K asks, “If God’s Word forbids women teaching and exercising authority” why shouldn’t the state follow the same principle?”
This is a good and interesting question. It’s made even more complicated by the fact that, in 1 Tim 2:11-13 the Apostle grounds his teaching regarding male-female relations in creation, rather than in 613 commandments (mitzvoth). ” Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve….”
If civil polity is grounded in creational norms, and Paul’s commands are grounded in the creational order, then why shouldn’t they be applied to civil polity? The reasoning seems to be airtight, but it’s not certain as it seems. The problem is in the middle premise. The answer lies in reading the entire passage beginning with verse 1.
First of all, Paul was writing to those who make a Christian profession. He wrote to the churches of Asia Minor (think of modern Turkey) to instruct them on a number of matters. He was not writing a charter for civil life but he was instructing Christians and congregations how to relate to the secular world.
The first thing Christians and congregations ought to do is to pray (v.1). His opening instruction here lists the sorts of people for whom we are to pray, “for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (vs. 2). This emphasis on prayer and, in light of the themes that follow, many commentators see here a reference to early Christian worship services.
Second, we should note Paul’s stance to the world outside the visible church. What did the apostolic church seek? Did it seek to “transform” the existing civil order? No. Did it seek to institute Mosaic civil law or penalties in “exhaustive detail”? The early church sought merely to be left in peace. This theme was repeated by the post-apostolic church in the 2nd century. Paul’s interest wasn’t in transformation of the existing social structures or civil realm but in the salvation of the lost. “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (vv.3-4).
Paul was an “a preacher and an apostle” whose message was that there “one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time” (vv.5-7). Paul considered himself “a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth” (v. 7). His interest was soteriological, not social.
The ecclesiastical setting of Paul’s instruction becomes even clearer in vs. 8. “I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling….” (v. 8). This instruction isn’t aimed at the world outside the church. This is the language of public worship. It is in this context that Paul issued his instructions regarding males and females. It wasn’t a general social dictum but the establishment of ecclesiastical order. Just as men are to pray,
…women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control (vv.9-15).
Despite the important fact that Paul grounded his instruction regarding females in creation, it’s evident from the context and the language of the chapter, that Paul’s intent is to speak to ecclesiastical life and Christian conduct in the broader world. Paul isn’t giving instructions about how civil life should be structured.
There are some more general considerations. According to the Reformation understanding of the Mosaic covenant “To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require” (Westminster Confession of Faith, 19.4).
According to Paul, the Mosaic covenant, including the national civil polity served a very specific function (Gal 3). It was intentionally temporary. It pointed to the fulfillment of the promises made to Adam and later to Abraham, that there would be a seed. Jesus Christ was that seed. With the death of Christ, the Mosaic covenant and civil polity expired.
It’s clear that there was a political federalism and family federalism (wherein the husband represents the family to the civil polity and to the religious establishment) under the Mosaic covenant. That family federalism existed in the Israelite state also expired. Attempts to preserve that family federalism is a sort of selective theocracy or theonomy or even aspects of Mosaic worship. The civil laws and ceremonial cult (i.e. sacrificial worship) were intended to be a type of Christ and were fulfilled by Christ and have therefore expired or have been abrogated. It was on this basis that the old Reformed churches abolished musical instruments in public worship.
After the expiration of national Israel, the only charter for civil polity is that natural law that is revealed in creation, written on the conscience, and intended for use by the civil magistrate. This much is evident in Romans 13. Paul did not qualify submission to the magistrate on the basis of the magistrate’s adherence to Mosaic law. The magistrate’s authority is derived from God (Rom 13:1). The magistrate’s function is to enforce the law (not to administer grace). Civil life is a covenant of works (law), not a covenant of grace (unmerited favor). The church, the kingdom of God, is the institution to which the means of grace and the proclamation of the gospel and church discipline has been entrusted.
Doesn’t 1 Cor 11:3 confirm ecclesiastical family federalism in the New Covenant?
It’s a good question. It assumes, however, that if Paul says “head” (kephale) that it must refer to federal relations. The flow of the verb is from God to Christ to us, not from us to God, as in the case of a federal structure. Not every instance of “head” = federalism.
Paul doesn’t say there that the husband represents the wife to the congregation. There is an authority structure in 1 Cor 11, as in 1 Tim 2. The wife is to subordinate herself economically, to the husband, in certain circumstances, in public worship, especially in the case of charismatic apostolic worship where females apparently stood to pray and prophesy.
This is my approach to this difficult question. Given the completion of the apostolic period females need not cover their heads in worship because they shouldn’t be praying and prophesying as occurred in the apostolic church.
What is the purpose of Paul’s inclusion of v15? Why does he mention childbearing in the context of ecclesiastical life?
Good question. This is obviously a very difficult text. There’s no clear shift in the text away from his ecclesiastical focus even if if “saved through child bearing” is difficult to understand. I wouldn’t use it to leverage the other portions of the text.
So you do not know how it fits with your understanding of the passage?
Brandon,
I don’t know if this helps, but here is my conclusion to v. 15 from my sermon, though, admittedly a very difficult verse.
In v. 15, Paul ends his admonition to the women in the church with both a warning and an encouragement. This verse has proven to be one of great difficulty because of the strange wording. What does Paul mean when he says that the women will be saved through childbearing?
We might understand Paul better if we remember the context. He has cautioned women from assuming the men’s role in leading the church. Now he says women will be saved if they continue in their appointed roles, from which childbearing is the most obvious example. Childbearing is that which most distinguishes women from men.
Paul is using childbearing as an example of that which women were gifted to do. If women stay within their appointed callings, and if they do so in faith, love, holiness and self-restraint, they will be saved. Not that woman will earn salvation by doing these things, but women will evidence themselves true believers and be received into heaven. Christian women are to submit to what God has called them to do and not rebel against the fact that they are not appointed as leaders in God’s church.
Aimee Semple McPherson is considered by many to be the founder of the Pentecostal movement. In 1915 Aimee expressed a strong desire to preach the gospel, so she abandoned her husband of 3 years, as well as her five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter. She justified this abandonment by claiming God had called her to a more important task, which was to preach the gospel.
This is exactly the type of thing Paul is warning against in v. 15. Paul is saying to you women, there is nothing demeaning about being a wife or a mother. Just because in God’s plan you are not to be pastors does not mean your life is not as important to God.
When you submit to God’s calling for your life as a woman you are doing that which God has called you to do, and he is pleased with your labor as a wife, or mother, or any other calling that does not usurp God’s order.
As a former RCUS Pastor Dr. Clark do you still believe in Head-of-Household voting? Why or Why Not?
Thanks Todd, that helps.
What are your thoughts on Walter Chantry’s interpretation?
http://www.reformedreader.org/rbb/chantry/motherhood.htm
Benjamin,
Over time I have came to doubt the family federalism advocated by some in the RCUS.
Head of household voting, at least when I was in the RCUS, was never the universal practice of the RCUS.
Hi Todd,
This is helpful.
I have sometimes wondered if Paul isn’t simply using the word “saved” in the sense of “delivered” since mortality was quite high for mothers in the ancient world. That raises problems of its own, however, just as the conditional language raises problems in the view you advocate — the outlines of which I accept.
In any event, the point remains that the sphere of discourse here is ecclesiastical and not civil.
Brandon,
Chantry takes the passage out of the ecclesiastical realm into the civil, which, as Scott wrote, is out of context. The context is women teaching men and exercising authority over men in the church. I don’t think Chantry would say that I Tim 3:1-6 applies to Roman governors as well as church officers (3:7 wouldn’t make much sense then, would it?)
And I have difficultly with the idea that “saved” does not have a salvation connotation here when it does the only other times Paul uses the term in the book (1:15, 2:4 & 4:16).
Todd
I’m not sure how you interpret “saved by childbearing” to refer to salvation. Can you elaborate?
I think trying to classify the text as “ecclessiastical” or “civil” is improper. Is childbearing either ecclessiastical or civil?
It seems clear to me that Paul is talking about a general principle in life, rooted in a proper understanding of creation, a general principle that applies to all of life. To then say he can’t possibly be talking about a general principle because he applies the general principle to church government seems unwarranted to me.
And the other question I have is why does Paul root his argument in the created order and the events of the Fall? What relevance does that have to church government?
Do you agree with Chantry when he says:
“Adam was not deceived. This does not clear man of all responsibility in the tragedies which have haunted the human race. Adam walked into the evil rebellion against God with his eyes wide open. He took the fruit from Eve with no false illusions. His was the deeper sin. He transgressed fully knowing what he was about. But Eve was duped by Satan. She had “the wool pulled over her eyes”. There is generally in the female constitution a confiding simplicity (which can become gullibility). This characteristic perfectly suits her to the role of help-for-man just as God had designed. There is in this constitutional difference of woman from man a beauty which defines feminity and is attractive to men.”
Brandon,
In the original post I gave a clear example of Paul speaking to civil life or to Christian participation in civil life. In 1 Tim 2, however, the concern is how the visible church should function. The men whom he wants to pray are in the church. The women who are bearing children are in the same context. Whatever “shall be saved” means it certainly isn’t a universal promise to females outside the visible church.
By making the civil/ecclesiastical distinction, I’m observing the clues Paul gives to the context to which he wrote.
Why does Paul appeal to the created order and to the fall?
Good question. The short answer is that this is the new covenant. Part of the new covenant is the restoration of creational norms, as our Lord Jesus ended the tolerance of polygamy on the ground of creational intention. When Jesus thus spoke was he establishing civil or ecclesiastical legislation? It seems the latter.
Why does he talk about deception? What does that have to do with creational norms?
Todd answered this didn’t he? Who is in the visible church? Sinners. Females are a particular class of sinners and that aspect of the narrative is part of the ground of Paul’s order in the church.
Dr. Clark,
Would you mind to elaborate on why you came to doubt “family federalism”?
Dr. Clark,
That doesn’t explain Paul’s reference at all. Men are sinners too. Adam was a sinner, but he was not deceived. What is the significance of Adam not being deceived while the woman, Eve, was deceived? Why does that matter?
For the reasons I listed in the post. Family federalism is fundamentally Mosaic. I don’t doubt that believing husbands and fathers are heads of covenant households but that’s not the same thing as having the husband represent the family to the church. One of the dubious premises of the whole case is the very idea of congregational elections. The archeology of the NT church is difficult. Is there clear evidence that there were even such things? Titus 1:5 has Timothy appointing elders. Don’t misunderstand. I’m a de iure divino presbyterian (lower case p) but the argument, as I recall it, was: congregational elections are the exercise of authority (this is a huge assumption), females can’t exercise authority, ergo females can’t vote in congregational elections. It was in this context appeal was made to family federalism which puts us back into the Mosaic soup.
Brandon,
Sure it does. Paul is appealing to the historical order of the narrative to make a doctrinal point about females. It was a female who was deceived. Again, this is a difficult text. Does he presume that females are more susceptible to deception? Not likely. More likely he’s making a redemptive-historical point about undoing the damage that was done by the fall. Wes White wrote on this sometime back and I commented on it here.
As I say, however one comes out on this difficult text, there’s no evidence that Paul is giving general, cultural, civil instructions.
Do you agree with Chantry when he says:
“Adam was not deceived. This does not clear man of all responsibility in the tragedies which have haunted the human race. Adam walked into the evil rebellion against God with his eyes wide open. He took the fruit from Eve with no false illusions. His was the deeper sin. He transgressed fully knowing what he was about. But Eve was duped by Satan. She had “the wool pulled over her eyes”. There is generally in the female constitution a confiding simplicity (which can become gullibility). This characteristic perfectly suits her to the role of help-for-man just as God had designed. There is in this constitutional difference of woman from man a beauty which defines feminity and is attractive to men.”
Brandon,
No, I think Chantry gets it wrong here also. I’ll just post from my sermon to save me time:
Paul’s explains further his prohibition in v. 14. Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, fell into transgression. Paul’s point; do you see what happens when God’s order is ignored? Eve took authority to decide for herself whether to eat the fruit or not, and as a result she became man’s tempter. She ignored her husband’s headship in the whole matter. When she didn’t respect God’s order, disaster occurred.
It is not that Adam wasn’t equally guilty; Paul deals with Adam’s sin elsewhere. But Eve was in sin because she took on authority she was not given. She did not submit to Adam her husband in the matter.
Paul is not suggesting, as I have read in some commentaries, that Eve was created gullible, and thus women, being gullible by nature, should not be given the responsibility to teach the Bible. If you say Eve was created gullible, then you say God created her with deficiencies.
No, Paul’s point is that God made men and women with different roles to fulfill, and when men and women accept their divine callings they please the Lord, and here Paul is explaining the women’s role in the church not being one of pastoral leadership.
Women, the Apostle Paul has your best interests at heart here. He is not trying to exclude you that which you were created to do. He is not trying to limit your usage to the body of Christ. He is actually trying to maximize your usage. He is freeing you up to do what you were gifted to do.
For whatever its worth, I have found Kostenberger’s treatment of :15 to be intriguing and very helpful:
http://biblicalfoundations.org/pdf/Studies14.pdf
Dr. Clark,
Why is the idea of family federalism Mosaic and not Abrahamic, Noahic, or Adamic?
Kazoo
K,
Fair question. I could, and perhaps should, have said that family federalism was typological but that it came to fullest expression under Moses.