23: WOMEN TEACHING FALSE DOCTRINE? 183not mean they are spreading false doctrine such as denying the resur-
rection of Christ, or saying that the resurrection is past already, or utter-
ing blasphemies as Hymenaeus and Alexander did (1 Tim. 1:20), or
speaking twisted things to gain a following as Paul predicted false teach-
ers would do (Acts 20:30). There is good evidence that Paul was con-
cerned about gossip becoming a problem among some women at
Ephesus, but the needed evidence for women teaching false doctrine at
Ephesus simply cannot be found in 1 Timothy 5:13.
Second Timothy 3:6-7 is another passage egalitarians sometimes use
to claim there were women teaching false doctrine at Ephesus:
For among them are those who creep into households and capture
weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,
always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.This passage indicates that some women were led astray by false
teachers. That is not surprising, for when false teaching comes into a
church, some men and some women will be led astray—God does not
give immunity from wrong belief to either men or women in general. But
the passage does not say that the women were doing the false teaching;
it simply says they were being led astray.
There is no proof that any woman or any group of women were
engaged in teaching false doctrine at Ephesus. But even if that could be
established, the egalitarian claim is not persuasive because it does not
show that women were primarily responsible for spreading the false
teaching—of which the only named proponents are men. And unless
women were primarily responsible for spreading the false teaching,
Paul’s silencing of the women (in the egalitarian view) would not make
sense.
Is there any other proof of women in the Ephesian church being
engaged in false teaching? Some have mentioned the passage about
Jezebel in Revelation 2, where Jesus says to the church in Thyatira,
But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel,
who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my ser-
vants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols
(Rev. 2:20).