Women - 1 Timothy 2:9-15

2:9-10 - When Paul uses the word “men” in verse 8 to instruct the congregation to pray, I thought that it was just the all encompassing “man” meaning all people, and it still might mean that, but in verse 9 Paul starts addressing women specifically. Now what he says sounds pretty misogynistic, but I read something yesterday that was pretty interesting. When Paul wrote these letters, he was writing them to a specific person concerning a specific community at a specific time in the world’s history. The question was, when Paul wrote these letters, did he think that they were still going to be around 2,000 years later and regarded as scripture? My guess is that he did not expect his words to endure this long. If he had known that they would and that his teachings specifically would be used to oppress women throughout Christianity, would he have done anything differently. In other words, if Paul knew that he was writing not just to Timothy, but to the vast swaths of Christendom for the next 2,000 years what would he have said to clarify his positions? Looking at Paul’s writings from that perspective, we can deduce that when he makes statements that seem to fly in the face on not only Paul’s actions but that of the Savior, that we are missing some context in order to fully understand how the teaching applies in our lives. Paul seems to rip into women saying that they should “adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety.” This implies that the women have not been doing that, and in fact he goes on to say, “not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array.” Taking this statement at face value, we might be able to take a view that women’s appearances are the most important thing about them. Not once does Paul discuss what men wear and adorn themselves with, even though we know that men’s fashion can be just as expensive and gaudy. Knowing that appearances are important to both genders, it implies that women’s need to focus on their appearance is because that’s their main value in the church and society at large. Concerning the term “modesty” specifically, the article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com gives a long quote by Howard W. Hunter talking about “the girl who chooses to be modest chooses to be respected,” etc. It talks about immodesty detracting from her “loveliness” and how it will embarrass young men and they will be focused on her body instead of her personality. Now, by this point I would hope that those who know me at all would know that I absolutely have a problem with this perspective. It is not a girl’s job or a woman’s job to keep the thoughts of men clean. In fact, when talking about this very issue, the Savior said that if a man looks on a woman to lust after her, it is better that he should pluck out his own eye. The accountability of a man’s thoughts are on him and him alone, a woman should have the right to walk down the street naked in completely safety. It’s the flip side where the real hypocrisy is exposed. If I see a good-looking guy, is it his job to make sure that my thoughts are not distracted by his handsomeness? Of course not, and anyone in our society would gaff at the very implication, but for some reason it is important for women to have this responsibility. Why don’t we teach our men and boys to not look at people or women in particular as objects, that’s where the modesty issue comes into play here. The other part of this is the implication that if a girl dresses modestly, she will be respected and that she will be safe. I have been disrespected many many times while modestly dressed. There is an exhibit called “What I was wearing” and it’s the clothing that women were wearing at the time of their rape. Very few of the clothing items were revealing. This means that there is a rape problem regardless of what a woman (or man because men can be raped too) was wearing when it happened. Another aspect of the whole “modesty” conversation is that modesty isn’t about clothing at all. Clothing can be a part of it sure, but modesty is about humility, not drawing attention to yourself, and living a Christ-like life. Sure, immodesty can be flashy, expensive clothes, big jangly earrings and jewelry, but what is it about the clothes specifically that make them immodest? It is the bright colors? No, because there are lots of immodest clothes that are neutral in tone. Is it the revealing nature of the clothes? No, because many full-length clothing is immodest. It is the drawing away of attention from Christ and putting it on yourself. Why do we wear these things? Because we want people to look at us. Now, this is a very fine line between taking care of yourself and being immodest and I think that this is why we don’t have a specifically laid out commandment about what exact is modest and what is immodest. It’s like the Word of Wisdom and keeping the Sabbath day holy, there are a couple of hard and fast rules, but the rest we are supposed to work out personally with the Savior. I think the definition that I just came up with for immodesty is “anything that takes the focus off of the Savior and on to us.” So, by that definition, clothes are just a fraction of what goes into being modest. Swearing, yelling, laughing loudly, being boisterous, not listening to others, etc. These all put the focus on how good WE are instead of how good the Savior is. Now this is a tall order and I know that me personally, I have a lot of these issues as well, so it’s definitely something that I need to work on, but that’s the beauty of progress, nothing is final, I can just keep moving forward in my own way as much as I can. It’s a very slow but steady process. Interestingly, at the end of Paul’s clothing rant, he says that instead of fancy clothes and jewelry, women should be arrayed in “good works.” This is an excellent way for us to work on our personal level of modesty, to focus on doing good works and being kind to others. 2:11-12 – Moving on from the issue of “immodesty,” Paul seemingly continues his rebuke of the women in Timothy’s congregation. He says, “let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” Now without personal revelation or the ability to think for ourselves, this might make it seem like women have no place in the church other than to sit silently, but I think we can pretty easily deduce that this is in fact not how the Savior wants his church. Again, if Paul knew that these specific words were going to be used for hundreds of years afterward to oppress women, what would he have said instead? The IM reminds us that we have dealt with this issue before in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. At that point, it seems that Paul was referencing a specific woman or a problem that a specific congregation was having, so there is no reason to assume that that isn’t the case here too. The IM comments, “Some people have taken these verses to mean that women were not allowed to speak in church in Paul’s day. However his recommendation that women ‘learn in silence’ may have been an effort to correct a specific problem where some women were usurping the authority of church leaders.” This is consistent with teaching from 1 Corinthians. We know that both the Savior and Paul respected and depended on women in the church to move the work forward. So in taking all of these aspects into consideration, we can reason that this is not a general commandment to all women, but a pinpointed rebuke to someone or some congregation specifically. The article quotes Joseph Fielding Smith as saying, “Time have changed from what they were in the days of Paul. The counsel that Paul gave in the branches of the Church in his day was in strict conformity to the law of the times in which he lives. In the beginning it was not so.” This might not just be about a specific someone but also cultural norms at the time that were being disregarded. 2:13-15 – Paul uses Adam and Eve as an example of women being submissive, I guess or maybe condemned. He says that Adam was the first formed and that he was not deceived in the garden, “but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness and sobriety.” The word “sobriety” is cross-referenced with “modesty.” Ok here’s an important note, the word “she” in the last verse has a JST of “they,” so the verse should say “notwithstanding they shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.” This transforms the whole meaning of the verse to say that instead of how women only will be saved, but how all mankind must act so they can be saved. The IM quotes Elder Dallin H. Oaks as teaching that the fall came about because of Eve’s courage and faith. This fact is corroborated with D&C 138:38-39 which is Joseph F. Smith talking about his “vision of the redemption of the dead, which says he saw “the great and mighty ones’ assembled to meet the Son of God, and among them was ‘our glorious Mother Eve.’” The article further quotes Joseph Fielding Smith as teaching, “Paul intimates that Eve was silent because she was created after Adam, but we may read in the Pearl of Great Price that after the consequences brought upon Adam and Eve by the fall, Eve preached the discourse. It is brief but wonderfully full of meaning and is as follows: ‘Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient. And Adam and Eve blessed the name of God, and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters.’” This quote from Joseph Fielding Smith is very long but really perfectly explains this whole conundrum with Paul’s teaching about women. I’ll put as much here as I think is useful. He says, “We learn from this that Eve as well as Adam received revelation and commandment to teach their children the ways of eternal life. Then we learn that Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, was a prophetess who played an important part in the exodus from Egypt. She led the women in a triumphal song after the deliverance from Egypt. We also read in the Book of Judges where Israel was taken captive or into bondage, by the Canaanites. Deborah, another prophetess, led the armies of Israel to victory and she judged Israel. We also read of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, who went to the Lord in the temple, or tabernacle, and prayed for a son and the Lord hearkened to her pleading. In the Book of Judges we also read of the wife of Manoah who received a visitation from an angel who gave instruction and said she should a have a son who would judge Israel… In the New Testament we read of a great number of faithful women who sought and gave counsel. Many of these followed the Lord and ministered to him… Even in the days of Paul there were a number of notable women who ministered to the needs of the brethren, and it appear that to some of these there had been given authority. In the days of Paul, however, it was the universal custom that women should play no part in political government or minister in churches.” The gospel in this life runs such a fine line between living the truth and living in such a way that is compatible with everything else. There are so many inequities and injustices in this life that trying to bring the gospel of salvation into it without the accompanying rule of Christ is very difficult. There are many times when the ability of the gospel to thrive has depended on certain aspects of it being either diminished or altogether suppressed. In fact, I think the issue with blacks not being able to hold the priesthood until 1978 is another example of this. Yes, Brigham Young was a racist, just like most white people of his time, and when he banned black people from receiving ordinances in the temple and holding the priesthood, that was wrong and I believe he did it stemming from his racism. However, in the time leading up to the civil war, if black people would have been welcome with open arms in Utah, then it would have become a political issue for the United States alone, and a war with the government would have commenced and they were close enough to that even without the slavery issue. All I’m saying is that having the gospel on earth can be a tricky subject and somethings are done to maintain a balance that are hurtful or sometimes straight out wrong. I believe this was what was behind the priesthood restriction and it appears that this is the same thing that Paul is talking about here with women being “silent.” But what we have to remember is that all of us have experienced horrific things in this life, sometimes related to the gospel but usually other reasons. The important thing is the faith that all wrongs will be made right, all pain and suffering will be worth it, and we will all be compensated above and beyond anything that happened to us in this life.