The Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy sounds alot like me after going through high school with a certain gal w/initials J.M.–he finds women annoying temptresses whose sensual nature will destroy his church, so he tells them to STFU.
woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15But women[a] will be saved[b] through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
Get a grip, man! Adam was right there, and he, of his own free will, ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. I mean, I dislike the clucking tongues of old biddies as much as the next man, but give women their due.
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Other than that, Timothy is okay, but it seems written by an old man who’s finally realized that his larger, philosophical epistles (Romans, Corinthians) are being ignored–he needs to give specific pastoral instructions, or else Christendom is going to fragment into a billion pieces (as it did, anyway).
Unlike some, I won’t dismiss Paul just because he doesn’t like/understand women. Women in his day were the center of most Pagan cults, particularly in Greece, and the rise of Christianity required wresting control from the holy feminine to the divine masculine. Furthermore, I doubt there would BE a Modern church without Paul; at the very least, Protestant Christianity wouldn’t exist. Likely, Christianity would’ve died along with the sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the diaspora of the “home” church. Paul recentered the church in Rome and Greece, and used the shipping lanes and good road system to spread the Gospel. By Constantine’s day, the empire was so infested with Christians that it was impossible to exterminate them.
Ultimately, what should be women’s role in the Church? I don’t have the answer, but I believe Paul’s blanket statement above stems more from the expediencies of his time than the realities of our own. Perhaps it’s heresy to say so, but I just can’t see excluding women from speaking in church, teaching her fellow Christians, or even preaching, if she feels the call.
:-) Good to actually have my mind in gear, once again.