Remember the three most important points for understanding your bible:
1. Context
2. Context
3. Context
Oh, and did I mention CONTEXT?
The context, as seen in 1 Timothy 1 and following, is that false teaching had crept into the church and must be dealt with.
In that time women were hardly more than chattel. Most were illiterate. The women of the church had listened to the false teachers, and not having the ability to check the bible to see if it was correct, passed it along to others.
Paul is telling Timothy that the women should be allowed in the church teaching ministries so that they can learn the truth. However, if the truth they heard contradicted the false teaching they had believed, they were forbidden to stand up and debate the issue in church. If they had a problem they were to take it up with their husbands at home.
This is not saying that women cannot testify, pray, or teach a Sunday School class. It is saying the exact opposite. Let the women be taught the truth and then allow them to pass that truth along to others, but not to try to dominate the men of the church or to make a public issue of their misunderstandings.
