There is a lot of disagreement within the church about the role of women in the church. This mostly comes from some things that Paul says. The disagreement breaks down along political lines with the conservatives saying that women have a very limited role in the church. The liberal side generally considers Paul to be a bigot and they don't care what he says. Because of the views they have taken from the world, they say women are completely unrestricted in the church.
In this case, both sides are wrong - the liberals because they are throwing away the parts of the Bible they don't like and both of them because they do not understand what Paul is saying.
The English translations here at not very good. That is because Paul doesn't spend much time on the point and the Greek here is not clear. There are contextual clues that we can use to give us a better understanding
Let Your Women Be Silent
We'll start with the full context of the verses.
From the full context, we can see the theme here - disorder. He begins and ends the context, almost chiastically, with the key word "order". Whatever is going on in the church, it is a problem with order.Because God is not chaotic, but peaceful, as in all the assemblies of the Holy Ones.
34 Let your women be silent in the assemblies, for they are not allowed to speak, but to be in subjection, just as the Law (Torah) also says. 35 And if they wish to learn anything, let them ask their husbands in their homes, for it is a shame for women to speak in the assembly. 36 Or did the word of God come forth from you, or does it come unto you alone?
37 But if any of you thinks that he is a Prophet or spiritual, let him know that these things I write to you are the commandments of Our Lord. 38 But if a man is ignorant, let him be ignorant.
39 Be zealous therefore, my brethren, to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in languages. 40 But let everything be done with decorum [good manner] and with order. (1 Corinthians 14:33-40)
We are going to skip ahead in the context for a point that Paul makes that helps us understand what is going on.
After speaking about women and to women, Paul turns to speak to everyone, using "he". Paul seems to feel he has reason to believe the Corinthian church will only take his words as "advice" and ignore it. He is expecting this rejection to come from those who think they are prophets, by way of words they say have come from God, and from people who consider themselves to be spiritual. So he says, essentially, this isn't his opinion; they are Jesus' commandments.But if any of you thinks that he is a Prophet or spiritual, let him know that these things I write to you are the commandments of our Lord. 38 But if a man is ignorant, let him be ignorant. (1 Corinthians 14:37-38)
Then he says, if you want to be stupid, be stupid. No one can fix that.
Now we are going back to the beginning of the context we are studying.
Too many people hear "not allowed to speak" and interpret it through a feminist perspective. The key word is actually "subjection"Let your women be silent in the assemblies, for they are not allowed to speak, but to be in subjection, just as the Law (Torah) also says. 35 And if they wish to learn anything, let them ask their husbands in their homes, for it is a shame for women to speak in the assembly. 36 Or did the word of God come forth from you, or does it come unto you alone? (1 Corinthians 14:34-36)
Subjection
By "subjection" Paul is saying this disorder is because the Corinthian women are not in subjection. We understand that he is referring to the Bible-based concept that the man is the head. God selected men to have the lead role in life, but men and women are equal before God. God set this order for the home and the church.
What isn't clear is how speaking would be a violation of that. Women are allowed to speak in the home. Therefore it would be expected they could also speak in the church.
Paul also says this is a Torah standard and he would be referring to Genesis 3:16 - "He shall rule over you." But, again, the Torah doesn't say women can't speak.
We do notice something odd. He presents "speaking" and "subjection" as though they were opposites, but they aren't. The opposite of speaking is silence. Also, speaking is an action but subjection is a role. They don't make sense as opposites.
So, what role is the opposite of being in submission? The thesaurus uses words like domineering, dictatorial, overbearing, and bossy. That's not quite what we are looking for. It's … being the leader, being the one who is in charge of those in submission to him. That puts us on the right track.
So we understand the Corinthian women were stepping out of their role and making themselves the leader, this by their use of speech. That's a start but there is more we need to understand.
Cultural Context
We are going to see that the problem Paul is taking about is one that is almost never seen in our culture. It is only seen in modern Charismatic churches, which makes some sense here because he is speaking to the Corinthian church.
We forget that we know "the rules" about meetings at the church. Some of these are:
- During the sermon you don't interrupt with questions
- During a classroom lesson you can interrupt
- but you don't want to bog down the lesson if you don't understand or disagree
- you don't want to be the person who phased out and now wants an explanation of everything that was missed
Most of the women had babies and small children to tend to. The typical woman would be pregnant or breast feeding an infant and also have a toddler holding on to her dress. Women would have frequently needed to leave the service to deal with their children. So it would have been common for them to miss parts of the message. Therefore it was the men who did the learning in the meeting and then taught at home.
Also, Greeks loved to discuss philosophy and lots of stuff. At their meetings there were large discussions and subgroups of discussion. It was normal for a person to express their own views or contradict the speaker. We see that with Paul when he is in Athens.
Interruptions and Contradictions
So there were lots of reasons why women might want to have the speaker go back and repeat something that he had said before. Verse 35 supports this when Paul says, "let them ask their husbands in their homes". If the women miss something, instead of interrupting and slowing the meeting down for everyone, they need to ask their husbands when they get home.
They may have also had their own opinions to debate. Remember that this was a characteristic of meetings in Greek society. In our time we wouldn't think of debating the speaker during the service.
Notice that Paul uses the plural of women. This isn't a problem with a single person, but it may be the women acting as a group or maybe each of them is doing this individually.
Taken out of context, this sounds like women can't say anything ever but elsewhere we see Paul talking about women in the church praying and prophesying.for it is a shame for women to speak in the assembly. (1 Corinthians 14:35)
Plainly, Paul allows women to speak in the assembly. So, he is using "speaking" here in a way that would have been familiar to the people of his time. He is speaking specifically about women taking control of the meeting but he doesn't say exactly what they are doing. We do get a hint in the next verse, though.And every woman praying or prophesying […] (1 Corinthians 11:5)
Paul speaks directly to the women here. He asks them to look at what they are doing by asking two questions.Or did the word of God come forth from you, or does it come unto you alone? (1 Corinthians 14:36)
"Did the word of God come from you?" This seems to be an implied accusation, as though he was saying, "or was it your own words?"
"Does the word of God come to you only?" This also appears to be an implied accusation, "are you women the only one's with a word from God". This is an accusation of arrogance.
Part of the problem, then, is that these women are taking control of the meeting by claiming they have a word from God. This is happening so much that they are stopping the meeting and blocking men from speaking. This is the disorder that is Paul's theme here.
Paul speaks elsewhere about the problems the Corinthian church is having with managing the use of the spiritual gifts. So this understanding of what he says here fits in well with that.
I Do Not Allow A Woman To Teach
In this case, Paul is speaking to Timothy about how church meetings should be run. He had said to the Corinthians in the verses above, "as in all the assemblies of the Holy Ones." This means the instruction that he was given them was for all of the churches. Here we see him teaching it to Timothy for his church.
The words Paul uses are slightly different from those for the Corinthians but we'll see that it has the same meaning.
We know that Paul's teaching team included a married couple, Priscilla and Aquila, and she taught. In the Old Testament, God's prophets Huldah and Deborah also taught men. So we know that Paul doesn't mean "teach" in the way that we usually think.Let women learn in silence with all submission, 12 for I do not allow a woman to teach, neither to usurp over a man, but she should be quiet (1 Timothy 2:12)
This translation gets the word correct; others do not. The word "usurp" is the key here. It means "take (a position of power or importance) illegally or by force."
We can see that this is the same problem he had with the Corinthians. The women would take control of the meeting and begin excluding the men.
In these verses Paul gives the Biblical basis for saying that the women should be in subjection to the men.
Paul's reasons are, by "birth" order and because Eve's sin was intentional but Adam's was not. That may require more explaining. There are two levels of sin, intentional and unintentional. An intentional sin is done with full and present knowledge that you are doing something wrong. It is a direct rejection of God. Adam's sin was that he trusted Eve too much and accepted the food she gave him without checking. He was tricked and ate the food unintentionally, without realizing it was the forbidden fruit.For Adam was formed first, and then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and violated the commandment (1 Timothy 2:13-14)
So, Paul is saying that, because Eve was deceived but Adam was not, God chose men to have the lead role in the family and church.
Ministry Roles
For those groups that understand Paul as requiring women not to speak in the meetings, it would be obvious that they could have no role in the ministry of the church. Now that we have shown Paul doesn't mean that, the door is open for women.
Paul doesn't directly address women in the ministry roles of the church. To Timothy he only uses the word "man" in referring to the people in those roles. That's far from conclusive though. The masculine gender is used to refer to both men and women, all through the Bible.
Paul does make it clear that the head of a church should be a man in the same way that a man is the head of the home. There isn't any reason to construe that down to all ministry levels, leaving women with no ministry roles available to them. In the home the wife was over the children and servants.
We also see that God appointed women to the roles of prophets, from which they directed men.
Paul does tell us something that is very applicable when it is understood.
Another cultural difference of that time is that men in the church could have more than one wife. Paul excludes them from ministry positions without saying why. Some might think that it would be because they had more than one wife but that wouldn't make sense. If God has accepted them into the body, then they are fully members.And an Elder ought to be one in whom no fault is found and is the husband of one woman, […] (1 Timothy 3:2)
The more likely reason is that a man with more than one wife has such a large family that he doesn't have the time to commit to ministry roles and do a good job of both.
We talked above about the cultural differences of that time and the consequences of not having birth control. Paul, like with the men with more than one wife, probably thinks that a woman would not have the time to commit to a ministry position. With birth control, smaller families, and no servants, in our time a woman would be able to commit to a ministry role. The role of church leader would still be off limits for the reasons Paul gives above.