INTRODUCTION
The issue of “Women Silence in Church” in course of our corporate worship as congregations has been with us for quite a long time now. The reason this is so is because we have a healthy respect for God and for His revealed Word, the Bible. Again, we are a distinct people whose desire is to do the Will of God.
It is a thing of great joy in that while other churches in Christendom are contending with ordaining “Women as Clergy” our interest in the role of women remain whether women should speak in church or not. It is because of this healthy attitude towards the Word of God that I remain happy and blessed to be a member of the
I Corinthians 14:34-35, indeed is one of the “difficult passages” of scripture that Apostle Peter spoke about in reference to Apostle Paul’s writings (II Peter 3:16). I Corinthians 14:34-35 talks about “Women being silent in churches because they are not allowed to speak.” The bones of contention lie in the words, “Silent” and “Speak.” The question therefore is, “This ‘Silence:’ Is it total?” If it makes reference to absolute silence, it means that it is wrong for Christian women to utter a word in the assembly. They are not even supposed to open their mouths in Church to say, “Amen” when prayers are offered, sing as we are enjoined in Ephesians 5:19 to “Speak” to ourselves in “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs….” Also, women would not be allowed to answer questions in the gathering of the Church as was in the case of Saphira in Acts 5:1-11. As it obtains in some congregations that take attendance of their members every Lord’s Day, women would not be permitted to answer when their names are called. Why? Because the Bible enjoins women to remain silent!
So, we again ask, “Is this silence total or partial?”
Understanding I Corinthians 14:34-35 is to understand gender roles in the Church of our Lord. Two distinct genders exist within the Body of Christ – males and females. To the males God has bestowed the responsibilities of providing leadership while to the females God has assigned the roles of being led. We would have loved to ask God why this is so, but who are we to ask God a question (Romans 9:20)? Perhaps, the answer to this lay in what happened in the Garden of Eden which Apostle Paul had alluded to in I Timothy 2:13-15 and I Corinthians 11:3, 8-9.
Throughout Scripture leadership in both family and spiritual matters have always been men’s affairs. However, socially, politically and in organized corporate organizations (private sectors), the case may be different as was the case of Deborah in Judges 4:4. Notice that Deborah was neither a religious leader nor a family head. Being a judge was either political or civil in nature.
While selecting His Apostles, Jesus never appointed a woman as Apostle. Also, when mention was made of qualifications of Elders and Deacons, women were excluded as no qualifications pointed to them. The term, “Deaconess” used in reference to Phoebe in Romans 16:1-2 does not in anyway refer to a leader but as a “messenger of the Church at Cenchrea.” It was through her that Apostle Paul had sent his epistle to Christians in Roman while she was on a business trip to the city of
Women were never authorized or appointed to leadership positions over their male counterparts anywhere in Bible as far as spiritual and family affairs were concerned. This probably was the problem in the Church at
That said, the contentious word in I Corinthians 14:34-35 is “silence.” The question again is, “What “Silence”? What does “silence” of I Corinthians 14:34-35 mean? To examine and possibly understand what this “silence” and “speak” are all about, let us begin to examine some New Testament passages where references were made of women in the Church.
a).If there were women prophetesses who probably exercised their
gifting in the Church, would they be violating the command to be
silent? (cf. I Corinthians 11:5).
b). If they were to be silent, would it be absolute silence? If the, “If all
prophesy….” of I Corinthians 14:24 would include women, would
they not be violating the plain instruction to be silent?
c). Were women in congregations expected to be without any element of
sound? This, obviously is not what this injunction suggests.
a). Would asking a brother or preacher questions that bother Christian
woman outside the Church hall not be a violation of this law?
b). Was this instruction to “remain silent” only for Christian women who
were married? Contextually, it seemed possible since the single,
divorced and the widowed were not mentioned.
WHY WERE WOMEN COMMANDED TO KEEP SILENT?
I Corinthians 14: 34, 35 is sandwiched between verses that forbid confusion and disorder (I Corinthians 14:33, 40). I, therefore, submit that what these women were doing was asking questions (the specific speaking) in the assembly of their husbands in such a way that both precipitated teachers. Under the guise of wanting information, they likely were asking pointed questions that were designed to put the service-leaders on the defensive.
This problem was peculiar to the Corinthian Congregation going by Paul’s allusion to “Your women” (I Corinthians 14:34a). The overall context – of this concluding portion of 1 Corinthians 14 – suggests that there was a definite problem in the Corinthian church, and it had to do with aggressive women. Some of these Corinthian sisters were asserting themselves, speaking out in such a manner as to challenge the role of the males in public, speaking out in such a way to similarly cause confusion. This is the paramount lesson found in I Corinthians 14:34, 35.
Women today can also create confusion in the assembly and be guilty of not being in subjection to their husbands by confusion and also resulted in lack of subjection to their husbands. These "women" were not all the women at
Therefore, to simplistically and arbitrarily keep verses 34, 35 out of their context and contend that there is contained in these verses a blanket requirement of the silence of women in the assembly is to defeat and ignore Paul's original application of I Corinthians 14:34, 35 and make the passage collide with a number of other matters.
WHAT DO THE WORDS, “SILENT” AND “SPEAK” MEAN?
The Greek word translated, “Silent” in I Corinthians 14:34 is “Sigao.” It is used 19 times in Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) and about a dozen times in the New Testament. It means to “keep one’s peace” (Exodus 14:14). It is used also in the New Testament in this manner, “To keep silent, hold your peace” (I Corinthians 14:28, 30).
To “speak” in I Corinthians 14:35 does not refer to just making any sound but the act of taking the floor to address the audience or Church, which I Timothy 2:8, 11-12 forbade. Simply stated, “Speak” here refers to teaching.
Wayne Jackson in his article, “Is I Corinthians 14:34-35 Applicable Today?” quotes Professor H. P. Hamann as having written:
If we have the same writer in both letters writing on the same matter, we have the right to allow one text to explain the other, and especially to let the clearer or more definite throw light on the less precise. So 1 Tim. 2 is the key for the understanding of 1 Cor. 14 (1976, 8).
He then makes the following comparison between I Corinthians 14:34-35 and I Timothy 2:11-12.
A Comparison: 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-12
| I Corinthians 14:33-34 | 1 Timothy 2:11-12 |
| “it is not permitted unto them to speak” (34) | “I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man” (12) |
| “let them be in subjection” (34) | “but to be in quietness” (12) |
| “if they would learn (mathein) anything” (35) | “Let a woman learn (manthaneto)” (11) |
| “let them ask their own husbands at home” (35) | “in quietness with all subjection” (11) |
| “as also saith the law” (34) | Adam and Eve in creation and sin (14, 15) |
CAN A WOMAN ASK QUESTIONS DURING ASSEMBLY?
From Paul’s statement in I Corinthians 14 it was obvious that there were separate classes because of his reference to, “If the whole Church should come together in one place….” (I Corinthians 14:23). As obtains in some congregations today, there were divided classes such as new converts, adult and children classes, etcetera (cf. Titus 2:2-6). In these classes, a woman who was taught can ask her questions.
When a woman wants to ask question, she must seek permission. When she is granted permission to ask a question, and she does so with modesty and with the proper respect for her teacher, there is nothing on earth wrong with her framing that inquiry. Does anyone imagine that just because a student poses a question in class, or makes a comment, in the public school system, that he or she has somehow usurped the role of the teacher?
SUMMATION
From the foregoing, therefore, it is my submission that the “silence” of I Corinthians 14:34-35 does not mean absolute silence and that the “speaking” that women were also forbidden from does not refer to wordless silence, rather it refers to the act of speaking to a Church gathering where a woman elects in herself and assumes authority by herself to lead the Congregation against God’s natural law.
HILARY JOHNSON CHUKWUMA CHUKWURAH
Township/Campus
Lane, off,
Nsukka,
PHONE: 08039596919; 08182820677.
E-MAIL: hilaryjohnsonc@yahoo.com;
No comments:
Post a Comment