Cheryl

Metacrock,

No offense taken at all. I don’t mind people arguing with passion. I happen to love people who have lots of passion. By the way, you may be interested to know that “a woman” absolutely can be a certain woman according to the Greek. When I was dialogging with CBMW two years ago they admitted that to me. I was told, though, that the accepted position was that “a woman” was all women and if I believed it to be a particular woman, then I would have to prove my point of view from the passage. I believe that I have done this quite well. This is why I always challenge people to show me who the “she” is from verse 15 and who the “they” are. It cannot be “she” AND “she” or “they” AND “they” because the inspired grammar says third person feminine singular AND third person plural. The only “she” one can find in the passage who is alive at the time of Paul’s writing was “a woman” whom Paul stopped from teaching. There is no other singular woman in the passage and “she” must not be confused with “they” or the passage is confusing and redundant.

In addition, the inspired word doesn’t say that she will be saved in childbearing (a verb). It says that she (singular) will be saved in THE childbirth (a noun) IF they (plural)… It is also future tense not past tense. This isn’t about things that have already happened in the past. This isn’t about some Greek myth about women being saved physically through some goddess helping women. That thought might sound good but it isn’t provable in the passage and it does not jive with the inspired Greek. Paul was very specific. He said “she WILL be saved….IF they….” There are actions that need to be done by both of them so that she (singular) will make it past her problems. Her salvation is hanging in the balance but Paul believes she will make it out of the error she is in and there is someone else in the picture who will help her. Her salvation does not come because of works, but the things that Paul has already stated in chapter one will be the very things that will keep her safe from deception and hold her in the truth.

The meaning is in the passage itself. It isn’t in Greek myth. The meaning is not in generic woman either. We either accept that Paul was inspired and wrote the exact words that God inspired or we don’t accept that. I accept that Paul wrote exactly what God wanted him to and I do this because I fully believe in the divine inspiration of scripture. No interpretation can be true when that interpretation ignores some of the divinely inspired words or the divinely inspired grammar.

Lastly Paul wrote in the book Corinthians about “a man” who 14 years ago was caught up into the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:3, 4). Paul didn’t say “this man” or “that man”. He just said “a man” yet we know for sure that it wasn’t generic man, it was a specific man. If Paul could specify a specific man by calling him “a man” in 2 Cor., then surely he could specify a specific woman in 1 Timothy 2:11, 12 and call her “a woman”. The proof is in Paul’s writings.

I don’t mean to be repetitious, but the full view is spelled out in my DVD set. If you can find a hole in the exegesis when you have seen the entire argument, you may win the prize. So far no one has been able to poke a hole in my exegesis although many have tried. Many more have been silent because the view makes sense of the entire passage.

Recently Rev. Michael Hicks said this about my exegesis:

“I am a Senior Pastor of a Foursquare Church. I have never been satisfied with the interpretations offered over several difficult verses which seem to restrict women in ministry. Not because I did not like them, but those interpretations left God Almighty constantly contradicting His word, or at least these interpretations. This DVD did an outstanding job of linking the passages together and answering them in a thoughtful and exceptionally Borean way. And they no longer make God out to be a contradictor of His own word. Wonderful job Holy Spirit, Thank you.”

I concur. I believe it was the Holy Spirit who made his word clear and understandable and he is the one who will receive all the praise.