Commentaries:
People's Commentary (NT)
1 Corinthians 14:34
Let your woman keep silence in the churches. This, in view of
other portions of the Scriptures, is confessedly a difficult passage.
We have the same teaching in 1 Timothy 2:11. On the other hand,
Deborah was a judge and a prophetess (Judges 4:4); Huldah was a
prophetess (1 Kings 22:14); Joel predicted that in the Christian
dispensation "the sons and 'daughters' should prophesy" (Joel 2:28),
and Peter declared that this was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost
(Acts 2:4). In addition, the daughters of Philip prophesied
(Acts 21:9), and Paul gives directions concerning women prophesying
in 1 Corinthians 11:5. Probably these apparent discrepancies may be
reconciled as follows: (1) Paul's prohibition of speaking to the women
is "in the churches"; that is, in the church assemblies when "the whole
church is come together into one place" (1 Corinthians 14:23). It is an
official meeting of the church. "Church" in the New Testament always
means the "ecclesia". It does not apply to such informal meetings as
the social or prayer-meetings, but to formal gatherings of the whole
body. (2) It may be that even this prohibition was due to the
circumstances that existed in Ephesus, where Timothy was, and in
Corinth, and would not apply everywhere. If so, it applies wherever
similar circumstances exist, but not elsewhere. Both were Greek
churches. Among the Greeks public women were disreputable. For a woman
to speak in public would cause the remark that she was shameless.
Virtuous women were secluded. Hence it would be "a shame for women to
speak in the church" assembly. It is noteworthy that there is no hint
of such a prohibition to any churches except Grecian. Wherever it would
be shameful, women ought not to speak.
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
1 Corinthians 14:34-35
1 Timothy 2:11
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