1Cor 14:33a-35 - No 'Honeymooners' Homily

33b-35 As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.


Verse 33b is sometimes put with the preceding verse and sometimes here. Does it make more sense to say that God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints? Doesn’t it go without saying that God is the same everywhere and in every way? But when it comes to human behaviour it is quite easy to understand the need to impress uniformity upon us since we all tend to leak out and stray all over the place. We need fences, rules, laws, shepherding, guidance, admonishment, exhortation and the occasional rebuke just to keep in the way. Otherwise we dumb sheep know how to do nothing else but stray. And so, it seems most likely that this phrase "as in all the churches of the saints " refers to the behaviour of women in the public assembly.

This is a subject that often generates far more heat than light. Radical feminism, the abdication of leadership roles by men and political correctness combine with the worst elements and sentiments of male domination, control and power thinking to create a poisoned atmosphere of either acrimony or of misguided and non-Biblical so-called "tolerance." But there can be only one right way of understanding what the Bible says and, for evangelicals (and I would argue, for Christians in general) the Bible must be the only rule of faith and practice. And that must hold regardless of how we personally feel about its edicts.

The law to which Paul refers here is generally taken to be Genesis 3:16. It is a creation ordinance - and also one confirmed after the fall of man. This is important to note, because such things are not subsequently repealed anywhere in the Bible. God made the world in a certain way with a certain order and, from the beginning he created them husband and wife with clearly defined roles. It is a matter of order, which is the very subject that Paul is hammering home again and again to the disorganized, chaotic, confused and willful Corinthians.

What has been going on in Corinth? What was going on there that was different from what was acceptable elsewhere? Well, elsewhere the women were to have no role in the general assembly that involved the speaking or instructional process. Why? Women were not to teach men because such an arrangement violated the creation order. It was a confusion of roles. Adam was created first and Eve came after because it was not good for him to be alone. Eve was created and appointed as a helpmeet for Adam. She was not an afterthought. She was not a consolation prize. She was not a slave. She was just as much essential to humanity as Adam. They were equal in value but different in the roles they were to fulfill and in their physical and emotional constitution, by which they were naturally fitted to carry out those roles.

No doubt Eve was not absolutely devoid of physical strength, nor of logic, nor yet detached reason. Nor was Adam devoid of sensitivity, emotion or gentleness. And men and women since have all shared the same broad range of physical and emotional assets in greater or lesser proportions but - and this is the but that trips many up - men and women, whatever their personal traits, are essentially different in the roles that God assigned to them both in Eden, and in the fallen world that arose because of disobedience. And they differ constitutionally according to their sex because God equipped them for these different roles.

There are often exceptions to general rules in the Bible, and the vastly preponderant and irrefutable teaching about the creation order and the differing roles of men and women is sometimes superseded. This is God’s prerogative but it is never ours. Thus Miriam and Huldah can prophesy - apparently to the congregation or to the elders. Deborah can show leadership. Esther can show initiative and courage. But the unprejudiced eye will look not upon what God occasionally causes for specific reasons, but upon what He has ordained for the general wellbeing and order of His creation and His creatures. He has the right to vary his ordinances because He is both omniscient and omnipotent but we, as dependent and derivative creatures do not.

This all needs to be put into the context of what was being manifested in the Corinthian church, and how this differed from what was acceptable in all the churches - and why. The Corinthians were going against God’s demonstrated and ordained desire for things to be done in an orderly manner. God is a God of order and He is not the author of confusion. Disorder in the church displeases Him and it dishonours Him because it misrepresents Him. If the church claims to be the temple of the Living God and behaves like a rabble, or displays chaotic, unbridled frenzied, uncontrolled, emotive, sensational behaviour just like the pagans - then where is the God of peace, order, self-control, humility and gentleness to be seen?

If the church claims to honour God’s creative order yet that order is nowhere to be observed in public worship because women are instructing the whole assembly, including the men - a practice even the pagans think of as shameful - then how is God being seen to be heeded? Note well that this is not, repeat NOT a matter of custom or culture. It is a matter of creation order and of obedience to God by observing that order in public worship in the church.

Plainly put "women should keep silent in the churches" means that they ought not to lead, but to take on the submissiveness of their ordained role so that God’s order is not only maintained but is seen to be maintained by all within and without.

Not only this, but the spiritual leadership of the church, involving teaching and preaching, is reserved for men alone. And the same goes for the home. The head of the woman is the man and the head of the man is Christ. This can mean nothing other than the fact that the spiritual leadership of the home falls to the man and the spiritual leadership of the church falls to the men in the church. No female pastors and no female elders. Also, there should be no female teachers of adult men. Anyone who resists, contravenes, ignores, counsels against or deliberately disobeys these clear instructions is failing to accept the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice for the Christian. They are behaving disorderly and are wreaking havoc in Christ’s church.

And there is no shortage of examples in today’s church of those who find ways to reinvent, reinterpret, twist and misuse scripture on this very point for the sake of their own agenda - be that radical feminism, cultural assimilation or any number of other things. The teaching is quite plain and it takes some mighty quick and slick footwork to avoid what is plainly stated, yet there is no shortage of those who are willing to try.

Paul cleared the whole matter up in his rebukes to the Corinthians. His appeal was to the scripture and the scripture has not changed. It was then as it now remains a matter of order - God’s ordained and created order - being manifested to His glory within the church and home.