“And I do not permit a woman … to have authority over a man … For Adam was formed first, then Eve.”
(1 Tim 2:12-13, NKJV)
From the previous teachings we saw that the phrase “to have authority over”, which occurs in the parts of Scripture quoted above, occurs only this once, and that in no way can it be taken as what the general Christian terms submission and covering denote. Surrounding this is alas an entire unscriptural dogma built around the relationship between men and women.
The Greek word which is used for submission in other places in Scripture, exousia, is unfortunately often translated as strength. (The more correct word with which strength should be translated, is dunamis. Compare, for example, in 1 Cor 15:24 where both words are used together, and translated correctly.)
The word authority (authentein) is borrowed from the world of Greek theatre (Scanzoni & Hardesty: All we’re meant to be) and is used in the context of a self-wielding power which leads to the murder of the self or of the family. Later it garnered the meanings of waywardness and arbitrariness, “to thrust oneself”. Catherine Kroeger writes about this extensively, pointing out how the term later got a sexual tint with Euripides, and with Theseus even a paedophilic and homosexual association.
In this light it is again clear that we are not allowed to simply build a theology around this word – it was specifically used in the case of women who had been elevated by Gnosticism to the position of mediators. Sexual practices as symbolic spiritual deeds in this period of the early church were a pressing problem.
Gnosticism also believed that the woman was created first, before Adam. Paul corrects this myth by explicitly stating that “Adam was formed first, then Eve.” And then he trumps the last Gnostic claim, that Eve had supposedly received secret knowledge (gnosis) from the snake, by categorically stating that it was Eve who had been deceived, not Adam. We should not read more into this than what it is trying to say.
Thus – we need to read this entire passage as an extended argument about a certain deception in the early church, and not as an eternally applicable spiritual guideline for the relationship between a man and his wife. This passage is not about the raising up of a gender-specific wall between men and women, but to desecrate the deception delineated earlier.
It does however force us to consider the notion of spiritual authority and the order of the relationship between a husband and wife between believers who are “heirs together of the grace of life” (1 Pet 3:7). In the seventies the worldwide teachings of Bop Mumfert got immense exposure, and slowly a theology was built which gave men the honoured positions within God’s order of creation. This led to the general deception that men are the kings, priests and prophets of their homes. In the next teaching we will specifically deal with this issue.
- Sela: Ponder how you understand 1 Cor 11:3.
- Read:Num10-12
- Examine how this has been fulfilled: Num 11:15 (Tip: Phil 1:23-24; Ezek 22:30; Isa 59:16; John 15:13).
- For a deeper understanding: Catherine Kroeger: Ancient heresies and a strange Greek verb (In: The Reformed Journal, March 1979).
