THE LONGER RELEVANT NEW TESTAMENT TEXTS
with translation,
notes and comment
I. I Cor.
11:2-16
I Cor. 11:2 ͗͗Επαινῶ δὲ ὑμᾶς ὅτι πάντα μου μέμνησθε καί, καθὼς παρέδωκα ὑμῖν, τὰς παραδόσεις κατέχετε. 3 θέλω δὲ ὑμᾶς εἰδέναι ὅτι παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἡ κεφαλὴ ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν, κεφαλὴ δὲ γυναικὸς ὁ ἀνήρ, κεφαλὴ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὁ θεός. 4 πᾶς ἀνὴρ προσευχόμενος ἢ προφητεύων κατὰ κεφαλῆς ἔχων καταισχύνει τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ. 5 πᾶσα δὲ γυνὴ προσευχομένη ἢ προφητεύουσα ἀκατακαλύπτῳ τῇ κεφαλῇ καταισχύνει τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτῆς· ἓν γάρ ἐστιν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ τῇ ἐξυρημένῃ. 6 εἰ γὰρ οὐ κατακαλύπτεται γυνή, καὶ κειράσθω· εἰ δὲ αἰσχρὸν γυναικὶ τὸ κείρασθαι ἢ ξυρᾶσθαι, κατακαλυπτέσθω. 7 ἀνὴρ μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ὀφείλει κατακαλύπτεσθαι τὴν κεφαλὴν εἰκὼν καὶ δόξα θεοῦ ὑπάρχων· ἡ γυνὴ δὲ δόξα ἀνδρός ἐστιν. 8 οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἀνὴρ ἐκ γυναικὸς ἀλλὰ γυνὴ ἐξ ἀνδρός· 9 καὶ γὰρ οὐκ ἐκτίσθη ἀνὴρ διὰ τὴν γυναῖκα, ἀλλὰ γυνὴ διὰ τὸν ἄνδρα. 10 διὰ τοῦτο ὀφείλει ἡ γυνὴ ἐξουσίαν ἔχειν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς διὰ τοὺς ἀγγέλους. πλὴν οὔτε γυνὴ χωρὶς ἀνδρὸς οὔτε ἀνὴρ χωρὶς γυναικὸς ἐν κυρίῳ· 12 ὥσπερ γὰρ ἡ γυνὴ ἐκ τοῦ ἀνδρός, οὕτως καὶ ὁ ἀνὴρ διὰ τῆς γυναικός· τὰ δὲ πάντα ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ. 13 ἐν ὑμῖν αὐτοῖς κρίνατε· πρέπον ἐστὶν γυναῖκα ἀκατακάλυπτον τῷ θεῷ προσεύχεσθαι; 14 οὐδὲ ἡ φύσις αὐτὴ διδάσκει ὑμᾶς ὅτι ἀνὴρ μὲν ἐὰν κομᾷ ἀτιμία αὐτῷ ἐστιν, 15 γυνὴ δὲ ἐὰν κομᾷ δόξα αὐτῇ ἐστιν; ὅτι ἡ κόμη ἀντὶ περιβολαίου δέδοται [αὐτῇ]. 16 Εἰ δέ τις δοκεῖ φιλόνεικος εἶναι, ἡμεῖς τοιαύτην συνήθειαν οὐκ ἔχομεν οὐδὲ αἱ ἐκκλησίαι τοῦ θεοῦ.
I Cor. 11:2 I
commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions
just as I transmitted[i]
them to you.
3 But I want you to understand
that every man’s[ii]
Head is Christ[iii],
and the head of the wife is the husband[iv],
and the head of Christ is God.
4 Every man who prays or
prophesies with something hanging from his head disgraces his head,
5 but any woman who prays or
prophesies bareheaded disgraces her head--it is one and the same thing as if
she did it with her head shaved.
6 For if a woman is to go
bareheaded, she should also cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a
woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she had better be covered.
7 For a man ought not to cover
his head, since he is an image and reflection[v] of
God; but a wife is a reflection of her husband.
8 For man does not originate in
woman, but woman in man.[vi]
9 Neither was man created on
account of woman, but woman on account of man.
10 That is why a woman ought to
have a (sign of her) authority[vii]
over her head[viii],
because of the angels.
11 Nevertheless, in the Lord
woman does not exist apart from man or man apart from woman.
12 For just as woman originates
in man, so man comes to be through woman; but all things originate in God.
13 Judge for yourselves: is it
proper for a woman to pray to God bareheaded?
14 Does not nature itself teach
you that if a man wears long hair, it is a disgrace to him,
15 but if a woman has long hair,
it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering.
16 But if anyone wants to be
argumentative--we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.
Nobody disputes that this passage is part of a much longer series of
injunctions about the conduct of public worship, which at
Leaving aside the very complicated argument
in the commentaries about what exactly the Apostle wanted women to wear or not
wear, one thing does seem clear: there was an attempt at
It is my own conviction that in vv. 4-15 the ανήρ/γυνή terms occur so close together that the sense “married man/married
woman” is most probably uppermost. That may well be the case even in v. 3 at
the start of the passage. That would make Gen. 1-2 the subtext, and the
marriage-relation as an acted parable of heavenly reality the deep principle involved.[xiv]
I believe that we
must understand all human ‘headship’ in the New Testament in terms of the holiness
and happiness of the one over whom it is exercised. Eph. 5:22-33 is central to
our understanding. We may not expound this or any other passage in such a way
as to be repugnant to this truth. ‘Male headship’ as a more or less explicit
doctrine is found only here in I Cor. and in Eph. 5. Obedience as the feminine
response is commanded only in Eph. 5. In Eph. 5 women are to obey their own husbands[xv], as their
response to a love which is that of a man for his own wife. The monogamous,
exclusive marriage-relation is made quite explicit as the context for this kind
of love and this kind of obedience. To seek to erect a comprehensive doctrine
of ‘male headship’, even confined to the Church, on this slender foundation is
akin to raisng a concrete and glass tower on a base of wood, hay and stubble a
mere ten feet square.
II. I Cor. 14:26-40
I Cor. 14:26 Τί οὖν ἐστιν, ἀδελφοί; ὅταν συνέρχησθε, ἕκαστος ψαλμὸν ἔχει, διδαχὴν ἔχει, ἀποκάλυψιν ἔχει, γλῶσσαν ἔχει, ἑρμηνείαν ἔχει· πάντα πρὸς οἰκοδομὴν γινέσθω. 27 εἴτε γλώσσῃ τις λαλεῖ, κατὰ δύο ἢ τὸ πλεῖστον τρεῖς καὶ ἀνὰ μέρος, καὶ εἷς διερμηνευέτω· 28 ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ᾖ διερμηνευτής, σιγάτω ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ, ἑαυτῷ δὲ λαλείτω καὶ τῷ θεῷ. 29 προφῆται δὲ δύο ἢ τρεῖς λαλείτωσαν καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι διακρινέτωσαν· 30 ἐὰν δὲ ἄλλῳ ἀποκαλυφθῇ καθημένῳ, ὁ πρῶτος σιγάτω. 31 δύνασθε γὰρ καθ᾿ ἕνα πάντες προφητεύειν, ἵνα πάντες μανθάνωσιν καὶ πάντες παρακαλῶνται. 32 καὶ πνεύματα προφητῶν προφήταις ὑποτάσσεται, 33 οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἀκαταστασίας ὁ θεὸς ἀλλὰ εἰρήνης.
Ὡς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῶν ἁγίων 34 αἱ γυναῖκες ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις σιγάτωσαν· οὐ γὰρ ἐπιτρέπεται αὐταῖς λαλεῖν, ἀλλὰ ὑποτασσέσθωσαν, καθὼς καὶ ὁ νόμος λέγει. 35 εἰ δέ τι μαθεῖν θέλουσιν, ἐν οἴκῳ τοὺς ἰδίους ἄνδρας ἐπερωτάτωσαν· αἰσχρὸν γάρ ἐστιν γυναικὶ λαλεῖν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ. 36 ἢ ἀφ᾿ ὑμῶν ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθεν, ἢ εἰς ὑμᾶς μόνους κατήντησεν;
14:37 Εἴ τις δοκεῖ προφήτης εἶναι ἢ πνευματικός, ἐπιγινωσκέτω ἃ γράφω ὑμῖν ὅτι κυρίου ἐστὶν ἐντολή· 38 εἰ δέ τις ἀγνοεῖ, ἀγνοεῖται. 39 ὥστε, ἀδελφοί [μου], ζηλοῦτε τὸ προφητεύειν καὶ τὸ λαλεῖν μὴ κωλύετε γλώσσαις· 40 πάντα δὲ εὐσχημόνως καὶ κατὰ τάξιν γινέσθω.
26 So what should happen, brethren[xvi]?
When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue,
or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.
27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three,
and each in turn; and let one interpret.
28 But if there is no interpreter, let them quieten down[xvii]
in church and talk[xviii]
to themselves and to God.
29 Let two or three prophets talk, and let the others assess (what is
said).
30 If a revelation is made to someone else sitting there, let the first
person quieten down.
31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be
encouraged.
32 The spirits of prophets are under the control[xix]
of prophets,
33 for God is a God not of disorder but of peace.
As in all the churches[xx]
of the saints,
34 women[xxi]
should quieten down[xxii]
in the churches. For it is impermissible for them to be talking[xxiii],
but they should be under control[xxiv],
as the law also says[xxv].
35 If there is anything they want to know, let them ask their own husbands[xxvi]
when they get home[xxvii].
For it is shameful for a (married) woman to be talking in church.
36 Or did the word of God start with you? Or are you the only ones it
has reached?
37 If anyone thinks of himself as a prophet, or a spiritual person, let
him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord.
38 Anyone who does not recognise this is not to be recognised.
39 So, [my] brethren, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking
in tongues;
40 but everything should be done decently and in an orderly way.
My suggestions for vv. 34-35
attempt to come to terms with meaning in context. That is why I have quoted so
much more. Assuming as I do that this is Paul writing, we have to understand
this in a way which does not contradict what he says in ch. 11 about suitable
attire for women as they pray and prophesy. He cannot be saying that the women,
or married women, may not utter at all. This is to say nothing of the fact that
numbers of the charismata, which are stated in ch. 12 to be dispensed to
individual believers as the Spirit chooses, involve some form of vocalisation.
There is no indication that any of the charismata were limited to one sex or
the other. The larger context in this Epistle is instruction about the ordering
of public worship. Paul is concerned about audibility, intelligibility and a
converting/upbuilding effect on all those present.
Men and women would almost
certainly have been seated not by families but by sex. The female of the
species, being naturally more vocal than the male (a characteristic which I
suspect, being genetic, is not fundamentally altered by education), may have offended
by being noisy on her side of church, or perhaps even shouting across to the
other side.
Was marriage ever far from Paul’s
mind? I don’t think so: it forms the yet larger context, as earthly fact or
spiritual metaphor, of so much else in Scripture. I am not prepared to exclude
from the passage some reference to the women’s disorderly behaviour as
reflecting badly on their husbands. We have seen in I Cor. 11 that that is a
factor there.
In v. 34, it is unclear under what
or whose control the women are to be. If the choice is between men/husbands or
the church, which is more probable? Neither are mentioned, though husbands may
be implied. The Greek would cover their being under their own control, i.e.
self-controlled. That seems to be what is being said of the prophets in v. 32
above.
It is hard to be sure to how
much of these instructions vv. 36-8 apply. Paul may mean, when he quotes
general Christian practice, to address the larger question of order in worship,
or merely the conduct of the women.
III. Gal. 3:26-29
Gal.
3:26 Πάντες γὰρ υἱοὶ θεοῦ ἐστε διὰ τῆς πίστεως
ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ· 27 ὅσοι γὰρ εἰς Χριστὸν ἐβαπτίσθητε, Χριστὸν ἐνεδύσασθε. 28 οὐκ
ἔνι Ἰουδαῖος οὐδὲ Ἑλλην, οὐκ ἔνι δοῦλος οὐδὲ ἐλεύθερος, οὐκ ἔνι ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ· πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστε ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. 29 εἰ δὲ
ὑμεῖς Χριστοῦ, ἄρα τοῦ Ἀβραὰμ σπέρμα ἐστέ, κατ᾿ ἐπαγγελίαν κληρονόμοι.
3:26 … for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.
27 As many
of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
28 There
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male-and-female[xxviii]; for all of you are
one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if
you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the
promise.
The plain sense of this
declaration, in the context of the whole argument of the Epistle up to this
point, is that in Christ all have the same status, that of children of God and
full membership in the People of God. This is moreover a status that cannot be
taken away even by death. Is equality at all the point? Yes, there was
inequality and a lopsided power-relation in the man-made distinction between
slave and free, and in some sense too in the God-made distinction between Jew
and Gentile; but it seems to me that in this text the redressing of human
inequality is not central, ‘oneness’ is. This is underlined by the fact that
for the most universal distinction of all, that of sex, Paul quotes not the
text in which in other places he grounds ideas of headship and hierarchy in
marriage, but that which states quite plainly the distinction between the
sexes, innocent of inequality or hostility, which predates the Fall. The
distinction was part of what was ‘very good’, and contained no injustice or
exclusion. Therefore if there is now ‘no male-and-female’, no evil existed to
be corrected.
Circumcision of course
discriminated as completely as could be against women; and I have thought for
some time that Paul’s polemic against the judaizers was not unrelated to the
fact, given the very high esteem in which he held female believers. But it
remains true that his anger was really fuelled, not by the exclusion of
particular people (after all, Gentiles and slaves were not strictly speaking
excluded by the requirement of physical circumcision in itself, they could be
converted and become full Jews), but by the insult to God, Who now received all
into His family in Christ.
IV. Eph. 5:21-33
Εph.
5:21 Ὑποτασσόμενοι ἀλλήλοις ἐν φόβῳ Χριστοῦ,
22 Αἱ γυναῖκες τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν ὡς τῷ
κυρίῳ, 23 ὅτι ἀνήρ ἐστιν κεφαλὴ τῆς γυναικὸς
ὡς καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς κεφαλὴ τῆς ἐκκλησίας, αὐτὸς σωτὴρ τοῦ σώματος· 24 ἀλλὰ
ὡς ἡ ἐκκλησία ὑποτάσσεται τῷ Χριστῷ, οὕτως καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες τοῖς ἀνδράσιν ἐν παντί. 25 Οἱ ἄνδρες,
ἀγαπᾶτε τὰς γυναῖκας, καθὼς καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς ἠγάπησεν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν καὶ ἑαυτὸν παρέδωκεν
ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς, 26 ἵνα αὐτὴν ἁγιάσῃ καθαρίσας
τῷ λουτρῷ τοῦ ὕδατος ἐν ῥήματι, 27 ἵνα παραστήσῃ
αὐτὸς ἑαυτῷ ἔνδοξον τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, μὴ ἔχουσαν σπίλον ἢ ῥυτίδα ἤ τι τῶν τοιούτων,
ἀλλ᾿ ἵνα ᾖ ἁγία καὶ ἄμωμος. 28 οὕτως ὀφείλουσιν [καὶ] οἱ ἄνδρες ἀγαπᾶν τὰς ἑαυτῶν
γυναῖκας ὡς τὰ ἑαυτῶν σώματα. ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὴν
ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα ἑαυτὸν ἀγαπᾷ. 29 οὐδεὶς γάρ ποτε τὴν ἑαυτοῦ σάρκα ἐμίσησεν ἀλλὰ
ἐκτρέφει καὶ θάλπει αὐτήν, καθὼς καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, 30 ὅτι μέλη ἐσμὲν τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ. 31 ἀντὶ
τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος [τὸν] πατέρα καὶ [τὴν] μητέρα καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς
τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν. 32 τὸ μυστήριον
τοῦτο μέγα ἐστίν· ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω εἰς Χριστὸν
καὶ εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν. 33 πλὴν καὶ ὑμεῖς οἱ καθ᾿ ἕνα, ἕκαστος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ
γυναῖκα οὕτως ἀγαπάτω ὡς ἑαυτόν, ἡ δὲ γυνὴ ἵνα φοβῆται τὸν ἄνδρα.
5:21 Be subject to one
another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, (be subject) to your
husbands[xxix]
as[xxx] you are to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife just
as Christ is the head of the church, being Himself the Saviour of the body.
24 Just as the church is subject to Christ, so
also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love[xxxi] your wives[xxxii], just as Christ loved
the church and gave himself up for her sake,
26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her
with the washing of water by the word,
27 so as to present the church to himself
glorious, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the sort-- so that she may
be holy and without blemish.
28 In the same way, husbands have an obligation
to love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife is
loving himself.
29 For no one ever hated his own body, but he
nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,
30 because we are limbs of his body.
31 “For this reason a man will leave (his)
father and mother and be joined[xxxiii] to his wife, and the
two will become one flesh.”
32 This is a great mystery, and I am speaking
with reference to Christ and the church.
33 Each of you, however, should love his wife as
himself, and a wife should respect[xxxiv] her husband.
This teaching is
not about drawing conclusions about the love of Christ, and our response, from
any of our earthly marriages. Rather it is an exhortation to make marriage a
reflection of a heavenly reality.
The godly wife-husband relation is perfectly clear. In Eph. 5 Paul is
addressing men qua husbands, women qua wives. He is addressing people who
in most cases were in arranged marriages. That the ideal of a romantic and
intimate love between husband and wife would eventually come out of his
teaching might well have surprised him (but not of course the Holy Spirit). He
is speaking of an asymmetrical relation between one who gives up his life for
another, woos and pursues, enters, awakens and makes fruitful, and one who is
at first empty, then turns and responds, receives, is changed and matured,
conceives and produces. I do not wish to be crude, but he is saying, as the
whole Old Testament is, that the biological facts of sex are the created
reflection of an eternal relation. Marriage is not Paul’s topic except
incidentally: his subject is the archetypal truth, which he applies to actual
marriages. He is not getting a picture of the relationship of Christ and the
Church out of natural human marriage, but trying to get Christian marriages to
function as little acted parables of that supreme love-relationship. In it all
the getting comes through giving, just as we are happiest in sex when we forget
ourselves entirely. In it all of us His people are feminine, in desperate need
of awakening[xxxv],
support and protection, and His passion and our response are made visible in fruitfulness.
Heterosexual relations in monogamous marriage[xxxvi]
are the metaphor, Christ and His bride are the reality to which in Paul’s mind actual marriages are to bear witness. In practical spiritual
terms he is telling me that if I am in a Christian marriage, the wishes of my
husband, or the needs of my wife, dictate the shape of my obedience to Christ.
This has tremendous healing implications for, among other things, the greedy
claims of careers, ecclesiastical or secular, or of children. It was almost certainly
incidental to his aim that his prescription works for falling in love in an
arranged marriage, and for climbing back into love when we fall out of it, that
it is uniquely counter-cultural, contradicting equally male mother-fixation and
female smother-love, that obeying it makes men grown up and women fulfilled,
and that the happiness produced by it is perhaps “the
best bliss that earth imparts”.
Hierarchy is wholly compatible with the fundamental and eternal
spiritual equality of a Christian brother and sister who are husband and wife.
That eternal relation will often have subsisted before they came together, and
it will certainly outlast their joint life in this world. It is significant
indeed that young children, whom Our Lord praised as in effect our spiritual
superiors, are to obey their Christian parents. It is also significant that in
accordance with Old Testament law, the obedience is to be to both, for both are
equally honoured. There is no question, as in some sub-Christian religious
cultures, of a mother’s being tyrannised over by a minor son, or by an adult one, nor of
his exercising even a benign control over her or any female relative not his
wife. This chimes with the command to Timothy to address the older women as
mothers, the younger as sisters [I Tim. 5:2].
V. I Tim. 2:2-15
I Tim. 2:1 Παρακαλῶ οὖν πρῶτον πάντων ποιεῖσθαι δεήσεις προσευχὰς ἐντεύξεις εὐχαριστίας ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀνθρώπων, 2 ὑπὲρ βασιλέων καὶ πάντων τῶν ἐν ὑπεροχῇ ὄντων, ἵνα ἤρεμον καὶ ἡσύχιον βίον διάγωμεν ἐν πάσῃ εὐσεβείᾳ καὶ σεμνότητι. 3 τοῦτο καλὸν καὶ ἀπόδεκτον ἐνώπιον τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν θεοῦ, 4 ὃς πάντας ἀνθρώπους θέλει σωθῆναι καὶ εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας ἐλθεῖν. 5 εἷς γὰρ θεός, εἷς καὶ μεσίτης θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων, ἄνθρωπος Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς, 6 ὁ δοὺς ἑαυτὸν ἀντίλυτρον ὑπὲρ πάντων, τὸ μαρτύριον καιροῖς ἰδίοις. 7 εἰς ὃ ἐτέθην ἐγὼ κῆρυξ καὶ ἀπόστολος, ἀλήθειαν λέγω οὐ ψεύδομαι, διδάσκαλος ἐθνῶν ἐν πίστει καὶ ἀληθείᾳ.
2:8 Βούλομαι οὖν προσεύχεσθαι τοὺς ἄνδρας ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ ἐπαίροντας ὁσίους χεῖρας χωρὶς ὀργῆς καὶ διαλογισμοῦ. 9 ὡσαύτως [καὶ] γυναῖκας ἐν καταστολῇ κοσμίῳ μετὰ αἰδοῦς καὶ σωφροσύνης κοσμεῖν ἑαυτάς, μὴ ἐν πλέγμασιν καὶ χρυσίῳ ἢ μαργαρίταις ἢ ἱματισμῷ πολυτελεῖ, 10 ἀλλ᾿ ὃ πρέπει γυναιξὶν ἐπαγγελλομέναις θεοσέβειαν, δι᾿ ἔργων ἀγαθῶν. 11 γυνὴ ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ μανθανέτω ἐν πάσῃ ὑποταγῇ· 12 διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός, ἀλλ᾿ εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ. 13 Ἀδὰμ γὰρ πρῶτος ἐπλάσθη, εἶτα Εὕα. 14 καὶ Ἀδὰμ οὐκ ἠπατήθη, ἡ δὲ γυνὴ ἐξαπατηθεῖσα ἐν παραβάσει γέγονεν· 15 σωθήσεται δὲ διὰ τῆς τεκνογονίας, ἐὰν μείνωσιν ἐν πίστει καὶ ἀγάπῃ καὶ ἁγιασμῷ μετὰ σωφροσύνης·
2:1 First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men,
2 for kings and all who are in high places, so that we may lead a quiet
and peaceable[xxxvii]
life in all godliness and dignity.
3 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour,
4 who desires that all men[xxxviii]
be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
5 For there is one God;
there is also one mediator between God and men[xxxix],
the man[xl]
Christ Jesus,
6 who gave himself a ransom for all
(this was attested at the right time).
7 For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the
truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
8 What I want, then, is that in every place
the men[xli]
should be praying[xlii],
lifting up[xliii]
hands that are holy, without anger or argument;
9 [and] similarly that the women[xliv]
should be dressing themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with
their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes,
10 but with good works, as is appropriate to women who profess a
reverence for God.
11 Let a (married) woman be learning[xlv]
in peace and quiet[xlvi]
with complete submission[xlvii].
12 To be teaching[xlviii]
is something which I permit to no (married) woman, nor do I permit her to be
domineering over[xlix]
her husband; what I do permit is for her to enjoy peace and quiet[l].
13 For Adam was formed first, and afterwards Eve;
14 and it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman was deceived and
became a transgressor.
15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing[li],
provided they (women) continue[lii]
in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.
Again I
quote the larger context, which is one of concern for Christian life and
witness leading to the unhindered spread of the Gospel. That the Apostle was
greatly exercised about truth, and that error should not be spread in its
place, is clear from both Letters to Timothy, as well as from that to Titus.
Ideas of all sorts, we know, were constantly spread by itinerant teachers, who
represented among other things the eclectic and syncretistic ‘pop’ culture of the day. There are clear traces throughout the Pauline
letters, as in the Acts, of a pattern whereby Christian converts were made in a
place, a community was established, and more or less immediately some proceeded
to intrude false teaching and distortion, whether from the Jewish or the pagan
side. Paul always taught that the Gospel must be commended by the lives,
including the family lives and the communal church lives, of believers. All the
evidence is that after a church was founded this kind of witness, much more
certainly than the verbal kind, was the normal means by which the Gospel
spread.
Some
have held that vv. 8-10 are about the conduct of worship. I see no evidence for
that view. Paul wants the men and the women to eschew their characteristic
vices, dishonesty in business, bad temper and quarrelsomeness on the one hand,
and a light-minded concentration on physical appearance, expensive in time and money[liii],
on the other. Each aberration involved a split between ethics and faith,
religiosity rather than religion. I think it quite unlikely that Paul would
have wanted converts to behave better in church than out of it; and there is no
other particular indication that the context is worship.
Most
commentators read these commands as being for all men and all women. It is
possible, but not probable, that the call is to married men and married women.
We cannot assume that there was no distinction, or a distinction without a
difference, in the case of either sex. In
If we
read the prohibition in v. 12 of a wife/woman’s teaching as absolute, then we must conclude that the
instruction at this point is of local or temporary application only. The weight
of the New Testament evidence is that women, married or single, were exhorted
to teach, at least in some sense or senses, and did teach. Worship was by no
means the only, or the chief, context, for such work. See these articles:–
http://www.semanticbible.com/hyperconc/T/Teach.html
http://www.semanticbible.com/hyperconc/T/Teacher.html
Furthermore, there is no sign that the Apostle thought of the teaching gift, or
indeed any of the gifts, as confined to one sex. We cannot assume that what he
means here is the teaching of men, as opposed to women and children: no object,
either of the person or the thing taught, is expressed. If the instruction is
more than local and temporary, we need to find some sense which all believers
could, perhaps still can, understand and obey. I am wholly committed to the
view that what the Apostle wrote was both sensible and consistent with what he
wrote elsewhere. I have suggested ‘be teaching with authority’[lv] as one such sense. Possibly, if this is right, we have not had
anybody who has taught in exactly that sense since the death of all the
Apostles. It has certainly not been apparent to me that ordination or
consecration in itself confers on either sex either the ability or the authority
to teach like that.
For a
long time I asked myself whether Paul was addressing the very well-known fact
that a man must be quite advanced spiritually before he is ready to learn from
a woman, whether his wife or another. Wise and spiritually fruitful women will
I think consider that possibility before they agree to preach publicly in
certain settings, that the Word be not hindered.
I
suggested in my initial posting that some such sense as ‘be gadding about teaching’ is the meaning. I still think that plausible in the social context,
but it is only an educated guess.
αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός is very difficult, and much disputed. The
difficulty about the verb is essentially that while we have some documentation,
Classical and post-Classical, there is not enough to make the semantic range
and development clear. There are no other biblical cases. There is a quite
positive sense ‘create, originate’, a neutral to negative sense ‘be in
authority over, boss about’ and the negative ‘conspire to commit murder’. The
genitive, with which not all commentators come to terms, is not super-helpful
in context. It cannot be made to mean any old thing; but there are still
several possibilities. The second, neutral-to-negative, sense of αὐθεντεῖν may be right; but
in the particular social context I have thought it plausible to try to combine
the wholly positive and the wholly negative senses, arriving at a blended
sense, a prohibition of the sort of behaviour which would have been enjoined on
married women in the cult of Diana/Artemis. That is how I arrived at my initial
suggestion. Again it is tentative, and may never be taken up in reputable translations[lvi]. What is
however plain from the context is that there is no reference here to a wrong relation
between all women and all men, in or out of church.
It is a
well-known difficulty when we read Apostolic injunctions addressed to
particular situations that we are hearing only one side of the conversation.
Paul’s very emphatic statement
here about the order of creation and who first went wrong is not made in a
cultural vacuum. It has been plausibly suggested that the context is extreme
Gnostic teaching, to the effect that woman was created first and was
essentially the spiritual and enlightened one. The priority of the male in
creation is not the only lesson by any means that the Lord Jesus and
In v. 15, sanctification is closely
tied to obedience in the way most obvious for a (married) woman, i.e. an
acceptance that there are priorities for a married woman which may not be set
aside in favour of some idea of spirituality quite detached from biological
reality. Then as now it was evidently possible to cultivate a ‘Christian’
spirituality which was both unrealistic and immoral. Motherhood is normal,
husbands and children may not be neglected by women who hope to be saved at the
last. The text emphatically does NOT mean that all Christian women must marry.
Nor does it mean that the only possible place for a young woman is to be “pregnant,
barefoot and in the kitchen”. ‘Careers for women’ are not ruled out.
[i] With ‘transmitted’
I have sought to preserve in English the use of cognate noun and verb.
[ii] This is
specifically the ‘male man, husband’ term. Paul did not have to decide which
sense was uppermost in his mind each time he used the word. Meaning may
oscillate at times. The English translator must sometimes specify, and may err
when he does so.
[iii] This is a statement
to the effect that the masculine man, no less than the feminine woman, is to be
in a ‘feminine’ relation to Christ.
[iv] We need to
understand that if the reference is to all men and all women as opposed to men
and women who are married to each other, then the teaching is that all men
without exception are in authority over all women, married or single. That
cannot be right, if only because of the plain sense of other passages about
authority in marriage.
[v] Literally ‘glory’,
as in the next clause. Interpretation is very difficult. ‘Reflection’ (so NRSV)
tries to capture the idea of δόξα as ‘visible
effulgence’, like the light of the Shekinah. Unfortunately this destroys the
echo in v. 15. Just possibly εἰκὼν καὶ δόξα is hendiadys,
and to be rendered ‘image of glory’, or ‘glorious image’. The idea would then
be that one looks at Christ in order to see the glory of God fully imaged or reflected,
and at the man/husband, to see that of Christ. The next clause does NOT say
that the wife/woman is the IMAGE of the husband/man. The scriptural and
classical Christian teaching is that each sex bears the imago Dei in its
entirety.
[vi] The argument here depends on the method
and order of creation in Gen. 2.
[vii] Oh how difficult
and contentious is the Greek in this place! Public prayer and prophesying are
undoubtedly forms of leadership, which Paul is allowing women to exercise if
properly attired. The noun ἐξούσια means ‘right,
authority, permission, authorisation’ in principle; but it is by no
means clear what is meant by having this ‘over her head’, let alone that a man’s
delegated authority is in question. I am tempted to cut the knot, and to say
that since the point at issue is the attempt to obliterate visible sexual
difference, created and declared “very good” at the beginning, only when
properly covered may a woman exercise her share of the governing authority
granted in the Creation mandate. This would involve a conceptual, but not a
Greek verbal, pickup from Gen. 1, with its command to master the earth and rule
all the other creatures. If we could use ‘a permit over her head’ for ἐξουσίαν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς
it might convey the sense however clumsily, for a permit has both a concrete
and an abstract sense.
[viii] The definite
article without a possessive makes this rendering the most natural, i.e. the
woman’s own head is in question.
[ix] “… a case of one
scholar’s guess becoming a second scholar’s footnote and a third scholar’s
assumption”, to quote Gordon D. Fee The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT.
EERDMAN’S 1987) p. 511 n. 80.
[x] I
think that in the light of its very regular, though not sole, secular Greek
meaning ‘chief, head of state, head of family’ (cf. the cognate τὸ κεφαλαίον)·it cannot be evacuated of its ‘governing authority’
sense. It does not by any means always render in LXX and Old Greek Hebrew ראשׁ (cf. ראשֹׁון the cognate adjective), in its somewhat similar
figurative senses; but Paul was not confined to the version for his Old
Testament reading, and we cannot exclude the possibility that the very common ‘governing
authority’ sense of the original Hebrew was in his mind.
[xi] It was pointed out
long ago that
[xii] We have our
cultural equivalents, as in the case of the exaggerated femininity condemned in
I Tim. 2.
[xiii] Far from the idea that it is far-fetched to find back-reference to the Torah in Paul,
we should always assume it on principle.
[xiv] This interpretation
would in its turn illuminate the very mysterious διὰ τοὺς
ἀγγέλους in v. 10. Christian marriage is to
explain the Gospel even to them (cf. I Pet. 1:12).
[xv] Expressed with the
utmost emphasis, almost as though Paul’s earlier teaching about ‘headship’ had
been misunderstood in some quarters.
[xvi] Unconvincing to my
mind are attempts to argue that only men are being addressed by this locution.
It is addressed to the same people to whom Paul sends his salutation, τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ τῇ οὔσῃ ἐν Κορίνθῳ, ἡγιασμένοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, κλητοῖς ἁγίοις, σὺν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἐπικαλουμένοις τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ, αὐτῶν καὶ ἡμῶν· χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. (ch. 1 vv. 1-3). That must mean
all, both men and women. The same pattern is observable in other Pauline
epistles. However, ‘brothers and sisters’ is very clumsy as a translation. So I
use the somewhat archaic ‘brethren’: only in certain ecclesiastical contexts is
that at all ambiguous.
[xvii] I write ‘quieten
down’ not only because this is in context what must be meant (Paul is trying to
bring edifying order out of a chaotic free-for-all), but because the verb has
very much the connotation of ‘shutting up’ when one has been talking. That
actual English expression is of course too crude here.
[xviii] I write ‘talk’
because the verb normally means speaking of a somewhat informal kind. ‘Glossolalia’
is cognate. It can be pejorative, meaning ‘chatter, gossip, whisper’. It also
frequently has a neutral or good sense. In some contexts, for instance with the
Word as object, it may mean ‘preach’. Some have suggested that in this place ‘in
tongues’ or ‘in a tongue’ is understood. It is true that Paul has been
expressing considerable reservations about the public use of glossolalia,
preferring rational discourse; but that use of the verb alone is unparalleled.
Moreover there is no sign that he cares which sex is using that gift, rather
that the practice should be confined to what builds up the hearers.
[xix] Modern English for
the familiar ‘be subject’ verb.
[xx] Or just possibly ‘in
the meetings’. The context is certainly worship, but the plural is still
unusual Greek for that sense.
[xxi] Or ‘married women’.
It would be more consistent with instructing them to ask their own husbands at
home. That not all the women were married we see from ch. 7.
[xxii] The same ‘stop
talking’ verb.
[xxiii] The same λαλεῖν ‘talk’ verb.
[xxiv] The ‘be subject’
verb again.
[xxv] The reference to
the law is quite mysterious. Where exactly? Unless what is meant is the general
pattern of the husband as senior partner. Paul always elsewhere supplies a
quotation for such statements. Thus is one of several points at which
commentators have found this whole passage un-Pauline. There is however no
specifically textual warrant for calling it spurious. It would ease the
difficulty if we wrote ‘principle’ or even ‘convention’ for ὁ νόμος. The Greek
term is quite broad.
[xxvi] This is
specifically the ‘male man, husband’ term.
[xxvii] I write ‘when they
get home’ for emphasis, attempting to reproduce the word-order. ἐν οἴκῳ is at the start of
the clause.
[xxviii] I have hyphenated
this phrase in order to point up the very plain back-reference to Gen. 1:27-8.
The self-same ‘biological’ Greek words are used as in LXX (which in its turn
reproduces faithfully the underlying Hebrew). There is an intertextual echo
like that in Rom. 1:27. The emphasis is on sexual differentiation and
procreational compatibility.
[xxix] Lit. ‘to your own
men’.
[xxx] Paul proceeds to
expand what is wrapped up in this little word and apply it to the
marriage-relation.
[xxxi] The verb means to
cherish with the love which confers value, even where no value is present.
[xxxii] Husbands are not
instructed to see to it that their wives are subject to them. Each sex needs to
read its own text, not the other’s.
[xxxiii] The verb is a very
strong one, conveying the idea of being ‘glued’ to his wife.
[xxxiv] Cognate with the
noun translated ‘reverence’ in v. 21.
[xxxv] The specifically feminine experience which
the male does not and cannot have.
[xxxvi] The only kind of sexual relations which we
are allowed to have.
[xxxvii] The adjective has
the sense of freedom from civil disturbance or war.
[xxxviii] Human beings, in
this context contrasted with God.
[xxxix] Human beings again.
[xl] Human being,
singular.
[xli] Or ‘the married men’,
this is the ‘male man/husband’ word.
[xlii] I use the English
continuous present to
emphasise that the
tense of this and all the subsequent verb-forms in vv. 8-12 is Present.
[xliii] I.e. to God.
[xliv] Or ‘the married
women’; this is the ‘woman/wife’ word.
[xlv] The normal verb for
being a student. The word for ‘disciple’ is cognate. We may read this as a
limitation upon activity, or as an extension of privilege, with Mary of Bethany
as the prototype.
[xlvi] ‘Peace and quiet’
is the most natural and obvious meaning of the Greek noun, which is cognate
with the adjective in v. 2 footnoted above. This would imply being freed up for
essential duties, the ‘good works’ of v. 10, without external pressures to be
busy outside the home. The idea of being precluded from uttering is by no means
so obvious.
[xlvii] This is the ‘control, submission’ word. It is unclear to whom the wife/woman is to be submitted: perhaps it
is to Christ as her Teacher.
[xlviii] Or ‘be teaching
with authority’ (like the Apostle), or ‘be travelling about teaching’.
[xlix] Or ‘be pursuing independent initiatives apart from’, or ‘be ganging up against’.
[l] Literally ‘be in
peace and quiet’, the adverbial phrase being identical with that in v. 11.
[li] Sometimes taken to
mean ‘will not perish in childbirth’. This does not seem to most interpreters
to fit as well as a reference to sanctification.
[lii] An awkward shift to
the plural, which nobody really explains. Perhaps Timothy as amanuensis
commonly edited out such infelicities.
[liii] Women who overspend
on personal adornment, but never wear gold or pearls, or wear their hair
braided, should ask themselves what are the modern equivalents and avoid those.
[liv] We have already found a parallel in I
Corinthians.
[lv] It was in
accordance with such a would-be reverent and obedient understanding that after
I began to be invited to preach, in my 40s, I used to preface my sermon or
homily with the disclaimer that this was simple exhortation or edification, not
teaching with authority. I did this for a long time, until the realisation was
forced on me that the Lord had given me a churchly teaching gift, and that I
must not apologise for it. I had had long experience of other kinds of teaching
and leadership, in and out of church. In the renewal of what is now the largest
parish in the Anglican Church of Canada, my spouse and I frequently formed a
teaching team, of course with him as senior partner. I regarded my work of
literature distribution as a ‘harmless’ form of teaching, in the sense that I
was merely setting free the great teachers to teach. Reviewing and book
promotion in a newspaper read by thousands involved teaching in a more direct
sense.
[lvi] This is in contrast
to my work on the terms in I Cor. 6:9-11.
[lvii] In effect saying to him, “Then what do you think
about this one?”