Transcription
Peace, brother Mike. I've discovered your channel a couple of months ago when I first heard about the Hebrew Roots movement, and I almost gave into it before seeing your videos on them. You've been a great blessing to me ever since, and I give glory to God for the way that He's been using you. That being said, I wonder how you interpret First Corinthians 14:34 and 35. These two verses have almost more interpretations than I have fingers in my hands, and there are even claims that the verses were misplaced by a scribe or simply added, since verses 33 and 36 flow without them. Thank you for doing this, and may God bless you.
All right, so, I, I dug, I dug into this freshly for today. I probably spent a good decent number of hours prepping for our little discussion here today, and this is one of the things I spent a lot of time on. Um, let me read the passage to you guys, and then we'll walk through some of the issues here. It says in First Corinthians 14:34 and 35: "The women are to keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves just as the law also says. If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is improper for a woman to speak in church."
Now, you understand why people are debating on this section of scripture. Uh, let me tackle these issues one at a time. First, is it added? Um, I deferred to scholarship here. I'm not a textual critic. I'm not qualified to like be the one telling us these are the verses that belong and don't. As far as I can tell, it seems like a real minority of people that suggest that it's added, and I can sense a motivation to want to remove these verses from the text of scripture. I did actually read through a breakdown of the various manuscripts where there's like a, it's like in a margin here, or it's, it's, it's dislocated here in this manuscript or that manuscript, and it, it does seem to me, based on what they're reporting, that it seems unlikely that it was added. Like, we should struggle with this, and this is, of course, why you're gonna see this in the main text, not the footnotes, but the main text of pretty much any translation you grab. Seems pretty consistent. The ones I checked, it was all there. So, I'm going to say we should struggle with this text. We should apply this to our lives, but context helps. It helps us to realize it. And here's the thing: we live in a trigger society. When you bring up the issue of women and their roles, you are so careful with what you say because you don't want to be misunderstood. Paul didn't do that at all. If you want to understand him, you got to read him carefully. You can't be like, "Paul, you better not say it that way." Like, for instance, here's a careful reading of Paul. He says they are to subject themselves, which is the opposite of somebody subjecting them. God's counsel to women about, about rules of submission is always that it's intentional and purposeful. A man who's forcing over to submit, that's oppression, that's abuse. A woman who chooses to submit, a child who chooses to submit, an employee who chooses to submit, these are godly ways of honoring Christ and humility and, uh, and serving in whatever role God's given you. Um, so there's an example of how he'll say "subject themselves," and they'll think of it as a trigger term. And I'm like, actually, that's kind of like a women's rights thing along with biblical. I'm a complementarian. This seems like a complementarian passage here, as opposed to egalitarian, where we would, they would kind of push against this text for various reasons.
So, let's put it in more context, uh, with, with First Corinthians, pardon me, as a whole. Paul is actually okay with women talking in church. He is, for sure. He is. First Corinthians 11:5 makes it clear that women were prophesying in the church, and Paul was okay with this. So, they were prophesying in church. In Acts, we get more context of the first-century church where it talks about Philip and how he had seven daughters that prophesied. So, he has, there's women who are speaking in prophetic speech. It's a special kind of speech, right? Like they're not just talking in church, they're actually proclaiming truths about God. It's prophecy. They're, they're bringing forth stuff under the, under the leading of the Spirit. That word "silent," though, um, it may not be the best translation to say women should keep silent in churches. The word "silent," *sigaō*, is the Greek. It means to refrain, at least one of the meanings, which seems to be the meaning here, to refrain from using a particular kind of speech or speech in a certain context.
So, then we zoom out from verses 34 and 35 and get the context. Here's my interpretation of it for your consideration: The judgment of prophecy is the, is the whole context in verses 29 through 35. We already know in First Corinthians 11:5, women can give prophecy in church, but in First Corinthians 14, verses 29 through 35, it's about the judgment of prophecy, the evaluation of prophecy. If verses 34 and 35 are seen in that context, then an interpretation seems obvious to me. And I'm going to quote here from Anthony Thistleton, his commentary on First Corinthians. He puts it this way: "The speaking in question, they're speaking that the woman's asked not to do, denotes the activity of sifting or weighing the words of prophets, especially about asking probing questions about the prophet's theology or even the prophet's lifestyle in public." This is where Paul's like, "Let them ask at home." Depending on how the translation renders it, "Let them ask their own husbands at home if they, if they want to understand something." The idea is, somebody gives a prophecy, a word of the Lord, could be a man, could be a woman. Then there's the elders and leaders of the church who are considered the faithful, reliable leaders who are, who are in the context of, I believe, Paul's writing, is supposed to be men. And these guys are judging the prophecy. They're like, "Let's test that word." And maybe they ask the guy, they ask about the consistency of his walk, they ask if he has endorsements from other church leaders, if he's a guest, you know, do you have like letters from the church you came from? Why we should trust you? They ask him, "What did you mean by that? Was, you know, is that consistent with the theology that we've got from scripture?" They're testing to make sure that this prophetic statement is consistent, if it's from God or not, right? "Test all things, hold fast to that which is good." So, the idea is, um, and this is consistent in the passage, preserving proper relationships by proper relationships of of of authority and submission in a godly context. It's not oppressive, but is meant to like represent to the world that the church is a place of order. And that's Paul's main concern in First Corinthians 14 is order in the church, instead of disordering chaos.
So, yeah, that's my interpretation, and people are free to disagree with this, but, um, it's simply saying, "Hey, ladies are not supposed to be the ones judging and sifting and testing the prophetic statements that happen in the church. If they do have questions, they shouldn't use their questions to probe and poke at stuff. They should just ask those questions at home." But this also says that women were present in the fellowship and were part of it and active in the, in the ministry. Uh, what do you guys have a follow-up question on that, or does it feel like, does that feel like I've answered it for you?
No, not so much a follow-up, just, just a comment that it's, well, first off, I'll say that was User 2D UTC who asked that one. Thank you for it. Good question. Um, it's, it's a complicated answer, I think, uh, because it's, well, especially today, um, you know, my wife and I discussed this topic quite a bit, and, um, it's, I don't, I don't have an easy way to explain it, to be honest with you, because it's, it seems very anti-2021, uh, it seems very anti-women, and, and there's, there's just a lot of things that have happened, uh, even recently in the church, um, you know, leaders who have, who have done horrific things, that this verse just makes it seem like it's, it's, uh, a male-dominated thing we have going on here, and we have three guys here doing this Q&A.
Yeah, this is a great, this is a great, uh, what you're bringing up is a great point. I'm gonna, I wanna highlight for a second. Is that, okay, let's say that the complementarian view is right. You're either gonna view it as good and proper, or as offensive. It's like, there's no middle ground. Yeah. If complementarianism is true, which means that we have different, we're equal in in status, we're equal in in value, we have different roles. We have different roles. We're all heirs in the in the body of Christ. We have different roles and functions in the church as well as in the home. And you're either going to see this as good and proper, part of God's created order and design, or you'll see it as highly offensive. I think the complementarian view is true, and I think it's good, and I think our culture being offended about it is bad. Now, relating it to like, say, uh, say like Ravi Zacharias and his abuse of women, well, that certainly is not biblical. On no reading of scripture is that appropriate. I mean, no, absolutely not. Like, this is, this is, uh, disgusting and wrong and evil and and horrible. And so, yeah, like, you know, oppressing others is not the result, I think, of complementarian views. But I will say this: I'm doing a research project on this topic on the role of women in the church because I've always been complementarian, but I have not fully done every bit of research on the topic. So, after I finish the Mark series, which I'm in, coming to the tail of right now, I'm going to spend like, I don't know, a month or so, just reading everything I can get my hands on on complementarian and egalitarian views, and then I'm going to do a full teaching on it, uh, bringing as much clarity as I can to the topic. And I'm open to changing my mind. I mean, maybe I would come and offer you a different view of this passage. I don't expect to, but I'm open to it.
You know, where do you, I guess, where do you draw the line then between, I feel like the, the, the controversy arises when, when we're talking about, um, women's role in churches and ministry, the controversy arises when it seems to be held up as a, I guess, a tenet of of biblical conservancy, which I think we've discussed earlier, that's not political conservancy, but when we're being biblically conservative, when we're sticking to the word, it, it, it seems to fall in the same circles as when we're talking about biblical inerrancy. If you're, if you hold to the Bible being true, then you also have to say that it comes, it comes across this way. I'm not saying that's what it says, but it comes across as women are less than men. Do you think the Bible teaches that women are less than men? I do not. Okay. I do not. But it's, it's, it's so you're saying, "Challenge, it's perceived that way. It's not that it is that way, it's that people take it that way." So, this is where Jesus says, like, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I'll rebuild it." How did they take it? "Jesus is going to destroy the temple." I think, like, well, this has always been the plague on Christianity. Find the thing that, find the weak spot where Christianity is the most vulnerable to, um, to, to vilifying it in the in front of people. So, the early Romans, they would, they taught that Christians were cannibals, right? Because they, because they have communion and they talk about how you have to, like, "Someone read the Gospel of John, eat my flesh, drink my blood." They don't, they just like, they misunderstood him. And John, so I don't, I think almost misunderstood on purpose. Like, "What's the worst thing we can say about them using their own texts?" Okay, well, let's say that Paul's a, Paul's a chauvinist and he's oppressive to women. But when you actually read the text, that's not true. Like, this isn't true unless simply having roles, different roles, is oppressive. So, like, let's say that my wife comes to me and she goes, "I always want to have a voice," and she does, but "I'm going to let you make the final decision on things, especially big stuff. You know, I'll let you make that final choice." Is this an oppressive moment, or is this a moment of love and submission? And if you're convinced this is oppressive, there's nothing I can say that's going to, that's going to ever change that. And it creates a lot of angst and anxiety and irritation, and it creates confusion in marriages because I think that if people don't know, like, I've talked to people, I don't know, are you guys married at all? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So, I've talked to people who say in their marriage, like, "Well, we both make decisions. Nobody has the final call." Then I'm like, "Right, somebody has the final call. And maybe you, it might be your wife. Somebody does, right? And if God says, 'Here's how I want you to handle that,' then you should handle it that way, right?" But if you view that as oppressive, and you want to make believe that that equality means sameness in every regard, then you're, you're going to vilify a lot of things, a lot of things that are actually making for, I think, healthy relationships. So, yeah, I'm not going to fit in with culture. I'm just going to bite the bullet, and they're gonna call me a bigot and a chauvinist, and I'm gonna say, "Okay, you may as well call me a cannibal and say that I'm going to destroy the temple too." I just, I don't know how to fix that.