Will you please explain what is meant by the following: "Let your women keep silence in the churches;...for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)
If you read the whole of the Epistle to the Corinthians you will find that the church was in a disorderly condition, given to much unseemly conduct, and even cherishing open sin.
Corinth was a populous, luxurious, and licentious city, and the Christian church there had some in it who had been the very worst characters, (See 1 Corinthians 6:9-11) and all of them had been heathen; and it appears that many of their loose heathen customs still clung to them. As a consequence they were making the most solemn Christian ordinances take the form of heathen orgies. (See 1 Corinthians 11:20-22)
Now it is well known that among the heathen lewdness was elevated to the level of religious virtue, and prostitutes occupied a high rank in their ceremonies; therefore when we take into consideration the condition of the Corinthian church, it is not difficult to gather something, at least, of what the apostle meant to guard against by his injunction and statement.
Suppose we compare the Scripture referred to with: "Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." (1 Timothy 2:11-12)
We must keep to the plan of allowing Scripture to explain itself, and therefore the words in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 must be read in harmony with this. The woman is not to usurp authority over the man. This is the Divine order, and it is as valid today as ever.
But, still allowing the apostle to be his own interpreter, we may be sure that in no place does he mean that a woman's voice is never, under any circumstances, to be heard in the church. "Every woman that prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head." (1 Corinthians 11:5)
Now if he meant that a woman ought never to pray or prophesy, he would have said at once that every woman who prays or prophesies disgraces herself and dishonors God; but he does not. If a woman were never to take any part whatever in church service, it would be folly to say that if she does so with her head uncovered she dishonors her head. Whether her head were covered are not, would make no difference.
Women followed Christ, together with His other disciples, and ministered unto Him. (Luke 8:1-3) These women remained with the twelve after the resurrection of Jesus, before Pentecost, and joined with them in prayer and supplication. (Acts 1:13-14) When Paul was on his way to Jerusalem, "[He] entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven, and abode with him. And the same man had seven daughters, virgins, which did prophesy." (Acts 21:8-9)
And finally, writing to the church at Philippi, the Apostle Paul addressed one of the members in particular, thus: "I entreat you, also, true yoke-fellow, help those women which labored with me in the Gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow-laborers, whose names are in the book of life." (Philippians 4:3)
There has been a great deal of irreverent and almost blasphemous comment upon the words of Paul to the Corinthians in Timothy concerning women; and some have taken the occasion to discredit his writings as being far behind the times. With such conduct a Christian can have no sympathy. Nor should we presume to interpret the Scripture by the customs of today.
We must not by any means take it for granted that the Apostle Paul's teaching in this matter is obsolete. There is certainly something in it for us; and it certainly means the same, and has as much application now as when it was written. A woman has no more right to usurp authority over a man now than nineteen hundred years ago, or to do anything that is a shame.
But when the Spirit of God opens a woman's mouth, and speaks through her, and she is subject to the Spirit, we may be sure that there will be nothing unseemly, but that everything will be done "decently and in order." (1 Corinthians 14:40)--Present Truth, November 28, 1901.