I am a few
days away from finishing my next book, which I will begin talking about on the
blog soon. It just needs some final editing to a few sections and then it is
sent off. In the meantime I thought I would share an excerpt from one of the articles
that I used in the book.
In 1 Timothy
2:15 Paul says something very interesting, “Yet she will be saved through
childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with
self-control.” This is perhaps one of the most contentious verses in the Bible.
But Köstenberger, the researcher, does a fantastic job of getting to heart of what
this verse is saying. Here are some excerpts from his article that I drew
on for a small section in the work I was writing:
P 109, “In the
light of this unsettled situation, are we
seeking to do the impossible by writing yet another piece on this
inscrutable verse? Perhaps, but one might be forgiven a little foolishness when
the topic is as significant as that addressed by the present passage, i.e.,
women s God-ordained roles. It should also be acknowledged that this issue,
like few others, has enormous implications on the educational, social, and
political domain.”
1 Timothy 5:14-15, “14 So I would have younger widows marry, bear children,
manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. 15 For
some have already strayed after Satan.”
P112, “By these means they will have no small reward on their
account, because they have trained up wrestlers for the service of Christ. By
holiness he means good life, modesty, and sobriety.” Chrysostom in
Kostenberger.
Pp114, Luther in Kostenberger, “It is a very great comfort
that a woman can be saved by bearing children, etc. That is, she has an
honorable and salutary status in life if she keeps busy having children. We
ought to recommend this passage to them,
etc. She is described as “saved” not for freedom, for license, but for bearing
and rearing children.”
P115, “Let us learn therefore that if a woman be among her
household and be busied about her children... if she bears it patiently,
knowing that it is God’s good appointment,... this is a sweet smelling
sacrifice to him. Let the nuns therefore tarry still in their convents and
cloisters and in their brothel houses of Satan...”
P121, “Seventh, it is held that the present passage indicates
that women shall be preserved (or shall escape from) Satan (or the consequences
of the curse) by adhering to their God-ordained role in the domestic sphere.”
P130, “1 Tim 2:15, likewise, should therefore be understood
as a reference to the woman’s escape or preservation
from a danger by means of childbearing. Moreover, as in the above examples, what a person is saved from is implied rather
than explicitly stated; merely the way of escape is given. But the context
always suggests a given danger, be it death by drowning or by the hand of the
enemy. What is therefore the most likely danger or enemy from which the woman
escapes or is preserved in the present context? Arguably, it is the serpent, or
Satan, and perhaps the temptation provided by it.”
Pp131-132, “The consistency with which the theme of
preservation is sounded particularly in 1 and 2 Timothy is indeed remarkable.
References to preservation from Satan (or the lack thereof) in the context of
the present passage include 1 Tim 1:20 on the one hand and 1 Tim 3:6 and 7 on
the other. It should also be noted that 2 Timothy is framed by significant
“preservation” passages, i.e., 2 Tim 1:12 and 4:18. The Pastorals’
“preservation theme” may be considered to be a subcategory of the concept of
perseverance versus apostasy, involving also numerous exhortations to Timothy
to “escape” and “pursue” (feàge, d…wke; cf., e.g., 1 Tim 6:11; 2 Tim 2:22).”
P 134, “The effect of subverting natural family structures
appears to have been a major characteristic of the heresy behind 1 Timothy. The
author of this epistle counteracts this aberration by maintaining that true
Christianity undergirds and dignifies rather than subverting or obliterating
the natural order.”
139, “Eve, it is said, was deceived and fell into
transgression. Christian women, on the other hand, will escape or be kept safe
from Satan, if they adhere to their God-given domestic role. Thus, by implication,
Eve fell, because she failed to keep her proper domain and, by leaving it,
became vulnerable to the serpent’s false teaching (cf. 2 Cor 11:2-3).”
142, “The sense of the injunction in the present passage is
thus that women can expect to escape Satan under the condition of adhering to
their God-ordained role centering around the natural household.”
143, “If these lines of thought are correct, the present
passage would speak powerfully to a cultural context where many are seeking to
“liberate” women from all encumbrances of family responsibilities in order to
unleash them on a quest for self-fulfillment apart from such functions.
Passages such as the present one appear to indicate that it is precisely by
participating in her role pertaining to the family that women fulfill their
central calling. Moreover, if the reference to “childbearing” should indeed be
understood as a synecdoche, even unmarried women are to retain a focus on the
domestic sphere and all that it entails.”[i]
Essentially he argues that Paul is saying the woman will be much better protected in the home from the devil’s schemes, than she will in the wider society. As this was one of the key arguments of my upcoming book, it was pretty exciting to see an eminent researcher back this up with some very detailed and grounded scholarly research. The whole article is worth a read, though it is on the technical side, because it shows very clearly that many of us in the modern world get a lot wrong when it comes to how we think about structuring our families. There is so much good advice in the Bible that is just plain ignored, and the fruit this is bearing out is obviously bad. We need to get back to biblical basics.
List of References
[i] Kostenberger,
Simon J. 1997, “Ascertaining Women’s God-Ordained Roles: An Interpretation of 1
Timothy 2:15”, Bulletin For Biblical Research, 7: pp. 107-144.
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