1st timothy 2 verse 15 - what if i chose to not have children?

i Timothy 2:15: "Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they keep in faith and dearest and holiness, with self-control" (ESV).

It'south the kind of passage that makes even the most stalwart inerrantist want to pack up store and slip out the back door before anyone notices. Mayhap Paul was simply a misogynistic recovering Pharisee subsequently all. Of course, if we truly believe that all Scripture is God-breathed like we say nosotros practise, then we accept enough of reason to stay and grapple with it. And given the state of our current culture, I'd say that nosotros must.

Country of the Union

For several generations, our society has wrestled with issues of gender identity, reproductive rights and the sanctity of marriage. The struggle has entered the church in the form of feminist theology, female clergy, widespread credence of divorce, and most recently, the blessing of same-sex unions. Every bit the conservative church, we have responded with a full-out push button back, reaffirming biblical norms and principals.

But, I'm afraid, recovering a conservative understanding of gender has been accompanied by a growing legalism surrounding roles and applications. You can't deny that ours is a subculture where the Duggars are celebrities and more and more Christian couples are equating their ability to reproduce with their spirituality. By extension, existence single or infertile is increasingly a spiritual liability.

Given this, i Timothy 2:15 is going to be amongst the commencement passages to exist manipulated, misunderstood, and misapplied. The liberal church will dismiss it outright while conservatives will be tempted to layer it with implications God Himself never intended. The balance of u.s. will but effort to whistle and await the other direction every bit if we didn't notice information technology was there in the first identify.

But we tin can't; it's essential that we get this one correct.

Recently several notable conservatives have tackled this passage including Tim Challies,^ane Mary Kassian,² and William Mounce.³ After generous give-and-take of the Greek, singular and plural pronouns, synecdoche, typology, and innuendo, all are quick to acknowledge that this verse does non teach obstetrics-based salvation. Some propose that "she" references Eve and alludes to the salvation God promised in Genesis 3:15. Some allegorize the poesy, teaching that it refers to the spiritual fruitfulness of the Church building. What, in my opinion, has been surprisingly absent-minded from the word is how this verse relates to the larger context of ane Timothy, particularly how information technology relates to Paul'due south didactics about worthy widows in ane Timothy 5:3-16.

Worthy Widows

Information technology's probably but a matter of missing the wood for the trees, simply the similarities between 1 Timothy 2:9-xv and i Timothy 5:3-16 seem noteworthy. Both discuss characteristics of godly women, both reference childrearing and domestic roles, both caution against misuse of the natural language, and both warn against Satan's deceptive nature. Perhaps Paul is doing what he often does in linking a practical awarding (v:3-16) to a principle he has previously stated (ii:15).^four If this is the example, we tin learn more well-nigh the original principle as nosotros see it applied.

The issue in 1 Timothy v is differentiating betwixt widows who should receive aid from the church and those who should not. Among other qualifications, Paul lists that a worthy widow volition have brought upwardly children—the same concept he references in two:15. He then paints a portrait of a spiritually mature adult female who is full of religion, consistent in prayer, and cocky-sacrificing.⁵

By dissimilarity, Paul warns against assisting younger widows. He predicts that these women will exist led past their passions, become idle, gossipy, and involved in other people'south affairs.^six His remedy is for young widows to pursue domesticity—to ally, acquit children, and manage their households (considering as any wife and mother can tell you, doing this well volition leave piffling time for annihilation else).

The question and then becomes, does Paul encounter a direct connexion between a woman's spiritual status and the physical human action of birthing and rearing children? These verses seem to indicate that he does.

Childrearing and Faith

If this were the first time Scripture linked childrearing and organized religion, it'd exist like shooting fish in a barrel to minimize these passages. But it'southward not. The Sometime Attestation is full of examples that necktie the two, with the paradigm often being that organized religion leads to conception. Eve, Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, even Jochabed, are examples of women who conceived or reared children by faith. And while their circumstances are exceptional, the exceptions confirm the dominion: faith and children are inextricable.

But what happens if nosotros flip this image on its head? Is information technology possible that refusing to bear and rear children could be a manifestation of a lack of faith as Paul seems to imply in one Timothy? Surprisingly, yes.

Consider the Genesis 28 account of Onan and Judah. Under the semblance of producing a child to continue his dead brother'south family line, Onan took his brother's widow Tamar, merely while in the very deed he refused to impregnate her because he knew the child would not be his. In response, God killed him. On the heels of this, his father Judah, afraid of losing another son, refused to give Tamar a husband to give her children. This decision led to an ironic series of events that resulted in Judah himself fathering the children that his son should accept. In the cease, Judah acknowledged that his guilt lay, non primarily in sleeping with Tamar, but in not giving her a husband and enabling her to conceive past proper means.

At the root of Judah and Onan's actions were fear and self-interest; and in the end, they were deceived by sin and failed to human action in faith to produce children. This is precisely the aforementioned thing that Paul warns women against in 1 Timothy 5. His concern is non that the church would suffer a population deficit merely that immature women would be deceived by Satan, fall into sin, and thus be drawn away from Christ. One way this deception would manifest itself is past their neglecting the God-given trust of childrearing.

This squares nicely with the verses just prior to 1 Timothy ii:15 in which Paul alludes to Satan'southward charade of Eve. And while some have used these verses to teach the spiritual superiority of men, information technology seems more reasonable, given the boosted insights of one Timothy 5, that Paul's main business is to guard women from Satan's tricks and affirm their essential work of bearing life.

Today, we don't have to await very far to see how Satan has deceived women in precisely this manner. Women are taught that children ruin their bodies, interrupt their marriages, and keep them from pursing personal fulfillment. After her 2011 Oscar acceptance speech, a meaning Natalie Portman was publicly criticized for claiming that motherhood was the "nearly of import role of [her] life."⁷ And we can't forget that the very basis of the pro-choice movement is the belief that each woman has sole authority over her trunk and she lone decides if and when she will accept children. No one—not fifty-fifty God Himself—can tell her she must.^viii

Works Reveal Faith

Then what does all this hateful for our understanding of ane Timothy 2:xv?

Commencement, information technology is non extraordinary for Paul to link childrearing and spirituality. The greater context of 1 Timothy and the backdrop of the Old Attestation assert that reproduction, like every other surface area of life, has spiritual implications. And then while "she shall exist saved in childbearing" is likely an allusion to Eve, we should non translate it exclusively every bit allegory. In fact, the previous verses and one Timothy 5:3-16 argue the exact opposite. Paul has no qualms in identifying a worthy widow as ane who has reared children and is quick to propose young widows to pursue motherhood in a very literal sense. Probably then, the best agreement pairs the allusion to Eve with the very practical application of encouraging women to carry and rear children.

Second, like any other good work, godly childrearing is simply a manifestation of a deeper faith, the completion of a work that is happening in the soul and is now being played out in public. In this case, Paul's statement that "she will be saved through childbearing" is really no different than James' when he declares that "faith apart from works is dead" (James 2:26) and "I will show you lot my religion by my works" (James two:eighteen). Noted Greek scholar William Mounce affirms this when he says,

Paul is talking most how women work out their salvation, in the same sense that Paul says all of us should work out our conservancy…with fright and trembling (Phil 2:12).⁹

This understanding is also confirmed by 1 Timothy 5:eight, a verse that is the antithetical parallel to 2:15. In the middle of discussing worthy widows, Paul states that a man who does not intendance for his family "has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." And so it seems, if 1 Timothy two:15 teaches that a woman can betrayal her unbelief past not caring for a family, i Timothy 5:8 teaches that a homo can betrayal his unbelief by the very aforementioned neglect.

Nonetheless, 1 Timothy 2:15 is a hard pill to swallow. Perchance this is why God chose to place it squarely in context of one of motherhood's nigh beautiful success stories. There is no meliorate illustration or surer defence for 1 Timothy two:xv than Timothy himself. From childhood, his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois faithfully taught him the Scripture and molded his character, probably without the benefit of a assertive father. This mothering undoubtedly prepared his eye for the gospel and contributed to his ability to assume pastoral responsibilities so young. Information technology was this mothering, then, that led indirectly to the writing of 1 Timothy and ultimately to our ability to hold it in our easily.

Given this, who among us could question that godly motherhood is a saving grace?

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Source: https://sharperiron.org/article/faith-and-babies-reflections-1-timothy-215

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