Yes and no. The problem with bible versus used as justifications or instructions is many fold. Translation is a huge issue, but even with “perfect translation” the context of a single snippet is lost when we isolate it. Imagine if we were reading a book of judicial law and took only a single passage, isolated from the constitution and the rest of the relevant passages on that law.
Timothy- in context is a letter from Paul to his homie who was having a specific problem. It’s not put forward in the text as the word of god or having come from god- it’s a memo from a boss to a manager about staff issues. So in modern context picture if Donald Trump or whatever standing president wrote a letter to a party member in congress who was talking about AOC and future generations used viewed that like a ratified bill that applied to all people and situations.
Basically-Paul himself put women in charge of various churches and in positions that would violate the concept of women not having speaking g roles or authority roles. Taken in context to other things Paul says and does- it doesn’t actually make any sense to interpret this passage as literal and absolute. Beyond that there is a known translation disagreement with certain words like “authority,” which is believed to be a mistranslation of a word which doesn’t exactly mean that
The "I" in that verse is Paul, telling Timothy how righteous people should behave. Doesn't really make it much better unless you speculate that he's actually making a veiled reference to a certain woman who really is out of line and that this counsel is in response to an extreme case (same with the "young widows are wicked seductresses, old widows are righteous" thing later on in that epistle), but at that point you're just inventing unknown historical context. Just wanted to clarify who "I" is in that verse, though.
Tl:dr- Timothy is a correspondence from Paul to his coworker Timothy. It’s not put forward as the word of God, and is very contextual. One must view both all of Timothy as well as Paul’s other writings and actions to have context. It doesn’t stand alone as a commandment- like if Elon Musk was speaking to a friend who lived in a rural part of Africa and didn’t have a place to charge a Tesla and said “yeah- Timothy, you shouldn’t get an electric car...” but we only quoted the part that says: “Elon musk said don’t get an electric car...” and left out the rest.
(Whoa, those comments just suddenly appeared after posting that. Sorry for breaking up the existing reply chain! That was supposed to be a top-level comment, not a reply)
Here's the thing... as @guest_ points out, there are some who would cherry pick verse for their own means, whatever they may be.
Weather it's genuine and heart felt or woefully misguided.
A new thing I learned... and this might be cherry picking too, but the best way to counter someone who could be described as... perhaps over zealously evangelizing, is to say to them:
Weather it's genuine and heart felt or woefully misguided.
A new thing I learned... and this might be cherry picking too, but the best way to counter someone who could be described as... perhaps over zealously evangelizing, is to say to them:
Mathew 6:5-8.