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1 Timothy 2:9-15

Discussion in '2004 Archive' started by blackbird, Aug 6, 2004.

  1. blackbird

    blackbird Active Member

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    This is our sermon text for this Sunday!

    Title: Kingdom Women in the Church

    Any kind of expositional help would help along with intercessary prayer---the women over here have formed a Gaunlet leading to a Gallows!
     
  2. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    I think you already know my views on this one! Context is important. Are you doing the preaching?

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  3. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    Let your wife preach Sunday! [​IMG]

    Sorry - [​IMG]
     
  4. blackbird

    blackbird Active Member

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    Roger---she says she wouldn't touch the subject with a "ten foot pole!"

    Matt---I will be preaching---U-Haul is my best friend and the truck will be "idlin'" in the church parking lot!!!

    Exposition calls for being Spirit filled!

    Receiving the Exposition calls for being Spirit Filled!
     
  5. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    Then what are you going to say about 'authentein'? :D

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  6. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    Here's my exposition/ exegesis of the passage: I Tim 2 is dealing with the gnostic Eve cult at Ephesus-authentein , translated 'authority'in I Tim 2:12 has sexual connotations and has been found in secular Greek literature of the time to describe the techniques prostitutes used to seduce their clients. Nowhere else in the NT is authentein used; the usual word for 'authority', occurring countless times in the NT, exousia , is not used in I Tim 2. So, the question is, what kind of authority is Paul talking about here? Quite clearly he cannot mean the sort of authority a pastor wields - I don't know about your church but at ours the pastor certainly does not indulge in sexual seduction! So what does Paul/ the Holy Spirit mean here?

    I believe that authentein is meant to be taken sexually, otherwise its use does not make sense and the passage contradicts other Pauline texts and NT Scriptures generally . Taken in its proper exegetical context, however, authentein , and indeed the whole passage, makes perfect sense:-

    1. Timothy was in charge of the church at Ephesus at that time

    2. Ephesus, we know from Acts 19, was a big centre of the Diana cult.

    3. The church there had been infiltrated to an extent by that cult and also a form of gnosticism that blended to form an 'Eve cult'

    4. Essential tenets of this 'Eve-cult' were as follows:-

    a. Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge first, therefore women were endowed with greater spiritual wisdom than men

    b. This superior spiritual knowledge was passed on through the women teaching and having sex (carnal knowledge/ gnosis )with the men in the church -an essential element of this 'teaching' was a requirement or duress that the men had sex thus - hence authentein .

    5. Paul, in this passage, addresses each point of error:-

    a. Eve was deceived first, not 'enlightened' first, by the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge

    b. Therefore the women had to stop teaching and learn in submission so that their errors could be corrected and stop having sexual authority ( authentein ) over men

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  7. Craigbythesea

    Craigbythesea Active Member

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    Matt,

    This appears to me to be rubbish. ALL of the early uses of the word that I can find have to do with authority or self-will. Can you quote even one early use of the word where it has sexual connotations?
     
  8. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    I agree - my looking at the word has come up with the owrd being used to describe "killing oneself, or another," but can't find a sexual conotation yet. Help please Matt.
     
  9. Terry_Herrington

    Terry_Herrington New Member

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    Blackbird, I am no Bible scholar, but this is what I see in this passage.

    The Result

    Women are to:
    be modest in their lifestyle v-9
    do good works v-10
    be subject to authority v-11

    Women are not to:
    teach men in the Church v-12
    have authority over men in the Church v-12

    The Reason

    Adam was formed before Eve v-13
    Eve was deceived, not Adam v-14

    The Relationship

    Women, by giving birth to children and rearing them in faith, love, and sobriety, will have a major role in the Church. For, it is through the influence of the mother that children learn to be dependent on God, thereby strengthening the Church body.

    In the King James Study Bible there is a comment about this verse that goes like this, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."
     
  10. GODzThunder

    GODzThunder New Member

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    Does this include having women as SS teachers in mixed adult classes? (something you see in many a baptist church with the argument that there are no men apt to teach).
     
  11. Terry_Herrington

    Terry_Herrington New Member

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    Does this include having women as SS teachers in mixed adult classes? (something you see in many a baptist church with the argument that there are no men apt to teach). </font>[/QUOTE]Brother, I don't have the answer. I once attended a SBC church where the adults were taught by the pastor's wife. I was never comfortable with this, but she is truly a sweet woman who loves the Lord.
     
  12. Craigbythesea

    Craigbythesea Active Member

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    But we do have the answer!

    1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
     
  13. Roy1

    Roy1 New Member

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    What is the confusion about?

    The text speaks for its self and all of the others around it.

    I am going to be preaching on this text in three weeks time God willing. I will be away on holiday until then. I was going to preaching toady, but thought it was not right to shoot and run. The text in the evening is, 1 Kings 2:2 “I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man;”
    It is time women were women and men were men.

    Let’s stop clouding the issues of men and women. There is equality, but very real and tangible differences in their roles.

    Roy.
     
  14. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    Enjoy the hoilday Roy.

    You post is bang on!
     
  15. Terry_Herrington

    Terry_Herrington New Member

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    But we do have the answer!

    1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
    </font>[/QUOTE]I agree completely.

    I never understood why this pastor allowed this to occur. I mentioned this to the pastor and his only explanation was that he did not have any men he felt was qualified to teach, and that his wife enjoyed teaching. I did not want to get into an argument with this pastor, so I let it go. I no longer go to that church, although I did not leave in anger and did not leave because of this matter. I decided to go back to a fundamental baptist church since that is the type of church I was saved at.
     
  16. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    Guys, IIRC, (and it was a long time ago), there are several references to 'authentein' having sexual connotations; at least one is in Aristophanes. If I have time, I'll try to remember further and provide some links.

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  17. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    Oh yes, and Euripedes uses it too in 'Andromache' to describe the eponymous heroine's having to sleep with Neoptolemous.

    Here are the fruits of my labours: The etymology of the word 'authentein' basically changed over the centuries (much as the word 'gay' has a very different meaning today than it did 100 years ago). Initially, about the 6th C BC, it was used to describe murder, being composed of two root words -'auto'= 'self' and 'himi'='thrust'. Later, with Euripides and beyond, this 'self-thrust' became linked with sexual activity. Moeris, writing about 100 years after Paul, still uses it as a sexual term; he warns his students not to use it as being too rude, and as late as the 4th century AD, John Chrysostom used 'authentia' to describe sexual licence in his commentary on I Tim 5:6. Only later still, post-Antiquity, does it acquire its current meaning of 'usurpation', 'domination'. Cp the use of 'scr*w' in modern English: it can have sexual connotations, but more often can mean to triumph over or dominate someone else in a malicious way eg: "we totally scr*wed them on that deal"

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  18. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    The misuse (or abuse) of a word in Greek or English does not make that the preferred use of the word.

    I think under examination we find that "authority", not sexual activity, is the common use.

    How would you interpret verse 12 Matt? Might I take a stab at your interpetation.

    "I do not allow a woman to teach, or to subvert a man sexually, but to be in silence."
     
  19. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    But here we have a use, Roger, that is consistent in meaning from Euripides (5th C BC) through Moeris (2nd C AD) to Chrysostom (5th C AD), with Paul slap-bang in the middle of that usage period.

    I would therefore take v12 to mean "I forbid a woman to lead astray or seduce in a sexual manner (as per the gnostic and Artemis Eve-cults)but to learn in silence"

    Here's an interesting link which I found, btw: http://www.godswordtowomen.org/kroeger.htm . I think we underestimate the problems that cultic sex was for the Early Church in Asia Minor; John had a similar problem with Jezebel at Thyatira (Rev 2:20)

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
  20. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    Matt,

    I understand your argument. However, we know today that words do share meanings. Which was the primary use of the word?

    I do not think it wise to build a doctrine around a the secondary or tertiary meaning of a Greek word. The traditional translation makes the most sense in the context of the rest of the passage.
     
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