Clericalism and Women in Ephesus, Part 1
One Ancient City, Two Ancient Churches
Why is there so much disagreement throughout church history about how the church should be structured? I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, sparked by two underlying issues: abuse of power by church leaders, and the marginalization of women (and how those two are often related). Issue #1 is clericalism, and Issue #2 is patriarchy. If you care about either or both of those issues, this 4-part series is for you. My primary aim is not to change anyone’s position, but to challenge us to rethink how we think about our position on these issues.
When I attended Moody Bible Institute—way back when I thought pastoring was the job for me—I had to write a paper about church government. Sadly, I don’t have that paper, because my laptop was stolen during the Fall of my senior year (this was before the cloud). But I remember learning about the different positions, and agreeing with Professor Koessler that, while decent arguments can be made for different polities—episcopal, presbyterian, independent, etc.—no polity can claim to be the biblical position.
Reading The Churches the Apostles Left Behind by Raymond Brown last year gave me greater appreciation for the great diversity in New Testament ecclesiology: how a/the church can/should be organized, structured, and governed. The evidence is right there on the pages of Scripture—provided we take off our systematic theology glasses and put on biblical theology glasses.
I suggested last November, based on Brown’s work, that our approach to addressing questions of church authority and structure should learn from biblical theology. In case you missed it, or are unfamiliar, here’s a decent summary from ChatGPT of the difference between BT and ST:
“Biblical theology traces the development of theological ideas over time within the context of the biblical narrative, whereas systematic theology organizes theological concepts into a coherent system of belief.”
ST will tend to read texts like 1 Timothy 2:12 and make (force?) that to fit coherently with everything the Bible says about men and women and teaching and authority and leadership and church office etc. etc. BT will read a text like 1 Timothy 2:12 and consider signs of development in the way Paul and other apostles and early leaders handled local problems in their respective church communities.
Here is the key quote from Brown, who would clearly would favor the BT approach:
“no one of the biblical authors discussed [Pastoral Epistles, Colossians/Ephesians, Luke/Acts, 1 Peter, Gospel of John, Letters of John, Gospel of Matthew] intended to offer an overall picture of what the church should be….There was no evidence in these works that a consistent or uniform ecclesiology had emerged. Rather, writings addressed to different NT communities had quite diverse emphases. Even though each emphasis could be effective in the particular circumstances of the writing, each had glaring shortcomings that would constitute a danger were that emphasis isolated and deemed to be sufficient for all times.”1
Case Study in Ecclesiological Development
Ephesus gives a great case study for the question of development in ecclesiology (study/doctrine of the church), as it is the site of more diverse NT writings than any other location (or maybe equal to Rome). Here is a list of NT passages/books related to Ephesus and rough dates2:
52-55 AD Paul’s ministry in Ephesians (Acts 19:1-41)
57 AD Paul addresses Ephesian elders (Acts 20:17-37)
62 AD Paul’s Letter to Ephesians
62-64 AD Paul’s First Letter Timothy (in Ephesus)
66-67 AD Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy (in Ephesus)
100 AD Gospel of John (finalized in Ephesus)
90-100 AD Revelation of John (addresses Ephesus)
95-110 AD First, Second, and Third Letters of John (written in Ephesus)
The first obvious observation is, that is a lot of material. Seven independent books, plus almost two chapters of Acts, and seven verses of Revelation. Those seven books make up about 16.7% of the NT.3
Based on the outline above, the rough early date for a Christian presence in Ephesus is 52 AD (remembering, of course, the earlier ministry of John the Baptist’s disciples). The Johannine writings can be dated as late as 110 AD. So we’re working with a period of almost 60 years. How much can change in one church4 over 60 years? Brown’s study focuses on the question of how these NT texts addressed the problem of passing leadership from the apostles on to their successors. Similarly, this survey will focus on the specific problem of false teaching and false teachers. In question form: how do these diverse biblical texts address the problem of false teachers/teaching in Ephesus?
We’re going to take these in chronological order: Paul’s farewell speech, Paul’s Letter to Ephesians, 1-2 Timothy, the Gospel of John, Revelation, and The Letters of John. This first post will only get through Ephesians. Then we’ll devote one post to 1-2 Timothy; part 3 will explore the Gospel of John and Revelation; and part 4 will look at 1-3 John.
57 AD: Paul’s Farewell Speech to the Ephesian Elders
It would take too much time to go over all of these texts in detail. Again, we are focusing on one issue: what strategies are used to address the problem of false teaching/teachers? In his farewell speech to the Ephesian elders, Paul gives an explicit warning:
“savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Men will rise up even from your own number and distort the truth to lure the disciples into following them” (Acts 20:29-30).
This sounds pretty dangerous, right? If a shepherd doesn’t just think wolves might attack his flock, but knows that they will, he will be extremely vigilant right? So Paul says, “Therefore be on the alert.” But strangely, he doesn’t then prescribe any sort of intentional action or protection. All he does is increase the warning: highlighting how he himself continually issued the warning against wolves for three whole years (v. 31). At this point, in the very early stages of the Ephesian church, Paul’s strategy seems to be, in the words of Alistair “Mad Eye” Moody (or, at least the polyjuiced Barty Crouch, Jr. version of Moody), “constant vigilance.”
Even before predicting predatory wolves, Paul said, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock” ( v. 28). If there is any ecclesial strategy to be discerned, it is “constant vigilance” of the self. Why else would Paul tell them so much about himself in this speech? If wolves will “rise up even from your own number,” then that is where constant vigilance must be directed.
AD 62 Paul’s Letter to Ephesians
This is roughly ten years after Paul’s first missionary activity in Ephesus; seven after his three year stay from AD 52-55; and five years after he last saw the leaders of this church in Person. The problem of false teaching/teachers comes through in Ephesians 4:14:
“Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.”
As the body of Christ matures into the fullness of Christ, saints grow more stable and secure (4:12-13), anchored to the cornerstone of Christ in the temple community in which God’s Spirit dwells (2:20-22).
Somewhat differently than Acts 20, the church doesn’t have elders (presbyteroi), but apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (4:11). These play an important role in protecting against false teachers/teaching, but that role is indirect. They “equip the saints” (v. 12), so that the resilience in the face of “every wind of teaching” is a corporate resilience. The responsibility for guarding against false teaching (and false teachers) is not reduced to a class of leaders. This corporate responsibility for the health of the church continues in 5:17-21 with mutual submission to one another and mutual edification through song and psalm.5
We will see this strategy repeated when we get to the Johannine writings: placing responsibility on the entire congregation for protection against false teaching. This will be directly related to the second issue of patriarchy. But next week, we will explore to 1-2 Timothy and see that Paul’s strategy has notably changed.
Question
As I asked in my post Hierarchy vs Equality: Apostles, Disciples, and the John-shaped Whole in the Church, how do you think we should wrestle with the diversity in the New Testament regarding church government? Do you think it’s possible that different early church communities took different approaches for organizing the church? If yes, what might that mean for us today?
Raymond Brown, The Churches the Apostles Left Behind (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), 146-147.
Dates taken from the ESV study bible, except for the Gospel and Letters of John, which I date slightly differently based on my own studies.
Using ChatGPT, which calculated by word count using the KJV (not including the sections from Acts and Revelation). According to Michael Cooper, “nearly 40 percent of the New Testament books have some connection with Ephesus and Asia.” Michael T. Cooper, Ephesiology : A Study of the Ephesian Movement (Littleton, CO: William Carey Publishing, 2020), p. 12.
This is assuming there was only one gathered Christian assembly in Ephesus. It would take too much time to delve into here, but part of the diversity between Paul and John stem from separate, distinct assemblies within the city of Ephesus.
I find it very interesting that Paul does not directly address church leaders in Ephesians. He did so in 57 AD, and he does so in his letters to Timothy in 62-64 AD. I don’t know if that shows up in arguments against Pauline authorship of Ephesians, but it does seem odd and unexpected. Paul mentions Tychicus, a diakonos (deacon/servant), who was entrusted with delivering Paul’s letter, but obviously Tychicus was not a leader in Ephesus.