Cheryl Schatz

In reading through the passage I find some things of interest.

1. Paul never addressed “authority” in chapter 1. He did address false doctrine and the wrongful use of the law that would hinder people from coming to Christ as the one who fulfilled the law, and using the law this way would bring people back under bondage to the written letter of the law that they could never fulfill on their own.

2. Paul never stopped anyone from preaching the truth of the gospel, nor did he state that he left Timothy behind to stop women from teaching the truth of the gospel to anyone. It would seem rather odd to have a universal statement about the silencing of godly women who were teaching the truth when it was never mentioned in the purpose of Timothy’s reason for being left behind in Ephesus.

3. The view that it was an authoritative teaching that was forbidden seems to defy the grammar. In 1 Timothy 2:12 there are two verbs that are joined together by a conjunction. What is the grammar source that makes the one verb as a modifier of the other?

We have the same grammar in Rev. 2:20 –

Revelation 2:20 (NAS) 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.

Here we have two verbs that are joined together with a conjunction. The term for “lead astray” means to deceive. She is both teaching error and deliberately deceiving. The term for “teach” here is normally used positively, but the term “lead astray” or “deceive” is a negative term so both terms become negative. She is faulted not only for teaching error, but for deliberately deceiving and bringing God’s servants into her acts of sin.

I think there is a better way to see 1 Timothy 2:12 that will not add in an idea about authority. If Paul had meant to talk about earned authority or respect of the congregation, there were perfectly good words to convey that idea. Instead Paul used a word that is so extremely rare that it is difficult to pinpoint the exact meaning, except for the fact that it is never a term that is given to anyone in the Bible as an “earned right” or “privilege”. It is always used as a negative term outside of the Scripture. And because Paul’s main points include false doctrine and deception in chapters 1 & 4 which surround the disputed text, we can be confident that Paul was not restricting the teaching of correct doctrine. Also because Paul never discusses in this book an accepted human “authority” that would be needed before one can use their gift of teaching , we should be leery of reading that into 1 Timothy 2:12. Paul clearly said what he meant in the chapter before. Why would he make general statements about women and authority when there was no authorization mentioned for Timothy to do something about women or their authority? Was Timothy left behind to stop women from teaching? Or how about Timothy left behind to stop women from teaching until they had the proper authority to teach? Paul never gives a hint that this was on Timothy’s agenda.

But does Paul mention the need to stop certain people from teaching false doctrine? Certainly. Would the stopping of “a woman” from teaching in 1 Tim 2:12 fit into the known reason for why Timothy was left behind? It sure would. And the fact that the “student” held a marital responsibility to protect but was doing nothing would have required special attention from Timothy to this one teacher who also needed to be stopped. Timothy was only left behind to stop the teaching of error and to protect people from false doctrine. No other agenda is there other than this very clear confirmation of Paul’s.

The question I have asked myself, is whether it is more reasonable to understand that in a private letter from Paul to his representative in Ephesus, that the stated purpose for Timothy’s stay in Ephesus was to be accomplished in chapter 2 or that a completely different purpose for stopping teaching was interjected into chapter 2 without so much as an inclusion in the summary of chapter 1 or hinted at by any other Scripture or any other inspired writer? I think that logically we can only go by the facts we already have that the problem of teaching in Ephesus was not about men vs women or about needing human authority to use one’s gift of teaching, but about the problem of the teaching of error and the deception which was causing speculation, fruitless discussion and causing people to stray away from the faith.

If the “holes” that I have found are not “holes” and can be acceptably explained, then I would remove my objections. I do not think I am wrong, but I am always willing to view evidence to the contrary. God’s truth is way more important than human ego to me. It is like a pearl of great price that we need to sell all to obtain.