{"id":13149,"date":"2022-03-11T11:12:06","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T16:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/?p=13149"},"modified":"2022-03-11T11:12:06","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T16:12:06","slug":"1-tim-32-does-this-passage-preclude-female-eldership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/1-tim-32-does-this-passage-preclude-female-eldership\/","title":{"rendered":"1 Tim. 3:2 &#8211; Does this passage preclude female eldership?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Problem:<\/strong> Paul says that an elder should be \u201cthe husband of one wife\u201d (1 Tim. 3:2). How can a woman possibly be an elder, if this is the requirement?<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<strong>Solution:<\/strong> This qualification is not compelling elders to be married men. In fact, Paul himself was not married (1 Cor. 7:8), and yet, this didn\u2019t disqualify him as a leader. Instead, the \u201chusband of one wife\u201d (mias gunaikos andros) literally means a \u201cone-woman kind of man.\u201d[1] The expression refers to a lifestyle of sexual purity (cf. 1 Tim. 5:9).<\/p>\n<p>The Bible simply does not use gender neutral language. Earlier, Paul wrote, \u201cGod desires all men to be saved\u201d (1 Tim. 2:4). Of course, no one would think that Paul had just men in mind, when reading this verse. In Athens, Paul led a group of people to faith in Christ. Luke writes, \u201cSome men joined him and believed, among whom also [was] \u2026a woman named Damaris\u201d (Acts 17:34). Clearly, the term \u201cmen\u201d can include women.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, it\u2019s certainly possible that Paul didn\u2019t envision women elders. In his culture, it might not have been strategic to have women leaders, because they were looked down upon. However, this is different than saying that Paul was prohibiting women elders.<\/p>\n<p>[1] Thomas D. Lea and Hayne P. Griffin, 1, 2 Timothy, Titus, vol. 34, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman &amp; Holman Publishers, 1992), 109\u2013110.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>&#8220;A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; (1 Tim 3:2)&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Problem: Paul says that an elder should be \u201cthe husband of one wife\u201d (1 Tim. 3:2). How can a woman possibly be an elder, if this is the requirement?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[22,8,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-errors","category-bible-study","category-bible-teaching","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}