Lessons
1. The role of bearing and raising young children is what restricts women from taking the office of an overseer, as seen through the following:
A. Maries women are the assumed audience in 1 Timothy (1 Tim. 2:15, 3:2,12)
B. The restriction is regarding the office of an overseer/elder as seen in 1 Timothy 3:1 and in 1 Timothy 5:17,18.
C. Having and raising children is the role of the married women
(1 Tim. 2:15, 5:10 – see also 1 Sam 1:11 – 2:11)
2. Events in the garden of Eden affected the roles of men and women in life, but these in no way affected their equal worth before God
(1. Tim. 2:13,14; Genesis 3:16,17 – see also Genesis 29:32).
3. Women who have chosen to remain single for the purpose of serving the Lord (1 Cor. 7:23-34) or women who have already raised their children, and not addressed in 1 Timothy 2. and therefore neither would be asking forsaking their primary role of motherhood if they were to choose the office of a teaching elder.