We talked about 1 Corinthians 14 in cell group a few weeks ago, and as we looked at the passage in the context of cell church the injunction in 1 Cor. 14:34-35 seemed jarring. Paul, the great proclaimer of women's ministry suddenly telling them to be quiet? If we take seriously our belief that cell groups are the basic unit of the church, can we believe that women aren't allowed to speak in cell groups?

1 Cor. 14 “women keep silent”

In Direction Journal (Vol. 42, No. 1) Marshall Janzen writes, “Orderly Participation or Silenced Women? Clashing Views on Decent Worship in 1 Corinthians 14.” In this article Marshall summarizes nearly thirty years of discussion on a fresh approach to this problem text.

The “problem” is this: in 1 Cor. 11 Paul explicitly affirms the participation of women in public worship, noting that they should have a covered head when they pray or prophesy. This passage raises its own set of questions, but when we come to 1 Cor. 14 suddenly women are to be silent. What’s up?

Essentially the argument is this. 1 Corinthians is a letter responding to a letter and specific concerns from Corinth. Wouldn’t it be natural for Paul to quote from the letter he received, and then respond to certain points? However, quotation marks did not exist in Greek usage at the time. Instead, if a writer wanted to quote he would change the size of his handwriting, or offset the quote, or use a different ink. But when these documents were later copied, how would the difference be preserved?

Read the rest of the article here