One last trek through 1 Tim 2:8-15. Indulge me
1 Timothy 2:9–15 (NKJV): women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, 10 but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works. 11 Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. 12 And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. 15 Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control
As we’ve been looking at this text, and different aspects of it and ways of understanding it, the problem of cancel culture and modern western Christians being unable to accept God’s Word, and refusing to let Him dictate certain things about them or their churches, we’ve seen that this text is already rife with and ripe for cultural offense. If it wasn’t the dress code Paul gave women, then it was his command that they be silent. And if it wasn’t his command that they be silent then it was his prohibition on their teaching and limiting of their authority. And if it wasn’t that, then it was his blaming them for the fall. And if it wasn’t that, then it’s this, that they are to be SAVED in childbearing. Well, how offensive is that? What are you saying Paul? That not only is the office and purpose of women to simply BREED children, but that now their breeding of children is tied to their salvation? DISGUSTING, REGRESSIVE, MYSOGINIST, etc etc.
But is that what Paul’s saying? I mean actually yes, it kind of is. But it’s NOT what you’re thinking. Slow down for a second with me and think this through
Here, let’s start by recapping what he’s said to us so far. He’s approached us in a context where women are already expected to be silent, to not teach, to hold no authority, and to bear children and care for the home (not that that makes it contextually relative, as was discussed in the previous article). As such, his conclusion is that they are not to participate in the mission and ministry in the church in that way (though neither are most men). But that doesn’t mean that they ARENT to participate in the ministry and mission of the church
Before we get upset that Paul said that women will be saved through childbearing, let’s recall first that he also says that ALL people are saved through childbearing (the messiah). FOR BY ONE MAN (rom 5), know how it goes. That’s the GOOD NEWS of Christmas. That’s the creed. That’s the proto Evangel (the first gospel) in Gen 3:15, that the SEED OF THE WOMAN will crush the head of the snake 🐍. You cannot have Christianity or the gospel, or salvation of any kind WITHOUT childbearing. Women, just as all men, are saved through the bearing of the Messianic seed. And through Mary’s miraculous and virginal motherhood. For the incarnation is itself the ATONEMENT and reconciliation between God and man. That itself is salvation itself, at least inaugurated even if not as of yet consummated in the passion, death and resurrection of that seed. And while this is indeed all of grace and all of God, God chose to do this not without, but THROUGH women and childbirth. Just as the salvific acts of preaching and the administration of the holy sacraments are all of grace and all of God, though there too God does not seek to do it apart from men but in them, with them, and through them. To draw us (men and women) into His work of salvation, in the many roles we play as the diverse members of Christ’s body.
But the role of women in the mission and ministry of the church doesn’t stop at the birth of Christ. In the very next book of the NT Canon (2 Tim 1 & 2 Tim 3) Paul speaks to Timothy about his mother and his grandmother who taught him the faith and reared him up in the Scriptures. As Paul says, 2 Timothy 3:14–15 (NKJV): But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Just as we are all saved through the childbirth of one man in the holy incarnation and birth of Our Lord, so also that same gospel of Christ’s birth is handed to so many of us in part or in primary whole by the woman who raised us whether mothers or grandmothers (and fathers too!). For while the Father is the pastor of the domestic church so also are so many of our mothers the catechists of that domestic church, who have us and rear us in tbe many hours that our fathers are away at work, and our only mainstay in homes with unbelieving fathers. For not only is childbearing a work of salvation, but so also is child rearing and motherhood as a whole.
And so, with this being a crucial part of the mission and ministry of the church, it is naturally a way in which salvation is given and received. But why then, some will ask, does Paul say that it saves women? Isnt this work salvation? (Some will ask). And yet, this is no different from Paul’s call upon Timothy’s pastoral ministry, which follows after this verse and mirrors it almost identically, wherein he says of Timothy’s due diligence as a shepherd, that by doing “these things” (not only preaching & the sacraments but also by persevering in godliness, endurance, self control, etc (the same virtues he calls women to engage in,) that he shall save BOTH himself and those he ministers to. (1 Timothy 4:16 (NKJV): Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.) In that very same way Paul here speaks to women.
And this should by no means surprise us. In these latter times we have failed to understand this becuase our culture has vilified femininity and made it a bad thing. It has lifted high birth control, singlehood, and childlessness. Yet the CHURCH is called both the bride of Christ, AND the mother of the faithful. To say to women, it is a good and virtuous thing that you marry, become wives, and bear children, for your salvation, and for the salvation of your future children, is to say nothing more than to say to Christian women that they are to embody the nature of the church herself. If we hate wifehood and motherhood, then we hate the church. If we see these as unfulfilling and low-value vocations, then we insult the church more than we praise ourselves.
As such, let me say now, Women, (he says, and so i now say) just because you are not called to be pastors does not mean that you aren’t called to be part of the mission and ministry of the church. YOU ARE. For your office as women, as wives, and as mothers, is the very embodiment of the church as tbe bride of christ, and of the mother of all the faithful, by which people are born again by water and the Spirit in Baptism. Just as the church is an essential part of Christ’s saving work in this world for us, so also women, and their motherhood is necessary for the church and its saving work as the body (and bride) of christ, and the mother of all the faithful. For in doing so, the church will grow, souls will be created, recreated, and cared for. In doing so, provided that you persevere in faith and in godliness, you will saved BOTH yourself, and those under your care. For motherhood is salvific, and it always has been. For from the beginning, salvation has been born of a woman. And that has not stopped being true ever since.
For we are all saved by the bearing of that ONE Christchild. And that salvation continues onward into the present and future ministry of the church as Christians are made by the ministry of their mothers (whether by birth or adoption), in conjunction with the ministry of their fathers, and the ministry of their pastors, so on and so forth.
