To start, I love the writings of Paul. Once a former scholar of the Jewish Laws, Paul is dead set on annihilating and torturing any Christian he can get his hands on. He is on his own personal genocide when he has a vision of Christ that transforms his life. Paul is temporarily blinded by this vision until he is divinely led to the home of a non-Jew ( which would be an utter disgrace for a devout Jew at that time) and baptized at the hands of gentile(non-jew) whereupon he is able to see again. Talk about humbling. Paul explains this encounter
For a time I thought it was my duty to oppose this Jesus of Nazareth with all my might. Backed with the full authority of the high priests, I threw these believers—I had no idea they were God’s people!—into the Jerusalem jail right and left, and whenever it came to a vote, I voted for their execution. I stormed through their meeting places, bullying them into cursing Jesus, a one-man terror obsessed with obliterating these people. And then I started on the towns outside Jerusalem.
12-14“One day on my way to Damascus, armed as always with papers from the high priests authorizing my action, right in the middle of the day a blaze of light, light outshining the sun, poured out of the sky on me and my companions. Oh, King, it was so bright! We fell flat on our faces. Then I heard a voice in Hebrew: ‘Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me? Why do you insist on going against the grain?’
15-16“I said, ‘Who are you, Master?’
“The voice answered, ‘I am Jesus, the One you’re hunting down like an animal. But now, up on your feet—I have a job for you. I’ve handpicked you to be a servant and witness to what’s happened today, and to what I am going to show you.
17-18“‘I’m sending you off to open the eyes of the outsiders so they can see the difference between dark and light, and choose light, see the difference between Satan and God, and choose God. I’m sending you off to present my offer of sins forgiven, and a place in the family, inviting them into the company of those who begin real living by believing in me.’ (Acts 26)
So, Paul is now sent to love and give his life for the very people he wanted to kill. In the process, he is thrown in jail countless times, beaten, shipwrecked, starved, wearied from traveling and persecuted. Yet, he is the main reason any non-jews today have heard about Jesus. Most of the actual disciples of Christ focused on ministering to Jews, but Paul had a special calling for those outside the Jewish faith. This was a major turning point in the understanding that superficial identities lose their potency in faith in Christ. Paul did much of the grunt work in trying to break down the external barriers that kept Jews and gentiles separated by culture and class structures. He preached that inside Christ those things didn’t matter any longer. Much of his writing is based on helping resolve disputes that arose due to this new integration.
Like Jesus, Paul also allowed women to participate in very significant ways in his ministry, which was unheard of in that time. Both Jesus and Paul defied the common rabbinic attitudes that excluded women and avoided them almost entirely. It was actually common practice of pharisees and teachers of the law to use negative examples of women to teach moral lessons, Jesus never did this but treated both men and women with the same dignity and love. Paul often opens his letters praising women in his ministry for their efforts, service to God, and character. In the majority of Paul’s teaching on life in Christ, he makes no impartiality between gender on any issues. The benefits of Christ, the gifts that he gives, the call to be ministers of the gospel is not distinct to race, gender or social class.
Yet, oddly enough we are thrown a curve ball by a few statements Paul makes regarding a woman’s “place”. These statements have had huge effects on church doctrine, people’s attitudes toward women in the church regarding positions of authority, and have caused much personal angst in individual’s struggle to understand what exactly Paul, or rather, God feels about them. Much more today than thirty years ago we find women going to seminary to become pastors or leaders in their church. Some of this I feel we owe to the secular women’s rights movement, which is changing culture and therefore, creating new need in the church for the same. The interesting thing to me about this is that a man never has to doubt if the call on his life to lead a church or ministry is biblical and would make God happy, but a woman with the same desire; to serve Jesus, must at some point face either her own wondering about these verses, or other’s opinions.
My question is do we need even wonder at all? I have often had a hard time with Paul’s statements regarding women in the church because at face value they almost seem to echo the Victorian ideals that a woman should be kept out of the public, quiet, and unquestionably subdued to her husband’s authority. Is Paul who seems to contradict the majority of his own teaching with these few statements actually saying what we think he’s been saying. or is this an interpretation misunderstanding. I think it is very important to realize that the way we read scripture nowadays is quite different than how it was read and percieved in the time it was written. We have an entire letter, chopped up and sectioned off into chapters and verses that were meant to make it easier to find our way around in the bible. These breaks and chapters were the invention of those that translated and compiled these books into the bible, not the original authors. So, as you can imagine, a verse taken from it’s context can have a completely different meaning, and I will give examples.
Here is one of the most seemingly blatant verses that depicts Paul’s attitude on what a women’s place is in church and in life.
34 The women are to (BF)keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but (BG)are to subject themselves, just as (BH)the Law also says. 35 If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is[n]improper for a woman to speak in church. 36 [o]Was it from you that the word of God first went forth? Or has it come to you only?
Okay, calm down. This verse seems to say that Paul feels a woman should “sit down and shut up” and be withdrawn from participation. However, I will now place the verses back in the surrounding context without the breakages, as it was read by the original readers.
So here’s what I want you to do. When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all: Sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight. If prayers are offered in tongues, two or three’s the limit, and then only if someone is present who can interpret what you’re saying. Otherwise, keep it between God and yourself. And no more than two or three speakers at a meeting, with the rest of you listening and taking it to heart. Take your turn, no one person taking over. Then each speaker gets a chance to say something special from God, and you all learn from each other. If you choose to speak, you’re also responsible for how and when you speak. When we worship the right way, God doesn’t stir us up into confusion; he brings us into harmony. This goes for all the churches—no exceptions. Wives must not disrupt worship, talking when they should be listening, asking questions that could more appropriately be asked of their husbands at home. God’s Book of the law guides our manners and customs here. Wives have no license to use the time of worship for unwarranted speaking. Do you—both women and men—imagine that you’re a sacred oracle determining what’s right and wrong? Do you think everything revolves around you. If any one of you thinks God has something for you to say or has inspired you to do something, pay close attention to what I have written. This is the way the Master wants it. If you won’t play by these rules, God can’t use you. Sorry.
Okay, within it’s context, it lools like Paul was writing to everybody about what it means to honor God when we come together to fellowship. He is addressing a problem it seems, that every time this Corinthian church gets together, it is complete chaos. As hinted from the text, people are talking over eachother, there is no sense of self-conduct or honoring God, and just about everyone is getting up to say something or get their two sense in. Paul is adament that this kind of self-serving behavior repels God’s presence rather than invites it. The specific message to women implies that there was possibly a good amount of women who were involved in inciting these disruptions. Historical context lends itself to this as well. The Corinthian church was largely made up of new converts who without a doubt worshipped in pagan temples prior. Men would worship in different temples than their wives, and wives from their husbands, just like the jews segregated men from women in the synagogue. The whole idea of men and women worshipping together was a brand new concept, and probably difficult for some to reconcile. Paul’s point is that to honor God, we must honor one another in these times of fellowhip, and respect whoever is appointed to lead the time.
To confirm this, look at another verse, that Paul writes earlier on men and women worshipping God together–
12Don’t, by the way, read too much into the differences here between men and women. Neither man nor woman can go it alone or claim priority. Man was created first, as a beautiful shining reflection of God—that is true. But the head on a woman’s body clearly outshines in beauty the head of her “head,” her husband. The first woman came from man, true—but ever since then, every man comes from a woman! And since virtually everything comes from God anyway, let’s quit going through these “who’s first” routines.
This seems to remove all doubt that Paul actually thinks one gender is more apt based on biological differences to honor God. The context of this verse is found in 1 Corintians 11, which talks about men and women honoring one another in marriage.
Also note:
- “head” does NOT mean the same thing we mean by it in Western culture. From the standpoint of anatomical function, in Paul’s day it was the ‘heart’ that made the decisions, guided life, etc. “Head” was much more the ‘adornment department’ of the body! In other words, when people wanted to make decisions, they used their heart; when they wanted to get all “gussied up” [“dressed up”, for you colloquially-deprived readers ;>) ], they used theirhead (e.g. hair, makeup, jewelry). So, in the literature, the word translated ‘head’ here often shows up as ‘crown’ or ‘excellence’. [Hence, its usefulness in the passage of I Cor 11.]
- The root notion was that of ‘source’, and from this usage it was applied to people–Zeus, Pharoah, the progenitors of the Twelve Tribes, Christ-with reference to the Church, man (Adam)–with reference to woman (Eve)….
- If an author wanted to make a point about AUTHORITY, he would use two specific words–exousia (“authority”; Matt 28.18, Rom 13.1-3) and/orarchon (“ruler”; Rom 13.3). He only used ‘head’ when dealing with issues of origination, completion, consummation. (Christian thinktank.com)
A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.
I want to say a couple of things about this verse. First, I am going to put this verse back in context the same way I did with the prior one, as a complete thought process, and not a broken one.
Since prayer is at the bottom of all this, what I want mostly is for men to pray—not shaking angry fists at enemies but raising holy hands to God. And I want women to get in there with the men in humility before God, not primping before a mirror or chasing the latest fashions but doing something beautiful for God and becoming beautiful doing it. I don’t let women take over and tell the men what to do. They should study to be quiet and obedient along with everyone else. Adam was made first, then Eve; woman was deceived first—our pioneer in sin!—with Adam right on her heels. On the other hand, her childbearing brought about salvation, reversing Eve. But this salvation only comes to those who continue in faith, love, and holiness, gathering it all into maturity. You can depend on this.
The two verses are the same but different translations, the first, the NIV, and the second, the Message. I find the meaning to be clearer in the later, but I think there is something to be said for the wording in the first. The idea of a woman being “quiet” and learning in submissive style, is actually the style of rabbinic mentorship. Students of a rabbi, or spiritual teacher of the jewish faith, were always male, and expected to quietly and submissively learn from their teachers, the destination of a rabbi’s student would be to eventually become a rabbi, or “teacher”, himself. The message version makes this a bit more clear as it implies women studying with the same diligence as everyone else. The term “quiet” does not mean withdrawn and silent, like it does in modern english, but rather the taking on of the attribute of humility as a student; which is quality often associated with Jesus’ style of ministry, he himself being humble in nature.
The allusion to eve being the one to eat of the fruit first, is a call to remember this humility. The apostles always reference original sin to Adam, and the early church would have been familiar with this teaching. It is possible that finger-pointing began happening towards men for humanity’s error. Paul’s solo emphasis on eve’s part as the first to eat of the fruit, could in fact be, a gentle reminder that women has also fallen, and should be humble. This would certainly fit with Paul’s statement in Corinthians 11. In fact, by this time in history gnostic ( a pseudo christian group) teachings had arisen at that time that pointed to Adam as the first to be decieved, and that women was found unculpable. Paul may in fact be trying to correct theology and permit these “false teachers” from corrupting the church in ephesus.
The reference to child-bearing being Eve’s salvation does not mean that a woman’s redemption is literally through childbirth, and being an exceptional mother. This would be contrary to the gospel that men and women are only saved through the acceptance of Christ’s work of forgiveness and restoration to God. Paul is absolutely alluding to Jesus coming directly from Eve’s lineage as her own salvation.
Any use of that verse to keep women from serving God in ministry is hogwash. It is clear that Paul is giving Timothy instruction on how to handle a church full of people who are new to what it means to be accepted in to God’s family. Many of them are still hanging onto old thought patterns and practice from their lifestyles prior to knowing Jesus. The letters to Timothy are filled with warnings about false teachers and teachings.
Paul also praises the women in Timothy’s life for teaching him in the ways of the Lord. Why would Paul blatantly praise women for teaching the things of God, if he felt that to be only a man’s job. It must be that what Paul is refering to a specific group, in a specific time. How can Paul praise some women for teaching but then say that no women should ever teach or preach the gospel.
That precious memory triggers another: your honest faith—and what a rich faith it is, handed down from your grandmother Lois to your mother Eunice, and now to you! And the special gift of ministry you received when I laid hands on you and prayed—keep that ablaze! God doesn’t want us to be shy with his gifts, but bold and loving and sensible. ( 2 Timothy 1:5-7)
k. lawler 
Thank you for a great post.