety." The picture is one of all women being in a state of transgression entered into by Eve (perfect tense), a state from which childbearing "saves" them.

Clearly this is an allusion to the consequences of Eve's sin in Genesis 3:16, which included subordination to her husband and painful childbirth. Painful childbirth is obviously here to stay until the eschaton, and we can lightly take 1 Timothy 2:14-15 as an allusion to it. But we cannot take the continuance in transgression very strongly at all, for Christ atoned for all sins, including the sins of Eve. To suggest anything otherwise is blasphemy! It is an offence to Christ to locate women in any particular role as a result of Eve's transgression!

Assuming Pauline authorship, here we might note that Hebrews goes one step further than the rest of the NT in the way it considers Christ's atonement to be universal and transtemporal. Acts depicts Paul going to offer a sacrifice even near the end of his ministry (Acts 21:26). To the degree to which the transgression of Eve might stand behind the logic of 1 Tim. 2:14-15, to that extent this injunction is not as far along in the flow of revelation as Hebrews.

And the deceivability of Eve seems to be the primary typos behind women/wives not teaching. This fact seriously locates this particular structure before Christ. Women cannot be held accountable for the sins of Eve ("the soul that sinneth, it shall die"--not the soul of all her descendants). To the extent to which women are not easily deceived, to that extent there is no reasonable prohibition against them being teachers. And clearly women are far more educated today than they were in the time of Paul.

In that light, the argument of 1 Timothy 2 appears strongly like a number of other arguments in Scripture with clear cultural characteristics. As speckled rods don't make cows have speckled calves, Eve's gullibility does not make all women gullible. Those who mindlessly apply this Scripture to today would appear to be the ones who easily misunderstand and shouldn't be teachers!

Conclusion
My purpose above has primarily been to interpret and locate 1 Timothy. The picture that emerges is one in which Paul (or the heirs of Paul) are shifting from a more charismatic and pneumatic environment where women have few spiritual boundaries to one where the church is buckling down for the long haul. 1 Timothy is a departure in several ways from the church of Acts and Paul's earlier writings.

The Scriptural question for today is thus in how we integrate these teachings and then appropriate them. It is surely significant that women largely did not minister until the late 1800's--remembering that we see throughout church history the usual exceptions we noted of the OT. This was the consensus of the church of the ages, which followed the precedent of 1 Timothy rather than Paul's earlier writings or Acts.

What what of the Reformation underway today? Is it of God or a passing cultural trend itself? That is a topic for our final post.