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So, how should the Church read this text?<\/p>\n
Option 1: The Plain Reading<\/h2>\n
The first option is the most obvious. The passage means exactly what it says. The SBC, among other denominations, reads this passage as a blanket prohibition against women serving as pastors. Some go further, preventing women from speaking in worship almost completely. In the more restrictive traditions, women cannot pray in worship services, read scripture, or even speak on a special woman\u2019s emphasis Sunday.<\/p>\n
Church History<\/h4>\n
Reading the text as a prohibition against women preaching is not only the most straightforward way to read the text, but it also has the advantage of being how the Church has read throughout most of its history. For contemporary thinkers, the argument from history does not always carry much weight. Modern thinkers are often afflicted with \u201cchronological snobbery\u201d as CS Lewis might call it. Modern snobs prefer the current reading just because it is current. Someone espousing this view might say, \u201cIt\u2019s 2025 for heaven\u2019s sake!\u201d<\/p>\n
The problem is, though, that the first readers of the Scriptures were not afflicted with the same biases that current readers are. They had their own biases to be sure, but they were different from the biases of current readers. Reading the earliest believers can help serve as a corrective to modern thinking.<\/p>\n
Ancient interpreters are not always right, and deciding that 1 ancient writer got something wrong is not that significant. One should exhibit\u00a0extreme<\/em> caution, however, that the whole church got something wrong over its 2,000 years of history. What the Church has believed in all times and all places is significant and authoritative. When it comes to women serving as ministers, the bulk of the interpretative history is against it.<\/p>\n \u00a0 Another advantage the plain reading has is that it conforms to gender in the view of the Scriptures. Genders are different, and this difference is a good part of the created order. CS Lewis argued women should not serve as priests because it would be tantamount to saying there is no difference in gender.[2]<\/a> While one does not have to agree with Lewis on the consequences of having women priests, Lewis is correct that gender differences are real and that erasing them is unwise.<\/p>\n It is also important to note that Lewis had no problem with women speaking<\/em> in worship. The role Lewis thought gender kept women out of was that of the priest.<\/p>\n A counter-argument would be that since there are gender differences, limiting the proclamation of Scripture to only one gender would mean a one-sided proclamation of the text. Noticing and celebrating gender differences would then mean that both genders need to be involved in the proclamation of Scripture.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Many in the SBC make the argument that allowing women pastors is something akin to a gateway drug to progressive ideology in the Church. If one only considers the experience of the Mainline Tradition, those in the SBC might have a point. Mainline Christianity has had women pastors for decades, and their accelerating descent into theological positions that are unrecognizable to orthodox Christianity has been shocking.<\/p>\n As a good philosopher would counter, though, correlation does not equal causation. Just because most denominations that have women pastors have descended rapidly into heresy, does not mean that women pastors caused it or that the two issues are necessarily connected. In reading the works of Mainline thinkers, the accelerating acceptance of progressive ideology would have happened with or without women pastors.<\/p>\n There are some drawbacks to the plain reading, however. The most important of them is it sets up Paul as self-contradictory. In 11:5 Paul refers to women praying or prophesying and commands that they cover their heads. The thrust of Paul\u2019s argument in 11:5, then, is something like, \u201cWhen praying or prophesying you must be dressed appropriately.\u201d For a woman in 1st<\/sup>-century Greco-Roman culture, to have her head uncovered was reserved for private or intimate moments. To be uncovered in public was a shameful event with possible sexual overtones.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Modern readers ought to handle the word \u201cprophecy\u201d carefully. When moderns hear the word the most common thought is that the prophets gave information about the future. That is often the content of prophecy in the Bible, but not always. What a prophet did, was not limited to telling the future. A prophet\u2019s role was to hear and announce what God had said. A prophet said, as the King James Version puts it, \u201cThus saith the Lord.\u201d In 1 Cor 11 Paul notices that women are speaking on behalf of God. They heard what God said and announced it. These prophets were not ancient Christian versions of Sister Odessa reading palms and looking at crystals. They were announcing the words of God.<\/p>\n 1 Cor 11 is not the only reference to women prophets in the Bible. The Bible references many women prophets. Isaiah\u2019s wife, Deborah, Huldah, Noadaih, Jarius\u2019 4 daughters, and Anna all served as prophets. Anna\u2019s case is quite interesting as she taught in the Temple, <\/em>and her audience included men.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n With the backdrop of women prophets in Judaism and Christianity, It would be bizarre of Paul to remind women prophets of proper attire when praying or prophesying and then tell them to be quiet shortly thereafter. The biggest problem with the plain reading of the text is not modern egalitarian sensibilities but that it makes Paul self-contradictory and out of step with the rest of the biblical witness.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A reading of the text that gained traction in the early 1900s was that Paul was quoting his opposition in verses 34-35 and verse 36 was his sharp rejoinder. Verse 36 would then read as Paul incredulously saying, \u201cWhat? Did the word of God originate with you \u2026 \u201d (the \u201cyou\u201d is masculine plural) to the men who were shushing women. Charles Talbert of Baylor University makes this argument, among others.<\/p>\n While this reading is possible, it is not the most likely possibility. What makes it a possible reading is that there are no punctuation marks in Koine Greek, so it is not always easy to know when Paul is quoting his opposition. Given that Paul does quote his opponents\u2019 slogans often in 1 Cor, it could be that he is here, but it is not likely.<\/p>\n Arguing against this possibility is that the letter bears little evidence that men were trying to shut down women\u2019s speech in worship. In fact, women appear to have been speaking in worship even while dressed inappropriately. Secondly, this would easily be the longest quote of Paul\u2019s opposition.[3]<\/a> The other quotations Paul makes of his opponents often just a few words. This would be multiple sentences. It does not look like the other instances of Paul quoting his opposition.<\/p>\n The reading looks more like an inventive way around what Paul said rather than a fair reading of the text.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A long list of New Testament Scholars read these verses as an editorial gloss, an interpretation included in the text by early copyists trying to clarify Paul\u2019s teachings. New Testament scholars who hold this position are significant and well-respected. The list includes Weiss, Fitzer, Conzelmann, Daitzenberg, Walker, Fee, Wright, Hays, and others.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n Their reasoning is based on differences in the Greek copies of the letter. Gordon Fee notes that three Western Manuscripts, a 12th<\/sup> Century Codex, two Old Latin Manuscripts, and two Latin Fathers do not have the injunction against women speaking in worship in the text of 1 Corinthians.[5]<\/a> In the work of the Latin Father Ambrosiaster in the 300s, the injunction is at the end of the chapter rather than where it appears in modern translations. Verses appearing in different locations in different manuscripts is often evidence of a gloss.<\/p>\n Fee argues that these texts represent the whole of the non-Vulgate translations of the passage. He writes, \u201cWe are dealing with the entire surviving evidence for the shape of the text in the West before 385 \u2026\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n He concludes that the words do not belong to Paul and are probably the result of a copyist trying to clarify the texts based on 1 Timothy 2:91-5. While Fee does have significant support, it is by no means unanimous among biblical scholars. It also relies on too few manuscripts.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n New Testament Scholar David Garland presents another possibility. He argues that the text is not a blanket argument for women not speaking in worship. He argues the text is about interruption during worship. The women in the Corinthian church were disrupting worship by interrupting the flow of the sermon and preventing adequate discussion following it. Worse, the women here were married and by disrupting worship were embarrassing their husbands who were, perhaps the prophets who were speaking. For Garland, the backdrop of the Greco-Roman household is the interpretative key.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n Garland is my favorite New Testament commentator. Essentially, if Garland writes it I buy it. On this particular argument, however, I am not entirely convinced. While the backdrop of husbands and wives is part of the story, I do not think it can explain everything. In this context, it does not look like merely the wives speaking is the problem. It appears as if all the women who spoke were the problem. Perhaps more charitably, while not all women were the problem, silencing all women was the solution.<\/p>\n It is not entirely clear what to make of the text. Some will try to clarify its meaning based on Paul\u2019s words in 1 Timothy 2. Others will try to clarify the text based on the presence of women prophets in 1 Corinthians 11.<\/p>\n As for me, I\u2019m comfortable not resolving<\/em> the issue. To have Paul argue for a blanket silence of women speaking in worship would be too problematic when considering 1 Corinthians 11 and the rest of the Bible. It makes no sense in the text. The same Paul who argues for appropriate attire for the women who prayed or prophesied cannot silence them just a few pages later. Paul is not that inconsistent.<\/p>\n In my estimation, Paul is not only the great missionary of the Early Church and the great writer of the New Testament, but he is among the greatest minds that has ever lived<\/em>. Whatever one\u2019s view of the role of the Holy Spirit in composing the Bible, having Paul be grossly self-contradictory is an unacceptable solution to this problem. Even if Paul were merely writing in his own formidable power he would not make such an error, much less likely as he was inspired by the Spirit of God.<\/p>\n If I were forced to choose a solution it would be along the lines New Testament commentator Paul Barnett uses. His solution is similar to Garland\u2019s. Noting that the word \u201cwomen\u201d can be translated \u201cwives,\u201d he writes,<\/p>\n My suggested reconstruction of the situation Paul sought to correct is as follows: a prophet has spoken and a time of silence should have ensued before the next prophet rose to speak. Instead, however, various women seated together were breaking the silence by calling out questions to the prophet. Furthermore, it seems likely that the wives in question were addressing the questions to husbands who were prophets. Thus their action suffered from two faults. On one hand, it was disruptive of congregational \u2018silence\u2019 following the prophetic word, but on the other, it failed to express wifely submission to a husband in public. This explains Paul\u2019s, \u2018Let them be in submission\u2019, and, \u2018it is shameful for a wife to speak in the church.\u2019[8]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0\u2026 We must resist the temptation to downgrade Paul\u2019s earlier permission for women to prophesy (11:2\u201316) \u2026Women did prophesy in the public, plenary meeting of believers. Nonetheless, even that permission was given against the background of a current problem, namely, the discarding of her head covering \u2026 Paul could have taken the easy option to forbid a woman prophesying altogether, but he did not do this.[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n While this is what I would choose if I had to choose, I\u2019m more comfortable at this point saying that the most prominent solutions all have significant issues reconciling 1 Cor 11 with 1 Cor 14. 1 Cor 11 is clear that women were prophesying and Paul did not say they should stop. He only said that they should dress appropriately. 1 Cor 14 is in significant tension with that passage. Living with tension is better than imposing a bad solution.<\/p>\n Another resource to consider: I am linking the report on Women in Ministry by Todd Still, Dean of Truett Theological Seminary, below. It is a very helpful read on the subject. Dr. Still\u2019s noting the whole scope of the Bible as allowing for women to serve in the church is helpful.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Women in Ministry: Biblical, Theological, and Practical Reflections<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n [1]<\/sup><\/a> New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> https:\/\/www.episcopalnet.org\/TRACTS\/priestesses.html<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Garland, 1 Corinthians. <\/em>667.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Garland, 1 Corinthians, 665. <\/em><\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Fee, God\u2019s Empowering Presence, <\/em>273.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Fee, God\u2019s Empowering Presence, <\/em>274.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Garland, 1 Corinthians, <\/em>673.<\/p>\n [8]<\/sup><\/a> Paul Barnett, 1 Corinthians: Holiness and Hope of a Rescued People<\/em><\/a>, Focus on the Bible Commentary (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2000), 265\u2013266.<\/p>\n [9]<\/sup><\/a> Paul Barnett, 1 Corinthians: Holiness and Hope of a Rescued People<\/em><\/a>, Focus on the Bible Commentary (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2000), 265.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Also by Layne Wallace:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1952\/2025\/02\/download-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nGender and CS Lewis<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\nProgressive Ideology<\/h4>\n
<\/h3>\n
Problems with the Plain Reading<\/h2>\n
The Word \u201cProphecy\u201d<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\nOption 2: Paul Was Quoting His Opposition<\/h2>\n
Option 3: Editorial Gloss<\/h2>\n
Option 4: Disruption in Worship<\/h2>\n
What to make of the text?<\/h2>\n
If Forced to choose<\/h4>\n
I\u2019m Comfortable With Tension<\/h4>\n
A Resource<\/h4>\n