ANDREW WILSON AND 1 TIMOTHY 2:12

Defending the obvious

Wilson accuses Piper of begging the question and not providing reasons for his position from
the text. I think that this is somewhat uncharitable. Piper does not need to defend the position
that ‘I do not permit a woman to teach’ means that women should not teach. On the surface,
seems self-evidently to follow from the text. What is more, this has been the uncontroversial
interpretation of the church through the ages. Explaining this would not require a long
explanation or any explanation at all. Wilson’s position may require much explanation to see
how it relates to the text, but he should not require that of those who think the bible means
what it says. What Wilson seems to want is for Piper to interact with his arguments, or the
arguments of those who deny that ‘I do not permit a woman to teach’ means what it says. I,
personally, do not see why Piper should have to deal with every argument against his position
– this would be quite impractical, seeing as bad arguments against good positions are plentiful,
just as (as Einstein said that great minds are never short of mediocre critics). Wilson should
rather advance his own arguments and respectfully disagree without accusations of begging
the question. In addition, we should note, it is only begging the question if Piper was
presenting an argument for his position, as opposed to just explaining it – it isn’t a fallacy, if
it isn’t intended as an argument. (This sort of logical misstep foreshadows the quality of
Wilson’s own arguments.) The questioner wanted Piper’s position, not Andrew Wilson’s. Had
Piper been responding to Andrew Wilson, he might have made a more detailed response.
That aside, let’s look at the arguments that Wilson advances and that Piper supposedly
ignores,
Wilson’s first argument,
By no means all public speech in New Testament churches was “teaching”: it could be described as a
“word of exhortation”, like both Paul’s sermon in Pisidian Antioch and the letter to the Hebrews (Acts
13:15; Hebrews 13:22), or as “prophecy” (as in 1 Corinthians 14, where it is defined as “speaking to
people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation”), or as evangelism (which, as John
Piper has rightly said in other contexts, is much of what “preaching” is really about), or the slightly
mysterious “word of wisdom” or “word of knowledge” (as in 1 Corinthians 12). There are no New
Testament prohibitions on women giving words of encouragement, knowledge or wisdom, or preaching
the gospel, and we know for sure that women in the New Testament church prophesied (Acts 2:17;
21:9; 1 Corinthians 11:2-16; etc). So prohibiting someone from “teaching” is not necessarily the same
thing as prohibiting them from preaching the gospel, delivering a sermon, speaking uninterrupted to
the church from the Bible for thirty minutes, or whatever.

Wilson appears to not see any relationship between “teaching” and all the various forms of
speaking he mentions, here. Reading Wilson, you might think the various forms of
communication listed are precisely equal, abstract variables that do not interact at all. Yet is
this so? I would argue, of course not; this is a demonstrably shallow analysis from Wilson. At
bare minimum teaching is where a speaker communicates the truths of the bible to a gathering
of people – I hope that is not too controversial a statement! Yet if we view teaching in this way,
Wilson’s artificial distinction between “teaching” and every other form of speaking quickly
decays. Take “exhortation”: surely people are exhorted towards something, towards biblical
truth and lives that model biblical truth. Well, I would think it would be hard to give an
exhortation that does not involve some statements of biblical truth; some verses of scripture,
some biblical explanations and arguments! Surely it is biblical truth that exhorts and without
biblical truth it could be no exhortation to the true Christian! Well, it seems the exact same
thing would apply to “prophecy” insofar as prophecy involves “upbuilding”, “encouragement”
and “consolation”, as Wilson puts it. Surely there is no upbuilding, encouragement or

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consolation apart from explanations of the truths of God’s word. If Wilson sees a way to
provide, for example, consolation apart from communicating biblical truths, I would certainly
like to hear it. Similarly, evangelism must of necessity contain an explanation of biblical truth
(teaching) or it is surely not evangelism.
Wilson’s argument only holds for as long as we do not consider that “teaching” is not a
disembodied “x” and prophecy is not a formless “y”; only for as long as they do not stand in
relation to one another or interact in any way. Yet as soon as we look at these forms of speaking
in any depth, we see that exhortation, prophecy (as defined above) and evangelism are just
specific forms of teaching. Certainly, if these forms of speaking do not contain teaching they
are hollow and empty to an almost comical extent. Things get truly bizarre when Wilson
cannot see the problem with saying that teaching is not necessarily the same as delivering a
sermon. Well certainly, they might not be exactly the same thing, but how you would deliver
a sermon without teaching is something perhaps only Wilson knows how to do!
It stands to reason that if Paul wanted to choose one word that covered all forms of speaking,
he could have done no better than to choose “teaching”. If he had chosen to forbid a “Word of
Wisdom” we would rightfully understand that this does not include other forms of teaching. If
he had chosen to forbid prophecy, we would not have thought he was forbidding, for example,
evangelism. Yet if Paul wanted to choose one umbrella term to cover all forms of speaking,
“teaching” is a good candidate. Can you think of a better term for that purpose? Perhaps it
would be clearer if Paul sandwiched his prohibition against women teaching in between
instructions to learn quietly, on the one hand, and to remain silent on the other? It seems that
Paul has chosen the best term he possibly could if he were forbidding not just some abstract,
isolated “teaching”, but all the varied forms of teaching in the New Testament.
Wilson’s second argument
Second: the word “teaching” (didaskein) may have a much more specific referent than Piper implies, or
even than I implied in the previous paragraph. This is the argument of John Dickson in Hearing Her
Voice: “teaching” has to do with the preservation and transmission of the authentic apostolic witness
to Jesus, in the era before the New Testament was written down, rather than (as we generally use it) a
catch-all term for talking about the Bible in a church meeting. Dickson’s book, and in particular his
thought experiment about early church worship, are well worth considering. This raises important
questions about the notion that 1 Timothy 2:12 prohibits what Piper’s questioner called “preaching.”

Wilson himself points out that this rather narrow definition of “teaching” is not entirely
consistent with his previous argument, which makes me wonder which of these arguments he
believes or whether he is advancing whatever arguments he thinks might work. Various
unlikely definitions have been proposed for “teaching” in 1 Tim 2:12, besides Dickson’s
definition. I can do no better than to repeat Schreiner’s response,
Such a view misunderstands the nature of teaching. Teaching explicates the authoritative and public
transmission of tradition about Christ and the Scriptures […] It is crucial that the correct teaching and
the apostolic deposit be passed on to the next generation (2 Timothy 1:12, 14; 2:2). Such teaching isn’t
restricted to the time before the canon was completed; it is the heart and soul of the church’s ministry
until the second coming of Christ.

Wilson does not really venture to defend this argument against Schreiner’s argument, though
he does not altogether abandon it either. (In point of fact, he does not defend this argument at
any point, but merely asserts it.)
Wilson’s Third argument

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 Third: there are several places in which Paul talks about “teaching” without restricting it to men and/or
accredited leaders, and in fact encourages the whole church to do it, as Tom Schreiner points out. “Let
the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing each other in all wisdom ...” (Colossians
3:16). “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in
proportion to our faith; if service, in serving; if a teacher, in teaching ...” (Romans 12:6-7). “When you
come together, everyone has a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a language, an interpretation: let all be
done for building up” (1 Corinthians 14:26). This is the main reason for my belief that Paul uses the
word didaskein in two subtly different ways, which I have called big-T and little-t teaching: sometimes
he encourages everyone to participate in teaching each other (which I take to mean “explaining the
Scriptures to each other in a peer-to-peer way, according to gift”), and sometimes, notably in the
Pastorals, he is talking about Teaching (which is more like “the definition and defence of Christian
doctrine, by the church’s accredited leaders”). In our context, incidentally, we work this out by asking
all non-elders in our church who preach to submit their sermons to an elder, get their feedback on it,
and only then deliver it publicly; that way, the speaker is doing the little-t teaching, and the elder is
doing the big-t Teaching.

I thank Wilson for his distinction between big-t Teaching (“didasko” as it is used in the
pastoral letters) and little-t teaching (as it is used in the letters to churches), which is a useful
distinction that has been most helpful for me, personally. Rather, I think Wilson has not taken
his own distinction seriously enough! Therefore, allow me to take Wilson’s distinction a little
more seriously than he appears to. In fact, Wilson’s argument only succeeds if we do not take
his Teaching/teaching distinction seriously, and if we do not point out actual differences that
flow from it!
Little-t teaching
If we take it that what is being defined in Col 3:16 and 1 Cor 14:26 is little-t teaching, then what
does it look like?
First, let us mention what little-t teaching is not.

• There is no indication in these verses that what is being spoken about is a full-length
sermon, though I will have to support this statement with my positive features of little-
t teaching.
• There is no explicit statement that women are permitted to teach in these meetings. It
may be that certain activities were understood, based on other teachings, not to apply
to all people. When it says “everyone has…” it surely does not mean “everyone has every
contribution”. All I mean to point out is that this is not explicitly stated, so that it is not
a given that women were included in every activity – but I do not rely on this point.
Second, let us mention what little-t teaching is. From what we can glean from these verses it
appears that little-t teaching is,

• Egalitarian – In the sense that the meeting was not dominated by a single person or
persons; it seems that everyone was more or less free to contribute, though this might
have been facilitated by a leader.
• Unstructured – There is no specific order given for activities. Rather it seems that
these activities proceeded in any order, and no activity had particular priority in the
order of the service.
• Mixed – These unstructured meetings contained a variety of prescribed activities:
psalms, hymns, lessons, admonishing, revelations, tongues, interpretations. No one
activity appears to dominate, all are mixed together.

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 • Short – Logically, if you have a large number of people, and everyone can contribute,
it follows that these are not going to be lengthy contributions; for practical reasons,
these would be typically short contributions.
• Unplanned – In such a meeting, many of the activities are unplanned. A tongue or
interpretation are certainly unplanned. A psalm and hymn are planned in one sense,
but which psalm of hymn to choose may be spontaneous. A revelation may have been
received earlier yet there is no reason to think the delivery would be choreographed.
So, although it is possible that some forethought went into a lesson or admonishing or
revelation, it would be an unjustified leap to think these amounted to prepared
sermons!
Big-t Teaching
Wilson defines big-t Teaching as “the definition and defence of Christian doctrine, by the
church’s accredited leaders.” Now, while I would agree that Teaching involves “the definition
and defence of Christian doctrine”, I think Wilson is missing some vital characteristics of
Teaching. I would suggest that we can make, in broad strokes, some assumptions about what
Teaching might look like practically.

• It involved an audience and a speaker.

• It was delivered on (but by no means limited to) a Sunday.
• It was of substantial length (though not necessarily in all cases).
• It was given dedicated time and was not mixed with other forms of speaking and
speakers as in the case of little-t teaching.
• It was, to some extent, planned, though not always.
• It has had special priority in the early church to the present day, according to the
design of God.
• It was the means of delivering and applying biblical truth to the hearer.
• It was frequently delivered by the leaders of the church, e.g., local elders, apostles.
Now, their may be some quibbling about certain details; I do not propose these are all
necessary features, but I certainly do not think that we cannot draw any reasonable
conclusions about what a Teaching might look like practically.
Big-t versus little-t
It might be useful at this point to pause to consider the difference between teaching and
Teaching.
With regards to little-t teaching, notice that everything about the environment and situation
is geared towards showing that the contributions are not authoritative. This might not be the
explicit aim of the arrangement of the meeting, but it is the effect. No form of speaking has
priority over any other in order of time. No form of speaking is given any priority, as far as we
know, in terms of length. No person is given special treatment and everyone may participate.
There is no special activity, no special format, no special person. Speakers of the same format,
e.g., prophecy were often put together and spoke one after another, giving no one speaker
priority. Contributions were short and, to some extent, unplanned/spontaneous. This was a
moment for the priesthood of all believers, not for elders and pastors particularly. It would
have been clear to anyone at such a meeting that a particular teaching did not carry particular
authority and that everything had to be weighed by themselves and the elders. This is even
explicitly stated (regarding prophecy) “let the others weigh what is said,” and the meeting is
structured in such a way as to make hearers aware that the messages must be weighed.

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When it comes to big-t teaching, the reverse is true. Everything – the entire environment and
atmosphere – is geared towards receiving an authoritative teaching. This is a form of speaking
that was given priority – prophecy and tongues are nowhere given as much significance as
teaching. This was a time for teaching only, where usually one person would speak in an
uninterrupted fashion. This teaching was not sandwiched between other activities; it was the
main course. It was, to a large extent, given much forethought and ‘planned’ by the speaker.
Wilson’s Error
With this broad outline in mind, let me explain where I think Wilson goes wrong. I am with
Wilson when it comes to distinguishing between Teaching and teaching. I depart from Wilson
when he does not take his own distinction seriously – indeed, when he reverses it completely.
Wilson writes in another blog post,
The issues that concerned Paul so much were not the location, length of time taken or technical
accoutrements involved, but the accuracy and faithfulness of the doctrine being communicated, and
the character, maturity and authority of the individual (and Paul assumes in the Pastorals that Teaching
is done by elders). In fact, I would suggest that it is possible for an elder to Teach for three minutes
during a time of singing, and also possible for a non-elder to merely teach for forty minutes from the
platform, as long as the church is clear which is happening. [Emphasis mine.]

It is here that I find fault with Wilson’s reasoning. As to the first sentence, I am not so expert
a theologian as Wilson that I can claim to know Paul’s thoughts, but it seems to me that while
Paul was primarily concerned with doctrine and character, that he was not a complete blank
slate when it came to the concept of a sermon. I imagine Paul knew a thing or two about
preaching, and although doctrine was his primary concern, he would have been able to sketch
the basic features of a typical sermon; and he would know what does and does not resemble a
sermon and might even care if we got this wrong.
However, it is in the second sentence that I think Wilson truly errs. After pointing out the
distinction between teaching and Teaching, used in two different contexts, he the proceeds to
erase this distinction for all practical purposes. The distinction which once seemed so
significant to Wilson, and of such great import, now is functionally irrelevant and has no
practical outworking whatsoever. Notice, here, that Wilson is not making an argument from
scripture at this point, he is relying on his own thoughts and his own reason, and this is where
things go horribly wrong. Wilson wants to keep the distinction while it is useful to him (to say
that women are only prohibited from Teaching) then erase the distinction when it suits him
(to say there is really no difference between a woman teaching and Teaching). On the one
hand, this is a profoundly illogical and self-refuting move, and, on the other hand, is a terrible
example of the worst kind of biblical application. If our application of scripture can completely
reverse our interpretation, then we have stumbled into complete absurdity and grave error.
You cannot have it both ways. Either there is a meaningful distinction between Teaching and
teaching, in which case they are not functionally equivalent, or there is no meaningful
distinction, and Wilson’s argument collapses completely. In that case, there is no distinction
between teaching and Teaching and 1 Tim 2:12 prohibits women from all teaching, not just
Teaching. If Teaching is significantly different to teaching, then they cannot be treated the
same; what God has separated, let no man join together.
Notice, also, that this is a complete 180, handbrake turn. I want you to notice the suddenness
and extremeness of this. Wilson was not content to say that these categories might blur at the
edges, that their might be problems using these categories practically. No, Wilson, in the space
of a sentence, asserts that big-t Teaching can be little-t teaching and vice versa. If you’re
experiencing whiplash, you are not alone! This is not an argument with any sense of biblical
perspective; this does not hold in tension somewhat indistinct biblical categories. It is a

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complete upending of the very scriptural categories that Wilson erected. Categories that
Wilson is happy to use theologically, but which vanish like the morning mist with the mention
of practical application.
Yet I desire to take Wilson’s division between teaching and Teaching more seriously than he
does. Let us apply Wilson’s own distinction to the above sentences. Is a pastor who teaches for
three minutes during singing teaching or Teaching? What does scripture say? Indeed, which
of Wilson’s scriptural categories does this fall into? Is it the short, unstructured, mixed,
unprepared, egalitarian little-t teaching? Or is it the more formal, lengthy, prepared, delivery
of doctrine? Well, according to the categories that Wilson devised, clearly this leans towards
little-t teaching more than towards big-t Teaching. I say ‘leans’ because it does not precisely
fit into little-t teaching (which is far from saying it doesn’t fit at all). Also, it might fit ever so
slightly into big-t Teaching. Yet on the whole, this is clearly little-t teaching and not Teaching.
What about the lay person who preaches for forty minutes from the platform? Again, what
does scripture say? Well, clearly this far better fits the description of big-t Teaching, though
again not perfectly in every detail, but for the most part. And it isn’t really even close.
Wilson’s response
In Wilson’s response to Schreiner, he makes another response which is worth noting. Wilson
lists a number of criteria by which we might distinguish teaching from Teaching. He lists,
a) spontaneous versus prepared,
b) occasional versus regular,
c) Sunday versus midweek,
d) ‘defining what is believed versus delivering what is believed’,
e) and ‘preserving the apostolic witness versus instructing one another from the bible’.
Here, again, one wishes Wilson took his own scriptural division more seriously, and had
gathered these criteria from the scriptures he cites. To be fair, Wilson is listing criteria that
others endorse, not which he endorses – except d) which seems to be where Wilson lands. Yet,
even so, Wilson chooses a criterion that is in no way directly related to descriptions of little-t
and big-t Teaching, ‘defining what is believed versus delivering what is believed’. If Wilson had
taken his own view more seriously, this list might detail differences in the scriptural
descriptions of big and little-t teaching, rather than the list above, where b, d, and e do not
correspond to biblical descriptions of big and little-t teaching at all. Wilson ought to ask, how
does scripture define teaching vs Teaching, not ‘what do I think is the crucial difference
between big and little-t teaching?’ If he had done so, he may have arrived at a different
conclusion.
Thus, he might have described little-t teaching as egalitarian, unstructured, mixed, short and
to some extent unplanned. Thus, he might have described big-t teaching as delivered by a
speaker to an audience, of substantial length, given dedicated time rather than mixed, largely
planned, having a special priority according to scripture, the primary means of applying
biblical truth, frequently delivered by church leaders. He might, then, have picked biblical
differences between Teaching and teaching, rather than one of his own invention, at best
derived very indirectly from scripture. He might, then, have noticed that there is no single
difference between teaching and Teaching, but a difference between two concepts that each
have their own associated criteria.
Women teaching?
From Wilson’s own distinction between Teaching and teaching, it follows that 1 Tim 2:12
prohibits women from the activity of Teaching. That is, women are prohibited, according to

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Wilson’s distinction, from full length, prepared, delivery of doctrine, not mixed with other
forms of speaking, in the gathered context, that defines big-t Teaching. Women are not
prohibited (perhaps) from the more egalitarian, unstructured, mixed, short contributions that
define little-t teaching.
If you think about it, everything that Wilson says (up until he reverses his own distinction) is
completely consistent with women not Teaching. If the distinction between teaching and
Teaching remains clear, and meaningful, with practical distinctions, then Wilson’s position
supports women not teaching. To the extent that Wilson tracks with scripture, his train of
thought leads to women not teaching; it is only when Wilson departs from scripture into his
own unreason – even reversing these scriptural categories completely – only at this point can
Wilson arrive at his chosen destination. Notice, only after reversing scripture completely can
he allow women to teach!
Wilson would want to argue that there is no difference between Teaching and teaching,
practically speaking. I have already dealt with the absurdity of this objection. Wilson argues
against himself; he argues that the categories he erected, and identified as significant, are
functionally irrelevant. If he is right then he is wrong. We need show no more contempt for
this argument than Wilson does himself.
Wilson argues against Schreiner, that little-t teaching does not have to be spontaneous or
unprepared. I agree. He argues that a sermon may be spontaneous and that hymns are not
spontaneous. Again, I agree (though with the caveat that known hymns may be sung
spontaneously). The problem with Wilson’s response is that he fails to recognise that what
makes a sermon Teaching is a collection of features, some essential and some non-essential,
the preponderance of which makes something a sermon or not. The fact that a sermon is
delivered in an unplanned way, does not mean it is little-t teaching, because big-t Teaching is
about more than just its being planned or not. The fact that a short lesson is planned, does not
mean it is Teaching, because Teaching has a cluster of associated criteria, as does little-t
teaching, and meeting one criteria is not enough to move it from one category to the other.
For my part, according to my preliminary study of teaching and Teaching, I might define
Teaching as something like, ‘instruction in God’s word (Schreiner’s phrase), to a gathered
assembly, typically longer than little-t teaching, in a dedicated fashion (i.e., not
mixed/interrupted with other persons and contributions), where the message predominates
the portion of the service dedicated to teaching, usually and to some extent prepared in
advance.’ Some of these features are not essential: the fact that a sermon was not prepared in
advance is not essential; it is still a sermon. The length of the sermon is not essential; it could
be longer or shorter. Some of these features are essential: it must contain instruction from
God’s word. It must be to a gathered assembly. It must not be mixed with other contributions
such that you are not sure who preached or if anyone preached. Some features are relative and
not specific, such as the length ‘longer than little-t teaching’ this might be something that is
specific to a church culture and not the same from place to place, yet it is not functionally
useless either – we have some sense of what is longer, even if we do not have an exact time
limit in mind. As a collection of features, it will do Wilson no good to attack one feature or
another, he must show altogether that they do not fit his own category of big-t Teaching.
Conclusion to Wilson’s arguments
Wilson’s first argument was a shallow pool; even the slightest scrutiny sent ripples over the
surface and disturbed its reflection. It relied on various types of preaching where contentless
and unrelated to each other. The moment we added some detail to these forms of speaking, it
became clear that all these forms of peaking involved teaching and that they should be seen as
types of teaching, not independent unrelated entities. Wilson’s second argument relied on a

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definition of ‘teaching’ which was inconsistent with Wilson’s own definition of teaching, so it
is no great surprise that he did not defend it further. In Wilson’s third argument, he attempted
to erase his own distinction for all practical purposes, committing serious crimes against logic,
his own argument, and against scripture. His argument only worked for as long as we did not
take his own distinction too seriously.
Now, in view of the failure of Wilson’s arguments – indeed, the demonstrable weakness and
blatant error of his arguments – he is left with no support for his position. Normally I would
be inclined to think such statements grandiose – but in this case, they are precisely accurate.
Wilson may be a fine expositor, and very knowledgeable, but, like many of today’s thinkers,
his logical arguments leave something to be desired. His three arguments for his position fail
spectacularly, leaving no support for his stance that 1 Tim 2:12 does not prohibit women from
preaching. In the absence of such arguments, we are entirely justified to say ‘I do not permit a
woman to teach’ means exactly what it says. However, Wilson is not similarly justified in his
position; he is left with his ideological commitment to allowing women to teach, without any
arguments in his favour. And with no arguments in his favour, the plain meaning of scripture
stands against him.