In Quietness and Submission
In 1 Timothy 2:11-15, Paul forbade women to teach or exercise authority over men. Most supporters of women in ministry think that the latter expression means “usurp authority,” something Paul would not want men to do any more than women, but the matter is disputed. In any case, here Paul also forbade women to “teach,” something he apparently allowed elsewhere (Romans 16; Philippians 4:2,3).
Thus, he presumably addressed the specific situation in this community. Because both Paul and his readers knew their situation and could take it for granted, the situation which elicited Paul’s response was thus assumed in his intended meaning.
It is probably no coincidence that the one passage in the Bible prohibiting women teaching Scripture appears in the one set of letters where we explicitly know that false teachers were targeting and working through women. Paul’s letters to Timothy in Ephesus provide a glimpse of the situation: false teachers (1 Timothy 1:6,7,19,20; 6:3-5; 2 Timothy 2:17) were misleading the women (2 Timothy 3:6,7). These women were probably (and especially) some widows who owned houses the false teachers could use for their meetings. (See 1 Timothy 5:13. One of the Greek terms here indicates spreading nonsense.)
Women were the most susceptible to false teaching only because they had been granted the least education. This behavior was bound to bring reproach on the church from a hostile society that was already convinced Christians subverted the traditional roles of women and slaves.26 So Paul provided a short-range solution: “Do not teach” (under the present circumstances); and a long-range solution: “Let them learn” (1 Timothy 2:11).
Today, we read “learn in silence” and think the emphasis lies on “silence.” That these women were to learn “quietly and submissively” may reflect their witness within society (these were characteristics normally expected of women). But ancient culture expected all beginning students (unlike advanced students) to learn silently; that was why women were not supposed to ask questions (as noted above).
The same word for “silence” here is applied to all Christians in the context (2:2). Paul specifically addressed this matter to women for the same reason he addressed the admonition to stop disputing to the men (2:8): They were the groups involved in the Ephesian churches. Again, it appears that Paul’s long-range plan was to liberate, not subordinate, women’s ministry. The issue is not gender, but learning God’s Word.
What particularly causes many scholars to question this otherwise logical case is Paul’s following argument, where he based his case on the roles of Adam and Eve (1 Timothy 2:13,14). Paul’s argument from the creation order, however, was one of the very arguments he earlier used to contend that women should wear head coverings (1 Corinthians 11:7-9). In other words, Paul sometimes cited Scripture to make an ad hoc case for particular circumstances that he would not apply to all circumstances.
Although Paul often makes universal arguments from the Old Testament, he sometimes (as with head coverings) makes a local argument by analogy. His argument from Eve’s deception is even more likely to fit this category. If Eve’s deception prohibits all women from teaching, Paul would be claiming that all women, like Eve, are more easily deceived than all men. (One wonders, then, why he would allow women to teach other women, since they would deceive them all the more.)
If, however, the deception does not apply to all women, neither does his prohibition of their teaching. Paul probably used Eve to illustrate the situation of the unlearned women he addressed in Ephesus; but he elsewhere used Eve for anyone who is deceived, not just women (2 Corinthians 11:3).27