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TechnoratiIn I Cor. 14:34-36, Paul states that women should be silent in church, which at first glance appears to contradict the teaching that women may pray and speak (I Cor. 11:5). However, context is the key here as well. Paul’s overarching emphasis in chapter 14 is found in the chapter’s final verse, which declares that all things “should be done in a fitting and orderly way” (v. 40). Within this context, Paul is dealing with a specific difficulty of some female Corinthian church members interrupting church services with either untimely questions or outbursts of glossalalia. Some of these church members, by openly disputing with men and demanding their freedom to speak in public worship, were bringing disgrace upon the church before God and the wider community of Corinth (cf. R. C. Prohl, Women in the Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957, pp. 27-28).
Once again, the appeal to the law or Torah (v. 34) makes the command for women’s submissive spirit in church normative, not mere culture or custom. The church service is to be orderly, and women are to be submissive to their husbands. As with the passage in I Cor. 11, modesty and submission, not head coverings or silence, are the true apostolic teachings.
The last passage where Paul deals with women’s role in church is I Tim. 2:11-15. Once again, the context of the teaching is crucial. I Timothy 3:15, which states that chapters two and three are to instruct the people how they “ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God,” provides the context of the passage: Within the church, women are not to assume authority over men, just as a wife is to put herself under the authority of her own husband in her marriage. This teaching does not say that all women are to be under the authority of all men or in all institutions, but rather that women are to be in submission to their own husbands and are not to be in an authoritative position in the local church. Once again, the reference to the Creation account makes this a normative theological teaching, not a cultural one. Since the pastoral office is a position of authority (Hebrews 13:7,17), this would preclude a woman from serving a pastoral function in the local church, but would not require silence.
In conclusion, the Apostle Paul’s teachings were as controversial in challenging first-century prejudices against women as they are in challenging 21st-century prejudices against any teaching that doesn’t genuflect to the altar of political correctness. The Apostle Paul, and the Bible in general, teach an equality between the sexes that is expressed through the way in which they complete (Gen. 2:18-25) each other, as opposed to a gender neutrality that would obliterate distinctive male and female roles.
We should all remember that there are many kinds of submission. There is submission to the divine authority of the Bible, and then there is submission to the pervasive pressure of a secular culture which rejects Scripture’s authority when it finds itself in disagreement with biblical teaching. God inspired Paul to warn Christians: “Do not conform yourselves to the standard of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God—what is good and is pleasing to him and is perfect.” (Rom. 12:2, Today’s English Version).
This article originally appeared on March 31, 2004.
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Dr. Richard Land is president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention's official entity assigned to address social, moral, and ethical concerns, with particular attention to their impact on American families and their faith.
