We are continuing on in our “Ask us Anything” sermon series, where Pastor Troy and I have based our sermons on your questions. The questions we will discuss today are:
(slide #1) Paul is a mixed bag. Sometimes he’s brash and arrogant. Sexist? But he also writes so beautifully and is so influential.
(Slide 2) 1 Corinthians 14:33-36 – Why does Paul teach that it’s shameful for women to speak in church? What denominations still follow this teaching?
I thought I could cover both questions with most of our time spent on 1 Corinthians 14:33-36. Paul’s perceived arrogance comes out when he talks about what women can and can’t do in the church, specifically in worship.
It’s important to cover the context where and why Paul writes his words. If we don’t do that with Paul or frankly any passage of the Bible we lose the main point of what God is trying to communicate to us through scripture.
Here’s an example from today of why context is important. Recently I posted pictures on social media from our vacation from up north and titled it: “Scenes from the UP.” My Seattle friends and family didn’t get it because they aren’t familiar with the term “the UP.” A cousin from Seattle texted me: “Where is UP? Is it in Michigan? It looks magical!” Since they don’t live here in MI they aren’t familiar that the UP is short for the Upper Peninsula and needed some context. In the same way we need to familiarize ourselves with Paul’s context in order to better understand his words.
Paul is the one who began the church in Corinth, but the church in Corinth fell into disorder after Paul left. His first letter to the church in Corinth is about setting them straight once again.
Remember in all of the early churches, people were brought together who would normally never cross paths. The upper and the lower classes. The Jews and Gentiles. This early group of Christ followers even presented a new way in how men and women related to one another. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul is instructing them in how to relate to one another that reflects the love Jesus has for all.
It’s also important to realize that the Christians in Corinth respected and honored Paul as their pastor. They trust his leadership, his faith in Jesus and his care for them.
In the chapters leading up to chapter 14, Paul specifically addresses the chaos the Corinthians are experiencing in worship. Worship then, just as it is today, is a sacred act where a community of believers come together to give thanks to God for God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. From there the hope is that worship of Jesus Christ reminds us of how we should love others and ourselves.
But worship in the Corinthian church was full of disruptions. There were groups of people who Paul admonishes to keep silent. First of all, there were people who were speaking in tongues and prophesying, but weren’t interpreting what was being said to the rest of the congregation. Paul calls them out on this by saying if no one can understand you, then your speaking in tongues and prophecies becomes only about you and not about God. For Paul, at the center of worship is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. So if you can’t interpret what you’re saying, and here he is speaking to both men and women, then it’s best to keep silent.
There was also the issue of a group of women who were being disrupted. The Biblical scholars I read were not unanimous on why these particular women were being disrupted, but one thing they did agree on is this: Paul was speaking to a specific group of women in the church in Corinth. He didn’t mean all women must remain silent. He didn’t even mean all of the women in the Corinthian church.
There are various reasons why these specific women were being disruptive. It could be that they were among those who spoke in tongues or gave prophecies without giving any interpretation. Perhaps these women were converts from a pagan cult where it was acceptable for people to speak out in disruptive ways during worship.
Remember that Corinth is a diverse city where many languages were spoken, but the main language spoken was Greek. Worship in the Corinthian church was thus led in Greek. It is possible that these particular women did not know Greek very well, as it was not their native language. However, their husbands likely knew Greek better as they were the ones who worked outside the home and had to speak Greek in their work as tradesmen, businessmen, etc. This is why Paul instructs them to “ask your husbands at home.”
Regardless of why Paul is singling out a particular group of women, those who use these verses to justify why women should not be pastors or hold any sort of leadership role within the church need to take into account what Paul said about women in his other letters and even in earlier chapters of 1 Corthinthians.
It’s a given for Paul that women would have a leadership role that included teaching in Corinth. 1 Corinthians 11:4-5 states: 4 Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head shames his head, 5 but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled shames her head—it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved.
First of all, Paul is being radical here by welcoming women to pray and prophesy within the church of Corinth. Unfortunately, how this verse has been traditionally understood is that women are forbidden from leading prayers or speaking prophecies. That’s not what Paul is saying here. What Paul is saying is that when women are leading in worship, they should do so with their head covered because in Paul’s day, a woman with her head unveiled was likened to women who were prostitutes.
It’s not a matter of who is leading worship, but how they are leading worship. How they present themselves should not distract from worship. This goes for both men and women. Notice that Paul is not just admonishing women in how they should appear with leading worship, but he does the same with the men. Men shouldn’t have their heads covered, while the women should because it was about what was socially acceptable at that time. Again, context is important!
Let’s go to another of Paul’s letters to see what else Paul has to say about women. Ephesians 5:20-25 is a good one.
20 giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 being subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.
(The Christian Household)
22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 for the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
I want to acknowledge that this passage has been wrongly used to justify the abuse of women by the church and/or by their husbands. That was not Paul’s or God’s intent with these words.
I’ll never forget a message I once heard in this passage that opened up my eyes to how women are viewed in scripture. I was one of a few hundred college students gathered in the gym of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle listening to Mike Gaffney, who was the director of the college ministry at UPC at the time. In his message on this passage he said, “You all need to know that women in Paul’s day rejoiced at Paul’s words. It was the men who shuddered because of how Paul called them to love their wives. This passage liberated women.” I’m pretty sure I started clapping.
First of all, this passage is about mutual submission. What tends to happen is that the focus is on women submitting to their husbands. But how are the men to love their wives? Just like Jesus loved the church? And how did Jesus love the church? He gave himself up for her. He died for the church. Husbands are called to give up their lives for their wives.
What also tends to happen in this passage is that the focus is on how women are to submit to their husbands. What is left out is how husbands are to love their wives and verse 21: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Also in your bibles you’ll notice that there is a break between verses 21 and 22. Chapters and verses weren’t added to scripture until the 13th century. It’s not like Paul wrote in verses. It’s a complete letter where the sentences flow from one to the next. It doesn’t help that verses 21 and 22 became separated, but because the idea of mutual submission in verse 21 flows into verse 22 and subsequent verses. Again this passage is about mutual submission to one another, which flows out of one’s submission, regardless of gender, to Jesus Christ.
In addition, let’s not forget the women Paul partnered with in ministry. Women whom he viewed as equals and as important leaders in the church.
Paul mentions Phoebe in Romans 16, who he describes as a “sister” and a “Deacon.” Phoebe was the one who delivered Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. She was also a woman of great wealth who supported Paul financially. The fact that she is referred to as a deacon elevates her to the same leadership role in ministry as other men Paul served alongside, such as Timothy. Because of this, Phoebe is used as a strong biblical argument for women having leadership roles in the church. And yes this is why my oldest is named “Phoebe.”
Next there is Prisca (aka Priscilla) and her husband, Aquila, for whom Paul also gives thanks in Romans 16 and describes them as his co-workers in ministry. Note that she is listed before her husband. Prisca was a well known teacher and therefore leader in the church in Rome and Ephesus. It was Prisca and her husband who corrected the teaching of an up-and-coming apostle in Acts 18. Only church leaders were allowed to correct the theology of others.
The list of women in Romans 16, for whom Paul gives thanks to God for their faith, their partnership and their leadership in the church goes on: Mary, Junia, Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis, but there’s also Chloe, Euodia, and Synteche mentioned elsewhere just to name a few.
Paul views women as equally called as men to leadership in the church and to help spread the good news of the radical love and inclusion of Jesus Christ.
So radical is Jesus’s love that in Galatians 3:28 Paul says this:
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
The idea that we are all equal in Jesus was a radical message in Paul’s day and continues to be so today. My hope and prayer is that we continue to live into the radical inclusion of God’s love in Jesus Christ, who keeps bringing people together from all sorts of walks of life. Especially those who our culture, not the Bible, has deemed as unworthy of the love of Jesus Christ. May we continue to follow, embody, and be challenged by the radical love shown to us in Jesus Christ, who empowers us to show that same radical love to others.
