gengwall

Thank you all for your prayers.

Kristen – There are others who are more educated on Greek articles so I will let them respond in depth about language issues. It may be too restrictive to look only for examples where a man or woman is the noun. I know that would be conclusive, but they are just nouns like any other, and so the focus should be on how any nouns can behave in Greek when the definate article is absent (there is no indefinite article in Koine Greek).

But I don’t think we need to turn “a woman” in verse 11 into the specific woman of vs. 14. What I mean is that the vs. 11 woman can be a generic example. Now, comps say that as well. But they want to make her a generic example of ALL women, or even worse, all Christian women in the worship service. It is clear, though, from the text, that she is a generic example of a specific kind of woman – a deceived false teacher who is exercising violent domineering over her husband and whose potential salvation is in the future. It is unimaginable that this kind of woman represents the entire female population of the Body.

Why the generic then? Why not just dive in by saying “this woman you wrote me about”? I believe the reason is two fold.

First, I believe Paul is giving Timothy a general policy for dealing with similar situations. False teaching and paganism was rampant in Ephesus. It is very likely that Timothy would run into the situation again. If Paul had stayed specific the whole time, Timothy may have felt like he had to write Paul every time for instructions. Paul wanted to encourage Timothy as much as he wanted to instruct him. By laying out the general approach to similar situations, Paul is kind of saying “I trust you to apply this teaching where you see fit”. It is very empowering.

But, and this is the second reason, the outcome may not always be the same as the potential positive outcome in Timothy’s specific test case. That wouldn’t change the prohibition. So Paul needs to deal with the problem generically first. But he then finishes with encouragement about the specific couple. At that point in the letter, Timothy could use some good news.

Does that make sense? The vs. 11 generic woman, and her husband, are a specific kind represented by the real life couple that Timothy wrote about. In essence, Paul was saying “here is how you deal with these situations, and in this specific case, there is even some light at the end of the tunnel”.