1 Timothy 2:8-15: Unique or Normative? A Response to Gordon Fee

I am writing this essay as a response to Gordon Fee's gracious request for a discussion of his interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:8-11.¹ After ruling that men pray in a holy manner (v. 8), Paul instructs that women dress modestly (2:9-10) and that they learn in quietness, being submissive in every way (v. 11). Putting the matter negatively, a woman is neither to teach nor to have authority over a man (vv. 11-12), both because Adam, the representative man, was formed first, then Eve, the representative woman (v. 13), and because Eve, not Adam, was deceived and came to be in transgression (v. 14).

Fee-I reluctantly use the customary scholarly shorthand for Regent's distinguished Professor of New Testament and my friend, whom I respect and love-supports this exegesis of the text, but denies that the Apostle's ruling that women not teach men has universal applicability to the Church. According to him, the pronouncement is ad hoc, a unique ruling to correct a church being torn apart by false teachers. "It simply cannot be demonstrated," says Fee, "that Paul intended 1 Timothy 3 [sic-should be 2]: 11-12 as a rule in all churches at all times. in fact the occasion and purpose of 1 Timothy as a whole, and these verses in particular, suggest otherwise."²

Part I: Fee's Argument

Fee begins his argument by noting that every epistle is an ad hoc document, "that is, that it is a piece of correspondence occasioned by a set of specific historical circumstances...." ³ The Apostle wrote this letter to Timothy, his representative at Ephesus, says Fee, to stop the influence of some false teachers (1:3), and this, he argues, is the key to the book's interpretation. Thus Fee contends that women are forbidden to teach uniquely at Ephesus because of the influence upon some women by the false elder-teachers, turning these women into peddlers of false doctrines.

He validates his argument that the church at Ephesus is being led astray by some of its own elders from Paul's warning that this would happen in Acts 20:30 and from references within the Pastoral Epistles to such teachers (1 Tim. 1:3, 7, 18-20) and to the considerable attention allotted to the qualifications of church leaders (3:1-13; 5:17-25), much of which contrasts to the characteristics of the false teachers. Furthermore, Fee plausibly continues, "these teachers had found a most fruitful field among some women, apparently younger widows, who had opened their homes to them and even helped to spread their teachings" (1 Tim. 5:13; 2 Tim. 3:6-9).

He now makes the critical move in his argument by interpreting Paul's instruction about women in 1 Timothy 2:9-15 by the Apostle's ruling for certain widows in 5:11-15. "What is striking about this paragraph [2:9-15] is its several points of correspondence with 5:11-15, " he writes. Both texts, he notes, are concerned with women "‘playing fast and loose' with the norms of society," both texts speak of Satan's influence on women, and both texts solve the problem by advocating marriage and bearing children. In sum, according to Fee, Paul's ruling in 2:9-15 uniquely aims "to rescue these women and the church from the clutches of the false teachers. Their rescue includes proper demeanor in dress, proper demeanor in the assembly (including learning in all quietness), and getting married and rearing children."⁴

Supplementing this main thread of the argument, he finds "not a single piece [of literature]" that takes Paul's instruction in 5:3-16 (e.g., that younger widows re-marry) as normative, a glaring inconsistency for those who take 2:9-15 as normative.⁵ Furthermore, the ambiguity is exacerbated by Paul's instruction in 1 Corinthians 7:39 that discourages such re-marriages.⁶

Finally, he argues, Paul's prohibition in 2:12 cannot be normative because it goes against the grain of the rest of the New Testament. He writes: "It is hard to deny that this [his] text prohibits women teaching men in the Ephesian church; but it is the unique text in the New Testament,... its reason for being is not [his] to correct the rest of the New Testament, but to correct a very ad hoc problem in Ephesus."⁷

Part II: An Evaluation Of Fee's Arguments

Fee's contention that the Pastoral Epistles were occasional documents, written to address specific problems, in the case of the Pastorals as a response to false teachers who were threatening the churches, is convincing and illuminating. The Church can not use them as a manual for church order, without interpreting them in the light of the realization that Paul's concern with false teachers shaped and gave them content. The question remains, however, whether Fee's argument is compelling. Is Paul's ruling in 2:8-15 ad hoc, or is it normative for all cultures at all times?

Let me by way of a preamble to this critical appraisal put the discussion within the history of the interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:9-15. Fee's explication here is ad hoc, not normative: "Most scholars," he says, "see the false teachers as the occasion [his] of 1 Timothy but argue that ‘church order as the proper antidote to the false teachers' is the overriding purpose [his]."⁸ It should be noted that the interpretation which Fee is challenging has been normative historically and in all Christian churches. The normative interpretation can be shown to be almost as old as the Church itself. Elsewhere Fee has argued that 1 Corinthians 11:[sic; should be 14] 34-35 is an interpolation from 1 Timothy 2:9-15. It reads similarly: "Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says." The alleged interpolation is found in all textual witnesses, showing that the Church from at least as early as the early second century A.D. understood our text as normative for Church practice.⁹ The universal Church has so interpreted it for about 1900 years, until Fee proposed the Church had universally misread its Bible. To overthrow the here-to-fore universal consensus that 1 Timothy 2:9-15 can be used as a manual governing the relationship of men and women-perhaps better, husbands and wives-his arguments should be compelling; unfortunately they are not. Here I aim only to appraise critically his arguments regarding this text, not to review his in many ways fine commentary on the Pastoral Epistles¹⁰ nor to set fort a treatise on the role of sexes in family relationships, in worship and in ministry.

Note, first, that the false teachers at Ephesus, both according to Acts 20 and the Pastoral Epistles themselves, are men, not women. None of the false teachers named is a woman (1 Tim. 1:20; 2 Tim. 2:17-18). These teaching elders, to be sure, probably influenced the sort of women who talk nonsense and say things they ought not (1 Tim. 5:13), but men, not women, constituted the real threat to the churches at Ephesus. Why, then, silence only the woman, if that is the reason for Paul's ruling? Suppose adult arsonists were training youths in their trade. Would the State prohibit only the youths from setting fires? The "ad hoc"explanation at this point suffers from a lack of cogency. Schreiner rightly observes: "Fee does not adequately explain why Paul reserves for women alone the prohibition against teaching men."¹¹

Second, is it plausible to suppose that Paul would silence all the women at Ephesus to rescue some from the false teachers? Paul had left Priscilla and Aquila, deservedly famous in the discussion about the role of women in ministry, at Ephesus when he first arrived there (Acts 18:19), and they are still there when the Apostle wrote his letter to Corinth (1 Cor. 16:19), and, years later, when he writes to Timothy his last inspired letter (2 Tim. 4:19).¹² Elsewhere, Paul speaks of the godly women at Ephesus (5:5, 9-10).

Are they all to learn in submission and not teach men because some women are spreading false doctrine? Would the Apostle have silenced the gifted, older women who could have been so helpful to protect the younger women against false teachers? Is Paul burning down the proverbial barn to get rid of some rats? Sound judgment, I propose, calls for negative answers to these questions and in that light the "ad hoc" explanation for silencing all the women in the assembly seems unreasonable.

Third, and this is most important, the Apostle's rationale for his ruling in the two passages differs. Paul bases his ruling regarding some younger widows on their wanton character, but his instruction for all women in their deportment to men on the order of creation (v. 13; cf. Gen. 2:18-25) and on the order of the Fall (v. 14; cf. Gen. 3:1-14). Although Fee is perplexed by the Apostle's rationale in v. 13, in his commentary he nevertheless recognizes this incontrovertible fact: "In any case, Paul here neither explains nor elaborates; he simply states the facts of the order of creation."¹³ Without explanation, he seems to reverse himself in the Crux article, asserting "nor will it do to appeal to vv. 13-14 as though there were some eternal order in creation, since neither [his] Genesis nor [his] Paul makes this point."¹⁴ Yet Paul sees a clear connection between his unified rulings in vv. 8-12 and the order of creation as can be seen in his use of the conjunction "for" (Gr. gar) in v. 13. God did not create the woman first, and then the man, nor did he create them at the same time. Moses clearly puts the man at the head of his home in his relationship to his wife and/or young daughter still living in his house (Numbers 30). Fee cites others who establish the absolute normativeness of 2:11-12 on the grounds that God gave the male priority in creation, but offers them no exegetical rebuttal. He says that this argument "is not to be dismissed,"¹⁵ but proceeds to do so, I suggest, by substituting his own explanation, drawn from 5:11-15, for the Apostle's in 2:13-15. I, for one, fear to substitute the "ad hoc" explanation, which relativizes the apostolic ruling, for the Apostle's, which absolutizes it.

Fourth, Paul's differing instructions for advising widows to marry at Ephesus but not at Corinth are based on different rationales, as set forth by the Apostle himself. Here I applaud Fee's helpful suggestion that the normative in historically particular instructions be discerned by asking the question of authorial intention.¹⁶ The Apostle's intentions in his instructions can be discerned partially by his explanations for his rulings. In 1 Timothy 5:11-15 he counsels marriage as an anodyne against illicit sensual desires; in 1 Corinthians 7 he advises marriage for the same reason but commends singleness as the better way for happiness. The Western Church today does not follow the Apostle's instruction regarding widows because his intention for them is partially being met, though in a different way in our dissimilar culture. In sum, Paul's instruction in 1 Timothy 2:9-15 aims to preserve the church and home according to the order of creation; in 5:11-15 he strives to protect certain widows against apostasy; and in 1 Corinthians 7:39-40 he strives for the widows' greatest happiness.

Fifth, other considerations than the Apostle's explanation of his ruling in 1 Timothy 2:9-15 argue for the normativeness of the passage. To be sure the false teachers at Ephesus occasioned this letter, but can one think of any situation where Paul would instruct the women to dress immodestly, that is, in such a way as to display sexual wantonness and wifely insubordination? Would the Apostle, who in his letter to Ephesus instructed the wives to obey their husbands, ever encourage wives to domineer them? If one answers those questions negatively, then is it not inconsistent to pick out of these integrated instructions the one about women teaching men in the assembly and to argue that sometimes wives should publicly teach their husbands?

Finally, Fee contends that Paul's prohibition here against women teaching men is unique in the New Testament. To be sure, the Spirit has gifted women in the same ways as men, but I know of no biblical text that instructs women to rule men, which entails authoritatively teaching them, but I do know of other texts that teach-both explicitly and implicitly-male leadership. E. Earle Ellis rightly states: "Paul affirms both equality and subordination [his] as proper and complementary roles in several kinds of relationships...He expresses this principle explicitly in this teachings on diversities in ministry and...on social family relationships."¹⁷ "Wives," instructs the Apostle in his letter to the church at Ephesus, "submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.... Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything" (Eph. 5:22-24). In spite ot the exegetical complexities of 1 Corinthians 11:3-16, I must agree with Ellis that "the subordination motif appears most pointedly at 1 Corinthians 11:3."¹⁸ He translates as follows:

"The head (kephalē) of every husband (anēr) is Christ,
The head of the wife (gunē) is the husband, and
The head of Christ is God..."

Paul's ruling in 1 Timothy 2:9-15 is consistent with biblical principle of husband-headship, as I have argued elsewhere;¹⁹ it is not exceptional.

Part III: Conclusion

Paul's teaching in 1 Timothy 2:8-15 is normative, not unique, as the universal Church for 1900 years and the majority of commentators recognize. It must be held in theological synthesis with the many other texts that affirm women in ministry, including prophesying. That synthesis must embrace both the equlity of sexes apart from gender distinctions and male leadership. Let me conclude with this extended statement by Ellis:

The mind-set that places ‘equality' and ‘subordination' in opposition and that views distinctions of class and rank as evil per se is a largely modern phenomenon. It may reflect a justifiable resentment towards attitudes of disdain and elitism that often (and in a sinful society always) flo from such distinctions, but it seems to be less aware of the egoistic and antisocial evils inherent in egalitarianism itself and sometimes expressed in programs for economic or social confirmity, in a libertarian rejection of authority, and in a despisal of servanthood as a ‘demeaning' role

In any case Paul, like the New Testament generally, holds together quite harmoniously an equality of value and diversity in rank and resolves the problems of diversity in a manner entirely different from modern egalitarianism. In this issue as in others, the Apostle finds the key to the problem in Christoloty. Jesus himself,

Who, though esixting in the form of God,
Did not count equality with God as a prize,
But emptied himself
By taking the form of a servant...(Philippians 2:6)

That is, Jesus the Son of God manifested his equality with God the Fathe precisely in fulfilling a role fo subordination to him. In Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11, Paul applies this analogy to marriage.²⁰