Commentaries:
People's Commentary (NT)
I Corinthians 14:34 Let your woman keep silence in the churches. This, in view of other portions of the Scriptures, is confessedly a difficult passage. We have the same teaching in I Timothy 2:11. On the other hand, Deborah was a judge and a prophetess (Judges 4:4); Huldah was a prophetess (I Kings 22:14); Joel predicted that in the Christian dispensation "the sons and 'daughters' should prophesy" (Joel 2:28), and Peter declared that this was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4). In addition, the daughters of Philip prophesied (Acts 21:9), and Paul gives directions concerning women prophesying in I Corinthians 11:5. Probably these apparent discrepancies may be reconciled as follows: (1) Paul's prohibition of speaking to the women is "in the churches"; that is, in the church assemblies when "the whole church is come together into one place" (I Corinthians 14:23). It is an official meeting of the church. "Church" in the New Testament always means the "ecclesia". It does not apply to such informal meetings as the social or prayer-meetings, but to formal gatherings of the whole body. (2) It may be that even this prohibition was due to the circumstances that existed in Ephesus, where Timothy was, and in Corinth, and would not apply everywhere. If so, it applies wherever similar circumstances exist, but not elsewhere. Both were Greek churches. Among the Greeks public women were disreputable. For a woman to speak in public would cause the remark that she was shameless. Virtuous women were secluded. Hence it would be "a shame for women to speak in the church" assembly. It is noteworthy that there is no hint of such a prohibition to any churches except Grecian. Wherever it would be shameful, women ought not to speak.
Other People's Commentary (NT) entries containing 1 Corinthians 14:34:
1 Timothy 2:11
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