Bible Dictionary
CHILD-BEARING
Child-bearing refers to the calling and experience of woman as wife and mother, including the pains and dangers of maternity. First Timothy connects it with faithful Christian living, not with earning salvation by physical birth.
Definition
Child-bearing refers to the calling of woman as wife and mother and includes the anxieties, pains, and perils associated with maternity. In the biblical discussion, it represents the ordinary sphere assigned to woman and the consequences connected with the Fall.
Biblical Usage
First Timothy 2:15 speaks of being saved through child-bearing, understood not as physical birth earning salvation, but as faithful continuance in the woman’s calling as wife and mother.
Historical Background
The term is connected with the pain and danger of maternity and with the penalty pronounced upon woman in Genesis 3:16.
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>child'-bar-ing: Only in 1Ti 2:15: "She shall be saved through her (m "the") child-bearing" (dia tes teknogonias). The reference is to the calling of woman as wife and mother, as her ordinary lot in life, and to the anxieties, pains and perils of maternity, as the culmination and representation of the penalties woman has incurred because of the Fall (Ge 3:16). "She shall be saved by keeping faithfully and simply to her allotted sphere as wife and mother" (Dummelow). The preposition dia is not used here instrumentally, as though child-bearing were a means of her salvation, but locally, as in 1Co 3:15, "saved so as through fire," where life is saved by rushing through the flames. The explanation by reference to the incarnation, with an appeal to Ga 4:4, favored by Ellicott and others, seems very mechanical.</p><p>H. E. Jacobs</p>