There’s quite a bit of controversy surrounding 1 Corinthians 14:34 – 40. This is the passage in which Paul explains “The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission.” Many insist this is sexist and discriminatory. Others argue that Paul is simply speaking to women who are uneducated and have not been taught how to read. Still others teach that these cannot be the actual words of Paul because he has permitted women to speak on other occasions.
Because this topic is so charged with emotion in today’s cultural setting, you can read 10 different commentaries on this text and find 10 different slants on what the language actually means. With all that controversy and complexity in mind, allow me to make a few observations that should be obvious.
First, the context of this passage is very narrow. 1 Corinthians 14 teaches that the gift of prophecy, applying God’s Word to life, is more helpful in a local church setting than the gift of tongues. “Tongues” in 1 Corinthians refers to the gift of speaking a human language one has never learned. In a local church setting, people are instructed and inspired only when leaders speak in the native tongue which they all understand.
It is within this context of teaching God’s Word publicly in the local church that Paul directs women to be silent. This dovetails with his comments in 1 Timothy 2:12 that he does not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. These texts comprise part of the reason why most Baptist churches do not call women as pastors or “overseers.” We understand that women can be gifted speakers and can make powerful applications from God’s words. (Acts teaches that Philip had four daughters who were prophets.) Rather, we simply believe it is important to follow the teachings of God’s Word in season and out, even when it collides with conventional wisdom.
Secondly, this is rather discriminatory, but God reserves that authority for himself. Indeed, he exercises it frequently. It is discriminatory, for example, that men cannot give birth to sons and daughters or breast feed them after they are born. In Scripture, God practiced discrimination when he favored Jacob over Isaac; when he elevated Moses over older siblings Aaron and Miriam; when he selected the Jews as his chosen people out of all the nations of the earth. While human discrimination is evil whenever it is based on selfishness and ignorance, the same is never true of what God does. Divine discrimination is based on purpose and eternal wisdom.
Finally, it is baseless and hypocritical to suggest that the Bible continues to oppress women just as the world has done throughout history. Around the planet today, the nations where women are treated best are those where the Bible has advanced, and where the Gospel has prevailed. Historically, whenever Christian missionaries have penetrated pioneer areas, one of their first priorities has been building schools and introducing education that includes girls, who have historically been neglected. Wherever the church has gone, polygamy has been discouraged in favor of sacred, one man-one women matrimony. God's Word has not reflected the unjust culture: it has challenged it.
The advances of women in the West today have been fueled largely by the momentum created by the Word of God over the centuries. One need only visit any Muslim nation to observe the sort cultural bias which the Christian Faith has tirelessly resisted since the earliest days of the movement when Jesus encouraged his friend Mary to sit with his disciples as he taught them. Sister Martha indignantly continued to putter around in the kitchen, fulfilling her duties assigned by the culture. Jesus corrected Martha for her proud spirit, and explained that she should leave the kitchen and join the men at his feet as well.
In our church as in most churches today, the vast majority of ministry slots are available to leaders of both sexes. Indeed, many of the most powerful, life-changing ministries are conducted by strong, tireless women. Unlike Eve, these unnumbered heroines of the faith have refused to obsess on one forbidden tree. To the contrary, they have surveyed all the boundless opportunities crying out for attention on every side. And they have responded, “Here I am, Lord. Send me.” So should we all.
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