I have addressed and responded to several criticisms of and challenges to my book Icons of Christ and its arguments in favor or women’s ordination and women’s equality through several essays on my blog. However, there is one crucial passage that I have not yet addressed at length – Paul’s assertion in 1 Timothy 2:12: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet” (ESV). I have made occasional references to this passage, particularly in addressing hermeneutical issues, but I have not discussed it in detail. So with apologies for a lengthy delay, I now turn to this passage.

Preliminary Reflections

Before examining the passage, some initial issues need to be addressed.

First, the disagreements about this passage are not primarily about exegesis, but about hermeneutics. I had addressed this in previous essays. For example, in a previous essay, I made a crucial distinction between “master passages” or “master stories” and “paradigms.” A “master passage” is a passage of Scripture that is crucial for one’s own understanding of an issue, and a “paradigm” is the interpretive key to the interpretation of the “master passage.” My previous essay to this makes clear the master passages that are central to my understanding of what Scripture teaches about what it means for not only men but also women to resemble Jesus Christ, and the corresponding “paradigm” is one of cruciformity, mutual service, and mutual submission.

In that first earlier essay, I also noted that the two key master passages for complementarians (Protestants opposed to women’s ordination) are 1 Tim. 2:18-15 and 1 Cor. 14:34b-35. I pointed out that these are not helpful “master passages” for two reasons.

First, it is sometimes pointed out by complementarians that opponents of women’s ordination in the history of the church often appeal to these two passages as biblical warrants. What complementarians do not acknowledge, however, is that the traditional paradigm for interpreting these passages is one of ontological subordination and inferiority on the part of women. Historical opponents of women’s ordination referenced these two passages because they understood them to mean that women are less intelligent than men, emotionally unstable, and more easily tempted than men. Complementarian opponents of women’s ordination do not want to affirm that paradigm. Indeed, they are emphatic that they reject it, and have thus adopted new rationales for opposition to women’s ordination: women are of equal intellectual and moral status to men, but they also have subordinate “roles” to men rooted in a hierarchical notion of authority rooted in masculine “headship.” Neither one of these two paradigms – female equality and complementary “roles” – appear in traditional interpretations of this passage. They are an entirely new paradigm, introduced for the first time by Evangelical complementarians in the late twentieth century. I have addressed the above points not only in my book, but in numerous previous essays.

Second, 1 Tim. 2:18-15 and 1 Cor. 14:34b-35 are not good “master stories” or “master passages” for a discussion of women’s ordination because they are short isolated passages, and do not explicitly address the question of women’s ordination at all. Moreover, 1 Timothy 2:18-15 is not a prescriptive but a descriptive passage. Paul does not state that under no circumstances should women teach or exercise authority over men, but that he is not allowing it. The prohibition cannot be a permanent or universal prohibition because at least one of Paul’s disciples (Priscilla) was a teacher. Against this, complementarians claim that the text is only prohibiting public teaching of men by women, but that women are allowed to teach in private. However, nothing in Acts 18:26 suggests that Priscilla and Aquilla “taking Apollos aside” had anything to do with concerns about Priscilla teaching Apollos in public rather than in private. Moreover, 1 Timothy 2:12 says nothing about women teaching in public rather than in private. The private/public distinction is read into the text, not found in it. If the prohibition of women teaching men is permanent, then a literal reading of the text precludes all such teaching, whether in public or in private. Finally, Paul’s actual discussion of the orders of bishops and deacons in the very next chapter (1 Tim. 3) makes no reference to what he had said in the previous chapter about women teaching.

In the original essay written by Bishop Grant LeMarquand and myself in response to a request by the ACNA College of Bishops to address the question of women in orders, our discussion of this passage was only a sentence: “It is our contention that these texts (1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:8-15) should be understood as implying that women who are not educated should learn before they become teachers.” This concise treatment was for two reasons: first, we had been asked by the College of Bishops to keep our essay as short as possible, and, second, we considered the passage to be peripheral to the discussion. I did include a discussion of the passage in Icons of Christ, and I now turn to some of the issues raised by that discussion.

I am not permitting . . . 

First, it needs to be clear that despite modern translations like those in the English Standard Version, which reads the passage as a relatively straightforward account of Paul’s prohibition of women to either teach or to exercise authority over men, the translation of the passage is not straightforward for at least three reasons.

As I noted in Icons of Christ, “The first key question has to do with whether the word ἐπιτρέπω (epitrepō) should be translated ‘I do not permit’ or ‘I am not permitting.” I went on to write: “Numerous scholars point out that the verb epitrepō should be translated ‘I am not permitting.’” I then provided an overly short summary of how the verb is used in the New Testament, and concluded “The evidence suggests that Paul’s use of epitrepō is temporally limited, and, thus, the prohibition is neither universal nor for all time.”¹

Against this, REC priest Matthew Colvin, in his review of my book, claims that “the verb epitrepō ordinarily indicates the granting of a permission that would not otherwise obtain, i.e., an exception to a standing rule,” and lists the following references: Acts 26:1; Hebrews 6:1-3; Matthew 19:8; Mark 5:13 and Luke 8:32; John 19:38; Acts 27:3. Moreover, Colvin appeals to 1 Cor. 14:34, which he claims cannot be a “temporary suspension” because it is in the perfect tense – “an ongoing state resulting from a past action.” “Accordingly,” writes Colvin, “these passages are best read as Paul denying that he is granting an exception to a standing prohibition of women teaching in the church.”

My discussion of epitrepō was less than a page in an eleven-page discussion of this passage. In response to Colvin’s critique, however, I summarize here at greater length Philip Payne’s own chapter on epitrepō, from his book Man and Woman, One in Christ.²

1) Paul often uses the first person singular (“I”) present active indicative (“am not permitting”) to indicate his own personal advice or position in a situation that is not universal. In 1 Cor. 7:7, 26, 32, 40; Phil. 4:2, Paul uses the identical grammatical construction to express a current desire or conviction, not a universal demand.

2) Every occurrence of epitrepō in the Greek OT refers to a specific situation, and not to a universal prohibition. Similarly, all but two of the NT occurrences refer to a specific time-limited duration. Mark 10:4 and Matt. 19:8 (“Moses permitted you to divorce your wives”) is obviously a temporary permission that Jesus indicates was not God’s original intention in creation: “Jesus’ reply shows that ἐπιτρέπω does not refer to a universal or permanent permission.”

Agrippa’s allowing Paul to speak (“It is permitted for you to speak for yourself,” Acts 26:1) is obviously not a permanent permission, but one allowed within a specific context for a limited period of time.

1 Cor. 16:7: “For I do not want to see you now just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits,”

Hebrews 6:1-3: “This we will do if God permits.”

Both of these passages are in the present tense (as is 1 Tim. 2:12) and are clearly referring to specific temporally limited situations, not to permanent realities. Contrary to Colvin’s claim that epitrepō “ordinarily indicates the granting of a permission that would not otherwise obtain,” the texts certainly do not presume that God forbade Paul’s visiting prior to the permission, nor that the writer of Hebrews was forbidden to “go on to maturity” before God gave permission.

Mark 5:13 and Luke 8:32: The demons being given “permission” to enter the swine is obviously not a permanent permission, in that the permission ended with the death of the swine.

Acts 27:3: Julius gave Paul permission to visit his friends so that they could provide for his needs. This is obviously a temporary permission, since the next verse indicates that Paul left immediately afterwards.

The one possible exception that Payne acknowledges as a permanent denial of permission is 1 Cor. 14:34, which Colvin insists must be a permanent prohibition because it is in the perfect tense. Although Colvin makes much of his insistence that ἐπιτρέπεται in 1 Cor. 14:34 is “in the perfect tense,” Payne identifies it as “third person present passive” as does greekbible.com and my old Analytical Greek Lexicon of the New Testament. If 1 Cor. 14:34 can be read as present passive, it is not “resulting from a past action” (Colvin) and, while ongoing, would not necessarily be permanent.

I discuss 1 Cor. 14:34 in Icons of Christ (146-155), and in this essay. Context indicates that Paul is not demanding a permanent or universal silence of women, but addressing a specific case of disruptive speech. Whether speaking over someone else, asking impertinent questions, or judging prophecy is debated by interpreters. However, the context makes clear that the prohibition is not a permanent prohibition of women speaking. As tongue speakers are to “keep silent” if there is no interpreter, (14:28) and prophets are to “be silent” if someone else receives a revelation (14:30), immediate context makes clear that women should “keep silent” rather than interpreting the order of the service, and to ask questions of their husbands later at home. The silence would not necessarily be permanent, any more than the silence of tongue speakers or prophets. As the discussion about women’s head coverings earlier in 1 Corinthians 11 makes clear, the prohibition in 14:34 – “they are not permitted to speak” – cannot be a permanent or universal prohibition because women are described as speaking in 1 Corinthians 11. The prohibition in 1 Cor. 14:34 must then refer to a specific occasion for a specific reason for a limited period of time. Women are not “permitted” to speak in some unspecified disruptive manner during the service, but they are certainly “permitted” to speak in other circumstances at other times, and for other reasons.

Finally, Payne points to grammatical differences between 1 Cor. 14:34 and Mark 10:4, Matt. 19:8 on the one hand and 1 Tim. 2:12 on the other. Payne identifies the former passages as third person present passive (“they are not permitted”) and third person aorist (“Moses permitted”). 1 Cor. 14:34 and Mark 10:4, Matt. 19:8 are more appropriate to “introduce an ongoing permission,” than is the first person present active indicative of 1 Tim. 2:12. Payne points out that in English, “it is permitted” almost always implies a continuing state, while this is not the case in NT Greek. He concludes, “All of these factors give evidence that this verb, especially in the first person singular present indicative, is not well-suited to identify a universal prohibition.”

Concluding this discussion, Payne points out that when Paul gives permanent instructions to churches, he qualifies them with some universalizing phrase (“to every one of you,” Rom. 12:3), (“everywhere in every church,” 1 Cor. 4:16-17), (“to every man,” Gal. 5:3), (“for all men,” 1 Tim. 2:1), (“in every place,” 1 Tim. 2:8): “There is no [such] universalizing phrase in 1 Tim. 2:12.”³

Authentein: The Current State of the Discussion

In light of the above, it is clear that a good case can be made that Paul’s “I am not permitting” should be interpreted as a present-tense temporary prohibition, and this is the position I endorsed in Icons of Christ. However, a couple of other exegetical issues arise with the interpretation of the passage as well. Here, I refer readers to an essay I discovered only recently, which I think addresses these questions of interpretation definitively: James Hübner, “Revisiting αὐθεντέω in 1 Timothy 2:12: What Do the Extant Data Really Show?”⁴

The first of the two interpretive issues concerns the conjunction οὐδὲ (“or”). Are “to teach” (διδάσκειν) and “to exercise authority” (αὐθεντεῖν) two separate activities, or do they refer to a single activity? Were the two terms used redundantly, or did each express a separate concept? Paul characteristically used “similar words to communicate the same concept.” “Teaching” and “exercising authority” certainly have two different meanings. They are not synonymous. Yet Hübner shows through various examples that there has developed a kind of consensus (among those who agree on little else) that Paul was deliberately bringing together two words to express a single concept. Paul was not prohibiting women “to teach,” and separately prohibiting women to “exercise authority,” but was rather prohibiting women to teach in a manner that would exercise a certain kind of “authority” over men: “It is highly likely then, that the author of 1 Timothy does use αὐθεντεῖν (with διδάσκειν) with specificity . . .” (48-52). Paul is conveying a single idea, not two distinct ideas. (The majority of scholars, whether complementarian or egalitarian, agree about this.)

The final crucial issue of interpretation becomes then: what did Paul mean by the use of the word αὐθεντεῖν (authentein)? Modern complementarian translations (like the ESV) imply that the word has the ordinary and non-controversial sense of “authority”: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” However, this translation is controversial. The word is a hapax legomenon, a word used only once in Paul’s writings, and rarely appears elsewhere in ancient literature. While complementarian writers insist that there is nothing unusual in the term, and it should be translated simply as “authority,” others point out that Paul had numerous words he could have used instead, words which he used elsewhere, such as exousia, and his use of an unusual word must have had some specific purpose behind it.

Hübner points out that exousia is used numerous times in Paul, in the rest of the NT, and in the LXX. In contrast, authenteō does not appear even once in these texts, apart from this single instance in 1 Timothy. Moreover, lexicons provide a variety of meanings that point not to a neutral use of the term, but rather the sense “to dominate,” “to lord it over.” Earlier English translations express this understanding, for example, the KJV: “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” Or the ASV: “But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness.”

If διδάσκειν and αὐθεντεῖν do not express two separate concepts, but rather authentein gives specificity to didaskein, then the passage should be translated not like the neutral “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man,” but rather, “I do not permit a women to teach in a manner that would dominate over” or perhaps “usurp authority” over men. I acknowledged this problem of interpretation in Icons of Christ, but, in a manner similar to my discussion of epitrepō, devoted only two paragraphs to the discussion. In retrospect, I think I should perhaps have given this topic of the meaning of authentein more discussion. Hübner’s essay is a detailed and complete discussion of the word αὐθεντεῖν, and I think his conclusions are definitive: “the term in Paul’s lifetime did not denote a ‘neutral’ or ‘positive’ ‘exercise of authority’ . . . . the use of αὐθεντέω in 1 Timothy 2:12 is pejorative.” Paul was not then disallowing a neutral teaching of women over men or exercising authority over them (“good teaching”), but specifically disallowing teaching so as to “wrench authority” from a man, to “have dominion” over a man, or “to tell the men what to do.” Rather than simply repeat Hübner’s detailed arguments here (including detailed comparative charts of the use of the word in antiquity and in modern translation), I refer readers to the essay. At this point, the burden of proof would be on those who want to interpret Paul’s refusal of permission as a general prohibition of women teaching men in a neutral or (even) positive manner.

I include the above discussion to make clear that there are genuine concerns with the English translation of 1 Timothy 2:12. If Paul’s prohibition was not permanent, then it is not universally binding. If the prohibition is not against women either teaching or exercising authority, but rather has to do with the manner in which women teach combined with a certain use of authority, then the prohibition is not a neutral forbidding of women in general to teach. If the word authentein is not describing a neutral “authority” (as with the word exousia), but rather is forbidding an illegitimate seizing of authority, or a negative form of domination, then the prohibition is, again, not simply a refusal of women to teach in a neutral or even positive manner.

From Exegesis to Hermeneutics

At the same time, I want to make clear that while these questions about Greek exegesis are certainly relevant, they are not my chief concern, and would not effect the substance of my argument. The chapter in Icons of Christ devoted only two pages to these concerns about the exegesis of 1 Timothy 2:12, but another six pages to what I considered more important concerns in this passage. In the previous essay, I noted how disagreements with my book have centered not on what I consider to be my key thesis, but rather on detailed defenses of complementarian exegesis of a handful of biblical passages (for Protestants) or a defense of the sacramental claim that a male priest does indeed represent a male Christ (for Catholics).

This would be another such example of selective reading of Icons of Christ. To my disappointment, critics have not addressed what I consider the most important issues I discussed concerning 1 Timothy 2, specifically the hermeneutical concern of why Paul refers to the deception of Eve as the typological warrant in verse 13-14 for his prohibition in verse 12. Complementarians assume that Paul’s reference to Eve provides a warrant rooted in creation order. Women are not to exercise authority over men because Adam was formed first, and Eve second. The prohibition is necessarily universal because rooted in creation order.

In Icons of Christ, I pointed out the problematic implications of this interpretation. First, the conjunction gar – “For (gar) Adam was formed first” – can be interpreted causally (“because Adam was formed first”), but it can also be a simple connecting conjunction, or used to provide an example. Since (with the exception of Luke 3:38) every other reference to Adam or Eve in the New Testament serves as a typological illustration, that would almost certainly be the case here as well.

If Paul is using the passage typologically to make a point rather than arguing from causality, the meaning changes. The immediate context of the passage in 1 Timothy 2 concerns bad behavior by both men and women (2:8-9), and, in particular, the Pastoral epistles have a prevalent concern about deception. Paul makes a deliberate connection between women not teaching or exercising authority in 1 Tim 2:12 and the problem of deception in verse 14. Paul’s argument is not (as complementarians claim) that women cannot teach because of creation order, but that there is a direct correlation between creation order and the deception of Eve: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”

As I laid out the logic of Paul’s argument in Icons of Christ (162):

The man was created first → The woman was deceived.

The man was not deceived → Women should not teach or exercise authority over men.

Paul is drawing a deliberate connection between the order of creation and the deception of the woman, and a parallel connection between deception of women in the church at Ephesus, and their not exercising authority over men. If the passage is interpreted causally and rooted in creation order (as complementarians claim), then the only consistent reading is that Paul prohibited women to teach because (for some reason rooted in creation order), women are more inherently subject to deception than men.

This is how the passage was interpreted by those many men in the history of the church who referred to it as a warrant for denying women leadership in the church. And, as I pointed out in Icons of Christ, this meant that throughout church history, women were denied not only ordination to church office, but also any kind of work in which they might exercise authority over men (chapter 3).

Complementarians do not want to embrace this conclusion, however. To the contrary, they insist that complementarianism affirms the spiritual, intellectual, and moral equality of women and men, only insisting that men and women play different complementarhy (but necessarily hierarchical) “roles.” This is, however, a selective reading of the passage, and contrary to Paul’s plain sense. It is also contrary to historical readings of the passage. Historical opponents of women’s ordination did not affirm women’s equality to men, but denied it. And the notion of complementary “roles” is a modern novelty.

If the passage is read not as a causal description – women cannot teach or exercise authority over men because they are more subject to deception because they are second in the order of creation – but as a typological illustration, the meaning changes. Paul certainly makes a direct connection between creation order and the deception of Eve. Rabbinic and other interpreters of Genesis suggested that Eve was deceived because she had not yet been created when God gave the command to Adam [Gen. 2:16], and so heard the command second-hand. The implication is not then that Eve was more easily deceived than Adam, but that she was deceived because she was not directly informed.

Given this reading of the passage, Paul’s argument looks different. Paul is not arguing that women cannot teach or exercise authority either because of creation order (Adam was created first) or even that women are more easily deceived than men (the woman was deceived), but that women who are not sufficiently informed should not teach or exercise authority over men because, like Eve, they are not sufficiently informed, and thus subject to deception. Rather, women should first “learn quietly with all submissiveness.” (This is a standard description of how students were expected to learn in the ancient world.) Presumably, after they had become better informed – through learning quietly – such women could themselves become teachers. One thinks, for example, of Priscilla, mentioned along with her husband Aquila, in 2 Timothy 4:19.

In this chapter in Icons of Christ, I point to another example where Paul uses similar reasoning, and in which no one would suggest that Paul is arguing for an absolute prohibition. In Titus 1:10, Paul draws a similar parallel between false teaching, the language of deception, and a demand for silence: “For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.” In the next verse, Paul identifies the culprits who must be silenced: “One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’”

If one were to apply the same hermeneutical standards to Titus 1:10-11 that complementarians apply to 1 Timothy 2:12, it would follow that no Cretan could ever be trusted with authority because “Cretans are always liars.” Yet Paul challenges Titus just a few verses earlier (Tius 1:5) to appoint Cretan presbyters/elders who are to be “above reproach” (v. 6), who hold firmly to the word they have been taught (v. 9). Concerning those who are subject to deception, Paul encourages Titus to “rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (v.13). The parallel to 1 Timothy 2 is clear. Even though Eve was deceived, Paul’s statement that he is “not permitting a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man” would be no more permanent than his warnings about silencing lying Cretans would imply a permanent silence (Titus 1:10-11). In a manner similar to Paul’s instructions that Cretans who, having held fast to the trustworthy word, could give instruction in sound doctrine (Titus 1:19), so those women, who, like Eve, were subject to deception, could nonetheless “learn quietly with all submissiveness” (1 Tim. 2:11), after which, like the instructed Cretans, they could presumably give instruction in sound doctrine.

I concluded the discussion in that chapter with a reminder about a fundamental difference between the “regulative” hermeneutic found among Richard Hooker’s Puritan opponents, and Hooker’s own “normative” hermeneutic. The regulative hermeneneutic forbids anything that Scripture does not specifically command, while a normative hermeneutic allows anything that Scripture does not specifically forbid. Moreover, Hooker makes an important distinction between merely historical matters in Scripture and actual moral or theological imperatives. Merely historical statements cannot (and must not) be read as if they provide warrant for later Christian practice: “When that which the word of God doth but deliver historically, we counter without any warrant as if it were legally meant, and so urge it further than we can prove it was intended, do we not add to the laws of God, and make them in number seem more than they are?”⁵ Paul’s statement in 1 Timothy 2:12 is just such an historical statement. It is not an imperative, but a descriptive statement. It describes the manner in which Paul was addressing a particular situation. To derive from this historical statement a permanent injunction that women may not be ordained because Paul (again, in a particular historical setting) was not allowing women to “teach” or to “exercise authority” over men would be a clear example of “adding” to the laws of God, and making them number “more than they are.”

Final Reflections: Master Stories and Warrants

I conclude this discussion of the interpretation and hermeneutical application of 1 Timothy 2:14 with some further reflection on the significance of “master stories” and “warrants.” I had mentioned in the previous essay and elsewhere that a major cause of division between opponents and advocates of women’s ordination concerns both those “master stores’ or “master passages” in Scripture that they think are crucial for their case, but also “warrants” for how those passages should be interpreted.

For Evangelical complementarians, there are two “master passages” that provide the crucial lenses through which other biblical passages are interpreted: 1 Tim. 2:18-15 and 1 Cor. 14:34b-35. George W. Knight III wrote in his book on The Role Relationship of Men and Women that these two passages are “clearly the didactic passages on the subject,” which ought to govern our interpretation of other passages, and not the reverse.⁶ When the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word responded to the essay that Bishop Grant LeMarquand and myself wrote on “Women in Holy Orders,” they wrote: “It should humble us when we find that the meaning of a key text like 1 Timothy 2:8-15 has remained constant throughout the Chruch’s history, both East and West, Protestant and Catholic.”⁷

In addition to the focus on these two texts, one also finds as an interpretive key to the passages – what I have called “warrant” – the notions of “headship” and “authority.” “Headship” is based on Paul’s reference to “man” as the “head” of woman in 1 Cor. 11:3 and the man as the “head” of the woman as Christ is “head” of the church in Ephesians 5:23. “Authority” is an implication drawn from the assumption that the metaphorical Greek kephalē means the same as modern English “head” – someone who is “in charge.”

I have addressed these issues not only in Icons of Christ, but in previous essays. My point here is that crucial to the complementarian case is a hierarchical understanding of authority in which Christ (as head) rules over the church, and man (as head) rules over woman. This notion of hierarchical “headship” is not mentioned either in 1 Cor. 14:34-35 or in 1 Tim. 2:8-15. Indeed, there are no references to Christ or Christ’s headship at all in these passages. The point, however, is to illustrate the relationships between “master stories” or “master passages” and theological warrants. How do complementarians understand Christians to resemble Christ? For complementarian Christians, males resemble Christ in that, in the same way in which Christ is “head” of the church, and rules over it, the “man” is “head” of the woman, and rules over her.

In Icons of Christ, I focused on three different sets of “master stories” or “master passages” to sort out what it means for Christians to represent or resemble Christ. In each case, biblical authors spelled out in far more detail what such representation means, and did so in a manner that actually challenges a straightforward understanding of authority of a superior over an inferior.

In what I called “christological subversion,” the Jesus of the Gospels challenged first-century notions of “honor/shame” culture by demanding that his followers be servants of one another rather than ruling over another (Mark 10:44-45; Matt. 18:4). For Paul, Christ’s cruciform self-emptying provides the paradigm for what it means for Christians to imitate Christ (Phil. 2: 6-11). In Ephesians 5-6, Paul explains what this means in the family by stating that all Christians are to be “imitators of God,” by “walk[ing] in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph. 5:1), by mutual submission of all Christians to one another out of reverence for Christ (v. 21-22). Finally, the key master passage for ordination would be 2 Corinthians 2:14-4:18, in which Paul describes the manner in which apostles resemble Christ as one of self-abnegation, who claim nothing for themselves, but worship Jesus Christ as Lord, and who understand themeselves as “your servants,” who manifest Jesus’ life through suffering, as those carrying a “treasure in jars of clay.”

As I noted in the just previous essay, this understanding of what it means to resemble or represent Christ was the key affirmation of my book Icons of Christ, but unfortunately an affirmation which was largely missed by those who have responded to the book negatively. This is, at the end of the day, the key source of disagreement, I think – not debates about the proper interpretations of such things as the meaning of the word kephalē (“head”) in Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11, or whether epitrepō should properly be translated “I am not permitting” or “I do not permit” in 1 Timothy 2:12.

In the end, I am convinced that the basic disagreement has to do with what it means for Christians to imitate or resemble Christ – whether in terms of hierarchy and authority or in terms of cruciformity and mutual service. I note that while there has been much continued defense of complementarian interpretations of the handful of standard “proof texts” in response to my book, accompanied by complaints that I interpreted those texts incorrectly, I have not seen detailed discussion – actually no discussion – of what I have called the “master story” or “master passages” that interpret imitation of Christ in terms of cruciformity and mutual submission.

Appendix: The Response of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word Concerning 1 Timothy 2:12

In the Response of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word to the essay “Women in Holy Orders” written by Bishop Grant LeMarquand and myself, at the request of the ACNA College of Bishops, 1 Timothy 2:12 played a key role. As I have noted elsewhere, this is the single most important passage in the entire Bible for the Response’s argument against women’s ordination. In the “Preface,” we read: “It should humble us when we find that the meaning of a key text like 1 Timothy 2:8-15 has remained constant throughout the Church’s history, both East and West, Protestant and Catholic” (p, 5). The Response includes an Appendix 1: 1 Corinthians 14:33b-35: 1 Timothy 2:8-15 (pp. 74-79). The discussion of the 1 Timothy 2 passage is only two and a half pages in length (pp, 76b-79a).

The article asserts without argument that efforts to limit the “applicability of Paul’s commands to that time and place” are “unconvincing.” They make no argument concerning the interpretation of the verb epitrepō, but simply affirm that “It is an extremely questionable hermeneutical procedure to attempt to limit the current applicability of biblical teaching, especially a command, on the basis of an historical reconstruction that necessarily is largely speculative.” The argument “that authentein [verse 12] means the rebellious abuse or some other misuse of authority” is also “unconvincing.” However, beyond the mere assertion of the two adjectives “unsuccessful” and “unconvincing,” the Response again makes no actual argument here. (See the discussion on epitrepō,and authentein above).

As noted in the previous paragraph, the authors refer to Paul’s writing in verse 12 as a “command.” They begin the discussion by stating that “Numerous efforts have been made to show that the commands of verses 11, 12 are no longer applicable today” (my emphasis). Later they state that Paul “intends that as long as the present creation order exists the commands continue in force (p. 78, emphasis in original). Of course, there is no command at all in the relevant verse 12. Paul does express his desire in verse 1 that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,” and in verses 8-10 that men should pray without quarreling, and that women should adorn themselves modestly and “should learn quietly with all submissiveness.” No one would question whether praying without quarreling and dressing modestly in church would be relevant today. And learning quietly with submission to instruction would not only have been the standard expectation for students in the first century, but something that teachers would certainly expect of their students today.

However, verse 12 is in the “present tense” – “I am not permitting.” It is a declarative statement, not an imperative, and thus, contrary to the Response, not a command at all. The Response is thus making the same error I noted above that Richard Hooker responded to in the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity – turning a historical statement in Scripture into a permanently binding divine command. Again, in Hooker’s words, when we interpret historical statements in the Bible as if they were divine commands, “do we not add to the laws of God, and make them in number seem more than they are?”

Considering the importance that the Response attaches to 1 Timothy 2:12 – it is the single most important passage in the Bible for their argument against women’s ordination – it is surprising that they have no detailed discussion of the verse at all. They address it in a single sentence in the Appendix: “[I]t is hard to deny that [Paul] is plainly basing the commands of verses 12, 13 on order established in creation at the beginning and on the fact of the sinful malfunction of that order at the Fall, and that he therefore intends that as long as the present creation order exists the commands continue in force (p. 28, emphasis in original).

The key phrase is “an order established in creation at the beginning.” The Response does not actually engage in exegetical discussion of the relevant verses (12-13) here, and so does not address or even acknowledge the implication that would necessarily have to be drawn if verse 12 is a prohibition based on “order established in creation” – that women may not teach or exercise authority over men because, like Eve, they are more subject to deception than men. (See the above discussion). Indeed, the Response would not want to endorse this conclusion, and rather emphatically denies that different “roles” for women and men have anything to do with intellectual or moral capacities.

In Icons of Christ, and in previous essays, I have argued that the issue of women’s ordination is not actually a matter of exegesis, but rather of hermeneutics – not a matter of interpreting what Scripture says, but of attempting to sort out the contemporary implications of that. The concluding paragraphs of the Appendix make clear that preconceived theological positions are driving the outcome of interpretation rather than being drawn from the actual texts.

The writers make their final case by tying together three passages for which there is no explicit (or even evident) connection in the biblical texts. They turn from 1 Timothy 2 to 1 Cor. 11:3 ff. to suggest that 1 Cor. 11 limits the “apparently absolute imposition of silence on women” in 1 Cor. 14:34 to refer to “authoritative exercise in public worship.” 1 Timothy 3:1-7 then qualifies 1 Timothy 2:14 to prohibit women “specifically from exercising the teaching and ruling authority reserved to the office of a presbyter.” The point of 1 Timothy 2:12 is “the formal (official) and authoritative (authentein), public teaching, shepherding and gathering Christ’s church.”

Note that none of this is actually in the texts themselves. 1 Cor. 14:34, 35 says nothing whatsoever about either “authoritative” or “public worship.” A straightforward literal reading of the passage reads as a command for absolute silence for women. Context indicates however that what is being addressed is not a matter of women speaking while leading public worship (1 Cor. 11), but rather women speaking by interrupting someone else who is leading worship. 1 Timothy 2:12 says nothing about women and the office of presbyter, nor of “public, teaching, shepherding and guarding Christ’s Church.” If taken literally in the manner in which complementarians interpret the passage – as a permanent prohibition of women teaching or exercising authority over men – it reads literally as a complete prohibition – whether in public or private. The qualifications for the office of presbyter (actually bishop/overseer) in 1 Timothy 3 say nothing about exercising “formal (official) and authoritative . . . . public teaching, shepherding and guarding Christ’s Church.” Rather, they are a list of moral requirements for the position. In the original Greek, there is not a single masculine pronoun; rather, the pronoun tis meaning “whoever” appears throughout, and could apply to either men or women. There is, however, a discussion of what is almost certainly women deacons in 1 Timothy 3:11. Any connection between 1 Timothy 2:12 and the discussion of the office of bishop in 1 Timothy 3 is something that readers bring with them to the text, not something they find in it. In the end, the Response argument here is a matter of stringing together a handful of separate passages in the NT for which there is no obvious literal connection, and then reading into them a priori desired conclusions for which there is no actual evidence in the passages themselves.