More Than Preaching is at Stake for Women in the 1 Timothy 2 Battleground

Apr 21, 2025

IN THIS ARTICLE: Many believe that 1 Timothy 2:11-15 is about a woman preaching to a mixed group in a public worship setting. We’ve seen that this isn’t a timeless prohibition, but if it were, the prohibition would be much broader. If you’re in a place that sees this as a timeless prohibition on women, then know that the list of actions they prohibit could grow over time.

2023 Northern Seminary “Gospels & Acts” class w/ Professor Scot McKnight, co-taught with Becky Castle Miller and guest speaker Beth Allison Barr. You can see my bald head behind Barr in the center.

Why were 1 and 2 Timothy written? Are they gentle, “going away” letters from a retiring pastor to his heir? Is he saying, “This is how you do it -- these are the general principles behind planting, growing, and maintaining churches everywhere”?

Or is the context closer to “Mayday! Mayday! Situation dire. False teachers are wreaking havoc in Ephesus!”? 1 Timothy begins (as does Galatians) by skipping his standard opening statement of thanksgiving:

As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith … They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. (1 Tim 1:3-4, 7).

Paul returns to this theme throughout the letter (1:18-20; 4:1-8; 5:11-15; 6:9,10) because he wants Timothy to have “nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales” (1 Tim 4:7). Then, to leave no doubt, he recaps it in the final two verses:

Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith. (1 Tim 6:20-21)

The letter and its sequel paint a picture of deception by men, some of whom are named. One great way to spread deception is through theologically uneducated or unsound women who go from house to house (remember that churches met in private homes—they were “house churches”), influencing other women who would then attempt to spread deception and (if married, as most likely were) dominate their husbands (more on that next week).

Besides, they [young widows who are “put on the list” for church support] get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not to. (1 Tim 5:13)

They [false teachers] are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, (2 Tim 3:6)

Even the ESV Study Bible says, “The false teachers are the primary occasion for the letter.”1 Gordon Fee agrees in his commentary on the pastorals:

It was clear to all that some false teachers lay behind the writing of what was supposed to be the earliest of the letters [in the Pastorals] – 1 Timothy. But in general only lip service was paid to that reality; thereafter everything was treated as though what Paul intended were a church manual, to guide the church organizationally through its ongoing years ….

Then one year I decided to lead a group of seminarians through 1 Timothy by taking 1:3 absolutely seriously – as though that really were the reason for the letter, namely, to urge Timothy to stop the false teachers in Ephesus …. The results astonished us …. I became convinced of the correctness of this point of view.2

Aída Besançon Spencer writes of 2 Timothy, “Similar problems continue to occur at Ephesus as had been occurring earlier in Ephesus and Crete: ‘wrangling over words (2:14), ‘stupid and senseless controversies’ (2:23), women who do not know the ‘knowledge of the truth’ (3:7), false teachers (3:7; 4:3), and myths (4:4).”3 This is the situation of 1 Timothy.

A new, localized restriction on a woman

“I do not permit a woman …” — 1 Timothy 2:12

The phrase “I do not permit” (οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω/ ouk epitrepō) in 1 Timothy 2:12 can be understood as “I am not currently permitting” rather than “On principle, I never permit.” Epitrepō is a verb that can demonstrate one of multiple kinds of action as well as the time of the action, depending on context (an active indicative verb).4

So, is it a “for now, in this location” kind or a “permanently, everywhere” kind? Philip Payne concludes that no occurrence of ouk epitrepō in the LXX (Greek Old Testament) refers to the second kind, and only two cases in the New Testament do so. He further notes that “[complementarian scholar Douglas] Moo correctly states, ‘It must be admitted that the verb epitrepō is not often used in Scripture of universally applicable commands.’”5

In Matthew 19:8, Jesus says Moses’ use of permit/epitrepō was not permanent: “Jesus replied, ‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.’” And we have already seen that the subjugation of women was also “not this way from the beginning,” but from the Fall.

Women in the Church is an anthology by those who seek to bar women from teaching men in public. In this 411-page book, the discussion of ouk epitrepō is limited to just a few sentences by Andreas Köstenberger and two pages by Thomas Schreiner. Köstenberger admits this is a very mild injunction. For whatever reason, Paul has chosen not to be direct or emphatic. But Köstenberger concludes that Paul would still expect Timothy to follow suit.6 Yep.

Schreiner maintains that we cannot force an interpretation of this passage on a specific meaning of ouk epitrepō. Again, I would agree. He says we must look to the context, writing, “For example, if I say to my daughter, ‘You are not permitted to drive the car one hundred miles per hour,’ it is obvious (or should be!) that this is a universal prohibition. But if I say, ‘You are not permitted to go into the street,’ it is plain that this is a temporary restriction given to a two-year-old girl who is not yet able to handle herself safely in the street. The context, of the term permitted, determines the universal or temporary force of the prohibition ….”7 This is a stunning admission and a great illustration. I agree once more, but Schreiner gets the context wrong.

Look at how Paul expresses his prohibition on women in the context of his relationship with Timothy. Paul seems to be giving Timothy new information, so how could this be a permanent prohibition throughout the New Testament world? Paul isn’t saying, “As in all the churches” or “As we have always taught.” Sometimes, Paul reinforced his teaching by referring to standard practices among all the churches (1 Cor. 4:17; 7:17; 11:16; 16:1), but not here.

“I do not permit,” followed by an illustration to support your position, is a strange way of putting something when writing to a man with whom you’ve ministered for years, unless this is a recent decision you’re imparting to him for the first time.8

Timothy knew Paul inside and out. Paul trusted him like a son and a faithful minister (Phil. 2:22). Years earlier, Paul wrote, “Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason, I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.” (1 Cor. 4:16-17).

Did anyone know Paul’s life and teaching like Timothy? Among other ministry ventures, in over a decade, Paul and Timothy wrote 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Philemon together. And in 1 and 2 Timothy, Paul says things like, “we know” (e.g., 1 Tim. 1:15) and “faithful sayings” (e.g., 1 Tim. 1:5), while he cites Timothy’s knowledge of Paul’s own life (2 Tim. 3:10-11). Considering this, it seems that “I do not permit” is a new thing in response to a local situation, given that Paul needs to provide Timothy with explanatory support material in vv. 13-14.

If it were permanent, it couldn’t be limited to a woman teaching multiple men in public

“Soft complementarians” are usually defined as those who see 1 Timothy 2:11-15 as a permanent prohibition that only applies to Bible teaching from the pulpit or perhaps other public, mixed group settings like Sunday School, rather than all of life. Soft complementarians are often very nice people, but their arguments lack the integrity of even the hardcore patriarchalists, who will admit what this passage must mean if it is a timeless prohibition.

In verse 11, Paul abruptly switches from talking about plural women to a singular woman. This is indisputable in the original Greek, regardless of whether some English translations obscure it. The movement is:

a woman + a man (verse 11-12)
The example of one man and one woman (the first two, who are married) (13-14)
“she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness …” (15)

Who are the “she” and “they” of verse 15? Most naturally, she is “a woman” of verse 12, and they are the woman and man of the same verse. “They continue” comes from the Greek meinosin [μείνωσιν], which is an aorist active subjunctive third person plural. It is not marked for gender, so no one can claim “they” must mean plural “women” instead of the woman and the man from verse 12.

If you want to say that the phrase “a woman can’t do this to a man” means that a woman can’t do this to multiple men or that women in general cannot do this to men in general, that’s fine, but you can’t then say, “But it’s okay for a singular woman to do it to a singular man.” That’s precisely what the passage is prohibiting.

Suppose Paul had written, “I am not permitting a man to lift weights or run with a woman.” We could guess that Paul would be against men lifting weights or running with women in general. We could even say he wouldn’t want a man to lift weights or run with multiple women in a mixed-group setting. We could not say that Paul is only against those things, but is okay with one man lifting weights or running with one woman.9 10

This is a crucial point that opponents often misrepresent. We could claim that Paul is using “a woman” and “a man” generically, as if he means “I don’t want any woman to do this to any man.” It’s not certain this is what he means. It doesn’t have to mean that. But grammatically, it can. What it cannot mean is that Paul only wants to stop a singular woman (like a preacher) from teaching or dominating a plurality of men in public.

None of this means anything to advocates for extreme patriarchy who already deny women any agency in the home, church, and culture — their arguments don’t work, as my previous posts have shown. However, the popular “soft complementarian” position that this passage only prohibits a woman from preaching or teaching multiple men from the scriptures in a worship service1112 is even less workable than the extreme patriarchy interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:11-15.

In short, if this is a “for all time” argument (which makes no sense, as I showed here and here), then the passage is not just restricting a woman from giving “the Sunday message.” The “plain reading” of the text in Greek also leaves no room for:

Any one-on-one instruction.
A female author writing in the fields of theology or biblical studies, unless perhaps clearly marketed only to women, with controls put in place so men do not read the book.
Women writing doctrinally rich hymns and worship songs.
Women leading doctrinal songs in corporate worship.
Female teachers in Bible colleges, seminaries, and parachurch ministries.
Women teaching any subject that has repercussions for how Christians should live (if, after all, we believe that “All truth is God’s truth”).13
Female missionaries spreading the gospel overseas.
Women holding any “secular” position where they are in teaching or leading men (if the example from Genesis is a “transcultural principle” that we must apply in the same way for all time, then there is no way to restrict it to the church. Fortunately, it’s not).

If you know anyone who allows these things but prohibits women from preaching the gospel in an American or Western European church building, ask them how a “plain reading” of 1 Timothy 2 explains their position.

Nothing in this text or the surrounding passage proves that this text is restricted to or even specifies a Sunday sermon in a house of worship (I will prove this in the next two weeks). If Paul wanted to restrict his prohibition to a woman teaching multiple men in public, he could have done so — it would have been easy to express in Greek.

Next week, we’ll begin to see much more clearly why the prohibition cannot be restricted to public gospel proclamation. But logic should get you there, too: why would it be wrong for a woman to teach men in public but okay for her to do it to one man in private? Eve’s fall in Genesis 3 was only in front of one man. She only gave one man the fruit.

Last week on the social media site Threads, a woman with the handle “reformedregenerate” wrote a post against women preaching because “scripture is clear.” Many commenters (male and female) pushed back, and she began to argue with them about the interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12. Then they pointed out the obvious problem: she was attempting to teach men from the Bible on Threads. The accusations and her replies consistently went like this:

Her commenters are correct. Neither the grammar of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 nor the context (as we’ll see next week) restricts this to a sermon “at church.” If this is a “for all time, for all women” prohibition, then once men start debating her interpretation of the Bible, she needs to go silent. And while many male pastors may applaud women like reformedregenerate when they are helping to silence other women, those pastors will turn on reformedregenerate if she ever disagrees with them in the way she’s disagreeing with her fellow Threads users.

Why is all of this important?

If you are in a church that only applies this passage to a woman teaching and preaching the Bible to groups of men in public but sees it as an ongoing prohibition on all women for all time, then there is nothing in the way those leaders are interpreting the text that couldn’t lead them to further restrict women’s activities in your church (or their expectations on how female church members should be restricted in the home, workplace, and all of society) in the future.

Maybe “Pastor Jim” and a slight majority of his current elder committee wouldn’t do so, but one day, Pastor Jim and those elders will be gone. If Jim’s hermeneutic (the way he interprets the Bible) remains, then his replacement, Pastor Bill, could begin to apply it more restrictively once Jim has moved on. Pastor Bill seems nice right now, but do you know where he stands? Have you asked him? Has he spoken or written on it?

For Bill to be more strict than Jim when Jim is gone, it is just a matter of continuing to see this text as a “for all time, on all women” prohibition and then applying the restriction more literally based on the fact that it is talking about a woman + a man + the example of the first woman and man. Find out what Bill thinks now. Clarify Jim’s position, too — why does he draw the line where he does? This could save you more heartache later.

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