1 Corinthians 14:34

Women keep silence. If the last phrase of v. 33 is connected with v. 34 (see on v. 33) the passage reads: “As in all the churches, let your women keep silence.” With such a division the injunction for women to keep silence is shown to be not merely a regional restriction because of some local circumstance, but a reflection of the general custom in all the churches. That the custom was general may also be inferred from 1 Tim. 2:11, 12, where, without singling out any particular church, Paul admonishes: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

Some have found difficulty in understanding this prohibition in terms, not only of our modern concepts of the place of women in the church, but also of the place and service of women in Bible history (see Judges 4:4; 2 Kings 22:14; Luke 2:36, 37; Acts 21:9). Paul himself commended the women who labored with him in the gospel (Phil. 4:3). There is no doubt that women played a definite part in the life of the church. Why, then, should they be prevented from speaking in public? The answer is found in v. 35.

Law. The Scriptures teach that, on account of her part in the fall of man, woman has been assigned by God to a position of subordination to her husband (see Gen. 3:6, 16; Eph. 5:22-24; 1 Tim. 2:11, 12; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1,5, 6). Owing to the change in his nature by the entrance of sin into his experience, the harmonious life that man had previously known was brought to an end. No longer was it practical for husband and wife to have equal authority in the leadership of the home, and God chose to place upon man the major responsibility of making decisions and instructing his family (see PP 58, 59).