Should women be allowed to preach to a mixed audience? 1 Timothy 2:11-15 (part 6)

In our last post, we did some investigating into what “certain men” (1:3) were teaching. Paul does not give a name for this false teaching, but we can gather clues from how he instructs Timothy and the Ephesian church against them. After compiling a list of hints, and looking at them collectively, one particular group of false teachers seems to meet the criterion: Gnosticism.

What did Gnostics believe, and why was their teaching so dangerous? There was a major discovery in 1945 of a library filled with gnostic texts. So we have a pretty extensive description of this group, as well as writings by the early church fathers.

Here’s what they believed:

1. All matter is evil. This makes anything in relation to the body had no meaning, since real life is in only the spiritual world. Only the spiritual (invisible)  is good.
2. They believed that the supreme God did not create the world, but a lesser, evil God. All creation is evil because it is material.
3. Gnosis is the Greek word for knowledge. Those from the gnostic persuasion claimed to have a special, higher level of knowledge, that they had found on some kind of higher spiritual plane of existence. This put them above the rest of humankind, because their salvation was assured.
4. They distorted Scripture. They rewrote passages to support their philosophies and beliefs. Stories from the Bible were turned on their heads. For example, in their retelling of the creation account, Eve is the revered hero, because she imparted knowledge to Adam by giving him fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The serpent is exalted as well.
5. Gnostics denigrated women in misogynistic terms. Being a female was described as a defect. They condemned child-bearing: giving birth would disseminate the “spiritual spark” in them, trapping it in (evil) material bodies. Therefore it is impossible for a woman to obtain eternal life while she is capable of bearing children. Salvation comes through masculinity.
6. Marriage was forbidden in some gnostic groups, including the Nicolatians in Ephesus. They kept their women to be used for sexual purposes in common.

If you compare these basic gnostic beliefs to what Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 2:13-15, you will find some interesting commonalities to what Paul is denouncing in this letter. We’ll look into those in part 7. Stay tuned…