Overseeing the Womb: A Rhetorical Investigation of Masculinities and 'Eπiσκoπoσ in 1 Timothy 3

The Church Order of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) 2015, regulation 3 states that the organisational ministry of the DRC should be organised according to the directives given in 1 Timothy 3. The (overseer) is exhorted to, amongst others, manage his. (household) well (1 Tim 3: 4) and keep his children submissive (1 Tim 3:) in order to take care of God's church (1 Tim 3: 5). Such normative and essentialist use of the Bible in regulations and articles in official church documents can be highly problematic. The kind of life-denying interpretations of the Bible in ministerial structuring that make simplistic use of, for example, 1 Timothy has led to dire problems in ecclesial contexts, and for women in particular. Is the inappropriate use of 1 Timothy 3 to justify male preference in ministerial positions the result of poor exegesis, or of the failure to read texts contextually and to engage the rhetoric of these ancient. (womb) encoded texts, or are the texts inherently distorted and is their use therefore doomed to deliver unpalatable results? In this article, masculinities in 1 Timothy, with special reference to gender, leadership and power notions related to the term and role of will be explored with the modern-day ecclesial contexts in mind.