for Adam was formed first, then Eve
Paul has just told Timothy that a woman is not to teach or have authority over a man. Why does he back that up with an event from Genesis rather than with local custom?
The reason Paul gives runs deeper than meeting arrangements. One writer ties it to how God made woman, so that personal ability does not overturn it:
This is not limited to the assembly. The apostle bases it on the make-up and natural character of woman. "For Adam was formed first, then Eve." Those who fear God and believe His word must never forget that she was formed later, out of the man. Every other idea is presumptuous theory that forgets a truth going back to the beginning. One woman may be abler and better taught than another. But in no case is a woman allowed to teach or to rule over a man.
Redemption does not cancel this order. It is the ground on which believers keep it.
This is the divine order: the authority to teach belongs to the man. "For Adam was formed first, then Eve." This is creation's order, and it is to be kept on the ground of redemption.
Verse 13 is only half the argument. Verse 14 supplies the other half:
There are two reasons given why women should not lead: (1) the place God gave her at her first creation; (2) her part in the fall. (1) God formed Adam first, then Eve, and as 1 Cor. 11:8 puts it, "the head of the woman is the man," never the other way round. God having given her the second place, it becomes her never to seek the first.
Paul does not argue from opinion. He points to what God recorded in Genesis:
What a simple way of solving the question! God's word in Genesis casts light on it. His order of acting before the fall, and the history of the fall, both help us in this matter. So these two chapters of Genesis tell us facts we could not have learned any other way. They also guide us on a point of order in the Christian assembly.
The same conclusion is stated as something read off the text rather than inferred from it:
The simple point is obvious; and let us remember, it is God's word we are examining. We are not even left to make our own deductions from these facts: they are put on the face of the text. Whoever wills may read.
Coming second in time is not the same as being worth less. One writer takes the way Eve was made as proof of the opposite:
The very fact that woman was taken out of man proves her equality with him. She is not his inferior, but his equal, the helper suited to him. There is equality, but with it diversity. God made woman for man, to be with him at his side. He never meant her to be an independent creature apart from man. He meant her to be joined to him, so that together they would be one flesh, picturing Christ and His bride, the church. A woman never shines more brightly than when she fills the purpose she was created for, which first of all was to be man's helper.
Writers add that a lower place is not a disgrace. Christ Himself took the lowest place of all:
A lower place is not always a truly inferior place. Christ came into the lowest place of all to serve us. Yet it was the most wonderful and most glorious place He could have taken, and in it God has displayed all His glory.
The order in Genesis also points forward:
In the original history (Gen. 2) we find that "Adam was formed first, then Eve." So Christ appeared in this world before any mention of the church, which is His Body.
Writers apply this beyond formal meetings — one answering a question about a woman giving thanks at her own table with an unbelieving man present:
Here the apostle brings in God's order in creation. It supports his direction that a woman was not to teach, nor to take authority over the man, but to be silent. In 1 Cor. 11 he points out "that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man." Weighed carefully and understood rightly, these two scriptures are enough. They settle every difficulty people often feel about whether a woman may speak or pray in front of men in some special situation.
- Order — Paul's reason is not culture but the sequence of creation, so a woman's ability does not override it.
- Two grounds — verse 13 gives the place God assigned at creation; verse 14 adds her part in the fall.
- Plain record — Genesis settles the question, not opinion: what God did before the fall, and what happened at the fall.
- Second, not lesser — woman came out of man, which proves she is his equal. A lower place is not a lesser one, as Christ's own lowest place shows.
- Pattern — Adam before Eve foreshadows Christ shown in the world before the church, His Body.
and Adam was not deceived; but the woman, having been deceived, was in transgression.
Paul has just told Timothy how women are to behave when the church gathers. Now he goes back past every custom and culture to Eden. His case rests on one difference between the two who fell. The serpent took Eve in, but not Adam. Commentators are quick to add that this does not make Adam the lesser sinner.
Scripture always speaks of Adam's sin, not Eve's. This verse says why.
The woman, Eve, becomes the means of the fall. The serpent approached her, and she listened. Then she took the lead, which was not her place, and she disobeyed. Adam, however, was the responsible transgressor. It is always Adam's sin that Scripture speaks of, and 1 Timothy 2:14 supplies us with the reason. Eve was deceived but Adam was not. His eating of the forbidden tree was therefore an act of pure defiance of God. It was undiluted lawlessness, and that is the very essence of sin.
Eve's deception does not put Adam in a better light. And her weakness leads Paul to a practical conclusion.
The man may have been in a certain sense worse. He followed the woman in wrong against God, where he ought to have led her in obedience; and he did it knowingly. She was completely taken in; he was not. So her weakness, and its dangerous effect on man, give one more reason why she should be quiet, neither teaching nor ruling.
Notice who the serpent addressed. He went round the head God had given her, and she had a simple way out that she never used. The same writer draws from this a difference in how men and women are fitted to serve.
The woman did have a safeguard if only she had remembered the woman's place. When Satan tempted her, she could have put the matter to Adam. Here the tempter ignored her head and came to the weaker vessel. Certainly Adam is no less responsible: it is guilt in both cases. But this still illustrates a difference. Man, marked by clear and deliberate judgment, is fitted for the public place. Woman, marked more by feeling and intuition, is fitted for the quieter place of subjection.
If Adam was not fooled, something else moved him.
The man was not deceived (1 Tim. 2:14); but all the more shame to him for following the woman (who was deceived), contrary to the truth of God. Natural affection often becomes the means of drawing the heart away from God.
Paul gives two grounds for this instruction. The conclusion is about position, not worth.
Two reasons are given: one is Adam's priority in creation, implying headship; the other, that the woman was deceived by the tempter. She proved herself a bad leader in this. So in His wise government God barred her from the place of authority or teaching in the church. We should not say that her place is inferior to that of the man, but different.
One writer separates ability from position, then names the danger:
This is not to slight woman. Morally she is generally of finer quality than man, and as a rule she exceeds him in affection and devotion to Christ. Nor is this a question of woman's ability: compared with man she shows no inferiority of genius, culture, tact or speech. It is only in position that man is above woman. Our point here is simply this. When a woman leaves her God-given place and sphere of service and takes a place of teaching and leading, she often becomes the special victim of Satan's deceptions and a spreader of his falsehoods and heresies.
Paul uses Eve's deception elsewhere too. There he warns the whole church.
The parallel contained in this warning is very striking and complete. Eve was for Adam; the church is for Christ. Adam was not deceived, Eve was (1 Tim. 2:14). Her deception came from agreeing to listen to another voice, and to reason with a mind other than Adam's. Hers was a double transgression. She set aside her allegiance to her husband, and so broke her Creator's rule. Such was the beginning of natural sin, and the order of spiritual apostasy is similar. A fall from grace begins with a heart and mind not subject to Christ. Independent reasoning corrupts faith.
- Deceived — the serpent went round the head God gave her and came to the weaker vessel. Eve never took his words to Adam.
- Not deceived — Adam saw clearly and ate anyway. That is pure defiance, and Scripture lays the fall at his door.
- Displaced — she led where she should have followed. He followed where he should have led.
- Debarred — so God gives the woman a different place, not a lower one: no teaching or ruling in the church.
- Defended — the same voice still speaks to the church. Safety lies in subjection to Christ, not in independent reasoning.