Two Views on Women in Ministry

There is no evidence in the Bible that the Father and Son mutually submit to one another.

We should also notice the programmatic nature of verse 3. God is the head of Christ, which signifies that God is the authority over the Christ. The Father commands and sends, and the Son obeys and goes. Even though the Son obeys the Father, he is equal in essence, dignity, and personhood with the Father. A difference in role does not signify a diff

When women pray and prophesy, they must adorn themselves properly, thereby indicating they are supportive of male leadership in the church. Paul encourages women to speak in the assembly, but he forbids them from functioning as pastors or from exercising a regular gift of teaching men.

Paul does not merely impose restrictions on women. He encourages women to pray and prophesy in church if they are properly adorned (v. 5). Complementarians who relegate such prayer and prophecy by women to private meetings fail to convince, because the distinction between public and private meetings of the church is a modern invention; in Paul’s da

A woman who is properly adorned signals her submissiveness to male headship. That woman was created to assist and help man is clear from the Pauline commentary in verses 7–9:

We can combine the above interpretation with the observation that the serpent took the initiative to tempt Eve rather than Adam, thereby subverting the pattern of male leadership.101 I argued in a previous essay that perhaps Paul is suggesting women are more prone to deceit than men, but this view has the disadvantage of suggesting an inherent defe

So even though Eve sinned first, sin is traced to Adam, pointing to male headship.

What, then, is the point of 1 Timothy 2:14? Let me acknowledge at the outset the difficulty of the verse. I believe the complementarian view stands on the basis of the clarity of verse 13, so that resolving the interpretation of verse 14 is not crucial for the passage as a whole.

deception should not be equated with stupidity. Paul is not saying Eve somehow lacked education or intelligence. He argues that she failed morally and was deceived by the serpent.