Mark

Lmb,

Good to have you engage in the conversation. Let me respond to your comment.

You said
“Actually it isn’t a stretch at all. In Greek a masculine plural is the grammatical form used for a group of men, or a group of men and women. So the fact that the paragraph starts out specifying the presence of men AND women actually strengthens the idea that the masculine plural in v. 17 is addressed to both.”

What both you and Kay are failing to recognise is the context of the chapter. Although Paul uses the masculine and feminine forms at the beginning of the chapter, this does not necessitate that the plural is even associated 15 verses later. The context must decide this. Are the two addressing the same issue? Of course they are not, clearly the beginning of the chapter is not associated with verse 17. For example we see a similar thing in Titus. Titus 1:5 we again the plural form ‘presbuterous’ because Paul is discussing elders/overseers. In chapter 2 Paul again calls the ‘older men’ presbutas (Tit 2:2) and the older women presbutidas (Tit 2:3). Again the context makes clear that the older men/women section is not in conjunction with the ‘elders’ passage of chapter 1. It is precisely the same as 1 Tim 5. Although the same base word is used the context makes clear that the plural form is not associated with the others. Therefore i maintain to rely purely on the plural form is weak exegesis. IN fact bad exegesis- it ignores the context.

You further stated

“The fact that he has already specified both men and women in vv 1-2, and then spent vv3-16 describing the requirements and characteristics for women leaders in the congregation means that when he gets to the summary statements in vv 17-21 he is talking about the men and women who lead the congregation.”

I disagree. Verse 3-16 have nothing to do with women leaders in the church. Paul is clearly instructing Timothy about widows.I fail to see where the ‘requirements and characteristics’ are for the women leaders. Please point these out! Verses 17-21 are about accusations against elders, not summary statements about the leaders. I cannot see where your line of reasoning nor your interpretation of the passage is coming from. Don’t push for a passage about leaders that is clearly not there.

Next you discussed chapter 3 and insist that the passage is not addressing males only because of the ‘ei tis’ (whoever, anybody). Important to always keep in close mind is context. Does the passage here address both male and female or just male. Although Paul does use ‘ei tis’ the qualifiers ‘husband of one wife’, ‘managing his family’ (related to Eph 5 as the head) aswell as the correlating passage in Titus 1 show us that Paul is addressing males. I have heard others attempt an argument that legally only men could have multiple partners, but this line of argument is very weak. There is nothing in the passage to think that this is why Paul makes the statement- it is assumption based not on the context of the passage. Not only that, when Paul expands on the qualifications of deacons, it is here that a feminine ’gunaikos’ is introduced. Now if women were meant to be included in everything proceeding verse 11 then there would be no need to separate a teaching into a ‘woman’ orientated section. The evidence is hardly worth comparing and to argue against this chapter shows a deliberate ignorance of the greek.

Now finally you said that Paul spends alot of time outlining the qualifications for women leaders. Now contextually what you must be saying is his relation to a ‘deacon’. If you wish to persist that it further relates to elder please show contextually or grammatically why verse 11 should be understood with elders. On top of that why should we translate that gunaikos means ‘deaconess’ rather than women or wives?

Look forward to your response