TL

” Given the example above, is the shift from plural to singular grammatically or topically different? “

Yes, it is. First you were referencing all the men and all the women. Then you shifted to a single woman with a single man. This changed the dynamics. In your example the general topic was the same, men and women being around each other and a man and a woman being alone. Though being alone was different involving possible intimacy, than general mingling, it was still within the same topic of physical presence.

However, the shift in Paul’s advice to Timothy related the topic back to the section in chapter one where he was addressing teaching. Verses 9-10 were about attire and modesty, while praying and not fighting as the men were also instructed. Actually, everything in chapter two relates back to chapter one in some way.

But in verses 11 the shift gets more personal with a reference to one woman with one man. Unfortunately for our understanding the one man is not identified. Is it a teacher, a husband, or a particular man from a particular incident that Paul isn’t naming but Timothy wrote Paul about? Or was it all 3, her husband who was a teacher that she was publicly usurping his authority, his guidance, etc. We don’t know precisely. But the message is clear enough that whoever that woman was, Paul told Timothy to let her learn. This gives us another clue that she was likely misguided in her understanding on something, just like the people in chapter one were desiring to be teachers but according to Paul “understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. ” They did not have sound doctrine. But instead of throwing her out of the community of believers as Paul recommended for Hymenaeus and Alexander, Paul tells Timothy to let her learn in the demeanor of a student, in submissive quietness. Still talking about learning, Paul tells Timothy that he, Paul, does not want such a woman to teach or exercise coercive authority (authentein) over the man (teacher, husband, or whoever she was doing this to). Then Paul points out a few points from Scriptural doctrine. Again we don’t know the point he was aiming at so we’re not clearly certain why he brought them up, and there could be a couple reasons. And the statements are still on the subject of why the woman must be allowed to learn.

Thanks, Elaine. Miss her. But will look forward to the new DVD. 🙂

anyone home here? 🙂

Craig, keep looking. Great idea and good info.

Good morning all. Just waking up. 🙂

So, where is that Scripture where Jesus is telling some of the disciples about not worrying about others who are teaching the truth even through they are not ‘one of them’. Anyone remember?

No problem, Craig. Your ramblings as you call them, are quite helpful. It is good to recheck the room a few times while cleaning, to make sure one get’s all the cobwebs out. 🙂

Craig,

If I’m getting your point correctly, we may not be able to tell absolutely if she is a non believer or a new convert needing to learn more. But it may not matter. If she learns, and then seeks to live a holy acceptable life unto God, then she will be saved through The Childbearing.

We still have context to reckon with. In chapt. four, Paul is speaking to someone who is alive. To us who are alive we remember that we are saved at the moment of belief, and we are saved daily from ourselves and sin, and finally if we persevere until death we will be ‘finally’ saved. But all of this is settled at the moment of death. Thus, all discussion of doing anything to be saved in any fashion whether daily or finally at death, has to apply to someone living.

You may very well be right, Cheryl. At this point I’m bouncing back and forth between both points being covered.

Craig, liked what you said in #239. 🙂

““but the woman, like Eve….” instead of just “but the woman….”. Then we would have numbers 1,2,3 all clearly stated! Oh well……..”

my guess is that in Paul’s mind he did just that, but in Hebrew/Greek thinking format, not English. 🙂 When Paul gave Adam and Eve as a reason, he stated two things 1) Adam came first and wasn’t deceived 2) the woman was deceived. This is why I’m thinking that perhaps the woman in question may have been teaching some gnostic misinformation maybe even claiming that Adam was deceived or that the man she was teaching was deceived. So Paul tells Timothy she needs to learn and not teach or seek to take authority over some person, because the truth of the matter was 1 & 2, implying that she was like Eve. But we have no way of knowing exactly what Paul was referencing. We have to stick with what is clear.

What is clear is that this was a particular woman who needed to learn and stop teaching and wresting authority from another. The mention of Adam and Eve is confusing without all the facts yet it does relate to the first chapter talking about people want to be teachers but not really understanding Scripture. And finally if this woman would simply seek the basics of faith, love and holiness (with her husband?) then she would be saved through the childbearing (Jesus).

Trying to make much more of it than that, seems to grate with the rest of Scripture and not fit.

“I’m still struggling though with understanding Paul’s reasoning if Eve is not in v14b. It sounds like Paul is saying that there is something about Adam being formed first that meant he was not deceived. But this Ephesian woman is not like Adam because she is deceived.”

Craig, this is where I’m of the opinion that Paul is making a double reference. Gnostic beliefs had things mixed up about who was created first and who was deceived. So, it’s as if he were saying the woman Eve was not created first and she was the one deceived into sinning, not Adam. So, this woman is like Eve, a woman deceived into erroneous beliefs, but there is hope for her salvation if she and her husband continue in faith, love and holiness with self control.

There may be a lot more hidden in that word authentein than we realize because of the things done in the Artemis/Diana temple by the temple priestesses. If this woman or some women had been trying to forcefully mix in some of the agnostic teachings with their husbands or other men, it would have been ugly and confusing. Unfortunately, we will never know. If Paul had put the details in the letter that woman may never have been redeemable as her reputation would have been shot forever and she likely would have rebelled. So hiding her sin was the most loving and merciful thing he could have done. That may well have saved many women like her as well.

Is it possible that because the main point of this section is that Paul wishes for the woman to learn, that the not teaching is simply in reference to being quiet and learning. Teaching in this particular situation is in opposition to learning. Before one can teach, one must learn. And the rest is an addition to that…. also she is not to be authenteining a man.

Craig,

just wanted to tell you before my nap 🙂

I love all your well thought out suggestions. Thanks for making us think and analyze. It’s good for us.

Mahalo nui loa!

”This may very well be a subtle refutation of this false teaching. So let me ask you, why do you think it is such a serious error to teach that the woman was created first and that the man was the one who was deceived?”

Leading question. (smiles) I suspect it is tied to some other gnostic teaching venerating women. But I’m not well versed on all the gnostic teachings. Neither men nor women should be venerated over the other. They are as badly wrong as the patriarchal teaching that say men are superior to women.

Craig, you asked is there any other way of seeing this.

Another way I partially also subscribe to is viewing vs. 13-14 and maybe even 15 to be speaking against some gnostic teachings. Some gnostic teachings taught that is was the woman who was ‘born’ first and the man who was deceived. They also taught that a woman could not be spiritual while performing the very earthly function of having children. Now I’m wondering if Paul isn’t ‘killing two birds with one stone’, in saying what he did. He could be addressing all I just said, while at the same time addressing the false gnostic teachings as well. By pointing out that the man sinned deliberately (not deceived) but it was the woman who was deceived, he can be then admonishing the deceived ‘teacher-wannabe’. She thought she knew so much but she really didn’t know the Scriptures at all and was herself deceived just like Eve. And by admonishing her (or a few women doing the same) to learn and not push their supposed authority around toward either her husband or Timothy or a teacher, Paul can help her to relearn respect toward “husband/leader/teacher” and restore godly relationship, providing she or they or husband/wife life a godly life with self control.

just another thought…..

Quoting from CBE Scroll:

Then in 1 Tim 2:14 Paul points out that (1) Adam (in this case, referring to the man) was NOT deceived, while (2) the woman was deceived and (3) broke God’s command.”

Well said, Don. And in continuing along this thought, one might ask why Paul brought this up at all. In fact, these thoughts follow along quite well with the progression of the topic of false teaching. There were some who deliberately spoke falsely (Hymenaeus and Alexander) and some who were deceived in their false teachings: 1:3-7. Both Adam and Eve broke God’s command, but one did so knowingly and the other was deceived and fell into transgression. The phrase ‘fell into transgression’ is important.

In Genesis, although both suffered the just reward for choosing to disobey, there was still a difference in God’s approach toward them. To the woman who was deceived into disobeying, God cursed the one who led her to sin, the serpent, and promised the redeemer would come through her seed. To the man who deliberately chose to disobey, God cursed the ground from which they would both gain their sustenance (no longer would they just reach for food as in the garden), but which the brunt of work would lay on the man’s shoulders as the stronger. She does not get off the hook from her disobedience so that no one in the future can claim innocence when sinning because of deception. After all we do choose who we listen to.

Going back to Paul’s epistle we see that he is treating the ones from vs. 3-7 differently than those who ‘rejected the faith’. And this is after Paul points out that he himself received mercy because he was an insolent blasphemer who did these things ignorantly in unbelief. There is a difference in not knowing (ignorantly in unbelief) and in one who knows and then rejects (Hymenaeus and Alexander).

The woman spoken of in 2:11-12 is one (vs. 1:3-7) who was ignorant in her knowledge of Scripture, who probably desired to be a teacher but really didn’t understand what she was talking about. Therefore, there was hope for her (or them) if she were allowed to learn in the demeanor of a student (quietly with full submission), and stopped trying to usurp another’s authority or stopped pushing her beliefs upon others. She was deceived like Eve. And if she (or they) or she and her husband would continue on in their lives with faith, love, holiness and most importantly self control, she would be saved thru the childbearing, the Messiah.

If one understands it anything like this, they can see it has nothing at all to do with men being preferred first in any fashion, but is about a woman (or a group of women?) who should have mercy extended toward them in their sin because they were duped into it like Eve.

Now I cannot say that I’ve explained this perfectly. But at this point in time this is how I see it.

more in a minute……

“#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.”

Exactly. Also appreciated your comments 82-85.

“If I say “I do not permit a girl to run or throw a ball”, “run” doesn’t have to have an object.”

Same problem. The running is likely relative to throwing the ball. You’d have to pick two subject that really don’t relate. Because of the subject of false teaching in chapter one, the teaching in 2:12 likely relates to coercive usurping of authority of “a man” in that sentence.

“Could this Artemis problem also be related to such things as
1 prayers for a quiet life 2:1,2 (in contrast to the riots of Acts 19)
2 Jesus is the one mediator v5 in contrast to the temple priestesses
3 Anger, fighting, disputing v8 ?”

I suspect much of this has to do with the heresies of gnosticism and the heresies of the Ephesus temple of ??? (forgot the name). Even verses 2:13-15 hint at correcting gnostic false teachings.

Craig, you wrote:
“In the example I gave @77, say the woman (let’s call her Betty) had actually led no one astray yet but was trying to with 20 different men, don’t you think Paul could still have expressed “I do not permit Betty to authentein a man”? I can agree that he could also have said “I do not permit Betty to authentein men”, but both sound possible to me.”

The interesting thing about this is that in order for it to be about a husband and a wife, it had to be in the singular. Because gunaiki and andra can be either woman or wife and man or husband, there has to be a relational context in order to see them as husband and wife. This can be achieved by either both being in plural or both being singular. But when both are singular it is more likely, unless there is nothing else in the sentence that shows a marital relationship. That is our problem here.; there is nothing else in that sentence relating to marriage, rather it’s about A woman learning. But if it were a singular woman toward all men then it could not be about a marital relationship. So we have the singular which very well could be about a marital situation, yet nothing else in the sentence or section about a marital relationship. That is, until we get to verse 15. Then the “they” can be a married couple than women in general because the subject touches upon bearing children, even though it likely is referring to “the childbearing”.

So, no matter where I get glimpses of clarity, I still see some problems. Frankly, I don’t think Paul meant for this to be clear to everyone. He was certainly capable of being clear in other places. It seems to me, he wanted to keep the details hidden because he wanted to give the persons involved privacy to do things rightly. This points to a particular situation, and not any kind of loose universal command. God doesn’t give second hand commands nor does God give them in a confusing manner. God is always quite clear and willing to repeat to make it clear, when He issues a command for righteousness.

” 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.”

Good point. This is where the hierarchical view fails as well. It’s the A woman toward A man, that was a deliberate switch, that is still the clincher. And I agree that if we accept the other meaning of those two words, which is wife toward husband, the problem is solved.

It’s interesting to me that the very first time I came across this section uninfluenced by church beliefs I came to that conclusion easily. The problem at that time became the “have authority over”, which we have since learned is not the real meaning of authentein. If it were to ‘have authority over’, it would be the only place in Scripture where there was an implication that husbands have authority over their wives. This may be why gender hierarchalists want to keep that meaning even though it has been so thoroughly researched as meaning otherwise. If we use its actual meaning of the time, it comes across quite differently having forceful coercive and possibly even sexual connotations. This fits with the problems of the Temple ‘prostitutes’. One of those coming to know Jesus would have a real mixed up idea of spirituality.

The reason I don’t think it’s about public gatherings only is because of

“1 Tim. 3:15 but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. “

This is not speaking of actions during the church gathering together but about the daily activity of all the body of Christ at all times. We are the house of God. As such, it would include everything not only gathering together for ministry.

Well, I need to digest this after breakfast. 🙂

“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.”

That’s my conclusion also.

“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.”

My conclusion as well.

“1. It would be inconsistent and thus illogical to make “a woman” particular and “a man” as the church.”

Agreed. Thus your concept that it must be between a wife and her husband, does settle that. 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. ???

“For what purpose does singling out men in the congregation rather than the entire congregation?”

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.

“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?”

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.

“In other words, introducing a single, unnamed woman here is causing more skepticism directed at egalitarianism, not less. 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.”

You lost me a little here. You are saying that some or many scholars cannot agree that “A” woman means a singular woman. Yes, I’m aware of that, yet I have trouble really thinking otherwise because of the deliberate switch from plural to singular. But, I yield some on that by including, “or a group of women”. The deliberate switch just seems so glaring to me.

As for Eve representing all womankind, I don’t think that makes sense because then when Paul says “nevertheless SHE will be saved”, it cannot be referring to Eve representing all womankind. Eve’s destiny had already been determined long ago. It seems it has to refer to A single woman and the “they” to her husband, or to a group of women. But I prefer the single woman myself.

“…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.”

I’ve always known that, and accept the same myself. 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 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. “

Very possible. I’ve had that problem in Bible Study classes by both a woman and a man. Both of them I asked to learn and study more because what they were trying to claim as truth was off kilter. In the man’s case, I’m not sure he was even a true believer. But the point was they were getting pushy trying to claim their ideas were truth from the Bible but they really didn’t know the Bible on those subjects. These days and maybe always, there are people who think they can dispute teachers openly and get into debates publicly (and privately) claiming they have the truth, yet they are not truly studied on the subject.

“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. “

This is very possible.

“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. ;)”

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.

LOL Cheryl. You know I’m not. Didn’t think it sounded like that.

See, I’m thinking that Timothy is dealing with a specific woman or group of women. And it is to that specific woman that Paul is saying she should be allowed to LEARN and not permitted to “shoulder in” and take over the meetings as she may have been doing, which Timothy might have found intolerable.

Yes, I recollect that you believe it is talking about a wife to a husband, which fits also. I keep looking at both of them as valid. Shrug! 🙂

The idea that the attitude that Paul is forbidding is a woman shouldering in and trying to take over the teaching I think can apply to both smaller teaching only meetings and the larger body ministry meetings where teachings took on different forms.

“Am I correct in thinking you both differ from each other on this point? I am just trying to clarify what each of you is saying. Thanks.”

Yes, I guess so. I’m speaking from my own experience, which I think can be applied for small gatherings for teaching. When I teach in small gatherings there is a different kind of orderliness required than when I teach/preach in larger groups. It is likely that Jesus elicited more the same response no matter where he taught. But in regular teaching meetings for teaching only one wants to encourage lots of questions. Though the student needs still to learn in an attitude of quietness and a yielded heart to learn, questions must be asked. You can see this in some of the gatherings with Jesus where the disciples asked lots of questions, but politely and respectfully.

However, in bigger meetings such questions were discouraged as people were to allow the Holy Spirit to move among them and people needed more often to just listen and contemplate as each person shared what they had and then sat down. That doesn’t mean no questions were ever asked but likely few as that would disturb the anointing of the Holy Spirit flowing from the teachers, prophets, apostles and others. Unfortunately, our meetings are so different than the early church, we have difficulty grasping these differences.

“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.”

That is my take also. If one reads in context, as a letter the way it was written, it is difficult NOT to come to this conclusion.