HOW MAN AND WOMAN FELL OUT OF ORDER
For centuries, 1 Timothy 2:12 was not controversial. Now, in some circles, it has become one of the most debated verses in the Bible. Paul’s words sound to some today like nails screeching along a chalkboard: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.”
But Paul doesn’t leave it hanging without explanation. Even two millennia ago, he knew he needed to say more. So, he doesn’t drop the mic, or walk away, or move on to the next topic. He argues. He provides reasons (verse 13 begins with “for”). Two of them (verse 14 begins with “and”). Both of them are essential, and as I’ll argue here, they are two connected reasons — one leads to the other; the second flows from the first. We would be foolish to pluck Paul’s words in verse 12 from their context and then pretend to explain what he means (and doesn’t) by them without letting him speak for himself.
So, what are the reasons Paul himself provides in verses 13 and 14 for his charge? His answer turns on three key words that echo precise language in Genesis 2 and 3, as Paul grounds his instruction for the church in the events of creation and the fall.
1. Adam Formed First
When Paul says, in verse 13, “Adam was formed first,” he points us to the world of Genesis 2 and the remarkable sequence of the creation narrative. Perhaps we’re so familiar with the story of God forming Adam, then parading animals before him, then making Eve from his side, that we haven’t paused to ponder the sequence. It is an arrangement that shatters our modern egalitarian notions. Why not form Adam and Eve simultaneously? Why does God form Adam first, and then lengthen the time and space between Adam’s forming (from the ground) and Eve’s making (from Adam)?
The verb formed is important is Genesis 2, and especially verse 7: “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” And that’s the first link Paul forges in 1 Timothy 2:13: “Adam was formed first.”
2. Then Eve
Then Paul adds, “then Eve.” Again he’s tracking with Genesis 2. Not only does God form the man first (Genesis 2:7), but the then for Eve doesn’t follow until verse 18: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” In the meantime, God plants a garden in Eden (verse 8), makes trees to spring up (verse 9), puts the man in the garden to work it and keep it (verse 15), and gives the man the moral vision for the garden (eat of every tree but not the one, verses 16–17).
Even after the then of verse 18, we learn that prior to the making of the woman, God had paraded “every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens” before the man “to see what he would call them” (verse 19). Finally, in verse 21 comes the deep sleep and taking the rib. “And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man” (verse 22).
“God created Adam first, as head, then his wife, as helper; the serpent subverted God’s order.”TweetShare on Facebook
What’s so arresting here for our purposes, following Paul, is that God didn’t rush to quickly form Eve at the same time so that there would be no discrimination. In fact, God seems to take his sweet time — and strikingly so, parading every animal past Adam as a possible “helper”! And all this very intentionally to make a point. God lingered precisely so that Adam (and we) might see that not only are men and women wonderfully similar as humans but also gloriously different in countless complementary, mutually beneficial ways.
GOD LINGERED TO TEACH A LESSON
In it all, God is saying, in effect, to Adam, “Adam, you are responsible. The greater weight falls on you. The command came to you, singular. I made her for you; not vice versa. You are head; she is helper. You are to lead and protect and provide for her, and her calling is essential to yours (1 Corinthians 11:8–9).”
In other words, God goes to the extreme to clarify that while woman is indeed bone of man’s bone, and flesh of his flesh — they are both man — yet they are not the same. They are fearfully and wonderfully different. Same species, different sex. Equal in value, distinct in complementary divine callings.
Paul’s point in 1 Timothy 2:13 is that God taught Adam and the world something by forming the man first. The original, primary responsibility fell to Adam to be head, and for Eve to be his helper, not the other way around. And the order and space between their forming reflects their differences from top to bottom as male and female (down to every cell in their bodies, as we now know). The woman shares in the man’s humanity. They are equal in value before God. And their distinct formings, and the sequence between them, demonstrates their corresponding God-designed distinctness.
3. The Serpent Deceived Eve
The third key word in 1 Timothy 2 is deceived in verse 14, and with it, two questions now lie before us. First, was Adam not deceived also? What does Paul mean when he says, “Adam was not deceived”? Second, is verse 14 another argument, alongside verse 13, or does verse 14 extend the reason of verse 13?
One Reason or Two?
Having pointed in verse 13, with a link to Genesis 2, to God’s order in creation (and what it implied), what might Paul need to add in verse 14 (note the “and”) to strengthen his argument? The obvious answer is how the fall (Genesis 3) affected God’s order in creation. It’s all well and good to argue for as it was in the beginning, but is that still true now, in the church age? Does God’s original order stand after the entrance of sin into the world? And more to the point, might how sin entered the world give us reason for upholding God’s original order still today?
What Paul now moves to add in verse 14 is that the tragic events of the fall, as initiated by the serpent, serve to confirm and reinforce God’s good order in creation in Genesis 2. Rather than adding another distinct reason in verse 14, Paul extends and deepens the argument of verse 13. Not only does the creation of man first in Genesis 2 give reason for men (the elders) to teach and lead the church, but also the way the fall transpired confirms this. Whereas God’s order in creation was the focus of verse 13, now the serpent’s order that led to the fall contrasts with God’s. God created Adam first, as head, then his wife, as helper; the serpent subverted God’s order.
The Way of the Serpent
God proceeded in one way; the serpent in the opposite. God first formed the man (2:7) and took him and put him in the garden (2:15). And “the Lord God commanded the man” (2:16). Then, out of man, he made the woman (2:22). But the serpent first approached and spoke to the woman (3:1). Then the woman, rather than the man, spoke to the serpent (3:2), and she ate first (3:6). But when God came calling, “the Lord God called to the man” (3:9).
Deceived is the key word in 1 Timothy 2:14 that forges the link to Genesis 3:13, where Eve says, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” The verb deceive, then, throughout Scripture calls to mind the fall and the action the serpent took. What verb did he do? He deceived Eve (so also 2 Corinthians 11:3). The serpent thus is known as “the deceiver”: “that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9; also 20:10). Deceive becomes the quintessentially satanic action.
“Headship means shouldering more responsibility, not less.”TweetShare on Facebook
So, even without mentioning the serpent explicitly here in 1 Timothy 2:14, the passive verb was deceived makes his presence unmistakable. When verses 13 and 14 are taken together, pointing to both the pre-fall picture of God’s order, and the order in which the fall occurred, the serpent’s craftiness is made plain. Rather than proceeding according to God’s design and protocol, and approaching the man, the serpent targets the woman.
Was Adam Not Deceived?
Perhaps the most puzzling question here for many Bible readers is, “What does Paul mean that Adam was not deceived?” Isn’t all sin deception in some form, as in Hebrews 3:13, “the deceitfulness of sin”? And in saying “Adam was not deceived” in 1 Timothy 2:14, is Paul implying that women are more easily deceived than men?
The answer lies in seeing verses 13–14 as one main argument, not two separate ones. Adam was formed first (verse 13) and yet it was the woman who sinned first. It’s not that Adam didn’t sin (he most certainly did), or that he wasn’t deceived (at some level), but that he wasn’t deceived by the serpent. She was the recipient of the serpent’s deception; then Adam listened to her voice (Genesis 3:17). Which speaks to the serpent’s path: he approached and deceived Eve first, rather than approaching the man.
Of course, we do have much we can say about the differences in men’s and women’s nature corresponding to God’s design. But that’s not what’s in view here. God laid down an order in creation, and Satan subverted that order and it led to the fall. And in it, both man and wife are at fault. As Ray Ortlund writes, “Eve usurped Adam’s headship and led the way into sin. And Adam, who (it seems) had stood by passively, allowing the deception to process without decisive intervention — Adam, for his part, abandoned his post as head. Eve was deceived; Adam forsook his responsibility” (Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 107).
Were there specific differences in Eve that Satan sought to exploit? Her nurturing and empathetic strength? Was she more vulnerable in some way to the devil’s deception? Whether she was or not, that is not Paul’s point here. Satan subverted God’s order, but now God’s order endures, and redemption will come on God’s terms, not Satan’s. Readers might bring their own senses of what attendant male and female strengths and weaknesses may or may not have been relevant, but what is clear and striking is that God worked one way: man to woman. Satan worked the other way: woman to man.
Where We Live Today
For now, we live in an age not without sin, but also not without grace. Just as the world of Genesis 2 was cursed in Genesis 3, so the world of Genesis 3 is not without the hope of redemption. The singular offspring of the woman (Genesis 3:15) has come. Though the present evil age still plagues us, we taste already the coming of the new creation in Christ and learn to live the vision of redemption in Colossians 3:18–19:
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.
None of us lives the vision perfectly yet. But we do taste victories, even as we grieve too many defeats.
And for husbands and pastors, in particular, one implication of Paul’s grounding our calling to lead in Genesis 2 and 3 is that headship means shouldering more responsibility, not less. God’s forming Adam first meant greater responsibility, not greater privilege. More work, not less. More strain, not less. Man was to carry an added weight and burden, but one that God had designed him for, so that he might do it with joy. But being “head” means bearing more, not less.
Brothers, whether as husbands or pastors, God gave you the physical and emotional shoulders for this. And he has given us his Spirit and his promises, and invites us to lay our burdens on him, and plead with him to remake us into the kind of men he made us to be.
David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for desiringGod.org and pastor at Cities Church in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is a husband, father of four, and author of Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines.
