Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 02:2 (Spring 1988)
Article: Who Are the Women in I Timothy 2:1-15 (Part II)
Author: A. Berkeley Mickelsen

Who Are the Women in I Timothy 2:1-15 (Part II)

Berkeley Mickelsen

In the first installment of this series, we noted and illustrated the importance of the presence or absence of the article (the) in Greek grammar. Presence of the article usually indicates identity and absence of the article generally stresses quality or character.. We showed how this grammatical difference not usually present in English) affects our interpretation of verses 1 through 7 in I Timothy 2.

We now turn our attention to the presence or absence of the Greek article in the crucial passages that have been used for centuries to limit the participation of women in teaching and leadership in the church.

Literal Translation: I Timothy 2:8-15. 8. I desire that the men pray in every place, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument. 9. Likewise, I desire that in respectable [or modest] clothing women adorn themselves with modesty and chastity, not with braiding of hair or with gold or with pearls or with expensive clothing, 10. but with anything which is fitting for women [plural] professing godliness through good works. 11. Let woman [singular] be learning in quietness with all subjection [to God]. 12. Further, I am not permitting for woman [singular] teaching and [‘n] domineering over man, but I am ordering her to be learning in quietness. 13. Now, you see then, Adam was formed earlier, then Eve. 14. And Adam was not deceived but the woman [Eve] being deceived [or led astray] has come to be in transgression. But she [Eve] will be saved [or attain salvation] through the childbearing it they remain [abide] in faith [faithfulness] and in love and in holiness with chastity [involving good judgment].

Verse 8. Here Paul discusses how men as a class should pray in every place. He uses the article with “men,” thus identifying them as one group of human beings (generic use of the article.) No article appears with the phrase “in every place” or elsewhere in the verse. Regardless of the characteristics of any place, men as a group (the men) are to be praying positively—lifting up holy hands to do all that God wants them to do. They are to pray without anger or argument (no articles.) Such a qualitative mood and action (anger and argument) would never promote genuine prayer. Paul had first hand experience with the men Timothy was to instruct. In this verse Paul instructs men as a class or group by an indirect command. A direct command would read: “Men, pray in every place in this way.” But here we have an indirect command: “I desire that the men pr...