Clericalism and Women in Ephesus, Part 2
One Ancient City, Two Ancient Churches
Last week we began a chronological study of the development of the church in Ephesus as seen through the influence of Paul and John. Our question is simple: what strategies were used to address false teaching/teachers? Paul’s 57 AD speech to the Ephesian elders stressed prevention through constant vigilance of the self. Paul’s 62 AD letter to the Ephesian church stressed corporate responsibility for growing into maturity so as to not be swayed and persuaded by false teaching. The strategy changes as we move into Paul’s letters to Timothy.
62-64 AD: Paul’s First Letter Timothy
The problem of false teaching/teachers is the problem that motivated Paul’s first letter to Timothy:
“As I urged you when I went to Macedonia [cf Acts 20:1], remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach false doctrine” (1:3).
Right from the start, Paul’s strategy is notably different from what we’ve seen so far. He looks to a specific, individual leader, and charges him to directly put a stop to false teaching. The problem must have become much worse, which is exactly what Paul predicted some years before in 57 AD.
This explains the move toward building explicit and organized structure within the Ephesian church. Paul devotes whole sections to the qualifications for recognized leaders: overseers (episkopē), deacons (diakonoi), and widows (chēras). He situates these qualifications in structural imagery similar to what we see in Ephesians 2:19-22 and 4:12-16:
“I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (3:15).
Whereas in Ephesians it is apostles and prophets who are the foundation (2:20), and the saints who speak the truth (4:15), in 1 Timothy it is the church which is “the pillar and foundation of truth.” We might say, well, saints, apostles, prophets, church, it’s all the same. But there is an externalizing move here that concretizes truth and sound doctrine (cf 1 Tim 1:10; 6:3). Truth is now settled in a concrete foundation (or whatever they used to make pillars in the ancient world) with immoveable pillars. This is a much stronger image—literally, immoveable—than the image of bodily maturity in Ephesians 4.
In Ephesians 2:20 the apostles and prophets are the “foundation” of God’s household, leaving the saints responsible with building up the body (Eph 4:12). In 1 Timothy it appears that this responsibility has coalesced into Timothy and a small group of specially qualified members of the church. Sure, Paul mentioned “pastors and teachers” in Eph 4:11, possibly referring to one class of leader. But the emphasis in Ephesians is on communal responsibility to resist false teaching. 1 Timothy shifts that responsibility to a class of leaders entrusted with authority to rebuke those who stray from the truth.
Another notable change is Paul’s infamous command in 2:12, “I do not allow a woman to teach or to have authority over a man” (CSB). We’re not concerned here with what Paul means by that. A more relevant question is, why did Paul not say something like this in his letter to the Ephesian church?1 I believe we must wrestle with these differences. Paul was writing to the same church, and his notably different instructions should slow us down from universalizing his ecclesial instructions. We’ll discuss the theme of women briefly below, and in more detail in the Johannine writings.
66-67 AD Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy.
The ongoing issue of false teaching which escalated from Ephesians to 1 Timothy continues into 2 Timothy. And Paul continues the same strategy as in 1 Timothy: false teaching is to be addressed, not by all, but by a select few:
“What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men [or men and women, anthrōpois] who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2).
“Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear” (2 Tim 4:2-3).
The continued problem of false teaching/teachers also continues to present in distinct ways with respect to women:
“For among them [“lovers of self,” 3:2ff] are those who worm their way into households and deceive gullible women overwhelmed by sins and led astray by a variety of passions” (2 Tim 3:6).
Raymond Brown notes the connections between clericalism and 2 Tim. 3:6. Granting that “One may argue that he is not speaking about all women and that in his time women were seldom given the opportunity of education,” Brown recognizes that this verse “can easily contribute to a generalization wherein women typify the taught section of the community who will always get things wrong unless they are instructed by the official teachers.”2
Put differently, it is all too easy to go from “some gullible women,” to “all women,” to “everyone who isn’t an ordained seminary-trained male teacher.” That is, a class of authorized teachers (ruling and teaching elders in my presbyterian tradition), and then everyone else.
Brown continues: “From the Pastorals one gets the impression that officially appointed teachers and false teachers are battling for the minds of those who are to be taught.”3 Taken to the extreme,
“very often”[—with many ready examples from history and present-day—]“a greater danger [than uneducated church members] faces the community where the dividing line between official teachers and the taught is very sharp, namely, the peril that little by way of creative ideas or intellectual contributions is expected from the taught who constitute the majority of the community. Certainly 2 Tim 3:6-7 shows no expectation that sometimes women might on their own detect a falsehood peddled to them or might even have something to teach the presbyters. The failure of the author to make allowances for ideas “from the bottom up,” as if all perspicacity comes from the top down in the structure, does not prepare the ordinary readers of the Pastorals to play a contributive role in teaching. Such a one-sided situation will become even more disastrous in any area of the world where the laity are highly educated and quite capable of making a significant contribution toward the overall religious growth of the community.4
Do you see what Brown is highlighting? It’s the danger of clericalism. In the words of the late Pope Francis, “Clericalism arises from an elitist and exclusivist vision…[whereby leaders] belong to a group that has all the answers and no longer needs to listen or learn anything.”5
I’m not suggesting that Paul endorsed clericalism, but I’m with Brown in seeing 1 Timothy as liable to clerical misreadings and misappropriations.
For Paul, gullibility, not gender, is the issue in 2 Tim 3:6. The gullible just happen to be women. Returning to the point of Paul’s contextual ecclesial strategy, he does not direct any command to or about these gullible women. His focus is on the “men who are corrupt in mind and worthless in the faith” (3:8). Furthermore, Paul seems just as concerned that Timothy continue in sound doctrine (3:10, 14; 4:5) as he is that Timothy correct these corrupt (male!) teachers. This concern for Timothy’s faithfulness in following Paul’s example and continuing in sound doctrine makes sense in light of Paul’s awareness of his looming death (4:6-8). In a time of intense chaos and crisis, knowing his time is limited, Paul puts his eggs (the Ephesian church) in Timothy’s basket. As shown in the Raymond Brown quote below, that exclusive focus on authoritative leadership can be strategic for a season, but dangerous for a lifetime.
Prisca and Aquila
One final note on 2 Timothy: Paul instructs Timothy to “Greet Prisca and Aquila.” We learn in Acts 18 that this couple6 was with Paul in Corinth (18:1-3), traveled with Paul to Syria (18:18), and then to Ephesus where Paul “left them there” (18:19). They were instrumental in equipping and teaching Apollos “the way of God…more accurately” (18:26). So, in Ephesus, sometime before Paul’s ministry there in 52-55 AD, a woman taught a man about “the way of God.” Apollos went on to minister to the church in Achaia, where he “was a great help” to believers and where he “vigorously refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating through the Scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah” (18:27-28). The best modern day parallel for this might be a female church planter (and her husband) training a male church member for ministry and missionary work. Using a biblical theology approach rather than systematic theology, it is not easy to iron out the wrinkle this causes with 1 Tim 2:12. Unless of course we want to say Paul changed his mind in his ongoing insight into the mystery of Christ. I don’t know that anyone argues that, but, imho, it would be more consistent than, say, “Priscilla wasn’t doing authoritative teaching when she instructed Apollos.”
That’s it for Paul. Next week, for part 3 of this series we’ll look at the Gospel of John to ask, “how does the Fourth Gospel—which was finalized in Ephesus—address the problem of false teaching/teachers in Ephesus?”
Quotes from Raymond Brown
“The great danger with an exclusive stress on officially controlled teaching, however, is that, having been introduced at moments of crisis, it becomes a consistent way of life. The Pastoral Epistles, shaped by doctrinal crisis, are often read without context as offering a universal and unconditioned policy. Truly pastoral policy, rather, requires a relaxation of such stringent controls when the crisis has passed.”7
“not infrequently, where only approved teachers flourish, those who ask probing questions about the standard doctrine will be presented as the opponents of God’s truth. In other words, prompted by struggle, the Pastorals present a dualistic view of the true and the counterfeit, but ordinary church life is scarcely dualistic. Differing from standard teaching may indeed be a mark of false teachers who need to be opposed; it may also be a mark of constructive thinkers whose ideas, startling at first, may lead the appointed teachers to perceive more clearly what really has been entrusted to be guarded with the help of the Holy Spirit (2 Tim 1:14).”8
Question
Thoughts so far? Please don’t be shy! I’d love to hear from you and continue discussing in the comments.
I haven’t studied the dating details of these letters, but I’m assuming the conservative scholarly opinion is that 1 Timothy was written after Ephesians. Probably, then, Paul wrote 1 Timothy either after an additional problem arose regarding women in the Ephesian church, or after he became aware of that problem. I’d love to know if anyone has resources on comparing Ephesians and 1 Timothy.
Raymond Brown, The Churches the Apostles Left Behind (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), 43, 44, emphasis added.
Brown, The Churches, 44.
Brown, The Churches, 45.
Full quote: “Clericalism arises from an elitist and exclusivist vision of vocation, that interprets the ministry received as a power to be exercised rather than as a free and generous service to be given. This leads us to believe that we belong to a group that has all the answers and no longer needs to listen or learn anything. Clericalism is a perversion and is the root of many evils in the Church: we must humbly ask forgiveness for this and above all create the conditions so that it is not repeated” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clericalism, accessed May 18, 2025).
Originally from Rome where they lead a house church, cf Rom 16:3-5.
Brown, The Churches, 39,
Brown, The Churches, 43.
I'm working my way backwards here, but I wonder when Paul met with the elders in Ephesus if he only met with his elders or if John's elders were also present. He seems anxious about wolves wheras John by contrast is not worried about wolves coming from within because "the light of love casts out all darkness." I wonder how much of Paul's woes were self inflicted in this case by over organising out of fear and then it coming to bite him in the blessed assurance.
If Paul did enact these hierchial changes in a moment of crises then it is on his head and he should have remembered the Galatians who started in the Spirit and attempted to go forward in the flesh. I still hold that his writings are likely over thought and we now see organisation where there was none or very little to begin.
Thank you for your work on this! Fascinating. Forgive me if you've already written this or I missed it - what exactly was the false teaching? Gnosticism? Or something else? Thank you!!