Mark Tabata’s Weekday Devotionals:
Monday January 5 2026
(More Bible Studies Available @ www.marktabata.com)
To Receive These (And Other) Free Bible Studies And Updates Via Email, Contact Mark Tabata @ 606-216-1757 (Text Message) Or hazardhomecoc@gmail.com (Email)
1 Timothy 2:11-14-Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. 12 And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.
Sven and Fran (not their real names) had come to me for marriage counseling. Unexpected events had brought some of their marital issues to the forefront of their relationship, and at the center of it was a misunderstanding of the Bible teaching regarding the equality of men and women in God’s sight.
Fran: Brother Mark, he is convinced that he is superior to women. According to him, women should not even hardly be allowed to speak!
Mark: Sven, is this an accurate description of how you view women?
Sven: Not at all, brother Mark. Of course women are allowed to speak! How else could they make sure they are cooking dinner the right way?!
Mark: Ummm…well, at least you think women should be allowed to talk. That’s a start. Tell me, do you believe that women are less important then men?
Sven: Well, the Bible teaches that Adam was made before Eve, and that it was that women who botched things up in the Garden. So doesn’t that show that men are over women in God’s sight???
(End Of Relevant Conversation)
Unfortunately, I was not able to help Sven and Fran very much.
However, at the heart of Sven’s viewpoint of women was a misunderstanding of what Paul wrote to Timothy. In many places I have visited and studied with people, this is shown to be a common misunderstanding that causes many to believe that the Bible looks down upon women.
Why did the Apostle Paul say that Adam was formed first?
And why did he point out that it was woman who was deceived and not the man?
Let’s study.
The first thing to point out about this passage is that 1 Timothy 2:12-14 is an explanation that Paul gives of his command in verse 11, where he says, “Let a woman learn in silence with all submission.” In our modern day context, that sounds demeaning-as if Paul is granting grudging permission for women to learn the Word of God alongside of men
But that isn’t the case at all.
When we look at this passage through first century eyeglasses, we learn that Paul is actually a revolutionary in regards to women’s rights.
“Concerning the question of educating women in the Church, however, much is known. Whenever Paul established a church, he insisted that women were to be educated in the faith. He began this passage in 1 Timothy with the words “let a woman learn,” and while such a program would be in keeping with Paul’s goal for women, it was at variance with Jewish and Greek customs. Jewish women were not included in formal education. It was permissible for a man to teach Scripture to both boys and girls, 1 but a woman could not teach even the youngest of children in a school, and one rabbi said that “if a man gives his daughter a knowledge of the Law, it is as though he taught her lechery.” 2 Women were to be educated only in matters regarding homemaking skills. As one rabbi said, “There is no wisdom in woman except with the distaff.” 3 (See chapter 1, this volume.)…Therefore, Paul’s desire that women be educated in the faith was both radical in thought and difficult in execution. Women were not used to listening to lectures or thinking about theo-logical concepts, or studying at all….“But the word for silence is a lovely word, hesuchia (hey-soo-KEY-ah). It does not mean simply refraining from talking. It means restful quietness, as in meditation or study. A few sentences before, Paul used this same word to describe the peaceful and quiet life (1 Tim. 2: 2), good and acceptable before God, the kind of life Paul wished for all believers….It is quite possible that Paul had in mind a certain woman or group of women in Ephesus when he wrote this passage. If so, Paul was not willing to lessen his insistence that women are to learn, in spite of the high-handed attitude of one or some. Instead, he wrote that they are to learn in quietness, without being rude or domineering.” (John Temple Bristow, What Paul Really Said About Women: The Apostle’s Liberating Views on Equality in Marriage, Leadership, and Love, 70-72 (Kindle Edition, emphasis added); New York, NY; HarperCollins NY).
Paul is particularly concerned about the education of women in the church at Ephesus, because of what was happening there. Speaking of some of the women in that location, he writes:
1 Timothy 5:13-And besides they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not.
Look at that word translated “busybodies.” It is the Greek word periergos, and is used only one other time in the New Testament.
Acts 19:19-Also, many of those who had practiced magic (periergos) brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver.
What does this mean for our understanding of what Paul is telling us in 1 Timothy?
“An examination of Acts 19:21-41 reveals the background for a proper interpretation of the Pastoral Epistles. Earlier in Chapter 19, Luke gives other comments that help us to understand Paul’s negative comments in his two Epistles to Timothy. One word (periergos) utilized by Luke will assist us in our interpretation of the Pauline Epistles…G. K. Barrett296 makes the following succinct observation concerning the word sorcery: “períerga” is a semi-technical term for magical practices.”297 This is the same word that Paul employs in his First Epistle to Timothy as he reflects upon the practices of the women in the church in Ephesus…“Unfortunately, some scholars, so it seems, fail to capture the luggage associated with períergos in 1 Timothy 5: 13. Even though translations give “busybodies” as the translation of the Greek word, we still need to examine this Scripture in light of Acts 19: 19. This unique term only occurs twice in the New Testament. Generally, this expression is associated or translated as “busybodies” or “meddlesome.” In Acts 19: 19, the word períerga is translated correctly. This Greek word is a term for black acts of magic. This term pointed to the lengthy and various rituals involved in incantation ceremonies. Apparently, the women mentioned in 1 Timothy 5: 13 were women who were going about from house to house meddling in magic, that is to say, they were involved in perverted activities. Cleon L. Rogers Jr. and Cleon L. Rogers III make the following comments on Acts 19: 19 concerning the Greek word períerga: 19 periergos (# 4319) things belonging to magic. Also a t.t. [technical term] for a magical spell (BS, 323; BAGD; DPL, 580-83; BBC; MM; NDIEC, 1: 47-49; 6: 1099-96; GMP; for the well-known “Ephesian Letters,” which were six magical terms thought to be words of powers. Trebilco, “Asia,” BAFCS 2: 314; CIE, 95f. 298 (Emphasis mine) Since the word períerga is employed by Luke in his brief episode that occurred while Paul labored in Ephesus for a period of three years (Acts 20: 31), we need to examine Acts 19 before we embark upon our expedition of the Pastoral Epistles.” (Dr. Dallas Burdette, Women’s Role in the Christian Community:: Interpreting First Timothy through First-Century Eyes, 4249-4288 (Kindle Edition): Xulon Press)
In other words, some of the women at Ephesus were going about “from house to house” teaching and promoting witchcraft. This only gets worse when we remember that churches often met in homes in the first century. So there were women at Ephesus who were regularly going around preaching and promoting witchcraft, subverting entire house churches with this heresy.
Of course in this context and in these situations Paul forbids the women from preaching and teaching!
Now, why did he bring up Adam and Eve to make his case that women should be educated in the Scriptures?
Very simply, it was because Jewish tradition emphasized that Adam was responsible for teaching Eve God’s Word, and he had failed to properly educate her! This resulted in the Fall in the Garden of Eden.
“Some of the rabbis did, however, explain Eve’s sin at the tree as partly the fault of Adam. He had added to God’s words when he relayed God’s commandment to Eve; this was why she told the serpent that God had forbidden her not only to eat of the tree, but also to touch it.[ 110] In other words, the woman was deceived in part because she had not received the commandment directly from God, and the one who had passed it on to her had misrepresented it. This point may be significant to our discussion below.” (Craig S.Keener, Paul, Women, and Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul, 175 (Kindle Edition): Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic)
Paul is actually stressing that it was Adam who is under the greater condemnation from God because he had failed to teach Eve God’s Word. Keep in mind that the Gnostic teachers at Ephesus actually taught that Eve was created before Adam, and that she should be celebrated as the great teacher in leading humanity into following Satan against God! Paul completely refutes this nonsense in this text of Scripture.
“Both Hebrew and Septuagint versions of the Genesis story contain a phrase often missing from English translations. This phrase would have been known to the writer of the Pastorals, however. Eve gave the fruit to her husband “who was with her” (Gen. 3: 6). Adam has been present all during the temptation! Here Paul is so anxious to refute the Gnostic versions that he glosses over the fact that Adam, who had received God’s warning about the tree of knowledge, had sinned knowingly. (Logically and theologically which is worse—to sin knowingly or to be deceived?) Eve as Enlightener The next statement, “and Eve, being completely deceived, was in the transgression” (v. 14), concerns the total deception of Eve. The Gnostic notion of Eve as spiritual instructor with superior knowledge was solidly entrenched, and Paul categorically refutes it. Let us examine one of the statements about the truth revealed by Eve. In the Apocalypse of Adam, a book often “cited as evidence for First Century Gnosticism,”[ 23] Adam says: When (ὅταν) God created me out of the earth, together with your mother Eve, I used to walk with her in a glory which she had seen in the aeon (αἰών) from which we had our being. She instructed me with a word of knowledge (γνῶσις) of the eternal god. And we resembled the great eternal angels (ἄγγελος). For (γάρ) we were exalted above the god who had made us, and above the powers which were with him, whom we did not know.[ 24] The crux of the matter, more than priority of creation, was the sort of activities in which Eve was supposed to have been engaged. We read that she consorted with the celestial powers, especially Satan. It will come as no surprise that in a number of traditions Eve and the serpent had sexual relations, either before or after the creation of Adam.[ 25] Johanan ben Zackai, a rabbi of the first century B.C.E., is quoted three times in his conviction that the serpent had copulated with Eve.[ 26] The belief grew as well because “to know” is sometimes used in the Hebrew Bible as a euphemism for sexual intercourse; and for Gnostics the important matter was the knowledge which passed between Eve and the serpent. As we have seen, Eve is sent as an “instructor of Life” to rouse Adam from his sleep.[ 27] Often sleep represents spiritual ignorance and death; and from this spiritual deadness Adam was called by Eve. Another Gnostic tractate states that the woman made Adam wise, while the serpent had made Eve wise.[ 28] Epiphanius speaks of a Gospel of Eve. It was, he says, named after her because she “discovered the food of gnōsis [divine knowledge] through revelation spoken to her by the snake.”[ 29] The wisdom of the snake was a major theme in Gnosticism. The Ophites, who took their name from the Greek word ophis (serpent), “ascribe all knowledge to this serpent, and say that it was the beginning of knowledge for humanity.”[ 30] The writer of the Pastorals repudiates the wisdom of the serpent and the wisdom passed on to Eve. Her superior knowledge was nothing of the sort. Exapataō (totally deceived), the word which is used to describe her erroneous viewpoint, is an intensification of the word which is applied to Adam. The idea is that she was absolutely hornswoggled.” (Richard Clark Kroeger, Catherine Clark Kroeger, I Suffer Not a Woman: Rethinking I Timothy 2:11-15 in Light of Ancient Evidence, 123-126 (Kindle Edition): Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic)
My friends, the Bible does not teach that women are inferior to men. The reason for Paul’s command in 1 Timothy 2 that women be allowed to learn God’s Word alongside the men is rooted firmly in the equality of men and women. It was also based on the Genesis 3 account of the Fall in the Garden of Eden, which was caused (partly) by the failure of Adam to properly teach Eve God’s Word. To see that men and women are equal in God’s sight, simply read what Paul wrote in his first Epistle to the Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 11:11-12 (ERV)-But in the Lord the woman needs the man, and the man needs the woman. 12 This is true because woman came from man, but also man is born from woman. Really, everything comes from God.
Can you think of ways that the Bible elevates women?
What are some ways that you can better show appreciation for the Christian women in your life and in your church family?
Lord, thank You for all of our sisters in Christ. Please bless them and help us to better respect and learn from them. Amen.
Leave a Reply