¹⁵But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.

So what are the alternative interpretations of this verse that do not violate consistency with other Scripture? We must be clear that by asking this question, we are not trying to force an acceptable interpretation. We have already discussed that the use of the Greek word “sozo,” while often translated in reference to eternal salvation, has a wider field of meanings than just that.

We have already seen that interpreting this verse as eternal salvation would put it in conflict with the fundamental principle of salvation by grace:

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph. 2:8–9)

Another interpretation offered is that a woman will be saved (i.e., preserved) from death through childbirth. That is a lexical possibility, but it fails the reality test. Many godly women have died in the process of delivery. To be sure, wherever Christianity has gone, health conditions have improved so that childbirth has become safer for women. But the fact remains, since Christ’s atoning death and resurrection, women’s survival through childbirth is the same for believing women as for non-believing women.

Another interpretation is that “bearing of children” refers to the birth of the Messiah by a woman (i.e., Mary). We note that the phrase is actually singular in the original language. But the birth of the Messiah, in that reading, would also save men as well as women. Although some might argue that it was the “mothering” function of the female gender to bring Jesus into the world, the obscurity of that notion stretches our thinking too far in this context. How does this benefit women in general, beyond merely identifying with Mary in her motherhood?

This verse may be speaking of the salvation of women’s position in the church. Paul had just written of the limitation of their role in teaching and authority, so now he explains that this does not exclude them from all ministry. They have a primary role in relation to childbearing and by extension, child training. Those who hold to this view would say that women’s unique, and possibly primary, function as females is in the area of childbearing. It is instructive to note that God did not make us all unisex but created the sexes to (first commandment given) be fruitful. It is women who bear the children.

Lord, help me tread carefully when Your Word challenges my thinking.