There’s a puzzling passage of Scripture in 1 Corinthians 14:33b-36 which may have caught your attention and raised some questions.
Right after instructions regarding the use of spiritual gifts in church gatherings, the text says:
“Like in all the churches of God’s people, the women should be quiet during the meeting. They are not allowed to talk. Instead, they need to get under control, just as the law says. If they want to learn something, they should ask their husbands at home. It is disgraceful for a woman to talk during the meeting.”[i]
What does Paul mean by this sudden interruption to his train of thought about exercising the spiritual gifts of prophecy and tongues? Why did he insert a notion which breaks the flow of the literary structure he uses in this passage?
Paul cannot possibly mean women are not allowed to speak a single word in church.[ii] (As we’ve seen, 1 Cor. 11:3-16 makes it clear Paul did allow women to lead in prayer and prophecy in church meetings.)
New Testament scholar Craig Keener clarifies the only specific kind of speaking Paul mentions here is that of wives asking questions of their husbands (most likely concerning Scripture exposition), thus causing an interruption of the service.[iii]
In general, most Jewish women knew less of the law than did men, and most Greek women were unaccustomed to public lectures. Therefore, women were prone to misunderstand the nuanced social etiquette about how to ask questions during teaching.[iv]
This caused a problem. Just as it was shameful for a woman to have her head uncovered while praying or prophesying (11:6), it was shameful for her to interrupt the service with her questions (14:35) because, based on cultural standards, it offended the very people the church was trying to reach with the gospel.[v]
Paul’s long-range solution is radical. He tells the husband to recognize his wife’s intellectual capabilities and take on responsibility for her education so the couple can discuss intellectual issues together.[vi]
(No specific law in the Old Testament requires the silence of women in an assembly, but Paul might be using the term “the law” to loosely refer to the Old Testament in general, in which case he is possibly referring to the general subordinating of women in that time period.)[vii]
The principle here is those less educated in Scripture should not be setting the pace for learning in the congregation but should receive private attention so they can catch up. In this way, order would be maintained during church meetings.[viii]
Some Christians offer a theory that, since Paul couldn’t have meant complete silence for women, he was forbidding them from evaluating prophecies.
Complementarian scholar Craig Blomberg imagines that perhaps, women were disruptively asking questions and arguing with their husbands about the evaluation of prophetic words.[ix]
But this contradicts what the text implies—the women were wanting to learn, not offer prophetic judgments.[x]
Also, evaluating prophecy was a task for all who prophesied or of the entire church gathering, and it is not ranked greater than prophecy itself.[xi]
Paul was instating a temporary silencing of women who were asking disruptive questions out of ignorance.[xii] Once these women were educated, they would be permitted to ask questions.[xiii]
This passage is a non-universal text. Given the numerous challenges in the text and context, it should not be used to prohibit women from speaking or leading in church.[xiv]
(In a subsequent post, we’ll look at 1 Timothy 2:12, another verse which seems to call for women’s silence in church.)
***
This post is an excerpt from my new book, Prophesying Daughters: How Prophetic Ministry and Women in Leadership Strengthen the Church, now with accompanying study guide!
Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash
[i] 1 Cor. 14:33b-36 (CEB).
[ii] Craig Blomberg, “Women in Ministry: a Complementarian Perspective” in Two Views on Women in Ministry, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 161.
[iii] Craig Keener, Paul, Women and Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul, (Peabody, MS: Hendrickson Publishers, 1992), 81.
[iv] Keener, Paul, Women and Wives, 82-83.
[v] Keener, Paul, Women and Wives, 86.
[vi] Keener, Paul, Women and Wives, 84.
[vii] Keener, Paul, Women and Wives, 87.
[viii] Keener, Paul, Women and Wives, 88.
[ix] Blomberg, 164.
[x] Linda Belleville, “A Response to Craig Blomberg” in Two Views on Women in Ministry, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 201.
[xi] Craig Keener, “A Response to Craig Blomberg” in Two Views on Women in Ministry, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 188.
[xii] Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 193.
[xiii] McKnight, 193.
[xiv] Some scholars present a strong argument for 1 Cor. 14:34-35 as a non-Pauline interpolation. See Philip Payne, Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 217-267 and Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 780-792.
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