Paul urges women to learn in quietness and submission, while in verse 12 he states that he doesn’t permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man. The infinitives “to teach” (didaskein) and “to have/exercise authority” (authentein) contrast what Paul doesn’t permit women to do with what he does want them to do: learn and be “in full submission.” Teaching, as we’ve seen, is the domain of elders who must be “able to teach” (3:2; cf. 5:17; Titus 1:9). The exercise of authority, likewise, is the domain of elders who “rule well” (5:17; cf. 3:4–5). “Quietness,” of course, doesn’t mean women must never speak in church, just that they should willingly submit to male teachers and elders in the church (cf. 1 Pet. 3:4). 

God’s Word calls qualified men to teach and pastor God’s flock. In discussions of this topic, 1 Timothy 2–3 are central to explaining why Paul did not permit a woman to teach or have authority in the church and why the pastoral office is grounded in creation and not culture. If anyone needs to see the most recent scholarship on the debate, the third edition of Women in the Church: An Interpretation and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9–15 is a good place to begin.
For today, I will provide a brief introduction to 1 Timothy 2–3, a passage that clearly affirms male eldership in the household of God.
Paul’s first letter to Timothy contains vital and abiding instructions for the church and its leadership. Paul writes to his apostolic delegate, Timothy, toward the end of Paul’s life and ministry in order to leave a legacy and pass on the pattern of church leadership to his foremost disciple. These instructions are not limited to first-century Ephesus (where Timothy was at the time) but abiding principles grounded in God’s creation order (Paul writes similar instructions to Titus, who is on the island of Crete).
The Church as God’s Household
Underlying Paul’s instructions is the metaphor of the church as God’s household. While in some of his other letters Paul uses the metaphor of a body with many members and Christ at the head, here (as well as in Titus) Paul conceives of the church in terms of an ancient household. It is well-attested historical fact that in both first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman households, the father (paterfamilias) was the head. Similarly, Paul stipulates that male elders be responsible for God’s household, the church.
In the ancient world, households consisted not only of the nuclear family (parents and children) but also included relatives (such as widows) and even household servants. The head of the household had the important task of caring for all the members of his extended household and of ensuring that their needs were met. Likewise, male elders were to care for the needs of all church members.
Proper Conduct in God’s Household (1 Tim. 3:14–15)
The most relevant instructions regarding church leadership in 1 Timothy are found in chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 opens with the words, “First of all, then, I urge that ….” (ESV). Here we have the beginning of a set of instructions Paul gives to Timothy for ordering the life of the church, particularly its leadership. The unit concludes with the words, “I am writing these things to you so that … you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:14–15).
So here we see that chapters 2–3 are built on the metaphor of the church as God’s household. We also see that Paul thought of these instructions as general directives on “how one ought to behave” in God’s household, which he solemnly calls “the church of the living God” and, in yet another metaphor, “a pillar and buttress of the truth.” For this reason we can be sure that the instructions on church leadership in chapters 2–3 contain abiding—rather than merely culturally relative—instructions for the church.
Male Elders (1 Tim. 3:1–7; 5:17)
In 1 Timothy 3:1, Paul introduces the “trustworthy saying” that, “if anyone aspires to the office of overseer (episkopē), he desires a noble task.” He stipulates that an overseer (episkopos) be “above reproach” and a faithful husband and adds several other qualifications (vv. 2–3). He adds an analogy between the natural and God’s spiritual household: “He must manage (proistēmi) his own household well … for if someone does not know how to manage (proistēmi) his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (3:4–5).
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In those hours on the cross, Jesus would perform the greatest act in human history, accomplishing salvation through the atonement that only He as the God-man could offer (1 Peter 2:24). Part of God’s redemptive plan was for Jesus to be humiliated, a humiliation that involved the nakedness that David predicted in Psalm 22:18. The redemption alluded to was fulfilled in the redemption accomplished.

Good teachers teach in three parts: they tell you what they’re going to teach you, teach it to you, and then remind you what they just taught you (and why it’s important). These three views of a topic—forward looking, in the present, and backward—are critical for mastering any subject. The Bible, with God as master-teacher, does the same thing. The Old Testament tells what redemption will look like when it comes. The Gospels tell what God did through Jesus Christ to accomplish redemption. And in the rest of the New Testament, God details the intricacies of the redemption already accomplished and how He applies it to the church. In this way, the Bible tells of redemption alluded to, redemption accomplished, and redemption applied.
Consider how this schema plays out in Psalm 22:18, wherein David writes, “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” Here we have a redemption allusion. How do we know? First, we don’t have any biblical evidence of lot-casting enemies taking David’s clothing. This could be just an example of poetic metaphor employed by David to describe a particularly difficult situation he experienced.
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As Adam represented humanity as a covenant head, so Christ will represent a renewed humanity as the New Covenant head. This helps us understand a very important aspect of justification, that in its essence it is properly a legal declaration and not an act of changing the individual. In other words, on the cross, Jesus, who had our sin imputed to him (2 Cor. 5:21), was not transformed into a sinner. No, when Paul says that God made him to be sin who knew no sin, he means that Jesus was accounted as (legally declared) a sinner. To use a philosophical term, ontologically Jesus was not a sinner. Ever. To use a theological term, Jesus was a scapegoat. Our sins were laid upon him.

Westminster divine, Anthony Burges, contended that “of all points of Divinity, there is none that with more profit and comfort we may labour in, then in that of Justification, which is stiled by some articulus stantis & cadentis ecclesiae, the Church stands or fals[sic], as the truth of this is asserted.”[1] The Biblical doctrine of Justification is indeed a foundational pillar within Christ’s church, a doctrine which, if misunderstood, could wreak havoc and certainly cause a church to fall.[2] In an earlier post I’ve examined the ways in which this doctrine has been misunderstood.[3] Where do we find this doctrine in Scripture? Well, as with all doctrines, but especially this one, we begin with God.[4]
God, who is Good and Holy, hates sin. Indeed, if we’re to take Psalm 5:5 at face value, He also hates the sinner. This is hard news for sinners like us. And though many may quibble about the tone in which such news is communicated, that hard news is a necessary piece of information to know and believe before ever hearing the good news of the Gospel. “God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day” (Psalm 7:11) William Plumer comments here on the immutable righteousness of God that “because the wicked are always wicked and because God is always holy, therefore his relation to them is ever one of opposition, of threatening, of anger.”[5] How could it be any different? As God Himself puts it, “I will not justify the wicked” (Exodus 23:7). The question that inevitably arises is the question which Job asked his friends, “how can a [sinful] man be in the right before God” (Job 9:2)?
As the Old Testament develops an interesting motif develops. The divine righteousness that must condemn me as a sinner is also the same divine righteousness I need for salvation. Hence, we can read in Psalm 31:1 where David asks of God, “Save me by your righteousness.” In other words, the righteousness of God is both judgmental, stemming from a heart of holy indignation (He must punish all sin and all sinners) but also salvific, stemming from a heart of mercy, grace, and love (He will yet save some of those sinners). In God’s simplicity then we see these twin truths: His righteousness is both a threat against sinners but at the same time the only hope for sinners.
This perplexing conundrum comes to a wonderful convergence in the prophetic writing of Isaiah where we read that because of Israel’s sin, God has judged his people and sent them into exile on account of His righteousness. But at the same time God can promise that “salvation and righteousness may [still] bear fruit” (Is. 45:8) and that His “righteousness draws near, [His] salvation has gone out”(Is. 51:5). Indeed, “Only in the Lord… are righteousness and strength; In the Lord all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory” (Is. 45:24-25). It’s clear that in Isaiah this justifying – which Isaiah understood as the salvific righteousness of God – is only accomplished in the coming Messiah. It is this Messiah – who is both from God and among men  – who will be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, and “by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my Servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5, 11). Isaiah is clear, what the Messiah accomplishes, he accomplished because of and on account of those he represents.[6]
It is this theology that Paul picks up in Romans, giving fuller expression to a doctrine of justification. It is worth quoting the key passage in full.
“The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.”
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