# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S561
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS 561

just that in v. 28, where the one endowed with the “gift of tongues,”
in the absence of an interpreter, was ordered to “keep silence in
church and speak to himself and to God.” This remark about
silence would be unnecessary were it not for the fact that some
interpreters in apparent seriousness would equate “keeping
silence” with “speaking calmly,” in total disregard of language and
the express relegation of speech on the part of woman to the
“home” (v. 35). Cp. I, E, 4.

3. “It is not permitted them to speak.” In contrast to the
“silence,” “speaking” is comprehensive. So we need not anxiously
inquire into the substance of such speaking, whether it refers to
taking over functions of the regular teaching ministry (as it does
in 1 Tim. 2:12) or participation in discussions or raising questions
either in the regular teaching procedures (services in Corinth were
quite informal compared with ours!) or in connection with dis-
cussions incident to the speaking of the “prophets” (v.29 f.).

4. The command of silence, it hardly needs to be mentioned,
does not apply to “speaking” on a particular level, namely, the
more liturgical aspects of the service as in joint prayers, hymns,
and responses. The silence clearly pertains to the teaching-
learning aspects of the regular public service.

5. Paul sees in the public speaking of woman in the church
a violation of the Order of Creation: “They are not permitted to
speak, but should be subordinate, as even the Law says.” What
Law prescribes woman’s subordination to man? The law of the
land? That, too, has been seriously proposed! Paul never, unless
it be in Rom. 7:1f. (and here, too, that is an unnecessary assump-
tion), speaks of the civil law. As regularly with the phrase “the
Law says,” or “it is written in the Law,” Paul refers to the Old
Testament as a whole or to the Pentateuch or to the Mosaic Law
in the narrower sense. In 14:21, e.g., Paul introduces a quotation
from Isaiah with the words, “It is written in the Law.” One might
paraphrase such formulas with our own conventional “as the Bible
says.” Usually, and perhaps correctly, the statement here is taken
as referring to the Lord’s word to fallen Mother Eve (Gen. 3:16):
“He [thy husband] shall rule over thee.” But since Paul in 1 Cor.
11:8, 9 has grounded the headship of man over woman in the very
nature of their origin, as he does also in 1 Tim. 2:13 (see II, E, 3),
one could legitimately find here also a reference to Genesis 1
and 2. Our Savior also argued on the basis of those-opening chap-
ters of Scripture to establish his teaching on monogamy and the
indissolubility of marriage (Matt. 19:3-9 and parallels). Luther is
Biblical when he says: “Even before the Fall, rule and government