Cheryl Schatz

The other comment I have on verses 14 & 15 is that I can completely understand how these verses have confused so many people for so long. What has complicated their understanding is the false belief that in this passage Paul’s purpose is to restrict women’s ministry. If one starts with this presupposition, it is very difficult to draw any sense from verse 15 in particular. For if Paul is intending to restrict all women from teaching men, why bring in the issue of salvation? And what has Eve’s deception to do with Christian women today? Why would Paul restrict all women and then question their salvation and then attach that to the bearing of children? Nothing really makes sense if one believes that Paul has created a brand new law that has never been written in God’s law before but Paul claims that it is a law founded in creation. How can that be when women have never been restricted in this way in the entire history of the Bible?

But when one understands that Paul is not using the plural “women” because his restriction is not a universal restriction on all women. Rather, Paul is dealing with false teaching and a false teacher who has a husband who is just like the silent Adam. Timothy who Paul has encouraged before not to be timid must bypass the woman’s husband in order to silence her. Think about the culture of that time and how that culture gave a husband full authority over his wife. If the husband was the perceived “master” of his wife, it should not be hard to understand how sensitive this situation would be when Timothy needed to walk past the “master” to silence the wife’s teaching. It is no wonder that Paul specifically lists this one deceived teacher as a problem as he gives Timothy wise counsel on how to deal with this sticky situation. I love the way Paul ends his instruction to Timothy in verse 15 after saying to “let her learn” and Paul’s giving out of his own authority for Timothy to use to stop her from teaching. Here is what I love: Paul concludes with the positive promise that she will be saved if the silent husband will take an active role in the rehabilitation of his wife in order to walk alongside her in faith, in love for the truth and in self-control to stay away from false doctrine. Everyone who has been in a position of being deceived by a lie can be encouraged by the pathway to life that includes learning the truth, loving the truth and embracing the truth with self-control to stay away from the lie.