1 Corinthians14:34

There are several parts of the Old Testament that Paul could have had in mind. The cornerstone passage for this concept is Genesis 3:16 (in the Torah, which the NT calls the Law); it gives the following consequence to Eve for her part in succumbing to the deceit of the Serpent: “your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you.” In my paraphrase I present it this way: “You will desire to dominate your husband, but he will dominate you instead, and you will not like it.” Paul is indicating that the arrangement in which the husband is what I call the captain of the team, has come to us in part because Eve took the lead and lead Adam into sin instead of following him. Another reason given elsewhere is that Adam was created first and Eve was made from Adam.

Another passage Paul could have had in mind is what we call chapter 30 of Numbers (they did not have chapters and verses back then). It is a section about women making vows. It spells out clearly that the husband or father could veto a vow made by his wife or daughter. In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul is not talking about vows, so the connection to Numbers 30 is not a direct one, but the Numbers passage does indicate clearly that a woman was subject to the main man in her life (her husband or her father). Other parts of the law also imply the same dynamic, for the man was consistently seen as the leader of the family and the one who represented the family.

Earlier in this passage (14:23), Paul uses the phrase “the whole church” implying that there were gatherings that were small, not the whole church, and there were occasions when all the believers in the city of Corinth got together in one assembly.

I think there were several types of meetings of believers in the early church era. There were times when a single family of believers would gather for a planned time of prayer and Bible reading in their home. I will not get into whether or not a single family is considered the church; the point I am driving at here is that there were various meetings of different sizes, and the smallest size meeting was the individual family. Then there were times when an extended family would gather for all that is entailed in worship. This would include a grandfather and some of his grown children with kids of their own. At other times a few extended family units would gather together and possibly a few neighbors. The largest meeting possible would have been when all the believers in a given city would gather together; this was truly a “household of households.” The latter was held wherever they could accommodate that many people, usually in a very large home; therefore, I still consider it a house church, lacking the institutionalized elements of today’s organized churches. Thus, First Corinthians 14:23 specifically, and in my mind, all of chapter 14, is addressing the meetings they would periodically have in which all the believers in that city would come together.

The larger the realm, the less likely it was for someone to participate by speaking to the congregation, unless that person was a very old grandfather, called an elder.

In the regular activities of the home, papa was the “king” and mama was the “queen.” While the queen could not override or veto the decisions of the king, he shared some of his authority with her and she could do many things. But when a few relatives got together, meaning that there were other “Kings and Queens” present, the participation of the Queens seems to have been limited to starting a song or possibly sharing a testimony of what God had done, at the request of her husband or Father-in-law. In the larger meeting of several households gathered together, the women were not allowed to speak publicly and even some of the younger “Kings” might not get a chance to speak to the congregation because they could only speak if asked to do so by their father who was the Elder over them. If several grandfathers were present, they would all get to share first, starting with the oldest, before any of the younger men participated. This was because authority was usually vested as it had been since ancient times, in the oldest grandfather of the group (with a few exceptions, such as the spiritual maturity). That would be even more true in a meeting of all the believers in that city. (We are not given any idea of how often they met as the entire group.) The greater the number of realms represented, the higher one had to be in the authority of the church in order to speak to the congregation.

The context of the largest gathering of believers possible for that city makes the restrictions on women given in these verses more understandable, for even the young fathers would have had some restrictions in that setting.

In contrast 1 Corinthians 11:5 talks about women prophesying and praying, but that passage is probably referring to a smaller gathering, or the activities of a home. (The concept of realms makes the passage in Proverbs 31 about the noble woman make sense. Those things were also done in the context of the home, in which the woman has a high level of authority, albeit, not the highest level.)

Thus, the picture we are given of the congregation at Corinth was one in which various people, especially women of all ages, spoke out of turn, and refused to respect the elders present in the meeting. There was chaos, division, and discord continually. There were multiple people at each meeting creating a confusing cacophony by babbling out loud in tongues. Hence the restriction that women be silent in the meeting and learn from their husbands at home.