Saturday, October 26, 2013

Are Women allowed To Speak in Church?

It is well established that Mohammed married Aisha when she was 6 and it was consummated when she was 9.  He was 54 at the time.

In response you will tend to hear verses about how women are mistreated in the Bible like this one:

As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be submissive, as the law also says. 35 And if they want to learn something, they should ask their own husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church meeting. 36 Did the word of God originate from you, or did it come to you only?
(1 Cor 14 33b-36)

However if you look at verse 33a (and before that) you will see the context is about order in the church:

33 since God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
(1 Cor 14:33a)

It is believed that in the Corinthian church, the women and men would sit separately and the women would sometimes talk to their husbands rather than waiting until they were home (v.35).  The Corinthian church had many problems, this probably being the least of them.

This church was in such a state that in his second epistle Paul is still concerned with order:

20 For I fear that perhaps when I come I will not find you to be what I want, and I may not be found by you to be what you want; there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder.

(2 Cor 12:20)

I should also point out that there are many female ministers in Christianity, and that the Foursquare denomination was started by a woman (Aimee Semple Mcpherson).

Fundamentally Paul does not see women as spiritually as better or worse than men:

 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
--Galatians 3:28

Possibly the highest compliment that was ever paid to anyone by Jesus was paid to a woman:

Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.

--Matthew 26:13

The first people to tell about the resurrection of Jesus were women:

Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre;
And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.
--Luke 24:22-23

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