1 Timothy 2:15 Through childbearing

1 Timothy 2:15 But women will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

This verse is clearly positive about women and about childbearing but it is difficult to be entirely sure about what Paul is saying and there are different understandings. Perhaps the best way to understand it is that the way for women to live the Christian life (when he says women will be saved through childbearing he must mean as they engage in childbearing not by means of childbearing) is not in pastoral ministry but in childbearing, that is by being, more specifically, mothers and, more generally, women who work at home or engage in other less public tasks. There will be no great preachers except those that are born of women and (in most cases) they will be brought up in the things of the Lord by their mothers. Monica the mother of Augustine, Susanna Wesley and John Newton's mother Mary are obvious examples, as is Timothy's own mother. Of course, this is no simple key to success. Women, like all of us, must continue or remain in faith, love and holiness with propriety (or self control) if they are truly to be saved.