Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Timothy 2:12

"But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness." — 1 Timothy 2:12 (ASV)

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.—The whole purpose of these weighty admonitions from the great founder of the Gentile Churches relegates Christian women to their own legitimate sphere of action and influence—the quiet of their own homes.

St. Paul well understood the spirit of his Master here. He raised the women of Christ once and for all from the position of degradation and intellectual inferiority they had occupied in the various pagan systems of the East and West. With all the weight of an Apostle—an accredited teacher of divine wisdom—he taught that woman was a fellow-heir with man of the glories of the kingdom, where sex would exist no longer.

But while teaching this great and elevating truth, St. Paul also shows what is the only proper sphere in which woman should work and exercise her influence and power. He taught that while man’s work and duties lay in the busy world outside, woman’s work was exclusively confined to the quiet stillness of home. The Apostle then proceeds to ground these injunctions, concerning the public and private duties of the two sexes, upon the original order of creation and upon the circumstances that attended the Fall.