2 Timothy: Faithful People are to Teach
2 Timothy:
Faithful People are to Teach
2 Timothy is considered to be the
last letter written by Paul, about 64 AD shortly before his execution. Paul was
aware that his death was at hand:
...I am
already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has
come. (2
Timothy 4:6)
This second letter is a more
personal letter to Timothy than was the first, and although false teachers were
still a problem and would continue to be, Paul was not writing to Timothy to deal
with an immediate crisis. He was nevertheless using this personal letter as a
means of conveying a message to the ecclesias among which Timothy worked.
The reminder therefore in 2
Timothy 3 is significant in its approval of the role sisters had taken in
teaching Timothy:
Continue
in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you
learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred
writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ
Jesus. (2 Timothy
3:14-15)
Timothy no doubt learned from many people, including Paul himself,
but the reference here “from childhood”, the mention of Timothy and his mother
in Acts 16:1, and the reference in 2 Timothy 1:5 to his mother and grandmother
suggest that Paul is thinking primarily of the instruction Timothy received
both as a child and as a young man from his mother.
I am
reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother
Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you. (2
Timothy 1:5)
This background is worth bearing in mind when considering the
comments about a woman teaching in 1 Timothy 2.
Since this is Paul’s last letter,
if we are looking for Paul’s final words on ecclesial teaching activities, they
are to be found in 2 Timothy rather than in 1 Timothy. In chapter 2 Paul
specifically gives instructions for the future:
You then,
my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard
from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men (anthropoi) who will be able to teach others also. (2 Tim. 2:1-2)
The force of this verse has frequently been missed, or
misunderstood, because of the translation of
anthropoi as “men”. Anthropoi
generally means “people”, “men and women”, just as the word “men” is often used
in that same general sense, though less so in modern English. If anyone is
inclined to doubt this, note how
anthropoi is used in a general sense in 2 Timothy 3:2 and anthropos (the singular) in verse 17.
The Good News Bible makes this clear:
Take the
teachings that you heard me proclaim in the presence of many witnesses, and
entrust them to reliable people, who will be able to teach others also. (2
Timothy 2:2)
... and
what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people
who will be able to teach others as well.
(2
Timothy 2:2, NRSV)
This, then, was Paul’s last word on the subject. He ordered that
his teaching should be passed on to reliable people (“faithful people” NRSV)
who would in turn teach others. The criterion is
reliability and faithfulness to Christ, not gender. If Paul had intended to
restrict this to men, the word to use
would have been andres as in 1
Timothy 2:8. And if we insist that 2 Timothy 2:2 should be translated “men” (as
distinct from “men and women”) we are saying that in this instance Paul is
using anthropoi in a way he uses it
nowhere else!
In Paul’s final comment,
therefore, on teaching, we have reinforced for the future the same as he taught
two decades earlier:
For as
many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither
Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor
female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
(Galatians
3:27-28)
And it is people, faithful
people, which Paul specifies. Paul does not state that teaching is to be given
only by elders or bishops (though, of course they would be included within the
term “people”), but by ordinary people, ordinary members of the body of Christ
– provided they are reliable and faithful and have learned the teachings
proclaimed by Paul.
The argument against
taking anthropoi as “people” is that
women (it is claimed) did not teach in the early ecclesias and therefore anthropoi in this context must be
translated and understood as “men”. George Knight III, for example, in his
commentary on the Greek text of the Pastoral Epistles (Paternoster, 1992)
refers to the teaching role of elders and bishops (in 1 Timothy 5:17 and Titus
1:9) and says “it is certain” that Paul means “men”. The word anthropos can indeed be used to mean
“man” as distinct from “woman” and is so used in Matthew 19:5, 1 Corinthians
7:1, and Ephesians 5:31, as cited by George Knight. All these are examples of anthropos in the singular, and there is
no ambiguity in these three examples. Elsewhere anthropoi can be used where it obviously applies only to men, since
it is only men who are under discussion, for example, when the magistrates
refer to Paul and Silas in Acts 16:35:
But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let
those men (anthropoi) go.”
