“The Women Are To keep Silent In The Churches, For They Are Not Permitted To Speak, But are To Subject

I'm curious, what do you think of 1st Corinthians 14:34-35?

What we think of it doesn’t matter; what I think of it matters even less; what it says is what matters. It’s the Word of God.

“The women are to keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. But if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church.”

Everyone’s got a problem with that because it sounds like the Bible is saying women can’t ever talk in church at all. That’s not what it’s saying, though. You know why? Because this is two verses plucked straight out of a book that has 437 verses in it. That’s like if I read two sentences out of the middle of one of your emails to a close family member and took issue with whatever those two sentences said. Even though the context determines the meaning, so I have no right to get offended when I don’t understand the context. So what’s the context of 1 Corinthians by the time you get to 14:34-35?

The Apostle Paul is writing to a church in the Gentile city of Corinth in AD 53 or 54. That church was a blend of Jewish Christians and Greek Christians. Two completely different cultures were figuring out what the “assembly of the saints,” or “the first church services” were supposed to look like. And to make matters more complicated, they lived in one of the most morally bankrupt cities of that age. Literally, the Corinthian people had a Greek word coined to describe their immorality. So the people who lived there were generally all messed up, in terms of not knowing what was right and what was wrong. That extended to their church services.

The whole context of 1 Corinthians is “what is a church that glorifies the Lord supposed to look like?” The context of the specific chapter, 14, is “what should church assembly that glorifies the Lord look like? What should it not look like?”

How do I know? Read the verses that come before it. At the beginning of the chapter, Paul explains that spiritual gifts are for edifying other people. In fact, everything done in a church service, where the saints are gathered, is not for an individual. It’s for the edification of the whole group. So what might be okay to do in your own home or in private between you and God is not okay, because it’s not mindful, considerate, or edifying to other Christians when you’re in a church service.

Specifically, the Corinthians are all claiming to “prophesy” (get direct revelation from God) and “speak in tongues” (speak in known, but various and foreign, languages) all at once during the service. Everybody’s shouting over each other. Some people are shouting over each other “THUS SAYS THE LORD,” which is a huge deal. Because obviously if you’re going to claim that God has told you something, everyone should shut up, listen, and determine whether or not you’re telling the truth, because what could be a bigger deal than God speaking? But that’s not how the church in Corinth was treating it. Their services were helping nobody, least of all themselves, because it was loud chaotic pandemonium and nobody I was being edified. Everybody was shouting and judging. Including women. By verse 26, Paul is going:

“What is the outcome then, brothers? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has a translation. Let all things be done for edification. If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must translate; but if there is no translator, he must keep silent in the church, and let him speak to himself and to God. And let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment. But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, the first one must keep silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted. And the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets; for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.”

And then he adds,

“The women are to keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. But if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church. Was it from you that the word of God first went forth? Or has it arrived to you only?

“If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord’s commandment. But if anyone remains ignorant about this, he is ignored by God.

“Therefore, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues. But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner.”

Do you get it? The point is, “what does this specific situation, which is a church service, look like if we’re trying to do things in a God-honoring, orderly manner? Here’s what it does not look like: women can’t just stand up in church and take up the role of judge over men who are shouting that they are speaking from God, and call certain men impostors and certain men prophets.”

The point is not “all women should never ever speak in all church services because that’s disgraceful, they only get to talk to their husbands and get told what to do.”

If it were, then explain to me why, three chapters earlier, when he’s talking about head-coverings, Paul writes that women can prophesy in public?

“But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying, shames her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved.”

(if you want to talk about why the heck a woman has to have her head covered when she prophesies, blah blah blah, let’s talk about that too, but the answer’s going to be the same: context determines meaning, meaning is correct interpretation, etc.)

Additionally, why would Paul be commending the women in the church who have taught their sons and grandsons? How can they teach if they’re never allowed to talk in church, or if their only role in all contexts is “shut up and learn?”

Because that’s not their only biblical role. And that’s not what Paul was saying. Paul was saying, “in this specific context, here’s how a woman (among all the other people groups I’m also addressing) should conduct herself when the goal is to edify the believers in a church service, and not let anything get in the way of that goal.”

Now.

Guess what?

If the Bible did say, “all women shut up and listen all the time, let the men do the talking,” would you listen to it?

You, reading this. Would you have a problem with it? If that’s what God Sid to do, would you sit in judgement over God and say, “no, infinite Creator of all matter and life, You’re mistaken about how You should be worshipped and what these little creatures You made are for, let me correct and educate You with the judgement coming out of the three-pound lump of gray matter, which You designed and graciously allowed me to have in the first place, sitting inside my skull. Let me, the creature, tell You, the Creator, where you’re wrong and what ‘Being God’ should be like.”

I hope not. But I was super convicted reading this chapter for the first time and finding myself a) misunderstanding it and then b) having the appalling gall and arrogance to be outraged by it.

Who in the world am I? Who am I to be outraged, if God did say, “be quiet and spend your life listening to men?” If that were what He was saying, my response should be, “Yes, Lord.”

Why are we so concerned about being allowed to speak? What do we have to say that’s so great, that’s so necessary, that’s so devastating to have “removed” from us, anyway? Why do we care so much about being heard? Is it because we have something to say that could really help men, in the church services? Oh, really? And if we women don’t say it, God won’t edify the men? He’ll be handicapped because we were muzzled?

What’s so offensive about being told to stop talking and ask questions to learn, anyway? Why is that so infuriating, to us? We’re fools. The whole point of the Gospel is, “He (Jesus) must increase; I must decrease.” The best place in the world to be is at the feet of Jesus, learning. Humble. Not producing anything of ourselves, but absorbing everything He has to teach us. Who cares if it’s our husbands He plans to do that through? Who cares if we can’t teach men in church? What, we think God can’t handle that? We think He can’t teach them His own way, that His plan was flawed, that they’re “missing out” because God dropped the ball by telling us not to stand up in service and disrupt everything with this great ‘word’ we have, that nobody else has?

Ugh. God forgive me for ever even approaching a mindset that thinks I have something to say, and if I don’t say it, He won’t be able to accomplish His will. God forgive me for ever thinking my Western modern culture knows better than His divine plan. He designed human beings and men and women and what would best serve us before “culture” or “social frameworks” were ever even conceived of.

We all need to be a lot more humble. Me first.

I would encourage you to test what I said. If you read this, you should spend an equal amount of time studying the Bible for yourself and seeing if I was right, and if that’s really what God said and meant, based on the context, which determines meaning, because there is such a thing as “correct and incorrect interpretation” when the God of the universe meant something by what He said. And I could’ve gotten it wrong. And you don’t want to get it wrong.