2:15Perhaps the best explanation of
this difficult verse is this. God promised women a life of fulfillment as
mothers in the home, provided they walk with the Lord, rather than as teachers
and leaders in the church.
“The
meaning of sozo [to save] in this passage is once again something like
‘spiritual health,’ a full and meaningful life. This fits the context quite
well. Paul has just excluded women from positions of teaching authority in the
church (1 Tim. 2:9-14). What then is their
primary destiny? They will find life through fulfilling their role as a mother
IF they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety. A salvation which
comes only to mothers who persist in faithful service is not the faith alone
salvation taught elsewhere.”[123]
I
believe this interpretation has fewer problems than the others. It balances
Paul’s argument in this section (vv. 8-15) and
stays on the subject rather than switching to a discussion of a subject farther
removed from the context. Some of these possible subjects are how women
experience eternal salvation, or how they experience physical deliverance when
giving birth, or how they experience spiritual deliverance from moral
corruption. Some interpreters have even suggested that Paul was alluding to the
saving effect of Jesus Christ’s birth.[124] Paul also may have wanted his female readers,
who seem to have been under the influence of feministic teaching, to value the
privilege of bearing and rearing children.[125]
One
significant problem with the view I prefer is this. If this is the true
interpretation, can a woman who does not bear children find fulfillment in
life? I believe Paul would have responded that certainly a single woman or a
married woman who is not a mother can find fulfillment as a woman of God.
However usually women find their greatest fulfillment as mothers. Perhaps we
underestimate home influence and overestimate pulpit influence (cf. 2 Tim. 1:5). An old saying goes, “The hand that
rocks the cradle rules the world.” I believe Paul was again assuming a typical
situation (cf. vv. 11-12): most women bear
children. Even though a woman may not be able to bear physical children she may
have spiritual children and so find great fulfillment (cf. 1:2; 5:10-11, 14). Of course every human being—male or female,
married or single—finds his or her greatest fulfillment in life through a
personal relationship with Jesus Christ.[126]: Meaning and Significance,” Trinity Journal
1NS:1 (Spring 1980):62-83; and Jack Buckley, “Paul, Women, and the Church: How
fifteen modern interpreters understand five key passages,” Eternity,
December 1980, pp. 30-35.
“Paul
employed the term ‘childbirth’ as a synecdoche for that part of the woman’s
work that describes the whole.”[127]
A
synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole or the
whole stands for a part.
Paul
balanced what women should not do with what they can do. In popular
presentations of what the Bible teaches about women’s ministries this balance
is frequently absent. After the presentation is over, women often leave feeling
that they can do either anything or nothing depending on the presentation. One
must be careful to maintain balance in the exposition of this subject, as Paul
did.
To
summarize, I believe Paul exhorted the males in the “household of God” (i.e.,
the local church, 3:15) to function as
mediators between Jesus Christ, humankind’s mediator with God, and His people.
They should do this by praying, teaching, and leading the church. The women
should concentrate on facilitating godliness in the church family as well as in
their homes by learning, by cultivating good works, and by living godly lives.
This is the hierarchical view of the passage. The egalitarian view is that
there is nothing in this passage that limits the role of women in the church.[128]: A Test Case,” Journal of the Evangelical
Theological Society 36:3 (September 1993):343-55, gave reasons he changed
from the hierarchical to the egalitarian view.
Women
who try to minister in traditionally male roles face difficulty because of
psychological factors involving themselves and those to whom they seek to
minister.[129]
123 Dillow, p. 126. Cf. Bailey, p. 357.
124 E.g., Knight, pp. 146-48.
125 Towner, The Letters . . ., p. 235; Winter,
pp. 109-12.
126 See Douglas J. Moo, “1 Timothy 2:11-15
127 Lea, p. 102.
128 See Alan Padgett, “Wealthy Women at Ephesus,”
Interpretation 41:1 (January 1987):19-31, for this view. Ronald W. Pierce,
“Evangelicals and Gender Roles in the 1990s: 1 Tim 2:8-15
129
See Andrew D. Lester, “Some Observations on the Psychological Effects of
Women in Ministry,” Review and Expositor 83:1 (Winter 1986):63-70.
Pastoral Epistles: An Introduction and
Commentary
(TNTC) by Donald Guthrie,
15.
From the particular allusion to Eve, Paul seems to pass to women in general, by
declaring that women will be kept safe
through childbirth, but the precise meaning of this is difficult to
determine.
1. One interpretation is
to understand the words as simply an encouragement to women in their natural
sphere. This certainly accords well with the Genesis story which pronounces on
Eve the doom that in sorrow she shall conceive, adding the assurance of safe
delivery if the conditions are observed. It is probable that the duty of
child-bearing is emphasized to offset the unnatural abstinence advocated by the
false teachers (cf. Jeremias).
2. An early church
father, Chrysostom, took the verb in its spiritual sense, but to avoid the
manifest absurdity of making the statement suggest that child-bearing is a
woman’s means of salvation, as if unmarried or childless women are ipso facto excluded, he understood the
word ‘child-bearing’ as equivalent to child-nurture, and supplied ‘children’ as
the subject of the verb ‘continue’. But this would make women’s salvation a
matter of good works of a particular kind, and it is inconceivable that Paul
meant this.
3. Another suggestion is
that the words should read as in the rv
‘she shall be saved by means of the child-bearing’ (i.e. the Messiah, see also rsv mg.). For if that were the writer’s
intention he could hardly have chosen a more obscure or ambiguous way of saying
it. If the birth of the Messiah was intended by the words ‘child-bearing’
it is strange that Paul did not add some further explanation. The Greek article
could be generic, referring to child-birth in general, rather than definitive,
referring to one particular instance. Nevertheless, if the whole passage is
concentrating on Eve, it is possible that there is here an allusion to the
promise of Genesis 3:15, to the promise of the one who would crush the
serpent’s head. If this were so, it would explain the reference to salvation in
this verse. This suggestion is attractive in spite of the obscurity involved.
4. Another proposal is
that the words should be taken to mean, ‘she shall be saved, even though she
must bear children’, that is to say, she shall be linked with man in salvation,
in spite of the penalty of her misdemeanour imposed on her. In that case the
statement would be a kind of apology about what has just been said about women
(cf. Scott). This view has the advantage of showing Christian women the way in
which the original curse on their race is mitigated by Christian salvation, but
it imposes an unnatural meaning on the Greek preposition dia (through).
It is difficult to reach
a conclusion, but the third suggestion is perhaps faced with less difficulties
than the others.
In this verse the verbs
change from the singular ‘she shall be saved’ (sōthesetai) to the plural if
they continue (meinōsin). niv gets over the difficulty by translating
the former as generic and therefore plural (women).
This means that the former part of the verse must be interpreted in the light
of the latter part. This would make good sense of the verse, but some other
interpretations have been given. Some suggest the plural refers to husband and
wife (cf. Brox) or that the writer is quoting a separate source (cf. Hanson).
But neither is convincing, for Paul is dealing here with the wife not the
husband, and the source suggestion seems an act of desperation. It is much more
likely that the plural refers to Eve and her successors.
There is a quartet of
Christian virtues which women are expected to develop—faith, love, and holiness with propriety. These terms suggest the
quality of Christian living expected from women. They imply a continuing state.
The preposition en (in) points to the woman’s sphere as
being pre-eminently in the fostering of these Christian graces. The inclusion
of holiness in the list demonstrates that such a quality is possible in the
married state, and gives no support to the view that the celibate life is
indispensable for the attainment of holiness as some sections of the church
have supposed.4[1]
Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament
Kenneth S. Wuest,
Verse fifteen is most
difficult of interpretation. We will look at the expression, “she shall be
saved.” The salvation spoken of here is not salvation in the ordinary sense of
the word, as when a sinner puts his faith in the Lord Jesus, and is saved from
sin and becomes a child of God. The woman spoken of here is a Christian, for
Paul speaks of her as continuing in
faith and love and holiness. These things could not be said of an unsaved
person. The Greek word “to save” (sōzō
(σωζω)), has a variety of uses. It is used in the n.t., of the healing of a sick person in
the sense that he is saved from illness and from death (Mark 5:34 “made whole,”
sōzō (σωζω)). It is used in the
sense of being saved from drowning in a shipwreck (Acts 27:20). Paul uses it in
relation to being saved from becoming entangled in false teaching (I Tim.
4:16). In our present verse (2:15), the word is used in the sense of being
saved from something other than from an unsaved condition. It should be clear,
that salvation in the latter sense can only be had through faith in the atoning
work of the Lord Jesus, never by good works, or by anything which the sinner
might do. What that something is which child-bearing saves the woman from is
made clear by the excellent note in Expositor’s
Greek Testament; “The penalty for transgression, so far as woman is
concerned, was expressed in the words, ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and
thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children’ (Gen 3:16). But just
as in the case of man, the world being as it is, the sentence has proved a
blessing, so it is in the case of woman. ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou
eat bread’ expresses man’s necessity, duty, privilege, dignity. If the necessity
of work be a stumbling block, man can ‘make it a stepping-stone’ (Browning, The Ring and the Book, The Pope, 413).
Nay, it is the only stepping-stone available to him. If St. Paul’s argument had
led him to emphasize the man’s part in the first transgression, he might have
said, ‘He shall be saved in his toil,’ his overcoming the obstacles of nature.
“So St. Paul, taking the
common-sense view that childbearing, rather than public teaching or the
direction of affairs, is woman’s primary function, duty, privilege, and
dignity, reminds Timothy and his readers that there was another aspect of the
story in Genesis besides that of the woman’s taking the initiative in
transgression: the pains of childbirth were her sentence, yet in undergoing
these, she finds her salvation. She shall
be saved in her childbearing (r.v.
m. nearly). That is her normal and natural duty; and in the discharge of our
normal and natural duties we all men and women alike, as far as our individual
efforts can contribute to it, ‘work out our own salvation.’ ”
To briefly state the
matter, the interpretation is as follows: Just as hard labor is the man’s
salvation in a set of circumstances and surroundings that without it, would
cause him to deteriorate instead of make progress in character, so the pains of
childbirth become the salvation of the woman, and in the same sense and for the
same purpose, that of enabling the woman to adjust herself in her circumstances
and surroundings so that she too will do the same.
As to the Greek exegesis
involved, we submit the following: The words “in childbearing” are the
translation of dia tēs teknogonias (δια της τεκνογονιας).
The preposition dia (δια)
which ordinarily has the force of “by means of” and denotes intermediate
agency, Expositors says, “here has hardly an instrumental force; it is rather
the dia (δια) of accompanying
circumstances, as in I Corinthians 3:15 (yet so as through fire).”
As to the plural pronoun
“they,” the same authority says, “The subject of ‘continue’ is usually taken to
be women; but inasmuch as St. Paul has been speaking of women in the marriage
relation, it seems better to understand the plural of the woman and her
husband.”
Translation. For
Adam first was molded, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman,
having been completely deceived, has fallen into transgression. Yet she shall
be saved in her childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness
accompanied by sobermindedness. [2]
Thru the Bible Commentary by J. Vernon McGee,
Notwithstanding
she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and
holiness with sobriety [1 Tim. 2:13–15].
It was the sin of Eve that brought sin
into the world. Now every time a woman bears a child, she brings a sinner into the world—that is all she
can bring into the world. But Mary brought the Lord Jesus, the Savior into the
world. So how are women saved? By childbearing—because Mary brought the Savior
into the world. Don’t ever say that woman brought sin into the world, unless
you are prepared to add that woman also brought the Savior into the world. My
friend, no man provided a Savior: a woman did. However, each individual
woman is saved by faith, the same as each man is saved by faith. She is to grow
in love and holiness just as a man is.[3]
2:15. This
is one of the most difficult verses of the New Testament to interpret. The
ambiguous words kept safe through
childbirth have given rise to several diverse interpretations: (a)
preserved (physically) through the difficult and dangerous process of
childbirth; (b) preserved (from insignificance) by means of her role in the
family; (c) saved through the ultimate childbirth of Jesus Christ the Savior
(an indirect reference to Gen. 3:15); and (d) kept from the corruption of
society by being at home raising children. The interpretation of the verse is
further clouded by the conditional clause at the end: if they, that is, mothers, continue
in faith, love, and holiness with propriety. Whatever one understands the
first part of the verse to be affirming, it is contingent on a woman’s
willingness to abide in these four virtues. Hence the second of the preceding
options seems most likely. A woman will find her greatest satisfaction and
meaning in life, not in seeking the male role, but in fulfilling God’s design
for her as wife and mother with all “faith, love, and holiness with propriety”
(i.e., self-restraint; cf. 1 Tim. 2:9).[4]
Enduring Word Commentary by
David Guzik
Nevertheless she will be saved in
childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.
a.
Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing:
Many people regard this as one of the most difficult passages in the whole Bible.
On the surface, it could be taken to mean that if a woman continues in faith,
love, and holiness, with self-control, that God will bless her with survival in
childbirth - which was no small promise in the ancient world.
i.
Yet this interpretation leaves many difficult questions. Is this an absolute
promise? What about godly women who have died in childbirth? What about sinful
women who have survived childbirth? Doesn't this seem like just a reward for
good works, and not according to God's grace and mercy?
b. Saved in childbearing if
they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self control: Some
approach this passage saying saved
refers to gaining eternal life. Yet this interpretation is even more difficult.
Are women saved eternally by giving birth to children - but only if they
continue with godly virtues? What about women who can't have children?
Are they denied salvation?
c. She will be saved in
childbearing: Some say
that Paul "Has mostly in mind that child-bearing, not public teaching, is
the peculiar function of woman, with a glory and dignity all its own."
(Robinson) The idea is that one should let the men teach in church and let the
women have the babies.
d. She will be saved in
childbearing: A better
way to approach this passage is based on the grammar in the original Greek
language. In the original, it says she will be saved in the childbirth.
This has the sense, "Even though women were deceived, and fell into
transgression starting with Eve, women can be saved by the Messiah - whom a
woman brought into the world."
i.
Probably, the idea here is that even though the "woman race" did
something bad in the garden by being deceived and falling into transgression,
the "woman race" also did something far greater, in being used by God
to bring the saving Messiah into the world.
ii.
The summary is this: Don't blame women for the fall of the human race; the
Bible doesn't. Instead, thank women for bringing the Messiah to us.
e. Faith, love, and holiness,
with self-control: Most of all, we should note these positives. They
are all qualities God wants to be evident in women, and that women have
effectively nurtured in their children through generations.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole
Bible
http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/bnb/view.cgi?bk=53&ch=2
Verse 15
Notwithstanding she shall be saved - The promise in this
verse is designed to alleviate the apparent severity of the remarks just made
about the condition of woman, and of the allusion to the painful facts of her
early history. What the apostle had just said would carry the mind back to the
period in which woman introduced sin into the world, and by an obvious and easy
association, to the sentence which had been passed on her in consequence of her
transgression, and to the burden of sorrows which she was doomed to bear. By
the remark in this verse, however, Paul shows that it was not his intention to
overwhelm her with anguish. He did not design to harrow up her feelings by an
unkind allusion to a melancholy fact in her history. It was necessary for him
to state, and for her to know, that her place was secondary and subordinate,
and he wished this truth ever to be kept in memory among Christians. It was not
unkind or improper also to state the reasons for this opinion, and to show that
her own history had demonstrated that she was not designed for headship.
But she was not to be regarded as degraded and abandoned.
She was not to be overwhelmed by the recollection of what “the mother of all
living” had done. There were consolations in her case. There was a special
divine interposition which she might look for, evincing tender care on the part
of God in those deep sorrows which had come upon her in consequence of her
transgression; and instead of being crushed and broken-hearted on account of
her condition, she should remember that the everlasting arms of God would
sustain her in her condition of sorrow and pain. Paul, then, would speak to her
the language of consolation, and while he would have her occupy her proper
place, he would have her feel that “God was her Friend.” In regard to the
nature of the consolation referred to here, there has been a considerable
variety of opinion. Some have held, that by the expression “she shall be saved
in child-bearing,” the apostle designs to include all the duties of the
maternal relation, meaning that she should be saved through the faithful
performance of her duties as a mother.
Robinson, Lexicon. Rosenmuller regards the words rendered
“child-bearing” ( τεκνογονία teknogonia), as synonymous with education, and
supposes that the meaning is, that a woman, by the proper training of her
children, can obtain salvation as well as her husband, and that her appropriate
duty is not public teaching, but the training of her family. Wetstein supposes
that it means “she shall be saved from the arts of impostors, and from the
luxury and vice of the age, if, instead of wandering about, she remains at
home, cultivates modesty, is subject to her husband, and engages carefully in
the training of her children.” This sense agrees well with the connection.
Calvin supposes that the apostle designs to console the woman by the assurance
that, if she bears the trials of her condition of sorrow with a proper spirit,
abiding in faith and holiness, she will be saved. She is not to regard herself
as cut off from the hope of heaven. Doddridge, Macknight, Clarke, and others
suppose that it refers to the promise in Genesis 3:15, and means that the woman shall be saved
through, or by means of bearing a child, to wit, the Messiah; and that the
apostle means to sustain the woman in her sorrows, and in her state of
subordination and inferiority, by referring to the honor which has been put
upon her by the fact that a woman gave birth to the Messiah. It is supposed
also that he means to say that special honor is thus conferred on her over the
man, inasmuch as the Messiah had no human father. Doddridge. The objections to
this interpretation, however, though it is sustained by most respectable names,
seem to me to be insuperable. They are such as these:
(1) The interpretation is too refined and abstruse. It is
not that which is obvious. It depends for its point on the fact that the
Messiah had no human father, and in the apostle had intended to refer to that,
and to build an argument on it it may be doubted whether he would have done it
in so obscure a manner. But it may reasonably be questioned whether he would
have made that fact a point on which his argument would turn. There would be a
species of refinement about such an argument, such as we should not look for in
the writings of Paul.
(2) it is not the obvious meaning of the word
“child-bearing.” There is nothing in the word which requires that it should
have any reference to the birth of the Messiah. The word is of a general
character, and properly refers to child-hearing in general.
(3) it is not true that woman would be “saved” merely by
having given birth to the Messiah. She will be saved, as man will be, as a
consequence of his having been born; but there is no evidence that the mere
fact that woman gave birth to him, and that he had no human father, did
anything to save Mary herself, or any one else of her sex. If, therefore, the
word refers to the “bearing” of the Messiah, or to the fact that he was born,
it would be no more proper to say that this was connected with the salvation of
woman than that of man. The true meaning, it seems to me, has been suggested by
Calvin, and may be seen by the following remarks:
(1) The apostle designed to comfort woman, or to alleviate
the sadness of the picture which he had drawn respecting her condition.
(2) he had referred, incidentally, as a proof of the
subordinate character of her station, to the first apostasy. This naturally
suggested the sentence which was passed on her, and the condition of sorrow to
which she was doomed, particularly in child-birth. That was the standing
demonstration of her guilt; that the condition in which she suffered most; that
the situation in which she was in greatest peril.
(3) Paul assures her, therefore, that though she must thus
suffer, yet that she ought not to regard herself in her deep sorrows and
dangers, though on account of sin, as necessarily under the divine displeasure,
or as excluded from the hope of heaven. The way of salvation was open to her as
well as to men, and was to be entered in the same manner. If she had faith and
holiness, even in her condition of sorrow brought on by guilt, she might as
well hope for eternal life as man. The object of the apostle seems to be to
guard against a possible construction which might be put on his words, that he
did not regard the woman as in circumstances as favorable for salvation as
those of man, or as if he thought that salvation for her was more difficult, or
perhaps that she could not be saved at all. The general sentiments of the Jews
in regard to the salvation of the female sex, and their exclusion from the
religious privileges which men enjoy; the views of the Muslims in reference to
the inferiority of the sex; and the prevalent feelings in the pagan world,
degrading the sex and making their condition, in regard to salvation, far
inferior to that of man, show the propriety of what the apostle here says, and
the fitness that he should so guard himself that his language could not
possibly be construed so as to give countenance to such a sentiment.
According to the interpretation of the passage here
proposed, the apostle does not mean to teach that a Christian female would be
certainly saved from death in child-birth - for this would not be true, and the
proper construction of the passage does not require us to understand him as
affirming this. Religion is not designed to make any immediate and direct
change in the laws of our physical being. It does not of itself guard us from
the pestilence; it does not arrest the progress of disease; it does not save us
from death; and, as a matter of fact, woman, by the highest degree of piety, is
not necessarily saved from the perils of that condition to which she has been
subjected in consequence of the apostasy. The apostle means to show this - that
in all her pain and sorrow; amidst all the evidence of apostasy, and all that
reminds her that she was “first” in the transgression, she may look up to God as
her Friend and strength, and may hope for acceptance and salvation.
If they continue - If woman continues - it being not
uncommon to change the singular form to the plural, especially if the subject
spoken of have the character of a noun of multitude. Many have understood this
of children, as teaching that if the mother were faithful, so that her children
continued in faith, she would be saved. But this is not a necessary or probable
interpretation. The apostle says nothing of children, and it is not reasonable
to suppose that he would make the prospect of her salvation depend on their
being pious. This would be to add a hard condition of salvation, and one
nowhere else suggested in the New Testament. The object of the apostle
evidently is, to show that woman must continue in the faithful service of God
if she would be saved - a doctrine everywhere insisted on in the New Testament
in reference to all persons. She must not imitate the example of the mother of
mankind, but she must faithfully yield obedience to the laws of God until
death.
Faith - Faith in the Redeemer and in divine truth, or a life
of fidelity in the service of God.
Charity - Love to all; compare notes on 1 Timothy 2:9. In such a life, woman may look to a world
where she will be forever free from all the sadnesses and sorrows of her
condition here; where, by unequalled pain, she will be no more reminded of the
time when.
- “Her rash hand in evil hour.
Forth reaching to the fruit, she
pluck‘d, she.
Ate;”
And when before the throne she shall be admitted to full
equality with all the redeemed of the Lord. Religion meets all the sadnesses of
her condition here; pours consolation into the cup of her many woes; speaks
kindly to her in her distresses; utters the language of forgiveness to her
heart when crushed with the remembrance of sin - for “she loves much” Luke 7:37-48; and conducts her to immortal glory in that
world where all sorrow shall be unknown.
rv Revised Version,
1884.
rsv Revised Standard
Version: Old Testament, 1952; New Testament,21971.
niv New International
Version, 1973, 1978, 1984.
4 For a careful survey of 1 Tim. 2:8–15 as it affects
the role of women, cf. M. J. Evans, Woman
in the Bible (Exeter, 1983), pp. 100–107.
[1]
Donald Guthrie, Pastoral Epistles: An
Introduction and Commentary, vol. 14, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990), 92–94.
[2]
Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuest’s Word Studies
from the Greek New Testament: For the English Reader (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1997), 1 Ti 2:13.
[3]
J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible
Commentary: The Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy/Titus/Philemon), electronic ed.,
vol. 50 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991), 45–46.
[4]
A. Duane Litfin, “1 Timothy,” in The
Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F.
Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 736.
