Book of 1 Timothy - Ch. 2, v. 12

Okay. Well, good morning, everybody. Good to see everyone. Good to be back. Dave's not here today, but I will share my appreciation anyway for him covering for me. I texted him literally Sunday morning of last week, and he covered for me.

So I appreciate that very much. And it's good to be back, though. And we will pick up right where we left off just a couple of weeks ago. We'll just cut right to the chase. And just to remind everybody where we're at, we're in 1 Timothy chapter 2, and we are right in the middle of a very important passage, these days a very controversial passage.

Interpreting 1 Timothy 2 Without Simplistic Conclusions

We're going slowly through it because we don't want to treat it simplistically like some do, but we certainly don't want to ignore it like the majority of people do. And you can ignore something in a number of ways.

Ignoring doesn't necessarily imply that you act like it doesn't exist. You can ignore it in the way of perhaps reinterpreting it or throwing some anachronistic gloss over the top of it and look at it through the lens of the 21st century rather than the time it was written, or maybe we're going to look at some of the objections to this passage probably next week.

I don't think we'll be able to get to it today. But some may say, well, this is solely isolated for the 1st century context, which the Apostle Paul was in, so it doesn't apply to us. So there are a number of ways that you can ignore what's going on here, even if you don't act like it just doesn't exist or something like that.

The point is there are a great many ways in which this passage is ignored by the majority of the church today. And then the minority that does try to take it for what it says sometimes comes away with some simplistic conclusions.

And this is helpful to remember for any passage of the Bible you study, not just this one, but for all of the Bible, is that the Bible is never simplistic, but it is consistent. What I mean by that is, well, and I could say this as well, the Bible in many places is simple, but it's not simplistic.

So to take something simplistically would be to perhaps take a passage in isolation and you misapply it in a very wooden way, in a way that begins to go kind of cross a particular threshold that it wasn't intended for because it says what it says.

That's kind of the circular argumentation there. So that's what I mean by simplistically. The Bible isn't simplistic, but it is consistent. So it's not ambiguous. It is clear. It's not arbitrary. We've certainly covered that a great number of times.

It's consistent. And so what we will find now as we kind of continue to move through this is we will find an application for the commandment we're about to see that can be consistently applied without contradicting other passages, which we will also look at, that some people will try to use to refute the Scriptures.

They'll use the Scriptures to refute the Scriptures, and, of course, that is an egregious mishandling of God's Word. So we'll cover all of this. But let's go ahead and jump into it. 1 Timothy 2. I'll begin in verse 11, which we've already covered, but segue right into verse 12 as it's all one thought.

The Apostle Paul says in verse 11, Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection or submissiveness. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. So we'll kind of park at verse 12 for today, cover it slowly, just like we did with verse 11, so we ensure we're not missing anything.

And then as we get through, all the way through the end of the chapter, we'll take one more look at all of these verses together in one fell swoop because we don't ever want to miss the overall message, the overall argument, honing in too closely to any particular thing.

So we're going to do both. We're going to hone in very, very closely, and then we'll zoom back out later. Now we have to address Paul's choice of words here at the very beginning of verse 12 really quick.

He says, but I suffer, and then he goes on with an argument. Another way that you could render that first phrase there is, I do not allow or I do not permit. And then he goes on from there, permit a woman to teach.

We have to recognize what's going on here. We have to ask the question, when the apostle Paul comes in and he says something like, I do not allow, does this imply that all of the sudden Paul is shifting from divine, sharing divine words to sharing his opinion, separate from anything that Jesus himself would have taught or anything like that?

When the apostle Paul, again, uses a particular phrase like this, I do not allow, I this, I that, does that imply it is then his opinion over against anything else that we would find in Scripture or that Jesus would have taught?

And this is somewhat of a rhetorical question because for those of us in the room, we know that the words that we find in Scripture, this is an assumption that we have, the words we find in Scripture are divine words.

Inherently they are all given by the Holy Spirit. We have a reason to have that assumption. It's not a blind assumption. We have a reason for it. But we assume that when we read Scripture, and yet what you'll find when you go out into the world is maybe you turn to a passage like this because you have a woman preacher, quote-unquote, or a woman pastor berating you for condemning such a thing.

And so you open up the pages of Scripture and you go somewhere like this and you read the verse thinking, done deal. And then she says something along the lines of, well, that's just Paul's opinion. So even though we don't, we would never really entertain such a thought, at the same time you could get caught off guard with stuff like that if you don't understand how people can nitpick and come away with such an erroneous conclusion.

And so it's good to cover some things just so that it's in the back of your mind. You could pull from it so you have a way to defend the hope that is within you, as the Apostle Peter tells us. So first of all, let's say someone comes at us with that particular argument.

Well, Paul begins the verse by saying, I do not permit. That's him talking. It's not Jesus. It's not God. It's just Paul's opinion. If that were the case, we would have a number of severe theological issues on our hands.

And here's one thing to remember. When you're talking with a person that is attempting to stand for the Word of God, in this case let's just say hypothetically it's a woman, quote-unquote, pastor, she is having to a degree make the perception to her people that she is going to handle God's Word at least somewhat accurately so that they follow her.

She knows that there's authority in that. So she is kind of cut or found between a rock and a hard place, so to speak, because she has to keep that perception alive even though she herself does not believe it.

She could not care less. A person in that position could not care less about scriptural consistency. And so she's now in a tough spot. So when you throw out the idea that there would be a number of theological issues, if you were to take that interpretation that this is Paul's opinion, inside she may not care with that at all.

But at the same time a person like that would most likely need to be somewhat careful with how they would respond to that because if their parishioners were listening or something like that, all of a sudden they could lose a little bit of that authority that they so badly want to cling to.

And so proponents of an interpretation like this is Paul's mere opinion or something like that, what they don't realize is that it tangles them up so badly in dozens if not hundreds of other contexts throughout Scripture if they try to use an interpretive framework like that where they are now going in and out between divine words and opinion.

And I'll give you a couple of examples of that. Number one, let's just start with our assumption for a second. Paul isn't sharing a mere opinion here. Of course we would say that. But why do we come to that conclusion?

When he says, I suffer not or I do not allow, what he's doing is he is using a very common rhetorical tactic that is used all throughout the New Testament and when it's used in the context of the New Testament, which is what we're dealing with here.

We're not dealing with any sort of extra-biblical writings. We're not dealing with some of the early church writings that weren't inspired and you could make arguments were more like men just putting together a systematic theology or something like that.

That's not what we're dealing with. We are dealing with the New Testament itself, which presupposes divine inspiration, divine authority. When you see this particular rhetorical tactic where an apostle like Paul says, I command this or I do not allow that.

When you see that, it never applies opinion in any of the places that you find it because in all of the places that you see that, it always is preceded by the apostolic signature, if you will. And I mean the clearest example is just the very book we're looking at.

Go back to chapter 1 verse 1. What is the thing that started all of this? What was the first domino to fall that got us to the point we're at in chapter 2 verse 12? It's the apostle Paul saying, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope.

And so every single word that follows this particular greeting or salutation is coming by the commandment of God our Savior through the mouth of Paul. And so we need to remember a couple of things. The Scriptures never at any point lower the importance of the man, his emotions, his writing style, his teaching techniques, all of the things that he learned.

So in the case of the apostle Paul, we actually know from Scripture who his specific teacher was. In Acts we learn it was a man by the name of Gamaliel who was a Pharisee. But he was one at the top, and he was one that was honest enough.

We don't know whether or not he was saved. There's not a recording of his testimony or anything like that. I at times like to think that perhaps he was later in life because he was one of the guys that stood up when the Sanhedrin was just going mad, wanting to mistreat the apostles, saying, how do you know these aren't the words of God?

Essentially, I'm paraphrasing. But Gamaliel stood up and with authority tried to calm everyone down so that they would give ear to the apostles rather than just execute them or at least desire to execute them immediately.

So that was Paul's teacher. The apostle Paul was also a Roman, so he had like the best of all of the academic worlds converging upon him as a young man. He had a Hebrew of Hebrews in his teacher, Gamaliel, and he had all of the Roman education that a Roman citizen would have access to, especially one of the higher class, which the apostle Paul would have been.

And so God does not throw away all of that knowledge and all of the techniques that are learned in an environment like that. He uses it. This is why you have Moses penning the first five books of the Bible.

What is he using? He's using the Egyptian tools of communication, which was one that would have been probably superior to that of the Hebrews living under the iron fist of the pharaoh. They would have been in slavery, of course.

And so Moses, and we learn this in Acts as well, go figure, that he was well-educated, and that education was used to give us the first five books of the Bible as a means. It wasn't because of his education they were used as a means.

And so why do I say all this? Somewhat of a rabbit trail, but here's the application of it. As you read through the epistles, God does not throw away the style, the character, the personalities, the emotions of the men that are writing.

So that's the first thing that we have to remember as we read through these things. That is why you will see differing literary genres being utilized, differing writing styles being utilized, even though ultimately it's one author, and who is that?

It's the Holy Spirit. It's incredibly dynamic, and it's one of the things that makes it as majestic and magnificent as it is is that it isn't all just one singular running dialogue with one style being utilized.

You have a number of unbelievable men that were getting to take place in this. So the first thing to remember is their personality, style, and all that is always going to be used. It's not thrown out.

The second thing to remember, which of course is arguably the most important, is that it is one spirit behind all of the words. One author through dozens of penmen, and I don't have a problem referring to them as the authors of a certain book as long as you understand what you mean by that.

But the Holy Spirit is ultimately the one that wrote these words. And so when you see the Apostle Paul use a rhetorical tactic, such as he does in this particular verse, that does not negate what began at the very beginning, which was what?

I am an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Savior. I'm not speaking by my own authority here. I'm not speaking by my own whims, my own opinions, my own preferences. These are all directly from the command of God, and it's right there at the beginning of the context that we find all of these disputed passages.

So you're dealing with someone that wants to say this is Paul's opinion? Take them right back to verse 1. And the burden of proof is then on them to prove that there is something within the text itself that would indicate that there would have been a shift from divine authority to man authority only.

The burden of proof is on them, it's not on you, because you have the context, which begins at verse 1. Now, as if that wasn't enough, we also see this exact thing happening in this very book. We could go to a number of places to illustrate this, but we'll just use exactly where we're at here.

The same device is used with the same rhetorical force in this very chapter. Look at verse 1 and 2 of chapter 2, where we're at. I, there's the singular salutation there, I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, a giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet, peaceful life, and it goes on from there.

No one would argue that that is merely the opinion of Paul. The people that want to make the exact same argument that verse 12 is Paul's mere opinion would not disagree that this is not Paul's opinion in verses 1 and 2 up here, even though it begins with what?

I, Paul, exhort. And then you get down to verses 8 and 9. He says, I, therefore, that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. Is this just Paul's opinion that men should pray everywhere?

Or is this something that God wants, that is honoring to him, and Paul is the means in which that desire and that command is being passed along? And so you can look at a number of other passages in which the same rhetorical device is used without any issue whatsoever with regard to what Paul is doing, and it does not remove even a little bit the idea that these very same passages are God-breathed simultaneously.

So it's not merely Paul that doesn't allow these things to take place, but what it is is it's Paul delivering God's design to the church. So if you ever hear anybody say something as erroneous as that is Paul's opinion, or to ever use the word opinion in the context of divine scripture, then they have a presupposition that is faulty, that, again, the burden of proof now falls on them, and they won't be able to derive a proof from the text.

So at that point, where would you derive the proof from? And it just falls apart from there. And so there you go. You have Paul delivering God's design to the church as an emissary of Christ through his apostolic authority, which of course is grounded at the very beginning of this epistle, that has been given to him by God and by no one else, certainly not by his own authority.

And so in other words, these are the words of God. You don't have to turn here if you want to just listen, but if you want to, in 2 Timothy 3 .16, one of the most famous verses in the Bible, is where we can derive this assumption that we have, where here the apostle Paul says all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction, for righteousness.

And what's even more amazing, as if that's not amazing enough, is that the apostle Peter in one of his epistles tells us point blank that Paul's words are just as much scripture as Deuteronomy. And, I don't know, it's a fun rabbit trail to take at that point.

I won't do it for the sake of time. But the point is, these are God's words here, not Paul's opinion, even though you will hear that argument with regard to this verse, specifically verse 12, but really this whole passage.

At some point, at some point in your life, you will probably come across that particular argument. So there is something that God does not allow here. Not just Paul. Paul is the mouthpiece. Paul is the means.

Paul is the apostle, yes, and he does have authority, and it is him saying the words or writing them. But it is ultimately God that doesn't allow something here. So what is it? Now, all that is the backdrop.

The Meaning of “Teach” in 1 Timothy 2:12

We can leave that behind for the time being and get back to the actual text here. What is it? What is it that God doesn't allow? In verse 12, it says, I suffer not a woman to teach. Now, just like we did with verse 11, let's pause for a second.

There are some additional things that are to follow. But let's just hone in on the word teach for just a second because this automatically opens up a number of questions that we have. If you're a prudent student of the Word of God, you will immediately have some passages come to mind in which you know that you at least would have to deal with it in the sense of harmonizing with this passage because we have a very direct commandment here not to do something, but it is something that in other passages we see happening.

So we're going to look at all of that. For the time being, let's define what it means to teach for a second. What does teach mean? It comes from the Greek word, just a little bit of foundation here, didoskeo.

And it's where it's the same Greek word that we get our word didactic from. So does this mean that a woman cannot teach anything in any context when he says, I suffer not a woman to teach? At this point, and you can start to see how a text like this can be used simplistically on one side where it may be totally ignored over here.

It could be simplistically dealt with over here where you just read the verse and you're like, oh, well, there it is. But for people that are in the word of God and that read it broadly, read the entire narrative of redemption history altogether, we know that we can answer this question with a resounding no, backed by scripture, not just backed based on what we feel may be right or not right, but because scripture tells us that it's not an exhaustive injunction at this particular point.

What's happening is in this context of 1 Timothy chapter 2, it's referring to a specific, well, a specific context. It's referring to the public explanation of God's word. Public is a word that you could emphasize.

Explanation is a word you could emphasize. God's words, those two words are something you can emphasize. They all go together. And it's very important that it's important to Paul's argument here that we understand exactly what he's talking about.

What we have to recognize is that God's word intrinsically carries authority. So when you open up the pages of scripture and the words themselves are read, there is authority there, which, by the way, is why we have heretics.

It's why we have false teachers. It's why we have people that when Jesus returns and they say, Lord, Lord, have we not done all these things in your name? And he says, I don't know who you are. Depart from me.

The reason why they were ever doing anything in his name wasn't because they loved him. It wasn't because they wanted him, which is why they are then cast into outer darkness. It's because they recognize there was authority here and they wanted the authority for themselves.

So it was used as a mere mechanism to attract the following of other people. And so God's words intrinsically carry authority. The demons know this. False teachers know this. Christians need to remember it.

Sometimes we forget. And then we start getting lax with some of these injunctions that we have because we forget about the importance and the reverence that we should show toward how to handle these intrinsically authoritative words.

I'm going to continue to flesh this out. But this is an important foundational piece here. God's words intrinsically carry authority. And so naturally, here's where verse 12 comes into play. Naturally, the explanation of those words in a God-ordered setting is an authoritative action.

So if God's words have intrinsic authority, it follows that the explanation of those words also carry authority. So then it's a matter of, well, what context are these words being explained in? And as if the New Testament couldn't be more clear, when it comes to the public explanation of God's words, it is reserved for a particular type of man.

Not all men, by the way. We'll get to that perhaps in just a second. But a particular type of man. And so as we're going to see in a later passage, in fact, in the very next paragraph, if you want to think about this epistle here in paragraphs rather than in chapters because there weren't chapters originally, in the very next paragraph of all of this, the Apostle Paul goes into basically showing us how God has a very specific group of men in mind for assuming this authoritative role in the church.

Not just any man, but a specific group of men. And these men that are specifically called are called to shepherd a flock. In other words, to pastor a church. So it's not just a matter of biology. I'll put it this way.

You could say that's one component of it, but the man also has to be qualified. You cannot just put anybody behind a pulpit in any church. Some people do this, but it's to their shame. It's to their detriment.

You cannot put just anybody behind a pulpit, man or woman. You have to understand that God had something very specific in mind for the delivery of the explanation of His words so that everything just doesn't fall apart and go awry.

And so that the church itself cannot be mocked, which we see in other places as well.

I was reading last night. Even Deuteronomy 13 says, I'm sending false people to see if you're devoted to me. It's that intentional that whether it's a heretic or whether it's the bad person in the pulpit, it still attests to your relationship, your person.

Are you going to let this test that person? Are you going to allow them to continue? Or are you just going to kick them out and be like, nope, nope, that doesn't line up?

Well, one thing that is good to remember is that God isn't giving us structure. He's not giving us framework to never be used. And so we have to be careful because we have to understand that God isn't just going to hover over us with this special divine protection in the sense that we are never tested by anything whatsoever.

So there will be times where you will have a false teacher come into the most faithful kind of church and that will have to be dealt with as a test based upon our fidelity to these very scriptures right here.

Qualifications for Authoritative Teaching in the Church

In Revelation chapter 2, when Jesus himself is walking among his churches, unbelievable portion of scripture, and he goes to the church at Ephesus, and he is giving them all of these commendations, he has something against them that they forgot their first love, which I believe was him.

They were prioritizing other things. But one of the things they got right was that they knew how to argue against the false apostles, as it's put in that chapter. So a faithful church was receiving false apostles close enough to home where they had to refute them in that context at church.

And they were doing so well. So they got commended for that. But they forgot their first love, and so they needed to fix that, of course. And so the point you're making, Robert, of course we see this in the Old Testament as well as in the New, is that the reason why we dig deep into things like this is so we don't miss it and so we don't fall into the trap of false teachers and things like that.

And what is one of the ways you can easily start falling prey to false teachers? By mixing things up a little bit and maybe letting some of the godly women in the church share something from the pulpit every now and then.

Again, if you start to get lax on the importance of why some of these things are delivered in the way they are, it opens up the door for further turmoil that nobody would want and things of that sort.

And so, again, here we are. God's Word's intrinsically authoritative. Therefore, the explanation of those words are an authoritative action when they take place. Which, by the way, it's an authoritative action when it is assumed by anybody.

So because the words are authoritative, the explanation of those words are then authoritative. And as we will see again a little bit later, God gives us the qualifications for who should be imparting all of that, the explanation and things of that sort.

So because this type of teaching is a part of the job description for a pastor, because of its innate authoritative nature, women may not teach in this way. So there's the commandment. That is what God is saying cannot happen.

Which is why any faithful Christian should stand up without compromise and without the fear of anybody thinking poorly about them condemning such an action. Because what it's doing is it's, number one, subverting the Word of God.

So that obviously is important as well. But it also disfigures a particular type we have, which is a pastor is a shepherd, which is representative of Christ as the shepherd. And so just like you can't have a woman be a father or a woman be a husband who represents the bridegroom in the masculine form, you can't have a woman assume the role of pastor or shepherd who is a picture of the shepherd in the masculine form.

And so none of this is arbitrary. It all fits in beautifully in the overall structure of what did we all begin with? God's good design for men and women. God's good design for men and women. Now in the very next paragraph, we receive a detailed list of qualifications.

I've mentioned this a couple of times at this point. One of those qualifications, we'll get to it when we get to chapter 3, is apt to teach. So this is the kind of teaching that is in view in verse 12 here.

It's all within the same context. This kind of teaching that Paul is addressing is only appropriate for not just men, but qualified men, as we will see. Go ahead, Yannick. Sure. Sure. Well, and of course, there's better arguments.

It doesn't surprise me that someone would use that argument. There's even stronger ones than that. What about Philip's daughters prophesying in the New Testament? What about Deborah as a judge? What about Priscilla teaching doctrine alongside Aquila to Apollos, who was already a formidable teacher?

There are a number of passages that are appealed to to try to make this very point. And I'll give you a nutshell version right now, Yannick, but that very question will be answered more as we progress because, again, we're going to take a look at the objections.

And you're bringing up one of the objections as well, too. How can this be exhaustive? How can this mean what the Apostle Paul is saying, or at least seems to be saying it means? The answer, the very nutshell answer to the question for now, is that there is a qualitative difference between expositing the Word of God in the ordained structure of a local church, which didn't exist until after Pentecost anyway.

There's a qualitative difference between that and something like God speaking through a prophetess, in the case of Philip's daughters, a donkey, in the case of Balaam's donkey, or in an office-like judge, which was the case of Deborah.

We're talking about completely different things at this point. You have to think in categories. It would be a category error, in other words, to say, because Deborah was a judge, therefore women should be pastors.

It would be a category error, and we'll look at this one more closely in a second, to say because Priscilla taught Apollo's doctrine alongside her husband, therefore women should be pastors. Completely different categories.

What are we talking about in 1 Timothy 2? The public assembly of believers. Public prayers have been in view. Public exhortations have been in view. The way in which women should present themselves in public is in view.

Men not brawling and all these types of things are in view, and so we're talking about a specific context here, and you can't bring in other contexts to penetrate that and then try to conflate all of it.

So that's the short answer. I'll dive into it a little bit more as we go, though. That's a fantastic question. But again, the kind of teaching that Paul is addressing is only appropriate for qualified men.

Not just men, but they have to be qualified. Because to teach here in this particular context, publicly and authoritatively, is to teach the very words of God, which have to be handled correctly. Go ahead, Robert.

A couple of weeks ago you also said that our attire speaks of our engagement. This is a female who is the glory of a man. Taking leadership in so doing, she would be attiring herself as a chief, as a head, as a spoke.

It would be putting on that mantle. Obviously there are some denominations that use robes or whatever. I'm not even really addressing that, but it would be, oh, this is our pastor, this is our leader.

And so right after it says addressing modestly, then he's saying, by the way, your interaction, the way you dialogue with people needs to be this way. Right.

Head Coverings, Public Prayer, and Prophecy

Well, that does open up another, let's just say, facet of this. Right. Because in 1 Corinthians, here's the thing. I'm trying to figure out how to articulate this. Maybe this will help. Women in 1 Corinthians, when it came to public prophecy or prayer, could do so.

But to your point, the attire had to change. So they had to do so under the submission or under the authority of their husband and ultimately the elders by wearing a head covering. So if today, and by the way, that would still apply today.

So while prophecy has ceased and we can, I mean, Dad has proven this more thoroughly than probably anybody I've ever read. And I laugh because of the thoroughness of it, not because it's not worthy of it.

It absolutely is. The prophecy part has ceased. What about public prayer? Well, women can pray publicly, obviously. But if a church were to ever have a woman, maybe you could say by necessity. It's like something weird happens.

Like everybody, I don't know. World War II happens and all the men are gone. You have one old man leading the congregation, a congregation of women. He falls over and has a heart attack or something. And, you know, somewhat the service needs to be closed and they want to close it with prayer.

A woman could do that. But the instruction for how to do that in the New Testament is for her to wear a head covering to show the world that she is respecting the act of submissiveness, that she is still reverent toward her standing underneath her husband.

And then, of course, ultimately to God. To your point, woman's the glory of man, man's the glory of God. All of that ties in.

And there were believers that Paul came to Lydia, for instance, either a wife or a widow. And there were ladies out laundering or whatever. And then he comes in and now he's leading the assembly and whatever training he caused to be, now these ladies were no longer without teaching but rather had a man equipped to teach.

But they were, in fact, in solitude doing their worship in a way, in an appropriate way.

Sure, and like I said a second ago, I mean you have—so you have Philip's daughters and they were doing so in the presence of their father, but they were doing so from a position of submission. And that's why we have the very specific commands of head coverings in 1 Corinthians as well.

And so just to give you—I want to give you all just a little taste of something before we close, maybe about five minutes. And I want to begin to answer the question that we have already answered in the negative.

The question is, does verse 12 mean that women cannot teach ever in any context? And we answered no, but we need to flesh that out a little bit. Why are we giving that answer? Why is it that we can consistently give that answer in the negative while we can also affirm that women are never to assume the pulpit or to never teach in the way that a man should teach in church?

It raises that question. To what extent should this command be applied? And this begins to kind of answer your question a little bit, Yannick, in the sense that by answering this question, it also answers— it also gives us the context for all those other scenarios that you mentioned or that other people mentioned, like the donkey or Deborah or something like that.