In 1 Timothy 2, Paul calls Christians to pray for their leaders and reminds us that God desires everyone to come to know the truth. But the chapter also contains one of the most debated passages in Scripture concerning women teaching and leading in the church. Today we talk honestly about that difficult text, the importance of reading Scripture in context, and the need to interpret individual passages in light of the broader witness of Scripture. As a United Methodist and Wesleyan, I share why I believe this passage addresses a particular situation in Ephesus rather than establishing a universal prohibition against women preaching, teaching, and leading in the church.
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Good morning! It’s good to be with you on this Thursday morning. I hope you’re doing well as we continue together in our time in 1 Timothy.
It’s nice to be back in a more formal setting, with a formal microphone and my normal setup. We’ve been in a lot of different places over the last week or so. We had our contemporary service, and we weren’t able to record that service that day. That’s why the audio and video quality on Monday’s sermon podcast wasn’t quite what it normally is.
And then yesterday, as you know, I had to record later in the day. So it was just me and my sweet tea at Noodles at 8:30 at night—or whenever it was.
So it’s good to be back in the office with my trusty setup: my iPhone, my MacBook, and my microphone.
Today we’re going to be reading one of the more controversial and debated passages in all of Scripture. We’re in 1 Timothy, chapter 2, and we’re going to look at the whole chapter.
Paul begins by urging Christians to offer prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving for everyone—including kings and everyone who is in authority.
I love that.
Paul is telling the church to pray for its leaders.
If you’ve ever been to a worship service that I’ve led, you know that at some point during the pastoral prayer, I’m probably going to pray for our leaders—local, state, and federal. That’s a line I use nearly every time I pray in worship.
Because as Christians, we have a command to pray.
We are called to pray especially for kings and for those who are in positions of authority.
And remember when Paul is writing this. The authorities of his day were not exactly friendly toward Christianity. These are people living under an empire that could—and did—persecute Christians.
So this isn’t some neutral, arbitrary comment from Paul.
Paul is telling Christians to pray for their leaders even when those leaders may not treat them well.
We pray for wisdom.
We pray for clarity.
We pray for grace.
We pray that those who are in leadership will lead well.
And I would encourage you: pray for your leaders every day. Pray for your local leaders. Pray for your state leaders. Pray for your federal leaders. Pray for your governor, your president, your Congress, your legislature, your mayor, your city council.
And frankly, the more a politician annoys you, the more you should pray for them!
Pray for them.
Not simply that they will lead the way you want them to lead, but that they will lead with wisdom, justice, compassion, and integrity.
That’s part of what Paul is teaching us here.
Then Paul says something I really love in verse 4. He says that God desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
That goes all the way back to John 3:16—God’s love for the world.
God desires that everyone come to know Christ.
That is God’s hope for the world.
And frankly, that’s our hope as well.
You’ve heard me pray this in worship. You’ve heard me pray over the offering that our desire is that the whole world might come to know Jesus Christ as Lord.
That’s what I believe the church should be about.
We should want people to know Jesus.
But now let’s get to the difficult part.
This is where we get to the rock and roll.
This is the passage that I have seen quoted over and over again on Facebook whenever a female clergy person says something.
You don’t even always see an argument.
Sometimes you just see:
“First Timothy 2:12.”
That’s it.
And I’ve seen that enough times to know exactly what people are talking about.
Paul says that he does not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man and says that she is to remain silent.
So what do I do with that?
I’m an egalitarian when it comes to church leadership. I believe women should preach. I believe women should teach. I believe women should lead the church.
I was ordained by a woman bishop, Bishop Hope Morgan Ward. I currently serve under a woman bishop, Bishop Sharma D. Lewis. I’ve had women serve as associate pastors in my churches. I have been taught by women. I have been shaped by women. I have been mentored by women.
So what do I do with this passage?
Well, the first thing I always want to remember is that we read Scripture in context.
And I think sometimes we find nuance in Scripture where we want to find nuance.
We take literally the things we want to take literally, and then when we come across something that challenges us, suddenly we start looking for context.
And it’s interesting how often what we call the “clear reading of Scripture” happens to line up with what we already believe.
The truth is, there really isn’t such a thing as a completely uncomplicated reading of Scripture.
All Scripture requires interpretation.
Because none of us are first-century Jews or Gentiles living in the world in which these letters were written.
We’re living in twenty-first-century America—or wherever you happen to be watching this.
So we bring our context with us when we read Scripture.
And that means we have to be careful.
I don’t ever want Scripture to simply agree with me.
If Scripture always agrees with me, then I’m probably reading it wrong.
Scripture should challenge me.
Scripture should push me.
Scripture should make me uncomfortable sometimes.
This Sunday I’m preaching on Matthew 25, and I can tell you: Matthew 25 always pushes me.
It makes me uncomfortable.
And I think that’s a good thing.
So what do we do with this passage in 1 Timothy?
Well, I think we begin by reading it in the context of the whole of Scripture.
For example, Paul talks about Phoebe in Romans 16. He describes her in a way that indicates she had an important role in the early church.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul gives instructions about women praying and prophesying in worship.
In Acts 2, when Peter quotes the prophet Joel at Pentecost, the Spirit is poured out on both men and women.
The Gospels give us women as witnesses to the resurrection, entrusted with the message of the risen Christ.
We see Deborah as a judge and prophet.
We see Anna in the temple.
We see women throughout Scripture teaching, leading, prophesying, serving, and bearing witness to God.
So when I come to 1 Timothy 2, I have to read that passage in light of all of those other passages.
And I also have to remember where Timothy is.
Timothy is in Ephesus.
And Paul’s letters are not abstract theological textbooks. They are letters written to particular people and particular churches dealing with particular circumstances.
First Timothy is written to Timothy in the context of his ministry in Ephesus.
And Ephesus was a church dealing with problems of false teaching, disorder, and questions about how the church should function.
So there are Christians who believe Paul is addressing a particular situation in Ephesus here rather than establishing a universal prohibition against women teaching or leading in every church for all time.
There are also different interpretations of the specific wording and context of the passage.
And for me, that’s where I land.
I read 1 Timothy 2 in light of the broader witness of Scripture, in light of Paul’s other writings, and in light of the particular circumstances of the church in Ephesus.
And when I look at that broader picture, I see too many places where women are exercising leadership, teaching, prophesying, and proclaiming the gospel for me to believe that Paul is making a universal statement that women can never preach or lead.
That is how I interpret the passage.
And I want to be clear: that is my interpretation.
I don’t think we should pretend that this passage isn’t difficult.
It is difficult.
And I think we need to be humble enough to say that Scripture sometimes challenges us, and sometimes we have to wrestle with it.
But I also believe we should apply the same standard to every passage.
We should read Scripture in context.
We should read individual verses in light of the whole of Scripture.
And we should be careful about taking one verse and using it as a weapon against someone else.
Because you can take almost any verse of Scripture out of context and make it say something you want it to say.
That’s true of Romans 9 through 11.
It’s true of a lot of difficult passages.
And it’s certainly true of this one.
Ultimately, what I keep coming back to is the fruit I have seen.
I have seen the fruit of the Spirit in the lives of so many women clergy.
I have seen women who have shaped me, molded me, taught me, challenged me, encouraged me, and poured into me.
I am thankful for their witness.
I am thankful for their ministry.
And I am thankful for the ways God has used them in my own life and ministry.
So when I read 1 Timothy 2, I read it in light of the rest of Paul’s teachings and the broader witness of Scripture.
And I understand Paul to be addressing a particular situation in Ephesus rather than establishing a universal prohibition against women preaching, teaching, or leading.
That’s where I land on it.
And that’s how I understand this passage within my tradition as a United Methodist and as a Wesleyan.
And I’d welcome your feedback.
Send me an email. Respond to me. I’d love to have a conversation about it.
Because this is one of those passages that is always interesting to talk about—and it’s certainly one that deserves more than a Bible verse posted underneath somebody’s Facebook comment.
So, thanks for being with me today.
Tomorrow we’ll pick up with chapter 3.
Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you tomorrow.