1 Timothy 2:15

[HAZARD]

Okay, now this is where I'm getting confused, because I always thought that chapter 1 was a precursor to chapter 2.....at least, as far as the account of man's creation is concerned.

In chapter 2, it clearly indicates that God created Adam (vs. 7) and commanded him not to eat of the tree (vs. 16, 17) before he created woman (vs 22)

Chapter one is a bird's eye view of the entire creation process. Chapter 2 goes back to the exact details of how mankind was created and looks at the full details not just the bird's eye view. The first command of God was after Adam was created. However God never says his commands only once. God is so interested in making sure that we do not sin that he makes sure that we understand his commands and for this he gives a second or third witness. Paul tells us that repetition is for our safety. After Eve is created God tells her what she cannot eat and he tells her that she must not even touch the fruit. This is Eve's testimony and I know of no good reason to disbelieve her testimony. Then if we go back to chapter one when Adam and Eve had both been created, God repeats what they can eat and he does so in such a way that encompasses the prohibition. He tells them that they eat every plant that yields seed and every fruit that yields seed. This command eliminates the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because it must not have had fruit that yields seeds otherwise God made a big mistake by telling them that they could eat from every tree except those trees which produce fruit without seeds.

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"God tells her what she cannot eat and he tells her that she must not even touch the fruit"

.

This is not so. No where in Scripture did God say to Eve, or even Adam you must not touch the fruit. It was Eve who said in Genisis 3:3, "God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, NEITHER SHALL YE TOUCH IT, lest ye die." This was the first lie spoken by human beings. God never ever commanded that the fruit could not be touched, or even looked at, only that it was not to be eaten.

[Guest Biblicist]

The reason sin is passed down through man is because man, Adam, was not decieved, he outright disobeyed God.

Theory. Scripture does not say that. It does not say that sin is passed down through males for any reason. It does not even say that sin was passed down through Adam. It does say that through one human humanity has been ushered into sin. I read that to mean that Adam being the only other human being alive at that time and being the only one left who had not sinned, when he sinned he ushered the whole of humanity into sin. If the man and been deceived and ate of the fruit first and the woman and eaten out of deliberate sin, then she would have been the one who ushered the whole human race into sin. I'm not sure that it matters whether his sin was deliberate or from deception, but it may add to the culmination. I do think it is worse that the man deliberately chose to disobey rather than being tricked into it. But no matter they both sinned and because they both sinned all of their seed was affected.

Clearly, God held Adam to some sort of responsiblility for his wife, thus the role of spiritual advisor.

Theory. No such indication in Scripture. He was never given any kind of "role" over his wife in any fashion. They were to exercise guardianship dominion over the earth together, not over each other.

How did Eve know that they were not to touch the tree, God did not tell her?

We do not know that. It simply isn't recorded where she got that. God could have told her that, or Adam could have told her that.

Adam told her because God expected Adam to be Eve's spiritual advisor.

Conjecture and theorizing. No proof.

It is obvious that Adam shared this information with her since the Serpent questioned her and she was able to answer knowlegeably.

It is not obvious. It is not written. Assumptions are not proof. All their conversations with God and each other are not recorded. We cannot build doctrines from assumptions.

It's nice to know I can count on these sort of responses about the roles of husband and wife in here.

Scripture does in fact say that sin passed from throug the man, First Adam. Christ, the second Adam, succeeded where the First Adam failed. To perfectly obey God. (Romans 5:12 & 19; 1 Cor. 15:21; 1 Timothy 2:12-14) Why was Jesus Christ born of a woman only, not man?

Scripture does in fact tell us that husbands and wives have specific roles within the marriage relationship. Just as God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit have specific roles within their relationship. (Ephesians 5:22- & 24; Colossians 3:18)

If God had told Eve not to eat of the tree. . . It would say that. Notice how it specifically tells us that God told Adam. Naturally it's speculation that God allowed Adam to "bring his wife up to speed" about the "rules". When it tells us that God spoke to Adam and Eve together it says "And God said to them." Adam was not a mute idiot letting God and woman speak for him, my friends. He was the smartest man on earth. In perfect union with God, and his wife, before the fall.

Of course Eve said "God said", God was the one who gave the command. It would have been sinful for her to say, "Adam said." Adam did not make the commandment.

It cracks me up when people equate Man's responsibility to woman as dominion. It is clear, throughout scripture that Man has a responsibility to God for his family. Man's relationship to his wife is equal to the relationship a Pastor shares with his congregation. The reason it's so easy to deny this is because Man does not want that responsibility.

My point is that roles within the marriage relationship were formed BEFORE the fall of man and are not a result of sin they are only twisted and distorted because of sin. God is a God of order. There will always be a need for roles within the family, church and community, because that is the way He designed it. Without those roles we have chaos, plain and simple, as we can clearly see simply by looking at the American family.

[Neopatriarch]

Paul has stopped the teaching of one of the deceived teachers . . .

Here I understand you to be referring to this verse:

12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.

. . . and her situation is then compared to that of Adam and Eve.

And then here you are referring to these verses:

13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

Now when you claim that Paul has stopped the teaching of one of the deceived teachers do you mean to say that there was a particular woman Paul was singling out for his proscription? The indefinite article seems to indicate that it could be any woman. Paul is stating a general principle and applying it to a specific situation.

Eve too had been deceived and fell into sin. Paul then speaks about the salvation of the deceived teacher that he has just stopped from teaching. He said that "she" will be saved through the childbearing (the original Greek is a noun not a verb and it has the definite article) if "they" (the deceived Ephesian woman and her husband whom she has been influencing) continue "in faith and love and holiness with self-control." Although everyone who has salvation will be saved by "the" childbearing (the Messiah), those who have become deceived through believing and/or teaching false doctrine will be saved in the same way that this deceived woman will be saved.

Everyone who is saved is saved through the Messiah. To claim that the 'deceived woman' is saved in the same way everyone else is saved makes a moot point.

But teknogonia is probably not referring to the Messiah.

From http://net.bible.org/search.php?search=chi...g&in=notes:

. . . the term τεκνογονία (teknogonia) refers to the process of childbirth rather than the product. And since it is the person of the Messiah (the product of the birth) that saves us, the term is unlikely to be used in the sense given it by those who hold this view.

They must continue in the true faith, with love for God, holiness and self-control to stay away from false doctrine. This is how the deceived Ephesian woman will be saved. This is the context that verse 15 was written in. Chapter 1 reminds Timothy that he was left behind in Ephesus to stop the false teaching and the false teachers. After "a woman" is stopped from teaching and influencing "a man" . . .

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Do you understand this to mean that some specific wife in the church should not teach her husband false doctrine or is it just some specific woman who is teaching some specific man?

Really, no deceived teacher should be permitted to teach false doctrine whatever the gender. And no wife should be permitted to teach her husband false doctrine. Nor should husbands teach their wives false doctrine. False doctrine should not be taught. What are you saying that Paul is saying? Is Paul singling out someone's wife in the congregation and saying, "You! You should not be teaching your husband false doctrine." ?

. . . the reason is given as another couple where the woman was deceived and the man who wasn't deceived followed his wife in sinning. Adam was not deceived yet he did not correct his wife even though he knew that the serpent was not telling the truth. He was not deceived yet he ate the fruit with his eyes wide open to the truth and in so doing he deliberately sinned. This is the context that verse 15 is written in. It is completely out of context for Paul to question all women's salvation. However it is not out of context to bring up the question about the salvation of a deceived teacher teaching false doctrine.

You mean Paul is questioning the salvation of the deceived woman teacher and not deceived teachers in general, right?

Paul said that she will be saved if... She won't be saved if she continues in the path of false doctrine. She must stop teaching error and she must be willing to be quiet and learn (1 Timothy 2:11). She is to receive instruction in the truth and if she learns the truth, the water of the word will wash away the lies of false doctrine. Paul is confident that if she follows this path, then she will experience the salvation brought by the Messiah who was brought through the line of the very first deceived woman. Although Satan's plan was to deceive the woman and through her to cause the destruction of mankind, God's sovereignty turned the tables on the enemy. God used the woman because she did not sin through rebellion . . .

Sin is rebellion.

[Neopatriarch]

Nowhere does man's headship ever connected to rulership.

I'm at the point in the comp-egal debate where I have to conclude that claims like this incur the burden of proof. And it doesn't matter that the claim is a negative one since Immanuel Kant showed in his Critique of Pure Reason that negative synthetic statement do indeed incur the burden of proof.

[OopsMartin]

Nowhere does man's headship ever connected to rulership.

I'm at the point in the comp-egal debate where I have to conclude that claims like this incur the burden of proof. And it doesn't matter that the claim is a negative one since Immanuel Kant showed in his Critique of Pure Reason that negative synthetic statement do indeed incur the burden of proof.

The burden of proof lies with the one who says there is a connection. The only time a negative needs to be proven is when there is a stated negative as when God tells us NOT to do something such as in Matt. 20.

But when someone says something to the effect of, "you say there is a cow in the pasture and I've looked all over the pasture and have not found one cow", then it is up to the person who claims the cow is there to point out the cow to the one who is unable to find it.

[Neopatriarch]

Nowhere does man's headship ever connected to rulership.

I'm at the point in the comp-egal debate where I have to conclude that claims like this incur the burden of proof. And it doesn't matter that the claim is a negative one since Immanuel Kant showed in his Critique of Pure Reason that negative synthetic statement do indeed incur the burden of proof.

The burden of proof lies with the one who says there is a connection. The only time a negative needs to be proven is when there is a stated negative as when God tells us NOT to do something such as in Matt. 20.

But when someone says something to the effect of, "you say there is a cow in the pasture and I've looked all over the pasture and have not found one cow", then it is up to the person who claims the cow is there to point out the cow to the one who is unable to find it.

When someone says something to the effect of: "There are no planets revolving around Alpha Ursae Minoris", then it is up to that person to support their claim with evidence. How do they know there are no planets revolving around Alpha Ursae Minoris? Have they been there? Do they have a really powerful telescope that can see that far? Perhaps they were visited by aliens from the planet. So you see it is not enough to make the bare assertion that there are no planets revolving around Alpha Ursae Minoris. That claim does not possess the greater balance of truth by default.

In my experience, egalitarians make negative synthetic claims like this so that they can commit the fallacy of shifting the burden of proof. If you can't prove that the bible connects headship to rulership, then they are not connected, right? Wrong! Of course, comps have to try to prove it because the burden of proof is (according to egals) theirs. And egals are more than happy to frame the debate in such a way that they can take the negative side of it and just be critical. Consequently, they spew forth negative claims like this one with careless abandon.

It seems to me that many issues are decided, perhaps rightly or perhaps wrongly, by determining who has the burden of proof. Go to an apologetics board and you can see what I mean. People avoid accepting the burden of proof like the plague. You don't want to be the unlucky chap who has to build a contructive argument and subject it to the criticism of your opponents.

Basically, the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim.

Now perhaps you'll say that you've searched the bible diligently from cover to cover and found nothing that teaches a man's headship is connected with rulership. Fine. That just means you've missed what the church has found and historically taught. It doesn't mean the teaching is not there. Besides, this board has been involved in such frequent discussions over women's roles that for someone to so glibly claim that there is no connection between male headship and rulership without offering any evidence or arguments in support of that claim is either naive, ignorant, or rudely dismissive. In the comp-egal debate, it's the equivalent of saying there is no connection between male headship and rulership 'because I say so'.

But maybe you're right. If I'm allowed to make negative claims without supporting them, then how about this:

Nowhere does the bible teach egalitarianism.

I have searched the bible from cover to cover and found no such teaching. Prove me wrong! I think that since this claim has the greater balance of truth by default. You're in trouble.

That said, I do believe the bible connects male headship and rulership. If I submit this claim in a discussion, I think I can reasonably be called on to support it just as I would have to support the claim that the bible nowhere teaches egalitarianism if I make that claim. Perhaps I could cite verses that contradict egalitarianism or appeal to expert opinion. Suffice it to say that giving evidential support for negative claims is not impossible.

-Neopatriarch

[inhistime]

"God tells her what she cannot eat and he tells her that she must not even touch the fruit"

.

This is not so. No where in Scripture did God say to Eve, or even Adam you must not touch the fruit. It was Eve who said in Genisis 3:3, "God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, NEITHER SHALL YE TOUCH IT, lest ye die." This was the first lie spoken by human beings. God never ever commanded that the fruit could not be touched, or even looked at, only that it was not to be eaten.

Actually you just disproved your own point. You said that nowhere in scripture did God say to Eve...and then you give the testimony of Eve that God said to her...

I would like to know how you can claim that Eve lied? Since you have made this claim, please show the scripture that says that Eve lied? It is a very serious thing to accuse someone of sin unless one has proof so please show your proof.

[inhistime]

Of course Eve said "God said", God was the one who gave the command. It would have been sinful for her to say, "Adam said." Adam did not make the commandment.

How would it have been sinful for Eve to say "Adam told me that we are not to eat from that fruit of that tree"? Eve then would have identified that Adam had been the messenger from God to her concerning the commandment. Yet if we believe scripture instead of conjecture, we will know who told Eve because Eve not only quoted God directly, but she gave further information that is never quoted by God to Adam. This gives us a wonderful backing to believe scripture that the truth is being spoken because "God has said". God added a warning to the one who was the most curious and who was tempted to touch.

[inhistime]

Neopatriarch said:

Now when you claim that Paul has stopped the teaching of one of the deceived teachers do you mean to say that there was a particular woman Paul was singling out for his proscription? The indefinite article seems to indicate that it could be any woman. Paul is stating a general principle and applying it to a specific situation.

It wouldn't make sense for this passage to be stopping all women from teaching as the context is clearly referencing deception. We know that not all women are deceived and not all women are easily deceived. So what is Paul's normal practice when it comes to those who are deceived? Well, we know that Paul has no problem in identifying those who are deceivers as he identifies two of them in chapter one of 1 Timothy. Hymenaeus and Alexander are identified by Paul but they are not the deceived but actual deceivers. In 2 Timothy 2:17 Hymenaeus is mentioned as one who teaches that the resurrection had already happened. But Paul never identifies the deceived by name. If you will research Paul's writings about error, he never once records the names of the deceived. Paul's hope was that the deceived could be reached with the truth and it would not be a good thing for their names to be forever linked with their deception once they are saved. No Paul is kind and gentle to the deceived. "A woman" would have been one of the deceived and not a deceiver because Paul says that she must learn. The deceivers were not open to learning except by being handed over to Satan "to learn not to blaspheme".

Paul several times mentions "a man" in a generic way when it is evident that he is not talking about generic man. In 2 Cor. 12:2 Paul said

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows) was caught up to the third heaven.

Now every man was caught up into the third heaven and most commentators believe the "a man" was Paul himself. Paul also named "a man" as living with his father's wife. Not every man was living with his father's wife so the "a man" was most certainly an individual person.

Everyone who is saved is saved through the Messiah. To claim that the 'deceived woman' is saved in the same way everyone else is saved makes a moot point.

What Paul is doing is comparing the deception of Eve to the deception of the deceived Ephesian woman and he is giving hope for her salvation just as God gave mercy to Eve. Paul then goes on not just to say that there are some things that she must do to be saved. These things are things that Paul has already referenced in chapter one regarding his prohibiting the deceived teachers from teaching error. Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:5 said:

Now the goal of the commandment is love out of a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith,

The goal of the prohibition is to produce love out of a pure heart, to bring about a good conscience and to have sincere faith.

But teknogonia is probably not referring to the Messiah.

. . . the term τεκνογονία (teknogonia) refers to the process of childbirth rather than the product. And since it is the person of the Messiah (the product of the birth) that saves us, the term is unlikely to be used in the sense given it by those who hold this view.

However what they fail to tell us is that the term is a noun not a verb. This is very easy to check out to see that it is so. Therefore it cannot be about the process of birth. It has to be the product since only the product is a noun. While I do respect the NET bible a lot, this is one place that they missed the boat. The fact that it is a noun is very well documented.

Do you understand this to mean that some specific wife in the church should not teach her husband false doctrine or is it just some specific woman who is teaching some specific man?

It is a specific woman who is teaching and influencing a specific man (her husband) in her error and their situation is exactly the same as what was happening with the first deceived woman. She too was not corrected by her husband and Paul is taking charge to make sure the error is being stopped.

What are you saying that Paul is saying? Is Paul singling out someone's wife in the congregation and saying, "You! You should not be teaching your husband false doctrine." ?

Absolutely. There was a serious situation in the church where the man (likely one of the leaders in the church as it had come to Paul's attention) was doing nothing about his wife's error and he was allowing her error to influence him in his place in the church. Perhaps that is why so many other false teachers were being allowed to run rampant because one of the men in the church who should have been stopping the false teachers had one of the false teachers living with him and he wasn't going to ruffle her feathers. The situation had come to Paul's attention and Paul took the bull by the horns and told Timothy that he was not going to allow the false teaching to continue. It is understandable how Timothy would have needed help on this one. Can you image telling another man's wife that she needs to stop teaching error when her husband who is in the church is allowing her to teach? Should another man be bold enough to challenge her when her husband has been listening silently to her and doing nothing to stop her error? Paul gives the command and Timothy can now take charge of the situation but Timothy can say that Paul is not allowing her to teach. It certainly would be a delicate situation to discipline someone else's wife, don't you think?

You mean Paul is questioning the salvation of the deceived woman teacher and not deceived teachers in general, right?

He is not so much questioning her salvation, but assuring Timothy that she will be saved if....

Sin is rebellion.

Actually, scripture says otherwise. God judges the heart and the bible says that Eve sinned through deception. In Hosea 6:7 Adam's sin is pointed out as high treason. The OT calls willful sin as sinning with a "high hand". It is like shaking a fist at God and defying him. In Romans 5:14 Paul says that sin has reigned in humankind even with those who had not sinned in the manner or likeness of Adam's sin. Sin is sin, but God judges differently between sin. Not all sin is counted as rebellion.

[inhistime]

Nowhere does man's headship ever connected to rulership.

I'm at the point in the comp-egal debate where I have to conclude that claims like this incur the burden of proof. And it doesn't matter that the claim is a negative one since Immanuel Kant showed in his Critique of Pure Reason that negative synthetic statement do indeed incur the burden of proof.

Then let me say it this way. Scripture shows that the head is the one who sacrifices himself for his wife. The head gives himself up for her. He is never told to rule her. He is never told to make her decisions for her. He is told to love her as himself and to sacrifice for her. The only new testament passage where the husband is said to have authority over his wife is also a passage where the wife has equal authority over her husband. 1 Cor. 7:4 Now please show me what scripture says that the husband has an authority over his wife that she does not also have over him?