A comment on a recent video made me look into something I don’t believe I’ve ever seen discussed. The comment was on the video I shared in Worship or Edification in the New Testament Church? It pertained to Lydia, the first convert to Christianity in Europe.
This is the comment:
The church in Lydia’s house in the New Testament. She didn’t preach because she was a woman. I just wonder what her gatherings did.
I replied:
No one preached in Lydia’s house. Preaching wasn’t part of what they did. Are you saying that Lydia was the hostess and leader of the gathering that met in her house, but she never participated in verbally edifying the people who assembled there?
And then I had a thought. What was the date of Lydia’s church? What was the date of Paul telling Timothy this (bold mine)?
Likewise, I want the women to adorn themselves with respectable apparel, with modesty, and with self-control, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, as is proper for women who profess to worship God.
A woman must learn in quietness and full submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman who was deceived and fell into transgression. Women, however, will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.
1 Timothy 2:9-15
The widely accepted date of the church in Lydia’s home? 50-51 AD
The widely accepted date of the first letter of Paul to Timothy? 62-65 AD
So, no, Paul did not tell Lydia she could not preach or teach at her home gathering.
Paul wrote to Timothy 12-14 years after Christians began gathering in Lydia’s home.
But here is the bigger point.
Wouldn’t you assume that after 12-14 years of believers gathering in homes together it would already be well-established that women weren’t supposed to speak if that was the expectation and teaching?
Why would Paul have to explicitly tell Timothy this as a blanket statement for all Christians for all times if everyone already knew that women were to be silent when believers gathered?
The answer is quite simple.
Because women were an active part of the gatherings that entire time.
Paul is addressing a specific situation with Timothy.
This is a perfect example of someone reading into a situation information that does not apply. The comment took a teaching from one part of the Bible and tried to apply it to a situation completely removed from it.
Timelines matter. They matter a LOT in working out our theology in the New Testament. See: Reading the New Testament Books in the Order They Were Written
For more on 1 Timothy, check out these posts:
- Christian Women and Artemis Worship in Ephesus
- What’s With Paul and Women? By Jon Zens
- The Meaning of I Timothy 2:9-15 | Wade Burleson
Photo description: The chapel at the traditional baptismal site of Lydia, the first Christian in Europe near Ancient Philippi, Greece
Edification or Worship in the New Testament Church?
Good points. I believe people in the church have misunderstood and misapplied the “I don’t allow a woman to teach…” verse, applying it in ways it shouldn’t be used – to the point where men who were in a seminar where Anne Graham Lotz was speaking actually turned their chairs around and wouldn’t look at her, to show their disapproval of a woman speaking. They’ve stretched this verse too far, taking it out of context and out of the specific historical cultural situation it pertains to.
Plus, church leaders nowadays seem to forget that Paul said “I do not permit…”. Paul himself – not necessarily the Lord – has forbidden it at that time, for whatever reason. But the church uses this verse as if it’s the Lord’s rule for all time, all circumstances.
Sometimes Paul says something from his own opinion, about a particular situation, and it’s not meant to be taken as a hard-core rule for all, such as 1 Corinthians 7:10,12 where he says “To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord)… To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord)…”
He is admitting that some rules are the Lord’s commands, but some are simply his own opinions and his best advice based on certain circumstances. If we don’t keep God’s Word in context, it becomes a “con” text that pollutes the church and pulls it away from what the Bible actually teaches.
Are you familiar with the story of Dr. Sheri Klouda?
https://sallieborrink.com/is-complementarian-versus-egalitarian-a-primary-gospel-issue-2/
No, but I’ll check it out. Thanks