Understanding 1 Timothy 2: Context and Application

D.A. Carson analyzes 1 Timothy 2, emphasizing the importance of understanding Scripture within its historical and cultural context. He addresses the challenges of interpreting biblical texts, particularly those concerning women’s roles in the church, and argues for a balanced approach that considers both the sufficiency of Scripture and relevant historical insights.

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It’s my privilege to be with you and to wrestle with you on some of the texts that deal with one of the most sensitive and challenging issues of our time. The Bible is, of course, heavily anchored in history. Abraham was a historic figure who went from one geographic place to another geographic place. Moses was a historic figure who received certain revelation at a certain time and has given it to us in written form. Jesus rose from the dead in space-time history.

There is so much of the Bible that is anchored in history. It’s not merely an abstract book of propositions. This reality precipitates the question.… How much of history, then, must be understood for particular passages in the Bible to be understood? Two extreme positions are advocated and a lot of in-between ones. Let me clarify the issue by outlining the extremes and then suggesting that neither extreme is worth very much.

1. One position says, “No knowledge of history is necessary to understand the Scripture.”

This is often tied to the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture, which itself is often tied to claritas scripturae; that is, to the clarity of Scripture or the perspicuity of Scripture.

If you push somebody who takes this position hard, usually a footnote will be introduced to make for one exception, namely, philology; that is, you are allowed to do comparative studies in Greek; or for parts of Esther, Aramaic; or in Hebrew, so that you can get a better grasp of how the languages worked when the particular documents were written.

So comparative work is allowed, it is argued, in philology, but in any other domain, the exploration of history as in any sense a hermeneutical guide to understanding Scripture is simply a challenge to the sufficiency of Scripture. To which I would reply, “Suppose one of the words which you will allow to be studied because of philology makes an extratextual reference; that is, refers to something outside the text, and you have greater knowledge of what that outside-the-text thing is from archaeology and history? What then?”

For example, I’m sure we’re all familiar with the text in Revelation 3 that depicts the church in Laodicea. “I wish you were hot or cold; because you are not hot or cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.” Now for many, many, many centuries people argued that what the exalted resurrected Jesus is saying through the visions of John, is that Jesus himself, the exalted Christ himself, would prefer for Christians to be spiritually hot or spiritually cold rather than spiritually lukewarm.

Various devices are used to justify that pastorally, and you can make a sort of case. Nevertheless, in more recent times, people have done some first-class archaeological work that has shown that nearby Colossae had wonderful fresh, cold water. Nearby Hierapolis had hot springs. You can still go and swim in them today. But Laodicea had neither. It had water piped in in these Roman stone pipes.

It wasn’t piped in from Hierapolis, but from another place with hot water, and calcium carbonate actually built up in the pipes so that Laodicea was known throughout the ancient Roman world for having the most disgusting water in the universe. Cicero, when he was traveling east, comments on how revolting it was. So in the context of living in Laodicea, the text is saying something like, “I wish you were hot and enjoyable and useful or cold and enjoyable and drinkable but, in fact, you’re just revolting and disgusting.

In other words, it’s not recommending cold spirituality above lukewarm spirituality at all. It just misses the point. As soon as you understand where this lukewarm language comes from (you can see the pipes still laid out on the ground), then the exact meaning of that text becomes just a little bit clearer. There are lots of other examples that one could give.

In fact, the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture is not trying to disconnect Scripture from history in every respect. The chief formulations of things like the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture or alternatively the perspicuity of Scripture were often worked out most powerfully in the context of the Reformers’ tussle with the Roman Catholic Church.

With respect to the clarity of Scripture, the believers of the Reformation argued, “Don’t you understand? It doesn’t take a magisterial office. It doesn’t take priests. It doesn’t take the pope and the bishops to become the sacred guide to Scripture. You cannot possibly know its meaning unless you have their interpretation of it. Scripture itself is perspicuous. Which of course, was never taken to mean that every Scripture, every passage, is equally clear, or that there’s no place for teachers in the church.

What it does mean (transparently there are teachers in the church) is that no teacher in the church can ever claim to have a special inside track, a special esoteric knowledge that only I can have because I’m a teacher or I’m a priest or I’m a bishop. The Scripture is sufficient unto itself, and the Holy Spirit uses that Scripture through all kinds of devices, through reading, but also through teachers who the Spirit of God has raised up and so forth.

Likewise, for the sufficiency of Scripture, it’s not as if there is a deposit of truth that is given to the church which includes over here some written texts and over here some oral tradition and the authority of the church. It is sufficient. That must never be questioned. It becomes the final authority precisely because of the sufficiency of Scripture.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing to study philology or to know more about the ancient Roman world, to understand how crucifixion was viewed in the ancient world. When you understand how crucifixion is used in the ancient world, it becomes much more difficult to dangle crosses from our ears.

In the ancient world, a crucifixion had the odor that the Holocaust has to us. You couldn’t make jokes about the cross any more than today you can make jokes about the Holocaust. There were three modes of Roman execution. Crucifixion was for scumbags, sleazeballs, slaves. You couldn’t joke about it. People were told in little ethical booklets to make sure their children were never exposed to crucifixion.

And then the Christians started speaking of Jesus reigning from a cross. Can you imagine the power precisely within that culture? But you might not feel all of the power unless you do understand that in the first century when Paul spoke of crucifixion, it was in that kind of world. That doesn’t mean you can’t understand the Bible and be saved without knowing something of Roman history.

Don’t misunderstand me. In no way would I ever want to jeopardize the sufficiency of Scripture. Yet, there is a depth and a richness connected with the interpretation of Scripture that is anchored in part, at least, in understanding the ancient world in which these things were given. God did not reveal himself atemporally; he revealed himself in space-time history to particular people living at particular places in particular times.

2. The flipside tries to make everything depend on historical awareness.

Parallelism is in. At its worst, it is exegesis by parallelomania. Parallelomania is a term coined by the great Jewish scholar Samuel Sandmel where he says that there is a kind of approach to doing exegesis where you find ostensible parallels to things, and then once you found the right sets of parallels, then you determined the real meaning for your text.

I once read an article by a chap called Kysar who examined all of Rudolf Bultmann’s parallels to John 1:1–18 and all of C.H. Dodd’s parallels to John 1:1–18. One found 318; the other found 320. One proposed one sort of background; the other proposed another sort of background. Do you know what the degree of overlap was between the two lists? Seven percent.

With a little effort, you can find a parallel to almost anything. If you want to see a really hideous example, read Betz’ commentary on Galatians. That is exegesis by parallelomania. You just keep finding parallels and parallels, and once you have found the parallels that you’re happy with, you say, “This is what the text really means,” or “This is what the text is arguing against.”

Do you see? At some point you stop listening to the text. The result of some of this sort of exegesis is the kind of dismissing of what a text actually says by constructing ostensible backgrounds that are unlike what goes on today. So Isaiah says something, Paul says something, because in those days they did it this way, and of course we don’t do it this way today so we don’t have to pay any attention to what Isaiah and Paul say when they say this.

Now in my view, neither of these two extremes is finally defensible. God has disclosed himself in space-time history. We should rejoice in this, but it does not mean that we, therefore, have the warrant, let alone the knowledge, to be able to dismiss what God says when we find ostensible parallels that enable us at some level or another to domesticate it.

But that leads us then to some very complicated issues. If we are going to appeal to historical background, we had better be rigorous, cautious, careful, and perhaps above all, deeply concerned not to domesticate Scripture. Now all of that is prolegomena, in case you hadn’t noticed. In the case of our passage, almost all contemporary interpretations can be lumped into one of two types. In fact, you can break them down much more finely than this.

Nevertheless, you can break them down for convenience’ sake into one of two types: First, in this text, 1 Timothy 2:11–15, what is given has a universal bearing. Secondly, it is a text written to address a particular problem, then current, that is no longer found. So the instructions, therefore, no longer pertain to us because the problem being addressed by the apostle is no longer found amongst us. That, for example, is the sort of approach taken in the generally admirable commentary by Fee on the Pastoral Epistles.

Sometimes it is argued that there is evidence to suggest the women in Ephesus were particularly ignorant. What Paul does not want to have teaching the church are ignorant women, but if you have women who are educated and well-informed then, of course, Paul has no objection. Or alternatively, the women were seduced by a local heresy and that’s why he didn’t want them to teach. If, on the other hand, you remove the heresy then Paul would not have any objections. Think of Priscilla.

So again and again it is the reconstruction of the particular ostensible historical background that then becomes the reason for saying that the text, though important, though it says some useful things in principle, is not finally a text that has universal bearing in its application today. Transparently, 1 Timothy is written, at least in part, in the context of refuting a heresy. Transparently. Chapter 1, verse 3:

“As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain persons not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith.” Or chapter 4:

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.”

Clearly there is some kind of heresy perking along in the background. I don’t know anyone who would want to deny the point. How then shall we begin to adjudicate the contemporary debate as to the meaning of 1 Timothy 2:11–15 in the light of these historical reconstructions that have been advanced and the flow of the text? What I propose to do, then, in the next few minutes is to offer a number of comments on the flow of the text and then some pastoral reflections at the end.

1. Whatever the precise nature of the heresy that Timothy faces in Ephesus, Paul places over against it, the gospel.

That’s the heart of his entire book. In chapter 1, the warnings against misuse of the law, genealogies, and this sort of thing. Then verse 8, “We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. [But it is really designed for sinners.]” Then a long list of sinners. “[The law] is for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.”

Or again, in Timothy 3 and 4. You have this wonderful confession in 3:16, and then you have the insistence in chapter 4 on abandoning godless myths and old wives’ tales, “… but godliness has value for all things.… This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. That is why we labor and strive.”

That formula, “Here is a trustworthy saying,” has shown up likewise in 1 Timothy 1:15. “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.” There is a gospel centrality as that which stands over against all of these various myths and genealogies and disputed points, these causes of division. It runs right through the entire text. That’s the first observation.

2. It is possible that this heresy was tied to over-realized eschatology, but I’m not sure.

Let me spell out what I’m after. It is possible that this heresy was tied to over-realized eschatology. The verse that everyone cites to demonstrate this is 2 Timothy 2:18 with reference to Hymenaeus and Philetus who, we’re told, “… have departed from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some.”

In the understanding of resurrection that you and I have, it’s pretty hard to imagine how anybody could say that the resurrection has taken place. Show me your resurrection body. It’s not easy to understand exactly what they were teaching, but they might have had some notion of the resurrection that was bound up within an ethereal or nonmaterial spiritual kind of existence.

Maybe they came out of some Greco-Roman background that thought of matter as bad and spirit as good. So we have had the resurrection already, but that means that you’re not looking forward to the resurrection as we think of it at the end. With an over-realized eschatology, you tend to claim more of the blessings that are still to come now. That’s what you tend to do.

So if on the last day there is neither marriage nor giving in marriage then perhaps we should abolish all sexual distinctions and gender distinctions now, because there will not be any marriage or giving in marriage then. And on the last day, slavery will be abolished, so we can get rid of slavery now.

It is often argued that the heresy against which 1 Timothy is fighting is some kind of generalized over-realized eschatology, and this is then taken to mean that perhaps some women and some slaves were advocating a kind of social rebellion in the light of the eschatology, which in their view had already dawned, that threatened to upset not just the empire but the peace of the local church and tranquility in the home and failed to wrestle with the fact we live between the already and the not yet.

That is to say, there are some elements of the old creation that persist until Jesus comes back, and to try to have an over-realized eschatology results in some silly things. So that, it is argued, is why Paul adopts the stance he does.

If you are living in a situation like ours where perhaps we are not suffering from quite so much over-realized eschatology, where there are not a lot of people saying we really should be celibate and have equality because we already have resurrection bodies; therefore, Paul’s argument falls to the ground. They are no longer pertinent quite because they were directed against a particular heresy that is no longer found amongst us. How shall we respond?

A. We should not assume that the problem in the heresy of 1 Timothy is exactly the same as the problem in the heresy of 2 Timothy.

It’s possible, but it’s far from demonstrable. There are no unambiguous passages in 1 Timothy that speak of the particular errorists holding that the resurrection has already dawned or anything of that order.

B. More importantly, the feel of the problem in 1 Timothy is rather different.

Go over again at your leisure verses I’ve already read: chapter 1, verses 3–4; chapter 4, verses 1–5; and the many verses that presuppose there is bickering and strife.

It sounds as if what is going on in the church that Timothy is facing when Paul writes his first letter is bound up with an approach to exegesis and to holiness that is full of rules, using the law, that certain myths about genealogies and stories and whether you can get married or not and celibacy and maybe you’re more holy if you do it this way, in such a way that it’s causing division in the church instead of any feel of grace and the commonality of our sinfulness before God and the freedom that is ours in Christ Jesus, instead of the triumph of the gospel.

There is instead a whole rule-based structure full of ridiculous handlings of Scripture that actually turn people away from Christ, from the gospel, from grace. That’s what it feels like. It doesn’t feel like a great deal of over-realized eschatology, and the problem of turning towards a rule-based type Christianity is with us in every generation. Now don’t misunderstand me. Not for a moment am I saying that there are no rules. Not for a moment am I saying that there are no absolutes, not for a moment.

Part of our problem in our world, it seems to me, is that we understand that people are saved by grace through faith, but some of us still think that they’re sanctified primarily by the law. Now I’m not denying that there is an appropriate of the law either. That’s not my point. But when we see the culture beginning to slide, then we start thundering law and don’t see that it is the gospel that is the power of God to salvation to those who believe. That is what is transforming.

The law, according to Paul in 1 Timothy 1, never was designed to be transforming. It’s for all this long list of sinners. You see? It doesn’t have the power. It was never designed to be that sort of thing. Thus, one of the things we really must have, whenever you begin to govern all of society simply by rules, is the triumph of the gospel. Let me give a simple illustration or two, just because this point is so regularly misunderstood.

I’m sure virtually everyone in this room wants to advocate the importance of faithful reading of Scripture, meditation on it, and prayer, and so on. And God knows, there is lots of evidence that these habits are disappearing in many, many so-called evangelical churches, even in pastors’ homes. What do you do to change it?

Oh, there are lots of ways you can go about it. You could, for example, start a covenant in the local church that everybody signs on to, or as many people as possible sign on to, that you solemnly swear to spend at least X minutes a day reading your Bible and praying every day under threat of curse and disapprobation.

You could do something really strong like that, couldn’t you? And you actually might get some people to read their Bibles, you know? Who am I to want to discourage people from reading their Bibles? A few rules now and then might not be all that bad. But at the end of the day, isn’t it much more powerful if Christ is presented so glowingly, so powerfully, so transcendently gloriously that not to spend time with him in quiet is just unthinkable treason.

I have a friend who speaks to those who have been caught up in porn addition this way. “It was worship that got you into this, and it is worship that will take you out.” It seems to me that in the feel of what is going on in this book, it’s not over-realized eschatology; it’s a whole lot of rules that are nevertheless shaping things in a variety of ways, and with this has come bickering and strife and one-upmanship in the congregation.

C. So the heart of the response, then, to the problems in 1 Timothy is nicely summarized in chapter 3, verses 14–15.

“Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.”

In other words, the concern then, for answering all of these untruths is to teach people how they should be conducting themselves so that when you read through the whole book, you find instructions on what men should be doing, on what women should be doing, on what slaves should be doing, on what elders and deacons should be doing, on what various classes of widows should be doing, on what rich people should be doing, and two or three more.

In other words, there is a perception in Paul’s mind that what is going on is that the entire fabric of the local church is breaking apart because people are not acting as they’re supposed to be acting in line with the gospel. Do you see? Isn’t that what holds the whole book together?

D. Paul’s first step, then, after chapter 1 where the initial problem and the response of the God-glorifying gospel are set out, is to urge prayer.

After he sets out the wretched falseness and praises sound doctrine (in verse 10) and the gospel (in verse 11) and then warns again of the folly of rebellion, using himself as an example, he says, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.

But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

Do you hear this? The centrality of this God-glorifying gospel, and in that connection he exhorts Timothy to press on, and now he begins his exhortations. In other words, chapter 1 sets out what he sees as the problem: the centrality of the gospel by way of response, and now he gives the concrete exhortations.

What does he do first? His first step is to urge prayer. Verses 1 and following. In the first instance, he urges prayer for the state, “… petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone …” Let’s take in particular. “… for kings and all those in authority …” Not merely as an end in itself, but “… that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”

This, also, for a greater end; namely, the promotion of the gospel. Here there is prayer for the state in the hope there will be some sort of tranquility, which will then provide an occasion for the gospel, to which Paul immediately returns (verse 5), “For there is one God and one mediator between God and human beings …”

One of the implications of monotheism is mission. If there is one God, he is necessarily (whether he’s acknowledged or not) the God of all human beings. One of the implications of having one mediator and one God is mission, and what we need to make this missions smoother, he says, and a little more facilitative, is a certain amount of tranquility, so we pray for those in authority to this end. Once again you see how gospel-centered all of this is. Then he adds something extra. The men, in particular, he says, are to pray without anger or disputing.

“Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing.” Now unless Paul is sort of bringing this in just sort of off the cuff, good advice for people praying, then the reason for introducing it at this juncture is precisely because this is part of the problem in the church. The church is so busy arguing and disputing over these sorts of doctrinal and practical arrangements of life that at the end of the day even when they pray, it doesn’t sound like prayer. It’s probably preachifying. It’s scoring one-upmanship. It’s dead and cold.

Isn’t it wonderful to get into a church where people transparently love one another, where they delight to bring glory to Christ Jesus? Where the gospel is central? Then people get down to pray and they pray seriously and joyfully and thankfully and with contrition. By contrast, a church that is wracked and ruined by endless disputations about all kinds of complicated issues, where there is no joy, no contrition, no sorrow, no love, no God-centeredness.… Even the prayers themselves bounce off the room. They seem artificial. The whole thing seems so unreal.

I imagine some of us actually belong to churches like that, and you come out after some Sundays, and you don’t want to let down the side and feel critical, but deep down in the pit of your stomach somewhere, you can’t help wonder if the whole thing just feels as unreal to everybody else as it feels to you. I think that’s the sort of thing Paul is after.

You want prayers along these lines from the whole church, but that means that the men need to be praying without anger and disputing. Then he immediately adds, “I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.”

What is Paul doing here? Is he saying, “Well, I thought of a rebuke for the men; now, I’ve got a rebuke for the women.” That could be; it’s quite possible! But if there is any sort of coherence in the flow of the passage, then it’s because he sees that these are the peculiar weaknesses in the church coming out the church’s errors for men and women.

On the one hand bickering and strife and anger and on the other hand a kind of concern for my self-image and how I’m viewed in the social order of things and what kind of clothes I’m wearing and how much money I’ve got. That’s far more important when we gather for the meetings than it is to love one another and build one another up in our most holy faith and give God the glory, full of the cross and of grace. It’s all from the pit!

Do you see? There’s a certain coherence to it all. This is not trying simply to say, “If you ever wear a gold band on your finger you’re denying what Paul says, because he says, ‘Get rid of the jewelry.’ ” What that means is you really haven’t listened to the flow of the argument at all; it’s just one more piece of new legalism.

But some of us have been in churches where there have been all kinds of signs that it’s far more important to be seen wearing the right things and doing the right things and speaking to the right people than it is to be full of the gospel. What kind of prayer life is that church going to have? In other words, there is a coherence, it seems to me, to the argument that holds the epistle together, and the individual pieces should not be viewed in entirely broken-up, isolated forms.

Now we come to our paragraph. I don’t have time to do a phrase-by-phrase exegesis, partly because my chief concern in this address is with the flow of the argument. Besides, people have gone over the various turning points in this passage again and again and again, and I’m not going to say anything that is brand new.

But I really should indicate where I come down on some of the details that are disputed and briefly tell you why before I try to locate this within a broader argument. In my view, one of the best brief expositions of this passage (apart from some in some the better commentaries) is one by my dear friend, Doug Moo. His essay in the Piper-Grudem volume is admirably succinct and gets virtually all of the issues, in my view, right.

There is a longer volume of essays by Baldwin and Kˆstenberger, and there has been a recent exchange that is very interesting, indeed (I’ll refer to it in a moment) between Kˆstenberger and Philip Payne, but I’ll come to some of those disputes in a moment. Let me now draw your attention to some of the details; I won’t go through all of them.

In verse 12 Paul says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man.” I have seen it argued, not too frequently, but once in a while, that permit is a verb of concession; it talks about what is permitted, not about what is commanded. Therefore, this passage should not be made absolute. The problem with that logic is it’s the negative of permit.

If someone says to their 15-year-old daughter, “Yes, I permit you to go to the store,” she may go or she may not. If they say, “Tonight I do not permit you to go to the store” then it’s absolute. In other words, you cannot focus merely on the verb permit to talk about concession and, therefore, abolish absolutes. This is what Paul does not permit. In that sense, it’s pretty strong language. Now, of course, it could be that the context says, “I do not permit under certain circumstances,” but that is what we’re still trying to tease out.

He also says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to …” How do we translate authenteo? “… to exercise authority, assume authority, domineer …” Many, many different translations have been advanced. For those who wish to argue that Paul is trying to address a narrow problem of women who are trying to usurp authority but is not speaking against the proper use of authority and that the “teach or exercise authority” should be taken as one construct, the verb authenteo really has negative overtones. (Also, it is really quite rare in the New Testament and not the way Paul usually speaks of authority.)

That is, what Paul is forbidding is the kind of authoritarian teaching that usurps authority that doesn’t rightly belong to the teacher. “I do not permit women to teach that way.” Which, in that case, does not raise or address the question of whether women might be permitted to teach without usurping authority, where they have the authority, where they are speaking in appropriate fashion. What shall we say about this construction?

First of all, the verb authenteo in most instances has a neutral or a positive overtone, but there are a handful of instances where you can at least make a case for it to have a negative overtone. However, Kˆstenberger has gone through a very interesting study. He has worked through instances where you have this sort of construction, the sort I don’t permit this or this, to see if one of the verbs can have a positive overtone and the other can have a negative overtone, because all sides acknowledge that teach by itself has a positive overtone.

He insists in all of his research through the relevant literature they are both either positive or negative. Philip Payne responded and claimed to find three that went in opposite directions. Kˆstenberger responded to show that Dr. Payne had misunderstood those three in their context. In my view, having looked through the primary sources myself and reread these articles, Kˆstenberger wins that one hands down.

There is a second issue that you have to face. Is this a prohibition of two things or of one thing? Is this authoritative teaching (get rid of the word authoritarian, it’s negative) or is it teaching or having authority. You can make a case for two categories, but I think it rather misses the point, because in the New Testament authority is exercised in the local church, as we see in the following verses.

Authority is exercised in the local church in the first instance, through elders/pastors/overseers or elders/pastors/bishops … three words with one referent, three words that refer to one person … primarily through the teaching of the Word. In other words, it’s not that I am the pastor; therefore, I have the authority by virtue of my position. Rather, the authority is exercised primarily by faithfully teaching and preaching the whole counsel of God. That’s why we still continue to say, “Christ is the head of the church.” Do you see?

So although you might refer to two components of all of this, “I do not permit to teach or have authority,” in fact, the two are tied together in the New Testament. The exercise of authority in the ministerial office does not stand in the first place on status; it stands in the first place on total church submission to the authoritative Word of God, to the truth of the gospel, to what Jesus says, to words that will stand for all eternity and are rightfully and faithfully taught and proclaimed in the congregation.

Then, Paul says, to give a reason, “For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.” What is the nature of the argument here? Some wag has pointed out that Adam may have been created first, but pigs were created before either of them, so how can mere precedence establish anything like authority?

But in fact, where you find other places in Paul where precedence is mentioned, it is within a certain kind of argument. For instance, in 1 Corinthians 11, the precedence is important because what it means is that she was created for him. That is the argument of Genesis 2. He was not created in the first instance to be a helper for her; she was created for him. It’s not mere temporal priority that is at issue. In Paul’s allusion to the temporal priority, what he’s after is how the creation account actually reads.

As for who was deceived, again, the wags have had a field day. Adam was deceived by Eve. It took the Devil himself to deceive Eve, so who is the stronger? But in fact, when you look at the passage, one of the most important things to do in a hotly disputed climate is to try to say exactly what the text says and not more.

Now what the text says is she was deceived and not he. In Genesis 3, that’s the way the account reads. It doesn’t say, “She was deceived because she was morally inferior.” It doesn’t say, “She was deceived because she has less discernment.” It doesn’t say, “She was deceived because, well, statistically that’s the way it turned out and it could have been some other way.” It doesn’t give a reason.

I can think of half a dozen possible reasons, but the text doesn’t say, so I will not either. I have some suspicions, but I don’t know. God hasn’t said, but he has said something about creation order and about the order in the fall, and it is difficult to think of two more reasons less conducive to a temporal cultural analysis.

In other words, if what Paul was trying to say here was, “In this particular instance, women are less well-trained, less educated than men, and you have an awful lot of silly women teaching silly things, so I want them to be quiet,” then surely he could have given local reasons along those lines, rather than saying, “This is the creation order,” or, “This is the order of the fall,” than which it is difficult to think of more transcultural structures.

Do you see? Moreover, clearly in Ephesus some of the men were involved in whatever this error was. Two of them are already named for us at the end of chapter 1. “Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.” If what Paul is really after is a desire to shush the false teachers, why doesn’t he simply say, “I do not permit those who teach that doctrine to speak,” in which case, it would be both men and women.

But since transparently there are men teaching this false doctrine (however we analyze it), why is he silencing then only women if it’s primarily because the women are teaching false doctrine? Are all the women teaching false doctrine and only the women teaching false doctrine? Transparently, Paul has some very positive things to say about some women, including Lois and Eunice.

And later on in chapters 4 and 5 he talks about some women who have peculiar ministries of teaching other women, their godly souls. He does not think that all women should be silent. Nor can he possibly get away with saying that only women were heretics, because he’s already named some of the men just a few verses earlier.

In other words, to take this sort of reasoning as the reason why Paul imposes these limitations is, in fact, impossibly sexist, because it means that although there are men and women that are false teachers, Paul just picks on the women. The very argument which ostensibly relegates this passage to a mere cultural restriction of a temporary nature turns out to be an impossibly sexist reading that you cannot find anywhere in Paul’s writings.

Now one suspects again that this may be tied to the prohibition of marriage that some are arguing for in chapter 4. Maybe some think that celibacy is a higher spirituality? That was certainly common in the second and third centuries. There’s no reason to think it doesn’t go back to the first century. Because in much of the Greco-Roman world you have some kind of bifurcation. It’s not a universal perception, but it’s a common bifurcation that matter can be tied up with what is bad and spirit with what is good.

So one effect of that was to head toward asceticism of some sort. The other effect was that in some circles, people went toward hedonism, that the body isn’t important; it just dies. What’s important is what happens in your spirit, so you can show your freedom from the body by living like the world and the flesh and the Devil. Some people out of this sort of reasoning headed toward a kind of hedonism. Others went toward a sort of asceticism.

If you hold, therefore, that you’re more spiritual if you’re celibate, then Paul responds, and if there are people teaching this, you’ve got to understand that the framework in which women, normally, are saved, the context in which this takes place is being married and having children. Now that bites less 100 years ago than it does today when we have so many DINKS (Double Income, No Kids).

I’ve got a raft of relatives on one side of the family where there are many Christians around who are DINKS. So one of the reasons why in Western Europe, for example, there is no country in any part of Europe with a reproductive birthrate of 2.1 or higher, which is necessary for sustaining the population. Not one. It’s because we’ve got all kinds of couples now that are producing one child, a few that produce two, the odd one that produces three, but many that don’t produce any. They are DINKS (Double Income, No Kids).

You live at a better standard of living. Take holidays overseas two or three times a year. Of course, it hasn’t dawned on too many of them yet … they’re all Boomers and later … how lonely and broken down old age is going to be and what happens to the economy of nations when you don’t even produce the number of workers needed to sustain the present level, what that means for immigrant patterns.

There are huge studies that are developing on these matters nowadays. They’re really scary, and it’s not just in Europe; it’s in Japan and parts of China because of their birth policy now beginning to be reversed. But after all, 100 years ago, nobody would have even argued like that. Fifty years ago people wouldn’t have argued like that. We argue like this now because of the pill.

It was simply understood that intrinsic to marriage and the procreation of the race, the normal context for people to live and serve and die was in the context of the family, and for women, this meant that was the context in which they normally lived. They got married and they had children and that was the context in which they were saved. I don’t think the text is saying more than that, but it does raise some very fundamental issues about where our own priorities are.

I don’t think that it is demanding that everybody be a stay-at-home mum. There is that very notable woman in Proverbs 31, who seems to have quite a CV, but it does mean there is a certain priority to the family and the rearing of children that must not be gainsaid and must not be set aside.

Then immediately after this, you have the discussion of elders and deacons. It’s almost as if you see Paul is still dealing with the various bits of the church, the various clumps, the various groups, who are not acting quite right. The church is still bickering. It doesn’t have things quite right.

So when Paul lays out the criteria now for elders/pastors/overseers (or bishops), when you read through this list, what is most striking about it, initially, it seems to me, is how unremarkable it is. There is nothing in here that says an overseer is to have an IQ of at least 120, at least tertiary education, must be a Christian for at least 15 years, or anything of that order.

What does it say? It says he’s not supposed to get drunk. It says he’s not supposed to beat up on people. It says he’s supposed to be gentle, to have a good reputation. It’s remarkable, isn’t it? Oh, there are one or two exceptions, we’ll come to them in a moment, but it’s a remarkable list. It’s remarkable for being unremarkable. Moreover, when you go through the list, virtually every entry there you can find mandated of all Christians elsewhere in the New Testament.

So, he’s not supposed to get drunk. Does that mean the rest of us can get soused and it doesn’t make any difference? He’s not supposed to beat up on people, but we can? In fact, in every case, you can find out that the criteria that are mentioned are demanded of all Christians everywhere, which is another way of saying, “Elders are first of all to be exemplars of the Christian graces that are presupposed as mandated on all Christians.” Now if you have a church transformed along those lines, you’ve got rid of all this bickering and strife already, haven’t you?

There are really only two elements in there, maybe one and a half, that are not demanded of all Christians. The half is he mustn’t be a recent convert; he mustn’t be a novice, but you can’t lay that one on brand new baby Christians. It wouldn’t be quite fair. But even there, baby Christians aren’t supposed to remain baby Christian, are they? They’re supposed to grow in grace, but because, in fact, the Christian leader is supposed to exemplify mature Christian virtues; therefore, ideally that Christian leader should not be brand new, not a novice.

Even there you have to be pretty careful. What does that mean? It’s going to look very different in different places. When Paul goes on the first missionary journey, he gets out to the end, goes through Lystra, goes through Derbe, and then he starts coming back. We’re told that he appoints elders in every place. The whole trip took something under 2 years. He’s on the return swing within months, at most. He’s appointing elders in churches that haven’t had any existence for more than a few weeks to a few months.

I saw something of that in French Canada when I was growing up. Our churches were pathetically small and ridiculously enfeebled and weak until about 1972, when we grew from about 35 churches to just under 500 in eight years. Suddenly you had churches all over the place where nobody had been an evangelical confessing Christian for more than 18 months. We called those elders. What else are you going to do?

We looked for maturity as far as we could find it, and they became the mentors for new ones coming along, but in that kind of fledgling situation, that’s what you do. You try to have regional pastors to give them courses, and we started programs and theological education by extension and all these other kinds of things, but elder is a relative term in that sense, in the sense of maturation. But you wouldn’t want to put those people in as one of the elders in College Church, Wheaton, or some place like that.

Nevertheless, the principle is pretty clear. The elder, pastor, overseer is, above all, to be a mature exemplifier of the kind of conduct and life demanded of all Christians. Then the unique element that you find in all such lists of elders, pastors, overseers is, “He is able to teach.” That presupposes, first, the requisite knowledge, and second, the ability to communicate it.

There are some people who have the knowledge but couldn’t teach their way out of a paper bag. There are other ways to have a marvelous gift of communication, but really, quite frankly, don’t have anything to say. To be an elder/pastor/overseer, you must be able to teach, which presupposes those two things.

And what is to be taught transparently in the context of the whole book is the gospel, to the glory of Christ, the whole counsel of God, including how to live. Because you come to all of these passages, and Paul is telling to Timothy, “Tell this person this, tell this group that, tell that group something else, tell that group something else, command the rich this, command the widows who are under 60 that, the ones that are over 60 to worry about this.” Do you see?

The teaching of the whole counsel of God that they are to undertake includes the gospel, to the glory of God, in the first chapter, with this great christological song in the third chapter, with this constant recurring theme of the centrality of what it means to confess that there is one God and one mediator between God and sinful human beings, and then the outworking of all of this in the life of the church, to teach the whole church how to live. That’s what is to be taught.

And then when we move on to the deacons, likewise, the quality of their life is paramount. Some of them may well end up teaching, but it’s never anywhere mandated of them. Thus, you get at the end of all this long section of argument, “Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.” (Verses 14–15)

One more step before I offer a handful of pastoral reflections. Obviously I have been focusing almost exclusively on the first two and a half chapters of this book. I haven’t said anything about the rest of the book, nor have I said anything about an array of parallel passages. That would really involve me in quite a lot of different sort of analysis.

The passages really are of two sorts. On the one hand, there is a passage like Galatians 3:28 and “All of us who have put on Christ have been baptized into Christ.” That sort of passage. It will not do for complementarians simply to say what those passages don’t say. They may be right, but it’s not enough simply to say what they don’t say. It is crucially important to say what they do say and rejoice in it.

Then, on the other hand, there is an array of passages like 1 Corinthians 11; 1 Corinthians 15; passages in 1 Peter; and Ephesians 5, most of which, but not all of which, are sometimes called haustafeln, house tables, household tables of conduct. One of the interesting things about all of those is that without exception, the submission is toward the man and the love as Christ loved the church is from the man to the woman.

What is sometimes said over against those sorts of passages, as if it’s the definitive knockout, is Ephesians 5:21, “Submit yourselves one to another.” So if, therefore, you have these four or five major house tables where, in fact, submission is always one way, “Well, there’s always Ephesians 5:21 to bail us out, and we all submit to one another after all. It’s all sort of a mutual submission.”

That argument, although it has been responded to many, many times, keeps coming up for reruns. I heard it the other day from the mouth of a systematician who really should know a lot better. If you want to hold that position, at least don’t give a bad argument to support it. The fact of the matter is that the pronoun involved, allelous, can be perfectly reciprocal, but might not be.

Everything depends on the context. So several times in the book of Revelation, for example, in scenes of mayhem where they killed allelous, they killed one another, it doesn’t mean that they all shot at the exactly the same and killed each other reciprocally. It’s more generic than that. Do you see?

And in this particular instance, in the flow of the argument, the submission to one another is then worked out in terms of wives to husbands, children to parents, slaves to masters. There are countervailing things that must also be said. I can’t get around the comprehensiveness of men, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, which if it means anything at all, if it has any bite at all, means loving her self-sacrificially for her good.

You’d better not talk too much about submission unless your love for your spouse takes on that character; that is, it is demonstrably, repeatedly, characteristically, self-sacrificial and for her good. Work that one out. Having said that, the example once again is Christ Jesus, whose self-sacrifice for the good of the church takes him to the cross. It does not diminish his authority.

What we must not have, then, is some kind of exegesis that lines up the desired proof-text one particular way and can’t feel the full-orbed bite of the whole thing. Let me end with brief comments on a few pastoral reflections. I will pose them as questions.

1. How important is this subject for the life of the church today?

That’s not actually an easy question to answer. Some people call it a gospel issue. Everything depends on what you mean by gospel issue. Historically a gospel issue was an issue that if you got it wrong you lost the gospel. In the strongest cases, that means you’re lost; you’re damned. It is not a gospel issue in that sense. You cannot argue that if you get this one wrong biblically theologically, therefore, you are consigned eternally to the pit. It is not a gospel issue in that sense.

Also, there are brothers and sisters in Christ who think as I do about substitutionary atonement and the deity of Christ, who think as I do about the resurrection of the body on the last day and the prospect of a new heaven and a new earth, a home of righteousness, the historicity of the Old Testament, and all kinds of other things who, I don’t know why, I can’t imagine why they would, but they actually disagree with me on some of these things.

They are still my brothers and sisters in Christ even though I think they’re wrong. In a few cases I’ve been able to persuade some of them, but in some cases I haven’t. So it’s not a gospel issue in that sense. On the other hand, there are larger senses in which this issue is embedded in a whole lot of other issues that are painful, sensitive, and affect our culture in profound ways.

It may not be that you yourself in your position are embedded in some sort of deep countercultural movement that is going to try to smuggle in the legitimacy of homosexual relationships in ordination in the local church, but there is no doubt a realignment of what family is, of what legitimate sexual relationships should be, what husband and wife should be, even definition of family that is part of a much bigger world in which we live.

It’s not the only imperative issue of our time, but it is part of the issue of our time, and to be silent on it as if it’s not there is a huge mistake. It’s a huge mistake.

2. How should the complementarian position be applied?

Now that could be understood in a number of ways. It could mean, “Give me a list of 26 things that women may do and 32 that they may not.” I understand that when you are serving in a local church, you have to work out the practical application of something.

I understand that, but the more an issue is disputed in the church, the more your credibility is enhanced if you observe the principle that I articulated a few minutes ago; namely, keep your finger on the text. Say all that it says and refuse to go too far beyond it. And if you do go somewhat beyond it in terms of practical application, acknowledge that’s what you are doing.

That is, some implications, some applications you could work out this way, but you could work out another way. For example, some seminaries will not have any women teachers at all. Some will have them in departments like music or history or counseling but never in theology. Some will allow them if they are serving a mission field overseas but won’t allow it at home. The standards become quite confused.

But in part, there is an array of complex other issues tied into this. If you think of a seminary as first and foremost a body of church-recognized elders teaching other elders, I don’t see how you can avoid the conclusion that you should not have a woman teaching in a seminary. I don’t see how you can.

On the other hand, if seminary is a bit of a mixed bag, halfway between a group of elders and a kind of mini-university teaching all kinds of things, then suddenly the way things get played out might just be a wee bit different again. Do you see?

Or if you think of it as not the context of the local church teaching authoritatively but sort of the collegial thing at a small seminary of a Priscilla and Aquila doing something or other, then maybe we have a Priscilla and Aquila on our faculty that are both teaching. Then what do you do? Suddenly it becomes just a little hazier.

In other words, be very strong and clear on what the Scripture says. Try to work out the applicability fairly and evenhandedly within the context of your local church, but don’t turn that into the new legal structure for all Christians such that this is where you draw your line of demarcation.

In other words, get the center right and think center-bounded set. Don’t fudge on what the Bible says, but acknowledge that there may be some differences amongst bona fide Christians about how some of these things work out at the end. Be wary of those who use the difficult context to reach back and, therefore, try to undermine the center. That’s not right either. You have to be firm on the center.

Nevertheless, my entire tendency when I deal with disputed things, whether speaking in tongues or women’s ordination or certain elements of eschatology and a whole lot of other things, is go for the nonnegotiables and be careful about being too dogmatic and drawing exclusive lines when you get farther out.

3. What do I say to women about why God made them second-rate to men?

In all fairness, the questioner went on to say, “Of course, that’s not the way the best complementarians would put it; nevertheless, that’s the way it’s widely perceived. But there are perceptions and there are perceptions. If you come to the conclusion that the best articulated and sophisticated, knowledgeable exegesis of Scripture, carefully thought through, can be graced with the word complementarian …

If you come to that conclusion, stop apologizing for it. In other words, at some point you have to say, “This is for your good. It is for my good. It is for the church’s good. It is for the culture’s good.” So instead of saying, “You know, I don’t like this one any more than you do, but I just can’t get around the exegesis here. What can I say? I don’t really have an answer for you.”

At some point, you have to really say, “I may not have all the answers to that, but on the other hand, I can’t see how you can understand these texts any other way. You have got to see that it’s for your good. God knows the design. He knows what he is doing.” You cannot use your culturally located questions to become a backdoor way of saying that you’re uncomfortable with exegesis. That, it seems to me, leads finally to distortion in every domain.

What do you say to the divorced person who wants to remarry for no reason that you can under any circumstance conceive to be biblically sanctionable? What do you say? “Such a godly man. Such a godly woman?” What do you say to the really devout and pious converted homosexual who is facing horrible.… I mean what do you say to a person like that? That he’s a second-rate individual?

It’s important to show compassion. It’s important to show friendship. It’s important to try to be faithful to all the biblical texts. But at the end of the day, you never, ever, ever apologize for what the Word of God says, and you make very sure that if this is what the Word of God says, as far as you can understand it, you teach it, and you preach it with quiet confidence that God is wise and good.

You try to give answers within that framework and acknowledge that there are distortions, even of the position that you like. Some of my friends who hold positions I think dear on all kinds of fronts actually say so many things that I can’t be associated with that I’m embarrassed by friends who hold my own theological position, whether about baptism or about predestination or … all kinds of issues.

Make sure that you present any position at its strength. Answer an opponent’s position at its strength. Assess your own position at its strength. When you see what the Word of God is actually saying so far as God enables you to see it, teach it, preach it, compassionately, and compellingly such that all can see you joyfully stand under the Word of Christ. Amen. Let us pray.

Father, we catch ourselves making mistakes in the interpretation of your Word again and again. We confess the limits of our knowledge, the track record of our own failures. We do not claim that authority and truth rest with us, but with your dear Son and his most Holy Word. Bring us back to it again and again and again so that we are humble learners before we are teachers.

Grant, Lord God, that we may fear your Word, as well as love it, for you will look to those who are contrite in spirit and who tremble at your Word. We do not want to be guilty of those who trim it to the social demands of our own day, nor do we want to be those who merely take a kneejerk reaction, thinking that tradition is always right.

We want to come back again and again to your most Holy Word and absorb it and learn by grace to delight in it, for you are wise and good and sovereign, and we have come to know you by the death and resurrection of your dear Son, who is Lord of all. In his name we pray, amen.