Women Teaching Men, Oh My!
A lot of people don’t like I Timothy 2:12-15 because it begins, “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” Of course, there’s a lot of discussion about whether this passage is referring to a woman teaching any man or just her husband. And we might also ask whether a woman should be teaching at all. Based on other passages, we know that this isn’t talking about women not teaching at all. In Titus 2, Paul instructs the older women to teach the younger women, so it is clear that women are to teach. The issue people find the most sticky has to do with who women aren’t to teach and just what we mean by teaching. At the very least, women aren’t to teach or usurp authority over their husbands, but does that mean that she can’t tell her husband anything for fear she might teach him something? That would be silly. Given the context, I think this passage has more to do with authoritative teaching within the church. It has a similar context...