How Do I Understand 1 Timothy 2?

(mostly I contend it is the wrong question....)

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and acceptable before God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind,
Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all—this was attested at the right time. For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth; I am not lying), a teacher of the gentiles in faith and truth. I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument, also that the women should dress themselves in moderate clothing with reverence and self-control, not with their hair braided or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” NRSV

I was asked point blank last week how I understood 1 Timothy 2. Honestly, this question irritates me, especially when the intent of the question is to silence arguments for women’s leadership. 1 Timothy 2 is one of the most unclear passages in the New Testament. How did it become the final word on women in church leadership?—especially considering the clarity of passages like Romans 16 and Colossians 4:15?

Just think about it.

How can the prohibition in 1 Timothy 2 against women teaching be universal in light of women like Prisca, Phoebe, Junia, and Nympha? Isn’t the better question how to understand passages like 1 Timothy 2 in light of women’s leadership in other passages?

Complementarians have built a gender theology on the most restrictive biblical texts toward women, interpreting those texts in the most restrictive ways possible. At the same time they have ignored, downplayed, and even translated (altered?) biblical text that contradicts those restrictive attitudes. Phoebe, for example, isn’t a deacon in the English Standard Version of Romans 16; she is a servant (or deaconess in the footnote).

As I have said before, the Paul chapter was the most difficult for me to write in The Making of Biblical Womanhood (next only to the Reformation chapter).

Do you know why it was so difficult?

Do you know why I didn’t want to write it?

Because I felt that the argument between “complementarians” and “egalitarians” had ground to a stalemate. Don’t get me wrong. I agree with egalitarians (or mutualists)—I believe that women are made fully equal in the image of God and that God does not gift according to gender. I believe that God calls women and men to submit to each other; I do not believe God ordained men to lead and women to follow. I also fully support the work of Christians for Biblical Equality. They were in this fight long before I was, and I am so thankful for how their work paved the way for my scholarship—not to mention all the good they have done for both women and the gospel.

But I don’t believe the Bible is egalitarian. How could it be? It was written in a patriarchal world, and that patriarchy permeates it from Genesis to Revelation.

I don’t believe the Bible advocates for women’s subjugation, either. The bumpersticker on my car sharing one of my favorite quotes from The Making of Biblical Womanhood also shares what I believe about patriarchy and biblical text: “patriarchy may be a part of Christian history, but that doesn’t make it Christian.”

The truth is that some parts of the Bible restrict women’s behavior and some parts of the Bible support women’s leadership. As Susan Hylen writes in her Women in the New Testament World, “examples from the New Testament show the coexistence of both the restrictive norms and the active leadership of women. Colossians had language similar to that of Ephesians about wives being subject to husbands (Col 3:18-19), but at the end Paul also greeted “Nympha and the church in her house” (Col 4:15).”

Patriarchy steeped the world of ancient women just as it continues to steep biblical text. Yet women still became leaders in the biblical world just as women still became leaders in the ancient world. The Bible has never been one thing or the other. It has always been both—empowering women while still containing stories and attitudes that enable women’s oppression. Just because Sarah calls her husband-brother (who “pimped her out,” in the words of Wilda Gafney, to another man to save his own skin) “Lord” doesn’t mean his treatment of her should be emulated. I agree with Hebrew scholar Wilda Gafney that Sarah should be remembered “as a survivor of sexual violence and domestic” with “her partner’s complicity in that abuse” recognized. Patriarchy in the New Testament is more complicated than “wives submit to your husband as to the Lord” because we are also reminded that the new Christian world eliminates gender hierarchies—we are all one in Christ (Galatians 3:28).

So what do I think about 1 Timothy 2?

I think it is one passage written in a specific circumstance within a complex world of social, political, and gender dynamics. It certainly reflects broader values of the first century world in which women were often of lower status than the men around them. Yet it would be ludicrous to read 1 Timothy 2:11-12 as a universal ban against all female authority within the church when (1) women clearly were accepted as leaders in the early Jesus movement as the Bible itself testifies, and (2) women of higher social status would not be expected to submit to the authority of men of lower social status. Despite the complementarianism claims to be following the Bible, a universal ban against women teaching is simply not biblical.

If I may quote Susan Hylen again, this time from her just released book on Phoebe. “If ‘they are not allowed to speak’ were the rule, as it was still a rule that would be applied according to the norms of culture. Given the many situations in which the speech of women was also conventional, Paul would have needed to explain things in greater detail if he wanted to prohibit all speech by women—especially because he had already mentioned women’s prayer and prophecy in a way that acknowledged their speech. Paul isn’t contradicting himself: he’s speaking in ways that readers at the time would have understood. When applied according to cultural norms, the 'rule’ of women’ s silence did not prohibit these forms of speech. Indeed, such speech was encouraged without being perceived as breaking the social norms.”

So, again, what do I think of 1 Timothy 2?

I think it is ludicrous to build an entire gender theology around a handful of texts ripped from their historical context, especially the most restrictive texts like 1 Timothy 2:11-12.

I also think it is interesting that—by universally restricting women from exercising authority over men—complementarianism restricts women more today than did the world of first century Rome.

I guess Russell Moore was right when he argued in his 2006 article that Christian patriarchy isn’t like pagan patriarchy.

Christian patriarchy might actually be worse.

Read Susan Hylen, y’all! Her new book “Finding Phoebe,” as well as “Women in the New Testament World.” Also, read Nijay Gupta’s forthcoming book “Tell Her Story,” and Wilda Gafney’s “A Womanist Midrash” and “Daughters of Miriam.” And I recommend following some New Testament folk on substack like Scot McKnight and Michael Bird, and theologians like Beth Felker Jones.