Women in Scripture #7

Ok so confession time. I said in my last post there would be 2 more posts on this topic. However, I have decided that this will be the last entry on this topic. Why you may ask? Well 7 is the perfect number, so it seemed appropriate (ha, sorry, lame seminarian joke). Really, I am just feeling like I am repeating myself, and that is no fun to write, and if it is no fun to write, logic tells me, it is even less fun to read. So this will be the last entry simply because I am ADHD and want to write about other things!

So the passage that must be addressed in this entire thing is the big one in 1 Corinthians 14, starting in verse 34 which says that women should remain silent in church. 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 husband at home; for it is disgraceful for women to speak in church.

Now at first glance this would seem to end any argument about women preaching in church, teaching men in church, etc. However, it seems to me that this is the worst case of proof texting that we do as a church. To apply this passage as deeming it inappropriate for women to speak, teach, or preach in church is to lift it entirely out of cultural context. The reason this is important is because if we are going to take the things Paul says literally then those same people who claim this passage is applicable for today with no regard to cultural context, should not let their wives cut their hair (1 Cor. 11) or to wear jewery, braid their hair, wear expensive clothes, wear anything that could be considered immodest (i.e. any leg showing) (1 Tim. 2:9). Further, if they take everything literally that Paul writes then any woman who does not bear children cannot be saved (1 Tim. 2:10).

So it seems to me that we take these passages about women teaching over men and hold them up as the example of which to follow in our churches, yet we completely ignore anything else pertaining to women when it comes to the way they are dressing, when it comes to the way they wear their hair, when it comes to whether or not they cut their hair, and if we took literally things Paul said, then women are saved through the cross plus childbearing (which no one would ever say).

Incidentally, the 1 Timothy passage also talks about women not having authority over man as well. But the interpretation of that passage and how to look at it will be the same basic argument as looking at this Corinthians passsage.

So to the passage in 1 Corinthians 14. First it is appropriate to discuss the cultural setting in which the Corinthian church is set. The view of woman was very low, in the Greek world Sophocles actually said "silence confers grace upon a woman." According to Barclay, women, unless they were very poor or very loose, usually lived a life of solitude in Greece. If you can believe it, the Jewish view of women was even lower!! There were many Rabbinic sayings that belittle women such as: "to teach the law to a woman was to cast pearls before swine." The Talmud actually lists among the plagues of the world "the talkative and the inquisitive widow and the virgin who wastes her time in prayers!"(Barclay, Letters to Corinthians, 136) WOW! According to his, women shouldn't even pray, should we enforce this as well? Lastly, it was forbidden to speak to a woman in the street.

So with that setting, we read what is going on in the passage of Corinthians. There are two different views on what is going on in this passage.

First, Paul is not negating the fact that as he wrote in Galatians, "there is no Greek or Jew....male or female," where he essentially is saying that in Christ all walls are broken down. Rather, these women are abusing their new found freedom and causing disruption in the church service itself. And so essentially he is saying that if you cannot control your freedom, then you don't get to use it at all.

Second, Paul is writing to a church that is in infancy, and with a concern of their lax moral standards. And so in his mind he is trying to help a church in its infant stages not to bring upon itself the suspicion of immodesty.

In either scenario, Paul is writing within a particular context and culture. We see this all the time even today when the Gospel penetrates a culture where men are dominant and women are to be seen and not heard. There is not this drastic change that happens overnight where men and women are viewed as equals. And so we see here in Corinthians, Paul is concerned with the church's witness as a whole, and is speaking to a specific issue of the time. To take this passage about women speaking in church and extrapolate it and take it literally as a universal truth causes great problems with the rest of the things Pauls says in this letter and other letters.

No one has ever been able to explain to me why women can not preach and teach in church, yet they can wear gold, designer clothes (usually skirts that are too short), heels, hair done up, and that not be going against what Paul writes in our Scriptures.

Either we are going to take everything that is said literally and apply it as universal truth, or we need to examine Scripture and understand it within the culture it is written, and THEN figure out the application for us today. Those are the only two options. Can we please stop picking and choosing which passages about women we want to enforce?