1 Timothy 2: 8-15
by Rev. Carson Overstreet
Van Wyck Presbyterian Church
September 22, 2019
Paul’s first letter to young Timothy was to be read to the church in Ephesus. Timothy was the resident pastor there and he was learning the ropes of ministry. Any leader of the church will tell you that every day in ministry promises joys and challenges in walking with God’s people.
Paul encouraged his protégé, Timothy, to allow the faith and love of Jesus Christ to bring out the best in him, his leadership, and in the church he served. Today we hear Paul urging Timothy to uphold prayerful and reverent worship as the body of Christ gathered.
This is where we enter the text today in 1 Timothy 2: 8-15.
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 modestly and decently in suitable clothing, 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 permit no 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 modesty.
This Bible passage has long been a controversial one. Paul’s words bring a multitude of reactions, especially among women.
Some women have felt harassed by this text finding Paul’s words offensive and infuriating.
This text has made some women feel less than men, with no hope for equal partnership in the workplace, church or home.
Paul’s words have been used to deny female leadership still today in some church denominations.
The patriarchal punch of this text has hit women hard who cannot bear children, leaving them to question Pauls’ words on salvation through childbearing.
While I am grateful to serve in a denomination which affirms that women are equally gifted and equally called as leaders, this text is still hard.
What do you do with the biblical texts that you do not like? Do you just skip over them? Maybe you think about cutting out certain passages to make your own Bible like Thomas Jefferson did.
What are women, much less our daughters, supposed to do with this pastoral letter that suddenly does not seem all that pastoral?
I have learned that when the prickly parts of Scripture cause friction in our faith – and there are lots of prickly parts - then it is time to dig deeper into God’s Word. We have to go beyond the plain reading of Scripture to uncover more of God’s story. We have to go beyond the plain reading to uncover the rule of love in Jesus Christ.
The Bible was written in a very different time and culture. The authors of the Good Book wrote in a variety of genres: narrative, history, prophecy, poetry, wisdom literature, gospels, and letters. Regardless of the genre, the backstories of God’s people matter in how we understand what God’s Word was saying to its ancient readers and what God’s Word is saying to us today.
As a whole, Paul’s letters usually addressed issues that were going on in the churches he planted and served. There is a backstory to our troubling text today. The early church of the second century was forming and small groups gathered in homes.
Wherever the church gathered, Paul had a great concern for prayerful and reverent worship among both women and men. And yet there were issues that were hindering right worship of God alone. One of those issues was the teachings of Gnosticism.
Gnosticism comes form the Greek word, gnosis, meaning knowledge. This belief is rooted in the thought that the human predicament does not result from sin but ignorance. Knowledge is to be found in the spiritual realm with diligent discipline not the physical realm. Gnostics forbade marriage and the eating of certain foods.
Gnosticism questioned the humanity of Jesus Christ, putting the gospel of Jesus’ atonement for sin into jeopardy. It also was quite appealing to women – freeing them from the household codes of the patriarchy and from the social expectation of childbirth, which brought risks and even death to women for centuries. Therefore, Paul does not want these women teaching false doctrines; these specific women are to be quiet.
Also, in regards to childbirth, Paul may have been lifting up maternity as a worthy vocation among women who were influenced by Gnosticism. But certainly child birth does not define a woman’s worth for those who cannot bear children.
Paul was also distressed by another issue – the usurping God’s honor in worship. Frances Taylor Gench is a Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Union Presbyterian Seminary (Richmond, VA). She has studied this text at length and offers this insight:
It appears that some women in this congregation could afford expensive jewelry, extravagant clothing and hairdressers to arrange the elaborately braided hairdos that were the style of wealthy women of the day. What if these wealthy women were major benefactors of the congregation and expected a culturally recognized return of their investment? What if they assumed, for example that their [church] donations entitled them to leadership roles? Maybe it was for their benefit that Paul [addresses them and ] writes in Chapter 6 that to God alone honor is due (1 Timothy 6:16)?
The backstory allows us hear a new perspective - Paul was instructing young Timothy to uphold the integrity of the gospel and also to address a power struggle in the Ephesus Church.
While Paul seems to use the patriarchal system of the culture to bring order to this conflictive situation in God’s household, the rest of Paul’s New Testament writings do not affirm a biblical edict for women to keep silent.
When Paul addresses communication in marital relationships, he upholds mutual honor and respect, which was radically different than the household codes of the male dominant society (Ephesians 5:21; Colossians 3: 18-19).
Regarding leadership, Paul lifts up thirteen female leaders by name who labored by his side to spread the gospel in Acts (Acts 18:26), Philippians (Philippians 4:2-3), and Romans (Romans 16).
I would be remiss if I did not say that in Romans Chapter 16 Paul thanks 10 female leaders by name who were called to serve as deacons, interpret his letters and preach too.
In fact, the whole of Scripture names many women in leadership as prophets (Moses’ sister Miriam (Exodus 15:20), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14), Deborah (Judges 4:4), Isaiah’s wife (Isaiah 8:3), and Noadiah (Nehemiah 6:14)).
The prophet Joel looked to the day when God promised to pour out God’s Spirit upon all flesh so that our sons and daughters would prophesy; that day was fulfilled when the church was born at Pentecost (Joel 2:28; Acts 2: 14-21). Lest I forget that the first Easter sermon ever proclaimed was by women in the gospels.
Our relationship to Paul’s words in First Timothy matter. It matters because of the ways the Reformed tradition guides us to interpret Scripture.
Singling out two consecutive verses of Scripture to subdue and silence women for all times and in all places does not render a faithful reading of God’s Word.
Scripture is authoritative in our lives because it is the Word of God; that authority is not dependent upon what any human or any church says.
Interpreting God’s Word is not a matter of personal opinion but rather seeks the guidance of Holy Spirit as biblical texts are held in conversation with one another. We do this best when we gather in beloved community.
The truth of God’s Word points to God’s work of reconciliation in Jesus Christ; this is what is called the Rule of Love. The whole of Scripture points to the Rule of Love - God’s faithfulness to redeem and empower all of God’s children by the grace, love, and freedom of Jesus Christ. God’s Word is alive and will continue to speak in our changing world and in every human culture.
We respond to God’s faithfulness by worshipping the Lord in spirit and in truth, by honoring God alone, and asking the Holy Spirit hard questions about God’s Word.
Sisters and brothers, if we are created to live in relationship with God and one another, then we are called to live in relationship with God’s Word too.
May we do nothing less in this journey of faith.
In the name of God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.
Sources for Sermon Study:
New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary Volume X: Ephesians; Philippians; Colossians; 1 & 2 Thessalonians; 1 & 2 Timothy; Titus; Philemon; Hebrews; James; 1 & 2 Peter; 1, 2, & 3 John; Jude; Revelation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015), pp. 378, 392-395.
Charles Cousar, An Introduction to the New Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), pp. 95-99.
Frances Taylor Gench, Encountering God in Tyrannical Texts: Reflections on Paul, Women, and the Authority of Scripture (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015).
The Book of Confessions, Part I of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (Louisville: The Office of the General Assembly, 2016), Second Helvetic Confession, 5.010; Westminster Confession of Faith, 6.004, 6.009; Confession of 1967, 9.29
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