Priscilla Papers Vol. 20, No.

4 Autumn 2006 5
The Biblical Basis for Womens Service in the Church
N. T. Wright
We are delighted to include this paper by Bishop Tom Wright in the twentieth anniversary issue of Priscilla Papers. Bishop Wright is the
fourth-most senior bishop in the Church of England, an internationally renowned New Testament scholar, and a convinced evangelical.
Tis paper is adapted from N. T. Wrights general session at the International Symposium on Men, Women, and the Church, sponsored
by Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE), Women and the Church (WATCH), and Men, Women and God (MWG) at St. Johns College in
Durham, England, September 4, 2004. As an Englishman and a research-based scholar, he ofers some fresh insights into our understanding
of key biblical passages much disputed today in evangelical circles, especially in America.
Preliminary remarks
First, some preliminary remarks about this sort of debate. I have
read through some of CBEs literature with great interest, but also
with a sense that the way particular questions are posed and ad-
dressed refects some particular American subcultures. I know a
little about those subculturesfor instance, the battles over new
Bible translations, some using inclusive language and others not.
In my own church, the main resistance against equality in minis-
try comes, not so much from within the Evangelical right (though
there is of course a signifcant element there), but from within
the traditional Anglo-Catholic movement for whom Scripture has
never been the central point of the argument, and indeed is ofen
ignored altogether.
Second, I do worry a bit about the word equality. I recog-
nize what is intended, but this word can carry so much freight
in our various cultures. Not only is the word equality a red rag
to all kinds of bulls who perhaps dont need to be aggravated in
that way (though some may), it is always in danger of implying
(wrongly of course, but one cannot police what people will hear in
technical terms) not only equality, but also sameness. Likewise, to
use the word complementary and its cognates to denote a position
which says that not only are men and women diferent, but also
that those diferences mean that women cannot minister within
the church, is unfortunate. I think the word complementary is
too good and important a word to let that side of the issue have
it all to itself.
We must all recognize that the question of women in ministry
takes place within the wider cultural context of overlapping and
interlocking issues. Te many varieties of feminism on the one
hand and the ongoing modern/postmodern culture wars on the
other provide two of many signposts. Part of the problem, par-
ticularly in the United States, is that cultures become so polarized
that if you tick one box many assume you must tick a dozen other
boxes down the same side of the pagewithout realizing that the
page itself is highly arbitrary and culture-bound. We have to claim
the freedom, in Christ and in our various cultures, to name issues
one by one with wisdom and clarity, without assuming that a deci-
sion on one point commits us to a decision on others. I just wanted
to fag the contexts within which this discussion is taking place, and
warn against any kind of absolutism in any particular position.
I also want to set my remarks within a particular framework
of biblical theology regarding Genesis 1. Many people, myself in-
cluded, have claimed that the creation of man and woman in their
two genders is a vital part of what it means to be created in Gods
image. I now regard that as mistaken. Afer all, not only the animal
kingdom, as noted in Genesis itself, but also the plant kingdom, as
noted by the reference to seed, are gendered creations.
Te fact that gender is not specifc to human beings doesnt
mean its unimportantindeed its all the more important, since
working out what that means to be male and female is something
most of creation is called to do and be. Its just that we cant use
the argument that being male-plus-female is somehow what being
Gods image bearers actually means. Unless we are to collapse into
a kind of gnosticism, we have to recognize, respect, and respond
to this call of God to live in the world he has made and as the
people he has made us.
Key New Testament texts on womens service
in the church
Galatians 3:28
Galatians 3 is not about ministry, nor is it the only word Paul says
about being male and female. Instead of arranging texts in a hi-
erarchy, for instance by quoting this verse and then saying that it
trumps every other verse in a kind of fght to be the senior bull
in the herd (what a very masculine way of approaching exegesis,
by the way!), we need to do justice to what Paul is actually saying
here. His overall point in this passage is that God has one family,
not two, and that this family consists of all those who believe in
Jesus, that this is the family God promised to Abraham, and that
nothing in the Torah can stand in the way of this unity which is
now revealed through the faithfulness of the Messiah.
First, a note about translation and exegesis. Many Bible ver-
sions actually mistranslate this verse to read neither Jew nor
Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female. Tat is
precisely what Paul does not say; and as its what we expect hes
going to say, we should note quite carefully what he has said in-
stead, since he presumably means to make a point by doing so, a
point which is missed when the translation is fattened out as in
N. T. WRIGHT (D.D., Oxford University) is Bishop of Durham,
England. He taught New Testament studies for twenty
years at Cambridge, McGill, and Oxford universities. He is
the author of more than thirty books, including The Last
Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the
Authority of Scripture (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005).
6 Priscilla Papers Vol. 20, No. 4 Autumn 2006
that version. What he says is that there is neither Jew nor Greek,
neither slave nor free, no male and female. I think the reason he
says no male and female rather than neither male nor female
is that he is actually quoting Genesis 1:27.
So does Paul mean that in Christ the created order itself is un-
done? Is he saying, as some have suggested, that we go back to a
kind of chaos in which no orders of creation apply any longer? Or
is he saying that we go on, like the gnostics, from the frst rather
shabby creation in which silly things like gender-diferentiation
apply, to a new world in which we can all live as hermaphrodites?
No. Paul is a theologian of new cre-
ation, and it is always about the re-
newal and reafrmation of the exist-
ing creation, never its denial, as not
only Galatians 6:16, but also of course
Romans 8 and 1 Corinthians 15 make
so very clear. Indeed, Genesis 13
remains enormously important for
Paul throughout his writings.
What then is he saying? Remember that he is controverting in
particular those who wanted to enforce Jewish regulations, and
indeed Jewish ethnicity, upon Gentile converts. Remember the
synagogue prayer in which the man who prays thanks God that
he has not made him a Gentile, a slave, or a woman. I think Paul is
deliberately marking out the family of Abraham reformed in the
Messiah as a people who cannot pray that prayer, since within this
family these distinctions are now irrelevant.
Te presenting issue in Galatians is male circumcision. We
sometimes think of circumcision as a painful obstacle for con-
verts, as indeed in some ways it was; but for those who embraced
circumcision, it was a matter of pride and privilege. It not only
distinguished Jews from Gentiles; it also distinguished them in
a way that automatically privileged males. By contrast, imagine
the thrill of equality brought about by baptism, the identical rite
for Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. And thats
not all. Tough this is somewhat more speculative, the story of
Abrahams family did of course privilege the male line of descent:
Isaac, Jacob, and so on. What we fnd in Paul, both in Galatians 4
and in Romans 9, is careful attentionrather like Matthew 1, in
fact, though from a diferent angleto the women in the story.
If those in Christ are the true family of Abraham, which is the
point of the whole story, then the manner of this identity and
unity takes a quantum leap beyond the way in which frst-
century Judaism construed them, bringing male and female
together as surely and as equally as Jew and Gentile. What Paul
seems to do in this passage, then, is rule out any attempt to per-
petuate male privilege in Abrahams family by an appeal to Gen-
esis 1, as though someone were to say, But of course the male line
is what matters, and of course male circumcision is what counts,
because God made male and female. No, says Paul, none of
that counts when it comes to membership in the renewed people
of Abraham.
But we must also refect on what Paul has not done as well as
what he has done. Regarding the Jew/Gentile distinction, Pauls
uncompromising insistence on equality in Christ does not at all
mean that we need pay no attention to distinctions between dif-
ferent cultural backgrounds when it comes to living together in
the church. Romans 14 and 15 are the best example of this, but it
is also evident throughout Galatians itself, as Paul regularly refers
to we meaning Jewish Christians and you or they meaning
Gentile Christians. Tey have come to an identical destination,
but they have come by very diferent routes and retain very difer-
ent cultural memories and imaginations. Te diferences between
them are not obliterated, and pastoral practice needs to take note of
this; they are merely irrelevant when
it comes to belonging to Abrahams
family. And this same principle ap-
plies to Pauls treatment of men and
women within the Christian family.
Te diference is irrelevant for mem-
bership status, but it still matters in
pastoral practice. We do not become
hermaphrodites or for that matter
genderless, sexless beings when we are baptized. Paul would have
been the frst to reject the gnostic suggestion that the original cre-
ation was a secondary attempt at making a world and that we have
to discover ways of transcending that which, according to Genesis
1, God called very good.
Tis is the point at which we must issue a warning against the
current fashion in some quarters, in America at least, for docu-
ments like the so-called Gospel of Mary, read both in a gnostic
and a feminist light. Tat kind of option appears to present a short
cut right in to a pro-women agenda, but it not only purchases that
at a huge cost, historically and theologically, but also presents a
very two-edged blessing, granted the propensity in some branches
of ancient gnosticism to fatten out the male/female distinction,
not by afrming both as equally important, but by efectively turn-
ing women into men. Remember the last saying in the so-called
Gospel of Tomas: Simon Peter said to them, Make Mary leave
us, for females dont deserve life. Jesus said, Look, I will guide
her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit
resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male
will enter the kingdom of Heaven.
Te ways Paul explores the diferences between men and wom-
en come elsewhere than in Galatians, of course. I want to look frst
at 1 Corinthians and then, fnally, at 1 Timothy; but, before we do
either, I want to mention several themes in the gospels and Acts.
Te Gospels and Acts
Among the many things that need to be said about the gospels is
that we gain nothing by ignoring the fact that Jesus chose twelve
male apostles. Tere were no doubt all kinds of reasons for this
within both the symbolic world in which he was operating and
the practical and cultural world within which they would have
to live and work. But every time this point is madeand in my
experience it is made quite frequentlywe have to comment on
how interesting it is that there comes a time in the story when the
disciples all forsake Jesus and run away; and at that point, long
I
f an apostle is defned as a witness to the
resurrection, there were women who deserved
that title before any of the men. Mary Magdalene
and the others are the apostles to the apostles. We
should not be surprised that Paul calls a woman
named Junia an apostle in Romans 16:7.
Priscilla Papers Vol. 20, No. 4 Autumn 2006 7
before the rehabilitation of Peter and the others, it is the women
who come frst to the tomb, who are the frst to see the risen Je-
sus, and are the frst to be entrusted with the news that he has
been raised from the dead. Tis is of incalculable signifcance. If
an apostle is defned as a witness to the resurrection, there were
women who deserved that title before any of the men. Mary Mag-
dalene and the others are the apostles to the apostles. We should
not be surprised that Paul calls a woman named Junia an apostle
in Romans 16:7.
Nor is this promotion of women a totally new thing with the
resurrection. I think in particular of the remarkable story of Mary
and Martha in Luke 10. Most of us grew up with the line that Mar-
tha was the active type and Mary the passive or contemplative
type, and that Jesus is simply afrming the importance of both
and even the priority of devotion to him. Tat devotion is un-
doubtedly part of the importance of the story, but far more obvi-
ous to any frst-century reader, and to many readers in Turkey,
the Middle East, and many other parts of the world to this day,
would be the fact that Mary was sitting at Jesus feet within the
male part of the house rather than being kept in the back rooms
with the other women. Tis was probably what really bothered
Martha; no doubt she was cross at being lef to do all the work, but
the real problem behind that was that Mary had cut clean across
one of the most basic social conventions. And Jesus declares that
she is right to do so. She is sitting at his feet; a phrase that doesnt
mean what it would mean today, the adoring student gazing up in
admiration and love at the wonderful teacher.
As is clear from the use of the phrase elsewhere in the New
Testament (for instance, Paul with Gamaliel in Acts 22:3), to sit at
the teachers feet is a way of saying you are being a student, picking
up the teachers wisdom and learning; and in that very practical
world you wouldnt do this just for the sake of informing your
own mind and heart, but in order to be a teacher, a rabbi, yourself.
Like much in the gospels, this story is lef cryptic as far as we at
least are concerned, but I doubt if any frst-century reader would
have missed the point. Examples like Marys, no doubt, are at least
part of the reason why we fnd so many women in positions of
leadership, initiative, and responsibility in the early church. I used
to think Romans 16 was the most boring chapter in the letter, and
now, as I study and refect on the names it includes, I am struck by
how powerfully they illustrate how the teachings of both Jesus and
Paul were being worked out in practice.
I wish to ofer an insight about Actssomething among many
others that I gleaned from Ken Bailey on the basis of his long ex-
perience of working in the Middle East. Its interesting that at the
crucifxion the women were able to come and go and see what
was happening without fear from the authorities. Tey were not
regarded as a threat, and did not expect to be so regarded. Bailey
points out that this pattern is repeated to this day in the Middle
East; at the height of the troubles in Lebanon, when men on all
sides in the factional fghting were either hiding or going about
with great caution, the women were free to come and go, to do
the shopping, to take children out, and so on. (I think this tells us
something as well about the age of the Beloved Disciple, but thats
another story.) By contrast, its fascinating that when we turn to
Acts and read of the persecution that arose against the church not
least at the time of Stephen, we fnd that women are being targeted
equally alongside the men. Saul of Tarsus was going to Damascus
to catch women and men alike and haul them of into prison. Bai-
ley points out on the basis of his cultural parallels that this only
makes sense if the women, too, are seen as leaders and infuential
fgures within the community.
But, having mentioned Pauls abortive attempts to catch Chris-
tians in Damascus, its now high time to return to his mature thought
and look at the key passages which have ofen caused difculty.
1 Corinthians1
I want to begin with one of the two passages which has caused so
much difculty: the verses at the end of 1 Corinthians 14 in which
Paul insists that women must keep silent in church.2
I have always been attracted, ever since I heard it, to the ex-
planation ofered once more by Ken Bailey.3 In the Middle East,
he says, it was taken for granted that men and women would sit
apart in church, as still happens today in some circles. Equally
important, the service would be held (in Lebanon, say, or Syria,
or Egypt) in formal or classical Arabic, which the men would all
know but which many of the women would not, since the wom-
en would only speak a local dialect. As a result, the women, not
understanding what was going on, would begin to get bored and
talk among themselves. As Bailey describes the scene in such a
church, the level of talking from the womens side would steadily
rise in volume, until the minister would have to say loudly, Will
the women please be quiet! whereupon the talking would die
down, but only for a few minutes. Ten, at some point, the minis-
ter would again have to ask the women to be quiet, and he would
ofen add that if they wanted to know what was being said, they
should ask their husbands to explain it to them when they got
home. I know there are other explanations sometimes ofered for
this passage, some of them quite plausible; this is the one that has
struck me for many years as having the strongest claim to provide
a context for understanding what Paul is saying. Afer all, his cen-
tral concern in 1 Corinthians 14 is for order and decency in the
churchs worship.
What the passage cannot possibly mean is that women had no
part in leading public worship, speaking out loud of course as they
did so. Tis is the positive point that is proved at once by the other
relevant Corinthian passage, 1 Corinthians 11:211, since there
Paul gives instructions for how women are to be dressed while
engaging in such activities, instructions which obviously wouldnt
be necessary if they had been silent in church all the time. But that
is the one thing we can be sure of. In this passage, almost every-
thing else seems to me remarkably difcult to nail down.
In Pauls day (as, in many ways, in ours), gender was marked by
hair and clothing styles. We can tell from statues, vase paintings,
and other artwork of the period how this worked out in practice.
Tere was social pressure to maintain appropriate distinctions. But
didnt Paul himself teach that there was no male and female, be-
cause you are all one in the Messiah (Gal. 3:28)? Perhaps, indeed,
8 Priscilla Papers Vol. 20, No. 4 Autumn 2006
that was one of the traditions that he had taught the Corinthian
church, who needed to know that Jew and Greek, slave and free,
male and female were all equally welcome and equally valued in
the renewed people of God. Perhaps that had actually created the
situation he is addressing here; perhaps some of the Corinthian
women had been taking him literally, so that when they prayed or
prophesied aloud in church meetings (which Paul assumes they
will do regularly; this tells us, as weve seen, something about how
to understand 14:3435) they had decided to remove their normal
headcovering, perhaps also unbraiding their hair, to show that in
the Messiah they were free from the normal social conventions by
which men and women were distinguished.
Tats a lot of perhapses. We can only guess at the dynam-
ics of the situationwhich is of course what historians always do
to some degree. Its just that here we are feeling our way in the
dark more than usual. But, perhaps to the Corinthians surprise,
Paul doesnt congratulate the women on this new expression of
freedom. Instead, he insists on maintaining gender diferentiation
during worship.
Another dimension to the problem may well be that in the
Corinth of his day the only women who appeared in public with-
out some kind of headcovering were prostitutes. Tis isnt sug-
gested directly here, but it may have been in the back of his mind.
If the watching world discovered that the Christians were hav-
ing meetings where women let their hair down in this fashion,
it could have the same efect on their reputation as it would in
the modern West if someone looked into a church and found the
women all wearing bikinis.
Te trouble is, of course, that Paul doesnt say exactly this, and
we run the risk of explaining him in terms that might (perhaps)
make sense to us while ignoring what he himself says. Its tempting
to do that, precisely because in todays western world we dont like
the implications of the diferentiation he maintains in verse 3: the
Messiah is the head of every man, a husband is the head of every
woman, and the head of the Messiah is God. Tis seems to place
man in a position of exactly that assumed superiority against which
women have rebelled, ofen using Galatians 3:28 as their battle cry.
But what does Paul mean by head? He uses it here sometimes
in a metaphorical sense, as in verse 3, and sometimes literally, as
when hes talking about what to do with actual human heads (vv.
47 and 10). Te word he uses can mean diferent things; and a
good case can be made that in verse 3 he is referring not to head-
ship in the sense of sovereignty, but to headship in the sense of
source, like the source or head of a river. In fact, in some of
the key passages where he explains what hes saying (vv. 8, 9, and
12a) he is referring explicitly to the creation story in Genesis 2,
where woman was made from the side of man.4
Te underlying point then seems to be that in worship it is
important for both men and women to honor God by being what
they are and not blurring the lines by pretending to be something
else. One of the unspoken clues to this passage may be Pauls as-
sumption that in worship the creation is being restored, or per-
haps that in worship we are anticipating its eventual restoration
(15:2728). God made humans male and female, and gave them
authority over the world.5 And if humans are to reclaim this au-
thority over the world, this will come about as they worship the
true God, as they pray and prophesy in his name, and are renewed
in his image, in being what they were made to be, in celebrating
the genders God has given them.
If this is Pauls meaning, the critical move he makes is to argue
that a man dishonors his head by covering it in worship and that
a woman dishonors hers by not covering it. He argues this mainly
from the basis that creation itself tends to give men shorter hair
and women longer (vv. 56, 1315); the fact that some cultures,
and some people, ofer apparent exceptions would probably not
have worried him. His main point is that in worship men should
follow the dress and hair codes which proclaim them to be male,
and women the codes which proclaim them to be female.
Why then does he say that a woman must have authority on
her head because of the angels (v. 10)? Tis is one of the most
puzzling verses in a puzzling passage, but there is help of sorts
in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In these writings we fnd the assumption
that when Gods people meet for worship, the angels are there too
(as many liturgies, and theologians, still afrm). Tis means that
the angels, being holy, must not be ofended by any appearance of
unholiness among the congregation. Paul may share the assump-
tion that the angels are worshipping along with the humans, or he
may be making a diferent point.
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Priscilla Papers Vol. 20, No. 4 Autumn 2006 9
When humans are renewed in the Messiah and raised from
the dead, they will be set in authority over the angels (6:3). In
worship, the church anticipates how things are going to be in that
new day. When a woman prays or prophesies (perhaps in the lan-
guage of angels, as in 13:1), she needs to be truly what she is, since
it is to male and female alike, in their mutual interdependence as
Gods image-bearing creatures, that
the world, including the angels, is to be
subject. Gods creation needs humans
to be fully, gloriously, and truly human,
which means fully and truly male and
female. Tis, and of course much else
besides, is to be glimpsed in worship.
Te Corinthians, then, may have
drawn the wrong conclusion from the
tradition that Paul had taught them. It seems that his main aim
was that the marks of diference between the sexes should not be
set aside in worshipat least perhaps. We face diferent issues, but
making sure that our worship is ordered appropriately, to honor
Gods creation and anticipate its fulfllment in the new creation, is
still a prioritythere is no perhaps about that.
When we apply this to the question of womens ministry, it
seems to me that we should certainly stress equality in the role of
women but should be very careful about implying sameness. We
need both men and women to be themselves in their ministries,
rather than for one to try to become a clone of the other.
1 Timothy 26
When people claim that the Bible enshrines patriarchal ideas and
attitudes, this passage, particularly verse 12, is ofen held up as
the prime example. Women mustnt be teachers, the verse seems
to say; they mustnt hold any authority over men; they must keep
silent. Tat, at least, is how many translations put it.
Tis is the main passage that people quote when they want to
suggest that the New Testament forbids the ordination of women.
I was once reading these verses in a church service and a woman
near the front exploded in anger, to the consternation of the rest of
the congregation (even though some agreed with her). Te whole
passage seems to be saying that women are second-class citizens
at every level. Tey arent even allowed to dress prettily. Tey are
the daughters of Eve, and she was the original troublemaker. Te
best thing for them to do is to get on and have children, and to
behave themselves and keep quiet.
When you look at comic strips, B grade movies, and Z
grade novels and poems, you pick up a standard view of how ev-
eryone imagines men and women behave. Men are macho, loud-
mouthed, arrogant thugs, always fghting and wanting their own
way. Women are simpering, empty-headed creatures, with noth-
ing to think about except clothes and jewelry. Tere are Chris-
tian versions of this, too: the men must make the decisions, run
the show, always be in the lead, telling everyone what to do; wom-
en must stay at home and bring up the children. If you start look-
ing for biblical support for caricatures like these, well, what about
Genesis 3? Adam would never have sinned if Eve hadnt given in
frst. Eve has her punishment, and its pain in childbearing (Gen.
3:16). You dont have to embrace every aspect of the womens lib-
eration movement to fnd that interpretation hard to swallow. Not
only does it stick in our throats as a way of treating half the human
race, but it also conficts with what weve seen in the New Testa-
ment passages weve already glanced at.
Te key to understanding the pres-
ent passage, then, is to recognize that
it is commanding that women, too,
should be allowed to study and learn,
and should not be restrained from do-
ing so (v. 11). Tey are to be in full
submission; this is ofen taken to
mean to the men, or to their hus-
bands, but it is equally likely that it
refers to their attitude, as learners, of submission to God or to the
gospelwhich of course would be the same attitude required of
male learners. Ten the crucial verse 12 need not be read as I do
not allow a woman to teach or hold authority over a manthe
translation which has caused so much difculty in recent years. It
can equally mean (and in context this makes much more sense):
I dont mean to imply that Im now setting up women as the new
authority over men in the same way that previously men held au-
thority over women. Why might Paul need to say this?
Tere are some signs in the letter that it was originally sent to
Timothy while he was in Ephesus. And one of the main things we
know about religion in Ephesus is that the primary religionthe
biggest temple, the most famous shrinewas a female-only cult.
Te Temple of Artemis (thats her Greek name; the Romans called
her Diana) was a massive structure which dominated the area;
and, as beftted worshippers of a female deity, the priests were all
women. Tey ruled the show and kept the men in their place.
Now if you were writing a letter to someone in a small, new
religious movement with a base in Ephesus, and wanted to say
that because of the gospel of Jesus the old ways of organizing male
and female roles had to be rethought from top to bottom, such
that the women were to be encouraged to study and learn and take
a leadership role, you might well want to avoid giving the wrong
impression. Was the apostle saying, people might wonder, that
women should be trained up so that Christianity would gradually
become a cult like that of Artemis, where women did the leading
and kept the men in line? Tat, it seems to me, is what verse 12 is
denying. Paul is saying, like Jesus in Luke 10, that women must
have the space and leisure to study and learn in their own way, not
in order that they may muscle in and take over the leadership as
in the Artemis cult, but rather so that men and women alike can
develop whatever gifs of learning, teaching, and leadership God
is giving them.
Whats the point of the other bits of the passage, then? Te frst
verse (8) is clear: the men must give themselves to devout prayer,
and must not follow the normal stereotypes of male behavior:
no anger or arguing. Ten verses 9 and 10 follow, making the same
point about the women. Tey must be set free from their stereo-
type, that of fussing all the time about hairdos, jewelry, and fancy
W
e must think and pray carefully about
where our own cultures, prejudices, and
angers are taking us, and make sure we conform,
not to any of the diferent stereotypes the world
ofers, but to the healing, liberating, humanizing
message of the gospel of Jesus.
10 Priscilla Papers Vol. 20, No. 4 Autumn 2006
clothesbut they must be set free, not in order that they can be
dowdy, unobtrusive little mice, but so that they can make a cre-
ative contribution to the wider society. Te phrase good works
in verse 10 sounds quite bland to us, but its one of the regular
ways people used to refer to the social obligation to spend time
and money on less fortunate people, to be benefactors of the town
through helping public works, the arts, and so on.
Why then does Paul fnish of with the explanation about Adam
and Eve? Remember that his basic point is to insist that women,
too, must be allowed to learn and study as Christians, and not
be kept in unlettered, uneducated boredom and drudgery. Under
these circumstances, the story of Adam and Eve makes the point
well: look what happened when Eve was deceived. Women need
to learn just as much as men do. Adam, afer all, sinned quite de-
liberately; he knew what he was doing, and that it was wrong, and
went ahead anyway. Te Old Testament is very stern about that
kind of action.
And what about the bit about childbirth? Paul doesnt see it
as a punishment. Rather, he ofers assurance that, though child-
birth is indeed difcult, painful, dangerous, and ofen the most
testing moment in a womans life, this is not a curse which must
be taken as a sign of Gods displeasure. Gods salvation is prom-
ised to all, women and men, who follow Jesus in faith, love, holi-
ness, and prudence. And that salvation is promised to those who
contribute to Gods creation through childbearing, just as it is to
everyone else. Becoming a mother is hard enough, God knows,
without pretending its somehow an evil thing. Lets read this text
as I believe it was intended, as a way of building up Gods church,
women and men alike. Whats more, just as Paul was concerned to
apply this in one particular situation, so we must think and pray
carefully about where our own cultures, prejudices, and angers are
taking us, and make sure we conform, not to any of the diferent
stereotypes the world ofers, but to the healing, liberating, human-
izing message of the gospel of Jesus.
How then would I translate the passage to bring all this out?
As follows:
8So this is what I want: the men should pray in every place,
lifing up holy hands, with no anger or disputing. 9In the same
way the women, too, should clothe themselves in an appro-
priate manner, modestly and sensibly. Tey should not go in
for elaborate hairstyles, or gold, or pearls, or expensive clothes;
10instead, as is appropriate for women who profess to be godly,
they should adorn themselves with good works. 11Tey must
be allowed to study undisturbed, in full submission to God.
12Im not saying that women should teach men, or try to dic-
tate to them; they should be lef undisturbed. 13Adam was cre-
ated frst, you see, and then Eve; 14and Adam was not deceived,
but the woman was deceived, and fell into trespass. 15She will,
however, be kept safe through the process of childbirth, if she
continues in faith, love, and holiness with prudence.

Conclusion
I have shown where I think the evidence points. I believe we have
seriously misread the New Testament passages addressed in this
essay. Tese misreadings are undoubtedly due to a combination
of assumptions, traditions, and all kinds of post-biblical and sub-
biblical attitudes that have crept in to Christianity. We need to
change our understanding of what the Bible says about how men
and women are to relate to one another within the church.
I do wonder sometimes if those who present radical chal-
lenges to Christianity have been all the more eager to sieze upon
misreadings of what the Bible says about women as an excuse
for claiming that Christianity in general is a wicked thing and
we ought to abandon it. Unfortunately, plenty of Christians have
given outsiders plenty of chances to draw those sorts of conclu-
sions. But perhaps in our generation we have an opportunity to
take a large step back in the right direction. I hope and pray that
the work of Christians for Biblical Equality may be used by God
in exactly that way.
Notes
1. Tis explanation is based on my commentary, Paul for Everyone:
1 Corinthians (London: SPCK; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003).
I havent encountered anything to change my mind in the few years since
I wrote it, though for an important contribution to our understanding of
the social context, see Bruce Winters Roman Wives, Roman Widows: Te
Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003).
2. I am not sure I agree with those who say this verse is a later and
non-Pauline interpolation. One of the fnest textual critics of our day,
Gordon Fee, has argued very strongly that it is, purely on the grounds
of the way the manuscript tradition unfolds. I urge you to examine his
arguments and make up your own minds. See Fees commentary on 1
Corinthians, Te First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Com-
mentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987).
3. See his article on this topic, Women in the New Testament: A
Middle Eastern Cultural View ANVIL, an Anglican Evangelical Jour-
nal for Teology and Mission 11 (1994): 7. Tis article is also available for
download at CBEs website: http://www.cbeinternational.org/new/pdf_
fles/free_articles/kebaileynt.pdf.
4. I suspect, in fact, that this is quite a diferent use of the idea of
headship from that in Ephesians 5, where it relates of course to husband
and wife, and where a diferent point is being made.
5. As Ben-Sirach 17:3 puts it, summarizing Genesis 1:2628 and echo-
ing Psalm 8:48 (Ben-Sirach was written around 200 b.c.).
6. I leave the question of who wrote 1 Timothy open. It difers from
the rest of Pauls writings more than any of the other letters, including
the other Pastorals and 2 Tessalonians. But that reason is not enough to
discount his authorship. Many of us write in diferent styles according to
occasion and audience, and though that doesnt remove all the questions,
it ought to contextualize them. What matters, and matters vitally in so
many debates, is of course what the passage says.
Once again I am drawing here on what I have said in my commentary
on this passage, Paul for Everyone: Te Pastoral Letters (London: SPCK;
Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003). Tis time I acknowledge the
help of another old friend, Christopher Bryan of the University of the South
at Sewanee, whose sensitive work on the classical context is as always very
stimulating. See for example, his Preface to Romans: Notes on the Epistle in
Its Literary and Cultural Setting (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).