These few pages are from Armin W. Schuetze, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1993), 41-47. Formerly published by Northwestern Publishing House (the publishing arm of the highly conservative Wisconsin Synod Lutheran Church), 1991.

"Paul looks at a teaching/learning situation. Since Christians have been instructed to teach ‘everything I have commanded you’ (Matthew 28:20), there will be many such situations in the church and among Christians. ‘A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.’ In speaking of submission, Paul is applying a general principle regarding the relation of man and woman to the specific teaching/learning situation. The principle and its divine origin he presents in the verses that follow.

"‘I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.’ Here Paul states the principle and makes an application. The application is that a woman is not to teach; she must be silent. The principle is that a woman is not ‘to have authority over man.’ Paul is not setting up a rule or law that prohibits all teaching by women. The concern is that she not teach when her teaching violates the ‘authority’ principle.

"What is the basis or origin of this principle? Paul refers to the time of creation. ‘For Adam was formed first, then Eve.’ God showed that he was establishing this male and female relationship by the chronological sequence in which he created Adam and Eve Genesis chapter two records the historical event: ‘The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground.... The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’ . . . Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man’ (2:7, 18, 22). Thus God created each, man and woman, for a specific role, that of head and helper. This relationship is violated if the woman were to teach and have authority over the man. That is contrary to God’s will as revealed in creation. This is the reason for Paul’s ‘I do not permit.’

"Paul adds another point. He looks back to the next historical event recorded in Genesis, the fall into sin. ‘And Adam was not deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.’ Our first impression may be that Eve’s weakness in being deceived is the reason she is not permitted to teach or to have authority over man. But to understand the point Paul is making we need to examine the historical account in Genesis, chapter three.

"The account begins with the serpent (Satan) approaching Eve and deceiving her. ‘When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.’ The account continues: ‘She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it’ (3:6). Adam was not deceived by Satan’s lies and promises. Nevertheless, he failed to provide leadership but rather followed the lead of Eve and took the fruit from her and ate. Although Eve initiated the sin, God held Adam whom he had created first as the head, responsible for the fall. There was a reversal of the roles God had given to each. Eve took the lead and Adam followed. So God tells Adam: ‘Because You listened to your wife, and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You, must not eat of it,’ Cursed is the ground because of you’ (3:17). Thus, in writing to the Romans, Paul identifies Adam as the one man through whom ‘sin entered the world ... and death through sin’ (Romans 5:12). When Eve stepped out of her assigned role and Adam did not live up to his, the result was disastrous.

"Although God held Adam responsible as the head, he also had a word for Eve, showing what the consequences of her action were for the woman: ‘I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you’ (Genesis 3:16). The blessing God had pronounced on them when he said, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number,’ would now involve pain and suffering. Because they were now sinful, the head and helper relationship would be seen and felt as one in which man was ruling over her. This relationship now was subject to abuse by man as the head and to resentment by woman as helper.

"Nevertheless, the will of God is still that man and woman each acknowledge the order God established in creation, and function according to it. Therefore Paul writes: ‘I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over man.’ Paul applied this principle for the same reason to the Corinthian congregation assembled for worship (1 Corinthians 14:34).

"Having pointed out that the woman ‘was deceived and became a sinner,’ Paul concludes this discussion with the words: ‘But women will be saved through childbearing-if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.’

"This verse has been called the most difficult in the pastoral letters and has received a number of interpretations. There is no need to consider them all. One that we can rule out, however, is that through bearing children a woman may gain salvation for herself. For women as for men, salvation is received by continuing in ‘faith, love and holiness with propriety.’ Faith embraces the Lord Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all. It produces the fruit of love and holiness with propriety which is evidence of a living faith.

"But how does ‘through childbearing’ fit into the picture? Some commentators see in the ‘childbearing’ a reference to the birth of a particular child, the Lord Jesus. This expresses a basic, important truth and would render a valid meaning. We may still ask, however, whether this is the meaning Paul had in mind.

"Paul has been speaking about the woman’s specific role as given in creation. She had stepped out of that role, had been deceived by Satan and became a sinner. She need not, however, feel deprived or inferior as man’s helper. Salvation is hers, living in the role God had assigned to her. Unique and special in that role is bearing children and the mothering that goes with it. Living according to her God-given role will not in any way deprive her of the salvation that we all have alone through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. A Christian woman will find genuine fulfillment as she conducts herself according to God’s plan.

"We add a few comments and applications. The world, steeped in humanistic, evolutionistic philosophy, tempts also the Christian woman to question the head and helper relationship that goes back to creation. She is told that it is something demeaning to woman and prejudicial. Increasingly, Christian, including Lutheran, churches are ‘reinterpreting’ what God says so that it agrees with prevailing views about equality and rights.

"Paul writes to the Galatians: ‘You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus’ (3:26). To emphasize the ‘all’ he adds: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (3:28). Paul reassures men and women that their status and role in this present world in no way affects their being children of God through faith in Christ. Does this, then, do away with role differences in this life? Some make that claim. God’s word does not. In the chapter we have studied in this letter to Timothy, Paul expresses the same fact that Christ’s redemptive ransom was for all. nevertheless, he state and applies the head and helper principle to the way Christians live together in the Christian church as it exists in this world. The truth about our redemption and relationship to God does not nullify God’s revelation of his will for our life during this time of grace here and now.

"In his letter to the Ephesians (5:22-33), Paul applies the same principle to husbands and wives. In calling on the wives to submit to their husbands, Paul compares the husband and wife relationship to that of Christ and the church. Her submission thus is not something demeaning any more than the church’s submission to Christ, her Head. Husbands, however, on their part will avoid making it demeaning, by loving and caring for their wives as Christ does the church.

"Peter similarly calls on wives to ‘be submissive to your husbands’ (1 Peter 3:1). He holds out the prospect that the husbands may be won for Christ when they see the behavior of their wives, the purity and reverence of their lives (3:2). Surely there is nothing demeaning about a life that thus brings glory to Christ. Men at the same time are admonished by Peter not to take advantage of their wives as ‘the weaker partner.’ They should be considerate of their wives and treat them with respect. This rules out every kind of abusive behavior, anything that might cause the wife to feel inferior. Christian husbands will remember that their Christian wives are heirs with them of the gracious gift of life, eternal life through Christ. What an incentive for men and women, husbands and wives, to serve the Lord Jesus according to his will!

"Paul’s concern in writing to Timothy is that the male and female relationship may find application in the church, as it assembles for worship and work. Since it is based not on a local custom but on God’s order established at creation, its validity continues and requires application also today. ‘Women will not, therefore, seek the pastoral office because they want to uphold the principle of the headship of man.... The Christian woman knows that if she were to demand the right to vote and to govern the congregation, she would be exercising authority over the man who is to be her head. . . . The leaders of our congregations will constantly look for new areas to which they can properly direct the zeal and talents of dedicated women’ (Man and Woman in God’s World, NPH, 1985, pp. 19, 20)."

[This final quote from a book published by the highly conservative Northwestern Publishing House states that women should not even be able to vote in the congregation because it is believed that in that way women would be exercising authority over men. Scholars in another church body, The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, are also very committed to the inerrant Word of God, however, after considering the whole context of Scripture, they have come to the conclusion that the only thing we can authoritatively assert is that women should not be exercising authority over men in congregational preaching and administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  Note by The Web of Practical Theology]