From R. C. H. Lenski, Commentary on the New Testament: The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, to Titus, and to Philemon (n.p.: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc. Edition, second printing, March 2001), 561-575.

Lenski on 1 Timothy 2:11-15

[Transliteration of Greek words was done by The Web of Practical Theology. Please notify us if any errors are found.]

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11) The asyndeton indicates a new point. Attention is arrested by the absence of a connective. The second point regarding women is thus indicated. A woman, in quietness let her be learning in all subjec­tion. This -- I Cor. 14:34, 35, which is a fuller statement: ‘The women are to keep silent in the assemblies, for it is not permitted to them to speak; on the contrary, they are to be in subjection even as also the law declares. Moreover, if they want to learn anything (on some special point) they are to inquire of their own men (men folks and not just husbands) at home.’ Paul does not state why he adds this. The view that Timothy had asked him about it in a letter is not satisfactory, for Paul would then have indicated this. To think that women were seeking to teach in public is also stating too much; there is no hint in the text to this effect. This is also true with regard to I Cor. 14. Timothy knew what Paul had written to the Corinthians; he also knew about the apostolic arrangement in all the congregations. He would meet this as well as other questions; Paul fortifies him in writing as he

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does in regard to these other matters. The gospel brought a new freedom. What did this imply in regard to this subject? This question would certainly be asked.

In v. 9 Paul has written the plural: ‘that women are to adorn themselves,’ etc. It is characteristic of Paul now to use the individualizing singular. He might have reversed the two. As the plural refers to ‘women’ as a class, all of them, so the singular refers to ‘a woman’ as such, any and every woman - certainly not just to ‘a wife.’ The word used in v. 8 is not ‘husbands.’ ‘In quietness’ she is to be learning and not to be assisting in the conduct of the services as qualified men are. The imperative ‘is to be learning’ means by the teaching of others, that of the elders and of qualified men whom they approve. ‘In quietness’ -- ‘without herself talking, without plac­ing herself on an equality with the men conducting the service and doing the teaching,’ Stellhorn. The imperative is placed between the two phrases, which means that ‘in all subjection’ modifies ‘in quietness let her be learning’ and not ‘in quietness’ only. This quiet learning is to be done ‘in all subjection,’ [transliteration, hupotage] ranging herself under, not putting herself forward, not in self-assertion, not making herself heard. ‘All’ is not intensive but extensive. The reference to Tit. 2:5 is irrelevant, for our passage does not refer to subjection to husbands.

The position and the spheres assigned to the sexes in their concreated natures is not altered by Christianity; they are rather sanctified by it. The fact that women may teach each other is stated in Tit. 2:3, 4 ; that they may teach their children in private is stated in 3:15. Nor does Acts 18:26, the fact that Aquila and his wife instructed Apollos in their home, constitute an exception to what Paul says here and in I Cor. 14. Ellicott exclaims : ‘What grave arguments these few

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verses supply us with against some of the unnatural and unscriptural theories of modern times!’

12) [Transliteration, de] is not adversative but only specifies more closely. Now to teach I do not permit to woman, nor to exercise authority over a man, but to be in quiet­ness. The fact that a woman may not lead the congregation in prayer is settled by v. 8; the fact that she may not teach in the public assembly is now added. ‘I do not permit’ -- ‘it is not permitted,’ I Cor. 14:34. The verb means to turn something over to someone. This is not an autocratic ruling of Paul's; he does not permit because the law does not do so (I Cor. 14:34), namely the [transliteration, nomos] or Torah, i. e., Genesis, in the section which deals with the creation and the fall. If Paul would permit this he would be like those who set aside the Torah and decree as they please. If this statement were positive it would be followed by an explicative [transliteration, kai]; since it is negative, we have explicative [transliteration, oude], for ‘neither to exercise authority over a man’ states the point involved in the forbidding ‘to teach.’ To teach is to act as an [transliteration, authentes] over all those taught, as a self­doer, a master or -- to put it strongly -- an autocrat. The verb appears here for the first time in the Greek, it is a vernacular term, [transliteration, autodikein] being the literary term. Verbs of ruling govern the genitive.

The opposite helps to bring out the meaning: ‘but to be in quietness.’ Those who are taught sit in quiet­ness and learn; the one who teaches acts as the master who is to be heard, heeded, and obeyed. Because of its very nature his is the dominant position and func­tion; the rest are there quietly to receive and to be directed. Nor is Paul speaking of ordinary schoolroom teaching, where secular knowledge is imparted by one who is authority enough in some branch of learning to sit at the teacher's desk. A learned woman may dis­course to a whole class of men.

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Paul refers to teaching Scripture and not to impart­ing intellectual secular information to the mind. The public teacher of God's people does not only tell others what they need to know, but in the capacity of such a teacher he stands before his audience to rule and gov­ern it with the Word. That position and that [transliteration, authentein] the Word itself accords to the man and withholds from the woman, and no woman may step into the place of the man without violating the very Word she would try to teach to both women and men. Her effort to do so would be self-contradictory in God's eyes despite what the world may say. Paul is bound as much in this as we all are. God and his Word have not ‘turned over’ to him or to anybody else a right to say anything on this relation of the sexes in the church that is dif­ferent from what Paul says.

How all this affects other questions such as wom­an's right to vote in congregational meetings, her pro­tests of conscience in matters of doctrine and of prac­tice in the church, important work that is especially assigned to women, etc., we have indicated in expound­ing I Cor. 14:34. See at length Loy, The Rights of Women in the Church; also, The Christian Church, 292, etc.; in brief, my own, The Active Church Mem­ber, 91, etc. ‘But to be in quietness’ after ‘I permit’ is an instance of brachylogy.

13) Why Paul cannot permit this is elucidated by [transliteration, gar]. For Adam was formed as the first, then Eve; and Adam was not beguiled, but the woman, having been completely beguiled, has come to be in trans­gression.

These are the facts, all of them are stated by aor­ists. These facts are what the [transliteration. nomos] the Torah, records in Genesis 2 and 3. These facts are valid for all time in the church; the gospel does not alter them. These facts debar women from any position in the church by which she would become the head. There are two facts, and

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the greater is stated first although the second, too, is very decisive.

Adam and Eve were not created at the same time. Paul's brief statement is to the point. He uses the word [transliteration, eplasthe] the verb [transliteration, plasso] means to form or mold and refers to the bodies of the first pair because Gen­esis says nothing about the derivation of Eve's soul. [transliteration, protos] is the predicate adjective and not the adverb. Adam was created as ‘the first.’ He existed for some time before Eve was formed. That certainly reveals God's intention that Eve was not to direct, rule, super­vise him, that she was not to be the head, but he. It is said truly that priority in creation includes dignity, I Cor. 11:3. God could have created both at the same time; he did not do this. The whole race was to be of one blood (Acts 17:26), was to have one head. Adam's creation is recorded in Gen. 2:7, and Eve's is not re­corded until Gen. 2:21, 22. The facts pertaining to their position and their relation antedate the entrance of sin; Adam's creation precedes even the planting of Eden (Gen. 2:8). The fact that Adam was at once created as a male, and that thus Eve's creation was already in the mind of God, changes nothing as to pri­ority and headship. Jesus refers to this fact that Adam was at once created as a male as being the foun­dation of marriage (Matt. 19:4); yet this only the more makes Adam and the husband the head.

‘Then Eve.’ This brief adverb ‘then’ -- Gen. 2:18: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a help meet for him’ in the sense of I Cor. 11:8, 9. ‘The man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man ; neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.’ ‘Then’ also -- Gen. 2:22-24, Eve was taken from the body of man, formed from a rib of his side (not from his head, his hand, his foot), brought to Adam (not he to her), ‘bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, called Woman (Isha),

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because she was taken out of Man (Ish),’ her name stating her relation and her origin. Both are derived and thus second and secondary and not first and primary.

Can these things that were done by God ever be changed? But is this ‘rib-story’ not just an ancient myth? The use of the word ‘myth’ does not remove from the New Testament the use that Jesus and Paul have made of this record in Genesis. To wipe out the account in Genesis wipes out the truth of Jesus and of the New Testament. If these are mythical as to the very origin of man, can anything be true and trust­worthy regarding the redemption and salvation of man? If Genesis is a ‘myth,’ what was the original fact? An animal origin, an animal evolution? Does this hypothesis change the nature of man and of wom­an as we now see this nature? Does it destroy the natural relation of the two?

‘There are effeminate, long-haired men who claim the rights of women, and masculine short-haired women who claim the rights of men, and, in virtue of the good sense with which the Creator has endowed humanity, they become the laughingstock of the sober-minded in both sexes. But when such men, shouting liberty and equality, assert their right to be women and set up a lugubrious whine because all nature and all social instincts are against them, they become not only ridiculous, but simply contemptible. And when such women claim the rights of men, what then? Why, they are not men, and all their crying and clam­oring and puling and whining will not make them men or secure for them the right to be men. How could they have such right when God has unalterably made them women and destined them to be useful and happy in their womanhood?’ Loy. God did not make ­even all the angels alike. He made both angels and

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human beings. Who will undo and redo his creative work?

‘The fact that all believers have the same spiritual prerogatives in the church (which are those of chil­dren as well) never for one moment abolishes the differences due to nature. Always the husband is the head of the family -- two heads make a monstrosity. As woman has her own divinely appointed sphere, into which man intrudes only when he is a fool, so man has his divinely appointed sphere, into which it is folly for a woman to intrude. As in a normal family the hus­band and father leads and directs, and the sons grad­ually rise to the same duty, so in the larger family of the congregation the mature men have the duty to lead and direct. God's people gladly follow God's order, and recognize that any wisdom of their own, dictating a different course, is only pretense.’ The Active Church Member (Lenski).

14) [Transliteration, kai] adds the second fact to the first. This is not done because a second is needed; yet Paul lets two witnesses speak. ‘Adam was not beguiled, but the woman, by being completely beguiled, has come to be in transgression.’ This fact is not complimentary to woman. By taking the leadership into her own hands without warrant the fatal sin was committed. Paul uses the simplex ‘was not deceived’ when speak­ing of Adam and the compound with [transliteration, ek] when speaking of the woman, she was ‘completely deceived.’ The point to be noted is the fact that the completeness of the happening (perfective [ek?]) deserves notice. ‘The woman’ is certainly Eve, yet the use of ‘the woman’ in place of her personal name emphasizes her sex so that in v. 15 Paul may continue with the generaliza­tion ‘she shall be saved,’ which applies to any and to every woman, and after that with the plural ‘if they remain in faith,’ etc.

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But this is only formal. By saying ‘the woman’ Paul means that she who as the woman was to be Adam's helpmeet, she was the one who also induced him to sin. The aorist participle states the fact: ‘com­pletely beguiled.’ The perfect [transliteration, gegone] -- came to be in transgression and remained there. We discard the older ‘pregnant’ idea of [transliteration, en]; it involves no [transliteration, eis]: ‘got into and so was in.’ Nor is [transliteration, parabasas] a mild term for Eve's sin. Not inadvertently did she ‘step aside’; she ‘stepped aside’ with God's plain command and threat on her own lips (Gen. 3:2, 3). This word is used in the New Testament with reference to a fatal stepping aside, for the Greek [transliteration, para] means ‘aside’ whereas the English (Latin) employs trans, ‘across’: transgression. Both words mark the fullest guilt.

Despite all his brevity Paul regards the account of the fall as historical fact. Yet some of the comment on this passage is scarcely acceptable. Thus when it is said that Satan attacked Eve because she was the weaker vessel. Is this not confusing the physical with the moral? Eve was surely as perfect and as strong morally as was Adam. Again it is said that Satan promised himself an easier victory in the case of Eve because she was subordinate. But is it not true that our race did not sin when Eve fell, that it sinned only when the head, Adam, fell? ‘By one man ([transliteration, aner], not [transliteration, anthropos]) sin entered into the world,’ Rom. 5:12. The victory over Eve alone would have been barren; Sa­tan's aim was Adam. But this comment is true, that both Eve and Adam had to violate not only the command of God not to eat but also their respective positions toward each other in order to effect the fall: Eve her position of subordination, Adam his headship; she gave him to eat, and he did eat (Gen. 3:6, 12). God confronts both of them, but Adam first and then Eve. Eve usurped the headship in the fall; Adam, who was

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the head, became the feet and followed Eve in the [transliteration, parabasas] in the stepping aside.

Not much is usually said about the two statements that Adam ‘was not beguiled’ while Eve was ‘com­pletely beguiled.’ In Gen. 3:13 Eve says that the serpent beguiled her, [transliteration, epatesen] the LXX rendering, the simplex; in II Cor. 11:3 Paul says that the serpent beguiled her, [transliteration, ezepatesen] the compound verb as in our passage. It will not do to erase the difference. The simplex is here used with reference to Adam, the com­pound with reference to Eve. When Paul denies the deception of Adam, the simplex suffices; when he as­serts the deception of Eve, the compound (perfective) is in place. But the latter does not mean that Eve did not know what she was doing. She had both God's command and Satan's lies before her; she accepted the latter and set aside the former, in this way she was deceived. Note the passive which implies one who did the deceiving. Eve let the lying promise of the ser­pent move her to disregard the threat of God. To accept, to believe, and to act on a lie in place of the truth is to be deceived indeed. An excellent presenta­tion can be found in Meusel, Kirchliches Handlexikon: Suendenf all.

Paul writes : ‘Adam was not deceived.’ To explain that he was not the first to be deceived alters the sense. To say that he was deceived indirectly while Eve was deceived directly, does the same. To say that the serpent deceived the woman, but the woman did not deceive the man but persuaded him (Bengel, and others), is not in accord with the facts; for the serpent did as much persuading as Eve. Deception works by means of persuasion. Let us venture to say only this ‘Adam followed Eve and was thus not deceived. She had sinned, and Adam had her before him when she came to him with the forbidden fruit. Thus he was not deceived. Yet when she came with the forbidden

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fruit, ‘he did eat’ (Gen. 3:6, 8).’ You ask how he could do this. The only answer is: `Both Eve's act and Adam's are irrational.’ To ask how either could be done is to ask for a rational explanation of an irra­tional act. No man can give that.

May we say: ‘Paul's point is that the woman dem­onstrated her inability to lead the man, and that thus Christian women must not try to lead men?’ I do not think that this explanation is adequate. Then Adam certainly demonstrated the same thing regarding him­self. We can also certainly say that now, since sin is here, whenever a man is ignorant or when he goes wrong, a woman should lead him aright, but should do this in her divinely appointed position. Acts 18:24-26 is one example; Pilate's wife is another although she was unsuccessful (Matt. 27:19).

Paul's point is the divinely appointed relation be­tween man and woman. In that relation each must keep his and her place. To point to ability in leader­ship deflects the thought. Paul does not here speak of the terrible disobedience to God's command not to eat. Moses does this. Paul first (v. 13) makes plain the two positions of the sexes, secondly (v. 14) the fact that Eve deserted her position. There is no need to say more, namely that Adam then also deserted his. Verses 9-15 deal with women and their position in the church in relation to men. Let the women remain in their subordinate position. Paul himself states what he wants men to do.

The question regarding queens, whether they are Christian or not, who rule earthly kingdoms, does not belong here where churches are discussed. Church and state are separate.

A word should be said regarding the charisma of prophecy which was bestowed also upon women. But first let us see what this charisma is, I Thess. 5:20; Rom. 12:6; 1 Cor. 14:3. Then let us consider Loy's

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remarks. ‘It is certainly gratuitous to assume that the silence of women in the public assemblies of the church, because they must not usurp authority over men, is inconsistent with the bestowal of prophetic gifts upon them. The Lord who bestows them offers ample oppor­tunities to use them without violating his ordinance. It is not necessary that they should appear as teachers in the public assemblies of the church; they can do their work in private, for which they are much better adapted. It is not necessary that they should immod­estly present themselves in public before the gaze of men in the attempt to usurp authority over them by presuming to be their teachers when there is plenty of work to be done among their own sex and among the children. The thought that woman is wronged when she is limited to her own sphere as woman, and when her claim to be a man and to do a man's work in the church is not admitted, is as irrational as it is impious. There is plenty of room for the exercise of her gifts in the place which God has assigned her.’ Let us add the fact that in the very chapter in which Paul deals at length with the use of this gift, I Cor. 14, he writes (v. 34): ‘Let your women keep silence in the churches! For it is not permitted unto them to speak, but to be under obedience, as also saith the law.’ Some take the charisma of prophecy to be a reception of di­rect and immediate revelation. They thus speak of ‘exceptions’ from Paul's v. 11 and think that God makes them.

In the entire Old Testament but five women are called ‘prophetess’: Miriam, Exod. 15:20, etc., only because she led the women of Israel in a great hymn of praise; Deborah, Judges 4:4, etc., only because she delivered a direct revelation to Barak; Huldah, II Kings 22:14, etc.; II Chron. 34:22, etc., only because she, too, had a direct revelation to convey; Noadiah, Neh. 6:14, a false prophetess; Isaiah's wife in Isa. 8:3,

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only because she was his wife. There is little material here for the advocates of woman preachers in the Christian Church.

15) When Paul continues: saved, however, shall she be by way of childbearing if they remain in faith and love and sanctification together with sobriety, the change of tense from the preceding aorists to the future shows that ‘the woman,’ which refers to Eve in v. 14, is now extended so as to refer to woman in general. We do not regard the mild [transliteration, de] as a strong [transliteration, alla], ‘but’ (R. V.). It merely adds this further statement in regard to the status of woman in the church. How she is to be outwardly and inwardly adorned when at­tending church; how she is there to learn and not to teach or to exert authority over the men because God did not intend that she should do this when he created her, and because by going contrary to this intention of God she brought on the fall: all this Paul has just said. Now this is completed by indicating in a few words her status in general as a Christian woman, namely her great sphere of motherhood in the family, a mother­hood full of the essentials of the Christian salvation and life. This also ends the subject for the supervi­sion Timothy is to exercise.

‘Saved shall she be’ states this supreme thing first. By not being permitted to engage in the public work of teaching, by letting men attend to that work, woman is not in the least curtailed as far as her being saved is concerned. No one is saved by teaching; all are saved by learning (v. 11), by remaining in faith, etc. Such learning will include a knowledge of what position and sphere God assigns to his children in the church and will produce thankfulness for the allotment he has made. Because of the [transliteration, dia] phrase some alter the sense of ‘shall be saved’ so that it means less than obtaining eternal salvation. This verb has its full soteriological meaning.

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It seems rather out of place to think that Paul makes ‘childbearing’ a means of salvation for woman, [transliteration, dia] with the genitive does not, however, invariably denote means. Here and elsewhere it denotes Art und Weise (B. -P. 281), which is often called the accom­panying circumstance. The great natural function of woman is childbearing, motherhood, with all that this implies for a saved woman. If our overrefined ears seem too delicate for ‘childbearing,’ it may be well to remember that each of us still has his ‘birthday,’ that we all joyfully celebrate Jesus' birthday, that the whole subject of birth is as openly mentioned in our day, if not more so, than in any other age, that mother­hood (-- childbearing) is today glorified with more sentimentality than ever.

‘Childbearing’ includes the rearing of the children, which means Christian rearing to every Christian woman. Paul has in mind what we read in his other letters: the Christian family and home, the mother surrounded by her children, happy in these outlets for her love and affection, in this enrichment for her­self and for them, Eph. 6:1, etc.; Col. 3:20. ‘By way of childbearing’ speaks of the highest ideal of Chris­tian (and even secular) womanhood. Nothing shall erase or even dim that for us. Yet the subject is ‘the woman,’ which includes also women of all ages, also girls who die before maturity, and women who may never marry, and those who are married but remain childless. God's providence in individual lives in no way destroys his creative purposes. But when a woman deliberately contravenes his purposes and, although a mother bore her, will not herself bear a child in her marriage, God will reckon with her, the more severely if she professes godliness (v. 10).

Some would connect this childbearing with ‘the seed of the woman’ (Gen. 3:15), with God's Son ‘made of a woman’ [transliteration, (genomenon ek gunaikos)].They feel that [transliteration, dia]

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must express means; that childbirth was the means of bringing the Savior into the world. They stress the article: by means of ‘the’ childbirth. Then follow their arguments: this childbearing which was laid upon the woman as a penalty by means of God's won­derful plan was to bring the salvation into the world: she who caused the man to sin and to bring damnation into the world, she by the penalty laid on her was to help bring salvation for herself and for all. This argument can easily be met. Childbearing goes back to Gen. 1:28 and to Paradise. Childbearing was never the curse. The pain added to it because of the fall, this alone constituted the curse; and from this curse of pain the Savior did not come. Dropping this strange reference to the curse of birthpains, the fact that the Son of God was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary by God's miraculous act means no more than that God used this one woman for his saving purpose. Nor does this effect women as a class more than men as a class, or, stated in a different way, all have the Savior alike. It is idealizing to see either all mothers or all woman­hood in the Virgin. So we might idealize all crosses and all tombs by way of Christ's cross and tomb.

‘She shall be saved’ speaks only about woman and does not generalize. ‘By way of the childbearing’ is not ‘by means of,’ and ‘the’ refers to the well-known childbearing, common motherhood by way of common fatherhood, and not to the miraculous birth from the Virgin.

The plural ‘if they remain’ is used ad sensum. Moreover, Paul quite regularly concentrates and indi­vidualizes with the singular and then expands with the plural, he sees every subject in all its relations. The aorist – definitely remain. Faith secures salvation on the instant, but definite remaining in faith retains salvation and attains its consummation. The condition with [transliteration, ean] is that of expectancy.

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When Paul writes: remain ‘in faith and love and sanctification together with sobriety,’ this is compre­hensive, these four do not stand in the same relation to salvation. Faith apprehends it; love to God and to man is the invariable fruit of faith; sanctification (I Thess. 4:3, 7; II Thess. 2:13) is the result, which is here to be understood in the narrow sense of having the life sanctified. [Transliteration, meta] makes soberness (see v. 9) the accompaniment of sanctification. All four apply to all men and thus also to women; theirs is no peculiar way to salvation. The repetition of ‘soberness’ from v. 9 and its attachment by means of [transliteration, meta] are pointed for the specific purpose here in hand, namely that women keep their proper place in the services. Chris­tian sensibleness and balance will easily achieve that and will readily accompany faith, love, and sanctification, for they are really a product of the latter.