Featured Women in the church?

On the surface, it sounds like Paul was commanding all women to be completely silent in church ( 1 Cor..14:34-35). But is that really what Paul was saying here? Should women be totally silent from the moment they enter the church until they leave the church? Are they not allowed to verbally greet anyone? Are they not allowed to manage their children while in church? Are they not allowed to have women's group meetings in the church building? Are they not allowed to say anything at all within the church building?

To answer these questions, recall that Paul had earlier said that women are allowed to pray or prophesy out loud in church (1 Corinthians 11:5, in the previous post), and therefore Paul could not have been commanding all women to be totally silent in church in verses 34-35. This "silence" means something else. In the passage, notice that Paul said that everyone has gifts which can be used in church meetings, and he said that anyone can speak a message in tongues or give a word of prophecy in church as long as it's done in an orderly and considerate manner (verses 26-33). Notice that Paul did not exclude women from exercising their spiritual gifts in church. Then Paul said that if anyone (whether a man or a woman) is publicly speaking in tongues, then that person should "keep quiet" if no interpretation comes forth (verse 28). "Keep quiet" is the NIV's translation of the Greek word sigao, which means "to keep silent...hold peace," according to Strong's Greek Dictionary. This is the same Greek word that Paul used in verse 30 when he said that a prophet (whether a man or a woman) should stop speaking when another prophet receives a word from the Lord, and it's also the same Greek word that Paul used when he said that women should "remain silent" (verse 34). So in order for a church meeting to be "orderly," there are times when men and women can exercise their spiritual gifts, and there are times when men and women need to be silent.

Now let's compare verses 34-35 in several different versions of the Bible. In the following Bible translations, the Greek word ekklesia is translated either as "congregations" or as "churches" or as "assemblies," which is fine, but specifically notice that the NIV has the phrase, "As in all the ekklesia of the saints," at the beginning of a new sentence (unlike the other translations below):

"For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations [ekklesia] of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches [ekklesia]." (1 Corinthians 14:33-34, NIV)

"For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches [ekklesia] of the saints. Let your women keep silence in the churches [ekklesia] ..." (1 Corinthians 14:33-34, KJV)

"for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches [ekklesia] of the saints. Let the women keep silent in the churches [ekklesia] ..." (1 Corinthians 14:33-34, NASB)

"for God is not a God of tumult, but of peace, as in all the assemblies [ekklesia] of the saints. Your women in the assemblies [ekklesia] let them be silent ..." (1 Corinthians 14:33-34, Young's Literal Translation)

"For God is not of confusion, but of peace, as in all the assemblies [ekklesia] of the saints. Let your women be silent in the assemblies [ekklesia] ..." (1 Corinthians 14:33-34, Literal Translation of the Holy Bible)

"For God is not God of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches [ekklesia] of the saints. Let your women be silent in the churches [ekklesia]..." (Pocket Interlinear New Testament - literal translation of the Greek text)

"For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace, as He is in all the Churches [ekklesia] of His people. Let married women be silent in the Churches [ekklesia] ..." (1 Corinthians 14:33-34, 1912 Weymouth New Testament)

In the above passages, notice that the NIV has the phrase, "As in all the ekklesia of the saints," at the beginning of a sentence, but the other translations have that phrase at the end of a different sentence. The difference is significant, because if the NIV is correct then this command for women to be silent would be a universal command for all churches, but if the other translations are correct then this would be a command which was originally written to the Corinthian Christians concerning their assemblies (their church services). There are several indications that the NIV is not as accurate as the other translations, as we can see when we compare the NIV with Young's Literal Translation:

1 Corinthians 14:33-34 (NIV): "For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations [ekklesia] of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches [ekklesia]."

1 Corinthians 14:33-34 (Young's Literal Translation): "for God is not a God of tumult, but of peace, as in all the assemblies [ekklesia] of the saints. Your women in the assemblies [ekklesia] let them be silent ..."
There are several things to notice in the NIV and YLT versions above, I will post later..

 

One thing I notice is..
The NIV has translated the Greek word ekklesia in two different ways in this passage (first as "congregations," then as "churches"), which obscures a problem in the NIV. If the NIV had been more consistent in its translation then it would read something like this:

"As in all the churches of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches."

In the NIV's interpretation, Paul used the Greek word ekklesia in a redundant way, because the second mention of "the churches" is unnecessary and awkward. In contrast, the YLT and the other translations have the Greek word ekklesia in two different sentences, which is neither awkward nor redundant.

 

Another thing to consider....
The NIV says, "women should remain silent," which makes it sound as if Paul was speaking to all women. However, the word "women" comes from the Greek word gune, which can mean "women" or "wives," and the only way to tell which meaning is correct is by the context. For example, notice that we can easily understand the various meanings of the word "fired" in the following paragraph because of the context:

"Yesterday at church I was all fired up for the Lord, but today I was feeling bad because I fired one of my employees. On the way home from work I had a scare when a car back-fired, because it sounded like someone had fired a gun. But this evening I fired up my grill and had a great dinner with my family, and I'm feeling much better."

So the context is important when we're trying to understand the meanings of words. Notice that even in the NIV, the context indicates that "wives" is the proper meaning of the Greek word gune in the verse which we're examining:

1 Corinthians 14:34: "women [gune] should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says."
1 Corinthians 14:35: "If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman [gune] to speak in the church."

In the above passage, notice the reference to women being in "submission." The Greek word for "submission" here is the specific word which is used for a wife being in submission to her husband, andI see this same Greek word several more times in similar passages concerning husbands and wives. In this same context, I see Paul specifically saying that the gune ("wives" or "women") should ask questions of their own husbands at home. Therefore, the context indicates that gune means "wives" here, not "women" in general.

Based on the context, Paul was not saying that all women in all churches must be silent, but rather he was speaking specifically to married women who were creating disturbances during the church services.

 

Another thing to consider...
Another indication that Paul was using the word gune as "wives" in 1 Corinthians 14:34 is because the Greek text actually says, "Let your women be silent" (for example, see "Young's Literal Translation" and "Literal Translation of the Holy Bible,"). Unfortunately, the NIV has "women should remain silent" in this verse, which is not entirely accurate because the NIV has left out the word "your" (i.e. "your women").

But who are "your women"? Again, the word for "women" comes from the Greek word gune, which means "woman" or "wife." In most situations it would not be proper for a man to speak in such an authoritative way to someone else's wife, so Paul was telling the husbands in Corinth to speak to their own wives about being quiet in church (so that they're not making disturbances).
So when we examine the context of verses 34-35, it shows that the NIV does not have the best translation of those verses. Rather than talking about all women in all churches, as the NIV implies, Paul was specifically talking about the married women in Corinth.

I can see this even more clearly by noticing the larger context in 1 Corinthians 14:26-40. Bible scholars often point out that Paul was writing to the Corinthian Christians in order to bring correction to their disorderly church meetings, as 1 Corinthians 14:26-40 describes. In the context of Paul's correction concerning the disorderly church meetings in Corinth, Paul said that wives should stop creating disturbances during the service. Scholars have pointed out that in the first century it was rare for a woman to be educated, and it has been suggested that men and women might have been segregated on opposite sides of the room during church meetings in the first century. Therefore, if married women had questions about what the preacher or teacher was saying, and especially if they needed to raise their voices in order to ask their husbands across the room, then this would create a disorderly atmosphere in the service. Paul was trying to correct such disorderliness in the Corinthian church (for example by saying that wives should ask questions of their husbands at home), and he said that such disorderly behavior was "shameful."