<p>4:7 <i>But reject profane and old wives' fables</i><i>, and exercise yourself with reverence towards God</i>- This rejection meant 'Do not let these things be taught in the church', because that was his brief in 1:3, to not allow false teaching. There was clearly a problem with some women in the Ephesian church. We saw in chapter 2 how Timothy was to stop some women teaching who were advocating a version of the pagan Diana cult mixed with the Jewish cult of Eve. And there were older women who likewise were teaching &quot;fables&quot;; and Timothy has been told in 1:4 not to allow Jewish fables to be taught in the church. Here and in chapter 2 it could be argued that we have evidence that women were indeed allowed to teach in the Ephesian church; but Paul's concern was with <i>the content</i> of what some of them were teaching. This was why these women should not be allowed to teach; not because they were women, but because of the content of their teaching. This also explains why Paul advises Timothy as to how old and young women should be living; this was not just general pastoral advice, but was given in the specific Ephesian context of women who were teaching false doctrine, who needed to be redirected to more positive spiritual pursuits. The double reference to &quot;profane and old wife&rsquo;s' fables&quot; may refer to the dual pressure there was in Ephesus- from paganism and the Diana cult &quot;profane&quot;, and from Jewish women teaching Jewish fables such as the Eve cult. We have noted this double problem several times in this exposition. It's noteworthy that public recitations were something that women were allowed to participate in. Slave women especially were known to make such recitations to the women of a large household, including the female freewomen. This doubtless laid the basis for the phenomenon portrayed on some frescoes of female house churches, with slave women leading the gatherings even when their mistress was present.</p>