1 The Controversy of 1 Corinthians 14:33-34 Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for women to speak in church. This passage has been used by certain Christian people to state that women can't lead, (pastor or other five-fold ministry gift,) speak, preach, or teach in Church. This teaching will instruct the reader that Paul is addressing this "women can't speak in church," is about married women and not women in general. Along with 1 Timothy 2:12 these two passages are the most common passages used to prevent women from ministry. Most of my information about women in ministry is in my 1 Timothy 2:12-15 articles. I would urge you to read that article in unison with this article to help in understanding the role of women in the church. George A. Gates Jr. May, 2018
2 Paul wrote the first epistle to the Corinthian church in 53-57 A.D. Paul addresses this issue of women speaking in the church by writing the following words. Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home, (those of you knowing the Greek text can agree, εν τους οικω ιδιους ανδρας, in the home own husbands) for it is shameful for women to speak in church. First of let us look at who Paul was talking about or to. married women! He is not addressing women in general. He is telling married women not to interrupt the service by asking questions to each other or to other people in the church. How do we know this? We see in verse 35 that Paul says, If they want to learn anything let them ask their own husbands at home. Part of this problem is that the wives did not sit with their husbands. If we look at some church history, we can find part of our answer. In the early church and even today in some places in the Eastern Mediterranean culture, even if you were married the women sat away from their husbands either in a balcony or on the opposite side of the church. The two sexes were divided. Why is this? In the early Gentile Church, the Christians followed elements of the Jewish pattern of men and women, husbands and wives, sitting apart from each other. In the book History of the Christian Church, Schaff states, (1882), In the Gentile-Christian congregations founded by Paul, the worship took from the beginning a more independent form. The essential elements of the Old Testament service were transferred, indeed, but divested of their national legal character, and transformed by the spirit of the gospel. Thus the Jewish Sabbath passed into the Christian Sunday. The typical Passover and Pentecost became feasts of the death and resurrection of Christ, and of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The bloody sacrifices gave place to the thankful remembrance and appropriation of the one, all-sufficient, and eternal sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and to the personal offering of prayer, intercession, and entire self-consecration to the service of the Redeemer; on the ruins of the temple made without hands arose the never-ceasing worship of the omnipresent God in spirit and in truth. So early as the close of the apostolic period this more free and spiritual cults of Christianity had no doubt become well-nigh universal; yet many Jewish elements, especially in the Eastern church, remain to this day. In the church buildings themselves, the early believers followed the same seating pattern of the Jews. Schaff states, The sexes divide by a low wallor screen, the men on the one side, the women on the other, as they are still in the East (and in some parts of Europe). We learn from this recorded history that even if you were married the couples were separated and were seated by gender. Since this was the case of married women were asking questions to each other or across the aisle to their husbands, Paul is telling them to wait until they get home to ask questions. So we can determine that this passage has nothing to do at all with whether or not women can take part as speakers or preachers in the church services.
3 Another issue also arises in explaining the phrase, "as the law also says". There is nowhere in the written Old Testament scriptures that record such a saying as, "as the law says" regarding women. So what law is Paul referring to? To better understand what was going on with the Christian church at Corinth is to realize that Paul often spoke in Jewish synagogues to Christians. As stated earlier husbands and wives were separated because according to the website Mechon-Mamre.org, which is a small group of observant Jewish Torah scholars, who also realize the Oral and Written law are one. Mechon-Mamre website states, "According to Jewish Law, men and women, must be separated during prayer, usually by a wall or curtain called a mechitzah or by placing women in a second-floor balcony. There are two reasons for this: first, your mind is supposed to be in prayer, not on the pretty girl praying near you. Second, many pagan religious ceremonies at the time the Torah is given on Sinai involved sexual activity and orgies, and the separation prevents or at least discourages even thinking about such things. A separation like that in today's synagogue was also made long ago in the Temple." In this book, Schaff previously writes about the curtain or wall of separation. Also according to Mechon-Mamre, the website states, " Also because women are not obligated to perform as many commandments as men are, women are regarded as less privileged. It is in this light that one must understand the man's blessing thanking God for 'not making me a woman.' The prayer does not indicate that it is bad to be a woman, but only that men feel fortunate to be privileged to have more obligations." Therefore, women had less of a participation then men did in the synagogues because their respective roles were different. It was the man's role to participate more heavily in the synagogue. Jewish life, in general, did not revolve around the synagogue but revolved around the home. As Mechon-Mamre states, "The primary role of the woman is wife and mother, keeper of the household. However; Judaism has great respect for the importance of the role." Therefore, it is not because Paul was a male chauvinist to the Corinthian church that he told these women not to babble in church. To prevent women in speaking, (babbling), in churches was because their role was different. In conclusion in this section, we learn that "Jewish religion is not something that happens in the synagogue. Judaism is something that permeates every aspect of your life, everything that you do, from the time you wake up in the morning to the time you go to bed, from what you eat and how you dress to how you conduct business." In the synagogue, women do not become diminished in any fashion. In Judaism, the role of women has great respect for the importance of women in all of Jewish life. We also have to remember that Paul's reference to women is guided towards married women when he states in 1 Corinthians 14:35, "And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church."
4 When Paul makes the statement, "Let all things be done decently and in order, (1 Corinthians 14:40,) he makes no prohibition of women prophesying or speaking in tongues. The Bible translation that comes the closest to getting this passage correct is the Weymouth Translation, (1903). The Weymouth translation was written by Richard Francis Weymouth, (1822-1902), from London, England. Weymouth was a Baptist and New Testament scholar. Educated at University College London, England, and in 1869, Weymouth was appointed headmaster of Mill Hill School in London. He wrote one of the earliest modern translations of the New Testament. The Weymouth translation reads in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 as, Let married women be silent in the Churches, for they are not permitted to speak (pratt, babble, and chirp).another issue to consider in this passage is the use of certain Greek words. In the Textus Receptus Greek Text, 1516), the Greek word for speak in this instance is the Greek word lalein, (λαλειν). Lalein according to Liddell, Jones, and Scott Greek Lexicon, (LDS), (1897, p. 1025), has several similar meanings. One of the definitions means to Talk, chat, prattle, or chirp. Another meaning is to generally talk, and a third meaning is to chatter or chirp like a locust or grasshopper. Another issue with the Greek is the usage of the word for woman. The Greek language does not a have a separate word for wife or woman. In other words, the same word in the Greek, gunaikes, (γαναίκεσ), is used for both woman and wife. The difficulty with this passage is understanding the passage according to the context and syntax. So we have to ask who is Paul addressing? Women in general or wives of married men? Again, Paul is addressing married women. There are most likely two possible scenarios that were occurring in this church at Corinth. For one, these married women could have talked across church; (thus interrupting the service), to their husbands asking them questions. Paul says, If they have questions let them ask their husbands at home, or, these married women were talking to one another, this interrupting the service in this way. Either way, the service was being interrupted, and Paul tells these married women to stop talking, prattling, and babbling. When Paul states in verse 39, Therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues." Therefore, if they wish to ask questions, they should ask their own husbands at home. For it is disgraceful for a married woman to speak (pratt, babble, and chirp), at a church assembly. Mr. Weymouth translates the Greek words correctly. The Apostle Paul was speaking to married women not to talk; e.g., prattle, babble or talk in church. For those people who use this passage to say women cannot preach, teach, or prophesy, Paul, did not choose any of those words like εύάγγελος; evangelos, the word for πηοφητεία; prophesying, or the word διδαξις, teach. To the contrary in Acts 2:16-18 the passage states, But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel, and it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh.
5 Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams, and on My menservants and My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy. The basis for claiming all women, in general, cannot teach or preach based on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is apparently false. It is clear that all Paul was dealing with was married women interrupting the church service by simple talking during a church service. The same could be said for teenagers or other people prattling, babbling or talking to each other during a church service and interrupting the service. What happens on many occasions like this passage in 1 Corinthians and the passage in 1 Timothy 2:11-15 is that we try to take these passages of scripture that deal with very cultural, situational, subjective, and specific situations. We try to make a general application according to our modern-mind set and apply them to our contemporary culture and churches. A person could call this issue of implementing a "local passage of scripture and using it for general application. However, that does not mean local readings can t be applied globally. Jesus dying on the cross is a local event that can be applied globally! In support of women being able to speak in other ways, we have the passage in 1 Corinthians 11:5 where he Paul states, But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved. Paul infers in this passage that women can prophesy in church. Also, in another passage in Acts 21:8-11 we read about more women prophesying. Acts 21:8-11 states, On the next day we who were Paul s companions departed and came to Caesarea, and entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. Now this man had four virgin daughters who prophesied. And as we stayed many days, a certain prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. When he had come to us, he took Paul s belt, bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus says the Holy Spirit, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles." What we read here is that if it was incorrect for these daughters, (women), to prophesy, (speak), then I believe either or both Paul or the Prophet Agabus would have corrected Philip s four daughters. This correction would happen whether the prophetic ladies were in a formal church building, or in a church home similar to what Nympha had in Colossians 4:15. Conclusion The conclusion is that this passage has nothing at all to do as to whether or not women can preach, teach, prophesy or speak in church. Paul was dealing with married woman only. These married women in the Corinthian church had the chance to learn in church, without interrupting the service by asking questions either to other women or across the aisle to their husbands.