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it turns out that Paul counted quite a few women among the teachers and leaders in his churches. We must, then, interpret the restrictions in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-15 in light of the data from other Pauline letters. In that light, it appears that the restrictions in those two passages are aimed at specific, local situations and do not represent Paul’s view for all Christians in all times and places.
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This is his conclusion.
He makes no distinction (that I could tell) between "offices" of the church, and roles, functions, or opportunities for service. Why is that?
The main problem, I see, is he doesn't begin with a passage like 1Tim.3. Rather than going first to passages that spell out certain
sine qua non, certain basics, and then proceeding to examine the history (Acts), and occasional commentary (as in the epistles), he prefers to take his cue from a list of people Paul greets at the end of a letter.
Why would we expect Paul to be addressing "movers and shakers" in a church? Paul's letter to the church in Rome was written to a church where he never had been, but among whom there were acquaintances of his from his travels. Romans is a "missionary letter" written to introduce a man who wishes to come in person, in hopes of getting support for labors far to the empty (of Christ) west--particularly Hispaniola.
I would be expecting Paul to be greeting men and women of every "station"--high and low--persons whom he knew in Rome, in the expectation that those who didn't know him would know one of these people. And these people in turn could tell those others about their personal acquaintance with him.
That he was successful (although not according to his original plans) is evidenced by the fact that he--a Roman prisoner--was, after some years, greeted like a prince by the church, a delegation coming as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet him to escort him into the city (Acts 28:15).
So why should we at all expect that Paul is denominating special officers in the church? ISTM, the author already has an egalitarian idea about church organization, and now the Bible needs to provide the wished-for evidence to support it. There isn't anything in the list of greetings to the Roman Christians that was ever supposed incompatible with traditional church-order expectations.
Notice as well that there is not even a thought given to connection between OT ways of doing things, and NT. It is as though the NT church is begun
de novo, all previous cultural thought, religious thought--even matters that were dictated as divine revelation--are forgotten. So, history prior to Acts is forgotten; it is as if nothing prior to Pentecost counts for anything.
Strangely, however, it is to Genesis and universal history that Paul refers in 1Tim.2, for the purpose of dealing with a "local issue." So, whose example should we follow? Paul's directives (1Tim.3) and his didactic example (1Tim.2)? Or this author's alternative interpretations of occasional comments--which ignore Paul's hermeneutical example, and his explicit and universal directives?
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