Translation
But if they want to learn
Go to footnote numberanything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the assembly.
Paraphrase
But if she has a question about something, she should not disrupt the meeting to ask it, rather she should wait and ask her husband at home because it would be shameful to have women speaking out in the assembly every time something came to their minds.
Footnotes
1: "to learn"
This word is a form of the Greek word for “disciple” because a disciple was a “leaner, someone in training.”
SPEAKING OUT IN THE ASSEMBLY
One of the abuses Paul heard about after he left Corinth was that some women seemed incapable of keeping their mouths shut during a church meeting. Therefore, Paul spelled out clearly that such interruptions are the opposite of respectful; they are shameful.
As a starting point Paul was simply stating a universal rule of respect – don’t interrupt. While someone was speaking to the assembly, he would not want everyone to feel free to interrupt him. We follow similar rules of respect today – we do not interrupt the preacher in the middle of his sermon to ask a question. We wait and ask him about it later.
The restriction Paul gave for women would hold true for children and young men as well. He applied this rule specifically to women because they were the ones causing the problem; if it had been young men causing the problem, he would have taught the principles of respect for authority that applied to them.
THE HUSBAND WAS SEEN AS THE PRIEST OF HIS HOME
The husband and father was expected to know the Scriptures better than anyone in his household. That should still be true, but is seldom the case. The father is the one that God holds responsible for the spiritual vitality of those under his care. It is a daunting responsibility. Obviously, we cannot force our children to follow God, but we need to do everything in our power to teach them what we can from God’s word and be a good example for them. To do this properly the father and mother need to work together as a team, not against each.
The word picture of priest simply conveys the idea of a spiritual leader. This is not the picture of a priest in the Catholic sense in which confession is through the priest. It is based on the Jewish view of a priest in which even during sacrifices, the one who brought the sacrifice did part of it and the priest did part of it; they worked together.
HOW WAS A WOMAN EXPECTED TO LEARN?
When the text says, “But if they want to learn anything” it uses a form of the word “disciple.” A disciple is a “learner.” Thus, if a woman wants to be a good disciple and learn spiritual truths, she should take her questions to “her priest,” i.e. her husband. If he cannot answer her questions, he should take those questions to “his priest,” i.e. his father, and on up the line it goes. The husband and wife should have regular discussions about what they are reading in God’s word and what they are learning from the school of life. But those discussions should be characterized by a proper respect for the positions of authority that God has put in place.
However, this does not mean that a woman cannot learn anything on her own from reading Scripture and it does not mean that God never speaks to the women directly. A wife must still have her own relationship with God and maintain it carefully. In Acts 18 we see how God used both Priscilla and Aquila working together as a team to teach spiritual truths to Apollos. But in that situation, it appears that Priscilla was the more prominent Bible teacher because her name is mentioned first in every instance (Acts 18:18, 19, 25) other than when they are first introduced in Acts 18:2. This may have been because Aquila was a newer believer and did not know the Scriptures as well as his wife did. But they still worked as a team.
DON’T LET GO OF SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO GRAB SOMETHING LESS IMPORTANT
Through Paul, God was communicating balance. He wants us to learn balance in every aspect of our lives. In this case, God was balancing the issues of individual spirituality and respect for authority. They are both important.
When my wife, Audry, was a little girl and her mom took her to the grocery store, her mom would choose two small items from her list, find them first, and ask Audry to hold them for her. She was not allowed to let go of either one of them to grab something else.
There are many things God wants us to hold on to; there are many cases of balance between two important things. Regarding what we read in this verse, allow me to express it in this way – God wants us to hold on to individual spirituality and respect for authority without letting go of either one of them. The women of Corinth had let go of respect for authority so they could grab hold of self-expression. In so doing, they had dropped the jar of respect for authority on the floor of the grocery store and it had shattered into a thousand pieces. Some jars, like that of self-expression, are plastic and can be dropped without breaking them. The jar of respect for authority is delicate; it cannot be dropped.