Paul Had The Gnostics, We Have The Sexists

Despite the clear picture of mutuality and freedom for women and men described throughout the New Testament, three NT passages from the Apostle Paul continue to be used to hinder women’s full participation in all offices and areas of the church. As with other “hard” passages in the Scriptures, a proper hermeneutic is necessary in understanding what our Lord said through Paul, and that hermeneutic involves taking the context of these seemingly variant passages into mind when exploring their meaning.

“Women should listen and learn quietly and submissively. I do not let women teach men or have authority over them. Let them listen quietly. For God made Adam first, and afterward he made Eve. And it was the woman, not Adam, who was deceived by Satan, and sin was the result. But women will be saved through childbearing and by continuing to live in faith, love, holiness, and modesty.” 1 Timothy 2:11-15, NLT

This passage is clearly problematic for those who see the revolutionary social equality in the New Testament (Galatians 3:28, for example, or the calls for mutuality between men and women in 1 Corinthians 7), a message that erased distinctions in church service and Kingdom living between men and women, slaves and free, Greeks and Jews. On the face of it, Paul appears to be very clear, writing that he does not “let women teach men or have authority over them,” and the apparent clarity of verses 11-15 has been used to keep women out of positions of ecclesiastical or instructional authority – even though they do not, at first reading, square with Paul’s acknowledgment of women leaders and teachers in other NT passages (see Romans 16, for example, where he notes the apostleship of Junia and the diaconate of Phoebe). A bedrock principle of Biblical hermeneutics is that difficult passages must be interpreted in the light of the clear teachings of the whole context of Scripture, a context here that reveals the specificity of Paul’s directive to the Church at Ephesus a generation after Christ’s ascension. And context here is crucial: The Gnostic heresy that a century later would inundate the culture was already making inroads into the Church, and nowhere else was it more prominent than in Ephesus, home of the Temple of Artemis. 1 Timothy 2:11-15 is a point-by-point refutation of that heresy and cannot be construed as a “once and forever” prohibition in the Church.

From a wider perspective, the passage is not consistent with Paul’s lauding of Priscilla, Phoebe, Chloe, Lydia, Nympha, Junia and other women who led churches in “their” homes or instructed men, as Priscilla did, in the Gospel. Some point out that Priscilla taught Apollos alongside her husband – the only proper way, they assert, for a woman to teach men – but Paul consistently lists Priscilla before her husband as a teacher and leader of the Church that met in their (not his) home. When Paul is named alongside another co-worker, we assume that he is thought to be and should be considered the primary leader. We cannot refuse to acknowledge the same for Priscilla. Moreover, we cannot take 1 Timothy 2:11-15 at face value when it contains much that is contrary to his, and to the Lord’s, presentation of Gospel freedom and Spirit gifting in all who follow Him. Paul refers often to women and men who have "contended" with him for the Gospel. No different verb is used for the women, no qualifying point is offered to restrict them, and no alternate explanation attempted in the face of our Lord's choosing to reveal himself as Messiah to the Samaritan woman, entrusting the women with the glorifying news of the Resurrection, and honoring Mary over Martha for choosing "the better things" of Christ's instruction over traditional women's work.

And yet the Church cling to this puzzling text like a splintering plank in choppy waters. It's evident that there are immediate problems in the text, one of which is verse 15, which appears to claim that women will be saved through “childbearing.” Clearly, no one familiar with the Gospel would suggest that while men are saved by grace through faith, women are saved “through childbearing.” We correctly assume that what Paul says here is NOT that the Gospel can save only men, while fertile women, presumably married, require in addition to or instead of the Gospel an ability to bear children to secure their salvation. Some have translated this as "the Childbearing," or the incarnation of Christ -- which doesn't just save women, but men also. Either way, we may not understand what he meant by this, but we're sure about what he didn't.

But scholars have wrestled for centuries with verses 11-15. It is troublesome at every point. For example, v. 11 says that “women should listen and learn quietly and submissively.” That in itself was shocking – that a woman “should learn” at all was a jolt to the social order of the day among Paul's audience. But her “submissive” approach to instruction was the same attentiveness and respect required of all learners of Rabbinical teaching, not a prescribed silence directed only at them. Evidence of this is Paul’s acknowledgment and approval of women’s praying and prophesying – in NT times, the giving forth of God’s words of instruction and encouragement to the assembly – in 1 Corinthians and his repeated assertions that many women “collaborated with” him or “contended for” the Gospel. These verbs are active and yet not gender-specific, however revolutionary their application to women of the time was, and his call in 1 Timothy for women to take their place alongside men in being instructed in the Gospel sets the stage for a radical departure from the Hebraic culture his followers came from and the Greek culture in which they lived.

In v.12, Paul appears to make a blanket statement that women are not allowed “to teach men or have authority over them.” Prominent evangelical scholars have noted that the correct Greek translation of verse 12 is “I am NOT NOW permitting women to teach men or have authority over them,” which suggests that his prohibition is temporary. Faced with creeping Gnosticism, Paul is concerned here with the societal witness of the Church as well as its conformity to the clear meaning of the Gospel. As we see in all of his other letters, Paul’s primary concern is that no one be unnecessarily repelled by the Gospel and the freedoms it allowed; he asked for a voluntary curtailing and constraining of individual rights so that those on the outside would not in any way confuse women’s Gospel freedoms as Gnostic in origin, causing undue offense. He was “not presently allowing/permitting” women to teach or have authority over a man because of the licentiousness involved in Gnosticism, as well as the strict gender divisions in synagogue, society, and home among the Jews of that time -- gender divisions not found in the glory of Eden, but only present after the Fall. Paul’s intent in “not presently permitting” women to teach or rule requires, for the modern reader, an understanding of the point-by-point refutation of Gnosticism found in 1 Timothy 2:11-15.

Gnosticism taught more than a division between body and spirit, with “body” and all things material judged to be foul while the "spiritual" was esteemed. Gnostics attempted to explain away, for example, the physicality of Christ by saying that Jesus became the Christ only at the time of His baptism or, perhaps, His crucifixion, and the Gnostic disgust for the body led to marked licentiousness – after all, if the body was fouled, how could sins committed in the body be terribly problematic? In addition, the Gnostics in Ephesus encouraged worship of the goddess Artemis, and from this sprang teachings of female primacy in creation and female supremacy in life and in wisdom. The Gnostics taught that women were created first, were superior in every way to men, and were defiled by “female things” like menstruation and childbirth. This gave rise to a debauched sense of female privilege and primacy, welcomed, unfortunately, by women who were limited in their participation in society if they were Greek and, if they were Jews, who lived among men who thanked Yahweh daily for not having made them – fathers, husbands, sons, brothers – Gentiles or women. As part of the rise of the Gnostic heresy, this reckless female primacy began to creep into the Church – resulting in gross licentiousness and feelings of superiority among Greek and Hebrew women who, prior to Gnosticism, had suffered tremendous oppression by men. Tragically, Gnosticism felt like liberty. Like all heresy, it enslaved rather than freed.

It’s precisely because of the freedom the Gospel gives women, however, that these Gnosticized women were causing trouble in the Ephesian Church. The liberty bestowed on women in Christ’s teachings and example quickly invited an out-of-control, libertine frenzy that ignited claims of female primacy in creation, female supremacy in ontology and intellect, and female “deliverance” from women’s bodily distinctives. Verses 11-15, then, were written in a Gnostic culture as Paul, out of concern for the witness of the Church in its culture, attempted to rein in these gross excesses. This is why he says in v. 13, seemingly remarking out of nowhere, that “God made Adam first, and afterward He made Eve.” Appeal to the order of humankind's creation here does not charge Eve, as some have said, with being the originator of sin; Romans 5 and Paul's First-Adam/Second-Adam analogy would have to be entirely discarded if it did. Instead, this is a direct refutation of the Gnostic claims that women were first-created, inherently-superior beings in relation to men.

The mystery deepens in v. 12, where Paul says “(I am not now permitting) women to teach men or have authority over them.” The verb that Paul uses in “have authority” is authentein, which is an extremely rare verb that is found in only a handful of documents of that time, and which did not commonly mean “be the boss” or “take charge.” Authentein is a perplexing verb whose meaning ranges from “to murder” to “to claim origin above” (from which we get our English word “authentic”) to “one who accomplishes/originates falsely an action of primacy.” There are other words Paul could have used, and did in other passages, to limit someone’s “being in charge,” but here he chose an extremely unusual word instead. But if Gnosticism convinced women that they were first in creation and had ontological superiority over men, Paul’s use of “authentein” makes sense. In using this strong-but-multiply-defined word, Paul is insisting that women not pronounce themselves originators of mankind, inherently superior to individual men, and the only source of pure “gnosis” (knowledge) leading to salvation. He prohibits women’s teaching, falsely, that they reign supreme in creation, and he prohibits these largely unlearned women from wrongly usurping the teaching ministry of men on the basis of their supposed preeminence in creation and in gnosis. Therefore, a contextual paraphrase of Paul’s words might be something along the lines of “Women should listen and learn as submissive students. I’m not currently prohibiting (because of the female-obsessed, licentious culture around us) women to teach or proclaim dominance over men. Let them be instructed in the Way . . .”

This is clearly Paul’s point in verse 14, where he says that Adam wasn't "deceived," but Eve was. Conservatives deny women's ecclesiastical authority by arguing here that this is a reminder of Eve's having been tricked -- easily duped, and a model for female flightiness and foolishness. But they ignore the truth that Adam, directly instructed by Yahweh, simply chose to disobey. One would hardly argue that because of Adam's direct disobedience (as well as his blaming his sin on Eve), men are more sinful and less courageous than women, and it's equally fallacious to argue that because of Eve's ignorance, women are particularly dumb, especially naive, and thus utterly unfit to assume Church authority. We know that both women and men are sinful, and we know that both women and men are capable of great intellect. Those to whom God has given gifts of teaching are gifted on the basis of the Spirit's own pleasure, not by gender, and to use this verse to keep women from teaching positions in the Church ignores Paul's example here and elsewhere in not making the Gospel unnecessarily offensive to the prevailing culture.

Remembering that the Gnostics taught that the body was defiled and that giving birth was especially polluting, the puzzling assertion in v. 15 that “women will be saved through childbearing and by continuing to live in faith, love, holiness, and modesty” is clearly troublesome when viewed through the lens of a Gospel accepted by men and by women only by faith through God’s grace. It cannot mean that bearing children “saves” women, but, in a Gnostic culture, it can – and does – mean that the prevailing notion that women were degraded by physical manifestations of womanhood such as menstruation and childbirth is wrong, opposed to the Gospel at every point. And if it does mean "the Childbearing" of Jesus Christ through Mary, the equality of men and women in Christ is further cemented, as it is by the understanding that all should follow "the Way" in "faith, love, holiness and modesty." Would we argue that men aren't somehow required to exhibit the same fruit? Women are neither defiled by childbirth nor saved because of it; the birth of the Christ brought salvation into the world for both women and men. Therefore, this seemingly aberrant verse, and the problematic verses before it, become not a prescription for female suppression in the Church now, but are instead a clear denouncement in five verses of the primary teachings of Gnosticism. And if we read “women will be saved through childbearing” and conclude that whatever it means, it doesn’t mean exactly THAT, we must also, then, read the other verses with an understanding of the context in which they were written, not with a wooden, first-glance literalism that no more honors Scripture when applied here than when applied to any other verse.

Paul’s overriding concern was not only the truth of the Gospel, but its fair hearing and eventual acceptance in whatever culture he dealt with. Women, he taught in Ephesians and in First Corinthians, were as free and as equally gifted as men – but often the cause of the Gospel is furthered by the voluntary curtailment for a time of individual privileges, liberties, and rights afforded by the Gospel. In Gnostic Ephesus, the presence of women teaching men might appear to be an affirmation of Gnosticism and could harm the Gospel outreach by unwittingly linking it with the very heresy Christ’s message condemns. It makes sense that in that day, Paul would ask that women lay down certain freedoms – for a time – in order to not cause offense to the non-believing hearers of the Word. But in our day, continued restrictions on the public and ecclesiastical ministry of Spirit-gifted women contribute to the disdain with which our society, which generally accepts women as fully equal partners with men, hears the Gospel message. We cause unnecessary offense to our society when we bar women from leadership roles in the Church, proclaiming that in doing so we are honoring Scripture when, in fact, we are bowing to gender-role tradition and a plucking out of context Paul’s culturally conditioned restriction of women in a society that was fraught with errant ideas of female supremacy.

There is no other tradition or doctrine in Christianity that relies solely on two or three problematic, contradictory verses in Scripture. Believers today don’t, for example, kiss one another, give up private ownership of all their property, or wash one another’s feet. We see these, and correctly so, as time-bound, culture-specific instances that teach a larger truth such as the need for affection, service, and submission among the people of Christ. The continued barring of women from teaching and ecclesiastical leadership stems not from a serious study of Paul’s message, the Gospel of Christ, or the testimony of the NT, but from the insistence of men and women that these verses, and only these verses, be read just at face value, with a wooden literalism that ignores the panoramic vision of the New Testament. In doing so, the Church not only limps along at half-strength, but also unnecessarily alienates men and women who are rightly offended by continued emphasis on strict gender roles. That emphasis is wrong, based on the Bible that teaches that the Spirit gives gifts, all kinds of gifts, to men and women as He pleases, with no restriction in the bestowing of Spiritual gifts between men and women. There is much in the Gospel that rightly causes offense – we ARE sinners, and we DON’T have any means to God except through Christ. But to cloak the Gospel in shiny, fresh, supple new wineskins while pouring out the bitter, sour wine of gender discrimination is a disservice to the unbelievers we say we care about, a wrongful and misguided concession to culture and tradition that flies in the face of the teachings of the One in whom women and men alike share equal status, equal gifting, and equal opportunity.

Churches today rightly focus on making the Gospel clear and available to our post-Christian world, and many consciously choose to work cross-culturally and, at times, at odds with the prevailing culture in which it operates. These believing communities want to exhibit a fresh, relevant, freeing message to a world consumed by sin, fear, guilt and despair, and they intentionally seek to break down traditional barriers to the Gospel while preserving its truths. But the Church that strives to be relevant and relational doesn’t look to unbelievers fresh, bold and exciting when it holds tightly to Biblically indefensible and culturally-bound gender roles. It looks, to a culture accustomed to seeing women as physicians, mothers, teachers and leaders, out-of-touch, even bigoted. The unnecessary offense to unbelievers caused by the Church’s restricting the roles of women – conducting ministry based on gender, not Spirit-giftedness – causes tremendous harm, and when we read Paul in context and understand the eternal truths he taught while setting aside the culturally-specific dictates he sometimes issued, the Church can operate in fullness and in strength. The offense of the Gospel should be in its insistence that all are sinners. It shouldn’t be in an insistence that some, simply by virtue of gender, are to be perennially kept from using the gifts given them by a loving God.