Disclaimer: I am not a seminarian, and I possess nothing approaching a degree in biblical interpretation. I am just a laywoman with a degree in economics who loves God and his Word. Also, I come from a Pentecostal/Charismatic background.
We pick up where I left off in the second half of 1 Timothy 2, a series of verses that at first seems designed to not let us women be great:
11 A woman[a] should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[b] she must be quiet. 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. 15 But women[c] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
I hardly consider myself a feminist, and even I want to get up and picket at the last three verses. Women will be saved through childbearing? Are you kidding me!?
These verses are far harder to interpret than the ones about modesty that I spoke of in my last post. Clothes are one thing; gender roles are quite another. On the one hand, as Christians we are supposed to live by God's Word at all times, and this is part of God's Word. On the other hand, these verses not only go against the currents of the modern age, they go against examples we see in our own Christian circles. Do we repudiate teachers and preachers such as Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, and Christine Caine simply because they are women who (likely) teach men? Even if they preach as biblically as the men do, do we call them heretical simply because they are women? Were they not called by God, but instead hallucinating? What do we do?
We look for context, that's what we do.
The Bible is God's Word. As 2 Timothy 3:16 says, everything within it is inspired and should be used for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in godly living. But it is also a book and a collection of letters--letters that were not originally divided into chapters and verses. The chapters and verses were added later so that people wouldn't have to sift through 1,400 pages of material backwards and forwards whenever they wanted to find a specific point. Therefore, whenever we find a verse in the Bible, it is entirely reasonable to look at the context and look for other verses that talk about the same theme as the verse we've cited.
The most famous cross-reference for these verses here is 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, which says just about the exact same thing:
As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
The two verses don't contradict each other in any way; therefore, it appears that the debate is settled. But, if we look just three chapters earlier in 1 Corinthians 11, we find a contradiction:
4 Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, 5 but every wife[c] who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head...
Here, Paul seems to allow women in the church to both pray and prophesy. Both of those, especially prophecy, require speaking. If a woman is supposed to be completely silent in church, then why is she allowed to prophesy? Why, then, are there people such as Philip's four unmarried prophet daughters in the Bible (Acts 21:9)? The most simple answer is that praying and prophesying are different from just speaking. The Greek word for "speak" in 1 Corinthians 14:34 is laleo. One of the meanings of laleo is "to use words in order to declare one's mind and disclose one's thoughts" (Strong's Lexicon). Imagine for a second that you are in church, and the person preaching is speaking straight fire. (If you happen to not be a churchgoer and are reading this, imagine yourself to be at a really cool TED talk.) You're sitting there, listening and gleaning from this person, when someone decides that it is the right time to stand up in the middle of the service and interrupt the speaker to declare their mind and expose their thoughts. Even if their thoughts are somewhat relevant, they are still expressing them at a very improper time. The people there do not need to hear the interrupter's opinion, and they probably don't want to hear that person at any time since they were super rude. Now say that multiple people do this multiple times, at the same time. Before you know it, you don't know what anyone is saying anymore.
Apparently this was the situation with the church in Corinth, the recipients of the two letters to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians, in particular, sounds like an incriminating letter from your dad who has just found out all of your dirty secrets. The Corinthian church had plenty of potential, and they were especially talented as far as spiritual gifts. They prophesied and spoke in tongues more than any church that Paul writes to. However, they had let the spiritual gifts become the centerpiece instead of the more important Christian values such as love, faith and hope. And they were very out of order. Much of the letter, including chapters 11 and 14, is Paul telling them how to do church. Communion is not a time to get drunk! Don't just yell out in tongues without any interpretation! No, you CAN'T have five people prophesy at the same time! Stop tolerating incest! (I kid you not. Read the book!) Much of the book of 1 Corinthians carries the tone of a person who is trying to establish order. In an orderly church setting, it is good for women (and men, honestly) to learn in quietness, as Paul puts it, and then discuss their questions in a more open setting, like at home or in a small group. Indeed, the word for "quietness" in 1 Timothy 2:11 is hesychia, which describes a person who does their own work and "does not meddle with the affairs of others". The silence demanded, then, is not a complete silence, but one that keeps everything within reasonable order.
This silence is apparently allowed to be broken when praying or prophesying, and I hardly need a lexicon to make a suggestion as to why. Prophecy is when someone gets a message from God by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Regardless of whether the someone is male or female, he or she is inspired by God with a message for the congregation, and should be allowed to speak out. Praying, similarly, is communicating with God. In a congregational setting, when the prayer is not just one person's opinion but that of the entire congregation, it makes no sense that only men should be allowed to pray to God. The only mediator for God, male or female, is Jesus Christ. Anyone can pray to him if he or she pleases.
Fast forward a couple thousand years to our cultural context, where women are just as educated as men are and the head coverings mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11 mean far less than they used to. In an orderly church setting, where people do not interrupt each other in order to express their opinions and one person talks at a time, does it not make sense that a woman who is under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit should be allowed to say what the Holy Spirit tells her to say? Some may disagree with me, but I think it makes perfect sense.
There are many women in the New Testament who are important enough to mention. Priscilla was one half of a great teaching team along with her husband Aquila. The end of Romans mentions a woman named Junia as being "outstanding among the apostles", and another lady, Phoebe, is mentioned as a deacon (Greek: "diakonos"). In fact, Romans 16 mentions plenty of women: Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis are just four women who have "worked very hard in the Lord", as Paul says. The second of John's letters is written to a "chosen lady" and her children, and at the end of that letter, he says that the lady's sister and her children greet her. It is entirely possible that these two unnamed women served as pastors of churches.
From the time Jesus resurrected from the dead and appointed a woman, Mary Magdalene, to be the first witness of his resurrection, there has always been a very significant and powerful role for women in the Gospel story, and this is only likely to continue throughout time.
Scripture quotations are from the New International Version (NIV), via BibleGateway.
Greek words are taken from Strong's Lexicon via the Blue Letter Bible, at blueletterbible.org.
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