🌀 “I Do Not Permit…”

Imagine being told your role in church was to listen. Only.

Not to teach.
Not to lead.
Not to pray aloud, read Scripture, or share what the Ruach (Spirit) stirred in you.

Just, shhhh… nod, smile, and stay quiet.

Now imagine telling me that.

I bless strangers in checkout lines instead of saying “have a nice day.”
I’m a chronic oversharer of theology, testimony, and unsolicited insights—if I’ve learned something meaningful, I have to tell someone. It’s in my marrow.
Silence? Not exactly my spiritual gift.

So when I first heard that Paul said women should stay silent in church, I had questions. — Mostly loud ones.

For centuries, 1 Timothy 2:12 has been used like divine duct tape across the mouths of women—“I suffer not a woman to teach,” they say, “so you better zip it.”

But here’s the thing: I actually love Scripture. I believe it. All of it.

Which is exactly why I had to dig deeper.

Because once we unpack what was really happening, it becomes clear:

Paul wasn’t silencing women.
He was protecting the gospel.

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📜 What Paul Actually Said

Let’s take a closer look at the verse in question:

“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjugation. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”
—Timotheus Ri’shon (1 Timothy) 2:11-12, Cepher

Most modern readings assume Paul was laying down a universal, once-and-for-all rule that bans women from teaching or leading men. Full stop.

But there’s a lot more going on in the original language—and the context of Ephesus—than we’ve been taught.

🏛 Context Matters

And why was Paul addressing this at all? Because in Ephesus, the culture around the Temple of Artemis gave women unusual spiritual influence. Some were bringing that same domineering style into the early church—hijacking teaching, spreading deception, and disrupting the community.

Paul’s correction wasn’t a blanket ban on women. It was a targeted response to a local problem.

💡 Word 1: “Usurp Authority” — (authentein, αὐθεντεῖν)

This is the only place in the entire New Testament where this Greek word appears. That’s your first clue something’s up.

Paul had plenty of common words available to describe healthy leadership (proistēmi, exousia)—but he didn’t use those.
He used authentein, a rare and loaded term.

In Greek literature outside the Bible, authentein wasn’t about healthy authority at all. It meant:

• To dominate
• To control
• Even to act violently or abusively

This wasn’t “teach with authority.”
This was “hijack the mic, twist doctrine, and crush dissent.”

So why would Paul use that word?

Because in Ephesus, some women were doing exactly that.

They weren’t just sharing truth—they were spreading deception. And given the temple culture of the city (more on that in a moment), Paul was correcting chaos, not condemning calling.

💡 Word 2: “Silence” — (hēsychia, ἡσυχία)

This doesn’t mean absolute quiet.

If Paul had meant that, he would’ve used the Greek word sigaō—which does mean total silence. But he didn’t.

He used hēsychia, which means “quietness,” “stillness,” or “peacefulness.”

In other words: Paul wasn’t saying women should never speak. He was saying they needed to learn in a posture of calm and humility—because something messy was happening in that community.

And we know Paul didn’t believe women should always be silent—because just a few pages over in 1 Corinthians 11, he affirms women praying and prophesying publicly. (Not exactly silent behavior.)

📚 The Radical Command to Learn

Here’s something we often skip over: Paul doesn’t just tell women to be “quiet.” He tells them to learn.

That may not sound radical to us — but in the first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman world, women were typically excluded from formal instruction in Torah or philosophy. They could listen in the synagogue, but systematic discipleship? That was reserved for men.

Paul flips the script. By commanding women in Ephesus to “learn in quietness,” he is actually opening the door of education that had been barred to them. The call to “quietness” (hēsychia) isn’t a muzzle; it’s the normal student posture of humility and attentiveness.

In other words, Paul wasn’t silencing women — he was dignifying them as disciples. He was saying, “You belong in the classroom of Messiah.”

Think about that: the same Paul accused of shutting women down is the one insisting they have the right — and the responsibility — to know the Word for themselves.

That’s not suppression. That’s empowerment.

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✂️ Did Paul Even Write That?

Let’s talk about 1 Corinthians 14:34–35.

“Let your women keep silence in the assemblies…”

It’s been used to silence generations of women—but what if Paul didn’t even write it?

Textual scholar Philip Payne (author of The Bible Vs. Biblical Womanhood) noticed something curious in one key manuscript:
🖋 The ink used for verses 34–35 is visibly different from the rest of the passage. That’s often a telltale sign of a later addition—by a different hand.

And it gets weirder:

📜 In several early manuscripts, those same verses don’t show up in the same place. Sometimes they’re inserted after verse 40, not verse 33—like a scribal sticky note that accidentally got folded into the main script.

⚠️ And it’s not just the ink. Payne notes that in every known Western manuscript, scribes actually marked these verses with sigla (🚩 marginal symbols used to flag disputed text). In other words, even the earliest copyists weren’t sure these lines belonged in Paul’s letter.

That’s huge. It means doubts about verses 34–35 aren’t just a modern feminist gripe — they trace all the way back to the earliest transmitters of Scripture. The Church inherited a contested passage and built a whole doctrine of female silence on it.

💬 And from a flow perspective? It’s awkward. Paul is discussing prophecy, order, and the gifts of the Ruach (Spirit)—then suddenly pivots to women being silent—only to go right back to prophecy? It feels stitched in, not original.

Even if you’re not a scholar, your theological spidey-sense should tingle.

Here’s the bottom line, whether the verses were added later, or misunderstood— They still don’t mean what you were told they mean.

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💪 The Women Paul Actually Empowered

If Paul was universally anti-women-in-leadership, someone forgot to tell… well, Paul.

Because the same man who supposedly told women to stay silent also personally named, affirmed, and partnered with multiple women in roles of leadership, teaching, and apostleship.

Here are a few standouts:

🧠 Priscilla (with Aquila)

In Acts 18, Priscilla and her husband Aquila take Apollos, a powerful teacher, and explain “the way of Elohiym (God) more perfectly” to him.

Paul consistently lists Priscilla first in his letters (Romaiym [Romans] 16:3), which was highly unusual in a male-dominated culture. This reflects her prominence—she wasn’t a silent sidekick. She was a theological heavyweight.

✉️ Phoebe

Paul introduces Phoebe in Romaiym (Romans) 16:1 as a diakonos—a deacon—and a prostatis (patron, leader, or protector) of many, including Paul himself.

And get this: Phoebe was the one who delivered the letter to the Romans. That wasn’t just a delivery job—it meant she likely explained its contents and answered questions on Paul’s behalf.

He didn’t just trust her to carry the gospel.
He trusted her to teach it.

🕊 Junia

Romaiym (Romans) 16:7 greets Junia, who is “well known among the apostles.”

Not just known to the apostles—one of them.

Early Church fathers recognized Junia as a female apostle, until centuries later when translators started masculinizing her name to “Junias” (which, by the way, isn’t even a real name in Greek).

Let that sink in:
Paul affirms a woman apostle.
And we erased her—because she didn’t fit our system.

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⚖️ The “Deborah Problem”

For those who still argue, “Well sure, Paul might’ve worked with women—but they weren’t really leading,” allow me to introduce a very inconvenient judge:

Deborah.

She wasn’t just a prophetess.
She wasn’t just wise.
She was the leader of all Israel—appointed by Yahuah (The Lord) Himself.

“And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Yashar’el (Israel) at that time.”
—Shofetiym (Judges) 4:4, Cepher

Deborah held civil, military, and spiritual authority. She gave orders to generals. Settled disputes. Heard directly from Yahuah. And she did it all without a whisper of rebuke from Him.

Which raises an obvious question:

If Yahuah had no problem placing a woman over an entire nation,
why would Paul have a problem with a woman sharing truth in an assembly?

Deborah stands as a blazing rebuttal to every theology that insists women were “never meant to lead.”

She didn’t ask for permission.
She didn’t apologize for her calling.
She obeyed the voice of Elohiym—and all of Israel followed.

That’s not rebellion.
That’s righteousness

Deborah wasn’t an exception to the rule.
She was the kind of leader Elohiym (God) raised up when no one else was listening.

And when we line her story up beside women like Phoebe, Priscilla, Junia, and so many others Paul empowered— the argument for universal female silence doesn’t just weaken.

It collapses.

So let’s stop pretending Paul was doing something Yah Himself never did.
Let’s stop building doctrine on mistranslations and manuscripts that can’t make up their mind.

Let’s take a look at what we’ve really inherited—and what we’ve really missed.

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🔍 In Conclusion

The assumption is simple:
Women shouldn’t speak, teach, or lead.

And the verse of choice?
1 Timotheus Ri’shon (1 Timothy) 2:12—case closed, conversation over.

But when we actually examine the language…
When we explore the cultural chaos in Ephesus…
When we follow the women Paul worked with, trusted, and commissioned…

That “clear command” turns into a house of cards.

Paul wasn’t laying out a universal gag order. In fact, he might not have even written the passage in question at all.
And he definitely wasn’t contradicting the Elohiym (God) who called Deborah, anointed Miriam, and empowered Junia.

So no, sister.

You don’t have to sit down.
You don’t have to stay quiet.
You were never disqualified.

You were designed to speak truth, prophesy boldly, and carry the gospel into every corner Yah calls you to.

And if Paul’s letters have been misunderstood, you’ll love where we’re going next— the life of Yahusha (Jesus).

Because while the world pushed women to the sidelines,
He pulled them into the center of the story.