WHY MIKE WINGER IS WRONG ABOUT AUTHENTEŌ IN 1 TIMOTHY 2:12 – AND WHY IT MATTERS

A guest post by Andrew Bartlett and Terran Williams

I have a lot of respect for Andrew Bartlett and Terran Williams. I have hosted them twice before—once on The Anxious Bench and once on Marginalia. But after seeing how carefully they are engaging with Mike Winger’s videos on women (and he spent 11 1/2 hours on 1 Timothy 2 alone), my respect has turned into awe. You don’t want to miss their response (actually, you should read all their responses to Winger). So far they have only completed a response to part of Winger’s video on 1 Timothy 2—I’ll let you know when they have finished all 11 1/2 hours of the video.

And, if you have forgotten who Mike Winger is, here is my twice posted recap:

“I only recently learned about Mike Winger. A friend alerted me that he had posted a not-so-flattering discussion of The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth. I wasn’t terribly surprised by this since Winger earned a ministry degree from Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, an extension campus of Calvary Chapel Bible College which states in its doctrinal statement that men and women were created to “complement and complete each other.” Indeed, the Bible college is part of the Calvary Global Network which is “officially Complementarian.” What was a surprise to me was how dismissive Winger was of me.* After a short twitter discussion with him, I promised to take him up on his offer to review his videos on women in ministry.” One of my stalwart principles in life is not to reinvent the wheel. So when I learned about Andrew Bartlett and Terran William’s series addressing Winger’s videos, I asked if I could highlight their introduction on the Anxious Bench. For those of you who don’t know, Andrew Bartlett is the author of Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Insight from Biblical Texts (2019) as well as an international arbitrator and judge based in the UK. Terran Williams is a pastor and church-planter in South Africa. He recently published How God Sees Women: The End of Patriarchy (2022). During the past year I have had the opportunity to meet Andrew in person twice (first when we spoke together in Vancouver for the Evangelical Free Church of Canada theology conference and second when he hosted my entire class last July for afternoon tea at his house in Canterbury) and correspond some with Terran. I continue to be impressed by not only the thoroughness of their research and logic of their responses but also the grace they exhibit.

Below is a short summary of Bartlett and William’s response to how Winger deals with authenteō in 1 Timothy 2:12. Scot McKnight is also sharing this post as we are trying to get it as much air time as possible. I hope it helps, and I hope you share it with those in your life who listen to Winger.

by Andrew Bartlett and Terran Williams

Here’s a QUICK SUMMARY of our full article, which is at https://terranwilliams.com/why-mike-winger-is-wrong-about-authenteo-in-1-timothy-212-and-why-it-matters-2/.

Our full article engages with the 4½ hours of Mike’s Women in Ministry Part 12 video in which he discusses the meaning of the rare Greek term authenteō in 1 Timothy 2:12. We summarize Mike’s reasoning and then assess each step in it.

While Mike’s presentation skills are masterful, every step in Mike’s reasoning involves a mis-step.

There are many errors and gaps in his research. He has misread what scholars have written. He has missed important points which they have made, not answering them. He has gone off on tangents by asking himself the wrong questions. His reasoning is often unsound and illogical, even self-contradictory. His knowledge of church history is thin. He has got facts wrong.

He has not traced Paul’s train of thought through the letter. He has not considered why Paul made the strange choice of using the unusual word authenteō. That cries out for an explanation. Mike has not offered one.

We are sad that a well-intentioned and gifted Christian brother teaches publicly with such seeming confidence on topics which he has not thoroughly mastered. The low level of reliability in Mike’s output is disappointing, and is apt to mislead many of his listeners.

Mike’s conclusion is that in 1 Timothy 2:12 the Greek term should be translated as ‘have authority’. He understands it to be referring to a characteristic function of a church elder.

But that is in conflict with the meaning of the term in and around Paul’s time.

The available historical evidence shows that in Paul’s time, when authenteō is used to describe what one person does to another person, it is an appropriate word for describing the application of strong-arm negotiating tactics to overpower another party and force them to back down. And it is an appropriate word for describing the dominating astrological influence of one planet over another. Because astrology was practiced in Ephesus, that rare word would ring a bell with Paul’s original audience. It has connotations of pressure and of decisive influence. But it is not an appropriate word for describing the ordinary exercise of authority by a church elder. There is zero evidence which supports such a meaning in Paul’s time.

Mike rightly rejects the Church Fathers’ traditional view that women cannot be leaders for the reason that they are defective in their nature, being morally weaker and more sinful than men. Yet he urges us to rely on expositions and translations which have been driven by that traditional view. That makes no sense.

Mike has not shown even one historical example, prior to the Church Fathers, of authenteō being used or understood in a sense suitable to the function of a church elder. His earliest pertinent evidence to support restrictions on women is from the third-century Father, Origen, in Fragment 74 on 1 Corinthians, which he enthusiastically describes as “super cool”. Yet, in self-contradiction, Mike himself argues that the view expressed by Origen in that Fragment is definitely wrong – as indeed it is.

Why does it matter how we interpret authenteō in 1 Timothy 2:12? Any church or denomination that excludes women from eldership or pastoral leadership on the basis of reading authenteō as ‘have authority’ or ‘exercise authority’ lacks a sound basis for doing so.

You can find the full article on Terran’s website here.