Paul on a Shelf

My grandmother died when I was 17. She gave me one piece of advice regarding marriage -- marry someone tall. I did. He is very tall, and his height has its advantages. One of those is that he can reach items on the top shelves of our kitchen. When I try to put an item away on a top shelf, it usually falls off and hits me in the head.

I took a class several years ago in order to be able to teach the Bethel Bible Series. It was taught in our church by our associate pastor (at that time), Chuck Echols. Chuck told us that if a bible passage was difficult to interpret or was proving to be a stumbling block, to "put it on the shelf." Later, it could be taken down and studied again. If need be, it could be "put back on the shelf" for later reflection. The point wasn't to avoid troublesome Bible passages, but instead to avoid the possiblity of a Bible passage becoming a road block to our faith.

I do that. I put certain passages on the shelf for later study. Sometimes, they fall off the shelf and hit me in the head. It's annoying but inevitable. I'm going to pull one more passage out of 1 Timothy this week -- one that falls off the shelf from time to time, threatening me with a concussion.

1 Timothy 2:11-15: Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. (NRSV)

We don't talk about these verses very often in our church. When I was reading the material concerning 1 Timothy 5 in preparation for the lesson I'm teaching this Sunday (ironically, to both men and women), I skipped back a few weeks to see what the material said about these verses (Source: Adut Bible Studies Teacher book):

1. The author states that Paul was forbidding women to teach because they were falling victim to false teaching, which makes me wonder -- only the women were falling victim to false teaching? Not the men?
2. The author then states that women were attempting to gain superiority over men, which is why Paul stated that he did not allow them to have authority over men. Paul wasn't opposing women having equality with men, but to women being superior to men. Hmm. It doesn't sound that way to me. The author completely ignores the two sentences -- "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission." and "she is to keep silent." That doesn't sound like equality to me.
3. The author then goes on to say that the rest of the passage lifts up the "high calling of raising godly children." No argument there, except that isn't what Paul says. The author also says that this is not to be viewed as "women's work." I agree, but Paul doesn't say that either. He says that women will be saved through childbearing. I thought I was saved through the grace of God. What if I hadn't had children?

I want to take a look at it from a different perspective. Warning: I am going to tamper with the Bible in this paragraph. I haven't asked God if it is OK, but since I admit that what I'm typing here isn't Biblical, I hope it is OK. Don't just skim over this passage; I've changed it:

Let a man learn in silence with full submission. I permit no man to teach or to have authority over a woman; he is to keep silent. (verses removed) Yet he will be saved through the siring of children, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

It sounds ridiculous when it is written this way. I'm kind of wondering, though, if looking at the passage with the pronouns changed could lead a man to understand how resentful a woman could feel when she reads the original.

Wesley taught that we should use a quadrilateral to come to theological conclusions. Using this, in my experience, I know women who are talented with the gift of preaching or teaching. My reason tells me that God wouldn't give a woman a gift and then tell her it is wrong to use it. Tradition is sketchy on this one, although as Methodists we are celebrating 50 years of female ministers this year. It's scripture that's giving me fits here, but mainly because Jesus didn't seem to value women less than men.

One explanation I've found that kind of helps is that some Biblical scripture is meant to be timely --written for one particular time and context, and that other scripture is timeless -- applicable now as much as when it was written.

So I'm working my way through this. But I have a friend whose husband is a Southern Baptist minister. She is bright, professional, and a wonderful Christian. She doesn't speak in church, and only shares her teaching ability with children. This is the way she believes it should be, mainly because of passages like this one.

I need God to be tall, and take this one off the shelf for me, so it will quit bonking me in the head. Maybe he already has, and I'm the one who keeps gnawing on it for no reason. I wouldn't mind if someone would tackle this one head-on instead of with the platitudes that the author of the teacher book uses. But for tonight, I'm stretching up, and balancing it back up on the top shelf.

Moment of bragging: G found out today that he was chosen to be a part of the Middle school All-county Band. He said about 24-27 trumpets tried out, and he was chosen as 9th chair of the 15 available chairs. As he says, "Cool-e-o."

And while I was typing this entry, Marshall beat WVU in basketball. Apparently this is the first time we've beaten a top ten team since men wore leisure suits, students owed typewriters and children knew what "counter clock-wise" means. I'm cheering and shouting things in my head like "Go Herd!" And the BEST part is -- IT WAS WVU. YEA! "Cool-e-double O."