Women, the Word, and the Ministry

Jim Butler1 Timothy 2:11–15

First Timothy 2:11–15 sets out Paul's prohibition against women teaching or exercising authority over men in the gathered church, grounding the rule not in first-century Ephesian culture but in the creation order of Genesis 2 and the fall of Genesis 3. The sermon works through three movements: Paul's exhortation that women receive the Word in submission, his double prohibition against women teaching men or holding authority over them, and his appeal to Adam's prior formation and Eve's deception as the theological rationale. Complementarian church governance is shown to be neither novel nor culturally conditioned but the normative, historically consistent pattern binding on every local church in every age. The closing treatment of verse 15 presents both the 'preservation in domestic faithfulness' reading and the 'messianic childbearing' interpretation, with the preacher siding with the latter.