BEN F. VICK, JR.
Is it scriptural for a woman to teach a boy who has been baptized? The concern is based on Paul’s inspired prohibition found in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 which reads: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” (1 Tim. 2:11-12.) Is a woman violating God’s law concerning her limitations in teaching when she teaches a Bible class in which a baptized boy is a student? I appreciate the desire to follow God’s word.
This question is not addressed in the New Testament. The scriptures do not mention children being baptized. In the book of Acts, we read of men and women being baptized, but not boys or girls. Herein, I insert some thoughts expressed by brother T.B. Larimore who loved children:
Children differ so much in development that it is not possible to designate an age at which they should obey the gospel. I remember two boys I have baptized, each at the age of seven and a half years old. That is an earlier age than children usually obey or can obey the gospel, and I do not suggest this as a precedent. The circumstances surrounding the first of these two boys to be baptized were peculiarly calculated to develop early the devotional principle of his nature. His mother was left a widow where her only child was a little babe, she herself being scarcely more than a child in years, and her son had been her constant companion all his life. She had read the Bible to him and taught him its precepts earnestly and prayerfully, and at the age of seven he wanted to obey the gospel. She persuaded him to postpone that step; but six months later he still earnestly desired to become a Christian that she brought to me, asking me to question him to learn whether he understood and appreciated the truths of the gospel. After talking with him I was fully persuaded that he understood the importance of becoming a Christian and the way to do it as well as many persons thrice his age understand it. I baptized him; and, as he walked away, after being baptized, he said: “Now, mother, I have a fight to fight, and I must fight it like a man.” I have seen the boy since he became a man more than six feet tall, and he was then still fighting the fight of faith “like a man.”
The second boy I baptized at the age of seven and a half years is Batsell Baxter [The father of Batsell Barrett Baxter], President of Abilene Christian College. He, too had had training and instruction in the principles of Christianity all his life, and fully understood the plan and purpose of obedience to the gospel. It is not necessary for me to say anything of him. The good he has done and is doing, and the position he occupies testify for him.
-Life, Letters and Sermons of T. B. Larimore, pp. 213-214.
In the same work, Larimore wrote, “Not long after I obeyed the gospel, I began trying to preach it. I obeyed it on my twenty-first birthday but could have obeyed it on my seventh birthday with as pure motives and as serious impulses as on my twenty-first birthday, and I am sure I would have done so had I been properly instructed. So I have always believed that in that sense I lost those fourteen years….”
It would be unusual for a boy of seven in our day to obey the gospel because there are so many distractions and not enough instruction. However, if a boy that young has been taught the gospel, and has obeyed it, could a good sister in Christ teach the boy in a Bible class? I believe she could. Paul said, “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor usurp authority over the man….” “The text says “man,” not a boy. The Greek word for man (ἀνήρ) here is defined as “an adult human male, man, husband.” It is used in contrast to a “woman” as well as a “boy.” Paul illustrated the church in its infant stage when the miraculous was still in force when he wrote, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1 Cor. 13:11,) The word “child” means not yet of legal age, minor, not yet of age (Gal. 4:1). A child is not a man; a boy is not a man. Though we sometimes use the words boy and man in relative senses. When I first came to the Shelbyville Road congregation, brother Totty used to ask Nadene, the secretary, “if the boy was in.” I was 28 years old. I was a boy compared to him, who was in his mid-seventies. Baptism does not make a boy a man.
A sister could teach a boy who has been baptized, but it would be more expedient to have a man to teach the class. Paul said, “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” (1 Cor. 6:12.) The fact that so many churches today allow women in leading roles in the church should cause us to be cautious along these lines. On another subject but applicable here, brother R. L. Whiteside wrote, “If we refuse to be scared at the theories of others and avoid adopting theories of our own, we can accept the plain statements of the Bible. (Reflections, p 217.)
So, is it contrary to Scripture for a woman to teach a baptized boy? No. However, it might not be expedient. Such should be determined by the elders of the local congregation. Let us not bind when God has not bound.