A Response to John Dickson's Hearing Her Voice (6 of 7)

Critique | Historical questions

My understanding is that as I write, John is soon to publish an ‘extended remix’ of Hearing Her Voice, where he goes into more detail on some areas of his thinking.  No doubt that will require further response.  

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For now, there’s at least two other issues that should be discussed.  The first is brief, the second longer:

i)               the role of history in exegesis

I hesitate to get into the history issue, since it’s one that John is an expert in, and I know how much I’ve still got to learn.  (Or maybe I don’t know how much I’ve still got to learn!)  John is obviously aware that some get nervous about using historical background to interpret the Scriptures.[1]  On his own terms, I think he would say he’s simply trying to engage in historically informed exegesis.  It seems to me, though, that it has slipped into historically determined exegesis.

In other words, he has determined the meaning of Paul’s teach by the historical situation that existed at the time.  As I have tried to show in a previous post, though, there are some places that the word teach is used, and clues in the particular context force us to have a more focussed understanding of what Paul meant by the word, such as Col 3:16 or 2 Tim 2:2.  And there are lots of others, such as Rom 12:7, or I would say 1 Tim 2:12, where the word teach is used, and there are no clues in the particular context that force us to have a more focussed understanding of what Paul meant by the word.  But even in these situations, John’s understanding of the historical situation is the determinative factor in his understanding of what Paul meant by the word teach.

ii)              the relationship between John’s description of the role of teachers and the written New Testament

John’s argument is that teaching consistently means preserving and laying down the traditions of and about Jesus as handed on by the apostles.  He says that whilst this ministry was critically important for the early church – given the absence of books and the low levels of literacy, it is now fulfilled for us, and has been for Christians throughout most of the last two thousand years, by the written New Testament.  In other words, it is the written New Testament that now preserves and lays down the fixed apostolic traditions of and about Jesus.

Once we stop and think about it, however, I don’t think this argument works as well as it seems to at first.  Just think through the various New Testament epistles for a moment.  How much content could naturally be considered as the fixed-traditions-about-Jesus that the teachers were once responsible for preserving and laying down by word of mouth?

What would you include, for example, from Romans?  What parts of Romans could easily be regarded as the written-down-version of the fixed-traditions-of-and-about-Jesus that the teachers had previously preserved and laid down orally?  I realise this is all very subjective, but here are the bits that occur to me.  1:2-4.  5:6-8.  Possibly some verses in 5:12-19, although to mimic John’s own words with regard to Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch,[2] this may just be Paul using a theological understanding of Adam as a launching pad for presenting a theological understanding of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  6:1-14.  8:2-4, 10-17, 22-27.  Perhaps elements of 10:6-13.  12:9-21-13:14 are full of echoes from Jesus’ own teaching.  Parts of 14:1-15:13.  Once you leave out the ethical teaching of chs12-15, though, it’s not a lot is it?

What about another book?  Say, Galatians.  What parts of Galatians could easily be regarded as the written-down-version of the fixed-traditions-of-and-about-Jesus that the teachers had previously preserved and laid down orally?  1:4.  Parts of 2:15-21.  3:1-5, 13-14.  4:4-7.  5:14 definitely.  5:19-26.  6:2, 6-10.   It’s a fair bit.  But there’s still lots that doesn’t really fit the requirement.

What about one of the Pastorals?  Say, 2 Timothy.  What parts of 2 Timothy could easily be regarded as the written-down-version of the fixed-traditions-of-and-about-Jesus that the teachers had previously preserved and laid down orally?  The promise of life in 1:1.  1:7-10.  2:3-6, 8, 11-13.  3:1-4, 12-13.  4:1, 8.

Of course, some may question which passages I’ve left in and which passages I’ve left out.  But putting that to one side for a minute, it’s a very strange game that we’ve ended up playing isn’t it?  It’s like the old historical critical methods that try to identify what parts of the epistles go back to Jesus and what parts don’t.  I'm not saying John has begun playing this game.  It's just where his model leads me once I start trying to test his idea that the New Testament now does in written form what the teachers once did by word of mouth - preserve and lay down the fixed apostolic traditions of and about Jesus.

Also, it’s striking that apart from the parts of these three letters that give ethical instruction, the other passages I’ve identified are often a reflection of the very basic facts concerning Jesus’ death and resurrection.  There’s certainly not a lot that would tell you what Jesus did in this situation or that situation, or what he taught about this situation or that situation.

John’s overall model says that the New Testament now functions to do in written form what the teachers used to do in oral form.[3]  That is, it preserves and lays down the fixed apostolic traditions of and about Jesus. I don’t think it does do this, though.  Or to be more precise, I don’t think it does do this only, or even mainly. 

I think this is the reason that there is so little common material between the letters of the New Testament, but rather, an incredible diversity.  Because these are occasional letters – written to specific people, specific churches, specific situations, specific problems.  John’s argument works with the example of finding out what Jesus had said about divorce.[4]  And there are other examples where we could easily make the model fit.  But there are many more where you can't.

To say that the written New Testament now fulfils the function of teaching that Paul talks about, in the sense of preserving and laying down the traditions of and about Jesus as given by the apostles, is a very neat solution.  But it’s too simple by far.  The reality is more complex.

I suspect John’s response might be to say the gospels are the primary place where the oral traditions are now recorded, and the epistles are simply the apostolic application of these traditions for the contemporary situations they wrote into.  And that sounds like a good answer, until you remember John’s sustained emphasis on the fixed nature of the oral traditions that teachers were charged with passing on.  Because if teaching is about passing on the fixed traditions even to the point of memorisation,[5] it can’t also be about pastorally applying those traditions into new situations, which is what the epistles do.  They don’t simply preserve and lay down the fixed apostolic traditions of and about Jesus.  They don’t even do this mainly.

And so all of a sudden, very quickly, we’ve pulled a fair way back from saying that the New Testament now fulfils in written form what the teachers previously did by word of mouth.  Perhaps we could put the gospels into such a category.  But you certainly can’t really include the epistles in such a description unless you change your whole definition of teaching.  And you can’t do that, of course, or else the whole argument begins to fall apart.

The overall model that John proposes seems to work well.  But only at first.

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[1] p24.

[2] p32.

[3] p42-43.

[4] p43.

[5] p28.

A Response to John Dickson's Hearing Her Voice (5 of 7)

Critique | Can 1 Tim 2:12 be worked out through the meaning of just one word?

I raise this area of critique cautiously, because I run the risk of criticising John for not doing something he was never trying to do in the first place.  If I have understood Hearing Her Voice accurately, John is trying to challenge a particular understanding – he would say misunderstanding – of a specific New Testament word: teach, didaskō.  Although his argument relates to the use of this word much more widely in the New Testament, and especially in the Pastorals, the critical area under discussion is obviously the application of 1 Tim 2:12 to the question of whether or not women should be permitted to give sermons in our current context.

Source: iStockphoto.com

What all this means, though, is that Hearing Her Voice is not an exposition of 1 Tim 2, or of 1 Tim 2:11-15, or even just 1 Tim 2:11-12.  This observation is not, in and of itself, intended as a criticism.  It’s simply an observation.  I suspect the reason for the way John has argued is that his conclusion about the application of 1 Tim 2:12 does not come primarily from a peculiar exposition of the wider passage, but rather from his understanding of the meaning of this critical word in v12.  In other words, I’m guessing that John would regard his exegesis of the rest of the passage as largely uncontroversial.  And therefore it’s not really part of his argument.

But to properly understand, and then apply, a passage like 1 Tim 2:12, I think we need to do both things: we need to work out the meaning of individual words, and we also need to work out the meaning of sentences and paragraphs.  John’s work is mainly about the first process – the meaning and implications of an individual word.  I have tried to show where I think it doesn’t work.  But we’ve also got to engage in the second process – working out the meaning and implications of sentences and paragraphs.  For this reason, I don’t think we can come to a proper understanding of what Paul prohibits in 1 Tim 2:12 without also trying to understand the argument of 1 Tim 2:11-15, 1 Tim 2, and the Pastorals more widely.

Within the context of 1 Tim 2:11-15, at least three issues require explanation: the relationship between to teach and to have authority, the relationship between Paul’s negative instructions relating to women (I do not permit a woman …) with his positive instructions relating to women (Let a woman learn … rather she is to …), and the relationship between the combined set of positive-and-negative instructions relating to women in vv11-12 and the theological reasoning of vv14-15.[1]

i)               the relationship between to teach and to have authority

John suggests that the best way of interpreting these words in v12 is that they refer to one activity: the authority of teaching.[2]  But the two infinitive verbs are separated by five other words.  With the sense of an interlinear translation, Paul’s word order goes something like: to-teach but a-woman do-not I-permit nor to-exercise-authority of-a-man, but to-be in quietness.  If the two infinitives do refer to the same activity, it seems unusual to separate them like this. 

Obviously John knows all the exegetical issues.  More importantly, he says that his overall argument fits whether we think the two infinitives refer to one activity or two.  But in the paragraph where he explains this a bit further,[3] he says that if we say the infinitives refer to two activities, the authority that Paul is thinking of must be the authority of an elder, discussed in 3:1-7.  He certainly can’t mean any authority at all, for elsewhere, such as 1 Cor 11:5, he’s very happy for a woman to prophesy, and this surely involves some degree of authority. 

I’m not sure I’ve fully understood John’s point here, which may be my fault not his.  But given the necessary weighing of prophecy that Paul describes in 1 Cor 14:29-32, a context where Paul gives another prohibition on women in the public gathering (14:33-35) – a prohibition commonly understood as referring to a woman’s involvement in the weighing of prophecy, isn’t it as simply as saying that prophecy must carry a lower authority than the weighing of prophecy, for women are allowed to do one and not the other?  For the same reason, it must carry a lower authority than the teaching or exercising authority in 1 Tim 2.  In other words, the appeal to 1 Cor 11, or any other passage that indicates women in public speaking roles, doesn’t negate the fact that Paul still prohibits a woman from teaching or having authority over a man.

But if the two infinitives refer to not one activity but two, the plausibility of John’s argument, which after all is built fundamentally on his alternate understanding what Paul meant by the word teach, is significantly reduced.  This is even truer if the proper relationship between the two infinitives is to say that the first – to teach, is a specific instance of the second – to exercise authority.

ii)              the relationship between Paul’s negative and positive instructions

The bracketing repetition of quietly/quiet in vv11-12, as well as the Greek word order (in quietness comes before learn), reveals the positive thrust of Paul’s instruction.  His desire is for women to learn in a particular manner – the manner of quietness.  This manner of learning is then further qualified with the words with all submissiveness.  Such a term automatically introduces a relational dynamic to Paul’s instruction, for the manner of quietness can exist on its own, whereas submission is to someone or something.  The use of such words is immensely challenging for modern readers.  It’s probably worth remembering, though, that as any teacher can testify, when it comes to learning quietness and submissiveness are not negative qualities, but positive ones.  But what is a woman’s submissiveness in learning directed to?  Men?  The teachers?  The teaching?  The congregation?  The most plausible answer is the person doing the teaching, in the public times during which they are teaching.

Again, though, remembering the bracketing repetition of quietly/quiet at the start of v11 and the end of v12, the negative instruction that comes in between these words at the start of v12 is best understood as a flipside of the same coin about women learning.  This way of understanding vv11-12 is also indicated by the natural contrast of learn and teach.  In other words, v12 is the negative way of viewing the positive command of v11: for a woman to learn quietly with all submissiveness means a woman is not to teach or to exercise authority over a man.  But it’s the positive instruction about women learning that is Paul’s bigger focus. 

If this understanding of the relationship between the positive and negative commands is correct, and it’s the way these verses are usually understood, John’s definition of teach would now require that v11 means something along the lines of: a woman is to acquire the fixed traditions of and about Jesus as handed on by the apostles quietly and with all submissiveness.  To unpack it like this certainly exposes the contemporary inapplicability that John argues for with regard to Paul’s prohibition in v12!  But it’s a strange place to come to, isn’t it?  It seems to put all the emphasis on the specific activity being undertaken, rather than on a truth about how men and women should relate in the publicly gathered congregation.  And yet that is the more natural way to read vv9-15.

At the same time, for various reasons other than the ones John has given, some people have tried to limit the applicability of Paul’s instruction in v12 to this particular time period.  To be consistent, however, whichever argument someone puts forward, if v12 is temporally limited, then other statements in the immediate context should be similarly limited.  This includes Paul’s positive instruction for women to learn quietly in v11.  Again, it seems a strange place to have come to.

iii)            the relationship between vv11-12 and vv13-15

As most people recognise, the theological reasoning behind Paul’s instruction on how women are to quietly learn is given in vv13-15.  His teaching on the appropriate expression of femaleness with respect to learning (vv11-12) is grounded in his discussion of male and female roles in Creation and the Fall (vv13-15).  It is not immediately clear why such a weighty reasoning would be provided for the specific activity of acquiring the fixed traditions of and about Jesus as handed on by the apostles, which contextually is what a woman’s learning must now consist of if the teaching in the next verse means preserving and laying down.  But wouldn’t the same reasoning apply to other contexts with regard to the manner of a woman learning?

Conclusions about 1 Tim 2:11-15

I suggested earlier that the reason Hearing Her Voice doesn’t give an exegesis of 1 Tim 2, or 1 Tim 2:11-15, or even just 1 Tim 2:11-12, is because perhaps John doesn’t think there is anything remarkable about his exegesis of the rest of the passage.  I don’t think John says this explicitly anywhere.  It’s just me guessing.

But actually, I think this is a problem.  You can’t just have a different understanding of one word and leave everything else untouched.  If you change one bit, you change the whole thing.  Maybe not in every situation, but in this situation definitely.  It’s just what happens once you realise the inter-connectedness of Paul’s instructions, and the inter-connectedness of his instructions and his theological reasoning.

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[1] In what follows, I will use the esv translation.

[2] p23.

[3] p23.

A Response to John Dickson's Hearing Her Voice (4 of 7)

Critique | Is the focus on exposition the right focus?

Another aspect of John’s argument that the contemporary sermon should not be equated with the ministry of teaching that Paul forbids to women in 1 Tim 2:12 is that contemporary sermons are chiefly characterised by exposition, whereas this is never what Paul means when he refers to teaching.  John is clearly in support of exposition as a method for contemporary preaching.  It’s just that he doesn’t think it really features in the New Testament, let alone is put forward as the definition of teaching.  And he devotes considerable space and time to proving that various texts often held up in support of exposition don’t actually show this at all.

Source: iStockphoto.com

I think John is broadly right that exposition of Scripture in the way that we are used to thinking of it, and doing it, hardly features in the New Testament.  But I think the whole issue of exposition is a real distraction as we try to work out whether women should be permitted to preach, and whether a contemporary sermon is what Paul meant by teaching.  The reason for this is that the question of exposition is a question of method, whereas the question of teaching is one of activity.

To try and make the significance of all this a bit clearer, let’s start with an activity other than teaching.  For example, John suggests several times that the contemporary sermon is probably closest to the New Testament ministry of exhortation.  The main reason for this I can find is a group of passages he refers to that show an exposition immediately following a reading of Scripture (Acts 13:15; 15:31-32; 1 Tim 4:13).  In other words, the reason John thinks contemporary sermons are closest to New Testament exhortation is because of the proximity of the two activities in these three passages, not because he thinks exhortation means the exposition of Scripture.  He couldn’t think that.  After all, he has already said (logically at least) that exposition of Scripture hardly features in the New Testament.

But these are all observations about activity.  Let’s now try and focus on method, by asking how Paul exhorted his hearers in Acts 13:15.  Or how Judas and Silas exhorted the brothers in Acts 15:31-32.  Or how Timothy was to exhort in 1 Tim 4:13.  Does exhorting in these passages simply mean giving a series of ethical instructions?  Does it mean re-stating the truths of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection?  Would it have include any exposition of Scriptures?  Would it be the application of Scripture?  Would it have simply involved urging the listeners to continue on in steadfast faith and obedience? 

These are all much harder questions to answer.  In fact I’m not certain that we can answer them with any great precision, because the passages in question are refering to a particular activity, without really telling us anything about the particular method that was used.

It's the same with teaching in 1 Tim 2:12.  To focus on whether teaching equals exposition confuses an activity with a method.

A Response to John Dickson's Hearing Her Voice (3 of 7)

Critique | Does teaching really mean ‘preserving and laying down’?

The heart of John’s argument in Hearing Her Voice is that what we do in contemporary sermons is a different activity to the teaching that Paul forbids to women in 1 Tim 2:12.  

I don’t think the first stage of his argument is really in dispute.  He simply shows that there are numerous speaking ministries mentioned in the Bible.  They may have significant areas of overlap.  But the fact that different words are used to describe them means that they are clearly distinguishable from each other.  Only one of them – teaching (Greek didaskō) – is forbidden to women in 1 Tim 2:12.  So far, nothing too radical.

Source: iStockphoto.com

From here, John questions the easy assumption which is often made, that what we do in contemporary sermons is the same activity of teaching that Paul talks about in 1 Tim 2:12.  He says that it's not.  Rather, for Paul, teaching referred to a very specific activity found within the writings, and the historical context, of the New Testament.  Therefore, women today should be allowed to give sermons.  Rather than viewing them as New Testament teaching, John suggests they may be closest to the New Testament ministry of exhorting (Greek paraklēsis).  In support of this he pays particular attention to Acts 13:15, 15:31-32, and 1 Tim 4:13.

What then is the ministry of teaching that Paul forbids to women in 1 Tim 2:12?  John begins his answer by distinguishing between a general type of ‘teaching’ and a specific or technical meaning of the term.  This seems plausible, given that Paul’s instruction in 1 Tim 2:12 can’t really contradict his instruction in Col 3:16 that everyone in the congregation to be involved in teaching one another.  And so the word-ministry of teaching that Paul prohibits to women in 1 Tim 2:12 should be understood with this specific, or technical, meaning, which John describes as preserving and laying down the fixed traditions of and about Jesus as handed on by the apostles.

Where does this definition of teaching come from?

John says that this definition of teaching comes from historically informed exegesis: from thinking through the historical situation that existed at the time Paul gave this instruction, and then considering the exegetical implications that flow from this.  1 Tim 2:12 was written at a time when the apostolic letters and the gospels had not yet been collected into what we now have as the New Testament.  Therefore churches were highly dependant on oral transmission to pass on the teaching of and about Jesus that was given by the apostles.

The idea of fixed oral transmission is not controversial, and John gives several examples of New Testament texts that indicate its use: 1 Cor 11:2; 11:23-24; 15:1-5; Gal 1:6-9; 1 Thess 4:1-2.[1]  He also gives several texts that show this body of traditions was fixed not flexible:[2] the reference to the apostolic ‘deposit’ (1 Tim 6:20; 2 Tim 1:14), the ‘faith that was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3), and the ‘traditions delivered/received’ (1 Cor 11:2; 15:1-3; 2 Thess 3:6).  Then crucially, the final step in John's section on oral transmission is to say that this fixed body of tradition is frequently called ‘the teaching’ (citing Rom 6:17; 16:17; 1 Tim 6:1; Titus 1:9; 2:10 etc.).  He says that in these references, ‘the teaching’ is not Bible exposition but recently transmitted apostolic traditions.[3]

Having laid this groundwork, John goes on to argue that teaching is Paul’s preferred word, in the Pastorals at least, for this preserving and laying down process.  I don’t think John ties himself down to any one particular ‘proof text’.  He is trying to observe the general, consistent pattern of Paul’s usage.  Nevertheless, some passages occupy a more prominent place in his thinking, such as Gal 1:12, where Paul declares with synonymous parallelism, ‘I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it’, and 2 Tim 2:2, where Paul instructs Timothy, ‘what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also’.

For me, it’s in amongst all these details that John’s argument doesn’t work.  

As a first observation, for example, earlier on in his argument when he explains that teaching isn’t everything, John repeatedly insists that different words are used to describe different word ministries, and that despite whatever overlap they share they are also clearly distinguished one from another.  But this insistence seems to virtually disappear in his discussion of fixed oral transmission.  As a result, we’re told that four very different words, or sets of words, can all now refer to the same process – the apostolic deposit, the faith once for all delivered, the traditions delivered/received, and the teaching.

In addition, John’s explanation of the meaning of teaching is of specific and technical process already described by other New Testament words.  These are the ‘traditions delivered/received’ words, words like paradosis (tradition), paralambanō (receive), and paradidōmi (deliver over).  These words are widely understood with the technical meaning of preserving and laying down, which is why in the majority of references in John’s section on oral transmission, it’s these words that are used, not teach words. 

I realise that none of this is unknown to John.  His explanation is that the ‘traditions delivered/received’ words are typically used to refer to the evangelistic process, whereas Paul typically uses ‘teach’ to refer to the ongoing process of preserving and laying down the apostolic traditions.  But given the synonymous parallelism of receive and taught in Gal 1:12, it means another layer must now be added to our understanding of the meaning of these different words:

·       paradosis, paralambanō, and paradidōmi are specific technical words that denote the initial evangelistic passing on of apostolic traditions of and about Jesus

·       teaching also has this specific technical meaning, although it can also have the more general meaning of a passage like Col 3:16; but in addition to all this, when it carries the specific technical meaning, teaching can refer either to the initial evangelistic passing on of apostolic traditions, or the ongoing process of passing on apostolic traditions

Perhaps this is what the words actually mean.  Just as a ‘gut feel’, though, it’s not the way I naturally read the word.  Although maybe I have been too shaped by the evangelical ‘plain reading’ that John is trying to challenge, which simply assumes what needs to be shown.

Most problematic for me, though, is the suggestion that teach has two distinct meanings: the general one found in a place like Col 3:16, and the specific and technical one found in 1 Tim 2:12.  This begs the question, of course, about how you know when Paul has the general meaning in mind and when he has the specific and technical meaning in mind, to which the obvious answer is that you can only know by looking at the particular context.  And I think this issue of particular context is a much better explanation of the different ways that Paul uses the word teach, than anything inherent in the word itself which says it has either the general meaning or the specific and technical meaning. 

For example, in 2 Tim 2:2, isn’t it the combined effect of all the other words in Paul’s instruction that lead us to the preserving and laying down process?  Consider what the verse looks like even when the word teach is blanked out:

and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to _____ others also.

In other words, it’s not anything inherent in the meaning of the ‘_____’ word that tells us it means preserving and laying down the apostolic traditions for future generations.  It’s the particular context of the whole sentence that gives this meaning.

Or, to think of it a different way, consider what the verse would mean if instead of the word teach, Paul had used exhort:

and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to exhort others also.

If Paul had written such a statement, would that now mean that the word exhort carried the meaning of preserving and laying down that John gives to teach?  It would if this you could track the word through the New Testament and show that this is consistently what it means.  But probably not, if in its other uses the word was left without qualification by the particular context.  In such a situation, it would simply mean that here in 2 Tim 2:2, the content of the faithful men’s exhortation of others is whatever Timothy had heard Paul say in the presence of many witnesses and entrusted to them?

I think it’s more accurate, therefore, to say that the word teach can carry a range of meanings.  In some particular contexts, such as Col 3:16 or 2 Tim 2:2, the surrounding words dictate the manner, or the content, of teaching, so that we understand Paul is talking about something specific.  But when we come to passages where Paul uses the word teach, and there’s nothing in the particular context which means we should narrow our understanding of what he means by the word, why would we take the narrower understanding of the word from a different passage, where there are all sorts of clues to say we must narrow our understanding of what Paul means, and overlay that narrower meaning onto the passage we are working on? 

In other words, Paul’s usage of teach could be represented like this:

general		passages where clues in the particular context mean Paul is using teach very generally				e.g. Col 3:16
		passages where there are no clues in the particular context that focus our understanding of how Paul uses teach				e.g., Rom 12:7
specific		passages where clues in the particular context mean Paul is using teach more narrowly				e.g., 2 Tim 2:2

I think John sees a passage like Col 3:16 as the exception, and passages like 2 Tim 2:2 as the precedent by which passages like Rom 12:7 should be understood.  (I realise John’s argument is not based on 2 Tim 2:2 alone, which is why I’ve listed it as an example, and why I just used the plural: passages like 2 Tim 2:2.) 

Isn’t it better, though, given that historically teaching has typically been understood more generally, and without the specific technical meaning of words like paradosis, paralambanō, and paradidōmi, to say that it has not narrowing of meaning, unless the context demands it, as in the case of Col 3:16 or 2 Tim 2:2?

Conclusions about the meaning of teach

I’m sure some people will think I'm just splitting hairs.  I hope, at the very least though, that I’ve fairly represented John’s argument!  

More posts will follow.  At this point, though, my main goal has simply been to explain why I don’t think the specific and technical definition that John gives to teaching really works.  The word has a range of meanings, and has normally been understood quite generally.  Occasionally, such as in Col 3:16 or 2 Tim 2:2, the particular context that we narrow our understanding of what Paul is talking about.  But where the context makes no such demand – and I would argue 1 Tim 2:12 is an example of such a passage – I don’t think there are good reasons for narrowing our understanding of what Paul is talking about.

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[1] p27.

[2] p29.

[3] p29.