Have you ever wondered how Paul could approve of women praying and prophesying during public worship in chapter 11 and then a few pages later write that women must remain silent during public worship in chapter 14?
As I have mentioned I do not know the original languages so I read and see what others who supposedly do know the languages say. It is up to each individual to decide for themselves what they believe. The problem is when we are wrong even with best intentions we do damage to the church. Whether we like it or not there is a time for doubt especially regarding what we believe. In a recent issue of Smithsonian Magazine there is an article concerning an artist, Barbra Kruger, who has an exhibit in Washington DC, entitled "Belief + Doubt." Her aim is at Congress but the church also needs a bit of doubt to go along with belief. She says adding doubt to belief subtracts something from belief: blind certainty.
"Most men "think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Yet, when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does..."
I am told there is a word in Greek that means "tie shut," "muzzle." It is often used to describe a kind of forced silence, and could be best translated in to English as "shut up." It describes how Jesus' answer silenced the Pharisees (Matthew 22:34). In the parable of the wedding feast, the word tells how the man who did not bother to wear a wedding garment remained speechless when confronted by the host (Matthew 22:12). Jesus used the word as a command to quiet the unclean spirit that he cast out of the man (Mark 1:25) and too still the wind and sea (Mark 4:39). The word is phimoo and means forcing someone to be silent. When Paul wrote that women are to be silent, he did not use this word, even thought the English translation may imply a command.
Another word for silence in Greek indicating quietness and stillness is hesuchia. Paul instructed women to enter into hesuchia in his first letter to Timothy. But he instructed they do so when they are studying. Paul did not use the word regarding women when they are worshiping.
Instead, Paul chose the Greek word sigao when he wrote "Let the women in the churches be silent." Sigao, I am told indicates voluntary silence. It is used to describe the disciples to remain silent about the transfiguration that they had just witnessed (Luke 9:36) and when Jesus told the Pharisees that if his disciples were silent (as the Pharisees insisted) then the very stones would cry out (Luke 19:40). It was used to describe Jesus' silence during his trial before Pilate (Mark 14:61) and the silence of the apostles and elders as they listened to a report by Paul and Barnabas when they returned from their missionary journey (Acts 15:12). Sigao can also be a request as when the multitude accompanying Jesus told the insistent beggar to quit yelling (Luke 18:39) or when Peter motioned for the crowd to be silent (Acts 12:17).
Sigao is the kind of silence asked for in the midst of disorder and clamor. Paul asked women of the church to keep that kind of silence. The he added "It is a shame for a woman to speak in church." How could Paul acknowledge and advocate women prophesying alongside men during and then denounce women for speaking in church?
Paul did not write that women are not to preach, or teach, or declare or give a discourse, or proclaim, or affirm, or aver, or speak for something, or any other of the distinctive meanings found in many of those verbs. Paul wrote that women are not to laleo. Lateo can denote the act of saying something quite important. But of all the verbs that can be translated "speak," only lateo can mean simply "talk."
If someone wished to write in Greek "Please do not talk during the prayers," the verb would have to be lateo. Paul was addressing a congregation where discord and chaos during worship services were common he told the women not to lateo---not to converse. Paul was saying it was shameful for women to keep talking during worship service.
Why would Paul aim this instruction toward women rather than toward both women and men? The social roles, especially of married women may suggest an answer. Kari Torjesen Malcolm was a missionary in China as was her mother. She told this story:
My mother used to compare the situation in Corinth to the one she and my father faced in northern China. Back in the 1920s when they were the first to bring God's message to that forgotten area, they found women with bound feet who seldom left their homes and who, unlike men, had never in their whole lives attended a public meeting or a class. They had never been told as little girls, 'Now you must sit still and listen to the teacher.' Their only concept of an assembly was a family feast where everyone talked at once.
Paul approved of women praying and prophesying, during worship. He insisted men and women should be together, and that in Christ they are one. But these were new and radical ideas to both the Jews and the Gentiles. In practice sexual equality among Christians led to a disregard for orderliness and courtesy during worship, especially on the part of women who were unaccustomed to listening to public speakers or to participating in public worship. To those women Paul said "Hush up."
John Jenkins
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Gatlinburg, TN
Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
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