Eve was not made equal to man, she was made from man, as his helpmeet, and is the glory of man (1Co 11:7-10) because she was made from him.
Man is made in the image of God, and because God has set man at the head of creation, he represents the glory of the headship and dominion God has over the world.
Woman was made from man in his image, in submission to her husband, reflecting the glory of him out of whom she was made, and is the image of God inasmuch as she is the image of man. (1Co 11:7-8).
Therefore, because she was intended to be in submission to the man, she should do nothing in the church that looks like she is trying to be equal in authority (1Tim 2:12).
The Kingdom hasn't changed since Paul.
It is the same kingdom now as it was when Paul grounded his command in the creation order.
And the command is clear, it applies to the church as well as to marriage--the husband is head of the wife as Christ is head of the church (Eph 5:3), and in the church the woman is not to appear to have authority over a man (1Tim 2:12).
You simply don't like God's creation order, and in preferring your politically correct view over the word of God, you sit in judgment on the truth of God's word, choosing not to believe it.
Elin, you are very wrong in your view of women before the Fall. The woman was not a " suitable helpmeet" as the older translations put it. Instead she was an "
ezer-kenegdo," as the Hebrew transliteration says.
Kenedo is not truly "suitable." instead, it means the woman is the man's match - literally, "as in front of him." Kenegdo suggests that what God created for Adam will correspond to him. Thus the new creation will be neither a superior nor an inferior, but an equal. The creation of this helper will mean she will be his strongest ally in pursuing God's purposes and his first roadblock when he veers off course.
Ezer appears in the Old Testament 21 times - twice for the woman in Genesis (2:18, 20), three times for nations who Israel appealed for military aid (Isa. 30:5, Ezek. 12:14, Dan. 11:34) and SIXTEEN times for God as Israel's helper. (Ex. 18:4, Deut. 33:7, 26, 29; Psalms 20:2, 33:20, 70:5, 889:19, 15:9, 10,11; 121:1-2, 124:8, 146:5, Hosea 13:9). So rather than just helper, we need to upgrade that
ezer to "strong helper".
All the above references were in a military context, and the same exact word is used of Eve. Therefore, the woman needs to be referred to as an
ezer-warrior, whom God has deployed to break the man's loneliness by soldiering with him wholeheartedly and at full strength for God's gracious kingdom. The man needs everything she brings to their global mission.
Support for this military mission also comes from both Ruth and the Proverbs 31 woman - both are called women of valour (
hayil), Paul rallies believers, both men and women to "put on the whole armour of God, " in preparation to do battle with the evil one. Thinking of the
ezer as a warrior is entirely consistent with how Scripture views women, before the Fall, and especially after Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law and death. (Gal. 3:13).
The order of creation is not that a woman is the lower, inferior creature, submissive to the man. Instead, she was created to be an equal, the strong warrior who worked together with her husband against the forces of evil. Sadly, both fell in the Garden, which changed things for thousands of years. But the man was as complicit in the fall as the woman, for the woman wasn't even created when God gave Adam the command not to eat of the tree of Life. He directly disobeyed God, and Paul is certainly aware of this, as he fingers Adam as at fault for this!
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Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come." Romans 5:12-14
There is no denying the man is the head of the woman in marriage, although submission has to be voluntary, or it is slavery. But in the Kingdom of God, women are the man's equal in "occupying till Christ returns."
As for the man being over the woman in "authority" in 1 Tim. 2:12, you better study the Greek gain. The word for "authority" is in fact
authentein. It is a hapax legomena, which appears only once in the New Testament. The real word for "authority" is
exousia, which is a noun, which authentein is not. (It is an verb - an infinitive!) It requires some dishonest translating of the word, adding verbs like "usurp" to the text, when a single word is able to translate. Contemporaneous sources contain over 50 different varying uses of the word
authentein, making it difficult to translate the word. However, "to domineer" would probably be a reasonable translation, especially when one realizes Paul was writing to Timothy in Ephesus, with its history of the priestesses of Artemis trying to dominate men.
Authority, and forever to all women, is simply a very bad translation, which has led to bad doctrine for many centuries. Paul knew what he was doing, when he picked the word
authentein, over the word
exousia. He did not want men to have authority over all women for all time. He just wanted to correct a problem in the Ephesian church. Because no Christian should domineer over another, ever!
