The following scripture has been, over the decades, the single most used verse in the Bible to keep women from stepping outside of what many think is the God-ordained roles in the Church body.
In 1 Timothy 2:12, Pauls says this…”I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”
Wow.
In today’s world, those are fighting words. The debate over women preachers is long and loud. One camp denouncing it, the other proclaiming it, but all of them, I’m afraid, are guilty of one thing.
Cherry-picking.
That’s right. If a person picks out one verse, pulls it out of the other verses that surround it, and then builds an entire theological belief based on that one verse, it’s called cherry-picking Scripture. Something, I might add, that most preachers strongly denounce…unless, of course, it fits whatever they happen to be preaching about.
Let me say this as loud as I possibly can.
Paul did not intend for this particular verse to be used to keep women out of the pulpit.
If you missed my post last week, you should read it BEFORE you go any further, because what I’m about to say will challenge your belief about this verse. CLICK HERE FIRST, then come back to read what I’m about to say.
Contrary to popular belief, Paul never forbid women from ever preaching or teaching. Priscilla taught Apollos, the great preacher (Acts 18:24-26). Paul also mentioned other women who held positions of responsibility in the church, such as Phoebe (Romans 16:1). Also mentioned were Mary, Tryphena, and Tryphosa (Romans 16:1, 12) and Euodia and Synteche (Philippians 4:2).
But Kathy, what about the above Scripture? Clearly it says…
Nope. It doesn’t. You see, Paul was talking to Timothy, who was the leader of the Ephesian church, who had a bunch of women who had no idea what they were talking about trying to teach and preach to others about Jesus, and Church doctrine. These women had just barely gotten saved, so they had very little knowledge of the Scripture, especially considering up until that point women weren’t even allowed to study the Torah.
To cause further issues, false doctrine was a particularly troubling part of the Ephesian Church. There were false teachers coming out of the woodwork, and unfortunately, the women of the Church were especially susceptible to false teachings (1 Timothy 3:1-9), for no other reason than they didn’t yet have enough biblical knowledge to figure out the truth.
So, if you were Paul, would you want anyone, man or woman, who was not rooted and grounded in their faith, preaching to the congregation?
I’m going to guess you probably wouldn’t.
So then, what did Paul do? He did what anyone else would do. He wrote Timothy back, telling him not to put anyone (in this case, women) in a leadership position who was not yet mature in their faith (1 Timothy 3:6, 5:22). It wasn’t meant to be a universally applied ‘rule’ to only allow men to be in leadership positions throughout eternity. If it was, then God Himself would be guilty of breaking it.
That’s right, I said it.
Remember Deborah in the book of Judges? She was a Judge, a Prophet, and a military leader of Israel. And although every single preacher I’ve heard or read has said she was chosen because no man would do it, I cannot find a single Scripture to back this belief up. The truth was that God appointed her, not for lack of a man, but because He saw her heart, her love for Him, and His truth, and knew that she would be faithful to Him above all else (Judges 4-5).
The truth of this verse is not that women aren’t allowed to preach or to teach, it’s the truth that only those who are mature in their faith should be appointed to preach or to teach.
It means that someone, whether a man or a woman, who just got saved two days or three months ago (or whatever number you want to fill in) should never be thrown into ministry if they are not firmly rooted and grounded in their faith first.
So to answer my question, I firmly believe Paul never had a problem with women preaching, it was the message he had issues with. Church, we need to be like Paul.