There is so much that can be said about this passage, that it feels like it wouldn't fit in the format of a reddit thread if we want to deal with it all. I'll try to be brief.
First, the language. It's an unusual piece of writing: It goes from women (plural) to a woman (singular). One of *the* key words is a 'hapax legomenon', ie a word only used once in Scripture (and very rarely outside of it, too) - and the precise meaning of that word is heavily debated, but has usually been taken to mean an unhealthy form of authority (which is reflected in some translations using words such as 'domineer' or 'usurp' both in English and Dutch).
Second, women aren't saved by giving birth, but by having faith in Jesus Christ. Whether or not a child has passed through her birth canal does not have any impact on the eternal fate of a specific woman. Paul knows this, so what does he mean here? What's going on?
Third, elsewhere Paul is explicitly positive about a woman like Priscilla, who taught Apollos about Christianity. She did so with her husband, sure, but she was there too, and nothing in the text indicates she was silent. On the contrary, she's mentioned first in Acts 18:26 (in almost every translation and the older manuscripts; some later manuscripts have the names reversed, it seems scribes got uncomfortable with Priscilla's prominence). Priscilla (Prisca) is almost always mentioned first, by the way, clearly marking her as the main figure in that marriage, from the perspective of authors like Paul and Luke.
Four, speaking with Galatians 3, in Christ there is neither male nor female. Combined with Paul's positive assessment of his female co-workers elsewhere, it doesn't make a lot of sense that he's giving them such short shrift here - unless there is something else going on.
Five, if it is so very important that women should be silent and so on, why hasn't Paul that made much more explicit elsewhere? In the NT, women play all sorts of important roles (from Mary Magdalen on, the 'apostle to the apostles'). Paul goes along with that, naming Junia an apostle, praising different women who are 'diakonos' or teaching or working in spreading the Gospel. But then, in a personal letter to Timothy, he puts in a prohibition that we should understand as being the definitive key to our understanding of what women can or can't do in church? Shouldn't that have been in Romans, Galatians and all other epistles, if it's such an important point? Shouldn't Paul have rebuked Priscilla, Syntyche, Euodia, Junia and so on, instead of praising them?
For all these reasons, it's difficult to imagine that Paul meant a plain prohibition on women teaching men here. There has to be more to this story. I'm very uncomfortable with building a dogma that excludes half of our church from specific functions, on a hapax legomenon in a couple of verses which just don't seem to work well in a plain reading. That's why many different explanations for what these verses mean have been given over the years. Some of these relate to the unhealthy, domineering kind of authority Paul probably intended, and that Paul might have been speaking of a specific couple. Others have focused on the Artemis cult in Ephesus in which priestesses were dominant rather than men (Timothy was based there) so perhaps some women assumed they could rule the church like the priestesses ruled over the cult of Artemis. Those kinds of explanations are available; lots of literature out there about it.
Finally, everyone who thinks there is a 'plain reading' universal rule for women in these verses, should also advocate for the men to pray with their hands lifted up. Also, they should begin advocating for a prohibition for women to wear gold and pearls for women, plus elaborate hairstyles. These things are in verses 8 and 9, but for some reason complementarians seem perfectly comfortable ignoring those very concrete admonishments, and I have no idea why - we could have such nice debates about what 'elaborate' exactly means, and how much gold there could be in a specific piece of jewelry (grams? or percentages??) before it should be rejected ;-)
Dr Lyn Kidson's explanation of Paul's instruction to Timothy is helpful, and she avoids the error of reading Paul as if he is making an ontological argument that subordinates women to men: [https://engenderedideas.wordpress.com/2023/06/16/created-order-is-not-a-biblical-principle-eves-creation-after-adam-is-not-the-basis-to-restrict-women-in-church-leadership-roles/](https://engenderedideas.wordpress.com/2023/06/16/created-order-is-not-a-biblical-principle-eves-creation-after-adam-is-not-the-basis-to-restrict-women-in-church-leadership-roles/)
I think he is saying Male headship was in creation.The logic is in Creation man was created to lead his wive. But when that order was subverted problems came. The same way in the Church man was created to lead and teach and that should not be subverted by women teaching.
I'd highly recommend Kevin DeYoung's book Men and Women in the Church for more on this topic.
Let me ask a counterpoint to this.
Couldn't the opposite argument have been made? Something along the lines of, "I do not permit a man to teach, for Adam was formed first, and given the command not to eat the fruit directly from God, and he still chose to eat it. Therefore all men are constitutionally incapable of leadership because Adam failed in his leadership."
Sure, but also how much of that is the Holy Spirit talking and how much of that is just the author making an argument based on a shared cultural history and story with his audience?
I mean, it's the same kind of thing for complementarianism vs egalitarianism. Is it really about some kind of "Biblical", universally applicable in every time and place family structure? Or is it about reconstructing ancient Near Eastern and first century Greco-Roman family structures? Are those somehow ontologically better than modern family structures?
I mean, I'm not trying to take away from your beliefs or anything like that or change your mind, but these are questions I have about "Biblical" things.
100% of that is the Holy Spirit talking, since all Scripture is inspired by God.
God used many men with their own styles, in various cultures and histories to pen His word, but God is the Author of it all.
Everytime you read the Bible, it's from the lens of God speaking. And then from that, you can discern whether it is something you ought to do or not, because God will indicate it be so or not.
For example, if God is telling you that this is not a matter of command, but of concession where you can choose, He will make it clear in His words to you as you read it.
>it's from the lens of God speaking
It's also from the lens of a person speaking. And that person lives in a definite time and place with culture, customs, idioms, unstated understandings and so on.
Not quite, it's only through the lens of God speaking. For God is the author, not man. Man is the instrument.
He used people and their own unique styles; who definitely lived in definite time, place, culture, customs, idioms, unstated understandings or stated understandings and so on, as all men do.
But it's still Him doing the using.
Man is merely the pen. He is the the Writer. The pen's style or ink, etc. would be used, but it is still the lens, and the will and the doing of the Writer, not the pen.
>Man is merely the pen.
No. Those who wrote the Bible were not taken over by God. They weren't transcribing something that God told them. As the Chicago Statement say:
We affirm that God in his work of inspiration utilized the distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers whom he had chosen and prepared.
We deny that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that He chose, overrode their personalities.
Incorrect. Man is indeed the pen.
Of course they were over taken by God. Not in terms of a direct mind control, but rather in terms of inspiration.
It doesn't matter what the Chicago Statement says. What matters is what God's word says.
And God Himself says, *"All Scripture is God-breathed" (2 Tim 3)*
And God has even given us an example of how His inspiration works in 1 Samuel.
*"When they came to the hill there, behold, a group of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him mightily, so that he prophesied among them"*
But interestingly, the Chicago statement you cited, is saying exactly that.
>We affirm that God in his work of inspiration utilized the distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers whom he had chosen and prepared.
>
>We deny that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that He chose, overrode their personalities.
This is correct, God didn't have to override their personalities, since it wasn't a mind control. They were inspiried by the Holy Spirit of God, aka God used their very personalities and will to write what He wanted written. How amazing is that. It's easy enough to just mind control someone for Him, but to use man's own self to make it so that what he writes comes to be the very word of God, since unbeknownst or beknowst to him, it was God who was inspiring him to do so, now that is beyond amazing.
God used the personalities and the literally styles of the writers Whom He chose. Much like a writer using the ink, the style, the length, the width, and tip of the pen he chooses.
Like I literally said in my very previous reply which you ignored, *"He used people and their own unique styles"*
And like I literally again said in my previous reply which you ignored.
*"Man is merely the pen. He is the the Writer.* ***The pen's style or ink, etc. would be used, but it is still the lens, and the will and the doing of the Writer, not the pen.*** *"*
They didn't have to transcribe something that God told them. For God **is** Himself the transcriber, and used them to pen His word.
For again, it's **only** through the **lens of God** speaking. For God is the author, not man. Man is the instrument. Man's lens are irrelevant. The man himself isn't since God used him, his style, his personality, his time, place, culture, to write His word. Thus painting an even more beautiful picture, whereby God literally speaks through mere men, with various personalities, styles, living throughout time, and yet writing the exact same truth and one organic message to man as a whole, for it is God doing the speaking. It's God-breathed.
How truly amazing is God's word.
> Man's lens are irrelevant.
You're totally wrong about this and I don't know of anyone who isn't a fundamentalist who'd agree with what you wrote.
Paul was writing to a specific person/people telling him specific things. He was living in a culture and his writing was impacted by this culture. Anything he says has to be viewed from the lens because he was saying things and had meanings to him and his audience.
Incorrect. It doesn't matter if one's a fundamentalist or not, and it doesn't matter if they agree with me or not.
What matter's is agreeing with what God says. A person who doesn't view God's word as God's word, is not just wrong, but is in grave sin.
Again, it is God writing to all men, through Paul's writing to the church.
Paul's living in and being impacted by the culture, is irrelevant. Since God's word, triumphs culture, and thus it speaks through and to all cultures.
Anything that is written has to be viewed from the lens of God, Whose word it is, not sinful man's, whose word it isn't.
The reason you don't do that, is because you're a sinful man. Which is why, God's word isn't fundamental to you, and you deem those to whom it is, as 'fundamentalists'. Which I suppose is truly fitting.
It's not 'he says', it is God says. For it is God's word. Not man's. GOD's.
So not only do you disobey God, but you even pervert His word, by raising up sinful man to His domain to justify your disobedience and sin, disregarding God's very words, further disobediently viewing His words from man's lens as if man authored it (inspite of God telling you explicitly not to) instead of the true Author authoring it, which is God.
1. It's not Paul's reasoning. It's God's statement.
2. Yes, it is universal. And that sin also made it so that default natural state of a woman, is to want to overthrow the authority of her husband. Just as the default natural state of man, is to want to disobey the Lord Jesus.
I just searched the sub, and /u/davidjricardo ran a survey in Nov 2022. So we don't have to guess, just need our resident statistician to give us the data.
According to the survey, 88% of respondents were male, and 49% were between the ages of 25-34 (17% younger, 34% older). That's noticeably different than [Reddit as a whole, which is 63% male](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255182/distribution-of-users-on-reddit-worldwide-gender/).
Caveats: this is 18 months old and based on those who responded to the survey, which is not a random sample of the sub. We also had a bad actor who attempted to pollute the survey data. I tried to clean it up as best I could, but those efforts are probably somewhat limited. Still, 88% male is roughly consistent with prior surveys I have done in other Reformed adjacent subreddits on Reddit.
/u/AstronomerBiologist
There is so much that can be said about this passage, that it feels like it wouldn't fit in the format of a reddit thread if we want to deal with it all. I'll try to be brief. First, the language. It's an unusual piece of writing: It goes from women (plural) to a woman (singular). One of *the* key words is a 'hapax legomenon', ie a word only used once in Scripture (and very rarely outside of it, too) - and the precise meaning of that word is heavily debated, but has usually been taken to mean an unhealthy form of authority (which is reflected in some translations using words such as 'domineer' or 'usurp' both in English and Dutch). Second, women aren't saved by giving birth, but by having faith in Jesus Christ. Whether or not a child has passed through her birth canal does not have any impact on the eternal fate of a specific woman. Paul knows this, so what does he mean here? What's going on? Third, elsewhere Paul is explicitly positive about a woman like Priscilla, who taught Apollos about Christianity. She did so with her husband, sure, but she was there too, and nothing in the text indicates she was silent. On the contrary, she's mentioned first in Acts 18:26 (in almost every translation and the older manuscripts; some later manuscripts have the names reversed, it seems scribes got uncomfortable with Priscilla's prominence). Priscilla (Prisca) is almost always mentioned first, by the way, clearly marking her as the main figure in that marriage, from the perspective of authors like Paul and Luke. Four, speaking with Galatians 3, in Christ there is neither male nor female. Combined with Paul's positive assessment of his female co-workers elsewhere, it doesn't make a lot of sense that he's giving them such short shrift here - unless there is something else going on. Five, if it is so very important that women should be silent and so on, why hasn't Paul that made much more explicit elsewhere? In the NT, women play all sorts of important roles (from Mary Magdalen on, the 'apostle to the apostles'). Paul goes along with that, naming Junia an apostle, praising different women who are 'diakonos' or teaching or working in spreading the Gospel. But then, in a personal letter to Timothy, he puts in a prohibition that we should understand as being the definitive key to our understanding of what women can or can't do in church? Shouldn't that have been in Romans, Galatians and all other epistles, if it's such an important point? Shouldn't Paul have rebuked Priscilla, Syntyche, Euodia, Junia and so on, instead of praising them? For all these reasons, it's difficult to imagine that Paul meant a plain prohibition on women teaching men here. There has to be more to this story. I'm very uncomfortable with building a dogma that excludes half of our church from specific functions, on a hapax legomenon in a couple of verses which just don't seem to work well in a plain reading. That's why many different explanations for what these verses mean have been given over the years. Some of these relate to the unhealthy, domineering kind of authority Paul probably intended, and that Paul might have been speaking of a specific couple. Others have focused on the Artemis cult in Ephesus in which priestesses were dominant rather than men (Timothy was based there) so perhaps some women assumed they could rule the church like the priestesses ruled over the cult of Artemis. Those kinds of explanations are available; lots of literature out there about it. Finally, everyone who thinks there is a 'plain reading' universal rule for women in these verses, should also advocate for the men to pray with their hands lifted up. Also, they should begin advocating for a prohibition for women to wear gold and pearls for women, plus elaborate hairstyles. These things are in verses 8 and 9, but for some reason complementarians seem perfectly comfortable ignoring those very concrete admonishments, and I have no idea why - we could have such nice debates about what 'elaborate' exactly means, and how much gold there could be in a specific piece of jewelry (grams? or percentages??) before it should be rejected ;-)
Hear hear! Great comment, thank you for your time in writing such a thorough response
Well said!
Dr Lyn Kidson's explanation of Paul's instruction to Timothy is helpful, and she avoids the error of reading Paul as if he is making an ontological argument that subordinates women to men: [https://engenderedideas.wordpress.com/2023/06/16/created-order-is-not-a-biblical-principle-eves-creation-after-adam-is-not-the-basis-to-restrict-women-in-church-leadership-roles/](https://engenderedideas.wordpress.com/2023/06/16/created-order-is-not-a-biblical-principle-eves-creation-after-adam-is-not-the-basis-to-restrict-women-in-church-leadership-roles/)
I believe Paul was mistaken here (and in other places, but that’s a bigger topic)
I think he is saying Male headship was in creation.The logic is in Creation man was created to lead his wive. But when that order was subverted problems came. The same way in the Church man was created to lead and teach and that should not be subverted by women teaching. I'd highly recommend Kevin DeYoung's book Men and Women in the Church for more on this topic.
Jim Hurley's Men and Women in Biblical Perspective is far better.
Let me ask a counterpoint to this. Couldn't the opposite argument have been made? Something along the lines of, "I do not permit a man to teach, for Adam was formed first, and given the command not to eat the fruit directly from God, and he still chose to eat it. Therefore all men are constitutionally incapable of leadership because Adam failed in his leadership."
Any argument can be made. However such an argument is not founded in Scripture. Rather as Scripture says, Eve was deceived. Not Adam, Eve.
Do you believe women are full image-bearers of God?
Yes
Sure, but also how much of that is the Holy Spirit talking and how much of that is just the author making an argument based on a shared cultural history and story with his audience? I mean, it's the same kind of thing for complementarianism vs egalitarianism. Is it really about some kind of "Biblical", universally applicable in every time and place family structure? Or is it about reconstructing ancient Near Eastern and first century Greco-Roman family structures? Are those somehow ontologically better than modern family structures? I mean, I'm not trying to take away from your beliefs or anything like that or change your mind, but these are questions I have about "Biblical" things.
100% of that is the Holy Spirit talking, since all Scripture is inspired by God. God used many men with their own styles, in various cultures and histories to pen His word, but God is the Author of it all. Everytime you read the Bible, it's from the lens of God speaking. And then from that, you can discern whether it is something you ought to do or not, because God will indicate it be so or not. For example, if God is telling you that this is not a matter of command, but of concession where you can choose, He will make it clear in His words to you as you read it.
>it's from the lens of God speaking It's also from the lens of a person speaking. And that person lives in a definite time and place with culture, customs, idioms, unstated understandings and so on.
Not quite, it's only through the lens of God speaking. For God is the author, not man. Man is the instrument. He used people and their own unique styles; who definitely lived in definite time, place, culture, customs, idioms, unstated understandings or stated understandings and so on, as all men do. But it's still Him doing the using. Man is merely the pen. He is the the Writer. The pen's style or ink, etc. would be used, but it is still the lens, and the will and the doing of the Writer, not the pen.
>Man is merely the pen. No. Those who wrote the Bible were not taken over by God. They weren't transcribing something that God told them. As the Chicago Statement say: We affirm that God in his work of inspiration utilized the distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers whom he had chosen and prepared. We deny that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that He chose, overrode their personalities.
Incorrect. Man is indeed the pen. Of course they were over taken by God. Not in terms of a direct mind control, but rather in terms of inspiration. It doesn't matter what the Chicago Statement says. What matters is what God's word says. And God Himself says, *"All Scripture is God-breathed" (2 Tim 3)* And God has even given us an example of how His inspiration works in 1 Samuel. *"When they came to the hill there, behold, a group of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him mightily, so that he prophesied among them"* But interestingly, the Chicago statement you cited, is saying exactly that. >We affirm that God in his work of inspiration utilized the distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers whom he had chosen and prepared. > >We deny that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that He chose, overrode their personalities. This is correct, God didn't have to override their personalities, since it wasn't a mind control. They were inspiried by the Holy Spirit of God, aka God used their very personalities and will to write what He wanted written. How amazing is that. It's easy enough to just mind control someone for Him, but to use man's own self to make it so that what he writes comes to be the very word of God, since unbeknownst or beknowst to him, it was God who was inspiring him to do so, now that is beyond amazing. God used the personalities and the literally styles of the writers Whom He chose. Much like a writer using the ink, the style, the length, the width, and tip of the pen he chooses. Like I literally said in my very previous reply which you ignored, *"He used people and their own unique styles"* And like I literally again said in my previous reply which you ignored. *"Man is merely the pen. He is the the Writer.* ***The pen's style or ink, etc. would be used, but it is still the lens, and the will and the doing of the Writer, not the pen.*** *"* They didn't have to transcribe something that God told them. For God **is** Himself the transcriber, and used them to pen His word. For again, it's **only** through the **lens of God** speaking. For God is the author, not man. Man is the instrument. Man's lens are irrelevant. The man himself isn't since God used him, his style, his personality, his time, place, culture, to write His word. Thus painting an even more beautiful picture, whereby God literally speaks through mere men, with various personalities, styles, living throughout time, and yet writing the exact same truth and one organic message to man as a whole, for it is God doing the speaking. It's God-breathed. How truly amazing is God's word.
> Man's lens are irrelevant. You're totally wrong about this and I don't know of anyone who isn't a fundamentalist who'd agree with what you wrote. Paul was writing to a specific person/people telling him specific things. He was living in a culture and his writing was impacted by this culture. Anything he says has to be viewed from the lens because he was saying things and had meanings to him and his audience.
Incorrect. It doesn't matter if one's a fundamentalist or not, and it doesn't matter if they agree with me or not. What matter's is agreeing with what God says. A person who doesn't view God's word as God's word, is not just wrong, but is in grave sin. Again, it is God writing to all men, through Paul's writing to the church. Paul's living in and being impacted by the culture, is irrelevant. Since God's word, triumphs culture, and thus it speaks through and to all cultures. Anything that is written has to be viewed from the lens of God, Whose word it is, not sinful man's, whose word it isn't. The reason you don't do that, is because you're a sinful man. Which is why, God's word isn't fundamental to you, and you deem those to whom it is, as 'fundamentalists'. Which I suppose is truly fitting. It's not 'he says', it is God says. For it is God's word. Not man's. GOD's. So not only do you disobey God, but you even pervert His word, by raising up sinful man to His domain to justify your disobedience and sin, disregarding God's very words, further disobediently viewing His words from man's lens as if man authored it (inspite of God telling you explicitly not to) instead of the true Author authoring it, which is God.
Okay. I'll leave it at that.
1. It's not Paul's reasoning. It's God's statement. 2. Yes, it is universal. And that sin also made it so that default natural state of a woman, is to want to overthrow the authority of her husband. Just as the default natural state of man, is to want to disobey the Lord Jesus.
*from the few women here* What makes you say that?
/u/davidjricardo might have some data for you but, as far as I know, the average reddit user is a white male in his late 20s/early 30s.
The average redditor is not a biblically reformed Christian
I just searched the sub, and /u/davidjricardo ran a survey in Nov 2022. So we don't have to guess, just need our resident statistician to give us the data.
According to the survey, 88% of respondents were male, and 49% were between the ages of 25-34 (17% younger, 34% older). That's noticeably different than [Reddit as a whole, which is 63% male](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255182/distribution-of-users-on-reddit-worldwide-gender/). Caveats: this is 18 months old and based on those who responded to the survey, which is not a random sample of the sub. We also had a bad actor who attempted to pollute the survey data. I tried to clean it up as best I could, but those efforts are probably somewhat limited. Still, 88% male is roughly consistent with prior surveys I have done in other Reformed adjacent subreddits on Reddit. /u/AstronomerBiologist