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| Copyright : Vasily Merkushev |
Imagine I am teaching a lesson to a classroom of students. Students are coming up to their exams and are eager to listen to what I have to say as they know it is very important to do well in their exams as it would change their lives in a positive way. I also have a rule in my classes that when I am talking everyone else should be quiet.
In my class are a group of children who have very limited English as they have not had the opportunity to learn it yet. Normally the school would provide them with an ipad or similar with google translate, but this hasn’t happened today.
I am at the board explaining some key concepts and using key words.
This group of students are having problems following the important subject matter. They are catching a few words here and there perhaps that they understand with their limited English and translating it to the others. Perhaps they are asking others on the table who have the same first language, but understand more English, for help to understand what is going on. This is going to be creating noise and disturbance in my class and will affect the flow of this very important lesson.
Or perhaps they are calling out and asking me to stop and go over something again as they didn’t catch it the first time and others in my class are getting frustrated as they already know it and want to move on as they are desperate to learn more.
Or maybe they are calling out and asking questions as I am speaking, as this is what they were used to doing with a different teacher in a different school, and they did not know that I do not allow interruptions.
Or perhaps they have just given up for the moment and are having a chat about something they do understand. In any of these situations the noise from these students will be affecting the volume levels in the room, and I like a quiet and orderly learning environment.
To top it all off the lab technicians have just entered the room with a trolley full of equipment for the practical lesson I will be doing with my next class (as they can only deliver equipment when the corridors are empty) and are whispering to each other about where to place the equipment on the side benches.
Now I do not want to stop these students from learning. So, what could I do? Do I stop the lesson and go over information again? Do I provide a worksheet summary that is in a language they can’t read and will take time to translate? Or do I provide a different occasion where they could learn the information they desire at their own pace, with the help of someone who knows both languages?
Transfer all of these ideas to the early church in Corinth. The students with limited English and who are struggling to understand the important lesson are the women. At that time few women were educated and therefore did not understand Greek. The men however were educated and could understand the Greek being spoken in the church. The services were to be carried out in an orderly way. Previously in the same letter Paul has prevented other people from speaking in the service if it was not for the benefit of the people listening e.g. speaking in tongues if there was no-one able to translate it.
Perhaps the women were talking to each other to understand what was being said in the church? Perhaps they were talking to others who could understand what was going on? Or maybe they were calling out questions like they would have done to a Greek oracle? Or maybe they were chattering with other women, whom they had not seen since the last church service, as they had given up on understanding what was going on.
The lab technicians are women bringing out food as many ecclesial meetings were held around a meal.
In Acts 2 (and 21) we read that sons and daughters spoke in tongues and/or prophesied just as it was prophesied they would in Joel chapter 2. Prophesying was often a public event and all believers should be eager to prophesy (1 Cor 14:39). In 1 Cor 11 we read that women were praying and prophesying in the church, but there was concern around doing it in a modest way.
So, it would seem inconsistent for God to give women the ability to prophesy i.e. speak in public and/or for the edification of the ecclesia (or speak in tongues), and then the Apostle Paul to say they can’t speak in church. We are told that we are to use the talents/gifts our Heavenly Father gives us by our Lord Jesus in one of his parables (and what happened to the man who did not).
Is Paul being inconsistent? The word used by Paul in 1 Cor 14:35 is the usual word for ‘speak’, but it can be understood in the sense of ‘chatter’ depending on context. (See, for example, Kenneth E. Bailey, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes, pages 409-418). So, women were not to be chattering in the service, and if they wanted to learn something they should be asking questions outside of the church service, at a more appropriate time, from someone who did understand Greek – their husbands. Paul wanted them to learn, in a culture when most women were not educated, but in a way that would not disrupt the church service. Just like he had instructed two other groups of people to not speak in the church service earlier in the same chapter.
I teach my science students that new information can disprove a currently held theory and help to propose new theories, which may also be disproved when further new information comes along. If I have erred in any way in what I have said above I pray that my Heavenly Father will forgive me and guide others to provide me with new information or help me to understand His Word better as I continue on my journey.
