Really?
1 Timothy 2:12-15
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.
15 But women will be saved through childbearing– if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
(NIV)
I have been studying this and related passages for a number of weeks now, and am preparing to present a lesson this Sunday at Lake Merced Church of Christ covering 1 Timothy 2:12-15.
Before me lies a stack of books on my desk that I have already read articulating various positions, and today will be spent wrapping up my reading of Piper & Grudem’s Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood.
The 1 Timothy passage and related scriptures have presented me with the most challenging exegetical work I have engaged in thus far in my young career. After an honest and careful study, the answers emerging regarding: 1) the problem Paul is addressing in this text, 2) what the text actually says in the original language, and 3) proper present-day application of it are quite different from the answers I would have provided before seriously studying.
I’ll get into that more later, but would like to toss this out to you in the meantime:
How do you handle this text? Any idea what the problem is Paul is addressing? What’s the underlying, trans-cultural principle put forth? How do we apply it today?
Back to the books for me – more later.
The Overflow 