The text used is as follows…
1 Cor. 14:34-38 (KJV)
[34] …Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. [35] And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. [36] What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? [37] If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. [38] But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.
The negative attitude toward Christian women comes from two hard to understand passages from St. Paul. After reading on the subject I think that in both cases he was addressing local errors in the Church and was not making a general statement for all time.
The one thing that has to be considered is the writings of St. Paul are often answers to problems or questions that he has been presented with either by letter or by a visitor from that Church. So we are only hearing one side of a conversation. So when he is answering a question we have to deduce from his answer what the question was. Most letters were lost to history. And so that is what we have to do with this passage. 1 Corinthians 14:36-38 is his response to an important situation, which was detrimental to the Corinthian Church. So what problem is he addressing in our text? What is he reacting to?
After writing on boards like this for 20 years it is interesting how many times that this issue of women keeps coming up again and again; and of course the problem that spiritually savvy Christians have is the manifested spirit of St. Paul and his kindness and respect for women is in direct conflict with this stated text. And so we struggle with our apologetics in order to reconcile the two. Of course there are those who are more legalistic and are dogmatic about this problematic text – they have no problem.
It is unfortunate that the Koine Greek does not use quotation marks If it did I don’t think a lot of us would be struggling with this passage like we do. For the sake of this post allow me to add quotation marks to the appropriate text of this passage.
1 Corinthians 14:34-35 (KJV) [34] …“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.” [35] “And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”
In 34 & 35 St. Paul is quoting the words of someone in the Church probably a “Judiazer,” someone from the Circumcision Party, who opposed Paul at every turn - who in judging from the text - considered himself a prophet in that local body.
Moreover, I Corinthians 14:34,35, if taken totally literally, cannot refer to the Old Testament Scriptures when speaking of the Law for there is not one trace from Genesis to Malachi of any such prohibition of women to literally keep silent in the church nor is there a single word in the whole “law of Moses” dealing with the subject. Therefore the words, “it is not permitted” and “as also saith the Law” must refer to some rule outside of Scripture. There was no other but the Oral Law of the Jews appealed to by the Judaizers in the church in their efforts at that time to bring Christianity back within the confines of Judaism.
The Jewish Oral Law did teach the silencing of women. The Talmud also taught that it was “a shame for a woman to let her voice be heard among men”. However, the Oral Law of the Jews is not Scripture. Again, the reference to the “law” is, of itself, sufficient to show that the Apostle who labored so earnestly to free the Christian Church from the very shadow of Judaism was not expressing his own conviction in the language attributed to him. Paul never appealed to the “law” for the guidance of the Church of Christ, but, on the contrary, declared that believers were dead to the law by the body of Christ" (Romans 7:4) that they might serve in newness of spirit and not the oldness of the letter (v.6).)
Now lets look at St. Paul’s response to this quotation. I have used the old KJV because it uses the word “What” in its translation as do several other versions. This should be read in a mocking angry sarcastic tone of voice.
[36] What?came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? [37] If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.
“What” is an expression of outrage at the preceding quote. He follows with a denouncement of the comments of the Judiazer. He didn’t dwell on the problem probably because he only wanted to correct the situation and not to destroy or run off the individual.
So in summary the text was not composed by St. Paul, but was only quoted by him in making a correction to the quotation. Actually, the exact opposite of the text was intended in this passage of Scripture.
I am not arguing that she was a disciple. I am pointing out that she was not one of the chosen twelve.
