Journal: Faith and Mission
Volume: FM 14:1 (Fall 1996)
Article: The Crux of the Matter: Paul’s Pastoral Pronouncements Regarding Women’s Roles in 1 Tim. 2:9–15
Author: Andreas J. Köstenberger

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FM 14:1 (Fall 1996) p. 24

The Crux of the Matter:
Paul’s Pastoral Pronouncements Regarding
Women’s Roles in 1 Tim. 2:9–15

Andreas J. Köstenberger

Associate Professor of New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Wake Forest, NC 27588

The issue of women’s roles in the church spans cultures, times, denominations, and, of course, genders. It spans cultures: believers in North America may not always realize that this issue is not merely an in-house debate among American evangelicals. “Es hat ja Priesterinnen gegeben” (“There were indeed female priests”) trumpets a recent headline in an Austrian national newspaper, arguing for the apostolic origins of the priesthood of women.1 “More than three years after they cracked the stained-glass ceiling to become priests, Australia’s female Anglican clergy say they still are fighting against the church’s male leadership,” reads a current report from Australia.2 “Female priests may be church’s salvation,” opines a contemporary assessment of the situation in the Anglican church in Great Britain.3 American Episcopalians ordained their first female bishop in 1989, Anglicans in England followed suit in 1994, and Germany saw the ordination of its first female Lutheran bishop in 1992.4 Indeed, the role of women in the church, and in particular the issue of women’s ordination, is a worldwide phenomenon.5

The issue spans times: as Daniel Doriani demonstrated in a thorough recent survey, we must avoid the notion that we are here confronted with an unprecedented issue in the history of the church.6 The issue of women’s roles in the church is not a new one. This renders it all the more remarkable that the “progressive” reading of biblical texts such as 1 Tim. 2:9–15 is a comparatively recent phenomenon. In a current essay, Robert Yarbrough argues persuasively that radical egalitarianism regarding gender roles mirrors societal developments more than it issues from an exegesis of the biblical texts themselves.7 While there were precursors of egalitarianism, an egalitarian school of biblical interpretation did not fully take hold until a few decades ago. However, nineteen centuries of virtual unanimity in this matter constitute strong presumptive evidence that the “historic” reading of the relevant texts is valid.8

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