Mike Winger on 1 Timothy 2:11-15
Engaging a Popular View on a Disputed Text
I’m continuing my series responding to elements of Mike Winger’s case for Complementarianism, specifically, his reading of 1 Tim 2:11-15.
What I’m going to do below is engage Winger’s explanation of 1 Tim 2:11-15 and then in the next post offer my own alternative explanation.
If you sum up Winger’s view, Paul prohibits women from the office of pastor and elder, teaching in corporate worship, and leading a church. Outside of that context, he’s more generous as to what kind of ministries women can perform. So he’s not the most extreme Complementarian, but he is resolute that women cannot teach as pastors or elders.
I’ve already done an earlier post and video on some preliminary stuff, it’s now time to get into the main issue: What does Paul prohibit in 1 Tim 2:12 and why?
In Winger’s mind, Paul prohibits women from teaching doctrine and holding the office of elder/pastor. He buttresses that claim with appeal to four things:
1. 1 Tim 2 is set in the church context and prohibits women from exercising pastoral leadership in the church and from teaching doctrine as an elder.
2. Paul’s appeal to the order of creation and the fall means that the prohibition is transcultural.
3. The prohibition dovetails with Paul’s alleged insistence on the headship of husbands in the home.
4. The reference to “saved through childbearing” is too obscure to form the basis of any confident assertions about the meaning of the passage and its application.
Let’s look at those premises together point by point.
1. 1 Tim 2 is set in the church context and prohibits women from exercising pastoral leadership in the church and from teaching doctrine as an elder.
Winger believes Paul prohibits women from “the public teaching of doctrine … or to wield authority over men” as an elder or in pastoral office. In addition, he believes it is about “women” in general and not about “wives” in particular.
Now most translations of 1 Tim 2:11-15 render gynē as “woman”: a woman should be learning quietly in all submissiveness and I do not permit a woman to teach. But it is possible to translate gynē not as “woman” but as “wife.” In fact, this is the translation adopted by the CEB:
“A wife should learn quietly with complete submission. I don’t allow a wife to teach or to control her husband. Instead, she should be a quiet listener.” (vv. 11-12).
That works considering:
The parallels with 1 Cor 11:2-16 and 14:34-35 about authority, creation, husbands, wives, and decorum. The ESV team here was persuaded to translate gynē as “wife” rather than “woman” because archaeological evidence shows that only wives, not all women, had to wear head-coverings (see the ESV note on 1 Cor 11:5).
Women’s dress, good deeds, and learning in quietness and submission are not limited to corporate worship.
The shift from the plural men/women in vv. 8-9 to the singular man/woman in vv. 11-14 might indicate a shift from the worship setting to the house setting.
Adam and Eve are invoked and were the first husband-wife couple.
Childbirth is something that happens as a result of marital union and a church is not a birthing suite.
It also explains the shift from “she” to “they” in v. 15 so that the wife will be saved through childbearing if “they,” i.e., the husband and wife continue in faith, love, and holiness.
I’d say, just as the ESV translates gynē as wife in 1 Cor 11 so too we should follow the CEB in translating gynē as wife in 1 Tim 2.
This household setting will be very important when we come to the meaning of the word authenteō, more on that later!
That said, I think the husband-wife dynamic intersects closely with a church context, similar to 1 Cor 14:33-35, where wives and husbands should not cause disturbances in public worship with their own bickering or disputing. Remember too, if these Ephesian churches are house churches then they overlap somewhat with households of husbands, wives, children, slaves, freedman, relatives, and wider retainers. This is a world in which the boundaries between public setting and private life are more permeable and porous.
So while the main context is the marriage of husband and wife, it does have relevance for the house church context, in the sense of not causing disturbances or commotion when gathered for worship in the house of a patron. In effect, a wife should not harass or be haughty with her husband over Christian teaching either in the home or in the midst of house church worship.
But if you do limit the context of 1 Tim 2:12 to pastoral ministry and the functions of an elder, then the prohibition does not apply outside of a church context, so women can lead nations, governments, companies, public services, schools, seminaries, and in other para-church ministry. And Winger himself believes that the prohibition does not apply outside of the church context, specifically, corporate worship or church roles, so he says he’s a complementarian not a patriarchialist. This is why Winger is okay with Priscilla teaching Apollos Christian doctrine, because it was done privately (Acts 18:26).
But was it private? Because that’s not what Acts 18:26 says. It says that they “received him” and explained the way of God to him more accurately. But received him into what? Their room at the synagogue, into their shop, into their house, into their house church, we don’t know if it was public or private instruction. Plus, Winger wants to make a big distinction between church and non-church contexts or between public and private spheres which in the ancient world was not neatly divided. I think those divisions are just much looser in ancient Ephesus.
2. Paul’s appeal to the order of creation and the fall means that the prohibition is transcultural.
Winger claims that the prohibition about women teaching and holding authority over a man is explained as being rooted in Adam’s priority and authority, this is the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the Old Testament and is before the Fall.
Now this is what used to be the clencher for me when I was a Complementarian. Male authority is rooted in the order of creation, Adam’s primogeniture, and it’s not a result of the Fall.
But appeals to natural order are complicated because they often reflect cultural mores.
For example, in 1 Cor 11, Paul appeals to nature about head coverings and hair length for both men and women:
“For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” (1 Cor 11:7-10 [ESV])
“Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.” (1 Cor 11:13-16 [ESV]).
Does Genesis 1 really teach that because Eve came from Adam’s body that therefore men ought not cover their heads and women should cover their heads when praying or prophesying?
Does nature really teach that long hair is a disgrace for a man and women need long hair as a head covering? In either case, for men or women, how long is long hair? Down to the hips, down the arm, shoulder, below the ears? How long is the long hair which women can have and men can’t have?
What is natural means what is normal and that depends on the cultural situation.
What is considered natural is often based on how some people and some cultures experience the natural world!
Everybody wants God, the Bible, and nature of their side. So everyone says my view is in accordance with nature.
Communism is natural! Yes, for an ant colony.
Matriarchy is natural! Yes, for goats and elephants.
Patriarchy is natural! Yes, for horses and deer.
Biblical scholar, Stanley Stowers says: “When ancients appealed to nature they often meant that something was appropriate or inappropriate, just as today we often use the term without implying a theory of natural law.”
When I say coffee is against God and nature, I’m saying that based on my own experience that coffee tastes like Satanic diarrhea.
I know that this might be a hard pill to swallow, but even appeals to nature are cultural because what is natural, means normal, and what is normal varies from culture to culture.
So in 1 Tim 2:12, Paul is appealing to Genesis 1 and Adam’s priority to provide a creational grounding to address the situational problem of wives trying to cajole their husbands and causing disturbances in the home or in house churches. But, just like head coverings and long hair in Corinth, the natural basis for male authority and the social expression of it is conditioned by culture.
I know that’s a big pill to swallow, it’s taken me a while to swallow it, but reading up on appeals to nature in ethical discourses has pushed me over the line.
If you don’t believe me, then tell Sean Feucht to get a haircut, men are banned from wearing baseball caps when teaching doctrine even on podcasts, and tell women to wear scarves on their heads like Muslim women do. Because, as Paul says in 1 Cor 11:16 to conclude his argument about headship, hats, and hair: “If anyone wants to argue about this, we have no other custom, nor do the churches of God.”
What about the appeal to the Fall in 1 Tim 2:14 where Eve was deceived and became a transgressor?
Winger doesn’t think women are by nature gullible or deceivable – so points for him!
Winger does say, “Both creation and the fall push for Paul’s policy on women and ministry” which he says proves that the teaching is transcultural and not based on the cultural setting in Ephesus. His point is male authority, as a model for pastors, exists before and after the Fall.
Well, yes, in Genesis 3, Eve was deceived, and she transgressed the commandment that the primeval couple had been given in the Garden. But, as we all know, that is only half of the story. Adam is equally culpable for his disobedience and he is the exemplary transgressor as he was responsible for the Fall of all human beings into sin. Why no mention of Adam’s failure in 1 Tim 2? I think Paul is deliberately selective in highlighting Eve, putting the spotlight on her culpability, not because women are inherently gullible, but because of the presenting situation in Ephesus. The proof of that theory is that at other times, when Paul tells the story of the Fall, such as in Romans 5, he mentions Adam exclusively.
The instruction is not transcultural because the appeal to Genesis 3 is made in a very specific way. Paul’s argument, a mere verse, is crafted in a bespoke fashion, because there is mention of Eve’s deception but no mention of Adam’s disobedience, which means it has been tailored to a precise situation where wives – I think - were being dictatorial and disruptive.
Now, if Paul gave an account of Adam and Eve and the Fall, stating who was responsible for what failures, that we were all duped in Eve and all condemned in Adam, then it might be transcultural, but he doesn’t do that. He focuses on Eve because he wants to focus on the problematic behavior of some women in Ephesus, their own error, perhaps they have imbibed some of the “false teaching” mentioned in various parts of the letter. Maybe some women were doing things in family and church that amount to what Paul warns about later: “They will pay attention to spirits that deceive and to the teaching of demons” (1 Tim 4:1). That might well describe some women still carrying baggage from the Artemis cult or spreading proto-gnostic ideas into the Ephesian house churches. As Eve was deceived, so too are the Ephesian women deceived, which is why they should not teach or lead, but instead get learned up. In which case, Paul’s highlighting of Eve is expedient for the context, but it is not Paul’s definitive account of the Fall and its meaning.
So the appeal to the order of creation and Eve’s role in the Fall does not mean that the prohibitions made are transcultural. That is because (1) because all appeals to nature and their application are cultural, i.e., head-coverings and long hair; and (2) Paul’s highlighting of Eve’s failure rather than Adam’s is deliberately selective because of the situation he is addressing where Ephesian women are mistaken and need to be taught.