Are women really saved by childbearing according to 1 Timothy 2:15?

Question

In 1 Timothy, Paul says:

1 Timothy 2:15 (ESV)
¹⁵  Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

Does the "she" refer to Eve, or all women? And does the "they" refer to the same object as the "she"?

The New International Version seems to think that it applies to all women:

1 Timothy 2:15 (NIV)
¹⁵  But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

But a natural reading of this doesn't seem to agree with most Scripture, including:

Galatians 3:28 (NIV)
²⁸  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

How should 1 Timothy 2:15 be interpreted?

Answer 1

Who is "she"?

To answer your first question, the "she" in verse 15 probably refers back to the she in verse 12 ("she must be silent"). For "she" to refer to Eve would seem like a digression. It's better to think Paul stays on point.

What does it mean for her to be "saved through child bearing?"

Having read numerous attempts at a reasonable interpretation, I've found Andreas Köstenberger's exegesis the most convincing. The article is for the CBMW, and anyway the issue is emotionally charged, so it's important to me that his arguments stick close to the text. And indeed, he surveys a number of texts; here are three key ones:

1 Timothy 4:16 - Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

1 Timothy 5:14-15 - So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan.

1 Corinthians 7:5 - Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

First, as you remark, a natural reading of the word "saved" doesn't allow this passage to agree with the rest of Scriptures. So we should look at possible defintions. One possibility comes from 1 Timothy 4:16 above. It's plain from that verse that Paul does not think that in the final judgment Timothy's listeners will be saved on the basis of Timothy's careful watch of his own life and doctrine. Rather the idea is probably better seen in a place like 6:20-21: "Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith." Therefore, we might understand "save" as in the sense of "protect someone from wandering from the faith."

Second, then, we ask how does "childbearing" protect anyone from wandering from their faith? The phrase "to have children" in 1 Timothy 5:14 is the only other instance of this term in the New Testament. And here we see it alongside a couple other verbs: "marry" and "manage their homes." It's possible then that Paul's use of childbearing in 2:15 is a shorthand for this larger idea. In the passage in chapter 5, the young widows are in danger of bringing judgment on themselves by being idlers and gossips and busybodies. To protect them from this, Paul counsels that they marry, have children, and manage homes. This will keep Satan from getting a foothold in their lives.

We see a similar pattern in the 1 Corithians 7 passage. Paul is concerned that by depriving one another couples will give opportunity to Satan to tempt them towards sexual immorality. Paul therefore recommends that they come together as a married couple as a means of protection. Thus while we wouldn't say anyone is saved in the final judgment because they had regular intercourse with their spouse, people might be saved from the temptation to go after shrine prostitutes and their idols and so forsake the faith.

Similarly, childbearing is not what saves a woman in the final judgement. A woman is saved in the final judgment like anyone else (their is no Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female...): through faith. Yet in this life, childbearing is a gift to help save her from making shipwreck of that faith.

Answer 2

Calvin and Gill agree that "she" refers to all women. Both take the through to be circumstantial rather than causal; that is, with the sense of passing through rather than by. Having just mentioned how the woman was deceived first, and therefore has the curse of the pain of childbearing upon her, Paul quickly moves to giving comfort that women who persevere in the faith by performing their womanly duties will be saved, and not men only.

Answer 3

Bible scholar Ben Witherington argues that the peculiar phrasing of this verse—the singular "she" in the subject combined with the plural "they" after the verb, as well as the form of τῆς τεκνογονίας, literally "the childbearing"—points to a particular birth, namely, the birth of Christ.

Moreover, the context indicates that Paul is addressing a specific group of women here. Verse 9 refers to women "with braided hair, with gold and pearls and expensive clothes", in other words, high-status women.

In pagan temples these women would have had the right to teach others, simply because of their status. Just like Eve, who had not received proper instruction about the forbidden fruit (only Adam had received the instructions from God, and Eve's response to the serpent indicates that either Adam had relayed the instructions incorrectly or Eve had misheard or misunderstood him), took it and ate and offered it to Adam, these women wanted to offer their wisdom without getting proper instruction.

Mary, on the other hand, submitted to the will of God and gave birth to the one who saves us all. Paul wants these high-status women to follow Mary's example rather than Eve's.

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If Witherington is right, then "she" in verse 15 refers specifically to these domineering high-status women, but also more broadly to all women, "if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control." They are saved through Mary's child-bearing, through the birth (and death) of Christ, and they are exhorted to follow Mary's example of obedience to the will of God.

Witherington acknowledges this interpretation is far from obvious, but insists that it makes the best sense given the cultural context in which this letter was written:

You will notice that all of this interpretation comes after the fact. You might never deduce some of this simply from reading the mere words in the passage above. Unless the text is studied in its historical literary, rhetorical, religious etc. contexts we are bound to distort its meaning and misuse it. A text without a context is just a pretext for whatever you want it to mean.

Answer 4

In Genesis 3:17-19, God had cursed the ground because of the sin of Adam, and therefore the earth receives the disobedient curse. Thus the ground produces thorns and thistles and is thus "disobedient" to the cultivation of the land by Adam (mankind), whose sweat of the brow is the turmoil that results. The Apostle Paul accounts for the disturbances of the earth (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, etc.) as to the "groanings" of the earth because of this curse (Rom 8:19-22).

The woman is cursed with the pain of childbearing (Gen 3:16). That is, she is not only pained with the physical turmoil of bearing children at the moment of birth, but of bearing the brunt of the burden of child-rearing or -raising (since the man must go out and till and scrounge the ground for food). Children too therefore will seek to be "disobedient" as a part of their nature of disobedience, and therefore cause turmoil to the mother first and foremost. Finally, her desire is for her husband (Gen 3:16), which is the reversal of the authority of man to woman (the created order). That is, contrary to her nature as created by God, she will seek to rule the man, whose turmoil will be his relationship to his wife.

So the sin of Adam threw everything upside down: the woman will seek to rule the man, the children seek to rule the mother (and father), and the ground seeks to thwart man, who walks on the ground, which is cursed.

The context of the passage of 1 Tim 2:13-15 is therefore an acknowledgement of the created order, and its subsequent upset by sin with a specific emphasis on the effect to the woman (Eve, "who was deceived"). In other words, if the believing (female) Christian concerned subordinates herself to the teaching of the Word of God, she will mitigate the collective effect of the Fall on herself. Again, the emphasis here is not limited to childbirth per se, but to her experience as a woman (mother, wife, daughter, and sister in Christ). So, if she is disobedient and disregards the Word of God and its delineation as to God's created order, then she is going to experience the pain as a rebellious daughter to her parents; and/or as a mother with rebellious children; and/or as a wife in a relationship with her husband, whom she does not respect, and for whom the man is not going to be loving. So the emphasis is not restricted to physical "childbirth," because (again) Paul uses the phrase "childbirth" as a figure of speech (called a "metonymy" in hermeneutics) for the collective effect of the Fall on the woman.

SUMMARY
So the scope of the Apostle Paul in context here is wider than simply the idea of giving birth to children after 9 months of pregnancy, since the Fall as a whole is in view in the context. So "childbirth" is a "metonymy" for the effect of the Fall on a woman's life. The Apostle Paul is essentially saying in plain English that for the believing female Christian, outright disregard for the Word of God concerning the created order therefore only will serve to throw gasoline on the fire.

Answer 5

To toss out another perspective (along with a link for further reading):

Richard Clark Kroeger & Catherine Clark Kroeger point out in their book, I Suffer Not a Woman that the word "teach" used in the passage just before the one in question, is everywhere else in the NT followed by the content of the teaching. Thus, they suggest the verse is properly understood that the woman is not to teach that she is the source of man, for Adam was created first, then Eve.

They explain that Paul is countering a prevalent teaching of the day connected with worship of a fertility goddess. Worshipers of this goddess believed and taught that women are authority because the men come from women. Women of the day believed that if they worshiped this fertility goddess they would be saved in childbearing. Thus, the Kroegers explain that after setting the doctrine, Paul assures that the women would still be saved in childbirth if they continue in godliness etc, not by worshiping the goddess.

It was a long time ago I read the book and I no longer have it. If anyone has read this and can clarify feel free to edit my answer.