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WOMEN TEACHING FALSE

DOCTRINE IN EPHESUS?

Some evangelical feminists claim that Paul told the

women in Ephesus not to teach or exercise authority

over men because they were teaching false doctrine

Some evangelical feminists claim that there was a unique situation in

Ephesus in which women were teaching false doctrine. Therefore Paul’s
command would be relevant only for that particular situation.
This view is very commonly argued by egalitarians. Richard and
Catherine Kroeger argue that women were teaching false doctrine, per-
haps connected either to Gnosticism or to proto-Gnosticism. (Catherine
Kroeger is associate professor of classical and ministry studies at
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.) They write,

Our hypothesis will deal with the possibility that the false teachers

were indeed Gnostics, proto-Gnostics, or some group with a mythol-

ogy remarkably like that of the Gnostics.... We maintain that those

involved with the false doctrines included both men and women, and

that the women were involved in telling stories which contradicted

the Scriptures.^1

(^1) Richard Clark Kroeger and Catherine Clark Kroeger, I Suffer Not a Woman: Rethinking 1
Timothy 2:11-15 in Light of Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1992), 65-66.
Cindy Jacobs, Women of Destiny (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1998), 240-241, shows sympathy
for this “Gnostic heresy” view, depending only on the Kroegers for support. J. Lee Grady,
Twenty-five Tough Questions About Women and the Church (Lake Mary, Fla.: Charisma,