By Geoffrey Thomas
I Timothy 2:12-14
BUT I Suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.Often churchgoers blame their personal inconsistencies in daily living on inadequate guidance. "If only God's Word on this subject had been clearer," they would say. But this passage in I Timothy 2:12-14 cannot be clearer and more straight forward. Read it in any and every translation and you see the astonishing unanimity concerning the meaning of this text.
For example, this is how the New International Version puts it:
I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.
I. Women are not allowed to teach.
Let me make it clear right from the beginning that when God says "I suffer not a woman to teach," He is talking about the whole congregation assembling itself together. He is referring to the worship service.
Elsewhere, the Bible says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." (Col. 3:16). That command applies to Christian women as well as men. Titus 2:4 encourages older women to teach younger ones, and in his second epistle to Timothy, Paul speaks warmly of the influence the teaching of Timothy's mother and grandmother had upon the young man. So women certainly are not forbidden from speaking and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ in all circumstances.
But when men and women gather together as a congregation in the name of Christ, a woman is definitely not allowed to teach. Why? For one thing, she does not have a call from God to be a preacher. God has not given any woman the authorization to be a teacher of His word.
So, while Paul can tell Timothy in this letter (4:13,14), "Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy," he could never say that to a woman. Earlier in this epistle, God has declared that both the bishop, or elder, and the deacon must be "the husband of one wife" (3:2,12). No woman could ever be so qualified.
II. They are not to usurp authority over men.
Verse 12 continues, "nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." Again, the Bible does not forbid all women from exercising any kind of authority. Think of that virtuous woman described in Proverbs 31. Although parabolically she may be a picture of the church, the woman is nevertheless presented as a person of authority. Elsewhere in this epistle, women are told to manage their homes (5:14).
The authority that is a no-go area for women is strictly that which is found in the context of worship services and in the ruling of the local congregation. A woman may never teach the whole gathered church. When she does so, it says here, she is usurping the authority that God has given only to men. She is no less a usurper than someone who masquerades as a doctor without medical qualifications.
The matter of women being in silence was first addressed in verse 11, where God says, "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." Women are to learn seriously with concentration. Like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, a woman cannot honor God more than by reverently listening to His word with the full purpose of obeying it. That's what "with all subjection" means.
Nevertheless, it's a fact that large sections of the church question all this. The Church of England has lately gone apace into ordaining women priests. And at the last Assembly of the Baptist Union, they spoke enthusiastically of their aim of having over 25% of their ministers as women. Typically, these and other denominations excuse their disobedience with cliché arguments that sound something like this: Paul's teaching is old-fashioned and chauvinistic. It was meant for the society of his day. Today's women are well educated. They are fully qualified to preach.
III. Man and woman were created with different roles.
Anticipating such challenges, verse 13 begins to give further reasons for the command just given. Notice that it has nothing to do with the relatively ignorant and uneducated condition of most women of Paul's day, nor to the cultural offense that women preachers might give to that ancient world. It simply says, "For Adam was first formed, then Eve." Effectively, God is declaring that what we have before us is the issue of man's authority over woman.
When Jesus was asked about divorce, He called attention to the Creation by saying, "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female" (Matt. 19:4). Here, Paul is moved by the Holy Spirit to do the same. He turns to the truths presented in the opening chapters of Genesis.
Of the creation of humans, we read in Genesis 1:26,27:
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
So, male and female have an equal standing in terms of created status. They share equally in the dignity of creation and in the fundamental privileges of the covenant of grace. Both could walk with the Lord in the garden, and know His fellowship and love.The differences. Whereas Genesis 1 shows the uniqueness and equality of man and woman, Genesis 2 reveals the different role relationship between man and woman. Let us consider the main differences:
First, man and woman were created at different times. We read about the creation of man in verse 7, but it was not until verse 21 that God made the woman.
Second, man and woman were created from different materials. Adam was created from the dust of the ground, while the woman was created from the rib of the man. This difference is emphasized in I Corinthians 11, where God declares in verse 3, "the head of the woman is the man." Verse 8 there says, "For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man." The way in which man and woman were created determines the role differences they are to play.
Third, man and woman were created for different reasons. God created Eve because He did not want the man to be alone. To be sure, Adam was not absolutely alone. Even then, there were the animals and, more important, there was God. In His wisdom, nevertheless, the Lord still says, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him."
Having been created to be Adam's helper, Eve was under Adam's headship; it was her God-given role to help him. And Adam demonstrated his authority by naming her.
The privilege of naming someone or something always belongs to the person in authority. In Genesis 1, for example, God named some parts of creation, calling them Day, Night, Heaven, Earth and Seas. In Genesis 2, Adam named the animals. But he also had the authority to name the woman. He named her "Woman" in verse 23 because she was "taken out of Man". And in Genesis 3:20 he further named her "Eve" because she was "the mother of all living."
We thus see that God established a role relationship between men and women even before the fall.
IV. Eve was the first to sin.
But the primal transgression is also behind God's command forbidding women to preach. Verse 14 reads:
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
You'll remember the context of the deception of Eve. God had placed our first parents in the garden He had made. It was a period of probation during which the constancy of their submission to their Lord was being tested. Would they be obedient to His command, "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it"?
One presumes that at this time Adam was doing what God has told him to do to dress and keep the garden (Gen. 2:15). The serpent then came to the woman. Why did he choose to tempt her first, the Bible does not say. At any rate, Satan devised to approach the wife first, whom God Himself later describes as "the weaker vessel" (I Pet. 3:7). So, Eve was the first to be tempted, and she was the first to succumb to the temptation.
V. Eve was deceived.
Theologians have engaged in all kinds of speculation as to why Eve failed the test. But listen to Eve's own confession. When God said to her, "What is this that thou hast done?" she answered, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat" (Gen. 3:13).
The word "beguile" means deceive. Adam's fall was strictly a case of disobedience; he rebelled with his eyes opened. But Eve was deceived. God highlights that difference here in I Timothy 2:14 by stressing that Adam was not deceived, but the woman was.
How was Eve deceived? By her relying on her senses and desires. She walked by sight, and trusted her own emotions. We read of her initial response to the serpent in Genesis 3:3:
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
She knew very well what the command of God was. But then we read the following in verse 6:
when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof.
There was no reason for Eve to doubt God. She has not experienced some tragedy, and no man has broken her heart. Nothing at all has dissatisfied her. The problem with her is that between verse 3 and verse 6, she lost the ability to reason correctly.
She did not remember God's command. She did not consult her husband. She did not cry to the Lord for help. She listened to the serpent and decided herself that eating the fruit would be beneficial for knowledge. Her husband also fell, yes, but Eve put personal emotions above correct reasoning. And God cites this weakness as another reason for His not permitting women to teach and have authority over men.
Conclusion
Male headship did not come in because of the fall of man. It is found in creation. When God looked at the man and the woman helper that He had created along with their different authorities, He said "Very good!" So, while man and woman are equal before God, both having been created in His image, they have different role distinctions. This complementary differentiation was clearly designed for our well-being.
With this truth in mind, we can thus see that at stake in the growing attempt to make women full-time preachers is part of a much bigger onslaught on the nature of God Himself.
The Bible has made it clear that God has assigned to men the primary responsibility for leadership in the home, and to spiritually gifted men the primary teaching and governing leadership in the church. That is an expression of God's mercy and wisdom for the good of society and of the church.
Therefore, the issue of saying "No" to women's leadership in the church is essential for the very existence of Christianity. What we have today is another religion calling itself Christianity. This rejection of the Biblical definition of the roles of man and woman ultimately reflects a rejection of God as the exclusive heavenly Father, the head of the church and the Lord of His people.
Granted, the women who want to be preachers and leaders in the church may think that they are serving the Lord more efficiently this way because they are making better used of their knowledge and administrative abilities. And the people championing this movement may be well-meaning, thinking that they are just being fair to women.
But God says: "To obey is better than sacrifice." (I Sam. 15:22) and "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 7;21). Woe to those who ignore these warnings.Rev. Geoffrey Thomas is minister of Alfred Place Baptist Church, Two Alfred Place, Aberystwyth, SY23 2BS, United Kingdom.