gengwall

Cheryl – I don’t know how you do it. I get in at night and I can hardly type let alone think to give thought provoking and instructive answers. Bravo!

Craig – Unfortunately I have not been able to dive into the book yet so I can’t tell you exactly where the authors are going to go. I am not sure that they believe the specific audience in 1 Timothy is multiple mne – time will tell. What I do know they are going to address is the types of false teaching that were prevalent in Ephesus at the time. So, it may turn out that they see the passage exactly as Cheryl does, but may also believe there is a broader application to Paul’s instruction than just this one couple. We shall see.

Having said that, I am on board with Cheryl’s interpretation of the passage (and I should note that I have come a long way since I first started reading this blog).

One more rather mundane reason to think that this is a husband and wife. The NORM in Greek when a man and woman are being discussed together in the same passage is for them to be related. (Greek had no words for “husband” and “wife”. The words for “man” and “woman” are used both for generic humans and for husbands and wives. Context determines which is being spoken of.) Since it seems sensible that this is not some parent child or other relational situation, husband and wife would be presumed. The exception, the ABNORMAL situation in Greek would be if this man and woman were not at all related.