On the Loquacity of Women, Homeboys, and 1 Timothy 2:11-12

I guess I had no idea that one of the most popular rap songs of 1985—and one that my friends and I sometimes quoted to one another as high school seniors—was so theologically interesting. The group was known as Run D.M.C., and they broke into hip hop with a track titled "You Talk Too Much." Perhaps you have heard it in a movie or an advertisement. The chorus (if we may call it that) says,

You talk too much,
You never shut up,
I said you talk too much,
Homeboy, you never shut up.

The success of the rap, in part, was due to the reality it conveyed. Some of the homeboys simply talked too much. And they needed to be corrected. This idea rang true in "the hood" as well as at the local country club.

Why is this song theologically interesting? Because it suggests a curious theological proposition about the nature of male and female.

Fast forward to the year 2008, and I find myself in a chapel service at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary listening to a sermon. Early in the message the speaker reflected on his propensity to talk too much. I think he was warning us about the length of the sermon. He said this: "My wife calls me motor mouth.... ‘You talk more than other men.... You talk too much.' ..." His wife's assessment was spot on. Chapel ran about twenty minutes over that day. I actually enjoyed the message. But the point remains. "You talk too much....Homeboy, you never shut up."

Why is a preacher's personal admission about talking too much so theologically interesting? Because it undermines the common assumption that women talk more than men.

Now we are prepared to ask the question that forms the basis for this essay. Do women talk more than men? That is, are females inherently more loquacious than males simply because of their gender? If so, what are we to make of the above examples? Are they simply men who are more "in touch" with their "feminine side"?

The answer is not as simple as one might think. And we ought to be careful in how we use Scripture to answer this question—as well as other questions like it. That is really the larger point of this two-part essay (I hope to offer a second installment, "On the Gullibility of Women"). In short, the purpose of the essay is to show the importance of exercising a responsible hermeneutic when it comes to reading gender passages in Scripture.

Before I offer an answer to the question, I want to identify a popular, common assumption and then comment on recent studies that yield conflicting answers to the question.

The Popular Assumption, Recent Studies, and Personal Observations

The popular assumption is this: women are by nature more loquacious than men. Women are chatty creatures. They talk because they like to talk. They enjoy talking when they are happy. They also talk in order to solve problems—or at least cope with the problem. Simply put, talking has a place in a woman's life that it does not have in a man's life. In the words of psychologist John Gray, author of the bestseller Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, when it comes to dealing with life's problems, "men go to their caves and women talk." Is it really the case that men go through life with grunts and nods while women prefer to talk?

Two recent studies offer conflicting answers. One researcher claims that women do in fact talk more than men. Louann Brizendine, a Yale and Harvard trained M.D. and author of The Female Brain (Broadway, 2006), claims that women talk about three times more than men. The disparity, according to her studies, is something like 20,000 words per day vs. 7,000 words per day. In addition to saying more than men daily, women also speak about twice as fast as men. Speech patterns, then, according to Brizendine, reflect an inherent, gender-based neurological difference between men and women.

Last year NPR reported on a study conducted by Matthias Mehl, Asst. Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona, that suggests otherwise. Mehl and his assistants outfitted about 400 college students with recording devices in order to determine who talks more. As it turns out, both the men and women spoke on average about 16,000 words a day. There was some variation (women speaking a little more than 16,000 words per day) but the disparity has been interpreted as "not statistically significant." Curiously, the three top talkers in Mehl's study were all men. So much for the taciturn male. According to Mehl the popular myth that women talk more than men is more a result of pop-psychology and overgeneralization than careful research. Mehl hopes that this study will undermine "female chatterbox and silent male" stereotypes and assist in relieving other gender constraints that have put men in "the gender box" far too long.

These two recent studies have yielded interesting results, and I am sure there are more studies like these to come. As to my own personal observations, I have to say that I know some male friends who can gab with the best of women. And on the other hand I know some women who appear to be anything but loquacious. Perhaps we should look to Scripture to get a better grasp on this aspect of the human condition.

Does Scripture Teach the Quietness of Men and Loquacity of Women?

Not long ago I listened to a complementarian explain that one of the reasons the Apostle Paul requires "silence" of women in the church is that women are prone to talk more than men (cf. 1 Tim 2:11-12 and 1 Cor 14:34-35). Such a proclivity to talk more than men makes women more susceptible to sin—or, is at least a unique manifestation of sin for women. He went on to suggest that such an understanding is how one should read 1 Tim 2:11-12. When Paul says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet," the prohibition is designed, in part, to protect the church from female leadership that is inherently more likely to sin through a multitude of words. The women of 1 Timothy 5 are a vivid example of this potential problem—they go about from house to house as "gossips and busybodies" (1 Tim 5:13). Of course, he also accounts for other, more central reasons for Paul's prohibition found in 1 Tim 2:12. The other reasons that he gives, in my opinion, have a more reasonable basis in the text.

I do not see Paul's requirement for the "silence" or "quietness" of women in any way related to the idea of an inherently loquacious gender. I do not even see it as a sub-point or something implicit in the text. Simply put, Paul's prohibition of 1 Tim 2:12 concerns two defining activities of pastoral leadership—teaching and the exercise of authority in leadership—that are contrasted with a disposition that is willing to follow such leadership without dispute. The words translated "she is to remain quiet" (ESV) refer as much to a nonverbal disposition as to the absence of a spoken response.

Are there other passages of Scripture that might teach us that women talk more than men? It is true that some texts of Scripture describe women who sin through a multitude of words. Probably the one that comes to mind for most of us is the contentious woman of Proverbs. It is better to live alone in the wilderness or in a corner of the housetop than to live with her (Prov 21:19; 25:24). Another text describes living with her as "a continual dripping on a rainy day" (Prov 27:15). The metaphor used here vividly describes the incessant niggling and nagging of some women. But the point of the metaphor is not that she has an inherent proclivity to talk more than her husband wants. Rather, the point is simply to convey how annoying and demoralizing a contentious wife can be to a husband.

And yet, while it is the case that some texts describe women who sin through a multitude of words, the same may be said of men. It is not a uniquely feminine problem. Again we turn to Proverbs, which warns both men and women not to sin through many words. "When words are many, transgression is not lacking" (Prov 10:19). Or, "the mouths of fools pour out folly" (15:2). And again, "a fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back" (29:11). In the New Testament, James explicitly instructs his "beloved brothers" to be quick to listen and slow to speak, and to "bridle" their tongues as a demonstration of true religion (Jas 1:19, 26).

I think, then, we would be hard-pressed to make a biblical case for women talking more than men. Having said that, I can certainly understand those who think that, generally speaking, women tend to talk more than men. That may well be true in a particular marriage, family, or work setting. It may also be true that there are indeed some measurable intellectual and psychological differences between men and women. I happen to think that there are, but Scripture does not explicitly teach us this. Our assumptions, experiments, studies, and conclusions are all based on life experience, and the complexities of factors that make up such a life experience are excessively difficult to assess objectively. My point here is that when it comes to questions we have about male and female and how they relate, we should be responsible with Scripture, trying our best not to allow our own experiences to hinder a responsible reading of the Bible. And as complementarians we ought to be careful not to identify more gender-based differences than really exist, all in the name of "enjoying the difference." Doing so could easily result in missing what the Scriptures have to say to all of us.

On Sanctifying Homeboys and Homegirls

Perhaps we should ask a slightly different question—one that I think is a more important question—that yields a very different answer. Do men and women talk too much? The answer to this question gets at an undeniably clear answer in Scripture.

Yes. Every descendant of Adam and Eve talks too much. And in doing so we are making a statement about the condition of our souls. We often say the wrong things at the wrong time and in the wrong way. As recently as yesterday I was with a good friend who said, very intentionally, "hear me out before you respond to this." Apparently, I have a habit of interrupting him and he wanted to prevent that. The failure to listen well is a spiritual problem for all of us.

Have you ever considered that listening is foundational to the Christian faith? Christians above all others should understand the ultimate reason for this. God has spoken. He has not remained silent. He has spoken to us in creation, the living Word, and the written Word. He has spoken, and so we listen. From the moment we first believed the gospel, we were listeners. It was because we chose to listen to God's voice and repent that we were rescued from the damning voice of the accuser, Satan.

I was first introduced to the idea that listening is foundational to the Christian faith by David Wells. As he put it, following the insight of Anders Nigren, "in Christian faith we listen, because in Christian faith we are addressed from the outside—God speaks to us, and before him we are summoned." Learning to listen is a mark of a distinctly biblical faith. Wells has helped me to see that such an understanding of listening is not only foundational to the Christian faith, but also a lifelong evidence of the Christian disposition. Listening continues to form the souls of both men and women in a distinctively Christian way.

In one of my favorite books, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer teaches us the value of listening and its place in forming Christians both in solitude and in community. He says, "Right speech comes out of silence." Here Bonhoeffer reminds Christians to practice the habit of silence before entering into conversation with others. Christians need definite times of silence—"silence under the Word and silence that comes out of the Word." The

Word of God is not heard by the chatterer. Rather, the Christian learns to listen in a "simple stillness" under the Word of God. This is just what Christians do. Christians listen more than they talk.

Listening and not talking too much are lost habits these days. But when we do practice silence and the habit of listening, we are more like Jesus Christ who listened perfectly to the voice of God. On the other hand, when we listen to our own voices we are more like the archetypal homeboy, Adam, who listened to the voice of the archetypal homegirl, Eve. Instead of obeying the voice of God both Adam and Eve listened to other voices.

It's not just the daughters of Eve who talk too much. We all talk too much. We never shut up.