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1 Timothy 2:13-15 Eve and Paul
Season 3 Episode 6
1 Timothy 2:13-15 How Eve and Paul were alike, by Bruce C. E. Fleming
The focus of this episode is: 1 Timothy 2:13-15 How Eve and Paul were alike
“What’s this Dad?” I asked picking up the flat and pointed piece of chipped stone. “That’s an arrowhead son,” he replied. “What’s it doing here, Dad?” “Ahh. That’s a great question!”
“What’s this doing here?” is what many ask when they come across the verses that are numbered as 1 Timothy 2:13-15. They ask, “Why do we find these words in this place?” One could say we have several figurative arrowheads to consider in these verses.
- Why does Paul here bring up the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve?
- Did they have something to do with the wayward women leaders Timothy was correcting in Ephesus? What?
- Where in the text does the reference to Eden end in these verses?
- Why does Paul bring up the birth of The Child in verse 15?
- And who are “they” at the end of verse 15b?
These questions can all be answered. We can answer them now because we have asked the right questions.
We can answer them because we have looked at the context and the main actions Paul is recommending in 1 Timothy 2:8 to 3:16. We can answer them because we are not off-the-track wandering in the weeds looking for the answers to the wrong questions, which I’m afraid so many have done.
Let’s look at the literary structure of the passage as Paul presented these ideas. As we do we see where verses 13-15 belong in the development of Paul’s thought. He has not written a linear progression of ideas in a 1, 2, 3 manner. He has written using a rainbow pattern of parallel ideas. The main idea is in the middle. On either side are ideas that echo and complete each other.
Because verse 9 has no verb and begins with “likewise” we have to start back in verse 8. Then come verses 9-15 which are Paul’s focused advice about correcting-in-order-to-restore-to-ministry the subgroup of wayward women overseers in Ephesus.
In verse 8 Paul gives a command to Timothy. He wishes for the wayward men overseers to preach and pray in public worship with holy hands (not tainted by sin) with sound doctrine, which is not a source of angry disputing.
In verses 9, 10 and 12, Paul gives a parallel command to Timothy. He wishes for the wayward women overseers to preach and pray in public worship with proper outward dress and behavior.
In verse 11 Paul makes use of this passage’s only imperative verb where he says, Let these women learn! as good students paying attention.
Then, Paul opens a parenthesis in verses 13-15a before he returns in 15b to advice that parallels his earlier advice. That advice concerned the formerly wayward women overseers Timothy was to retrain and restore to ministry. Verses 13-15a serve as a digression. In them Paul justifies the course of action he is recommending. He explains why he is prescribing such gentle correction for them.
Remember, with the wayward leaders Hymenaeus and Alexander back in 1 Timothy 1:20, Paul turned them over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. But with these women wayward overseers he is recommending a very different kind of teaching. They are not being handed over to Satan to be taught. They are to be allowed to learn and get retrained as good students from Timothy himself, or by Priscilla or by other faithful overseers in the church at Ephesus.
Here’s my paraphrase of verses 13-15a in the context of verses 2:11 to 3:1
11Let the women overseers who were wayward learn in quietness and with all studiousness. 12I am not permitting them to teach men in an incorrect way, but to be retrained in quietness.
13Why? For, God formed the two in the Garden, Adam and then Eve 14and Adam was a first-degree eater. He was not deceived but sinned on purpose. But Eve was deceived and as a second-degree sinner, to that degree, she became a transgressor.
15But she, Eve, would
Published on 4 years, 8 months ago