89 Craig,

I think the answer deserves a post of its own since the information will likely be more useful to people found in a body of a post rather than having to go through all the comments. If you can have a bit of patience with me, I will set this one up as my next post and work at it as quickly as I can (understanding that “quickly” for me these days with a huge workload isn’t always real “fast”) 🙂

Craig,
Did the graphs help a bit, or is the relationship of “a man” as object relating to “a woman” still clear as mud?

Craig #81,
You said:

if comps take this line- that women sinned “in Eve”, I wonder what happens to their Federal headship of Adam?? I didn’t think to ask this at the time.

This becomes a big problem if they are going to say that Eve represents all women as Adam represents all of mankind. Eve is NEVER said to be a representative of all women. A person cannot give 1 Timothy 2:15 as proof that Eve represents all women by interpreting the “she” as Eve. This is circular reasoning. Also the fact that verse 15 is future tense rules out all women who are dead at the time of the writing of 1 Timothy. A dead woman, Eve included, cannot be saved by what other people do with their faith.

The only other time that Eve is mentioned in the new testament is 2 Cor. 11:3.

2 Corinthians 11:3 (NASB95)
3 But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

In this verse, Eve is not named as a representative of anyone, but she is used as an example of being led astray. Thus anyone (male or female) can be in the same position as Eve was, if they allow themselves to be led away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

So for anyone who claims that Eve represents all women, ask them to show you this from the Scripture. Both 1 Timothy 2:14 and 15 have grammar that excludes Eve from being “the woman” or “she” and no other verse in the Scriptures ever say that Eve represents all women.

78 TL,

You have made some good points!

The one thing, though, that I don’t think that Paul is talking about in 1 Timothy 3:15 is that smaller groups that gather together are not the church of God while the entire group is. When we meet together whether we are few or many, we are the church. I know that many complementarians believe that a woman can have a “role” of teaching as long as it is in a small group since it isn’t in the “church”, but I fail to see that a small group of Christians meeting together does not constitute “the church”. The early church, after all, met in people’s homes and these homes were not always very big.

Craig #77,
Lastly you said:

The “they” in v15 could be the woman and one man, the woman and many men, or just the men.

The “they” has to refer back to something already in the text. If Paul had said that “I do not allow a woman to teach men…” then the “they” could be men alone or a woman plus men. That just doesn’t seem to fit. Here is why. If by “a woman” and “a man” Paul meant all women and all men, then what you would have in verse 15 is “all women (generically) will be saved…if they (all women and all men – or just all men) continue in the faith… Will all women be saved by what all men do? I think this would cause a lot of problems to the text and to the Bible in context.

Craig,
As far as the sexual element goes, this is found in Revelation 2:20 where we see one woman (Jezebel) who is teaching (to teach) and leading (mislead, deceive, cause to wander) God’s bond-servants (plural).

Revelation 2:20 (NASB95)
20 ‘But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

I would think that if God wanted us to know that the woman of 1 Timothy 2:12 was leading astray men, I would think that it would be plural rather than singular. While it may be “one man at a time” (as any sexual act usually is) it still would qualify as leading “men” astray.

To interpret the graph above, there is only one main object function in the sentence and both verbal clauses within the sentence point to the object “a man”. “A woman” is part of a nominal phrase that typical has subject, object or indirect object. There is only one subject “a woman” and only one object “a man” for the clause, thus it is “a woman” that is not allowed to authentein and “a man” is also the object of “to teach”.

77 Craig,

This comment of yours had a lot of different thoughts. It is a good point you brought up about whether the object of “a man” would modify just authentein or also “to teach”. For the answer to that I checked out my trusty Cascadia Syntax Graphs to map out the object to see if it is connected also to teach. Here is what I found:

Excellent point, Craig and very deep thinking that connects two related points in the same letter!

TL,
I should have said that the woman is not one of the deceivers. It was a mistyping.

Yet, ‘the church’ is also the whole body whether gathered in a teaching setting, or in an assembly setting. And it seems to me that A woman could become a continual problem if she had a habit of interrupting the teacher or leader or preacher with her concepts as if only she were correct. ???

I suppose this could happen, but then how would one relate this kind of problem? Would one say that the woman is forbidden to teach a man? I don’t think that her interrupting would qualify as teaching only him. I think that Paul would cut to the chase and say that the woman (whom everyone would know since it was done publicly) should not be interrupting. The issue of not teaching “a man” seems out of place since it would be interruption that would be the issue and her teaching would be heard by all not just by a man.

Maybe if a particular woman was harassing a particular leader, teacher. It doesn’t say a woman not teach men, but a woman not teach a man. So to me both seem pointed to a specific.

This certainly could be the case, but then the problem is not teaching a man but harassing a leader. Is the issue really public between a specific woman and a specific leader? Does she not interrupt any other men? And why are her interruptions called teaching? And if she was teaching this one leader, then would not her public speaking qualify as teaching others too? If not, why not?

Perhaps, she was charismatically charming and forceful and tended to pick on a certain man or leader or teacher. Shrug!! Perhaps, it was Timothy she was picking on and thus why she needed to be addressed in a letter to be read publicly, but not named so those not privy would not take her name down in history. Thus, giving her a chance to reform and learn.

I can see that you are really thinking this through and trying to see all angles and that is good. I also agree that Paul is not giving her name so that when she gets saved, she is not forever known as the woman who could not teach. But it seems improbable that picking on a man would be called teaching him and the prohibition would be teaching only “a man” rather than harassing one person and teaching lots of people false doctrine. Why do you think that Paul worded it the way he did if it was actually harassment? Why was Paul not concerned about what the whole congregation would hear from her but only concerned about her teaching “a man”? Is the man that she was harassing publicly necessary for her to be saved? If not, who are the “they” in “she” will be saved….if “they”…. What is the harassed leaders part that is absolutely necessary in getting her saved? Was he part of the problem? If so then why would Paul not have given instructions for the problem elder who allowed a woman to harass him and thus publicly teach error to only him?

While I can really appreciate your thought process, I find the scenario unconvincing as it has holes and more questions than answers. It seems to me that teaching only one person gives a far more plausible weight to private teaching rather than public. I think your main problem will be to explain how one person can be teaching error publicly but in essence be only teaching one person rather than all. If a leader is influenced, why is there no concern about what she is doing to the entire congregation?

Think this one through and see if you can plug up the holes. If not, think the issue through again about private teaching between one person and the other. Does this line up with what Paul is prohibiting? Does a private situation line up with the assurance of her salvation in verse 15 that goes along with what they are to do together to assure her salvation?

Boy, have I gotten wordy. I have been so busy lately as my husband and myself are the only ones in the ministry now as our ministry partners quit due to health issues. But when you get me started, I am like a wind up toy who just goes and goes….

Kristen,
You said:

Perhaps the women in question, being used to seeing women leading in the temple of Artemis, were only “shouldering in” when it was a man doing the teaching in the Ephesus church. Perhaps when a woman was teaching in the church, they were letting her teach without resistance. Perhaps this particular situation is what Paul was addressing. It seems plausible.

The problem with this is that Paul’s words are not about men teaching but about who she teaches. How are you going to get a woman “shouldering in” to the congregation when a man teaches and find her only teaching men? Where are the other women that would be there? There is a hole in the argument.

67 Kristen,

You said:

Cheryl, I like your view; I really do. I just wish there were some way for me to get around what seems to me to be a real fact about this passage: that the context of this section is Paul talking about how groups of people conduct themselves in the church. For him to suddenly switch over to talking about one particular woman, with absolutely no transitionary words to make this clear, is just hard for me to swallow.

Excellent challenge Kristen! There are transitionary words that document the change. First of all is a change from a desire to a command. A critical and exegetical commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (pg 452) details the change to the imperative:

A new topic, which extends through to v. 15, is introduced with asyndeton (cf. BD 459–63) and a switch to the third-person imperative.

The second piece of grammar change is from plural to the singular. This is exceptionally awkward if keeping within the general instructions that Paul has just given. The key problem in seeing verses 11-15 as dealing with women in general is verse 15 which cannot be removed from verses 11 & 12. Verse 15 cannot be generic or the verse becomes nonsensical. Men have tried extremely hard to force verse 15 to be women in general saying that the singular and plural refer both to generic women, but this is not only unprecedented but nonsensical and it brings in an idea of women’s salvation through child bearing that is completely outside the scope of the rest of the Scriptures. There is no other way to take verse 15 that is not problematic is to take the singular and the plural just as they are written. Thus Paul changes the subject in verse 11 to the issue of a problem woman and he ends the discussion with verse 15 – the expected good outcome of her salvation.

I believe that Paul was inspired by God to write this section and the grammar is not a mistake. I also believe that some things that Paul has written are very hard to understand outside of the context of an insider. There is no doubt in my mind that Timothy knew exactly what Paul was talking about. Timothy also knew the people involved, the problems and I believe that Paul was writing in response to discussions that he had with Timothy either in writing or in person.

If one doesn’t believe as I do about the inspired grammar then one will come to this passage confused, but not even knowing it until verse 15. Verse 15 is the clincher. The singular and the plural cannot be forced to mean the same thing, nor can the salvation of all women be forced to be dependent on having children nor on the actions of others (they). If you concentrate on verse 15, I believe that the rest will all fall into place. Figure out verse 15 and there will be no question that verse 12 is not a prohibition of all women from teaching any or all men.

I still admit it as a possibility– but when I have tried to present this view to others who are not already inclined to be egal, they have seen it as evidence that I want to read this sudden introduction of one woman into the text, just to bring about an egal interpretation.

This is why verse 15 is so important. This verse dictates who is being referenced in verses 11 & 12. The complementarian argument falls apart in verse 15 with a confusing conclusion. One is left scratching their head. The fact is that we are forced to conclude that the singular and plural are not the same because Paul differentiates them in verse 15, so we have to go back and take the beginning of what Paul says in verse 11 and conclude that his change in grammar from plural to singular is intentional and not a mistake. It is verse 15 that forces us to this conclusion and it changes everything. If a person questions me on verses 11 & 12 and makes fun of me because I take the grammar as anaphoric, I let them know that verse 15 requires me to take it this way, as well as verse 14. I read back into verses 11 & 12 the specific singular because I want to respect God’s word and I have to make Paul a nonsensical idiot who is deliberating deceiving and tricking everyone when he uses singular and plural in verse 15 to mean the same thing. It is God’s Word that causes me to respect the grammar.

I am not afraid of people making fun of me. I just respectfully as them to make sense of verse 15 and then I ask them how child bearing relates to verses 11 & 12 and how salvation relates to child bearing and why Paul would confuse the grammar by doing what no other Scripture passage has ever done – and that is to make a singular to be the same thing as plural in the same sentence. No one has been able to unravel this in a way that keeps the respect of Scripture to say what it means and means what it says.

And I’m talking about scholarly people here, not just ones who have a knee-jerk reaction against egal interpretations in general. In other words, introducing a single, unnamed woman here is causing more skepticism directed at egalitarianism, not less.

This doesn’t phase me at all because I want truth more than anything and I reject a lot of what egalitarians say because it comes out as contrived toward a point of view rather than trying to understand what Scripture says. I want consistency and I want truth and if an argument that an egalitarian holds is full of holes, I will reject it. It doesn’t concern me at all that the person is an egalitarian. I want truth and not a system of thought.

Some egalitarians are willing to swallow anything another egalitarian writes just because it gives a reason no matter how weak. I just cannot do that. I really want to know what God’s word means and if I stop searching because I have accepted a weak argument, I won’t press forward to know what God wants me to know. When there is a solid argument, there will be no more contradictions. Then I can stop searching for truth unless I am convinced that there is a hole in my argument that I have not seen. I reason this way because truth does not contradict itself. When I can see contradiction and holes in the argument, I won’t accept it no matter how many doctorate degrees a person has. Truth is not depend on doctorate degrees. Truth is dependent on God’s Word and no contradiction.

Particularly when one interprets “she” as being “Eve representing all womankind,” in which case the use of the present tense is no longer so problematic.

But it is very problematic. How do you have a dead woman representing all womankind? And if she did represent all womankind why is womankind then represented as “they” rather than continue the representation as “she”? And why would Eve be a representative of all women regarding salvation? How does that work? It makes no sense to me regarding “she” and “they” and makes even less sense regarding bearing children. It is confusing, jumbled and not proper grammar.

So I guess I’d have to say, in order to make your reading more convincing, you’ll need to do some explanation of why Paul would switch the subject matter in the middle of the passage with no transitions and no warning. Perhaps this will help you strengthen your reading. I hope so. I would like to believe it.

Paul was writing to Timothy and not directly to us. Paul did not switch writing “in the middle of a passage with no transitions and no warning”. Paul changed grammar and he changed the intention using the imperative. I have no doubt at all that Timothy was expecting Paul to give him advice on how to handle this one problem person. Timothy would have known exactly what Paul meant and the very rare word that Paul used would have instantly told Timothy what Paul’s intention was. Timothy knew. Timothy was not confused. I believe that the only ones who are confused are those who ignore the grammar change and ignore the change to imperative and who ignore verse 15 as the conclusion with both the singular and plural used together as being different. I think that it is our tradition that says that women are somehow inferior that allows us to accept the idea that all women cannot teach with the authority of God’s Word because all women are not as good spiritually as men. I think that we have accepted the thought that we need men’s teaching but women’s teaching is optional. That is not true. The eye cannot say to the hand “I have no need of you”. Women’s teaching is very much needed by men. We are all needed and when we ignore what God has given we all hurt. We have been hurting for a very long time by the false interpretion of 1 Timothy 2:11-15. When we get it right, we will no longer be prejudiced towards women.

66 TL,

You said:

But I’m not really saying that you are wrong. I’m just seeing another possibility that could apply as well. IMO both “work” as good admonitions for improving Christian character and behavior. I cannot see a clear – only one approach to it.

I can understand that you see other options. I guess this is where we differ because I see too many holes in the other way to be an option. Here are the holes that I see that I cannot see a resolution to:

1. It would be inconsistent and thus illogical to make “a woman” particular and “a man” as the church.
2. It would not make sense to disallow a deceived woman to teach the men in the congregation but say nothing about the women. If her teaching was public, then the prohibition needs to be generic. It would make far more sense if Paul would have left out “a man” and just state that he forbids “a woman” from teaching (implication in the passage is that the teaching is that of deception). For what purpose does singling out men in the congregation rather than the entire congregation?
3. If the woman was deceived just as all the false teachers in 1 Timothy 1:7, and teaching publicly like all of the false teachers, then why single her out from the others?

These are the things that bother me about having a consistent view and another option.

65 TL,

You said:

Well, except for the conclusion that she may have been deceived and was just passing on the deception. Admonishing her to learn and not to forcefully promote her incorrect teaching, would mercifully allow her to learn without as much public shame.

I too believe that she was deceived, but I also believe the false teachers that were silenced in 1 Timothy 1:7 were also deceived and not deliberate deceivers:

1 Timothy 1:7 (NASB95)
7wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.

I believe that these false teachers who do not understand what they are saying are completely different from the deceivers from 1 Timothy 1:19-20

1 Timothy 1:19–20 (NASB95)
19keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.
20Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme.

Here we can see that the deceivers:
1. have rejected a good conscience (in other words they deliberately are lying and have no good conscience as one would have who had been deceived).
2. have blasphemed (and blasphemy is a deliberate action)
3. have been turned over to Satan (they are not turned over to teachers to be corrected because they are deliberate deceivers who do not learn through the teaching of the truth. Rather they are turned over to Satan to receive punishment in the hopes that they will see the light and repent from their sin).

Those who are teaching error because they have been deceived and really believe what they are teaching, even though they are ignorant about what they profess to be true, are to be treated with instruction and mercy. I believe that the woman from 1 Timothy 1:12 is in the category of all the other false deceived teachers rather than the category of the deceived since Paul is confident that with proper instruction she can learn the truth and receive salvation.

…and if my observations, conclusions or conjectures have holes in them, I welcome correction. Anyone reading my blog has the right to point out my errors or inconsistencies in an attempt to correct any errors that I may unwittingly have accepted as truth.

Thoughts? I welcome all of your thoughts, corrections, advice and dialog.

I should add that I don’t believe that Paul is allowing “a woman” to teach in the church and just forbidding her from teaching “a man”. That prohibition would come under chapter 1 where false teachers are forbidden to teach their errors. I am just convinced that what she is doing is not public and I am convinced that she thinks she has the truth but she is not saved. I am also quite sure that her husband has a prominent place in the assembly and he may very well be one of the elders and it may be that he has repeated what his wife said to others and this is how the “problem” became known. This part is conjecture of mine, but I think it is reasonable considering it appears to be a private matter and not a public situation. If it was public, there would be no reason to point her out among all the other false teachers. All of them were to have their mouths zipped. 😉

TL,
I didn’t think you meant that, but for some reason your comment confused me. Maybe it is just a confusing Monday for me. 😉

I hesitate to say that Paul is forbidding a particular woman from taking over a meeting since both “a woman” and “a man” are either generic or they are both particular with an anaphoric reference. It seems to me that if Paul was talking about the meeting of the church there would be women there too and a woman forbidden from taking over meetings would be teaching both men and women, not just males.

This is the way I reason it. If a particular woman was not allowed to teach in the church meetings, I think Paul would have said that he isn’t allowing “a woman” to teach or authentein the church, i.e. she isn’t allowed to authentein men and women. The problem always seems to crop up because it is only “a man” that “a woman” is forbidden to teach. What I see from this is that she isn’t doing something public but on the side, secretly and in private.

I have studied this issue extensively since about 2004 and even though I am open to learn new things, I haven’t been convinced that Paul is forbidding public teaching for “a woman”. If it was public teaching it would fit into chapter 1 where Paul tells Timothy to stop the teachers who are teaching error. It seems very reasonable to me that the only reason that “a woman” is brought up in chapter 2 and her teaching is specifically to be silenced is because in her case she is not doing the same thing publicly. She is unique and her case is sticky (especially if I am correct that the man she is teaching is her husband).

For me, I just see so many holes that have no answers if I take the prohibition to be the stopping of public teaching. I haven’t heard a good explanation for why only men would be in the meetings (except for her of course) or why one half (a woman) could possibly be specific while the other half (a man) could be general.

I am fully convinced of my view because of verse 15 where the conclusion to the prohibition brings a promise about her future salvation. This only makes sense to me if it is indeed about a singular woman (she). I also am fully convinced that too many people try to understand the passage by ignoring the conclusion of the prohibition in verse 15. I believe that verse 12 cannot be understood without first making full sense of verse 15 and understanding why verse 15 is there in the passage.

I do encourage anyone to work hard to convince me that public meetings can be brought into verse 12. I may be very skeptical and a stickler for the grammar, but I do love truth so that if I see a clear presentation and a good argument, I will appreciate it and allow myself to be convinced.

TL,
Are you saying that a man is allowed to “shoulder in” and “take over a meeting” while a woman is not allowed to do this?

Link to Chrysostom’s quote:
http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/2007/10/authority-4-chrysostom.html

Jeremiah,
Welcome to my blog!

You said:

i would also like to share that God created man and woman separately, differently for a reason.

May I respectfully say that while male and female are different in some obvious ways, God did not create them separately but created the woman from the man and as one who was meant to shine forth both God’s glory and the glory of the man.

As far as the sin of Adam, there are a couple of posts here that will share a different viewpoint http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2009/05/03/7-paul-adam-accountability/ and http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2006/12/21/why-was-the-sin-of-adam-more-serious-than-the-sin-of-eve-part-one/

As far as “manhood” and “womanhood” these are not biblical terms and the example for both men and women is Jesus.

I hope this help.

I personally do not believe that the early church had a “male only” rule of teaching. If this was a rule instituted by Jesus or His apostles, it would have to be written and explained. Why would there be no rule for thousands of years until Jesus came and brought liberation but then for some people (i.e. women) new rules brought them greater restriction? It just doesn’t make sense.

The way that I have come to see things regarding God’s rules is that God is very interested in us understanding His rules so that we will obey Him and stay away from sin. Because of this He has given His rules many times and in different ways so that we can be clear about what He forbids. No universal prohibition is ever treated in the way that the so-called law against women teaching men. http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2006/11/29/does-god-have-one-unique-law-part-one/

Kristen,
You said:

by shouldering in and taking over as rabbi, expecting Jesus to sit down and listen

It is my understanding that in Christianity there is to be no hierarchy among the brethren so that if a person had something to give out as God’s gift, the one who had been sharing should be willing to submit to God’s gifts among the brethren.

1 Corinthians 14:30 (NASB95)
30 But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, the first one must keep silent.

When I teach the Bible to my Bible study group, I stand in the position of teacher, but I willingly accept and listen to other people’s wisdom. My own pastor sits in my Bible study classes and he told us last week that he has learned a lot from me. Yet we all listen to his wisdom when he has something to share that I may have missed. It isn’t about one person being more important than another so that only one person can speak. We are commanded to submit “one to another”. The way that I see this working out is not that a person demands that other people listen to him (and thus acting as a ruler over others) but that those who are in the body willingly submit to learn from others. The injunction is never to take rulership over others but to submit to others. In this way there is never a need to “shouldering in and taking over” while the person may take leadership in a respectful way as the one leading takes a respectful place of submission to also receive God’s gifts through another.

I should add that “teach and authentein” would go together with the context of deception and the context of making sure that she receives instruction and that she will be saved..”if”. It also goes together with the context of chapter one where those teaching error were to be stopped. There is no context in 1 Timothy that mandates the stopping of true teaching.

TL,
I just now read your post about recouperating from surgery. I pray that the Lord will help you heal quickly.

Craig,
You said:

A man applies for a job for a bus company. At the interview he is told “I do not permit a diver to drink or smoke while on duty.”
The context indicates he is being prohibited from drinking alcohol. It would be foolish to think that drinking water is being prohibited.
Likewise the context of 1 Tim 2:12 indicates a prohibition of false teaching, not true Christian teaching.
What do you think?

Excellent analogy to show that context is very important to understand the meaning!

pinklight, I so glad to hear that! 🙂

It is my opinion that truth is worth defending. It is also my opinion that those who would like to educate us because they think we are wrong and heading down the wrong direction, should be willing to gently correct and show from the complete context why our points are not the meaning of the author.

Those who have no intention of defending their “truth” may very well come across as being so entrenched in their own view that they cannot hear and respond to questions or challenges to their view. I find this very sad, because as a truth lover I am dedicated to studying the Bible, uncovering Biblical truth and defending that truth with gentleness and respect. I would hope that those who love truth as I do and who do not believe as I believe on the women’s issue, would be willing to interact in the same gentleness and respect because truth is always worth contending for.

Craig,

1. Paul’s words “I am not…” is the main key that the prohibition is a local situation since his prohibition is not tied to any law instituted in the OT. Since God’s laws are always clear, always have a second witness and never stated as an origin of man i.e. “I am not…”, Paul’s words to a single individual regarding a known problem in a church cannot be stretched to match any of God’s laws therefore they cannot be universal indicting all godly women.

2. The words “I am not permitting…” present tense cannot in and of themselves show whether or not the prohibition was time limited and would end. The context must show the context of limiting the application to confirm that this is what is meant. The fact that one of the prohibitions is a negative action that is never given as permission to any Christian to act upon would show that at least one of the prohibitions cannot be time limited and then it is okay to act in this way.

Some egalitarians say that Paul was not prohibiting two things but only one thing – a type of teaching that is domineering. If these same egalitarians teach that the prohibition is only for a time, then their argument is self refuting as it would make Paul agree that domineering teaching will be okay in a bit. That just doesn’t make sense.

3. The term “I am not permitting” does not have a grammar qualification that makes it automatically a time limited prohibition. While it can be limited by the context, it is never assumed to be that way without context proof.

4. If authentein is an admirable action that is allowed for Christian men but denied for Christian women, Paul made a huge mistake by never using the word again thus no foundation is ever set for a good and moral activity. One thing we can be sure of and that is that a woman is never denied something in the term authentein that a man is given because of his gender.

It sounds like you are on the right track. Your questions really caused me to think especially with the thought that there would be allowance for a woman to do something seriously negative to a man. That doesn’t make sense.

I appreciate it when people pick up on something that didn’t readily come to my mind. Good job!

By the way, Craig, this last post of your was exceptionally well-thought out and a very good question!

Hi Craig,
Thanks for your good questions. Here is the meaning of the Greek present tense:

present — The verb tense where the writer portrays an action in process or a state of being with no assessment of the action’s completion.
Glossary of Morpho-Syntactic Database Terminology.

The only way that one can get a temporary meaning from the present tense is if the context limits the continuing action since the verb tense itself does not determine that there is an end in sight. There doesn’t seem to be an end to the prohibition regarding authentein and no Christian is ever given the right to authentein another person.

There is a limitation implied by verse 15 but the solution is not a lifting of a ban on a Christian woman, but a resolution that will bring the woman to salvation. This implies that the prohibition is toward an unsaved person even if they think themselves as a Christian. If the authentein is something that an unsaved person is doing spiritually, then the problem should be solved once she is saved and has come out of her deception, since authentein is not a work or a condition of a truly saved person. The issue of not teaching would be resolved when the deception is gone.

So the issue is not just about time, i.e. what she cannot do now, she can do later. The issue is about deception and salvation. Once saved the spiritual issues are dealt with and the positive side of teaching should not be an issue once she is solidly in the truth.

So, no, I do not agree that once the woman is no longer deceived that she will be allowed to authentein the man. I have personally not seen any positive rending of authentein and so I believe this to be a solidly negative term, something that allowed for anyone.

Does this help or have I missed addressing part of your question?