Good Order In Worship
GOOD ORDER IN WORSHIP
1 CORINTHIANS 14:34-40
All parts of divine worship should be conducted in an orderly manner.
The precise phrase “keep silence in the church(es)” in 14:34 looks back to 14:28 and provides us with a necessary exegetical clue. In the light of 11:5ff. (interpreted by 14:3), Paul cannot mean that the women church worshipers are to take no vocal part in the service; and the prohibition on “speaking” (14:34b) must be seen in context.
Some commentators give to the verb the sense of “chatter,” as though the women were becoming a nuisance by their whispered or disturbing conversation; and Paul, in the interests of good order and discipline, advises their silence with the counter-suggestion that if they have questions to ask they should reserve their conversation until they get home (14:35).
Alternatively we may interpret “speak” as a reference to speaking in tongues, and Paul’s restraint is on the Corinthian women, who (in their city life) whilst enjoying a considerable measure of freedom according to the standards of the ancient world, were taking the further unwarranted liberty of speaking in tongues. It is to this silence (ie not to exercise the gift of tongues) that they are urged in these verses, for Paul can quickly perceive the danger of public worship getting out of hand (as in 11:17ff.), and especially where the women were concerned. The same may have been true later at Ephesus in view of 1 Timothy 2:8ff., especially 1 Timothy 2:11 which uses the same term as the present passage (14:34: “submission”). See also Ephesians 5:22 which, in one manuscript tradition, has the same verb in a passage which may again have a similar situation in mind. As a small point in support of the above view is Paul’s use of the verb to speak (lalein) which is constantly employed in the phrase “to speak in a tongue,” not the alternative verb “to say something” (legein, found in 14:34: “the law says”). And a final, clinching argument is supplied by the rhetorical question of 14:36. Evidently Corinthian believers—both men and women—were claiming possession of a private revelation as though God had exclusively spoken to them. He has to remind them that apostolic truth is shared throughout the church and no claim to a “secret doctrine” (a later Gnostic speciality!) can be entertained. Let them receive this as the Lord’s command (14:37) and take his teaching to heart (14:39-40).