Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 27:108 (Oct 1870)
Article: The Silence Of Women In The Churches — Objections Considered
Author: A. Hastings Ross

BSac 27:108 (Oct 1870) p. 740

The Silence Of Women In The Churches — Objections Considered

A. Hastings Ross

As plausible objections are sometimes urged against the view of the silence of women in the churches, given in the current volume, pp. 386-359, we beg indulgence while we repeat what may be necessary in order to give these objections a full examination, and, as we believe, a conclusive answer. We desire to know the truth; for the truth will make us free.

It is said that we may understand Paul’s rules respecting the silence of women in the churches, as given “for his times and circumstances,” and not “for all times and circumstances”; that “if he had put in the little clause, ‘for all time,’ there could be no doubt.”

This objection meets us at the threshold, and, if true, opens the pulpit to women. Did Paul impose silence upon women for all time, or only for his own time? That he laid the prohibition upon the Corinthian church only, and that for special reasons, while other churches were free from it, is excluded by the correct punctuation of the passage. Scholars are agreed that it should read: “As in all churches of the saints, let your women keep silence in the churches.” This

BSac 27:108 (Oct 1870) p. 741

renders the prohibition universal, so far as the times of the apostles are concerned, and, at the same stroke, sets aside entirely much that is said and written about the temporary nature of these commands. Disorders in the church at Corinth gave occasion, but did not constitute the reason, for the command of silence; for (1) the men, so far as the record goes, were as disorderly in their speaking as were the women. (2) While Paul meets the disorders of the men in one way, he meets the disorders of the women in quite another way; telling the men to speak “by two or by three, and by course,” but forbidding the women to speak at all in the assemblies. (3) No disorder in the church at Corinth could have been the reason why silence had been practised by women in all other churches of the saints. (4) Paul nowhere refers to these disorders as the reason for his prohibitions. Hence we conclude that these disorders in the Corinthian church were merely the occasion, but not the reason, of the commands of silence.

Looking at these commands as rules of conduct given to all the churches during the apostolic age, the question arises: Have they the marks of temporary or of perpetual rules? were they designed for the primitive ages, or for all time? la answering this question we must have regard, not so much to the occasion which gave rise to the command, as to the reasons assigned for giving it. We hold that these rules of silence are universal and perpetual: (1) They contain no limitati...