📖WEB · 1 Timothy 2:11
What does 1 Timothy 2:11 mean?
"Let a woman learn in quietness with full submission."
— 1 Timothy 2:11 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
I desire therefore that the men in every place pray, lifting up holy hands without anger and doubting.
In the same way, that women also adorn themselves in decent clothing, with modesty and propriety; not just with braided hair, gold, pearls, or expensive clothing;
but (which becomes women professing godliness) with good works.
Let a woman learn in quietness with full submission.
But I don’t permit a woman to teach, nor to exercise authority over a man, but to be in quietness.
For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
Adam wasn’t deceived, but the woman, being deceived, has fallen into disobedience;
Explanation
This verse comes in the middle of Paul's instructions to Timothy about conduct within the gathered church at Ephesus. In plain language, Paul is telling women to receive instruction calmly and attentively, without disruption or a spirit of contentiousness, and with a posture of submission to the teaching being given. The word translated "quietness" (Greek: hesychia) does not mean total silence in every setting but rather a settled, peaceable demeanor — the same word is used just a few verses earlier in 2:2 to describe the "quiet and peaceable life" Paul hopes all believers, men and women, will lead. "Full submission" refers to submitting to the authority of sound teaching and to the order Paul is establishing for worship gatherings, not to submission to men in general.
Contextually, Paul wrote this letter to Timothy, a younger leader he had left in Ephesus to oversee the church there (1 Timothy 1:3). Ephesus was home to the temple of Artemis and had a culture where some women held religious authority in pagan worship; additionally, false teaching was circulating within the Ephesian church itself (1:3-7, 4:1-3), and it appears some women were being drawn into spreading it or were disrupting worship through untrained assertions (2 Timothy 3:6-7 describes women "led away by various lusts," being
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