WOMEN IN THE CHURCHES AGAIN.
By Mrs. Amanda Bostick
LET your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. "What? came the Word of God out from you? or came it unto you only?" 1 Cor. 14 : 34-36. Why divide this paragraph of Paul's Corinthian letter? By studying the whole letter we see that much, if not all, was a reply to a letter of inquiry from the Corinthian brethren about certain points of dispute among them and of other things that were unpleasant in the social worship. For one thing, the women seemed to have transgressed the bonds of womanliness in the social worship, and the brethren made the suggestion in their letter to Paul that "the women keep silence in the churches," as a quietus to them. The Revised Version says, "Let the women," etc., the correct reading, evidently, instead of "Let your women," which puts the suggestion from Paul, while the whole of the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth verses is a quotation from the letter Paul had received from them. In reply he expressed his indignation at the suggestion of their putting the women to silence by saying: "What? came the Word of God out from you [men]? or came it unto you [men] only?" Keeping sight of the pronouns in each passage, we see that those representing the women are in the third person, and those in Paul's reply to the suggestion are in the second person and are, without doubt, addressed to the men, who wrote the letter to which Paul is replying. Otherwise we can possibly see no sense in the thirty-fourth verse whatever. Another objection to charging Paul with the authorship of the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth verses is that they are entirely inconsistent with the general teaching of the Scriptures and with church membership for women.