Ask the Pastors S8 E9: “What does 1 Timothy 2:12 ‘not permit’ women to do?”
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Welcome to Ask the Pastors, a segment of the West Hills podcast, where you have the opportunity to ask your questions and receive biblically grounded, pastorally sensitive answers from our pastoral staff. My name is Brian. I'm your host and one of the pastors and I'm joined by Pastor Thad. Hey everyone. And our lead pastor, Will.
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And tired. Can we say tired answer? Tired Pastor Will. No, I was going to say biblically grounded.
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Pastorally
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Tired. Pastorally
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Tired.
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Just
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Tired. This one might be pastorally tired in one sense. It's
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Easter hangover. I'm
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Going to say what happened this weekend. I'm kidding.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're recording this on April 7th, two days after Easter, four days after Good Friday.
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Three days
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After. Three days after I was having to do the math. I'm telling you, it's the struggle. The tiredness is real.
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Yeah.
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But we got a question.
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We do have a question. We do. It's from Ben. Ben, thanks for your great list of questions.
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Thanks, Ben.
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This is one of them?
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This is one of 50 from Ben.
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He's getting some serious listenership badges. Watch out, Callie Born. Ben's coming for you.
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Ben wrote, "I recently heard the egalitarian idea that one empathy two: eight to 15 is addressing only the particular church and Ephesus at the time. They made some good points on the context, and I thought most particularly in the translation of the word authority in verse 12, as possibly being more of an usurpation." How do you actually pronounce
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That? Userpatient.
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Great. And/or domineering sense than a blanket statement, all authority and teaching sort of thing.
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Might be helpful to start by reading the context of 1st Timothy two, verses eight through 15, the broader context for that verse 12. Would probably also be helpful to also have more context for the specific, I guess, argument and source that Ben was engaging with, but I guess we don't have that, but that's fine. We'll run with what we got. But first in the two verses eight through 15, the apostle Paul says, "I desire then that in every place, the men should pray lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. Likewise, also that women should adorn themselves in respectable parable with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.
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Rather, she is to remain quiet." That's the verse 12 that Ben's asking about, and then verses 13 through 15. "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 if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.
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"I think from a interpretive standpoint, we maybe get even more questions about verses 13 through 15 because they're so interesting to try and get to the bottom of, especially this whole, what does it mean that women are saved through childbearing, and I think we've touched on that for sure in other podcasts, but from a practical and implementation side of things, Ben's question on verse 12 certainly seems very pertinent that pretty much every church is going to have to have an answer on how they interpret and therefore apply what Paul means here. And as Ben's mentioning, whether this is ... There are other parts of even Paul's letters, like I think of one Corinthians 11, where Paul says that women should cover their heads in church. And then he goes on to talk about long hair and men praying and women praying and all this. And there are churches where that's the norm or maybe the, I don't know, required practice, certainly the expectation or whatever, that women literally will wear a handkerchief or a hat or something when they come to church kind of thing.
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It's kind of fallen probably out of favor a little bit more. All that to say, in our church, for instance, we don't have any women that come to church at West Hills that I'm aware of now that June's gone and June used to wear a hat to church, but that cover their heads. And so any women at West Stills we don't have that interpret that as a universal kind of timeless principle that Paul's giving us so much as a culturally conditioned, well, this is in Paul, in his context, this is how in a first century Greco-Roman context ... Yeah, both of us, allergies, what was considered sort of the norm and gender norms and things like that. So that's I think what Ben's question is, what I hear is that Ben is reading, trying to engage thoughtfully with this egalitarian idea. So quick maybe word of definition just for listeners who might not be aware, there's kind of two camps within, let's say, evangelicalism or really the church, I guess.
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Complementarianism, egalitarianism. Complementarianism being the idea that men and women are equal in value worth, image of God, dignity, but different in role, different in calling and you might even say the purpose for which God created them. I mean, there's some similarities in that, but I mean, I think depending on how you want to define purpose, but that certainly role, that women and men are different and are created differently by God for a reason, for a purpose, and that we shouldn't conflate, confuse the two, whereas ... And obviously we as a complimentarian church are going to point all kinds of evidence for that, including one Timothy two, verse 12, well, all of verses eight through 15 that I just read. Again, I think you hear in what Paul's saying there, Adam's not Eve, Eve's not Adam, God created them differently and therefore we're called to different things.
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Women are not called to teacher or exercise authority, as he says in verse 12. Now, egalitarianism is the idea that men and women are not only equal in value worth dignity, but in really in-
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Role and function.
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Yeah, role and function. I mean, I don't want to be uncharitable and say a complete sort of conflation and confusion of men and women. However, I mean, I do think, not just to be uncharitable, but to be honest about it, maybe it's a bigger conversation, but I do think it's no mystery to me that even a lot of what we see in culture, certainly, and you could say even in certainly very progressive churches that were egalitarian 50 years ago, like basically there is a slope here where, not that every church will inevitably become, but I mean, the kinds of churches that 50 years ago were ecalitarian 60 years ago, then 25 years ago, accepted homosexuality as valid, all that now today are accepting transgender and truly a confusion of men and women and men can be women, women can be men. There are churches that are like, yay trans and they're the same churches that were egalitarian 50, 60 years ago.
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But
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At a minimal level, an egalitarian church, it's role and function
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Specifically
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Within church and home structures versus outside of-
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Yeah. And again, to be fair about it, there are churches that are egalitarian and people, individual believers that are egalitarian that are not leading the cause for gender mutilation surgeries for minors or something like that. So all that to say though, that what Ben is asking about is this egalitarian idea, interpretation of First Timothy two that's understanding Paul as kind of like the first Corinthians 11 argument where he's saying, "We would read him in that case as not saying, Hey, all women everywhere, you need to cover your heads, otherwise our women at West Hills would have their heads covered.
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But that was a specific command or one Corinthians 14, for instance, women must remain silent in church. If they got any questions, wait till you get home, ask your husband. We would not understand that exportation as universally binding on all women in all churches or else we wouldn't have Gary Moppin reading our call to confession on last Sunday or two Sunday, whatever it goes. So we wouldn't have women speaking in our service at all. We wouldn't, I guess, allow them to participate in discussions in Sunday school classes or teach our kids in the kids' ministry or whatever. Like what do you define as church? Is that just the Sunday morning, the corporate worship gathering versus anytime two or more are gathered? So anyway, there's lots of interpretive stuff we have to do here. You wanted to jump in?
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Well, a couple things where this is going to divide for anyone wrestling with this passage is application.That's always where you're going to have to distinguish between how you're going to apply. I'd also add, I'm going to make an assumption about Ben and where this may or may not be coming from. It is recently a book came out by Preston Sprinkle called From Genesis to Junia, where he's making essentially this case, this argument and grounds a lot of it in First Timothy two and Genesis, which I don't think you can separate the two of those.
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Yeah, because Paul specifically references creation order in verses 13 and 14 there. Adam was formed first, then Eve, Adam wasn't deceived, the woman was deceived. Yeah, you're right. So yeah, that could be ...
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It's a new book and it's gotten lots of- Preston being
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Egalitarian?
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Preston? Yes. Right. It's his coming out of why I changed my position on the subject. I think he's a little unhelpful in a lot of places, so that's my notice on him.
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Well, so let's get into the argument and specifically, because again, we're hearing it secondhand from Ben, and we don't even know for sure whether that's the book that he's coming from, but specifically he said, I thought most particular in terms of good points on one Timothy two from egalitarians is the translation of the word authority in verse 12 as possibly being more of a user patient and/or domineering than a blanket statement. So here's what I'll just say quickly. I really don't have ... I know famous last words, but I didn't do tons and tons of research, so I'll try and be short here. But the little bit ... I mean, I just went straight to the Greek inner linear Bible and pulled up what is the meaning of Authenteo, the Greek verb that Paul uses here. First of all, it's a hapex legamenon, which is a fancy way of saying this is the only place in all of the Bible that the word authentio is used, so just one time.
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So that automatically does make it a little bit more up for debate, a little more difficult maybe to how are we going to get to the Bible because we can't cross reference and say, "Well, when Jesus used the word or when Matthew used the word quoting Jesus back in his gospel, there's no other context within scripture." And one of the articles that I was reading said that actually, I think it was Bob Yarbo's maybe article for TJC on it, he pointed out that we can only find, I think it's like seven uses of this verb anywhere in Greek literature up until the first century, up until the time of Paul. So whether it was a kind of a new ... I mean, it's a language, even though it's an old ... Well, not dead language, but goin A Greek. To us, we forget sometimes that people 2000 years ago will be looking back and reading ... I don't know what's ... I don't even know Gen Z slang anymore, but they'll be like, "Oh, bro, fire, whatever." What is that?
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But they'll have to do research on like, "Oh no, they started using this word in that way in this year, and this is the first..." So by the time of Paul, Paul's apparently picking up this word that has only been used a couple times, at least publicly, in writing. And anyway, so what does it mean? Authenteo, this is what the Bible hub, interlinear Bible, the best sort of extrapolation of it is to act of oneself. So authenteo comes from the prefix, altos meaning self and entria or arms, armor, so literally properly to unilaterally take up arms. In other words, i.e., Acting as an autocrat, literally self-appointed. In other words, just a lot of, in other words, acting without submission. So when you take everything that I just said and you try and extrapolate, what is he trying to get at here with the use of this word, authenteo, or self-acting, unilaterally taking up arms.
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I'm going to make ... And again, I didn't do tons of studies, so if I'm wrong, I'll recant this later. But I'm going to make the case ... My best understanding at a first pass at it is that what Paul is saying a woman ought not to do here in either teaching, and that word is more clear, didasquine, I do not permit a woman to teach didasque or to authentic, to assume or exercise authority. I'm going to make the case that those two things, and in context, the way that he puts it, teach or exercise authority are roughly the same thing, or namely the way that you could almost use one as an adjective for the other. So to teach authoritatively, or I guess an adverb, to teach authoritatively or to exercise authority by teaching.
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And I guess we can debate in Parcel, are they two separate things? I think Bob Yarborough, he says, "I propose that to teacher to exercise authority over a man was Paul's way of summarizing to his longtime younger colleague, Timothy, the chief responsibilities of a congregation's pastor. Number one, instruction via faithful exposition of scripture in ways like Jesus nurtured his disciples and number two, benevolent oversight and shepherding in ways like Jesus cared for his followers and like early Christians leaders were called to emulate, such as we hear Peter say in one Peter five, where Peter says, shepherd the flock that is among you, not domineering, not for selfish gain, but doing it like Jesus did. And so he does kind of ... Yarborough kind of understands Paul here as referring to the two, maybe not the two, but two, primary functions of a pastor, teaching, exposition of scripture, instruction and that, and then shepherding oversight, pastorally caring for counseling.
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And so that's fine too, to understand it, I think is two separate. But anyway, to go back to what I was saying, I think when I hear Paul say," Don't permit to teach or to exercise authority, "I kind of hear it as a synonymous parallelism of those two verbs of Dadaskayne and Authenteo, that it's a teaching in an authoritative manner, or it's a exercising authority by means of one's teaching. And part of the reason I think that is because what he says in the second half of that verse, which is rather she is to remain quiet. So I think the fact that he's giving the alternative of what he does recommend that women should do, specifically as being quite a not teaching, a not speaking. And so I see that authority that he's saying she doesn't assume as being a teaching kind of authority. All of that to say, what am I getting at?
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Well, kind of like Yarborough says, he reads Paul as helping Timothy, his sort of disciple protege, understand what a pastor's role is. I mean, that's why we call him the pastoral epistles. And so here he's got a little aside about like, " Oh, by the way, obviously women can't be pastors. They aren't going to be pastors because they don't assume this kind of teaching or this kind of authority because of the creation order and the way that God has designed us differently for different roles. "And when I think about what is ... Let me just bring it full circle. So this idea that authenteo should be understood, and it's convenient for the egalitarian that it is a hapox legamenon, that we don't see it elsewhere in scripture because then they can kind of make it mean whatever they want. So if they want it to mean," Well, he's just talking about domineering.
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"It's not that women can't teach at all, it's just they can't teach in a domineering way. I would say doesn't make sense for a couple reasons. Number one, he says," Remain silent. "So he doesn't say remain gentle, like just teach, but teach gently. It's don't talk. You're not allowed to talk in church in this regard, in this way, in this authoritative way. Number two, why would he make it about men and women? If he was just making a case about not domineering, Paul says that for everyone. Paul says it, and Peter says it in one Peter five about exercising authority, not in a domineering way. And I mean, Paul says the same thing in Acts 20, like all over the place. So no one's supposed to exercise authority in a domineering way. It's not like that's unique to women. So it would make no sense for him to make it a, " Well, let's talk about Adam and Eve now.
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Let me explain the created order to you and how we're different. "So that doesn't make any sense. And then the third and final way that I'll say is just, again, on its face value, the meaning of the word, authenteo, if it's to unilaterally take up arms, self-appointed acting without submission, what is that? Who does that? I do that on Sundays when I stand up and preach.
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That's what a pastor does. A pastor acts when I'm teaching and speaking on a Sunday morning, I am giving an authoritative interpretation and explanation of God's word for God's people. Not just anybody is, not even just any man, that's not just like men can do it, but women can't. Only the elders and pastors of the church are invested with that kind of authority to say," Thus sayeth the Lord. "To stand up and say," Here's Deuteronomy. I'll do this coming Sunday. We're going to read Deuteronomy chapters 14 and 15, and then I'm going to say, This is what this means. This is not just what I think this means, this is what this means. I've done homework, research, studied, prayed, and I'm going to tell you what God is saying to you in this passage. And if you disagree, depending on how major appointed is, we can either agree to disagree or depending on how major appointed it is, you need to find a church where you agree with the authoritative interpretation of God's word and where you're agreeing with and able to submit to the pastors and elders that he's entrusted over you.
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So again, all of that to say, that's not an authority that many people in the church are able to exercise that kind of teaching, authoritative teaching, pronouncing thus sayeth the Lord. And for that reason, we should have far more ask the pastor questions because anytime if I'm a life group leader, if I'm a D group leader, if I'm a Sunday school teacher at West Hills, we should probably be having questions all day long from our people saying like, "Hey, I'm preparing to teach this to the young adult ministry this week and I want to make sure I don't mislead God's people about what this passage means. Can you help me make sure that this is what on my research I think it means, but you're the pastor or you are the elders, plural of the church, you're entrusted with the teaching ministry, authoritative teaching of the church and setting the record straight in what God has said to his people.
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So help me make sure that I'm understanding this passage correctly."
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Or a different way to frame that is, "Hey, we were discussing this passage and we're unsure of what the actual application there seems to be diverging viewpoints of it, whether it's in preparation or on the back end of it. " I've had more of on the back end than on the front end. No, I think all of that's really helpful and really along a lot of the lines that I kind of in my own research and looking at this came to the same kind of conclusion and how he's using it versus if Paul writing to Timothy, even just on the teaching component, I do not permit a woman to teach.
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If it was involving any sort of authority in teaching, Paul has used it always in a positive light when he used that word versus if women were allowed to teach in such a manner, he would have said, "I do not permit a woman to teach falsely." Like false teaching, he's also addressing that in there. He would have used a very different word, which again, as I've looked at it and even tried to understand some of the egalitarian understanding of how is it they're going to understand these texts, one of which is taking teaching and authority in a negative context, which it doesn't surprise me that an
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Egalitarian- The domineering.
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The domineering. It's always going to be negative that they
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Would- So what would they say about the teaching?
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Like a false teaching? They would say the false teaching as well, which is an unconvincing argument for me, especially if you take this passage in its context and go immediately into one Timothy chapter three, where you're getting the qualifications for elders- Must be able to teach. Must be able to teach. You cannot disconnect those two passages together, although all of our English Bibles, because of how they've been formatted, add in the chapter and verse versus in there for us, that I think the teaching has to be considered in a positive light, as well as the authority in a positive light that all throughout scripture. Authority is a positive viewpoint. I'd also add for Ben's, he's got in there, not just the authority, but also, is this a blanket statement or is this in a particular context that it is? And I think at least a simple looking at the text for how we know it's not like in one Corinthians 11, a specific time in a specific place is going to be Paul draws from creation order, like he roots it in something more than just look at
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This
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Specific what's going on. He draws it back to creation versus cultural issues or local issues, and then uses that for all of interpretation of culture and marriage roles and that. And it'd be really easy to, because I don't think you can get past Genesis and creation and talking about any of these egalitarian complimentarian roles and understanding what God says in creation that Paul roots it in. Well, when God created Adam first and then he created Eve and Egalitarian is going to take the word helper in Genesis and say, "Well, God is also described as a helper, but God is not a helper to Israel, but God is not subordinate to Israel, that he's coming and helping." And again, I think, not to be too uncharitable, I think a plain reading of the Text leads oneself to the conclusion. There is at least some sort of distinction between ... And it also says that not all men should teach.
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In fact, Paul discourages all men from teaching, but that there is some distinction between what we could say a qualified man is able to do and versus a woman in the church. And Paul also goes on, someone could read that text and be like, "Well, that seems really demeaning and devaluing of women where Paul's saying, well, actually let me give you all of these ways in which women can in fact do. They may not have authority over man, but they may serve. They may give some others, but that they may be known by their good works. Or if you go into the first section in prayer and all of that, he's not using this as a way to devalue women, which again is what culture is telling us to do, that anytime there's authority in that, you're going to find some sort of devalue in order to resist authority when in fact authority is God's gift to mankind to show us how things are meant to be.
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But he says in verse 15 of that passage, yet she will be safe for childbearing again. That's a podcast for a different day. But he says, but if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control, there is a way in which they engage and serve. And again, where it comes down to the nuts and bolts of this passage of if we're taking this authority, this domineering in a positive sense versus a negative sense is going to be the application of it. What does it mean to teach to find that? And then what does it mean to have authority in the church?
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And people may have specific follow-up application questions about that specifically for us at West Hills and be happy to ... I mean, we obviously have answered that many times in personal conversations or whatever. But yeah, I mean, I can imagine anyone, but especially a woman listening to this podcast and having those kinds of specific questions wait. So why can we speak from the microphone beside Brian on a Sunday, but not from the pulpit? And could a woman lead worship at West Hills? Could a woman ... So she can teach in the kids' ministry, but not in some adult Sunday school classes, but not all of them. Like what about the youth group? Where do you make those determinations? What about a life group? What about a discipleship? Well, not discipleship. Women, but a life group. Can a woman or is that exercising authority? Is that teaching authority?
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Authoritatively. So anyway, we've got our own answers to those that not necessarily that they're right, but it's what we got and it works for us. And we're doing our best to try and be faithful to how we understand what we understand God's word to say. But I like what you ... Two thoughts just that came up for me as you're hearing you, Thad. One is I think that like you said, we always just have to know ourselves and be careful about IsoJesus. ExoJesus is reading out of the text. What does it say? Starting there. And now what does it mean? Versus IsoJesus reading into the text. And again, without trying to be uncharitable, but like you mentioned the plain reading of scripture, I just don't think anyone can come to ... I guess they do, I don't know, but can come to the Bible with the best objective, like trying to be objective and like, "I'm not imposing my values on you.
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I just want to know, God, I believe this is your word, so you just tell me what to believe," and walk away thinking, "Yeah, there's no difference in the way God has created men and women other than some of the anatomical ... Other than in the bedroom, same thing, man and woman." No, you cannot come away with that perception without just imposing it on the text. And so that's just true. The other is though to the positive side of what you're saying about ... You just made me think about one Corinthians 12 to frame it positively. And what Paul says about spiritual gifts, I think he would also, not that he does, but I think he would say about gender sex. Don't be the foot wishing you were the hand. Don't be the ear wishing you were the eye and say, "Oh man, I'm less than because I'm not the eye." No, God has made you the ear and the ear is important.
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So be the best ear you can be for the church.
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I'm the preacher. I get to have to speak on Sundays at West Hills. You probably don't want to be that. So don't be envious and wish you were me. Just be the best children's minister. Be the best bulletin hander outer. Be the best. But same thing for gender and for your role in the church. Don't feel less, don't allow anyone else to ... Don't let the egalitarians let you, make you feel less than the elders of the church and the pastors who are all men just because that's just not the way God created you. It's not what he called you to. Instead, appreciate how he did create you and call you and the unique gifting and responsibilities entailed with that and play your part the best you can.
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All said. Wonderful. Well, that's it for this week's episode of Vast the Pastors. Remember that you can submit your questions by visiting the info bar at West Hills by submitting them online through our website at www.westhillstl.org. Join us next week where we address the question, "Do you think crypts are real?" We might have to Google that.
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And what are they?
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And if you enjoyed this week's episode, hit that like button, subscribe, share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening and we look forward to catching you next week.