An Analysis of I Timothy 2:12 and Its Implication on Women in Leadership Positions

INTRODUCTION

It is inconvertible that the periscope I Timothy 2:9-15 must be carefully considered to ascertain the significance of the biblical transition which will adequately direct its application and implication. Gestalt psychological science is in favor of the broader image to understand the specifics. What is the significance of I Timothy 2:12? An observation is that it is dependent upon one's apprehension there and then, and here and now. An of import inquiry is addressed in the last chapter of the textual matter Hermeneutics: Principles and Processes of Biblical Interpretation, which is "what are the deductions of that significance for us in a different clip and culture" (Virkler 1981, 211). It is incontrovertible that a clear apprehension of the textual matter in its historical scene is a complicated process.

The calamity of I Timothy 2:9-15 is that these verses, among others, are still used as supportive grounds to warrant modern-day biases against women. The chief concern of I Timothy is to antagonize the influence of Gnostic instructions which, among other things, taught dependance on cognition (not faith) as a manner for salvation. The accusals made by the writer are mainly centred on ''speaking'' and ''teaching''. Gnostic instruction affected both work force and women for we read of the biblical author's ailments about contention and grumbling among the work force (II Tim. 2:8) and about backsliding or renunciation among the women (I Tim. 5:14-15). In Gnostics, however, women were upheld and glorified as favoured instruments of revelation. The textual matter should therefore be read within this first-century Judaic civilization before one can understand the state of affairs in which Alice Alice Paul and Timothy worked.

WHAT WAS THE meaning OF THIS text FOR TIMOTHY?

Paul did not halt women from wearing jewellery or braided hair but rather cautioned them since they lived in a society that extravagantly displayed them. When he said that women should in soundlessness and full submission, he was offering them an astonishing opportunity. Evidently the women were especially susceptible to the false teaching, because they did not have got adequate Biblical cognition to recognize the truth. In addition, some of the women were apparently misusing their newfound Christian freedom by wearing inappropriate fabric (2:9). Alice Paul was telling Timothy not to set anyone (in this case, women) into a place of leading who was not yet maturate in the religion (see 5:22 and 3:6). The transition under consideration have caused many unjustly to see Alice Paul as a adult female hater. He talks kindly of women in letters. Generally, "his word to Christian women is to be conduct-conscious, not clothes-mad, and not to Godhead it over the man" (Alexander and Alexanders 1973, 619). The curious state of affairs that obtained at Ephesus, where the priestesses who worshipped Princess Diana were very corrupt inch their mode and worship made this advocate very necessary at that peculiar time.

The words ''quietness'' and ''silent'' in poetries 11 and 12 "are interlingual renditions of the word hesychia which could possibly mean. It is therefore apparent that the word soundless tin hardly be intended in an absolute sense. The purpose is rather "to necessitate that women be marked by restraint and a preparedness to expose the qualities of soundlessness and full submission" (Bruce 1979, 1477). It is seen as "an unfortunate translation, because it gives the feeling that believing women were never to open up their oral cavities in the assembly" (Wiersbe 1981, 36). In addition, Alice Paul himself admits that women publicly prayed and prophesied (I Corinthians 11:5). Apparently, however, the women in the Ephesian Church were abusing their newly acquired Christian freedom. Because these women were not converts, they did not yet have got the necessary experience, knowledge, or Christian adulthood to learn those who already had extended Scriptural education.

Some people see poetries 13 and 14 as an illustration of what was happening in the Ephesian Church. Just as Eve had been deceived in the Garden of Eden, so the false instructors were deceiving the women in the church. In other words, "this 1 all-important time when women taught adult male proved fatal" (The Interpreter''s Book 1955, 406). Furthermore, just as Adam was the first human created by God, so the work force in the Christian church at Ephesus should be the first to talk and teach, because they had more than training. Some people reason that this position emphasizes that Paul''s instructions here is not universal, but uses to Christian churches with similar problems. Other scholars, however, postulate that the functions Alice Paul points out are God''s designing for His created order ? Supreme Being established these functions to keep harmoniousness in both the household and the Christian church (Life Application Bible, 1991). In the penultimate verse, Alice Paul is not excusing Adam for his portion in the autumn (Genesis 3:6,7,17-19). On the contrary, in his missive to the Romans, Alice Paul topographic points the primary incrimination for humanity''s iniquitous nature on Adam (Romans 5:15:21). It must be accepted that poetry 15 is one of the most hard poetries in the New Testament to interpret. It may possibly be a mention to the birth of Jesus Of Nazareth since "the indeterminate mention is perhaps best explained by noting that the Grecian textual matter stated ''the'' childbearing" (Richards 1982, 718). Though there are respective ways to understand the phrase, ''being saved through child-bearing'' from the lessons learned through the trials of childbearing, women can develop qualities that learn them about love, entry and service. The promise in this poetry "is designed to relieve the evident badness of the comments just made" (Barnes 1962, 1137) screening that Alice Paul was not necessarily against women.

WHAT application SHOULD IT rich person FOR United States TODAY?

There is no uncertainty about the fact that the writer of I Timothy had imposed a prohibition on women to forbid them to learn or to have got authorization in the church. However, the chief inquiry is: was this just a local and temporal inhibition, or a cosmopolitan norm imposed under inspiration for all clip to come? We can deduce that it was only a impermanent and local prohibition from other considerations. Paul''s commended co-worker, Priscilla (together with her husband), taught Apollos, the great preacher man (Acts 18:24-26). In addition, Alice Paul frequently mentioned other women who held places of duty in the church. Five worked in the Christian church (Romans 16:1). Many, Tryphena and Tryphosa, were the Lord''s workers (Romans 16:6,12) as were Syntyche (Philippians 4:2). Alice Paul was very likely prohibiting the Ephesian women, not all women, from teaching. In Paul''s mention to women being silent, the word soundless shows an mental attitude of soundlessness and composure. In assessing the biblical mentions to women and men, wives and husbands,

Once we observe Alice Paul works within two distinct frameworks of reference: women and men; hubbies and
wives; and once we observe that in the Christian Christian church there is no differentiation between women and work force but a
clearly structured human human human relationship between wives and husbands; and once we observe that even the
clearly structured husband-wife relationship is transformed by God''s action in Christ; it would look that there is no biblical warrant for restriction upon the function of women in the church nor for male domination in the matrimony relationship (Mulholland 2003,17-18)

IMPLICATIONS FOR female Sunday school TEACHERS, hospital CHAPLAINS, seminary TEACHERS, curates AND MISSIONARIES

The Bible under consideration, I Timothy 2:12 "has been used in Christian churches through the centuries to forbid women''s spiritual leading and to take a firm stand that the lone permissible function for women is that of married woman and mother" (Newsom and Sharon 1992, 356). Some have got even stressed that "the apostle''s prohibition excepts women even from instruction Lord'S Day school classes" (Barker and Kohlenberger 1994, 897). This line of logical thinking is erroneous. The research worker subscribes to the position point that women must be given the chance to turn in their Christian life (just like men) and bucked up to exhibit their God-given talents as Lord'S Day school teachers, infirmary chaplains, seminary teachers, curates and missionaries. The present twenty-four hours Christian church is yet to play a resonant testimonial to the invaluable parts of women in the missionary post field. Alice Paul talks appreciatively of the fact that Timothy himself had been taught the right manner by his reverent female parent and grandma (II Tim. 1:5; 3:15). He also composes to Titus Flavius Vespasianus that the aged women are to develop the little (Tit. 2:3-4). Women have got always carried a very great duty for instruction little children in both place and Lord'S Day school. A rhetorical inquiry is 'and what could we have got done without them'. The parts of Babe Ruth Veltkamp (Missions Director and lector at Occident Africa Theological Seminary, Lagos) who began her missionary work in 1968; Sis. Dora Dumbuya of Jesus Of Nazareth is Godhead Ministries, Sierra Leone, Sis. Yarie Kabie, Shalom Ministry, to call just a few, cannot be overemphasized.

CONCLUSION

From the foregoing, it is sensible to reason thus this prohibition was neither cosmopolitan nor lasting but limited or restricted to a peculiar state of affairs in a church. Certainly, "not everything that was done in the Church of the New Testament is normative for the Church in all ages" (Layman''s Book Comment 1963, 75). I Timothy 2:12 is only one of respective New Testament positions on women. A adult female should not be disqualified from service in the Christian church on the footing of her sex. Are this not in consonant rhyme with Galatians 3:28? Probably if women had been able to exert in the Christian church the ministry that they see in Bible that women can exercise, then women today would have got establish satisfaction that come ups from the legitimate exert of their gifts in the work of God. Perhaps, The research worker of this paper wishings to submit that, if we make not cognize for certain whether they are right or wrong, "we ought to give the benefit of the uncertainty to those who claim that Supreme Being called them and who grounds the fruits of that phone call in their lives, rather than passing judgment on them" (Keener 1992, 113).

WORKS CITED
Alexander, D. and P. Alexander. 1973. The Lion Handbook to the Bible. Tring, Herts:Lion Publishing. Barnes, Albert. 1962. Barnes'' Notes on the New Testament. Thousand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel

Publications. Bruce, F.F. ed. 1979. The International Book Commentary. New York: Guideposts. The Interpreter''s Bible: The Holy Place Scriptures. 1955. New York: Abingdon Press. Keener, Craig S. 1992. Paul, women and wives: matrimony and women''s ministry in the letters of Paul.

Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers. Layman''s Book Commentary, vol. 23. Virginia: Toilet John Knox Press. Life Application Bible: New International Version. 1988. Wheaton, Illinois: William Tyndale Publishers. Mulholland, M. Robert. 2003. Women and men: wives and husbands. Lecture Notes. Occident Africa

Theological Seminary, Lagos. Newsom, Carol A. & Sharon H. Ringe. 1992. The Women''s Book Commentary. London: SPCK. The NIV Survey Bible. 1955. Thousand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publication House. Virkler, Henry A. 1981. Hermeneutics: Principles and procedures of Biblical interpretation. Thousand Rapids,

Michigan: Baker Book House. Wiersbe, Robert Penn Warren W. 1981. Be faithful: an expository survey of the Pastorale Epistles, I & Timothy and

Titus. Wheaton, Illinois: SP Publications. (c) Joseph Oliveer Warren Harding 2008