15: “Women Are To Keep Silent In The Churches”

Welcome to the Ready for Eternity podcast. My name is Eddie Lawrence. In the last two episodes we analyzed 1st

Timothy chapter 2 verses 11 through 14 and we observed that this passage really isn't about women teaching men.

It's about how women should behave in the home in the context of a marriage. In short, it's about wives married women.

What is Paul teaching in 1st Corinthians 14? Is this a blanket prohibition against women speaking in the church?

Let's find out. The women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the law also says.

If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

1st Corinthians 14 verses 34 and 35. As with 1st Timothy 2, 11 through 15, this passage has historically been understood to say that women cannot speak in a church assembly.

Although this interpretation has been debunked in recent decades, there are still lots of Christians who think it is sinful for women to speak in the church assembly.

Like most verses that Christians take out of context, there is more to 1st

Corinthians 14 verses 34 and 35 than meets the eye. The historical belief that these verses ban women from speaking in church assemblies creates unanswerable questions.

For example, do verses 34 and 35 apply to all women, or only married women?

Historically, it's been applied to all women, but Paul's instruction was clearly addressed to married women.

Since this is true, is it permissible for unmarried women to speak in the church?

What about widows? What about women whose husbands are not Christians? If Paul really intended women to be silent, why have church leaders always allowed women to sing in church?

Why have they allowed women to verbally confess their faith that Jesus is the Christ in front of the congregation?

Church leaders who embrace the traditional keep silent view always make exceptions for singing and professions of faith, yet these exceptions flatly contradict their interpretation of the passage.

Similarly, these same church leaders always answer Bible questions asked by female congregants.

If they consistently applied Paul's commands, at least as they understand and interpret them, they would tell inquiring women to ask their husband's

Bible questions when they get home as verse 35 instructs. So, they obey some of Paul's instructions, again as they understand and interpret them, but not all of them.

You see, plucking verses out of context leads to absurd conclusions and inconsistent application.

On occasions when I've had the opportunity to ask the above questions of church leaders who are in the keep silent camp, it was abundantly clear they had no answers.

Not only that, they had never even considered these questions nor had even heard them asked.

So, what does keep silent mean in context? First, we must consider the entire

Corinthian letter. The letter is a running correction of the behavior of the Christians in Corinth.

In the opening chapters, Paul addresses problems regarding divisions among the Corinthian brethren.

Chapter 5 corrects their lack of discipline regarding issues of immorality. In chapter 6, he corrects their practice on suing each other in the civil courts.

Chapter 7 deals with marriage and divorce and so on and so forth. When we come to chapter 11, we've entered the immediate context which leads to Paul's remark in chapter 14.

Namely, beginning in chapter 11, Paul discusses the behavior and practices of their church assembly.

Chapters 12 and 13 are parenthetical departures from the main subject, but Paul picks back up his main thought again in chapter 14.

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul addresses abuses regarding speaking in foreign languages when there is no one to interpret.

Their church assembly was chaotic because Paul tells them not to interrupt while another one is speaking, verse 30, and to speak one at a time when teaching, verse 31.

Paul's overriding concern in both chapters 11 and 14 is that the church assembly was to be edifying.

In the King James Version and the New King James Version, some form of the word edify appears seven times in the chapter.

In fact, in verse 26, Paul says, Let all things be done for edification.

The word edify in this context simply means to build up spiritually. Paul wants

Christians to strengthen and encourage one another so that they're better Christians today than they were yesterday.

Paul knew that the church gatherings in Corinth were, in fact, not edifying.

Their meetings were chaotic and even detrimental. It's clear from the passage that people were speaking out of turn, speaking in ways that no one can understand, and multiple people were talking at once.

It's in the context of all these corrections that we arrive at verses 34 and 35.

As we noted earlier, verses 34 and 35 are plainly aimed at married women.

Why would Paul single out married women and tell them to keep quiet? It seems obvious that Paul wrote these two verses because he knew that there were certain women who happened to be married who were being disruptive during the assembly.

Based on 35, we can infer that they were being disruptive in the way they were asking questions.

The specific manner in which their inquiries were disruptive is unknown.

Perhaps they were asking questions in a sarcastic way. Perhaps their questions were embarrassing someone, or maybe they were misleading or deceptive in nature.

Maybe they were just silly or ignorant questions. Regardless of what manner of questions they were asking, the point seems to be that they were causing disruption and were not edifying.

So what does Paul mean when he says in verse 34 when he refers to the law?

Interestingly, there is no explicit command in the Old Testament where women in general were told to be in subjection to men except for one possibility.

Genesis chapter 2 verse 18. In this verse, God revealed that the purpose for creating the woman was to be a helper for Adam.

It wasn't good for him to be alone. He needed someone to be his companion and his helper, not his boss or overseer.

Since it would appear that Paul is alluding to the first husband and wife and making his point, this is additional evidence that Paul isn't ordering all women to remain silent in an assembly of Christians.

Paul directed his remarks at married women in Corinth who were causing a disturbance.

Just like in 1st Timothy chapter 2 verses 11 through 15, the context is not about men and women in general, but husbands and wives specifically.

Could these wives have been disrupting their own husbands while they were speaking? There's no way to tell, but if so, they certainly weren't being the suitable helper that God intended for wives to be.

If these conclusions are correct, and I'm persuaded that they are, then Paul is telling not only women to cease being disruptive, but by inference men as well.

After all, is it acceptable for a man to speak in a congregation when it would be inappropriate?

The earlier verses of chapter 14 make it clear that Paul permitted no one, regardless of gender or marital status, to create a chaotic atmosphere in the church assembly.

The takeaway is that Paul isn't ordering all women to be silent. In reality, he's just telling those who are guilty of being disruptive to behave themselves.

Therefore, we can conclude that it is just as acceptable for a woman to speak during the assembly as it is for a man, assuming it's done in a way that is edifying.

We need to be aware that Paul actually did approve of women who did not keep silent.

In 1st Corinthians 11, Paul corrected how women were praying and prophesying in the assembly of the church.

Specifically, their adornment was inappropriate given the circumstances. If Paul had concluded they shouldn't have been speaking in the assembly, he would have said so in chapter 11.

It wasn't their active participation in the church gathering that he corrected them about.

It was because they were not wearing a head covering when they prayed and prophesied. In fact, we know that these were wives, thanks to 1st

Corinthians 11 verse 5. But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven.

1st Corinthians 11 5, English Standard Version. Does it make sense that Paul would tell them the proper way to pray and prophesy in chapter 11 and then in chapter 14 tell them to all sit down and shut up?

Does it make sense that God gave these women the gift of prophecy and then told them not to use their gift?

Paul makes no distinction between men and women who prayed and prophesied in the assembly, except to point out that the wife must not dishonor her husband while doing so.

Some have argued that 1st Corinthians 11 verses 1 through 16 is not about the full church assembly, but about private worship or a meeting composed only of women.

First of all, the text does not say these instructions applied to solitary worship or semi -private gatherings.

The remainder of 1st Corinthians 11 is definitely about the church assembly, because Paul is correcting abuses related to the

Lord's Supper. There is no indication in 1st Corinthians 11 that Paul switched thoughts from a private assembly to a public one.

Besides this, why would Paul care about what men and women were doing with their hair and their heads if they were praying and prophesying privately where people could not see or hear?

Paul allowed a lot more freedom for women than churches do today. For his day,

Paul was very permissive by including women in church affairs. Todd Still and Bruce Longenecker in their book,

Thinking Through Paul, said that Paul has no qualms about women praying and prophesying in gatherings of male and female followers of Jesus Christ.

In fact, we know of at least one woman who was a deacon in the church. I commend to you our sister

Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Centrier, Romans 16, 1, New International Version.

Phoebe probably carried Paul's letter of Romans to the church in Rome. Such a responsibility usually carried with it the reading of the letter to its recipients and expounding to them what the writer's full intentions were and answering questions.

This is according to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. In the churches which

Paul worked with, he encouraged female workers. In their book,

The New Testament in Antiquity, Gary Burge and Lynn Kohick say this.

We should note Paul's references to a number of women who held leadership roles in his churches. In Romans 16, he commends nine women.

He encourages two female co -workers, Uadaiah and Syntyche, Philippians 4 -2, to agree with each other.

Lydia established a house church in her home, Acts 16, verses 15 and 40.

Paul's good friend Priscilla taught Apollos, Acts 18 -26. Paul's churches then had men and women leading, teaching, and making decisions in the church.

We tend to think of ancient times as eras of the oppression of women.

It would appear Paul allowed women more freedom to participate in the mission of the church than many congregations permit today.

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