Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Sheet 550
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Sheet 550

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN THE CHURCH 519

in the apostle’s day the head covering symbolized wom-
an’s subordination to man in the order of creation. By
“prophesying” bareheaded such wonfen, endowed with
this special gift, seemed to imply that they were no
longer bound to this functional relationship. In so doing
they failed to take full cognizance of the fact that God
their Redeemer was also their Creator, who had chosen
to structure existence along certain lines.

Life in the church is not designed to destroy such
institutions as government and marriage, for example.
Both of these belong to what we call the orders of crea-
tion or preservation. They are so constituted as to re-
quire the exercise of authority on the part of some per-
sons or person invested with the right to do so. In gov-
ernment, people who hold political office are expected
to function with authority. In matrimony it is the hus-
band that has the responsibility of decision as a way
of preserving an orderly way of life.

We have put the matter in this way in order to sug-
gest that the apostle did not intend to say that women
are in some sense inferior to men in terms of nature or
being. The quality of “subordination” flows from an
act of faith in God as the Creator of certain basic rela-
tionships which keep life and society from degenerating
into anarchy. The apostle Paul was determined that,
by some misapprehension and misapplication of their
oneness in Christ, his fellow Christians in Corinth might
destroy these very structures.

In 1 Cor. 11:2-16, the passage presently under dis-
cussion. Paul was not addressing himself to anything
like a voters’ meeting. The closest he seems to come
to that matter is in a previous section, where he deals
with a case of incest in the Christian community. In
that connection (1 Cor. 5:4b-5) he says:

When you are assembled, and my spirit is present, with

the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man

to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit
may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (RSV)

Paul does not suggest any specific procedure to be
followed in the handling of this problem. He writes in
such a way as to indicate that the question of how this
was to be done was not an issue. We may assume there-
fore that the congregation in Corinth followed a method
known to its members, probably from their past experi-
ence and contacts in the synagog. There the duly
elected or appointed officials usually took care of such
disciplinary problems. If that is how the congregation
proceeded to act, then this evil person was removed
from the congregation by action of its male leadership.
Women enjoyed neither the right nor the responsibility
of sharing in the decision-making processes of the syna-
gog organization. This practice of excluding them was
carried over into the early church; and so women
would have found no occasion, under these circum-
stances, to flaunt their freedom and upset the hierarchy
of functions established at creation and especially right
after the Fall (Gen. 3:16).

The next major passage to receive consideration in
the report of 1956 is 1 Cor. 14:33b-38. It reads as fol-
lows:

As in all the churches of the saints, the women should
keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted
to speak but should be subordinate, as even the Law says.
If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask
their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman
to speak in church. What! Did the Word of God originate
with you, or are you the only ones it has reached? If
anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, he should
acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command
of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not
recognized. (RSV)

This passage certainly calls for silence on the part
of women in the church. The context clearly indicates
that the word “church” (ekklesia) is to be understood
here in the sense of a congregation at worship.

A distinction is made between the prophetesses of
chapter 11 and women who are present at worship as
ordinary members of a congregation (cf. Jean Hering,
The First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. Lon-
don, 1962, p.154). While the former may speak, if
properly attired, the latter are to remain silent. The
context indicates that Paul was addressing his remarks
to married women of the congregation. To suggest, on
this basis, that unmarried women could speak in a pub-
lic service would seem to be an unwarranted conclusion.

It has been suggested that the apostle used the verb
lalein here to signify idle chatter. While the word at
times had this meaning in classical Greek, it is not so
used in the New Testament. In the present instance
it refers to speaking in an assembly of Christians gath-
ered for worship. The context suggests that, during
such worship, questions arose with respect to the reve-
lations given by the Spirit and proclaimed in the con-
gregation. Paul here insists that it is a disgrace for
a woman to do this kind of talking, since it would be
disruptive. He commands silence in this instance for
the same reason that he orders the first man who re-
ceives a revelation to be quiet when a second person
has such an experience and wants to talk (v. 30).

The apostle’s chief interest lay in avoiding disorder
in the public worship service. He insisted that an order
of service exhibit the will of that God who created order
out of chaos and is eager to have His children pursue
the art of peace (v.33) and not engage in disruption.

Since verse 36 makes it clear that the apostle is here
dealing with a phenomenon as it had manifested itself
in Corinth, we may assume that he had been informed
by visitors from that city (1 Cor. 1:11) of certain ex-
cesses which tended to create disorders in that congre-
gation. He argues from a principle set forth “in the
Law,” as he puts it (v.34). He must certainly have had
Genesis 3:16 in mind, where woman is described, after
the Fall, as being subject to her husband.

In other words the apostle has come back to the
point that the subordination of a wife to her husband
is part of the order of preservation. This basic arrange-
ment was being disturbed by women wanting to talk
in a public service, presumably as part of a discussion
devoted to further inquiry as to what various revela-
tions in the service meant. Wives were asked to inquire
of their husbands at home if they were anxious to learn
more of what they had heard in the service.