Thoughts on 1 Timothy 2-3

Today’s reading: Ezekiel 45; 1 Timothy 3-4

I know today’s reading is 1 Timothy 3-4, but 1 Timothy 2 and 3 both weigh in on questions of women’s role(s) in ministry, so I wanted to lump them together.

For a long time I went back and forth, not really sure where to land on the question of whether there should be different roles for men and women in the church, as some passages would seem to lean one way and others another. Over the past couple years though Mike Winger has done a Women in Ministry series on YouTube, going incredibly in depth into the topic, interacting with the Scriptures, as well as with the current leading scholarship, and I think he made a compelling case that really removed much of the ambiguity for me.

Spoiler alert if you’re going to go watch the series, but, at a high level, he ultimately lands on women being able to perform/hold any role or function in the church other than the office of elder.

Here is the link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ3iRMLYFlHuBtpJlwi7F5JYw3N5pKyLC

I highly suggest going and checking it out. It’s fascinating, incredibly informative, and also an important lesson in being careful about blindly trusting whatever someone says simply because they are a scholar or author. There are a lot of points, examples, and sources used by leading egalitarian scholars (those arguing there is no biblical distinction in roles between men and women) that are inaccurate, or non-historical, but have been propagated as simple facts. Much of these, as Mike points out in the series, are very likely well meaning and are instances of one person trusting that whatever another person is citing is accurate, but the cumulative effect is a lot of seeming ambiguity on a topic that does have some, but no where near as much as it seems reading these scholars.

To watch all of it is certainly a time investment (a little over 40 hours total), but it's been hugely helpful to my thinking on the topic, so I want to take the chance to pass it along when I can.