1 Corinthians 14:35

1 Corinthians 14:35. And if they will learn anything an explanation of something spoken at the meeting, let them ask their own husbands at home: for it is shameful for a woman [1] to speak in the church.

[1] The singular here is best supported.

Note. On the subject of women officiating in the public assemblies, there is an apparent discrepancy between chap. 11 and chap. 14. In the one chapter they are supposed to “pray” and “prophesy” in the public assemblies, without a word of disapproval, nay, with directions how to do it: here, the thing is expressly forbidden. That the female sex were to be endowed with the gift of prophecy, and this of course to be exercised, was predicted as one of the characteristics of the dispensation of the Spirit (Joel 2:28-29); and on the day of Pentecost it was realised (Acts 2:4; Acts 2:16-18), as afterwards (Acts 21:9), and in the Church of Corinth (1 Corinthians 11:5). What forced on the question whether such a gift should be exercised in the public assemblies, was a certain unseemliness about it, as practised at Corinth, which so impressed some in that Church as to occasion one of their questions for the apostle to answer. The practice of these prophesying females at Corinth seems to have been to put off their head-dress on rising to “pray” or “prophesy in the spirit,” that being the usual practice of the male speakers. But in a woman that “would be instinctively felt to be indecorous, and the impression would gradually arise that by such public appearances woman was drawn out of her natural sphere. Supposing, then, that this was the actual state of things at Corinth, and the apostle had to deal with it in this form, the method actually taken here seems most natural to deduce, first, from the relation of the sexes to each other, how each should exercise those gifts in public, if so exercised at all, namely, by the males uncovered, and the females covered; reserving for a subsequent stage the consideration of the further question, whether such a practice should at all be encouraged in the Church. And that further question comes in most suitably where we find it ch. 14. under the head of how those extraordinary spiritual gifts, which were so abundantly possessed at Corinth, should be exercised so as most to promote spiritual edification. And the decision here given is so explicit and so peremptory, that the only wonder is how any candid reader should question it. To Timothy the prohibition to females of the right to exercise their gifts in the public assemblies is even more explicit: ” I desire therefore that the men (Gr. ‘the males') pray in every place.... In like manner, that women (the other sex) adorn themselves in modest apparel.... Let a woman learn in quietness, with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man. Attempts have been made to shew that only despotic teaching is meant; but the next words “but to be in quietness,” should shew that entire silence in the public assemblies, in the exercise of gifts, is manifestly intended. Doubtless there are exceptional cases, as in everything else. And to disown all saving benefit experienced in exceptional ways is to sacrifice the end out of concern for the means. It is the truth that saves and sanctifies; and howsoever that truth enters any heart, if the result is undeniable, the hand of God in it is to be recognised, even though the instrumentality employed should be inconsistent with good order.

Having finished these directions, the apostle has a word to say to those who would demur to them.