Kristen

Craig, Ephesus certainly was a very different town from either Rome or Corinth. Picture Rome as kind of like New York, Corinth as Las Vegas– and Ephesus more like Paducah, Kentucky.

From what I understand, Rome was the center of civilization in that part of the world, very cosmopolitan, and the upper-class women in Rome had recently sought and won a number of concessions from the Emperor granting them more education and greater freedoms. Corinth was a city containing a large number of different cultural groups, some rich but mostly poor, but with a large variety of social customs all vying with one another– it was the “sin city” of its day. Ephesus was further off the beaten track and very backwards comparatively, with the vast majority of women still held to the ancient Greek restrictions of complete seclusion within their homes and no formal education. Ephesus was most known for its temple to Artemis, who was actually a much older pagan goddess who had been conflated with the Greek diety. Artemis worship was the only place where women could have any power, as she was served mostly by female priestesses.

So whereas at Rome there were a number of wealthy, educated women among the converts, who quickly rose to positions of leadership (and were commended by Paul for doing so), and at Corinth there were various cultural groups all bringing something different to the table (which was reflected in the practice of “when you come together, each one has a psalm, a prophecy, a teaching,” and a need for the establishment of order so that everyone could hear and be edified), in Ephesus there would have been many uneducated women, accustomed to seclusion except when in worship settings, when they would expect to be able to take over. It would not be surprising to me if under the circumstances, men were the only ones doing the teaching in the main meetings (it was in those meetings that I pictured the women as “shouldering in on the class”), and that one or more groups of false teachers would challenge them– including, probably, a group of women wanting to worship in a similar way that they had worshiped Artemis.

Hope this explains better where I’m coming from.