Theology Of Paul

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THEOLOGY OF PAUL M.M.NINAN ___________________________________________________________ harsh with them. 1 Timothy 2 8: I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; 9: also that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire 10: but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion. 11: Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. 12: I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. 13: For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14: and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15: Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. From these statements some theologians had drawn a picture of St. Paul as an unmitigated misogynist. In their view Christianity started with an egalitarian view of gender relations taught by Jesus. But this was destroyed by Paul, who imposed a patriarchal interpretation of Christianity that taught that • women are inferior, • primarily culpable for sin and • were the cause of the fall of humanity, and therefore were excluded from ordained ministry of the Church. Theologians and struggled with these verses and suggested three options. • These are indeed direct and binding declarative statement of Apostle Paul himself which declares the principle of inferior status of women in the ministry of Church. It is therefore binding on all subsequent churches as an inerrant inviolable command. “This rule is positive, explicit, and universal. There is no ambiguity in the expressions; and there can be no difference of opinion, one would suppose, in regard to their meaning. The sense evidently is, that in all those things which he had specified, the women were to keep silence; they were to take no part. He had discoursed of speaking foreign languages, and of prophecy; and the evident sense is, that in regard to all these they were to 216
THEOLOGY OF PAUL M.M.NINAN ___________________________________________________________ keep silence, or were not to engage in them. These pertained solely to the male portion of the congregation. These things constituted the business of the public teaching; and in this the female part of the congregation were to be silent. “They were not to teach the people, nor were they to interrupt those who were speaking” - Rosen Muller. It is probable that, on pretence of being inspired, the women had assumed the office of public teachers.” Barnes • Since there is a real contradiction in action and statement in Paul, is it likely that it is not really from Paul but a later interpolation? Probably this is a side note of a scribe which got caught in the text. The only documentary evidence for this is that in some manuscripts, verses 34 and 35 comes after the verse 40. Again, “First, verses 34-35 impede the flow of Paul's guidelines concerning tongues and prophecy. Second, these verses stand in obvious contradiction to Paul's teaching in 11:5 where women are permitted not only to speak but to prophesy. Third, the usage of certain terms "seem quite foreign to Paul." Gordon Fee, Professor Emeritus of New Testament Studies, Regent College, Vancouver,B.C.Canada. The New International Commentary on the New Testament, the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 699-700. • Is it likely that these are a rulings based on the context of the particular church and not binding as a general doctrinal principle. "The question of women's role in the church as a teacher or proclaimer of the Word basically focuses on two texts: 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-12. In both cases 'silence' and 'submission' are enjoined - although in neither case is the submission necessarily to her husband - and in 1 Timothy 2 she is not permitted to teach or to 'have authority over' a man. Full compliance with this text in the twentieth century would seem to rule out not only woman's preaching and teaching in the local church, but it also would seem to forbid her writing books on biblical subjects that men might read, teaching Bible or related subjects (including religious education) in Christian colleges or Bible institutes where men are in her classes, and teaching men in missionary situations. But those who argue against women teaching in the contemporary church seldom carry the interpretation this far. And almost always they make the matters about clothing in the preceeding verse (1 Timothy 2:9) to be culturally relative. On the other hand, that 1 Timothy 2:11-12 might be culturally relative can be supported first of all by exegesis of all three of the Pastoral Epistles. Certain women were troublesome in the church at Ephesus (1 Tim. 5:11-15; 2 Tim. 3:6-9) and they appear to have been a major part of the cause of the false teachers' making headway there. Since women are found teaching (Acts 18:26) and prophesying (Acts 21:8; 1 Cor. 11:5) elsewhere in the New Testament, it is altogether likely that 1 Timothy 2:11-12 speaks to a local problem. In any case, the guidelines above support the possibility that the prohibition in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 is culturally relative." Gordon Fee 217
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