Women In Ministry: Part 3

1 Timothy 2:12-15 and What's the deal with Eve?

Over the past months I’ve been posting in anticipation of the release of a video lecture on “Women In Ministry” with our friends at Seedbed. The release date is almost here—stay tuned!

From the get-go I have said that the topic under discussion is not actually women in ministry—but women in leadership in ministry. Why? Because even the most casual perusal of the state of the Church would demonstrate that if it weren’t for women serving in Christian ministry, ministry wouldn’t be happening! Historically, it has been we female-types who have taken responsibility for nearly all the Christian education, community events, children's ministry, missions committees, Royal Kids Camps, accounting, relief work, and short-term missions programs that come out of the local Christian congregation. So again, not women in ministry, but women in leadership in ministry.

In our review of the Bible we have noted that the Old Testament celebrates women as prophets and judges, and that the New Testament embraces women as prophets, apostles and deacons. So why is there an issue? Well, we’ve got two “problem” texts: 1 Timothy 2:12-15 and 1 Corinthians 14:32-34—passages which clearly forbid women in public ministry. This has led us into a discussion of hermeneutics (the science of interpreting Scripture) and the difference between a normative text (intended for all believers, everywhere, and for all time) and a situational text (intended for some believers, in a particular place, at a particular time). And in my last post, we started talking about one of these problem texts, 1 Tim 2:12-15.

Clearly Paul's issue with the church in Ephesus is false doctrine (1 Tim 1:3). Scholars agree that the error Paul is addressing has something to do with the influence of the Artemis cult resident in the city of Ephesus (see "Women in Ministry: Part 2"). Artemis required that her followers remain expressly loyal to her and to remain virgins. Thus it is possible that when Paul speaks of the false teachers at Ephesus, who have convinced the “younger widows,” not to remarry, young widows who have gotten into the “habit of being idle and going about from house to house … idlers … busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they out not to … some of whom have already turned away to follow Satan” (1 Tim 5:11-15), and tells these young widows instead to get married and raise children (v. 14—the first century equivalent of “get off the couch and get a job!”), he may be targeting an Artemis-associated error. So Paul shuts it down. And in this particular situation, in this particular church, for this particular time, declares: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet” (1 Tim 2:12). Because this command contradicts Paul’s past directives, Paul has partnered with Priscilla to plant this very church (Acts 18:19), has written of Junia as “an apostle” in Rome (Rom 16:7), and directed the women in Corinth to cover their heads when they prophesy (1 Cor 11:5), I named 1 Tim 2:12-15 a situational text, not a normative one.

But what is the deal with Eve? After stating that he does not allow women to teach or hold authority over a man, Paul offers what appears to be his rationale in 1 Tim 2:13-15:

“For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing-- if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.”

There are many who would say that because Paul appeals to creation, this passage is normative. That Paul’s restriction on women leading or teaching in the Church must apply to all women of all time.

But there are several significant issues with that conclusion. First, obviously Paul cannot mean that women can only be saved (as in justified) by giving birth. Not only would that leave so many women outside the circle of grace, but this is Paul! And Paul would never tolerate such a works-based version of the gospel! Some have tried to soften the language, translating women will be “kept safe through childbirth,” but as Gordon Fee details, the Greek simply will not support that translation.[1] Some have hypothesized that the childbirth we’re discussing is “the Childbirth,” meaning Eve’s role in bringing Christ to us. Also very difficult to support.

So how about turning back to the particulars of the Ephesian situation for some help? Many tie Paul’s very unusual allusion to Eve back to the goddess and the emergence of proto-Gnosticism in Ephesus. Let’s start with, what is Gnosticism? Gnosticism is a Christian heresy that emerged in the early second century CE. It was birthed from the collision of a grab bag of religious and philosophical beliefs resident in the Greek and Roman world at least as early as 200 BCE, and emerging Christianity. The resulting belief system was dualistic in nature, separating the material realm (bad) from the spiritual realm (good). The claim was that the flawed and/or evil material realm had been created by a lesser (malevolent) god, but deliverance from it could be achieved by gaining access to a hidden high god via the enlightenment of secret knowledge (gnosis). This hidden knowledge (gnosis) could free a person from the limitations/wickedness of the material realm. Who was Yahweh in this mix? Often identified with the lesser deity who created the flawed material world. Who was Jesus in this mix? An emissary of the higher, hidden deity, sent to bring gnosis to humanity and deliver us from the material realm. The early church fathers named this belief system heresy and battled for literally centuries to purge the Church of its influence. Proto-gnosticism is an early, evolving version of this heresy. You can see why Paul was not happy about his people at Ephesus devoting “themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith” (1 Tim 1:4) !!

Catherine Kroeger, a classicist, points out that in the Gnostic cosmologies, female activity was often understood as the origin of the material universe. She states that in certain Gnostic myths (there are a lot of them), it was Adam who was deceived, and it was Eve who embraced gnosis by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As Gnosticism advanced, Eve was speculated to possess the ability to procreate without male assistance. Kroeger states: ‘Eve is the first virgin, who gave birth without a man. She is the one who played her own doctor.’”[2]

Lynn Cohick, a New Testament scholar whose specialty is the book of Ephesians, identifies this same “conversation thread” in Paul’s day—a conversation suggesting that it was Adam who was deluded, and it was Eve who liberated him from those delusions. Thus, it was not Eve who sinned, but rather in her successful pursuit of gnosis she eventually educated Adam in the secret knowledge that liberated both of them. This of course makes Eve a heroine in the Genesis story. [3]

Why do we care about Gnositicsm? Because if this is indeed the false teaching that Paul is combating (1 Tim 1:3), he needs to correct that false teaching by reminding his audience what the book of Genesis actually says:

“For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner” (1 Tim 2:14)

Paul's words thus serve to clarify that Eve was created second (not first) and that she was deceived (not enlightened) and thereby our Apostle very handily clears the table of the proto-Gnostic nonsense circulating through his church.

Also of interest is Sandra Glahn’s argument that Paul is using the creation narrative to counter the tenets of the Artemis cult. The Greek myth claimed that Artemis and her twin Apollos were born in Ephesus, and their miraculous birth was the impetus for the founding of the city. The myth claimed that Artemis was the firstborn of the twins, that newborn Artemis assisted her mother Leto in Apollos’ birth (impressive!), and that her status as firstborn and eternal virgin made her both autonomous and pre-eminent. Glahn claims that by reminding his audience of their own Scriptures—that in Genesis 2 Eve’s creation follows Adam’s and that they as male and female are interdependent—Paul is poking at this idea that Artemis is pre-eminent because she is the first and free of any need for men. So again, Paul’s appeal to Eve here would serve as a pointed correction to those sympathetic to Artemis worship in the Ephesian Church.[4]

He closes with, verse 15: “But women will be saved through childbearing-- if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” No interpreter would claim that this sentence is transparent or easily interpreted. But it seems that Paul is saying that if the women of Ephesus are going to be saved from being deceived (as Eve was), they will need to step away from the false doctrines they have been embracing (the Artemis cult and/or the tenets of proto-Gnosticism) and the idle lifestyle they’ve been living.[6]

So we must ask again, is Paul’s particular response to this complex (and disheartening) scenario at Ephesus normative to all churches in all times? Or is it situational—a specific response to a specific scenario? Are all women in every congregation to remarry when widowed at a young age and be stripped of their leadership and teaching ministries? Well, if that is the case, Paul’s instructions in 1 Corinthians 7:8— where he instructs the young widows “to remain unmarried,” becomes a problem. And the fact that at the very moment Paul is penning these words, Priscilla is still teaching throughout the Mediterranean with Paul’s full support is a problem as well. If 1 Timothy 2:12 is indeed a normative text, we are forced to ask how both of these profiles of the early church can be true at the same time? How can in one breath Paul celebrate Priscilla’s teaching gift, and in the next say that no woman in the Ephesian church can teach?

Ah, that leads us back to where we began—hermeneutics. Brothers and sisters, some of these texts are normative, and some are not. Some apply to every believer everywhere, and some only applied in Ephesus where false doctrine was threatening to destroy the work of God in this young church. The ultimate concern of the first epistle to Timothy, pastor of the Ephesian church, is that there are laypeople in the mix who are propagating false doctrine. That doctrine seems to be infiltrating the church from the Artemis cult and proto-Gnosticism—both deeply embedded ideologies in the city of Ephesus in the first century. Paul’s response? Get these lay people under control. And for goodness sake, don’t let them teach! In this particular situation the propogators of the false doctrine were women, so Paul pulls them.

In sum, recognizing the difference between normative and situational texts is essential to the conversation on women in leadership. We do not build the church on “Timothy, take a little wine for your stomach”; nor do we build the church on “Let women keep silent in the churches.” But we do build the church on “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. And to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift” (Eph 4:6-7).

Let’s go build the church!

Friends, if you want to learn more about women leaders in the Bible, don’t miss my latest study on Deborah!

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[1] Gordan D. Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, New International Biblical Commentary, vol. 13 (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1988), 75.

[2] Catherine Kroeger, “1 Timothy 2:12—A Classicist’s View,” in Women, Authority and the Bible, ed. Alvera Mickelsen (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1986), 225–253, here 226, 232–35. “In Gnostic cosmologies, female activity was often responsible for the creation of the material universe, and Eve was a potent force” (Kroeger, “1 Timothy 2:12,” 232–34 quoting On the Origin of the World 114.4–5). Walter L. Liefeld feels that Kroeger’s view of Gnostic influence at Ephesus is too early. (Liefeld, “Response,” in Women, Authority &and the Bible, ed. Alvera Mickelsen [Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1986], see his response on pp. 244–48)

[3] Lynn Cohick, The Letter to the Ephesians (NICNT; Eerdmans, 2020), personal communication 9/16/2024.

[4] Sandra L. Glahn, Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2023), 117–20; 143–45.

[5] Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, 76–77.