Women in the church?

[HisWitness]

all this talk about women---what about what is says when Paul says it is a SHAME for a MAN to have LONG hair ? lol

 

[Michael Wrenn]

Well, I guess I have not said anything controversial yet..because no one has attacked me yet!:saint:

Must Women Have Long Hair or Cover Their Heads?
In 1 Corinthians 11:4-18 This passage needs to be understood in the context of the culture in which Paul lived. Here are some things that various Bible scholars say about this passage:

"11:4 ... In the culture of Paul's day, men uncovered their heads in worship to signify their respect for and submission to deity. When a man prayed or prophesied with his head covered, he failed to show the proper attitude toward Christ.

11:5-6 For a woman, taking off her head covering in public and exposing her hair was a sign of loose morals and sexual promiscuity. Paul says she might as well have her hair cut or shaved off. The shaved head indicated that the woman either had been publicly disgraced because of some shameful act or was openly flaunting her independence and her refusal to be in submission to her husband. Paul's message to her was: Show your respect for and submission to your husband by covering your head during public worship." (NIV Study Bible, p.2218, emphasis added)


"it was a custom, both among the Greeks and Romans, and among the Jews an express law, that no woman should be seen abroad without a veil. This was, and is, a common custom through all the east, and none but public prostitutes go without veils. ... As a woman who dresses loosely or fantastically, even in the present day, is considered a disgrace to her husband, because suspected to be not very sound in her morals; so in those ancient times, a woman appearing without a veil would be considered in the same light." (Clarke, from http://www.e-sword.net/commentaries.html , 1 Corinthians 11:5, emphasis added)

When I come across passages that I don't understand (or I don't like), it would be very convenient to say that those passages were only valid in the first century and they don't apply to us today. But I need to be careful because that approach can easily lead me into error. Still, there's no doubt that some New Testament passages don't literally apply to Christians today. For example, in Romans 15:30-31 the apostle Paul urged people to pray that he would be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, but there's no point in praying for Paul today because he has been dead for almost two thousand years. Therefore, certain New Testament passages don't apply today as they did in the first century.

There's some agreement among Bible scholars that in Paul's culture it was appropriate for a woman to physically have a covering over her head during public worship. There are different opinions about whether a woman's long hair was sufficient as a covering, or whether all women (or just married women) had to wear cloth over their heads, but there's general agreement that this was based on the social customs of Paul's time.

Paul said that a woman should cover her head if it's a disgrace for her to have her hair cut or shaved off. It was a disgrace in Paul's culture for a woman to have her hair cut in this way (see the Bible commentary quotes above), but this is not a disgrace in modern Western culture. Therefore, many Bible commentaries agree that Christian women today don't need to obey first-century social customs concerning hair length or a physical "covering."

In 1 Corinthians 11:5 Paul said that women should be "covered" when they pray or prophesy, which refers to public prayer or public prophesying in church (according to many Bible commentaries). In 1 Corinthians 11:16-18, Paul specifically placed his instructions in the context of church meetings, which demonstrates that women are allowed to pray and prophesy out loud in church. This helps shed some light on another difficult passage concerning women's roles and actions in the church....

No one has attacked you yet -- but it's early yet.

 

[awaken]

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..

 

[awaken]

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.

 

[awaken]

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.

 

[awaken]

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."

 

[Gina B]

Thank you for the reading recommendations! :flower:

 

[HeirofSalvation]

Sounds like this has been discussed before on this forum:smilewinkgrin:

1 Timothy 2:15 ("women will be saved through childbearing") is a difficult verse to understand. The important thing to recognize here is that Paul was not teaching that women will receive salvation (be allowed into heaven) based on whether or not they have given birth to children, because that would contradict the clear teaching of Scripture which says that salvation is based on having faith in Jesus as our Savior.

It is important not to simply take a verse at face value, but instead we should try to look at the greatest weight of evidence in the Bible to see what God is trying to tell us. I saw looking at this scripture that translations of the Bible can sometimes be misleading, which is why it's often helpful to look at the meanings of the Greek words to get a better idea of what the author was saying.

I think it is actually more simple than that...I believe this passage makes the most sense in reference to the Curse on the serpent and subsequent prophecy of a coming "seed" (Jesus Christ) recorded in Genesis 3:15....It is also well illustrated in Revelation 12..study those passages, and you will find, that yes, it is, in fact the case that the woman (and by extension all men too actually) are to be saved in her child-bearing.

 

[Iconoclast]

I think it is actually more simple than that...I believe this passage makes the most sense in reference to the Curse on the serpent and subsequent prophecy of a coming "seed" (Jesus Christ) recorded in Genesis 3:15....It is also well illustrated in Revelation 12..study those passages, and you will find, that yes, it is, in fact the case that the woman (and by extension all men too actually) are to be saved in her child-bearing.

:wavey:correct:thumbs:

 

[Alive in Christ]

TOPIC....

Women in the church?

I'm in favor of it! :thumbs: :wavey: