1 Corinthians 14:34-35 (NIV)
Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
Even though this passage causes much consternation and contention in the Church today, it is much more narrowly focused than many read it. Women, even though they were to be submissive and under authority by Paul’s own instruction, were allowed to pray and prophesy in the services of the Church, as Paul clearly noted in 1 Corinthians 11:5. And Phillip the evangelist had four virgin daughters who were prophets themselves (Acts 21:9).
Paul’s instructions here are much more narrowly focused in their context, which is in verse 35. Jewish tradition, which was carried into the first century Church services, allowed the men to discuss, question, and even challenge what was said by a speaker right in the service. The benefit of this was the opportunity to clarify and actively assimilate what was being presented as a word from the Lord. It also helped to prevent heresies from gaining a toehold, as unscriptural ideas that were presented “in the name of the Lord” could be countered with the clear words of Scripture before they took root in anyone’s mind or heart. The downside was that there these discussions could grow heated, and the challenges could be taken quite personally.
Paul’s proscription against women speaking in the church is in this context of challenging and questioning speakers. Especially in those times, women were not generally as well-educated in the Scriptures as the men were, because they were usually given little formal schooling. Because of that, their challenges were often on points that simply needed more background or a deeper understanding, which should be tackled outside of the general service. Also, it was deemed inappropriate for a woman to publicly challenge a man who is speaking for God in the service.
Paul’s point was that, if the woman had a question about what was being said, or if she disagreed with it, instead of challenging the speaker right then, she should ask her husband after the service was over. This would allow the husband to fulfill his office of spiritual leader of the family, discuss the issues with his wife, and provide instruction and explanation as needed.
Again, Paul is not being anti-woman here, and he wasn’t a misogynist by nature, as can be seen by his close working relationship with both Aquila and his wife Prisca (or Priscilla, as she sometimes called), as well as with other women mentioned prominently in the greetings portion of his letters. And he fully recognized that women were both called and gifted to fulfill many offices in the body of Christ. But in this section of his letter to Corinth, he is talking specifically about orderly worship, and not about whether or not women could prophesy or pray in a worship service.
Father, it is important for us to neither condemn people who are writing narrowly as if they were writing generally, nor to immediately discount passages like this as “cultural” issues only applicable for the first century Church. In many important ways we have not grown wiser or more spiritually whole and mature than our brothers and sisters in the early Church, but generally fall short of them. And in our accommodations to the societies around us, we have grown just as worldly as the Corinthians if not more so. Therefore, we need Paul’s instructions to recalibrate us and our processes just as much as they did, so that we can regain the power and effectiveness that those first Christians had that we so admire. Help us, Lord, to approach this, as all things, with teachable hearts and humble spirits, so that we can learn and grow in you. Amen.