172 FEMINIST VIEWS BASED ON UNTRUTHFUL CLAIMS
Christian communities should always remain watchful to authorize
in positions of leadership only those persons who have received ade-
quate training...^1Craig Keener also thinks that the most likely reason for Paul’s pro-
hibition in 1 Timothy 2 against women teaching is their inadequate
education:
The third possibility [which Keener thinks most likely] is that Paul
intends to connect Eve’s later creation to why she was deceived: She
was not present when God gave the commandment, and thus was
dependent on Adam for the teaching. In other words, she was inad-
equately educated—like the women in the Ephesian church.^2Cindy Jacobs says (in her discussion of 1 Cor. 14:34-35), “Also, at
that time, most women were illiterate and hadn’t had the privilege of an
education.”^3
J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine, agrees with this posi-
tion, claiming, “The women in Ephesus needed more instruction....
women in this culture had been denied all educational opportunities.
Except for some Roman women in the upper class, women in the Middle
East and Asia Minor were sequestered at home and kept away from
books and learning.”^4
These egalitarians then say that the prohibition against women
teaching men does not apply today, when both women and men are well
educated.
But is it true that women in ancient Ephesus were not sufficiently
(^1) Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says About a Woman’s Place in Church
and Family, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1985), 180-181. He elaborates on this later:
“Paul’s understanding of the primacy of Adam as a safeguard against deception shows that he
is concerned with competency. The reference to Eve... provides further evidence that Paul is
establishing a principle based not on chronology but on competency” (297). See also Cindy
Jacobs, Women of Destiny (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1998), 230; Judy L. Brown, Women
Ministers According to Scripture (Springfield, Ill.: Judy L. Brown, 1996), 297-298; Andrew
Perriman, Speaking of Women (Leicester, UK: Apollos, 1998), 165-168; Rich Nathan, Who
Is My Enemy? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2002), 150, 153.
(^2) Craig Keener, Paul, Women, and Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of
Paul (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1992), 116.
(^3) Jacobs, Women of Destiny, 230.
(^4) J. Lee Grady, Twenty-five Tough Questions About Women and the Church (Lake Mary, Fla.:
Charisma, 2003), 141. Grady cites Bilezikian for support.