Understanding Paul: The Man Behind the Difficult Passages

There are two things about Paul that can cause people to struggle with him. One is what he wrote concerning women, especially the passages that seem to place restrictions on what women can do in the assembly. The other is the way Paul sometimes speaks about his apostleship and about having seen Yeshua. When those passages are read by themselves, it can be easy to come away with an opinion about Paul without taking the time to look at the whole man, his background, his former life, the circumstances he was dealing with, and everything else he wrote.

That does not mean we should explain away difficult Scriptures. It means we should read them carefully. There is also something else that is important when we read Scripture. Sometimes a thought naturally comes into our minds while we are reading. That thought may not be wrong simply because we had it. The problem comes when we quietly take that thought and turn it into something Scripture actually said. We need to be willing to ask ourselves, “Does the Scripture say that, or am I filling in something that Scripture did not tell me?”

That matters when we read Paul, because there are places where Scripture gives us facts about people and their actions without giving us all the personal details we might naturally wonder about. We can ask the question, but we should not invent the answer. We need to look at what Scripture actually gives us and let that evidence speak for itself.

Paul did not come from nowhere. His thinking had been shaped by the Hebrew Scriptures long before he became a follower of Yeshua. He was born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but he was brought up in Jerusalem and educated at the feet of Gamaliel. He described himself as being instructed according to the strict manner of the ancestral Law, Acts 22:3. He also gave his Jewish credentials very plainly:

Περιτομῇ ὀκταήμερος, ἐκ γένους Ἰσραήλ, φυλῆς Βενιαμίν, Ἑβραῖος ἐξ Ἑβραίων, κατὰ νόμον Φαρισαῖος.

Peritomē oktahēmeros, ek genous Israēl, phylēs Beniamin, Hebraios ex Hebraiōn, kata nomon Pharisaios.

“Circumcised on the eighth day, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, according to the Law a Pharisee,” Philippians 3:5.

That background matters because when we examine Paul's writings about women, we should not imagine that he had no knowledge of what the Hebrew Scriptures actually said about women. The Scriptures he had grown up with already contained women who were prophets, leaders, workers, and women whose wisdom and work were openly recognized.

The very beginning of Scripture establishes something important about male and female.

וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹקִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃

Vayivra Elohim et-ha'adam betzalmo, betzelem Elohim bara oto, zakhar unekevah bara otam.

“God created the human in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them,” Genesis 1:27.

The woman was not created in some lesser image of God. The text says that God created the human in His image, and then specifically says, “male and female He created them.” That is part of the foundation Paul himself had received from Scripture.

The Hebrew Scriptures also give us women whose work was not hidden away as though women could have no meaningful place among God's people. Miriam is called a prophetess, Exodus 15:20. Deborah is called a prophetess and is described as judging Israel, Judges 4:4-5. Huldah was a prophetess whom the king's representatives went to when the Book of the Law was found, and her word was taken seriously, 2 Kings 22:14-20.

Then there is the woman described in Proverbs 31. She is not presented as someone who simply stays inside the house waiting for her husband to make every decision. She considers a field and buys it. She plants a vineyard. She examines merchandise. She makes and sells goods. She provides for her household. She gives to the poor. She speaks wisdom. Her husband trusts her.

בָּטַח בָּהּ לֵב בַּעְלָהּ וְשָׁלָל לֹא יֶחְסָר׃

Batach bah lev ba'lah, veshalal lo yechsar.

“The heart of her husband trusts her, and he will lack no gain,” Proverbs 31:11.

So when we come to Paul, we already know that the Scriptures he knew did not present women as incapable, useless, or without wisdom. That does not automatically answer every difficult passage Paul wrote, but it gives us an important piece of his biblical background.

Then we come to Yeshua.

Women were present in His ministry in ways that are impossible to miss. Luke tells us that Yeshua went through cities and villages preaching and announcing the good news of the kingdom of God, and the twelve were with Him. Then Luke names women who were with them, including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and many others. These women provided for them from their own possessions, Luke 8:1-3.

Women were also among the disciples who continued together in prayer after Yeshua's ascension, Acts 1:14.

And then there is Mary Magdalene at the resurrection.

Ἔρχεται Μαριὰμ ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ ἀγγέλλουσα τοῖς μαθηταῖς ὅτι Ἑώρακα τὸν Κύριον.

Erchetai Mariam hē Magdalēnē angellousa tois mathētais hoti heōraka ton kyrion.

“Mary Magdalene came announcing to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord,’” John 20:18.

That is significant because Yeshua did not tell her to keep the news to herself because she was a woman. She went and announced what she had seen.

The prophetic promise also included both sons and daughters:

וְהָיָ֣ה אַחֲרֵי־כֵ֗ן אֶשְׁפ֤וֹךְ אֶת־רוּחִי֙ עַל־כָּל־בָּשָׂ֔ר וְנִבְּא֖וּ בְּנֵיכֶ֣ם וּבְנֹתֵיכֶ֑ם

Vehayah acharei-khen eshpoch et-ruchi al-kol basar, venib'u veneikhem uvenoteikhem.

“And afterward I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,” Joel 3:1; Acts 2:17.

Acts also tells us something about Philip's household that is easy to overlook. Philip had four unmarried daughters who prophesied, Acts 21:9. Scripture does not treat their prophetic calling as though it were an embarrassing exception that needed to be explained away. It simply tells us that they prophesied.

Then there is Priscilla.

When Apollos came to Ephesus, he was an eloquent man who was mighty in the Scriptures, but he knew only the baptism of John. Priscilla and Aquila heard him, took him aside, and explained the way of God more accurately to him, Acts 18:24-26.

And Priscilla and Aquila were a married couple. Scripture consistently presents them together as husband and wife, and that makes this account even more interesting when we are examining Paul's teaching about women. This was not simply some unrelated woman appearing in the story. Priscilla was part of a married couple who worked together in the ministry, and she is specifically named alongside Aquila in the account of helping Apollos understand the way of God more accurately.

That is worth stopping over for a moment. A woman named Priscilla was involved in teaching a man who was already a knowledgeable and gifted teacher himself. Scripture does not tell us that she violated some rule by helping him understand the way of God more accurately. It simply records what happened.

And Paul knew this couple.

In Romans, Paul writes:

Ἀσπάσασθε Πρίσκαν καὶ Ἀκύλαν τοὺς συνεργούς μου ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ.

Aspasasthe Priskan kai Akylan tous synergous mou en Christō Iēsou.

“Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus,” Romans 16:3.

The word synergous means fellow workers or coworkers. Paul did not describe Priscilla and Aquila as people who merely happened to be around while someone else did the work. He called them his fellow workers in Messiah Yeshua.

There is another small detail that is worth noticing without trying to invent a reason for it. In several passages, Priscilla's name appears before Aquila's. Scripture does not tell us why her name is sometimes placed first, so we should not make up an explanation. But the text does give us the order of the names, and it repeatedly presents this married couple as active coworkers.

That becomes important when we later read Paul's words about women teaching. Whatever interpretation we eventually reach concerning 1 Timothy 2:12, we cannot pretend Paul lived in a world where women never participated in explaining the things of God to men. His own writings and the history surrounding his ministry show otherwise.

But there is another part of Paul's background that we cannot leave out, and this part is very important.

Before Paul became an apostle, he was Saul the persecutor.

Luke tells us that Saul approved of the death of Stephen, Acts 8:1. Then we are told that Saul was ravaging the assembly, entering house after house and dragging both men and women away to prison:

Σαῦλος δὲ ἐλυμαίνετο τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, κατὰ τοὺς οἴκους εἰσπορευόμενος, σύρων τε ἄνδρας καὶ γυναῖκας παρεδίδου εἰς φυλακήν.

Saulos de elymaineto tēn ekklēsian, kata tous oikous eisporeuomenos, syrōn te andras kai gynaikas parediden eis phylakēn.

“Saul was ravaging the assembly, entering house after house, dragging both men and women and delivering them into prison,” Acts 8:3.

Paul himself later described what he had done:

Ὡς ταύτην τὴν ὁδὸν ἐδίωξα ἄχρι θανάτου, δεσμεύων καὶ παραδιδούς εἰς φυλακὰς ἄνδρας τε καὶ γυναῖκας.

Hōs tautēn tēn hodon ediōxa achri thanatou, desmeuōn kai paradidous eis phylakas andras te kai gynaikas.

“I persecuted this Way to death, binding and delivering both men and women into prisons,” Acts 22:4.

And in another account Paul says that he shut many of the holy ones in prison and that when they were being put to death, he cast his vote against them, Acts 26:10.

We should be precise here. Scripture does not say that Paul personally killed every believer who died during this persecution. It does say that he participated in the persecution, imprisoned men and women, approved Stephen's death, and acknowledged that he voted against believers when they were being put to death. That is enough to understand that Paul had a very serious past.

Now think about what that means when Paul talks about having seen the risen Yeshua.

Paul did not present himself as though he had always been a great man whom Yeshua was fortunate to choose. Quite the opposite. When he explained his encounter with the risen Messiah, he brought his own past into the explanation.

Ἔσχατον δὲ πάντων ὡσπερεὶ τῷ ἐκτρώματι ὤφθη κἀμοί.

Eschaton de pantōn hōsperei tō ektrōmati ōphthē kamoi.

“Last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared also to me,” 1 Corinthians 15:8.

Then Paul immediately explains why he views himself the way he does:

Ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι ὁ ἐλάχιστος τῶν ἀποστόλων, ὃς οὐκ εἰμὶ ἱκανὸς καλεῖσθαι ἀπόστολος, διότι ἐδίωξα τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ.

Egō gar eimi ho elachistos tōn apostolōn, hos ouk eimi hikanos kaleisthai apostolos, dioti ediōxa tēn ekklēsian tou Theou.

“For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the assembly of God,” 1 Corinthians 15:9.

And then comes the statement that explains where Paul believed his apostleship came from:

Χάριτι δὲ Θεοῦ εἰμι ὅ εἰμι.

Chariti de Theou eimi ho eimi.

“But by the grace of God I am what I am,” 1 Corinthians 15:10.

That does not sound like a man saying, “Look how important I am because I saw Yeshua.” It sounds like a man defending the reality of what happened to him while remembering exactly who he had been before it happened.

This becomes even clearer when we look at why Paul sometimes brought up having seen Yeshua. In Corinth, his apostleship was being challenged. He asks:

Οὐκ εἰμὶ ἀπόστολος; οὐχὶ Ἰησοῦν τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν ἑώρακα;

Ouk eimi apostolos? Ouchi Iēsoun ton kyrion hēmōn heōraka?

“Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” 1 Corinthians 9:1.

The context matters. He was answering questions about whether he really had the standing of an apostle. His statement about seeing Yeshua was part of that defense. It is not the same thing as saying that seeing Yeshua made him better than everybody else.

Paul also says that he did not receive the message he preached from a human teacher, but through revelation of Yeshua Messiah, Galatians 1:12. Again, he is explaining the source and authority of the message he was preaching.

But when Paul speaks about boasting, he does something very different from what we might expect if he were trying to make himself look impressive.

Ὑπὲρ δὲ ἐμαυτοῦ οὐ καυχήσομαι εἰ μὴ ἐν ταῖς ἀσθενείαις.

Hyper de emautou ou kauchēsomai ei mē en tais astheneiais.

“But concerning myself I will not boast except in my weaknesses,” 2 Corinthians 12:5.

He says the same kind of thing again:

Εἰ καυχᾶσθαι δεῖ, τὰ τῆς ἀσθενείας μου καυχήσομαι.

Ei kauchasthai dei, ta tēs astheneias mou kauchēsomai.

“If I must boast, I will boast of the things concerning my weakness,” 2 Corinthians 11:30.

And when he explains his work, he says:

Οὐ γὰρ ἑαυτοὺς κηρύσσομεν ἀλλὰ Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν κύριον.

Ou gar heautous kēryssomen alla Christon Iēsoun kyrion.

“For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord,” 2 Corinthians 4:5.

That does not mean Paul never spoke strongly about himself. He did. Sometimes he had to defend himself and his work because people were questioning his authority. But we should not automatically turn every defense into evidence of personal arrogance. We need to look at what he actually says about himself, including the parts where he openly talks about his weakness, his former persecution, and the grace of God.

Now we can come back to the question of women.

One of the most interesting things Paul writes is in his teaching about marriage. In 1 Corinthians 7, he says:

Ἡ γυνὴ τοῦ ἰδίου σώματος οὐκ ἐξουσιάζει ἀλλὰ ὁ ἀνήρ· ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ὁ ἀνὴρ τοῦ ἰδίου σώματος οὐκ ἐξουσιάζει ἀλλὰ ἡ γυνή.

Hē gynē tou idiou sōmatos ouk exousiazei alla ho anēr; homoiōs de kai ho anēr tou idiou sōmatos ouk exousiazei alla hē gynē.

“The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife,” 1 Corinthians 7:4.

Then he says:

Μὴ ἀποστερεῖτε ἀλλήλους.

Mē apostereite allēlous.

“Do not deprive one another,” 1 Corinthians 7:5.

Whatever else we may say about Paul's teaching on marriage, we cannot honestly pretend that his language here is only about the husband's authority over the wife. He specifically gives the wife authority concerning the husband's body too. His wording is mutual.

Then there is 1 Corinthians 11. Paul writes about women praying and prophesying:

Πᾶσα δὲ γυνὴ προσευχομένη ἢ προφητεύουσα.

Pasa de gynē proseuchomenē ē prophēteuousa.

“Every woman who prays or prophesies,” 1 Corinthians 11:5.

That statement itself assumes women were praying and prophesying. Paul then discusses how they were to conduct themselves while doing so. Whatever questions we may have about the details of that passage, the text does not present a woman as incapable of praying or prophesying.

Then we reach the passage that causes so much difficulty:

Αἱ γυναῖκες ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις σιγάτωσαν.

Hai gynaikes en tais ekklēsiais sigatōsan.

“Let the women be silent in the assemblies,” 1 Corinthians 14:34.

We cannot simply pretend that verse is not there. But we also cannot take that one sentence out of the entire chapter and act as though Paul had just announced a universal rule that nobody in the assembly was ever allowed to speak unless they were male.

The entire chapter is dealing with order in the assembly. Paul tells the person speaking in a tongue to be silent if there is no interpreter, 1 Corinthians 14:28. He tells a prophet to be silent when another person receives a revelation, 1 Corinthians 14:30. Silence in this chapter is therefore not automatically the same thing as permanent inability to speak.

There is also a textual question surrounding 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. These verses appear in different locations in some ancient manuscript witnesses. That does not give us permission to simply throw the verses away because they are difficult. It does mean that there is a real textual question that should be acknowledged when we study the passage. We should neither erase a difficult Scripture nor pretend there are no manuscript questions surrounding it.

But now we come to the passage that, frankly, requires even more careful examination.

Γυνὴ ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ μανθανέτω.

Gynē en hēsychia manthanetō.

“Let a woman learn in quietness,” 1 Timothy 2:11.

And then:

Διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω, οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός, ἀλλ᾽ εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ.

Didaskein de gynaiki ouk epitrepo, oude authentein andros, all' einai en hēsychia.

“But I do not permit a woman to teach, nor to exercise authority over a man, but to be in quietness,” 1 Timothy 2:12.

Now, if we read that sentence by itself, we could easily conclude that Paul has just established a permanent rule that no woman may ever teach a man anything about God. But that conclusion would require us to ignore quite a bit of Scripture.

First, look at the letter itself. Paul begins by telling Timothy to remain in Ephesus because certain people were teaching different doctrine, 1 Timothy 1:3. He speaks about myths, endless genealogies, empty discussion, and people wanting to be teachers of the Law without understanding what they were saying, 1 Timothy 1:4-7. The problem of false and confused teaching is already sitting in the opening chapter of the letter. The instructions that follow are being given to Timothy in the middle of a real situation in Ephesus. The letter is not a collection of statements floating free from the congregation and circumstances to which Timothy was ministering.

Then we need to look carefully at the word translated “exercise authority.”

The Greek is αὐθεντεῖν, authentein.

That word deserves attention because it is not Paul's ordinary word for authority, and it occurs only here in the New Testament. Its precise meaning in this verse has been debated for a very long time. Lexical and historical studies have proposed meanings ranging from exercising authority to taking independent authority, giving orders, controlling, or dominating. There is genuine disagreement over the exact sense Paul intended here, so we should not pretend that the English phrase “exercise authority” settles the question all by itself.

That matters because the passage does not simply say, “I do not permit a woman to teach.” It joins διδάσκειν, didaskein, teaching, with αὐθεντεῖν, authentein, the disputed word concerning authority. Some interpreters understand the second word as ordinary authority. Others understand it as domineering, controlling, or taking authority in an improper way. There are also differences in how scholars understand the relationship between the two actions. This is one reason we should not build an enormous universal rule on one English rendering of one difficult Greek word.

There is another point we should not overlook. The Greek word γυνή, gynē can mean woman or wife, while ἀνήρ, anēr can mean man or husband. The context has to determine which sense is intended. That does not automatically prove that Paul was speaking only about wives and husbands in this passage, but it is another reason we should read the sentence carefully rather than assuming that the English wording answers every question.

And look again at verse 11.

Gynē en hēsychia manthanetō.

“Let a woman learn in quietness,” 1 Timothy 2:11.

Paul is telling the woman to learn.

That is significant. He is not saying that women are incapable of understanding God's Word. He is not telling women that they are too unintelligent to be taught theology. He is actually commanding that a woman learn.

So what do we do with verse 12?

We need to admit what we know and what we do not know. We know the passage contains a restriction. We know Timothy was dealing with teaching problems in Ephesus. We know the Greek word authentein is unusual and disputed. We know women elsewhere in Scripture are praying, prophesying, teaching, working alongside men, and laboring in the Gospel. We know Priscilla helped teach Apollos, Acts 18:26. We know Philip's four daughters prophesied, Acts 21:9. We know Paul calls women his fellow workers and recognizes their labor.

What we do not know from 1 Timothy 2:12 is that Paul sat down and said, “This prohibition applies to every woman who will ever teach a man for the rest of history.”

The verse does not contain those words.

That does not prove that the instruction was only for the first century. We should not replace one assumption with another. But it does mean that applying this passage as a universal prohibition against women teaching men today requires an interpretation that goes beyond simply reading the sentence.

And that is important.

Because there are women today who teach Scripture faithfully. There are women who have spent years studying God's Word, who know the Scriptures deeply, who explain them carefully, and who help people understand things they did not understand before. Scripture itself gives us examples of women teaching, prophesying, serving, leading, reasoning from Scripture, and laboring alongside men. We cannot simply erase all of that because one difficult sentence has been interpreted in the broadest possible way.

This is also where Paul's treatment of women in Romans 16 becomes very important.

Romans 16 begins with Phoebe:

Συνίστημι δὲ ὑμῖν Φοίβην τὴν ἀδελφὴν ἡμῶν, οὖσαν καὶ διάκονον τῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἐν Κεγχρεαῖς.

Synistēmi de hymin Phoibēn tēn adelphēn hēmōn, ousan kai diakonon tēs ekklēsias tēs en Kenchreais.

“I commend to you Phoebe our sister, being also a servant of the assembly at Cenchreae,” Romans 16:1.

Paul does not merely mention her name. He tells the believers to receive her and assist her because she had been a helper of many, including himself.

Καὶ γὰρ αὐτὴ προστάτις πολλῶν ἐγενήθη καὶ ἐμοῦ αὐτοῦ.

Kai gar autē prostatis pollōn egenēthē kai emou autou.

“For she herself became a benefactor of many, and of me myself,” Romans 16:2.

Now here is where our natural human thinking can take us down a road Scripture does not actually travel.

We may wonder, “Did Paul especially like Phoebe? Was she beautiful? Did she have a wonderful personality? Was she charming? Was there something about her that made Paul choose her?”

Those are understandable thoughts, but Scripture does not tell us any of that. We should not invent those details simply because Paul speaks well of her. The biblical writers often tell us what people did without giving us personal judgments about their appearance or personality when those things are not relevant to the account.

What Scripture does give us is much more useful. Phoebe had helped many people, and Paul says she had helped him himself. Paul knew her. Paul valued what she had done. Paul trusted her enough to commend her to the believers in Rome. That is the evidence we actually have.

Paul continues by naming Priscilla and Aquila :

Ἀσπάσασθε Πρίσκαν καὶ Ἀκύλαν τοὺς συνεργούς μου ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ.

Aspasasthe Priskan kai Akylan tous synergous mou en Christō Iēsou.

“Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus,” Romans 16:3.

(In Romans 16:3, Paul writes Πρίσκαν (Priskan), which is the Greek accusative form of Πρίσκα (Priska). In Acts, she is commonly called Πρίσκιλλα (Priskilla), which gives us Priscilla in English.)

We already know from Acts that Prisca and Aquila were a married couple who worked together, and Paul calls them both his fellow workers. This is important because it gives us another concrete example of how women and men could work together in the ministry without Scripture presenting the woman as merely an observer.

Then we come to Junia:

Ἀσπάσασθε Ἀνδρόνικον καὶ Ἰουνίαν ... οἵτινές εἰσιν ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις.

Aspasasthe Andronikon kai Iounian ... hoitines eisin episēmoi en tois apostolois.

“Greet Andronicus and Junia ... who are notable among the apostles,” Romans 16:7.

Junia is a woman's name, and this verse has been interpreted in more than one way. There are questions about exactly how episēmoi en tois apostolois should be understood. But whatever interpretation one takes, the verse does not give us grounds to simply dismiss Junia because she is a woman. Paul places her in a significant relationship to the apostles.

Paul also names Mary, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, and Persis and speaks about their labor in the Lord, Romans 16:6, 12.

Then there are Euodia and Syntyche:

Αἵτινες ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ συνήθλησάν μοι.

Haitines en tō euangeliō synēthlēsan moi.

“They labored together with me in the Gospel,” Philippians 4:3.

Notice what Paul does not say. He does not say these women were useful because they were pretty. He does not say they were useful because they had charming personalities. He does not explain that they were exceptions because they were unusually gifted women. He tells us what they did. They worked, they served, they labored, they helped, they prophesied, they taught, and Paul recognized their work. That is evidence.

There is also Lydia. When Paul and those with him arrived in Philippi, Lydia heard the message, the Lord opened her heart. She was the very first convert in that area. And she and her household were baptized. She then opened her home to Paul and his companions, Acts 16:14-15. Later, when Paul and Silas were released from prison, they went to Lydia's house and saw the brothers and encouraged them, Acts 16:40. Again, Scripture gives us a woman whose household became an important place for the believers.

Then there is Nympha, whose house was used as a place where the assembly met, Colossians 4:15.

There is also Apphia, whom Paul addresses along with Philemon and Archippus at the beginning of the letter concerning the assembly meeting in their house, Philemon 1:2.

When all of these passages are put together, we have to be honest about what the New Testament actually shows us. Women were not simply silent, invisible people standing behind the men. They were disciples. They supported Yeshua's ministry. They prayed. They prophesied. They taught. They opened their homes to the assembly. They worked alongside Paul. They labored in the Gospel. They helped many believers. Women were named and remembered.

That does not mean every woman held every possible role. Scripture does not say that. It does mean that the picture is far broader than the idea that women were supposed to have no meaningful voice in the work of God.

Now, there is another passage that sometimes gets brought into this discussion. Paul says that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, because all are one in Messiah Yeshua, Galatians 3:28.

Paul was not saying that men and women have to cease to be biologically male and female. He was speaking about their standing in Messiah. The point is that the categories people used back then to establish religious and social superiority, do not determine who belongs to Messiah or who receives the promise. And when we look at the rest of Scripture, the Spirit of God is not described as being poured out only upon men. Sons and daughters prophesy, Joel 3:1; Acts 2:17.

So when we read Paul's difficult passages about women, we need to resist two opposite mistakes. One mistake is to erase the restrictions because we do not like them. The other mistake is to take the restrictions and turn them into something broader than the text itself establishes.

We should not tell Scripture what it must say in order to make ourselves comfortable. But neither should we tell Scripture that everything it says in a particular congregation and situation must automatically become a universal command for every congregation in every generation without examining the context.

This is especially important with 1 Timothy because the letter itself begins with a problem involving false teaching in Ephesus. Timothy was left there to deal with people teaching things they should not have been teaching, 1 Timothy 1:3-7. That does not prove every instruction in the letter was temporary. It does tell us that the letter was written into a real situation, involving real people, real teaching problems, and real disorder in a real location.

So perhaps the better question is not, “How do we make Paul stop bothering us?” The better question is, “What was Paul actually dealing with, and what exactly did he mean?” That question allows us to take Scripture seriously without putting words into Paul's mouth.

Now, before we get too comfortable with Paul again, we still have to deal with that other complaint.

Did Paul have too much ego because he saw Yeshua?

He certainly spoke boldly about his apostleship. But the same Paul who says, “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” also says that he is the least of the apostles because he persecuted the assembly, 1 Corinthians 15:9. He says he is what he is by the grace of God, 1 Corinthians 15:10. He says he will boast in his weaknesses, 2 Corinthians 11:30. And he says that he does not preach himself, but Yeshua Messiah as Lord, 2 Corinthians 4:5.

So when Paul talks about seeing Yeshua, we need to understand what he is doing in the passage. Sometimes he is defending his apostleship because people are challenging it. That is different from him saying that he believed himself to be superior to everyone else.

Paul's own history makes that even more obvious. He knew exactly what he had been. He had persecuted the followers of Yeshua. He had imprisoned men and women. He had approved the death of Stephen. Then he encountered the risen Messiah.

That changes the way I read his statements about himself.

Paul was not standing at the end of his life looking back and saying, “I was always a great man.” He was saying, in effect, “Look what God's grace did with me.” That does not mean Paul was never forceful. He was. It does not mean every statement he made is easy to understand. It isn't. It does not mean we have to pretend his difficult passages do not exist. They do.

But it does mean we need to read the whole man. And when we do that, we find something much more complicated than either “Paul hated women” or “Paul was always perfectly enlightened about women.” He was a Jewish man of the first century, trained in the Scriptures and shaped by the world in which he lived. He was also a man whose life had been radically changed by Yeshua. He carried old ways of thinking into a new life, and his letters show us both the things he taught clearly and the difficult places where we have to work carefully through context, language, culture, and the rest of Scripture.

That is especially true with women.

We should not erase 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. We should not erase 1 Timothy 2:11-12. But neither should we erase 1 Corinthians 11:5, Romans 16, Philippians 4:3, Acts 18:26, Acts 21:9, Acts 16:14-15, Colossians 4:15, or any of the other passages that show women actively participating in the work of God.

If we are going to be fair to Paul, we have to let Paul be all of Paul.

And perhaps that is the real lesson here. We do not have to choose between pretending Paul never said anything difficult and deciding that Paul must therefore have been against women. We can acknowledge the hard words and still acknowledge the women he honored. We can study the restrictions and still recognize the women who taught, prophesied, served, worked, hosted, supported, and labored beside men. We can question our assumptions without questioning the authority of Scripture.

And when we come to 1 Timothy 2:12, we should not automatically tell every woman who teaches God's Word today that Paul has already condemned her ministry. The passage must first be understood in its own language, its own context, and alongside the rest of Scripture. There are legitimate questions about the meaning of authentein, about how bad the situation in Ephesus was, about the relationship between teaching and authority in the sentence, and about whether the restriction is universal or simply directed toward a particular situation. Those questions are not rebellion against Scripture. They are a part of taking Scripture seriously.

I may still get a little ticked at Paul when I read some of these passages. And frankly, I think it is all right to wrestle with Scripture when something bothers us. What matters is that we do not stop at our first reaction. We keep reading and studying. We compare Scripture with Scripture. We look at what the text actually says. We refuse to invent what it does not say. And we remember that the same Paul who wrote the difficult words also gave us a record of women serving God, teaching, prophesying, working beside him, helping the assembly, and laboring in the Gospel.

So I am not going to throw Paul out because he irritates me sometimes. I am going to make him explain himself by reading everything he wrote, looking at the words he actually used, and placing the difficult passages beside the rest of the evidence. And when I do that, I find a man who was certainly not simple, certainly not free from the limitations of his time, and yet also a man whose life had been completely turned around by the grace and mercy of God. The same man who once imprisoned women for following Yeshua later commended women who worked for the Gospel. That alone should make us stop and look a little closer before deciding we already know who Paul was.
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Prayer:
Holy Father, I worship You because You are the God of truth, and nothing is hidden from You. You see what I cannot see, You understand what I do not understand, and Your wisdom is greater than my own. I praise You for Your Word, which challenges me, corrects me, teaches me, and keeps bringing me back to truth when my own thoughts want to run ahead of You.

Father God, give me a heart that is willing to listen before I judge, to examine before I decide, and to stay with Your Word even when something in it irritates me or challenges what I think. Help me not to make Paul into something he was not, either good or bad. Help me see what You have placed in Scripture and not fill in the spaces with my own assumptions. Give me wisdom to understand the difficult passages, humility to admit what I do not know, and courage to follow truth wherever Your Word leads me.

Holy Father, let Your Spirit guide my understanding as I study. Keep me from reading Your Word through my own feelings, but also keep me from being afraid to ask honest questions. Teach me to look at the whole picture, to remember Your mercy, and to recognize the work of Your grace in a life that You transformed so completely. Above all, keep my eyes on Yeshua and my heart submitted to You. In Yeshua’s name, amen.

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Don't take my word for it. Like the Bereans in Acts 17:11, search the Scriptures daily to see whether these things are so. Open your Bible, study God's Word for yourself, and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you into all truth. Don't simply accept my conclusions. If what I've written agrees with Scripture, hold fast to it. If it doesn't, let God's Word be your final authority.

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© AMKCH 2026

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If any of these people looks like you or someone you know, that is purely coincidental. They are not.

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