Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 38:4 (Autumn 2024)
Article: Not Permitting Women To Teach: Reading 1 Timothy In Context
Author: Daniel Gonzalez Gomez

PP 38:4 (Autumn 2024) p. 3

Not Permitting Women To Teach: Reading 1 Timothy In Context

Daniel Gonzalez Gomez

Daniel Gonzalez Gomez is pursuing an MA in Theological Studies with a concentration in biblical languages at Fuller Theological Seminary. He balances his academic pursuits with roles as an accountant and as a youth pastor and Bible teacher at a Hispanic church in Ontario, CA.

Christians believe that the word of God is inspired and “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16 NIV). This implies that the biblical text sets out transcultural truths valid for the modern world. However, it is also essential that this word of God is understood in its historical and cultural context.

When this principle is expressed, some Christians receive it negatively, as if by considering context we are dismissing the word of God. On the contrary, it does not undermine the importance of the Bible—quite the opposite. Being faithful to the text means, in part, understanding that the New Testament (NT) is comprised of a series of documents written in the first century AD, when the historical and cultural contexts were different.1 This does not imply that we cannot draw essential lessons from the NT. Rather, it insists that studying these contexts is necessary to understanding what God wants to tell us today.

When I teach about biblical interpretation, I use examples that demonstrate how there are significant themes in the NT to which we are oblivious today. For example, few, if any, of us struggle with the possibility that Jesus did not come in the flesh (1 John 4:2),2 with the question of circumcision (a vital issue in the early church, Acts 15:5), with problems between Jews and Gentiles in Rome (Rom 3:1–20), with abuses at the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:17–22),3 or with food sacrificed to idols (1 Cor 8:1–11). Nor do we think the Holy Spirit prohibits evangelizing in Asia (Acts 16:6) or interpret greeting each other with a holy kiss as obligatory (Rom 16:16, etc.). These are a few examples of many texts4 that demand we read the Bible in its historical-cultural context.

The case of Paul’s first letter to Timothy is no excep...