Table of contents

1. Introduction
   1. Women Have Been Hurt
   2. Toward a More Nuanced Perspective
   3. The Scope of This Article
   4. The Experts We Will Engage With
2. Side Note: How to Hear God In Tension
   1. An Empathy Epidemic
   2. Spaghetti Brain vs. Waffle Brain
   3. Biblical Exegesis is Another Phrase for Listening Well To God
   4. Thinking Hard About Your Spouse is How You Love Him/Her
3. Exegesis of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
   1. Basic Overview
   2. The Complementarian View
   3. The Strongest View (IMO): Question-Asking and Silence
      1. Learning, not Teaching
      2. Women Asking Questions was Considered Offensive
      3. The Apostle’s Concern for Cultural Propriety
4. Summary
5. Footnotes

Introduction

In the last part of this series, we surveyed Jesus’ interactions with various women, and how this might inform our understanding of wifely duties and roles and women in leadership positions in the life of the Church.

But, if we are honest with ourselves, there are some passages in Scripture that seem to completely bar women from teaching, preaching, or having any form of leadership position. We’re going to take these passages seriously and see what God might be saying through them.

Women Have Been Hurt

And we should take this seriously! Many women have been demeaned and hurt by men with a cavalier approach to women in ministry. Women with genuine gifts have indeed been silenced. We should not think that the self-image and heart of a woman can’t be damaged by how we approach this issue.

How should we handle the case where a woman is far more gifted in a specific area than any other man in a congregation? Should we just silence these gifted women because “God says so”?

Take a woman like Bible Teacher Beth Moore who has sold millions of faith-building books - ranging from devotionals to biblical studies. When asked what he would say about Beth Moore, arguably the most popular male Bible Teacher in America John MacArthur answered: “Go home.”

The entire panel and crowd at Grace Community Church laughed uproariously. “There is no case that can be made biblically for a woman preacher, period. Paragraph. End of discussion,” to which another pastor on the panel called her “narcisstic” for “putting herself into the narrative of Scripture” as a method of studying the Bible.¹

Suprisingly, he represents a ministry and seminary that supposedly exalts Scripture above all else, but I guess when you need to criticize other believers, other scriptures about honoring others, correcting with gentleness don’t apply! We actually have instructions from Paul to Timothy on how to address false teachers: “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed…” (1 Tim. 2:24-25). MacArthur’s response, and the whole video, was indeed “quarrelsome” and didn’t have an ounce of gentleness. This is indeed how many Christian leaders think and act, and it is damaging to women, and is dangerous to the Church.

We need men who have the strength to think with a nuanced perspective, and do a good job of listening, not men who don’t offer any biblical support, but just dismiss every other perspective but their own with a cavalier and quarrelsome attitude.

There are multitudes of women who are more gifted than men in many areas like evangelism, church planting, and teaching. Why would God allow this to happen if His word says all these women are to be “silent”, and always let men lead?

You can imagine why the debate is so heated.

But, on the other side of the debate, many pastors gloss over these Scriptures. Having been in the Charismatic church (which is typically more egalitarian) for more than a decade in multiple parts of the world, I’ve never heard a single teaching on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, and why women don’t need to remain silent. It is just assumed. This attitude is also not healthy, either.

Toward a More Nuanced Perspective

And we won’t approach the Bible demanding a nice and easy “black and white” response. Do not fall into the trap of extremes reflected in MacArthur’s thinking and like some Charismatics who refuse to even teach on these seemingly difficult passages of scripture. We actually need to think hard and try to hear God with a humble heart to avoid falling into either of these traps. There is gold on both sides of the debate: conservatives have a desire to honor God above what we think is right, and Charismatics have a desire to honor God’s selection of leaders based on gifting.

So let’s dive in head first into these Scriptures, and interpret them properly and in context! The passage we will be discussing is this:

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. (1 Cor. 14:34-35)

Christians for centuries have come up with a lot of whacky interpretations of this verse. Some have followed this command verbatim, where women are literally not even allowed to say a word in the church building; my wife told me about a church she visited in the Middle East as a new believer where women couldn’t talk.

She felt pretty out of place!

Some believe that Paul was primarily addressing women who were part of a cult who used to get into ecstatic frenzies. Some scholars believe that these verses were added by a scribe later, and weren’t original to Paul. Other scholars believe that verses 34-35 should actually be surrounded with quotes, as if Paul was quoting the Corinthians here, and responding to it in verse 36.

The Scope of This Article

This article will not be addressing these views, because I do not think that they are strong. If Paul was quoting the Corinthians, there would be quotes in our Bibles. But there isn’t. Wouldn’t the 100s of scholars who have translated the Bible have caught this by now?

And none of us are “textual critics” (fancy term for Smart Bible Manuscript Guys [and girls?]) to be able to know what is most likely original to the earliest manuscripts of Paul.

I’ll be addressing what I believe are the strongest Egalitarian and Complementarian interpretations:

• The Egalitarian interpretation: Paul was prohibiting women from asking questions because they were largely uneducated and disrupting the meetings by asking too many unlearned questions. Impact on women in ministry leadership positions: None.
• The Complementarian interpretation: Paul was prohibiting women primarily from judging prophecies because they were interrupting prophecies too much, and dishonoring Paul’s teaching that elders are to have the final authority in the local church, and elders can only be men. Impact on women in ministry leadership positions: Women cannot judge prophecies, which means any leadership in prophecy must be subordinated to men, and women must be submitted to male-only elders.

These in my view are the strongest arguments for each side. If you want to research other views, a good starting point is Mike Winger’s YouTube video on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. I’ll be engaging with Mike’s views in this and forthcoming articles, since he does a good job of consolidating all the major viewpoints on both sides of the issue of women in ministry.

For clarity, remember that the Complementarian perspective restricts women from leadership positions in church, maintaining that God has primarily ordained that men lead,² while the Egalitarian perspective teaches that women can have any leadership role in church.

The Experts We Will Engage With

I will be engaging with Complementarian scholars Thomas Schreiner and Craig Blomberg, and Egalitarian scholars Craig Keener and Linda Belleville. All of these scholars have contributed to a debate-style book Two Views on Women in Ministry. I also engage with Mike Winger, arguably the most popular theology Youtube channel. He has compiled a massive playlist on women in ministry, surveying all the different views on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.³ Mike also holds to the Complementarian view.

I should be clear up front, I think the better view is the Egalitarian viewpoint on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, because I think the Complementarian viewpoint has severe weaknesses.

Side Note: How to Hear God In Tension

An Empathy Epidemic

There is an epidemic in our generation: a lack of empathy, that is, empathetic listening. True empathetic listening engages both the heart and the mind, attempting to deeply identify with another person, suspend your own biases, and see from another person’s perspective.

Regardless of your viewpoint on Paul’s command that women be silent, everyone (hopefully) can agree that the Spirit of God inspired this controversial text - it reflects an aspect of God’s will. For a while Paul prohibiting women struck me as sexist and culturally inappropriate. But I also recognized that this was God’s word, and He’s the boss. I felt the tension of what I saw as culturally appropriate, and the tension of trusting God’s word is good, because He’s good.

But whenever there is an apparent contradiction like this in Scripture, I often try to think of approaching the text the way I’d approach a misunderstanding between me and my wife.

If you want to connect with your spouse, you need to become a powerful empathetic listener, open to truth, and first-of-all, patient (1 Cor. 13:4)!

Spaghetti Brain vs. Waffle Brain

I’ve found myself returning to the funny comparison of a man’s brain, and a woman’s brain: a woman’s brain is like spaghetti, and a man’s brain is like a waffle - men tend to think in strict compartments in a more linear way, while women tend to think and feel things all at the same time. There is a lot of truth in this analogy!

But, as any couple who has worked on their relationship and communication knows, you really have to get good at hearing and understanding the other person. The man with the Waffle Brain can’t always understand the woman with the Spaghetti Brain, and vice versa. So you need to talk it out, listen to each other, empathize, and do your best to see from their perspective. Tension arises when there is misunderstanding. It requires engagement with both the heart and the mind, emotional engagement and intellectual rigor!

Some of the tools for understanding my wife have been (on the more intellectual side) asking her questions, asking her to clarify apparent contradictions, trying to see how her native culture (she grew up in Middle Eastern culture) could be affecting what she says. On the more “heart” level, I keep in mind the deeper intricacies of her heart that I’ve come to know over the years, and remember her story and pain. If both of us don’t do these things when tension arises, we don’t get anywhere. In fact, we go backwards!

In the same way, when we see an apparent contradiction in Scripture, we should approach God with the same questions! I might hear my wife say something in a certain way and think, “That was weird.” But if I take the time to hear her out, it’s not so weird!

And you know, I think Scripture is probably more closer to a woman’s brain than a man’s. After all, there are 66 different books, multiple different genres, there is poetry, narrative, theology - it’s pretty complicated sometimes, especially prophetic language (which is one reason why I don’t understand why so many interpret prophecy so literally sometimes - it’s kind of like trying to turn a bowl of spaghetti into a waffle!).

Sometimes passages of Scripture mix all of it up like a big bowl of spaghetti. So we need to love God by taking the time to engage our hearts and minds in His word, not rushing to conclusions, but listening patiently, and not letting our emotions get the best of us.

All of these considerations are doubled when dealing with text messages. We’ve all been there before. Sometimes our tone of voice is lost because we are dealing with text. But, will I give my wife the benefit of the doubt when I don’t know the tone? Will we give our heavenly bridegroom the benefit of the doubt when the text of Scripture appears a certain way?

Biblical Exegesis is Another Phrase for Listening Well To God

So how do we do this with the Bible? Well, we need to engage in proper biblical “exegesis”, which is really a technical term for doing a really good job listening to God through Scripture. Just like a man should restrain himself and his opinions when trying to first hear his wife, we need to do the same with Scripture so we can hear God! This shouldn’t surprise us, since God conceals things from us in order to search them out (Prov. 25:2).

But let’s put on our thinking cap, and do our best to hear God out! Here’s an interesting table, to illustrate the correspondence in a husband-wife relationship, and our relationship with God and Scripture:

Thinking Hard About Your Spouse is How You Love Him/Her

In our culture, it certainly doesn’t sound that romantic to approach God like this. It seems cerebral, cold, emotionless, etc.

But, this is how you make a marriage work.

Movies and Netflix series paint a picture of relationships as a consistent stream of highs, lows, and excitement, completely ignoring the day-to-day hard work of loving your husband or wife.

It’s not “sexy” to sit down and talk for 2 hours about a conflict, and get to the bottom of our feelings, and resolve to hear each other despite our feelings because it doesn’t sell, despite the fact that is how you get better sex with your husband/wife! I’ve often been in a super cool movie, and thought, “When do these people ever eat? Don’t they get hungry?”

So, asking questions, not doing the “sexy” thing is part of what it means to really love someone. Some Christians approach Scripture expecting an emotional experience and high, and equate that with love. But that’s not love, that’s consumerism. Real love listens hard, and biblical exegesis one way that we prove that love, provided you are really doing it for love, and not just to get a big head, prove someone wrong, or get brownie points with God. We already talked about those Pharisees last article, the ultimate Teacher’s Pets.

No spouse wants their partner to ask questions and listen in order to feel better about themselves! Like our spouses, God wants to be seen and heard (Isa. 45:5-6, Jn. 12:28, Jer. 7:13). God even calls himself a husband (Isaiah 54:5, Hosea 3:1, Jer. 3:14).

Exegesis of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

Basic Overview

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
(1 Cor. 14:34-35)

Whoa Paul, calm down buddy, someone might think. But let’s remember that this is God’s word. Instead of getting offended, let’s pause and try to approach this Scripture in context. Before we conclude he’s telling women to just shutup, what else did Paul say before this? We don’t want to be selective listeners. Anyone married knows that doesn’t go too well with your spouse!

Paul commanded women to be “silent” in church, after encouraging everyone in the church to prophesy (1 Cor. 14:1-5), even saying that all can prophesy in turn (1 Cor. 14:31). Moreover, Paul said that anyone attending may even have a “teaching” (v. 26, NASB). Paul seemed to mention in passing that singing in tongues was even a possibility for church members (1 Cor. 14:15, see also Eph. 5:19). So, if Paul was encouraging women to speak a word from God to the church, and even bring a teaching to the whole church, what did he mean when he said “women are to be silent”? Confusing! Men, you might have heard your wife say something confusing, and then figured it out later. Well, we’re hopefully going to figure it out later, so put on your “love” cap.

It obviously cannot mean complete silence, he already told them to prophesy and share a teaching or song if they had one.

Perhaps Paul exaggerated a bit. Since he was an ancient Middle Eastern male, his personality and language was far less “cerebral” and logic-oriented the way the Modern Western Man thinks, and it is the same with my experience overseas in the Middle East, where I lived for 4 years. I know a brilliant Arab man who exaggerated a lot because it’s part of the culture to speak emotionally and from the gut, rather than cerebrally. And God allows the limitations and personality of the biblical writers to remain intact when God breathed his word.

There were a few times Paul got pretty mad.

I mean, he got real mad at those Jewish teachers trying to teach Christians that you need to get circumcised or else. He got so upset said that he wished they would go the whole way and just cut off their own penises (Gal. 5:12)!

So it’s not unreasonable to think Paul might be exaggerating a bit, if there is a good reason for thinking he is.

So let’s investigate further!

The Complementarian View

Complementarians Craig Blomberg and Thomas Schreiner also agree that Paul’s statement does not mean general silence.⁴ So far, so good, we have some agreement here, since Paul had already told women to prophesy, pray, share a hymn or teaching. The only people who disagree are usually only those who believe that prophecy and spiritual gifts like tongues no longer operate today - an extremely unbiblical position to hold. If no gifts are in operation, then this whole chapter essentially can’t be applied to us today.

Schreiner, however thinks that when Paul says “as the law says”, Paul is referring to the OT text as a whole, and even Genesis 1-3, which he sees as establishing male leadership.⁵ Schreiner says that when Paul refers to the law here, he’s referring to the Torah, which would be the first 5 books of the Bible, and then says Paul was probably referring to the creation narratives,⁶ which he sees as clearly establishing male leadership. So Schreiner’s understanding of Paul’s statement is heavily informed by Genesis 1-3, which I’ve dealt with in the first part of this series.

Rather than being dependent on the creation narratives, Blomberg sees 1 Corinthians 14:33-34 as dependent on 1 Timothy 2:8-15 which he sees as clearly establishing male leadership in church. He seems to view 1 Corinthians 14:33-34 as a consequence or implementation of Paul’s clearer standard of teaching positions being reserved for men. He also believes that Paul was trying to limit women’s leadership in church by limiting their ability to judge prophecy.

In my view, Blomberg and Schreiner’s really don’t have an argument from 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, our passage in question, but rather depend on other Scriptures to support their viewpoint: Schreiner relies on Genesis 1-3 (although he presumably would also rely on 1 Timothy 2:8-15), and Blomberg relies on 1 Timothy 2:8-15.

Unfortunately, they do not specify what Paul meant by “submission”. This would have been helpful given that they both agree that women can pray/worship and prophesy in church. Schreiner agrees that women asking too many questions was probably the main thing Paul was pointing to, but in what other ways would he expect women to be in submission at Corinth, if they can prophesy and pray? Prophesying would mean that women can share a spontaneous word from God to the whole church. Blomberg would probably say that Paul was simply limiting women’s ability to judge prophecy, and that this is what is meant by submission. Schreiner might say that the submission in view is general submission to male leadership.

But what could Paul have meant when he says that women are to be in “submission” if he expected women to even be able to bring an entire teaching to the church? I’m amazed that these two excellent biblical scholars have missed the fact that in the same chapter, Paul taught that every person in the church could bring a teaching:

What is the outcome then, brothers and sisters? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. All things are to be done for edification.
(1 Cor. 14:26, NASB)

So while Paul saying that everyone might have a teaching does not necessarily mean that he expected everyone to have a permanent teaching position, it certainly encourages teaching other men!

I’m very surprised that Blomberg and Schreiner completely overlook this verse in their discussion of 1 Timothy 2:8-15, which they believe is the strongest argument for women being limited from ministry. Even the Egalitarian scholar Craig Keener missed this point, and Linda Belleville only mentioned it in passing, although I think it provides proof that Paul expected women to be able to teach other men in church!

So how would Blomberg and Schreiner understand 1 Corinthians 14:34-35? Presumably, Complementarians may believe that women could indeed “speak”, but that this scripture supports male-only leadership in church.

I think Complementarians miss the “why” behind Paul’s command. What’s even more interesting however, is that Complementarians seem to not need a “why”, because their “why” seems to be “because God established men as leaders, and that’s it.” This line of thought is more black-and-white. There is an admirable quality to this line of thought, that wants to trust God even though our culture or even our own idea of what is “good” may say something different. Back to the husband/wife scenario, Complementarians are doing a good job at not letting their biases in.

While I admire the trust element of the Complementarian position, and even believe that this trust element must be maintained as a core component of our walk with God, I think it misses the fact that Scripture reveals God has a hierarchy of overarching principles, and that practices are subservient to principles. What I mean is that the practice of women’s submission is not the final “why”, but there is a deeper “why”: love and peace in relationships. I touched on this in Part 2 of this series, where Jesus understood foundational principles like love and justice as the ultimate starting point of religious practice. More on this in the next article.

The Strongest View (IMO): Question-Asking and Silence

Learning, not Teaching

So what did Paul mean? Well, to me the biggest clue is when he says “If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church.” Why would Paul explain (he said “for it is…”) disgracefulness in terms of asking questions in church? Egalitarian scholar Craig Keener points out:

The problem seems not to be women teaching but rather that the women are learning—too loudly…Paul is addressing their asking questions in church in an effort to learn. That the two ideas are connected is clear from the grammar of verse 35; he bases women’s silence regarding questions on the statement (gar [“for”]) that it is “shameful” (a term that can mean culturally inappropriate) for women to speak in church.⁷

So Paul tied “asking questions” to “silence”.

Women Asking Questions was Considered Offensive

Moreover, a woman asking too many questions would have been considered rude far more than our modern culture. Keener also points out:⁸

• Novice students were expected to learn quietly, while advanced students were expected to interrupt public lectures with questions. Unlearned questions were considered rude; in the ancient world, there was such a thing as a “stupid question”.
• Women were expected to be submissive to men, and had less rights, and were viewed as inferior.
• Women had less access to education than men. Even in upper-class homes, women were rarely educated beyond 14 years of age, and a lot of people didn’t get any education.
• Greek men, on average, were 12 years older than their wives, and often would view them like children.⁹ Keener concludes from ancient sources that most men didn’t think their wives could learn effectively.
• The vast majority of women over 18 were married.

It is for these reasons that Craig Keener believes that Paul was taking all of these cultural norms into consideration, and targeting women who were asking too many “unlearned” questions. Keener is unparalleled in his exhaustive use of ancient historical sources, and is a considered a world-renowned expert in early Christianity by scholars of all shapes and sizes.

But why would Paul single out women, and not at least include some men, since there were probably some uneducated men there? While it is true that there likely were some men that were uneducated, it was still considered a greater offense for an uneducated woman to ask a question than an uneducated man. Paul probably knew this, and singled out women probably because he knew that women asking too many questions was too culturally inappropriate. The apostles were deeply concerned about how churches would impact the surrounding culture.

The Apostle’s Concern for Cultural Propriety

Paul for example, wanted to maintain cultural propriety in head coverings (1 Cor. 11:13), wanted to make sure outsiders would not think the Corinthians were crazy (1 Cor. 14:20), wanted to circumcise Timothy for the sake of Jews he would reach (Acts 16:3), and even went so far as to say that he would become “all things” for all people so that he could reach them more effectively (1 Cor. 9:20-21). We are commanded to strive to be at peace with everyone (Rom. 12:18, Heb. 12:14). One of the qualifications for an elder is that an elder must be thought well of by outsiders (1 Tim. 3:7). For the NT writers, then, cultural awareness was deeply valued (1 Pet. 2:12, Titus 2:7-8, 1 Thess. 4:11-12, Rom. 12:17-18, Col. 4:5-6).

This fact can even be seen in a surprising way in Paul and Peter’s method of addressing master-slave, husband and wives, and parent-child relationships. Paul addresses these groups in Ephesians and Colossians, and so does Peter. This pattern was most likely a common way of addressing groups, since this pattern was used by Aristotle and other early Greco-Roman writers.¹⁰ Peter and Paul following this pattern is good evidence that they were not just aware of their cultural climate, but also copied it in this instance.

If women were generally uneducated, were viewed as inferior, were not supposed to ask “stupid questions”, and novices were expected to learn quietly, it seems very likely that women asking too many questions in church would have appeared to be offensive by outsiders and would damage the witness of the gospel. We also know that Paul aggressively pursued whatever means necessary to preserve the witness of the gospel, to the point of wishing that he would go to hell if he could save others (Rom. 9:3). If Paul already wanted women to prophesy, pray, sing, and teach already, why should we think that Paul limiting women’s ministry in general here?

The best explanation I think is that he was addressing this culturally conditioned situation.

Paul has gotten a lot of flack for sounding sexist when he wants all women to be silent, but the only reason people think that is that they don’t know ancient culture. We’ll see in the next article in this series how Paul was actually far more “progressive” in his day than even the more progressive Greek philosophers of his time.

This is the basics of the “question-asking” view: the grammar of verse 35 points us to question-asking as the primary concern. Further considerations will support this view, and counter the Complementarian view: (1) the NT shows us women can be prophets, (2) Paul also taught that women were to participate in the judging of prophecy, and (3) Paul’s desire for submission here should be understood in a general sense, not as a teaching on male-only leaders in church.

Summary

Complementarians have some important objections to the “question-asking” view that deserve to be addressed.

Jump right into the second part if you’re ready!

Footnotes