Women Teaching Men: What Does the Bible Actually Say?

 

In our recent series on Biblical manhood and womanhood (you can find the other articles here and here), we have been addressing the fact that it is crucial for us to strike a truly Biblical balance in our understanding of what constitutes as Biblical living for men and women. This is because we are plagued in our day by the feeling that we as Christians should be adhering to our man-made boxes and labels (egalitarian, complementarian, etc.) more than we do simply to the Word of God itself. This is not at all what we would say we are doing, of course, but it is the clear implication, nevertheless, when we are willing to ignore, throw out, or explain away whole passages of Scripture when they do not align with our man-made systems.

One such passage of Scripture where this perhaps happens the most is with the well-known passage of 1 Timothy 2:11-12, which says,

Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.

The egalitarian camp either ignores this passage altogether or else attempts to explain it away as being a merely cultural teaching (even though we see Paul make it clear in the context immediately following that cultural issues were not his reasoning behind what he said).

However, both the complementarian and patriarchal camps sometimes make a mistake in their interpretation, as well. They too often take this passage to mean that it is wrong for a woman to ever teach a man in any context (which can only be taken so far before it becomes a sin to even “teach” your husband what the weather is going to be like tomorrow or what you learned in your quiet time that morning).

I have personally seen men and women both take this false belief so far as to say that it is even wrong for men and women to discuss theology together on Facebook! This kind of practice of carrying things to ridiculous extremes is to be expected, however, when we are not faithful students to the entire Word of God. When we zero in on the verse or passage we like the most or which fits our box or label the best, all the while neglecting the whole canon of Scripture and failing to remember that Scripture interprets Scripture, we come up with some pretty wonky hermeneutics!

So, let’s turn to the Word of God in its entirety today to determine whether or not women can appropriately teach men (for the sake of time, we will be looking specifically to the question of what the Bible says regarding women teaching men on topics pertaining to theology). To answer this question, we will be going through a quick survey of both Old and New Testament Scriptures to grasp the Lord’s full teaching on this topic in their entirety. We will begin first by addressing a passage which correlates closely to 1 Timothy 2:11-12.

 

1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Corinthians 11

First Corinthians 14:34-36 is a common cross-reference to 1 Timothy 2:11-12, but is, again, oftentimes misinterpreted. It says this,

Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.

This passage has been taken to mean that women cannot and should not ever speak or teach in church in any capacity whatsoever. There are two problems with this, however. In order to make such a claim, we have to first be ignoring the context. The context immediately surrounding this passage in chapter 14 makes it clear that Paul was warning against there being loud outbursts, a lack of order, confusion, and misinterpretation of tongues in the church services.

Furthermore, this passage cannot be saying women must not be permitted to play any speaking role in the church at all, for in the larger context of this letter to the Corinthian church, we read in 1 Corinthians 11 that women were, in fact, praying and prophesying when the church was coming together. That’s a far cry from never uttering a word or never having a part to play at all!

 

Female Prophets

When we look to the Word in its entirety, we can clearly see that to claim that women are not to teach men at all is to be unfaithful to the plain teaching of the text itself. Take, for example, the many examples of godly prophetesses in both the Old and New Testaments.

In the Old Testament we have Miriam, who was a prophetess in song (see Exodus 15:20), Deborah who was a prophetess and judge in Israel (Judges 4:4 - Judges 5), and Joel writing about daughters prophesying as being a sign of the “Day of the Lord” and of the Spirit of the Lord descending on His people (Joel 2:28). Then we have a most interesting passage involving the prophetess Huldah (see 2 Kings 22:3-20 and 2 Chronicles 34:8-28).

I would love to include the full passage here, but I encourage you to read it on your own. For sake of time, I’ll paraphrase for you specifically what we read happened in these accounts. Basically, Hilkiah the High Priest found the Book of the Law and Shaphan, his scribe, read it before the King. The King asked these men to go “inquire of the Lord” for him and for all of Judah, so that they might better understand the words contained in the book as well as God’s future plans for Judah. Hilkiah and his men did so, traveling to see Huldah the prophetess. This woman, Huldah, not only clearly taught the men what was contained in the Book of the Law, but even went so far as to prophesy about the future and what God would do to Judah. God used this woman and spoke through her to the men. Interesting, isn’t it?

When we then turn to the New Testament, we see this office of female prophet continuing. First we see Anna in Luke 2:36-38, a prophetess who “gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem” (that would include men!). Then in Acts 2:17-18, we read of Joel’s prophesy coming true and men and women both having the Spirit of God descend upon them, which led to their prophesying. In Acts 21:8-9 we read of Philip the evangelist having four daughters who prophesied. First Corinthians 11:5 (as referenced above) refers to women praying and prophesying in the church services.

“Prophesying” refers to “foretelling future events” in the Kingdom of God, declaring truth “by divine revelation”, teaching, refuting, reproving, admonishing and comforting others with truth, and discharging the “prophetic office”. And clearly, both the Old and New Testaments show not only men, but women also, doing these very things.

 

The Women to Whom Christ Appeared

I’ve always loved the beautiful fact that Jesus appeared first to women when He arose from the dead. In a culture where the witness of a woman wasn’t worth a hill of beans, He chose to respect, honor, and love women so much that He lifted them up in a time when they were regularly pushed down. Matthew 28:1-8, Mark 16:1-11, Luke 24:1-12, and John 20:1-5 all make it clear that it was a group of women who first discovered that Jesus was alive and who then proceeded to go on and proclaim to the male disciples the truth and doctrine of the resurrection. Jesus chose to have women tell the men the good news, and I find that to be a beautiful thing, particularly in light of the culture of the time.

 

The Woman at the Well

John 4 is a beautiful passage where we so clearly see the heart of Christ for women, for outsiders, and for the hated foreigners of the time. After Jesus ministers to the heart of the woman at the well and reveals to her Who He is, we read in verses 28-30 that she then went out into the town and told the men about her interaction with Jesus, asking them if He might be the Christ. She taught these men about Jesus and what He had done! Verse 39 even goes so far as to say that, “many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.”

If this woman had been privy to some of the extreme and unBiblical conversations taking place on Facebook in which Christian men are claiming that women should never teach them about anything Bible-related, just think of the adverse consequences - these many Samaritans may never have come to Christ! Jesus never once rebuked this woman for teaching the men what He had done in her life, and neither should we.

 

Priscilla

The final woman we will look at today, Priscilla, is such a wonderful example for women in the church. We are first introduced to her in Acts 18:2, when Luke tells us that she and her husband Aquila were from Italy. Paul stayed with them for a time, ministering to others alongside them and also working in their tent-making business. In verse 24 we read that a fellow minister of the Lord, Apollos, came to Ephesus and began to preach in the synagogue. Though much of what he was teaching was correct and he was a fervent, eloquent man, he nevertheless was proclaiming some falsehoods in his gospel presentations. In verse 26 Priscilla arrives on the scene again and we read this:

“When Aquila and Priscilla heard him (Apollos), they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.”

Did you catch that? Both Aquila and Priscilla took this preacher and teacher of God aside and taught him what the full truth of God’s Word and the gospel actually was. This is a crystal clear case of a woman teaching God’s truth to a man, and Paul (the same one who penned 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14!) never once rebuked her for it. In fact, he seems to have thought very highly of both her and her husband, choosing to work and minister closely alongside them and commending them to others. Paul even refers to them in Romans 16:3 as being his “fellow workers in Christ Jesus”.

 

The Biblical View of Women Teaching Men

The bottom line is this: if we were to simply take 1 Timothy 2:11-12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-36 out of context, removing them from the full canon of Scripture and zeroing in on only those two passages, we could maybe come away with the false idea that it is wrong for women to teach men the Scriptures.

However, when we are faithful students of the Word, students who allow Scripture to interpret Scripture and who look to it in its entirety in order to form our beliefs regarding Biblical manhood and womanhood, then we must conclude from the passages we have looked at today that it is perfectly acceptable in God’s eyes for women to teach men the Word of God in various contexts.

In fact, the only instance I see in the Word where it would be wrong for a woman to teach a man would be for a woman to be the elder or senior pastor of a church (we can go into the reasoning behind that in a future article, but for now, suffice it to say that that is the actual context of the passage from 1 Timothy - church set-up and dynamics). Other than that, women have the ability and freedom to proclaim God’s truth to their brothers-in-Christ just as men have the ability and freedom to proclaim God’s truth to their sisters. As men and women, we are co-laborers together for the sake of the gospel. And that is a beautiful thing!

 

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If you enjoy studying the topic of Biblical womanhood, I invite you to band together with the other ladies who have gone through my free 7 day email course entitled Womanhood by God’s Design! You can sign up for the free course here.