Now that we have some understanding of what much of the Bible tells us about women’s roles in ministry, we are better able to interpret the ‘problem passages” in Paul’s writings. Let us first consider his words about women keeping silent in the churches:

Let the women keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but let them subject themselves, just as the Law also says. And if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church (1 Cor. 14:34-35).

First, some question, for several combined reasons, if these are Paul’s instructions or his quotation of what the Corinthians had written to him. First, it is clear that in the second half of his letter, Paul was responding to questions the Corinthians had asked him in a letter (see 1 Cor. 7:1, 25; 8:1; 12:1; 16:1, 12).

Second, in the very next verse, Paul writes what could be considered his reaction to the Corinthians’ blanket policy of silencing women in the churches:

Was it from you that the word of God first went forth? Or has it come to you only? (1 Cor. 14:36).

The King James Version translates this verse in such a way that makes Paul sound even more amazed at the attitude of the Corinthians:

What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? (1 Cor. 14:36).

In either case, Paul is obviously asking two rhetorical questions. The answer to both is No. The Corinthians were not originators of God’s word, nor was God’s word only given just to them. Paul’s questions are obvious rebukes aimed at their pride. If they are his reaction to the two verses that immediately precede them, they seem to say, ‘Who do you think you are? Since when do you make the decrees regarding who God can use to speak His word? God can use women if He desires, and you are foolish to silence them.”

This interpretation seems logical when we take into consideration that Paul had already, in the same letter, written about the proper way for women to prophesy in the churches (see 1 Cor. 11:5), something that requires them to not be silent. Moreover, just a few verses after those under consideration, Paul exhorts all the Corinthians^[1], women included, to ‘desire earnestly to prophesy” (1 Cor. 14:39). Thus he would seem quite contradictory to himself if he was indeed laying down a blanket command for women to keep silent in church gatherings in 14:34-35.

^[1] Paul’s exhortation is addressed to the ‘brethren,” a term that he uses 27 times in this letter, and which clearly refers to the entire body of Christians in Corinth, not just the men.

But let us assume for a moment that the words in 1 Cor. 14:34-35 are Paul’s original words, and that he is instructing women to keep silent. How then should we interpret what he says?

Again, we would have to wonder why Paul was making a blanket command for women to keep completely quiet in church gatherings when he said in the same letter that they can pray and prophesy in church gatherings.

Moreover, surely Paul was aware of the many biblical instances we’ve already considered of God using women to speak His word publicly, even to men. Why would he completely silence those whom God has often anointed to speak?

Surely common sense dictates that Paul could not have meant for women to be completely silent whenever the church gathered. Keep in mind that the early church gathered in homes and shared common meals. Are we to think that the women said absolutely nothing from the time they entered the house to the time they left? That they didn’t speak while they prepared or ate the common meal? That they said nothing to their children the entire time? Such a thought seems absurd.

If where ‘two or three are gathered” in Jesus’ name He is among them (see Matt. 18:20), thus certainly constituting a church gathering, when two women come together in Jesus’ name, must they not speak to one another?

No, if 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is indeed Paul’s instruction, he was simply addressing a small problem of order in the churches. Some women were out of order in some way in regard to asking questions. Paul did not mean for women to be completely silent for the entire meeting any more than he, when giving similar instructions a few verses earlier to prophets, intended for them to remain silent for the entire meeting:

But if a revelation is made to another [prophet] who is seated, let the first keep silent (1 Cor. 14:30; emphasis added).

In this case, the words ‘keep silent” mean ‘temporarily refrain from speaking.”

Paul also instructed those who spoke in tongues to remain silent if there was no interpreter in the gathering:

But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in the church; and let him speak to himself and to God (1 Cor. 14:28; emphasis added).

Was Paul instructing such people to be completely silent during the entire meeting? No, he was only telling them to be silent in respect to their speaking in tongues when there was no interpreter. Note that Paul told them to ‘keep silent in the church,” the same instruction he gave to women in 1 Cor. 14:34-35. So why should we interpret Paul’s words to women to keep silent in the church to mean ‘keep silent for the entire meeting,” and then interpret his words to out-of-order tongue-talkers to mean ‘refrain from speaking during specific moments in the meeting”?

Finally, note that Paul was not addressing all women in the passage under consideration. His words have application only to married women, because they are instructed to ‘ask their own husbands at home” if they have questions.^[1] Perhaps part or all of the problem was that married women were asking questions of other men besides their own husbands. Such a scenario could certainly be considered inappropriate, and could reveal some degree of disrespect and lack of submission to their own husbands. If that was the problem Paul was addressing, that could be why he bases his argument on the fact that women should be submissive (obviously to their husbands), as the Law revealed in many ways from the earliest pages of Genesis (see 1 Cor. 14:34).

In summary, if Paul is indeed giving instruction regarding women keeping silent in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, he is only telling married women to keep quiet in regard to asking questions at inappropriate times or in a way that was disrespectful to their husbands. Otherwise, they may prophesy, pray and speak.

^[1] It should be noted that, in the original Greek, there were no different words for women and wife, or man and husband. Thus we must determine from context if the writer is speaking of men and women, or husbands and wives. In the passage under consideration, Paul is speaking to wives, as only they could ask their husbands anything at home.

God’s intended order for the family should certainly be demonstrated by the church. As I stated earlier, it is important to keep in mind that for the first three hundred years of church history, church congregations were small. They met in houses. The pastor/elder/overseers were like fathers of households. This God-ordained church structure so closely resembled the family, and in fact was a spiritual family, that female headship over it would have sent the wrong message to families inside and outside the church. Imagine a female pastor/elder/overseer regularly teaching in a house church, and her husband obediently sitting there, listening to her teaching and submitting to her authority. That would go against God’s order in the family, and the wrong example would be set.

This is what Paul’s words address. Note that they are found in the very close context of his requirements for elders (see 1 Tim. 3:1-7), one of which is that a person be a male. It should also be noted that elders are supposed to regularly teach in the church (see 1 Tim. 5:17). Paul’s words regarding women quietly receiving instruction and not being allowed to teach or exercise authority over men are obviously related to the proper order in the church. What he describes as being improper is a woman, in part or whole, fulfilling the role of an elder/pastor/overseer.

This is not to say that a women/wife could not, under the submission of her husband, pray, prophesy, receive a brief teaching to share with the body, or speak in general during a church gathering. All of these she could do in the church without violating God’s divine order, just as she could do all those things at home without violating God’s order. What she was forbidden to do in church was nothing more or less than what she was forbidden to do at home—exercise authority over her husband.

We also note from later verses that women could serve in the office of deacon just as well as men (see 1 Tim. 3:12). Serving in a church as a deacon, or servant as the word actually means, requires no violation of God’s divine order between husbands and wives.

This is the only way to harmonize Paul’s words in 1 Tim. 2:11-14 with what the rest of Scripture teaches. In every other scriptural instance we’ve considered of God using women, none serve as models of the family as does the church, and thus none violate the God-ordained order. In none do we find an improper model of wives exercising authority over their husbands in a family setting. Again, picture a small gathering of several families in a house and a wife being in charge, teaching, and overseeing while her husband passively sits and submits to her leadership. This is not what God desires, as it goes against His order for the family.

Yet for Deborah to be a judge in Israel, for Anna to tell men about Christ, for Mary and her friends to tell the apostles about Christ’s resurrection, none of these send a wrong message or in any way improperly model God’s order in the family unit. The regular church gathering is a unique setting where danger exists for the wrong message to be sent if women/wives exercise authority and regularly teach men/husbands.

As we begin, let us consider what Scripture reveals about women from its very first pages. Women, just like men, are created in God’s image:

And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (Gen. 1:27).

We know, of course, that God created Adam before He created Eve, and this is indeed a spiritually significant fact according to Paul (see 1 Tim. 2:3). We will later consider the significance of this order of creation as it is explained by Paul, but suffice it to say for now that it does not prove men’s superiority over women, as we know that God created animals before human beings (see Gen. 1:24-28), and no one would argue that animals are superior to people.^[1]

The woman was created to be her husband’s helper (see Gen. 2:18). This again does not prove her inferiority, but only reveals her role in marriage. The Holy Spirit is given as our helper, but He is certainly not inferior to us. Rather, the Holy Spirit is superior to us! And it could be well said that God’s creation of the woman to be her husband’s helper proves that men needed help! It was God who said that is wasn’t good for the man to be alone (see Gen. 2:18). That truth has been proven countless times in history when men have been left without wives to help them.

Finally, we note from the very first pages of Genesis that the first woman was formed from the flesh of the first man. She was taken from him, pointing to the fact that he is missing something without her and that the two were originally one. Additionally, what God separated was intended by Him to become one again through sexual union, a means not only of procreation, but of expressing love and enjoying mutual pleasure upon which both are dependent upon the other.

Everything about these lessons from creation stands against the idea of one sex being superior to the other, or one having the right to dominate the other. And just because God has designed different roles for women in marriage or ministry has nothing to do with their equality with men in Christ, in whom ‘there is neither male nor female” (Gal. 3:28).

^[1] It should also be noted that every man since Adam has been created by God after God created the women who gave him birth. Every man since Adam has come from a woman, as Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 11:11-12. Surely no one would argue that this divine order proves that men are inferior to their mothers.

If we just ask our selves, ‘What could be fundamentally wrong with women functioning in ministry, serving others from a heart of compassion and using their God-given gifts? What moral or ethical principle might that violate?” Then we shortly realize that the only possible violation of principle would be if a woman’s ministry somehow violated God’s order for the relationships between men and woman, husbands and wives. In both of the ‘problem passages” under consideration, Paul appeals to the divine order in marriage as the basis of his concern.

Thus we realize that women are only restricted in ministry in a very small sense. In so many other ways, God wants to use women for His glory, and He has been doing that for thousands of years. Scripture speaks of many positive contributions that women have made to God’s kingdom, some of which we have already considered. Let us not forget that some of Jesus’ closest friends were women (see John 11:5), and that women supported His ministry financially (see Luke 8:1-3), something that is not said of any men. The woman at the well of Samaria shared Christ with the men of her village, and many believed in Him (see John 4:28-30, 39). A female disciple named Tabitha is said to have been ‘abounding with deeds of kindness and charity which she continually did” (Acts 9:36). It was a woman who anointed Jesus for burial, and He commended her for it when certain men complained (see Mark 14:3-9). Finally, the Bible records that it was women who wept for Jesus as He carried His cross through the streets of Jerusalem, something not said of any men. These examples and many like them should encourage women to rise up and fulfill their God-ordained ministries. We need them all!

Another woman whom God raised up as a leader in Israel was Deborah, who lived during the times of Israel’s judges. She, too, was a prophetess, and was just as much a judge over Israel as were Gideon, Jeptha and Samson during their lives. We are informed that ‘the sons of Israel came up to her for judgment” (Judg. 4:5). So she rendered decisions for men, not just women. There can be no mistaking this: A woman told men what to do, and God anointed her to do it.

Like most women whom God calls into leadership, Deborah apparently faced at least one man who had difficulty receiving God’s word through a female vessel. His name was Barak, and because he was skeptical about Deborah’s prophetic instructions for him to go to war against Canaanite general Sisera, she informed him that the honor of killing Sisera would go to a woman. She was right, and a woman named Jael is remembered in Scripture as the lady who drove a tent peg through sleeping Sisera’s head (see Judg. 4). The story ends with Barak singing a duet with Deborah! Some of the lyrics are full of praises for both Deborah and Jael (see Judg. 5), and so perhaps Barak became a believer in ‘women’s ministry” after all.

A third woman who is mentioned in the Old Testament as being a well-respected prophetess is Huldah. God used her to give reliable prophetic insight and instruction to a man, the troubled king of Judah, Josiah (see 2 Kin. 22). Again we see an example of God using a woman to instruct a man. Most likely, Huldah was used by God in such a ministry with some degree of regularity, otherwise Josiah would not have had such faith in what she said to him.

But why did God call Miriam, Deborah and Huldah as prophetesses? Couldn’t He have called men instead?

Certainly God could have called men to do exactly what those three women did. But He didn’t. And no one knows why. What we should learn from this is that we had better be careful about putting God in a box when it comes to whom He calls to ministry. Although God normally chose men for leadership tasks in the Old Testament, sometime He chose women.

Finally, it should be noted that all three preeminent examples of female ministers in the Old Testament were prophetesses. There are some Old Testament ministries to which no women were called. For example, there are no women who were called to be priests. Thus God might reserve some ministry offices exclusively for men.

Every person who has truly believed in the Lord Jesus has experienced a work of the Holy Spirit in his life. His inward person, or spirit, has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit (see Tit. 3:5), and the Holy Spirit now lives within him (see Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 6:19). He has been “born of the Spirit” (John 3:5).

Not understanding this, many Charismatic and Pentecostal Christians have made the error of telling certain believers that they did not posses the Holy Spirit unless they had been baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoken in tongues. But this error is obvious from Scripture and from experience. Many non-Charismatic/Pentecostal believers have much more evidence of the indwelling Spirit than some Charismatic/Pentecostal believers! They manifest the fruits of the Spirit listed by Paul in Galatians 5:22-23 to a much greater degree, something that would be impossible apart from have the indwelling Holy Spirit!

Just because a person has been born of the Spirit, however, does not guarantee that he has also been baptized in the Holy Spirit. According to the Bible, being born of the Holy Spirit and being baptized in the Holy Spirit are normally two distinct experiences.

As we begin to explore this subject, let us first consider what Jesus once said about the Holy Spirit to an unsaved woman at a well in Samaria:

If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, “Give Me a drink,” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water….Everyone who drinks of this water [from the well] will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life (John 4:10, 13-14).

It seems reasonable to conclude that the indwelling living water of which Jesus spoke represents the Holy Spirit who indwells those who believe. Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus again used the same phrase, “living water,” and there is no doubt that He was speaking about the Holy Spirit:

Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.'” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:37-39; emphasis added).

In this instance Jesus did not speak of living water becoming “a well of water springing up to eternal life.” Rather, this time the living water becomes rivers that flow from the recipient’s innermost being.

These two similar passages from John’s Gospel beautifully illustrate the difference between being born of the Spirit and being baptized in the Holy Spirit. Being born of the Spirit is primarily for the benefit of the one who is born again, that he might enjoy eternal life. When one is born again by the Spirit, he has a reservoir of Spirit within him that gives him eternal life.

Being baptized in the Holy Spirit, however, is primarily for the benefit of others, as it equips believers to minister to other people by the power of the Spirit. “Rivers of living water” will flow from their innermost beings, bringing God’s blessings to others by the power of the Spirit.

How desperately we need the help of the Holy Spirit to minister to others! Without His help, we can never hope to make disciples of all nations. That is, in fact, the very reason Jesus promised to baptize believers in the Holy Spirit—so the world would hear the gospel. He said to His disciples:

Behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49, emphasis added).

Luke also records Jesus as saying:

It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth (Acts 1:7-8, emphasis added).

Jesus told His disciples not even to leave Jerusalem until they were “clothed with power from on high.” He knew they would be essentially powerless otherwise, sure to fail at the task He had given them. We note that once they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, however, God began to use them supernaturally to spread the gospel.

Many millions of Christians around the world, after being baptized in the Holy Spirit, have experienced a new dimension of power, particularly when witnessing to the unsaved. They found that their words were more convicting, and that they sometimes quoted scriptures they didn’t realize they knew. Some found themselves called and specifically gifted for a certain ministry, such as evangelism. Others discovered that God used them as He willed in various supernatural gifts of the Spirit. Their experience is thoroughly biblical. Those who oppose their experience have no biblical basis for their opposition. They are, in fact, fighting against God.

According to Paul, when a believer prays in tongues, it is not his mind praying but rather, his spirit:

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also (1 Cor. 14:14-15).

Paul said that when he prayed in a tongue, his mind was unfruitful. That means his mind had no part in it, and he did not understand what he was praying in tongues. So, rather than praying all the time in tongues without understanding what he was saying, Paul also spent time praying with his mind in his own language. He spent time singing in tongues as well as singing in his own language. There is a place for both kinds of praying and singing, and we would be wise to follow Paul’s balanced example.

Notice also that, for Paul, speaking in tongues was just as much subject to his own will as was speaking in his known language. He said, “I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also.” Critics often claim that if modern tongues speaking was truly a gift from the Spirit, one would not be able to have control over it, lest he be guilty of controlling God. But such an idea is unfounded. Modern and ancient tongues speaking is under the control of the individual as God planned it would be. Critics might as well say that people who have hands that are truly made by God have no control over their hands, and that people who make conscious decisions to use their hands are attempting to control God.

Once you have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, you can easily prove to yourself that your utterance in tongues is coming from your spirit rather than your mind. First, try to carry on a conversation with someone at the same time as you read this book. You’ll find that you can’t do both at the same time. You will discover, however, that you can continually speak in tongues as you continually read this book. The reason is because you aren’t using your mind to speak in tongues—that utterance comes from your spirit. So as you use your spirit to pray, you can use your mind to read and understand.