In God’s sight the country we are born in, the colour of our skin, the sort of job we do, or whether we are male or female, are all unimportant so far as the offer of salvation is concerned. This is what the phrase ‘Equal Opportunities’ really means! God does not look on the outward appearance but on the heart, as He revealed to Samuel (1 Samuel 16:7). Any individual, regardless of background, can have hope of eternal life through faith and baptism into Christ.

Yet, though salvation is freely available to all, believers are still individuals with their own particular strengths and weaknesses. It is not God’s objective to suppress these when His offer of salvation is accepted. Each believer has his own part to play in the service of God. Men and women, like the different parts in a body, have different responsibilities and functions within the congregation. These do not limit the freedom of opportunity for salvation – that position has already been fully accepted – but they do help to explain why men and women need saving, and how it will be accomplished. These different roles, it must be stressed, carry no idea of difference of spiritual status. The woman’s role is not inferior to the man’s, but it is different.

Different roles

It is the job of men, Paul wrote to Timothy, to lead congregational worship:

“I desire then that in every place (i.e. wherever there is a group of believers) the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarrelling.” (1 Timothy 2:8)

Here the word “men” means just what it says; the males are to lead the prayers. It is worth noting that no further special qualifications are indicated. Not “some men”, attempting to distinguish them from others who cannot do this work, but “men” in general are to fulfil this function.

The woman’s position is different. Her role in communal worship is more in the nature of offering support:

“Women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion. Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.” (verses 9-12)

This does not mean that women have nothing to do among the community of believers, or that they are somehow “second class” believers. We have already seen that there is no distinction so far as salvation is concerned, and we shall discover later that Paul anticipates this reaction to God’s commands and deals with it. But his comment about women keeping silence is often quoted as an inflammatory attack on the female sex. Paul, so his critics say, was being chauvinistic. They claim that such language is not fitting for our enlightened age where, in common with men, women expect totally equal treatment and opportunities.

Was Paul anti-women?

What exactly did Paul mean? Was he relegating women to the kitchen sink, as if they are fit only to bear and rear children, and prepare meals? This suggestion is refuted in his letter to another young convert, Titus. Paul explained how everyone has a part to play, old men and old women, young men and young women, servants and masters. He explained that older women, like the aged men, are “to be reverent in behaviour … they are to teach what is good” (Titus 2:3). So, when he wrote to Timothy, Paul’s strictures on women teaching are meant to apply only in situations of communal worship. Paul says the same when writing to believers in Corinth: “Women should keep silence in the churches” (1 Corinthians 14:34). In every other aspect of life women believers have the same responsibility as their male counterparts to teach and to preach, both directly and by example. This sort of “reverent behaviour” by men and women will “adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour” (Titus 2:10). The commandments of God are not just to be accepted as some sort of philosophical statement. They have to be put into practice in the believer’s life if they are to fulfil their real purpose. Then, and only then, can they be seen in their true beauty.

If the apostle had left his comments at that point there would have been a command, without supporting reasons, for the different roles of men and women in the organisation of the communal life of believers. He therefore continued to explain that men are to lead communal worship and women are to remain quiet in the congregation, “for Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Timothy 2:13,14). By this simple statement he was reminding his readers of what happened in the Garden of Eden at the dawn of man’s history, and relating it to Christian worship. What is there about the Genesis record of Adam and Eve that can help to explain how believers should organise themselves today?

Folly in Eden

Adam had been given a commandment by God that only one tree in His wonderful garden was barred to him. All the others were available to provide food, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Genesis 2:17). His companion Eve was, however, tempted to disobey: “she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate” (3:6). Eve sought personal advantage, and did not heed the message God gave through His angels.

When God spoke to her afterwards, He said: “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (3:16). Eve was to suffer greatly for her folly. She was doomed to death and would always live in the shadow of the grave. Additionally, she and all womanhood would have pain in childbirth, bringing forth new life, but knowing in sorrow that each child that is born is bound to die of sickness, accident, or old age. Finally, because she had not listened to Adam, she was to be subject to him. This happened because she foolishly believed the serpent’s lie: she was “deceived”. As Paul himself said to Timothy: “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Timothy 2:14).

All this sounds as if Adam, who also broke God’s command by eating from the tree, got off scot-free. Nothing could be further from the truth. They each had responsibilities before God, and they both failed under that test. They both sinned; but Eve believed the serpent, while Adam knew the consequences when he ate from the tree. He knew what God had said, but he listened to his wife instead. God therefore said: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree … cursed is the ground … in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:17-19).

The Apostle Paul obviously had this incident firmly in his mind when he wrote to Timothy. It forms the background to all his advice regarding how Christian congregations are to be organised. If we look again at some of the things he wrote, they will now be seen in a clearer light: “I desire then that … the men should pray … that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly … Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness … I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent” (1 Timothy 2:8-12).

Eden remembered

In communal worship, therefore, the lessons of Eden have to be carefully observed. In Eden the woman usurped God’s authority which had been transmitted by the angels, then by man. Thereafter, and to remind men and women of what had happened, men were to take the lead in their joint approach before God. It does not matter whether men wish to or not, or whether some women are more capable than some men; these are not the considerations that should apply. Women are to do now what it would have been better if Eve had done then – to listen quietly, honouring the God who is able to give life to those who approach Him in humility and in the way He has decreed. Men today have to take the leading role in communal worship because of Adam’s failure to do so in Eden. Adam “listened to the voice” of his wife instead of the voice of God, and so he and all his male descendants suffer the consequence. In Christ both women and men have to act in ways that clearly acknowledge the folly of their first parents.