176 FEMINIST VIEWS BASED ON UNTRUTHFUL CLAIMS
years while he stayed at Ephesus teaching “the whole counsel of God”
(Acts 20:27; compare 1 Cor. 16:19, where Priscilla is called Prisca, and
Paul sends greetings to Corinth from Aquila and Prisca and the church
that meets “in their house”). By the end of Paul’s three-year stay in
Ephesus, Priscilla had probably received four and a half years of teach-
ing directly from the apostle Paul. No doubt many other women in
Ephesus also learned from Paul—and from Priscilla!
Aquila and Priscilla went to Rome sometime later (Rom. 16:3, per-
haps around A.D. 58), but they returned to Ephesus, for they were in
Ephesus again at the end of Paul’s life (in 2 Tim. 4:19, Paul writes to
Timothy at Ephesus, “Greet Prisca and Aquila”). Now, 2 Timothy was
probably written in A.D. 66 or 67 (Eusebius says that Paul died in A.D.
67), and 1 Timothy a short time before that, perhaps in A.D. 65. In addi-
tion, before he wrote 1 Timothy, Paul seems to have been in Ephesus and
it seems he had told Timothy to remain there when he left for Macedonia
(see 1 Tim. 1:3: “As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain
at Ephesus.. .”). Therefore, both because 1 Timothy is near in time
to 2 Timothy, and because Paul had recently been in Ephesus to know
who was there before he wrote 1 Timothy or 2 Timothy, it seems likely
that Aquila and Priscilla were back in Ephesus by the time Paul wrote
1 Timothy, about A.D. 65. This was fourteen years after Priscilla and
Aquila had explained the way of God to Apollos in Ephesus.
What is the point of this detailed timeline? Not even well-educated
Priscilla, nor any other well-educated women of Ephesus who followed
her example and listened to Paul’s teaching for several years, were
allowed to teach men in the public assembly of the church. Writing to a
church where many women had received significant training in the Bible,
Paul said, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority
over a man” (1 Tim. 2:12). Paul’s reason was certainly not lack of
education.
(4) Paul does give a reason for the restriction of teaching and gov-
erning roles to men, but it is not lack of education. It is the order of cre-
ation. We should not deny the reason Paul gives and substitute a reason
he does not give. Paul does not say, “I do not permit a woman to teach
or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet, for
women are not as well educated as men.” That is not the reason Paul
gives. The reason he gives is the order that God established when he cre-