Genesis 3:16 and 1 Timothy 2-3

Where does the Garden of Eden appear in 1 Timothy? It appears at the end of chapter 2. But prejudice or bias from a mistaken interpretation of what God said to the woman in the Garden of Eden appears a bit earlier in the chapter.

Have you heard that Paul was biased against women? I have. Do you think Paul could have gotten something that important so very wrong? 

That idea goes against my understanding of what inspiration by God involves. In my mind, if God inspired Paul’s words in 1 Timothy and if God’s theology is trustworthy, then what Paul wrote must be error free as well.

I don’t think we take the Bible seriously if we dismiss this part of it as being culture-bound and irrelevant. So let’s study the passage in 1 Timothy a bit shall we?

In order to not take the verses on Eden out of context we need to determine what their context is. This means we need to determine where the passage in 1 Timothy that refers to Adam and Eve begins and ends.

To save time, let me say that Paul lists his three personal sins in 1 Timothy 1:13. Paul was astounded that God gave him the commission to serve as God’s mouthpiece among the nations outside of Israel. God treated him gently because he had only sinned ignorantly and in unbelief. After giving God praise for saving him especially from three of his sins, he uses this list to go step by step in the remaining verses of chapter 1 and in chapters 2 and 3. 

First, he refers to his fist sin, that of blasphemy in 1 Timothy 1:19 and 20. He names two blasphemers, Hymenaeus and Alexander, who he delivered to Satan to learn not to blaspheme any longer.

Then, his second sin, that of being a persecutor of the church, he takes up in 1 Timothy 2:1-7. He had been saved even though he was a persecutor of the church of Jesus Christ. He wanted other persecutors like him to be saved as well. 

Finally starting with 1 Timothy 2:8 and going down through to the end of chapter 3 he takes up his third sin, that of being a disrupter of the church. I dedicate several detailed Episodes in Season Three of The Eden Podcast to this passage in the context of 1 Timothy.

Finally, Paul tells Timothy to retrain the subgroups of men and women overseers, those who had gone astray in their teaching and their practice. They were not to be delivered over to Satan to learn their lesson as were Hymenaeus and Alexander. Instead, they were to be retrained by Timothy in the manner typical of rabbinical students who listened quietly and submissively to their teachers. 

These students learned in order to teach and practice. This was the ministry of the men and women overseers in the church at Ephesus.

Why should they get such gentle treatment, compared to Hy and Alex? Paul justifies his advice to Timothy in chapter 2 verses 13-15a. He turns to what happened in Eden because the situation of the women overseers who were being retrained was very similar to that of Eve in Eden.

Paul had been a second-degree blasphemer, persecutor and disrupter. He hadn’t sinned on purpose like a first degree murderer or sinner. He did it ignorantly and in unbelief. This had been the case for Eve.

Adam ate the forbidden fruit with his eyes wide open. He was a deliberate and first-degree sinner. A first-degree eater, if you will. But Eve had to be deceived into eating. Only eating after being deceived did she eat. She, like Paul was a second-degree offender.

God gave Eve a gentler treatment than he gave the man. The man received a curse on the ground from God. This was a harsh sentence of judgment! But nothing was cursed by God because of the woman.

In fact, a true reading of Genesis 3:16 shows that God didn’t curse Eve (or Adam) or limit the woman in any way. 

What did God promise? In what promise could she place her trust? According to Genesis 3:15 and Line 1 of 3:16 Eve would be saved by placing her faith in her Offspring, in the One God had promised. God had promised that her offspring would crush Satan’s head. And he did so on the cross.

This familiar message, to us, is that her promised Offspring, Jesus, is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. He is our Champion too!

Do we think Eve had a different hope to believe in? We should not miss this message referred to in 1 Timothy chapter 2. Jesus is the One. We look to him in faith to save us. Eve looked to him in faith to save her. That is the message of the three verses at the end of 1 Timothy 2.

Let’s not get sidetracked by verses 13 and 14 in 1 Timothy. In what came to be numbered as verse 15a Paul testifies that Eve was saved through “the Childbearing.” The word Childbearing is a singular noun that has within it the potential of plural fulfillment. 

Of course it does. There were many generations of Eve’s seed down until the birth of Jesus by Mary in Bethlehem.

Mini Course!

 The Tru316 Foundation (www.Tru316.com) is the home of The Eden Podcast with Bruce C. E. Fleming where we “true” the verse of Genesis 3:16. The Tru316 Message is that “God didn’t curse Eve (or Adam) or limit woman in any way.” Once Genesis 3:16 is made clear the other passages on women and men become clear too. You are encouraged to access the episodes of Seasons 1-11 of The Eden Podcast for teaching on the seven key passages on women and men. Are you a reader? We invite you to get from Amazon the four books by Bruce C. E. Fleming in The Eden Book Series (Tru316.com/trubooks). Would you like to support the work of the Tru316 Foundation? You can become a Tru Partner here: www.Tru316.com/partner