QUESTIONS BY BRO. McDONALD.
ANSWER. We shall better understand this passage by giving its connections. 1 Tim. ii, 9-14. “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becometh women professing godliness,) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression.” We must regard this testimony as a sharp rebuke on those women who possess more self-esteem and haughty pride than religion or good sense, and who love to rule every body, their husbands not excepted. The apostle, to illustrate the fact that women may be deceived and mistaken quite as soon as men, refers to the facts in regard to our first parents. But the passage in question—‘I suffer not a woman to teach’—must be understood in a limited sense; for it is most assuredly the duty of mothers to teach their children. And the apostle in Titus ii, 4, makes it the duty of aged women to teach the young women to be sober, and love their husbands and children. Hence we conclude that the teaching referred to bears a strong relation to usurping authority over the man, mentioned in the same verse. ANSWER. 1 Cor. xiv, 34, 35, reads as follows: “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 any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.” We judge it to be an easier task to show what this passage does not mean, than to tell just what it does mean. We shall not attempt an exposition of the passage, but merely say at present, that if it proves that women should not speak in meetings of religious worship, the declaration, “let them ask their husbands at home,” also proves that they should not attend meetings of worship, but learn the facts in regard to such meetings, of their husbands, when they return home. But as no one can suppose that Paul would exclude women from the place of public and social worship, the rational conclusion is, that in this passage, he does not refer to religious meetings, but to those meetings of the church where the judgment and wisdom of the sisters are not especially needed, therefore they can remain at home, “and if they will learn any thing” in respect to such matters, “let them ask their husbands at home.”