Strange sayings about 1 Timothy 2:11-12

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In quietness let a woman learn, in all submission; and I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man but to be in quietness. (1 Tim 2:11-12)

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#1 “I don't like it”

Today's ferment over the nature of human sexual difference has catapulted this verse to instant stardom (either has hero or villain). The first strange thing which is said about the verse appears to be just about the only thing that everyone agrees upon. It is truly ecumenical, and perhaps that is a reason to give it some praise—then again, perhaps it is not! It is the common reaction to reading the verse: “I don't like it”.

The feminist reads this verse and says, “I don't like it. Paul differentiates the roles of men and women in church and endorses males in their power relationships over females. Since my first commitment is to feminism, I cannot accept Paul's teaching here. Paul says it, but so much the worse for Paul. It is up to we moderns to ‘re-vision’ Christianity, to move it away from sex-role stereotyping, which is so contrary and abhorrent to the spirit of our age.”

The conservative evangelical reads the verse and says, “I don't like it. Here we are, living in a post-feminist age where even the macho males who once protected and nurtured the tribe are now frowned upon and urged to be Sensitive New-Age Guys. In such a world, no-one wants to say anything that has the slightest whiff of an ‘anti-female bias’. And yet, we have this verse which restricts teaching to men and asks women to silently learn. Okay, it's tough, but I believe that whatever God's word says we must endorse in our practice. What person in their right mind wants to say these things in the 90s? I don't like it either, but—hey!—I didn't write the book!”

Then there is the new breed, the evangelical feminist, who wants to maintain a middle position. This person reads the verse and says, “I don't like it. But, if you really understand the situation of the times, the historical background, the specific situation that was happening in that particular church, you realize that the verse is not issuing an injunction that still applies today. What the verse seems to say on first reading (which is so distasteful in today's environment) is not really what it is saying. I don't like what it seems to be saying, but, thankfully, that is not what Paul is really on about at all!”

How different all three attitudes are to the psalmist for whom God's words are sweeter than the honey dripping from a honeycomb. How different they are to the attitude of the Thessalonians who received the message with great joy in the midst of great trouble (1 Thess 1:5, 2:13). How different they are to the attitude encouraged by the Lord: “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear” (e.g. Mark 4:23).

Isn't all of God's word good for us, whether its first taste is bitter or sweet—a sensation which so often depends upon what else we have been chewing previously? It shouldn't be tampered with, or rejected, or grudgingly accepted. It should be willingly embraced as a gift of life from our loving Creator and Redeemer! Whatever the Word of God says, surely it should be received as gospel—God's good news! It drips with sweet honey from God's honeycomb.

#2 “It is not important”

I've heard it said that this verse doesn't matter. Sometimes it is explicitly stated, whether in an absolute sense (“it doesn't matter at all”), or in a relative sense (“it doesn't matter as much as other verses such as Galatians 3:28”). But most often the verse is simply marginalized, as people avoid any discussion of this so-called ‘difficult’ verse. Once it is marginalized, it is obvious to all that it no longer matters.

These claims contain an element of truth. Certainly, the debate over whether or not God has entrusted teaching and leadership of our congregations only to males should not be allowed to distract us from the primary work of sharing the gospel with our lost world. In places, it has perhaps become our gospel (if the rule of thumb is true that whatever we talk about most reveals what our gospel really is). It is equally true that winning the debate should not matter more than those for whom Christ died. Like any discussion amongst Christ's people, this debate needs to be conducted in the context of faith, hope and love, with all parties making every effort to maintain the unity that Christ has already won for us. This is, of course, a unity expressed at the level of the local congregation (Eph 4), in order that we keep striving together in our common gospel mission. We cannot afford to jeopardize this.

But this most-important unity is far from the kind that is often urged upon us. In recent days there has been many an appeal to ‘unity’ that tries to stifle discussion out of a paranoia about ‘division’. However, Christian unity is, in the first instance, fundamentally linked with being united to God the Father and Son through the Spirit an the apostles' word (John 17:20-21). Because of this ‘vertical’ unity (with the Lord above), we are also united ‘horizontally’ with everyone else who is ‘in Christ’ (those next to us in church). If we give up discussion, with some wet, overly sensitive kind of excuse, we won't end up with Christian unity.

This fundamental unity with God through the gospel means that truth is important. It is the truth that joins us together in the first place. Christian unity comes to a congregation as we “speak the truth in love” (Eph 4:15; cf. vv. 21, 25). This is the first reason why the debate does matter: it is an important part of speaking the truth to one another. To talk it over is not ‘divisive’; it is actually a step towards the unity that really counts for something.

But there are several more reasons why it matters. If we are people of the truth, then the quest for truth ought to matter to us. If there is confusion over what a verse means, then discussion needs to continue. After all, if we have it wrong, then that is not a good situation to be in. Truth hangs together, and even small errors will issue in further problems eventually. So often we think minimalistically—what is the minimum I have to believe? The Bible takes the opposite point of view: work towards the maximum. It is a firmer and fuller grasp of the truth that strengthens people in their attempt to serve Christ in the details of everyday life. Any discussion towards that end matters.

In particular, this issue matters because we live in a world which is largely confused about gender issues. Since our maleness and femaleness are so integrally linked to our humanness, gender issues can never be declared irrelevant or marginal. It especially matters for the sake of our Christian sisters who want to know what is the right thing to do. As one female friend put it to me, there are many women who want to be obedient to God's word, but to do that they need to know what it is saying. Another reason to keep talking.

And there is more. 1 Timothy 2:11-12 concerns the teaching activity in the ‘household of God’, that is, the churches of God. Although it is true that all Christians are to teach one another in their personal relationships, when we gather together and even through singing to each other (Col 3:16), this one-another teaching role does not mean that we ought to be blasé about the public teaching ministry. On the contrary, the New Testament teaches that because the minister is the minister of the word, this role needs to be very carefully regulated. Since 1 Timothy 2:11-12 is one of the passages that regulates this teaching activity, it matters.

There is one last reason why these verses matter and matter enormously. Some people say that this discussion isn't important, because it is not a central issue, that is, it is not concerned with salvation. It is certainly true that you are not saved by whether you endorse a male-only public teaching ministry or not; you are saved by a confession of Christ as Lord. But, once we are saved by Christ, we must continue to the end and not drift away from the salvation he has one for us (Heb 2:1-4). In this regard, I cannot see how the discussion doesn't matter, for isn't this passage about a woman's salvation? In verse 15 we read that “they (i.e. women) will be saved ...”. Although further discussion of this verse is no doubt necessary, the point to notice for now is that women's obedience to what has been said in verses 11-12 is closely related to their salvation. Some have argued that salvation here does not mean salvation in the full sense, but merely ‘preservation’ or something similar, but this is not the case. For the salvation Paul speaks of is from wrath, to heaven. In the letters to Timothy, this remains true (1 Tim 1:15; 4:16; 2 Tim 1:9; 4:18) and even in this very passage (2:4) salvation in the fullest sense is in view. In other words, it is not just interesting for women to know what these verses mean; it is vital.

#3 “It is not clear”

This saying has been thrown to the wind with the frequency of dust from a busy street. It goes something like this: “No-one knows what that verse means” or “That verse is not clear” or “There are so many interpretations floating around, how can anyone say what it means?”

Some say that we should not expect perspicuity (a word that means ‘clarity’, even if the word itself lacks that commodity!), since the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture only concerns the things regarding salvation. Even if this were so, doesn't this passage refer to salvation anyway (v. 15)? But isn't God's word clear about more than just how to get saved? Doesn't it contain all things necessary for life and godliness as well? And, besides, is it really true that this verse lacks perspicuity?

Some even seem to have invented a new hermeneutical principle: the ‘exegesis by confusion’ method, or the ‘dust-throwing’ hermeneutic. This operates as follows: when confronted by a verse you feel is ‘difficult’, firstly find a scholar who says one thing. Next, find a scholar who says the opposite. Then, multiply the scholars on both sides. Once the scene is completely filled with disagreeing scholars—who, after all, ought to know, they are the experts—declare the whole enterprise too hard and do whatever you like.

Okay, so I parody the position—but that really is all it deserves! As if a text can be declared ‘unclear’ because two or three are gathered together with two or three interpretations! After twenty centuries of discussion over the Bible, and given the tendency for scholars to delight in discovering or creating problems, and the presence of unbelief (dare I say it?) even in the world of biblical scholarship, what text in the Bible could not be declared unclear?

The literary critic Umberto Eco refuses to believe that “a text is only a picnic where the author brings the words and the readers bring the sense”. As he puts it,

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Deciding what is being talked about is, of course, a kind of interpretive bet. But the contexts allow us to make this bet less uncertain than a bet on the red or the black of a roulette wheel. (Interpretation and overinterpretation, p. 63)

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As with any text, there may well be several opinions of 1 Timothy 2:11-12, but some will be better interpretations than others. Jesus attacked the Pharisees over their reading of Scripture: does that mean it was not clear? Or does that mean there were simply reading it wrongly?

It is important to be clear on what is unclear about 1 Timothy 2:11-12. Instead of adopting the very postmodern strategy of throwing our hands up, saying “no-one knows” and then proceeding to do what suits us, it is a better method to list the areas that are supposedly difficult and to see if these ‘difficulties’ can, in fact, be solved. When we ask what ‘lack of clarity’ we are talking about here, it turns out that there really is not much that is ‘unclear’ in the text of 1 Timothy 2 at all.

There is an important distinction between what is difficult to understand and what is difficult to apply. If there are difficulties in applying a text such as this one in the modern, post-feminist world, that does not mean that the text itself is unclear. Here the feminist interpreters are helpful. They have no difficulty in reading what the verse says, but much difficulty in applying it, so they reject it. Application is one thing. What the text says is another.

It is an important principle of exegesis to allow what is unclear to be interpreted by what is clear. Unfortunately in this debate, the unclear is so often used to muddy waters that are otherwise clear. For example, why is so much made of the fact that the word authentein is a hapax legomenon (i.e. it occurs only once in the New Testament)? With any other issue, the clear teaching of the text may be used to interpret the unclear, but in this debate things seem to swing the other way around. If only we could understand this word, we are told, then we would be able to understand the rest of the verse. Until we do so, the verse remains an enigma.

I've just had a novel idea! Instead of being so confused with the unclear that we throw the whole verse away, why not try to interpret the unclear by the clear? Instead of looking at the passage as if the unclear ‘infects’ the clear, why not look at it as if the clear illuminates the unclear? How far do we get if we approach things from that direction?

There are no problems understanding what it means to ‘teach’, and the literary context of the verses clearly shows that the prohibition on women teaching concerns the public assembly of Christians (=church). Does this mean that there is something about a woman teaching a man in the public assembly that overturns some kind of authority structure that exists between men and women? Given the connection with Genesis that follows, perhaps that authority structure finds its theological backing gin the way God has made us?

This interpretation at least deserves a hearing, doesn't it? And since it is a view that doesn't depend upon any unprovable speculations about supposed historical backgrounds, it may have quite a bit going for it. It is a pity that it is so unpopular, but then again, unpopularity is not a very good guide to truth: they crucified Jesus, didn't they? Maybe, after all, Paul meant to say what it sounds like he said right there on the surface of the page.

#4 “It is about usurping authority”

For many, it is the word authentein that is the most difficult problem in these verses. The difficulty it presents is that it appears only once in the New Testament. This makes it impossible to compare with other New Testament examples, to ascertain the variety of ways in which the word is used. To make matters worse, it doesn't even appear in the Greek Old Testament (although two relates words appear: Wis 12:6 authentes=‘murderer’; 3 Macc 2:29: authentia=‘status’).

But we are not completely in the dark about this word. In the literature outside the Bible, the word is used quite often and over along period of time. In this literature, ti is sometimes used with a very strong sense—even to murder someone! However, it is also used in a much milder sense, simply to ‘have authority’. The two usages are reflected in the various English translations of 1 Timothy 2:11-12, some opting for the milder ‘have authority’, others opting for the stronger ‘usurp authority’.

The alternatives are also reflected in the current debates surrounding 1 Timothy 2:12. How is the word used here? If it is in the mild sense, Paul forbids a woman from exercising authority over a man through teaching him, rather than learning in quiet submissiveness. If it is in the stronger sense, he forbids the ‘usurping’ of authority, or having the attitude of such a usurper, but might allow a proper teaching role for women over men, if it is free from this crime of usurpation.

Despite the bulk of discussion over this word, it is important not to make a mountain out of a molehill. It is important not to get too confused by it all for the following reasons:

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1. Both renderings of the word assume that there is a structure of relationship that must be maintained. In the ‘milder’ sense, Paul is regulating its maintenance; in the ‘stronger’ sense, he is guarding against its overthrow. In either case, it is nevertheless there. The least we can say is that there is a difference between males and females, and there is a structure to the relationship between them that must be preserved and maintained in the public assembly of God's people. Although equal in status and dignity as human beings, we are not equal in every respect . The relationship between male and female is an asymmetrical relationship, despite being a relationship amongst people of equal status as creatures of God. It is therefore a pity that some participants in the current debate seem to ignore any discussion of how this structure of relationship between male and female ought to be reflected and maintained in our churches.
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2. The second point seems to be all but ignored in the debate. It doesn't matter how many times a word is used one way or the other outside this text. Edwin Judge, the recently retired Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University, when commenting upon one of the largest projects of New Testament studies this century, the Kittel Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, puts it this way:_

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   The most painstaking classification of word usage in the New Testament and related literatures [i.e. Kittle] has demonstrated what ought in any case to be obvious, that the meaning of a word is not ultimately determined by antecedent, parallel, or derived instances, but by its situation in its own context.¹

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   _In the end, a word only has meaning in the context in which it lies and so, after all the light that may be thrown upon a word from all its many other usages, we still need to determine its meaning here.
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Thankfully, despite the dust that some delight in throwing into the air, 1 Timothy 2:11-12 provides more than enough clues to indicate that Paul talks of exercising authority, rather than overthrowing authority. Notice that he uses two sets of contrasts: ‘learn’ contrasts with ‘teach’; ‘in all submission’ contrasts with ‘exercise authority’. These contrasts within the verse itself provide an important clue for the understanding of the word authentein. It is opposite to ‘full submission’, it is contrary to ‘learning’ and tied in with teaching.

In the end, despite the dust in the air, and despite the problems that these verses may raise for application in the modern world, there is really very little that is unclear in 1 Timothy 2:11-12. You can read the instruction yourself, unaided by the commentaries.

#5 “It is not against occasional preaching”

Another strange thing being said about 1 Timothy 2 is a tricky one for me to deal with. Not because it is not strange, but because here I may well lose any friends that I still have left! It has been a view that has been said in my hearing fro a good number of years, by a good number of my friends. But nevertheless, I think it has a good number of ‘whiskers on it’ as well and so it too needs some rethinking. And as for my friends, perhaps they can take it in the spirit of the old saying, “Many are the kisses of an enemy, but faithful are the wounds of a true friend” (Prov 27:6).

It goes like this: 1 Timothy 2:11-12 is not forbidding women from teaching men on every occasion. It does not debar a woman teaching when men are present occasionally and in the right context. What is the right context? Well, she needs to be preaching under the authority of the authorized male teacher. In other words, 1 Timothy 2:11-12 doesn't forbid women preaching; it simply forbids women becoming the authorized teacher in a congregation, that is (on this view), the chief pastor. Women can preach, occasionally, but they cannot assume the role of the ‘head’ of a congregation.

Now, in my home town this view ahs assumed something of a local orthodoxy, or at least a democratic majority, through being around long enough to be repeated often enough to acquire the ring of truth. Despite the backing it may receive on a head-count (and, unfortunately, a lot of ‘exegesis’ seems to be done by democracy nowadays), this position has some very obvious weaknesses: What is occasional? When does occasional become not occasional? If a woman is preaching, how does she do that under someone else's authority when the sermon itself purports to be the authoritative delivery of God's word for that occasion? Does she get him to check each sermon first (or, better still, read out a script prepared by him!)? Does she constantly defer to him during delivery (“thus says the authorized minister”)?

In practice, some ‘authorized ministers’ at least aim for consistency by trying to be present when the woman is speaking (many don't!), but in reality how does that show anything? As is obvious to anyone who is present, by virtue of him sitting and listening and her standing preaching, it appears that he is sitting under her ministry, not over it. In other words, the position is difficult pragmatically, some would even say unworkable.

But there are more objections than simply the pragmatic ones. Although the position is often spoused in the interests of a greater ‘team-ministry’ approach, it actually has a ‘mono-ministry’ as its necessary assumption, for there must be this one ‘authorized teacher’. It also appears to concede too high a place to the denomination over the local church—usually, it is the denominational authorization which is being referred to. In the New Testament, the action takes place at the local church level and, whatever the place of denominations, it should not overturn that New Testament principle. The New Testament churches appear to have a multiplicity of ministries within congregations whose oversight is exercised by a number of elders. The ‘authorized teachers’ come from this group. With this background, the question can be asked: Why should anyone who isn't an authorized teacher be doing the public teaching in the congregation? Or again, if they are asked to teach at all, aren't they being authorized to do so?

The biggest problem for the position is that Paul's instruction seems to speak far more clearly than this rather confused gonging which concedes so much to the modern politically-correct temperament. It is as the Apostle's instruction is received, rather than rejected or revised, that women will find their true freedom and dignity. It is as they learn that they will be freed up by the word of God and moved by his Spirit to fulfil the manifold ministries that are authentically ‘women's ministry’, and the churches of Christ will be far richer for the experience.

Endnotes

¹ E. Judge, The Social Pattern of Christian Groups in the First Century: some prolegomena to the study of New Testament ideas of social obligation, Tyndale, London, 1960, p. 9.