Women are to be silent when the Church assembles!

[Justice]

I have no conviction either way as to whether Junia was a woman or not but it doesn't matter.

What I mean is...let's say she was a woman.

Let's say further that she had a leading role in the church somehow (if I am not mistaken women can be deconesses as an example).

To go from that to saying that she spoke up in an assembly of the church in direct contradiction to what Paul said in 1 Cor 14 is...well...an assumption which is not supported by what is written.

That kind of objection is the kind that I call the deduction from logic objection.

Meaning that a and b are true so therefore c must be.

As in (assuming that Junia was indeed a woman) a (she was a woman), b (she had a leading role in the church) such that c (she spoke up in an assembly of the church in contradiction to what Paul wrote) must therefore be true.

It is an assumption by any other name.

As an assumption it does not help us understand what Paul said and is irrelevant.

A and B do not lead to C. A and B just are (if indeed Junia was even a woman which as you readily admit is contested which leaves us with an unreliable A and B to begin with!) and must fit with the rest of Scriptures and be accepted alongside other Scriptures as it is written.

Correct biblical interpretation is not a matter of concluding that C must be true because A and B are. Correct biblical interpretation is a matter of accepting A, accepting B, accepting that Paul said women needed to be silent in the assembly and seeking the Lord as to how it all might blend together into a cohesive whole.

Carlos

Carlos, your assumption is that (A) women must to be silent because (B) God speaks to and through you (men) only.

By your understanding this could not happen in Church gatherings today:

Matthew 15:22-28
22: And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

23: But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.

24: But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

25: Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

26: But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

27: And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.

28: Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

If Paul could go back in time would he stop this woman because she is not allowed to speak to this assembly?

Acts 2:17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:

Anytime people get stuck on a gotcha verse it's hard to see God's entire word. Acts 2 says that your sons and daughters shall prophesy. What is a prophet? God made Aaron a prophet and said ---

Exodus 4:16: And he (Aaron) shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.

Moses (being God to Pharaoh) and Aaron as God's prophet are the perfect example. A prophet by the Holy Spirit serves as God's spokesman to the people. Now are you saying that a prophet can speak just not in a building or anywhere God's people gather?

We know that Paul said that those in the Church of Corinth were carnal: 1 Corinthians 3:3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?

How can women/wives or anyone for that matter ask carnal men/husbands the things of God? I'll ask you again Carlos, does God speak to and through you only?

I've got stuff to do but concerning apostles and their role we can start here: --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostle_(Christian)

 

[Webb]

I am not a Greek scholar but the word used for speak in I Cor.14:34 is not LALEW but rather LALEIN and Thayer didn't seem to give the woman speaker much comfort.

 

[Webb]

If as some assume the speaking and silence of the woman in the assembly refers only to disrupting "chit-chat" then that must mean if they have any questions regarding the meaning of any disrupting chit-chating in the assembly they must ask their husbands. Doesn't make sense to me.

 

[carlos123]

Carlos, did you notice the "IF" conditionals that Paul used?

You bring up some interesting points SparrowHawke. I mean that sincerely.

I had never before noticed the conditionals. I mean off the top I would say none of that makes me think Paul did not say what he said so plainly in the face value reading of...well...what he said.

But let me think about what you brought up before I respond SparrowHawke.

Incidentally I am not so set in my position that I am unwilling to modify it or to take on an entirely different position. But such a different position has to be biblically plausible and even more than the position I presently hold.

As I have posted here I have continually brought before the Lord what I am sharing. For what I have been sharing would entail a radical and I mean radical departure from established church norms and be very, very anti-cultural, at least in Western countries.

I mean such is not a consideration for me with respect to being true to what is written.

I say that only to say that I must be absolutely sure that my position is God's or I am supressing what would be a freedom on the part of sisters to express themselves in the assembly.

That's a serious matter that I do not take lightly. If anything I would rather err on the side of freely allowing sisters to express themselves than not. At least in my natural self.

For to defend my position as the correct interpretation is to go head on against established church practice, feminism in the church, and otherwise.

Who in their right mind would want to do that unless they were convinced that their position is God's heart on the matter.

Which I am.

Like I said...give me a bit to think of what you said SparrowHawke.

If you don't hear back from me please feel free to remind me to get to it!

Carlos

 

[carlos123]

sigh. well, yes actually you can.

Please pray tell how you can determine the duration from the sole word sigao apart from the sorrounding words in which it is used and the context.

I am all ears. I'll be the first to admit that you can if indeed you can and you can show me that it can be done.

Don't just tell me that it can be done. Show me. Greek and all.

This passage indicates that the law is refering to the fact that women are not allowed to speak - this is as the use of commas suggest. Because in English you never seperate a subject with its verb by only one comma. So, show me; where in the Law does it say for women to be silent?

Nowhere in the Law does it say that women ought to be silent as Paul commands. Nowhere.

Tell me something...do you think it possible that the Law Paul alludes to is referring to the need of women to be submissive and not to be silent?

If that is possible...please explain to me how your contention that the Law is referring to being silent is the more correct interpretation.

I mean lay it out WoodlandApple. In detail. Go into the Greek..whatever you care to do. Give me a handle on why you think your interpretation is the correct one other than...well...that you think so. And I will go about the internet, talk to some Greek experts, what have you to see if what you say is not so.

If it is so I will come back here and humble myself and admit it is so. But if not I will counter your notion with what is true yet again.

Carlos

 

[carlos123]

SparrowHawke,

In the midst of your reply this stuck out in particular...

I can't take what Paul is saying here to mean that women should be utterly silent in the church because he had just instructed that women should pray and prophesy if their head were covered (indicating submission).

First off I have never stated nor do I believe (though I am open to thinking such if that is what Paul is getting at) that women should not speak at all and be utterly silent without saying a solitary word to anyone at anytime and in any way throughout the length of an assembled meeting.

But what struck me about what you said is that you refuse to take what Paul said at face value...well...because Paul seems to say something different in 1 Cor 11.

So if I may ask you...why do you discount the plain, face value meaning in Paul's words in 1 Cor 14:35 while embracing Paul's words in 1 Cor 11:5? Why not the other way around?

Embrace his words in 1 Cor 14:35 and discount or explain away those found in 1 Cor 11:5?

Better yet why not accept them both as true and try and understand how they might fit together?

Carlos

 

[carlos123]

STORMCROW--I've been to a mosque and there is no comparison with the NT church.

Well...how do you like that?

Carlos

 

[carlos123]

Carlos, your assumption is that (A) women must to be silent because (B) God speaks to and through you (men) only.

We probably differ in what the word "assumption" means Justice since I did no such thing or assumed no such thing.

In other words I do not assume that women must be silent because God speaks to and through me or men only.

Maybe you assume that I assume. Don't know.

I believe that women should be silent in church because Paul said it. That's not an assumption.

As for God speaking only through men I have never said that as in that He can and will only speak a word through men at any time.

That He choses to speak through men in an assembly of the church is not my decision or assumption. It is His revealed will.

Carlos

 

[Sparkey]

SparrowHawke,


Better yet why not accept them both as true and try and understand how they might fit together?

Carlos

Funny, that's what I thought I was doing.

 

[carlos123]

Webb,

Check your private messages. You previously said that to me and I completely missed your message way back at the beginning of this thread. Perhaps the same is happening of mine to you. Don't know.

Just in case I thought I would suggest that you check your private messages through the thread here that I know you are watching.

Carlos

 

[woodlandapple]

I am not a Greek scholar but the word used for speak in I Cor.14:34 is not LALEW but rather LALEIN and Thayer didn't seem to give the woman speaker much comfort.

Hey Webb, 'lalein' is the infinitive of 'lalew'. Ive mentioned before that greek has grammer imbued into it. THey are in essence the same verb, they both mean silence

Lalew is the Dictionary form (what you would find the word as in a lexicon)
AND is also the present Indicitive sg and is translated as 'I am speaking'
Lalein is the present infinitive and is translated as 'to speak'

Present infinitive also tells us that it implies a sence of process (either continuous or repeated) so it gives the sense of 'to speak and to keep speaking'

 

[Stormcrow]

I've been to a mosque and there is no comparison with the NT church.

You get extra credit for missing the point entirely.

 

[carlos123]

Funny, that's what I thought I was doing.

Maybe I misread what you said SparrowHawke but you did say that you cannot accept what Paul said about women being silent because of what he said about women being able to pray and prophecy with a head covering.

That Paul must have meant something other than silence since he said women could pray and prophesy with a head covering.

That implies that you do not accept the former because of the latter.

What I am saying is that both are true and that we should not discount one or the other because of what the other says.

Women can pray and prophecy with a head covering. Women are to remain silent in an assembly of the church.

Carlos

 

[carlos123]

You get extra credit for missing the point entirely.

Huh? Is someone handing out forehead stars or brownie points?

Goody, goody. Can I have one too?

Carlos

PS. Just responding in the same manner as you did.

 

[Sparkey]

Maybe I misread what you said SparrowHawke but you did say that you cannot accept what Paul said about women being silent because of what he said about women being able to pray and prophecy with a head covering.

That Paul must have meant something other than silence since he said women could pray and prophesy with a head covering.

That implies that you do not accept the former because of the latter.

What I am saying is that both are true and that we should not discount one or the other because of what the other says.

Women can pray and prophecy with a head covering. Women are to remain silent in an assembly of the church.

Carlos

How can this be? They are to sing silently? Pray silently? Prophecy silently? Interpret tongues silenty? This makes no sense and I still don't buy it. There seems to be three possible ways to look at this. Paul means silent. Period. Or, by the context, he could mean they are not to be involved in judging a prophecy (even if they are prophets). Or, also by context, he means there should be no disruptive speech and if they don't understand something they are to ask at home. The later is what I consider most likely.

The whole of the later part of his epistle regards things being done in order. Paul is correcting the church he established in the areas that they are reported to have been disorderly.

 

[woodlandapple]

Please pray tell how you can determine the duration from the sole word sigao apart from the sorrounding words in which it is used and the context.

I am all ears. I'll be the first to admit that you can if indeed you can and you can show me that it can be done.

Don't just tell me that it can be done. Show me. Greek and all.



Nowhere in the Law does it say that women ought to be silent as Paul commands. Nowhere.

Tell me something...do you think it possible that the Law Paul alludes to is referring to the need of women to be submissive and not to be silent?

If that is possible...please explain to me how your contention that the Law is referring to being silent is the more correct interpretation.

I mean lay it out WoodlandApple. In detail. Go into the Greek..whatever you care to do. Give me a handle on why you think your interpretation is the correct one other than...well...that you think so. And I will go about the internet, talk to some Greek experts, what have you to see if what you say is not so.

If it is so I will come back here and humble myself and admit it is so. But if not I will counter your notion with what is true yet again.

Carlos

Im not arguing for or against a particular point when I countered you here, just saying that it can be done.

You have a thing called tenses in grammer, in english there is past present and future:

I threw
I am throwing
I will throw

Which as you correctly stated, in English you use the words around it to destinguish it. In Greek you use the word itself, as the endings change and you add suffix and prefix

e;ballsa
ballw
ballsw


Greek has a lot more tenses than English has, and the tenses in Greek not only indicates time but also aspect, aspect is what tells us whether its a process aspect or an undefined aspect.


The tenses mean different things in relation to the the different moods and voices.


I parsed sigao in the sentence in my second post I beleive. However I really wasnt talking about sigao specifically, rather just the fact that you can tell the duration etc from just the word.




The law thing, Ill explain in English.


A BASIC english sentence is structured with a subject (noun1) a verb and a object (noun2)


The dog (noun one) bite (verb) the Boy (noun two)


The sentence is structed around the verb, noun1 is the subject of the verb, noun2 is the object of the verb. For the most part any other part of a more complex sentence is just adding more information to this sentence and its main structure.


The use of commas and semicolons breaks up a complex sentence.
When two commas are used to break up a sentence like we find in this passage



They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.


It means that the first section grammatically is linked to the last, with the middle bit simply adding more information.
noun1 is 'they' verb is 'to speak' noun2 is 'the law'




They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.


you could simplify the sentence (remove the additional information) and still come up with the same meaning.



They are not allowed to speak as the Law says.




The last question we have is how submission relates to the object. It could be used as a restictive clause which norrows down the possible meaning of the subject, in this case it would mean we would need to find a place in the law where it tells us that a women must not speak and must be in submission, as it cant exclude either.

Or it could be used as an appositive clause where it describes the noun it follows which in this case is They (women), so in this case the meaning would be the women who must submit, are not allowed to speak as the law says.

Or it could be uses as an aside clause which tells us something about the noun, but does not define it.
as in: women (who must also submit) are not allowed to speak as the law says.

the 'but' in all cases is showing that Paul is indicating that not being allowed to speak is a sign of submission, nethertheless the law is still the object of the main verb.
English is complicated.

I have an assignment due tomorrow so Im not going to pick up my GNT to check (as the Greek would make it more clear) because irrespective of which clause this sentence is using to we still have the meat of the sentence
They are not allowed to speak as the Law says.


So if there isnt a place in the law that tells women not to speak, what is Paul actually saying????????

 

[carlos123]

I parsed sigao in the sentence in my second post I beleive. However I really wasnt talking about sigao specifically, rather just the fact that you can tell the duration etc from just the word.

WoodlandApple...I am confused.

You say that weren't talking about sigao specifically yet in that second post you state that you do not see how according to the Greek the word sigao...etc..

And here you state that you can tell the duration from just the word.

Yet you have not left me with anything concrete as to how you can tell, from the Greek, that sigao is of limited duration as opposed to unlimited duration from the word itself apart from the sorrounding words and context.

I need you to explain to me how exactly you derive the duration of the silence when sigao is used from the word, sigao itself.

How? Explain to me how you might do that.

From the word alone.

Outside the context in which it is used. Or the sorrounding words that it is used with.

You are just stating what your opinion is but you are not supporting that opinion with anything from your understanding of Greek that I can take to another Greek knowledgeable person to get their opinion on what you say.

All I have is that so and so on a thread said this (i.e. opinion).

I need something concrete.

As in sigao means limited with this suffix or unlimited with that prefix and so forth.

Carlos

 

[carlos123]

...The law thing, Ill explain mostly in English but the Greek gives us the same indication but in a different way.

...The last question we have is how submission relates to the object.

Thanks for the concrete explanations WoodLandApple about the Law and submission. I will ask around, investigate, and think and pray about what you said about both.

Give me a couple of days.

Carlos

 

[carlos123]

How can this be?

Ah...now that is the question.

May I venture to say that the following are possibilities.

CASE A:

- Women can pray and prophesy with a head covering (in the context of the assembly)
- Women cannot speak in the assembly (let's limit this to just pray and prophecy for now to make things more clear)

CASE B:

- Women can pray and prophesy with a head covering (no context)
- Women cannot speak in the assembly

CASE C:

- Women can pray and prophesy with a head covering (in the context of the assembly)
- Women cannot speak (disruptfully) in the assembly

CASE D:

- Women can pray and prophesy with a head covering (no context)
- Women cannot speak (disruptfully) in the assembly

Those are the only options available that I can see.

My contention is that CASE B is the correct one. Women can indeed pray and prophecy with a head covering anywhere they please other than in an assembly where they must remain silent.

Your contention, if I am not mistaken, is CASE C. That women can indeed pray and prophecy with a head covering in the assembly but that they should not do so disruptfully.

So far so good?

Carlos

 

[woodlandapple]

WoodlandApple...

I need you to explain to me how exactly you derive the duration of the silence when sigao is used from the word, sigao itself.

How? Explain to me how you might do that.

From the word alone.

the verb is in the 3rd person imperative present (which is quite rare)

it is also plural and active (I left that info out)

present = tense
imperative = mood
active = voice

σιγάω is found in the 1cor14:34 as σιγάτωσαν

My point of contention is not how sigao behaives, my point of contention is that you CAN derive aspect from a Greek word, I havnt been discussing the aspect of sigao because I dont think its a relevant argument for or against, because my contention is that sigao means keep peace rather than silence, aspect is irrelelvant.

My point in relation to these sequene of posts is that you CAN tell aspect from just the word in Greek.