Understanding the Context of 1 Timothy

The last few posts have offered clear examples found in Scripture of women in leadership positions within the Church. In these positions, without any doubt, women exercised authority over men.

These examples appear to be in strict contrast to Paul's instructions to Timothy found in 1 Timothy 2:12

I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.

After reading this verse and knowing about Junia, Phoebe, Deborah and Priscella, one must come to a conclusion: these women were not what the Bible says they were; the Bible contradicts itself through instruction and example; or Paul's instructions to Timothy are misunderstood by current readers.

We know the Bible is the authoritative Word of God and is free from mistakes as originally written. The Bible doesn't contain lies, nor does it contradict itself. So if the mistake is not within the Bible itself, it must be found within us. In other words, the mistake is in our interpretation of it.

When a person learns hermeneutics (the study of interpreting the Bible correctly), the first and most important point to remember is context. There's an old saying: Text without context is pretext. We must always ask ourselves the question when trying to discern the meaning behind Scripture, "What did the original author intend to convey to the original audience at the time that he wrote it?"

In looking at the Book of 1 Timothy, Chapters 1 and 4 both deal with false teachings. So, is it possible that the chapters in the middle would also relate in someway to false teachings? Let's answer that question by asking a couple of others.

To whom is Paul writing? The answer is Timothy, who was serving at least as some kind of apostolic representative capacity if not the actual pastor of the church at Ephesus.

What do we know about the church at Ephesus? We know that Ephesus (located in present-day Turkey) was a city that was famous for its temple to Artemis, the Greek goddess of fertility. In this temple, women oversaw the worship services that almost always contained perverted sexual activity and prostitution as a form of worship offering to Artemis. In these services, women domineered over men.
So, we can conclude that the context in which Paul is writing is somewhat clear: it's a letter written to Timothy who is overseeing a church in a community that has a rich history or tradition of female deity worship. Sex is the tool by which women are overseeing and domineering men, leading them in false teaching.
In this context, we must read both pastoral letters to Timothy from Paul. Without understanding the context of these letters, we can easily misunderstand Paul's instructions and apply them inappropriately.

In my next post, I'll dive a little deeper into the instructions contained in chapters 2 and 3 of Paul's first letter to Timothy.