14: Does The Bible Really Say A Woman Is Not Permitted To Teach A Man?, Part 2

Welcome to the Ready for Eternity podcast. This is Eddie Lawrence. In the previous episode, we noted six things that are vital to a proper understanding of Paul's words in 1 Timothy 2, verses 11 through 14.

Does the Bible really say a woman is not permitted to teach a man? Let's put the pieces together and see where they lead.

A woman must learn in quietness and full submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. She is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman who was deceived and fell into transgression.

1 Timothy 2, 11 -14.

This passage is not about women teaching men, but our English Bible translations certainly make it appear that way. This passage is not about women teaching men in church. Neither is it about women serving in positions of authority in the church.

In fact, the church assembly isn't found in the context of 1 Timothy at all. So if Paul isn't talking about women teaching men, or having authority over men in the church, what is he talking about? In this passage, Paul is talking about husbands and wives.

He isn't addressing what a woman's role is in the church. He's addressing her role in the home. The context is marriage. That's right, the context of the last part of 1 Timothy 2 is about husbands and wives.

In fact, Paul refers to the very first husband and wife, Adam and Eve. Paul is basing his hermeneutic on the creation, the way God intended things to be before sin. In addition to the very clear reference to the very first married couple, Paul also talks about childbearing in verse 15.

Now verse 15 is very difficult to understand. In fact, there really is no consensus among Bible scholars and commentators about what Paul meant in verse 15. Regardless, he speaks of bearing children, the product of married couples.

Only married couples may legitimately bear children. So we can be certain that Paul is not referring to any other relationship than a husband and wife in this passage. Is there anything else in the passage supporting the assertion that the context is about husbands.

And wives?

Yes, there is.

Prior to verse 11, the passage refers to women and men, plural. A change occurs in verse 11 and Paul modifies his wording to a woman and a man, singular. He is no longer talking about men and women in general, but a certain kind of woman and.

Man.

A married woman and man. If this is so, why don't our English translations of the Bible say husband and wife in this passage? A few Bible translations do. The Common English Bible, the Orthodox Jewish Bible, the Expanded Bible and the Wycliffe Bible, and Young's literal translation, they all render this passage in terms of a husband and wife.

In addition, the New International Version and the Berean Study Bible have a footnote in verse 12, indicating that the Greek text may be referring to a husband instead of a.

Man.

Why the differences? In the Greek language of the New Testament, there are not separate words for husband and man and wife and woman. The Greek word gune means a woman of any age, whether a virgin or married or a widow.

Scholars translate the word as woman or wife, depending on the context. Likewise, the Greek word aner refers to a male, regardless of marital status. Whether the translators use the English word man or husband depends upon the context of the passage.

The point is that we can't tell anything about a man or a woman's marital status based only on the Greek word. In English, this isn't a problem. The words husband or wife automatically indicate a person's marital status, but this is not so in Biblical Greek.

So, it is reasonable in this passage to render these words husband and wife instead of man and woman if the context calls for it. Because the context here is clearly referring to marriage, one wonders why more English Bible translations fail to speak in terms of husbands and wives.

Bible translations still tend to follow the lead of the King James Version. Due to the male-dominated society of 400 years ago, it's easy to see why the King James translators rendered the passages they did.

John Walton makes this observation about Bible translation.

We must never forget that translation is the most basic act of interpretation. One cannot convey words meaningfully from a source language to a target language without first determining what they think the text means to say.

The translators of the earliest English translations read the Bible through a male-dominated lens. European Bible scholars of the 16th and 17th centuries probably read this passage and felt complete validation of their opinions of women's place in society.

The translators of centuries ago no doubt interpreted the Greek in light of their own biases and experiences. This manifested itself in their English word choices when translating. Mounce confirms this translation bias when he says,.

The way a translation handles an ambiguous verse reveals the theological leanings of the translator.

This is not meant as a criticism. Cultural biases affect how we all understand the scriptures. We can't help it. However, we must always strive to recognize our own biases so that we can be better students of God's Word.

In the previous episode, I shared the definitions of certain words that are key to understanding Paul's meaning in this passage. First of all, the word quiet, which appears in verses 11 and 12, isn't suggesting that a woman cannot speak.

It is commanding wives to be tranquil, the opposite of creating disturbances and drama. Secondly, the word submissive in verse 11 is not suggesting that the wives are to be subservient. The definition of the Greek word implies that one recognizes his or her proper place in a relationship.

Everyone is submissive to someone. In the workplace, we all submit to those above us in management. In schools, students are subordinate to teachers. God has ordained that marriages are also an ordered relationship with husbands designated as the leader of the family.

Third, the Greek word which is translated teach in verse 12 has two definitions. One of them is exactly what one might expect. It means to provide instruction in a formal or an informal setting. The other definition of this Greek word is to tell someone what to do.

BDAG, the Definitive Dictionary for New Testament Greek, cites Matthew 28 15 as an example of how Matthew used this second definition.

So they took the money and did as they were directed. Matthew 28 15.

So we see that the word which has been translated as teach can just as easily mean do what you are told. Given the context, this is almost certainly the meaning Paul had in mind. It fits perfectly with the next words that Paul used.

Exercise authority. The phrase exercise authority in verse 12 comes from a single Greek word. This word means to assume a stance of independent authority, give orders to, to dictate to. This dovetails perfectly with the definition of teach, to tell someone what to do.

After all, a wife who is assuming a stance of independent authority is more likely to boss their husbands around than to try to be their school teachers. Teaching just doesn't really fit in this context.

So let's take all these pieces and put them together. If one substitutes the definition of a word for the word itself, a sentence will still retain its intended meaning. Let's do this and see how the passage reads.

We'll also use wife and husband in place of woman and man since the context calls for it. This translation is every bit as valid as the one in most English Bibles. In fact, it is truer to Paul's intended meaning.

The reading of this passage where the definitions are substituted for the words themselves brings it all into focus. Wives must learn so that they will not fall victim to deception as Eve did. Greater knowledge isn't a guarantee against deception, but it does make it less likely.

It's easy to see the relationship between verses 11 and 14. We know these two verses are Paul's main thought due to the parenthetical nature of verses 12 and 13. However, Paul's point in verses 12 and 13 is not as clear.

What's the point of Adam being created first? Verse 13 gives the reason a wife is not to domineer over her husband. Paul's logic was that Adam was formed first. Well, okay, why does that matter? The point isn't about the order of creation.

Rather, it's about the reason behind Eve's creation. God's reason for creating Eve was to be a companion and helper to Adam. God did indeed create Adam first, but what Paul wants us to notice is what Adam was doing before Eve came along.

What did Adam learn while he was naming the animals? God gave him the job of naming the animals, but naming the animals was only a means to.

An end.

You see, God wanted Adam to notice something while he was assigning names. God wanted Adam to notice he had created mates for all the animals and that he created the animals male and female. Adam realized that there was not another like him.

God created Eve to be Adam's helper, his ally, his friend, a companion, and coworker. As Paul wrote elsewhere,. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.

For a wife to be the companion to her husband that God intends, she must remember that she is her husband's helper, not his boss. God didn't create Eve to dominate Adam or to become an independent authority figure.

She was to do for Adam what he could not do for himself. She was to be his companion. In turn, God meant for Adam to cherish his wife. As Matthew Henry so eloquently said,.

The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam, not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.

The order of creation has nothing to do with the reason a wife is to be submissive to her husband. Paul refers to the ordering to remind us of Adam's incompleteness. God created Eve for Adam. She was the counterpart he was lacking.

In all relationships, someone must be the ultimate decision maker, or perhaps tiebreaker. This doesn't imply that the submissive one in a relationship is inferior. Consider Jesus. Even though Jesus is himself divine, he is still submissive to his father.

Jesus is not something less than his father just because he submits to him. They are both equals. They are both divine. Yet Jesus submits to God the Father. Likewise, husbands and wives are equals, but God has appointed husbands to take the lead.

Does the Bible really say a woman is not permitted to teach a man? When we comprehend what Paul is really communicating, we realize this is not even the right question to ask. This passage says nothing about female leadership in the church.

It's not a prohibition against women teaching men in a Bible study. In fact, it doesn't apply to the church assembly at all. This passage is about the home. Does God permit women to teach men? The Bible does address this question, but we don't get the answer to that in 1 Timothy 2 verses 11 -14.

Priscilla taught Apollos in Acts 18 -26. The Christian women in Corinth could both pray and prophesy or teach in the church assembly as long as they adorned themselves properly. 1 Corinthians 11. Philip had four young daughters who prophesied.

Acts 21 -8. Do we imagine that they only taught women and children? Based on these passages, it would seem that women can teach men both in and outside of the church assembly. So what is the right question?

The question we should be asking is what did this passage mean to the Ephesians? How does Paul's guidance to women relate to the false teachings in Ephesus that Timothy was there to deal with? In the word biblical commentary on this passage, William Mounts refers to something that scholar Douglas J. Moose said.

Moose suggests that the false teachers were encouraging the women to discard traditional female roles in favor of a more egalitarian approach. The opponents taught asceticism, including abstinence from food and marriage.

And Paul's desire for young widows to remarry and have children suggests that family roles were being devalued.

It seems that times haven't changed that much. Today, women are still being encouraged to discard biblical female roles. Women's roles in the family are still being devalued. What God wants for Christian women of all times and places is to live up to their full potential by being the person He created them to be.

Perhaps what this passage is telling us, along with the puzzling verse 15, is that a woman's full potential is not found in ruling or dominating, but through faithfulness to her God-given role.

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