It is
mentioned in the Bible ( I Corinthians 14: 34,35) that the woman is not allowed
to speak publicly in the Christian Church except the prophesying moments when
she must have a covering on her head. The woman was not permitted to analyze
the prophecy. ''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 anything, let them ask their
husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.'' The apostle
Paul said,"the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the
Lord." The reason the Christians invoke the silence in the church is the
reverence before God necessary to obtain His mercy.''Unless the LORD had been
my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.''-Psalms 94:17. ''But the LORD is
in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.''-Habakkuk 2:20.
Nevertheless, the silence of the women is a limited one. It is about a ''time
to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak''-
Ecclesiastes 3:7. For sure, Pavel wanted to forbid the disruptive speech of the
women in order to make them be responsive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
''Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.''-1 Timothy 2:11.
It is
about being silent during the meeting because this is the church custom
especially when the prophets speak because they must speak to themselves and to
God. ''But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and
let him speak to himself, and to God.''-1 Corinthians 14:28.The New Testament
usage of the Greek word ''sigao'' has the meaning of, "kept secret"''
And when the voice was past, Jesus was found alone. And they kept it close and
told no man in those days any of those things which they had seen.''-Luke 9:36.
''Then all the multitude kept silence and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul,
declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by
them.''- Acts 15:12.
Paul
also used the Greek word '' laleo'' that is translated "to speak" for
the utterance of the sounds when the speaker doesn't know what he says as there
is the moment of speaking in tongues or the moment of conversation. He used the
word ''lego'' while saying something which was the product of a thought. The
public speech of the prophetess Anna is described: ''And she coming in that
instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake (laleo) of him to all
them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.''- Luke 2:38 ''Now, brethren, if
I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall
speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by
doctrine?''-1 Corinthians 14:6
The
apostle Paul wrote the letter to both men and women. He used the word “brethren”
including the women. In Philippians 4:1-3, after using the words "my
beloved brethren," he talked with two women, ''I beseech Euodias, and
beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord.'' The women that
have the benefit of the priesthood must not understand wrongly this kind of
freedom when "taking over" teachings or conversing during the
meetings. In support of this, a woman’s head covering is a sign that she has
authority on her head. (I Cor. 11:10). Paul allowed the women to pray and to
prophesy discreetly in the church in the presence of men, during some specific
moments as there is the moment of the fellowship of the Lord’s Supper meal. In
the New Testament, it is specified that, in Christ, there is “neither male nor
female” (Gal 3:28), also that the men and the women together are “heirs
together of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7), and that the women, as well as
the men, are “priests unto God and his Father” (Revelation 1:6). Although the
New Testament clearly teaches that “the head of the woman is man” (1 Cor 11:3),
it is also mentioned, in I Cor 11:12, “the woman is the man, even so, is the
man also by the woman”. The women are in between a delicate position of not
being allowed to utter so much the prophecies or the prayers and being “priests
unto God.”
The
prophecy is revealed directly by the Spirit of God while teaching is the result
of learning, but the teacher is guided by the Spirit of God. When the teacher
is a woman, she is advised to avoid the frontier between prophesying and
teaching. If the teacher seems to be wrong about something important and no man
thinks to correct the mistake during the teaching, with all due respect, the
woman has the possibility to talk with her husband, with her brother, or with
her father, this way helping the teacher to rectify the error. God is
omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. God created the first Adam in His own
image while embodying His dual characteristics, of masculinity and femininity.
Then, He created Adam and Eve in order to perfect His love. Adam is God's
image, knowing everything, but having limits. The violation of the forbidden
tree together with the God's law was a way to break the limits. Why would they
break the limit in a wonderful Eden where God used to be present? It is not
about the knowledge of good and bad, but it is about the knowledge of evil.
God's purpose for Adam and Eve was to get rid of the influence of the devil.
God did not want Adam and Eve to encounter this kind of knowledge because Satan
had already had a rowdy behavior while being anarchist and insurgent. Satan
tried to tempt Eve. The knowledge of evil brought fear to Adam and Eve (Genesis
3:10). This kind of fear broke their limits in a wrong way. The knowledge of
evil brought the knowledge of sin. Eve became the devil's gateway and it was
very hard to correct this problem.
It is
also mentioned in the Bible,''Let married women be silent in the Churches''.
The children are present with their mothers during the meetings. While having
to keep a constant eye on their little children, the mothers are less inclined
to public speech. The church discipline is not practiced only for some
theological issues regarding the essential doctrine of the Christian faith but
also for some intentional moral infringements. The women are frustrated when
they consider this attitude of the church being an infringement upon their
religious freedom while thinking that the Christian brothers and sisters have
the same right to live by their convictions. '' But why dost thou judge thy brother?
Or why dost thou set at naught thy brother? For we shall all stand before the
judgment seat of Christ.'' (Romans 14:5-10).
Regarding
the problem of the talking women, The Bible underlines in Habakkuk 2:20, “But
the Lord is in His holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.” and
''For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the
ignorance of foolish men''.(1 Peter 2:15) The Greek words and grammar used in
the context of 1 Corinthians 14:38 indicate that Paul allowed the women to
prophesy or to pray publicly in the Church, but he forbade them from talking in
a disruptive manner while being careful to understand the commands our Lord has
given regarding the exercise of their spiritual gifts. ''The wives should keep
quiet in the churches, for they are not allowed to be talking; but they are
commanded to be under obedience, as the law also says.'' The question of
whether or not women are prohibited from preaching and teaching has a clergy
answer. The women are prohibited by some passages like 1 Corinthians 14:34,35
and 1 Timothy 2:11,12. However, those people who ordain women into official
ministry preaching positions have an egalitarian view. Paul even goes on to
argue that he does not permit a woman to have authority over a man. In a
Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible having notes written by Dr. Spiros Zodhiates, Dr.
Zodhiates specified: ''Under no
circumstances does the injunction of Paul in 1 Cor. 14:34 indicate that women
should not utter a word at any time during the church service…Furthermore, the
word gunaikes (1135 in v. 34) should not be translated “women” in its generic
sense, but as “wives.” It is wives who should submit (hupotassomai, 5293) to
their own husbands (andras, 435, v. 35). The whole argument is not the subjection
of women to men in general, but of wives, to their own husbands in the family
unit as ordained by God.'' In Ephesians
5:22, there is an admonition, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the
Lord.” The same Greek word is translated as “wives” in Ephesians 5:22, but as
“women” in 1 Corinthians 14:34,35. Dr. Zodhiates made this interesting point: ''Observe 1 Tim. 2:11. It does not say women
but a woman, and better still, a wife. The word in Greek is gune (1135), which
indicates either a woman generically speaking or a wife, depending on the
context. In this instance, since it stands in apposition to the word andros
(the genitive singular of aner here meaning only “husband” and not “man”
generically, 435), it must be translated as “a wife.” The conclusions come from
the translations.
John
Calvin had a complementarian, historic point of view regarding these passages.
In his commentary on 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35, he wrote: ''Hence he forbids them
to speak in public, either for the purpose of teaching or of prophesying…Paul’s
reasoning, however, is simple – that authority to teach is not suitable to the
station that a woman occupies, because, if she teaches, she presides over all
the men, while it becomes her to be under subjection.'' She cannot preside over
her husband, who is also the member of the church. John Calvin also wrote,
“…for a necessity may occur of such a nature as to require that a woman should
speak in public, but Paul has merely in view what is becoming in a duly
regulated assembly.” Calvin explains that the women are not taken from the
charge of instructing their family, but they are not allowed in the office of
teaching.''But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the
man, but to be in silence.''-1 Timothy 2:12 Calvin specifies that there are
women in the Bible to lead and to instruct in public, such as Deborah in Judges
4:4, but this is only an exception to the rule. As we move into the 1990s,
modern commentators like Craig S. Keener wrote in The IVP Bible Background
Commentary about the necessity ''to provide more historical and immediate
context'' to the prohibition views, this kind of prohibition being induced by a
lack of educational training the women had to endure in the ancient world. It
was a method to stop these women to spread their errors (2 Tim. 3:6). Keener
remarked that the situation “might be different after the women had been
instructed.” Then, Keener asserted that the women’s subordination in pastoral
roles is caused by the order of creation. (1 Cor. 11:7-12). Dr. Thomas R.
Schreiner remarked that, in 1 Timothy 2:9-15, the women are prohibited from
''functioning as teaching pastors'', but apostle Pavel didn't say that the
women are not allowed to be “teaching pastors'' and women like Aquila and
Pricilla in Acts 18:26 'did indeed teach and have authority over or with men'. Writing
about Martin Luther in a footnote, Gordon P. Hugenberger wrote about the
'modern women’s liberation ideology' '' due to a modern twisting of Scripture
against the historic view.'' Charles R. Erdman underlined that the 'married
women are not to exercise the gift of prophecy in public or to “take the place
of” their husbands in the prophetic “office.” Paul also suggested in II Tim.
3:14 and Titus 2:3 that the women may be helpful as teachers, ''particularly in
guiding the young.'' He asked the women to avoid interrupting the worship and
to accept to be accredited teachers in the Christian Church. The true
subordination of women to men is in the family, not in the State or the Church.
In 'Women in Ministry make', L.E. Maxwell and Ruth C. Dearing focused on the
disciplinary nature of the prohibition and the conditional nature of keeping
silent commands. They wrote'' that this passage does not prohibit women from
teaching or preaching, but instead enjoins order in a form of discipline by the
apostle.''
The
injunction to “silence” occurs three times in 1 Corinthians 14—twice to men and
once to women. Paul said, “let him keep silence in the church” (v. 28).'' Why
do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced
cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to
silence, and given us water of gall to drink because we have sinned against the
LORD. ''(Jeremiah 8:14) George and Dora Winston, in their book Recovering
Biblical Ministry by Women: An Exegetical Response to Traditionalism and
Feminism, wrote that in 1 Corinthians 14:34,35 and 1 Timothy 2:11,12 the
prohibitions against women are not absolute, the conclusion being that “the married
women [or wives] are to keep silent in the churches.” In 1 Timothy 2:11,12
Paul’s talked about those ''uneducated women who were being tricked by false
teachers.''
Today,
the women that are not literate represent nearly 11,33% of the world’s adult
population. The uneducated woman fights for her girls' education. In some zones
of the world like sub-Saharan countries or West Asia, about 11-13 million
children leave school before completing their primary education. Many children
have never expected to enter the school or to attended the school. Also, many
children are expected to attend the school in the future. Many times, the
parents make efforts to complete the education of their little girls. The
girls’ education is both an intrinsic right and a critical lever to reaching
other development objectives.The educated women can break the cycle of poverty
because they can avoid an early marriage, especially if it is done against
their will. Thus, they have a chance to survive while giving birth to babies.
Their newborns are healthy. These children have a chance to go to school. This
new, educated generation can influence the generations to come. These
adolescent girls are less vulnerable to lethal diseases like AIDS and the
information provided can lead to an increased earning power.
On
the contrary, the lack of education decreases the family income, affects their
health, and the girls are at risk of trafficking and exploitation. This
situation causes a low economic level in the countries they live. The children
living in a rural environment are twice as likely to become uneducated adults
than the urban children. The barriers around gender disparities and
discrimination remain in place, more at the secondary school level and among
the marginalized children than at other levels. The barriers to girls’
education consist of supply-side constraints, school fees, cultural norms
favoring boys’ education, inadequate sanitation facilities in schools,
violence, exploitation, and corporal punishment. Additionally, the schools lack
adequate numbers of female teachers. These barriers can become nearly
insuperable for those young girls that must face economic and social
requirements like household obligations and child labor. Thus, their education
is interrupted to end in a child marriage that frequently is based on violence
that, sometimes, leads to female genital mutilation. Almost one-third of these
girls living in the developing world are married before the age of 18 and give
birth before the age of 20. In some countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan,
the decision to close the girls’ schools has been the cause of the
gender-motivated attacks on schools.
In
Senegal, the women represent a small percentage of those working in
decision-making positions. The journalism and radio station management programs
can enable these women to engage the community in important dialogues. The
educational right has been an international goal for decades. There are
governments, educators, and communities to address these educational issues and
to correct the mismatch between education and skills, so necessary for today’s
workforce. At the U.N. Millennium Summit in 2000, the world leaders thought to
close the gender gap in the secondary and high education. This gap has
diminished since 1990. Governments and communities have started to break down
some barriers. For example, the Zarghuna Girls School in Kabul, Afghanistan is
supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
In
Latin America, Europe, East Asia, and United States, girls’ enrollments in
secondary and higher education have surpassed those of their male peers, but
the girls were still deprived regarding the education in science and
technology. Many goals in women’s education could be reached due to the
elimination of the school fees, due to the scholarships, and due to the
training of the women teachers. The result was a high girls’ school enrollments
in countries as Bangladesh, Yemen, Morocco, Uganda, and Brazil. Mexico started
to pay the families to keep their children in school. On 8-th of March, the
International Women’s Day, the women celebrate the social, economic, and
political achievements while advocating for their rights. They gained important
rights like voting. There are only a few countries that do not allow women to
vote including Brune, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and the Vatican City.
In some other countries like Rwanda, even the women have 56 percent of seats in
Parliament, they face important inequities in health care because they lack
adequate resources to pay for care, or because the legal systems still fail to
protect them. For these reasons, more than 50 percent of people now living with
HIV or AIDS globally are women.
The
World Health Organization shows that 99 percent of the maternal deaths happen
in developing countries. A method to reduce the maternal mortality is to pay
community health workers. Some organizations engender the economic opportunity
to help women feed their families and keep their children in school. The health
is a human right for all the people, but twenty-two years after the countries
signed the pledges in the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action (1995),
the women still face many health problems. Too many young women still struggle
to protect themselves against sexually transmitted infections like HIV, human
papillomavirus (HPV), gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis while needing to get
the treatment. HIV makes them vulnerable to tuberculosis that leads to death in
low-income countries. Untreated syphilis is responsible for many stillbirths,
early fetal deaths, and for the deaths of the newborns.
The
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW), (adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly) defines discrimination
against women as "...any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the
basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the
recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital
status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and
fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any
other field." To end the discrimination against women, this Convention
means to undertake a series of measures like a legal system for equality of men
and women, the abolish of the discriminatory laws and the adoption of those
laws prohibiting discrimination against women. This Convention sets out the
basis by which people can make a reality this equality between women and men
through an equal access to the political and public life. ''It affirms women's
rights to acquire, change or retain their nationality and the nationality of
their children. States parties also agree to take appropriate measures against
all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of women.'' There are countries
that have ratified or acceded to the Convention like Morocco, Mexico, India,
and Cameroon. Morocco gave women equality and protection of their human rights
within marriage and divorce. India has outlawed the sexual harassment in the workplace.
Mexico toughened its laws on violence against women. In Brazil, the women under
the age of 25 earn a higher average hourly wage than their male counterparts. ''When
it comes to female education rates, progress has been made around the world,
and in many countries, girls and young women have outnumbered and outperformed
boys and men at all levels of schooling for decades. Nevertheless, these
advances have yet to translate into greater equity in employment, politics and
social relations.''-Mario Osava, Women More Educated, Not More Equal, Inter
Press Service, March 1, 2010
In
some patriarchal societies, religion and tradition can be used as a barrier for
equal rights. Inter Press Service reported that, in Bangladesh, the women equal
rights are hidden behind the laws. In Pakistan, the honor killings directed at
the women are caused, sometimes, by the slightest reasons. There are a number
of countries that have not signed or ratified the Convention, including the
U.S, Iran, Qatar, Cook Islands, Nauru, Palau, Tonga, Somalia, and Sudan. The
women are underpaid when they perform low-status jobs, compared to men. ''Women
not only earn less than men but also tend to own fewer assets. Smaller salaries
and less control over household income constrain their ability to accumulate
capital. Gender biases in property and inheritance laws and in other channels
of acquiring assets also leave women and children at greater risk of poverty.
''UNICEF, State of the World’s Children, 2007, p.36. The women presented in the
talk show analyzed the causes of the gender divide such as skewed perceptions
and unconscious biases and influenced other women to follow suit.
The
women, being the main caregivers in society, are less aggressive than the men
and can counter-balance a male-dominated world which is characterized by
aggression. But sometimes, the feminine aggressivity is needed for this
counter-balance. ''In May 2004, the Occupation/Coalition forces in Iraq were
shown around the world to be committing torture and other grotesque acts on
Iraqi captives. For feminists and others, what was also shocking was that some
of these acts were being perpetrated by women in the U.S. Military.''-Richard
H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon,
1999), p.354 ''There seemed to be at least some evidence that male sexual
sadism was connected to our species' tragic propensity for violence. That was
before we had seen female sexual sadism in action. ''- Barbara Ehrenreich. The
explanation of this kind of female aggressivity is that the women struggle to
have rights to do what the men do.
Established
in the Netherlands in 1983, Mama Cash is an international women’s fund that
supports the international initiatives that are guided by the principle that
any social change must start with women. This is why the women can be a subject
to physical and sexual violence – either by a partner or someone else. The
health workers can help prevent the violence and provide support to people who
experience it. The violence leads to anxiety, depression, and suicide.
In
2012, almost 4.7 million of women died as a result of the harmful use of
tobacco, abuse of alcohol, drugs, and other substances. The cause is a
combination of the poverty with the old age. We can avoid this by helping the
young girls have a good start in life. WHO and its partners have a new strategy
for the women’s health. For a good start, women need to become leaders. The
best women leaders see the world through a lens of opportunity, become
knowledge seekers, have the ability to influence positive outcomes with maximum
impact, understand the survival, are not afraid to fight for what they believe.
They believe in what they stand for, know how to play the game when they have
to, and can anticipate the unexpected. Unfortunately, there are not too many
women leaders in this world. ''In the business world, women currently hold only
4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEO positions. ''- The Most Undervalued Leadership
Traits Of Women, Glenn Llopis. The women leaders are good listeners while
creating ecosystems and participating in a team environment. The OECD countries
are a prove that ''a critical mass of women in senior public posts can bring
attention to issues such as poverty alleviation for families, human
development, gender-based violence, and the delivery of public services''
(OECD., 2014b).
In
2012, it was considered that almost half of the women who were the victims of
homicide in the whole world, were murdered by their sexual partners or other
kin. The laws on domestic violence, the laws on sexual harassment and the laws
on marital rape are more or less compliant with the international standards and
recommendations than they must be. Many countries around the world do not have
specific laws against domestic violence. Kenya doesn't outlaw the domestic
abuse. Saudi Arabia that is known for its restrictions on women’s rights,
started to outlaw the domestic abuse in 2013. Liesl Gerntholtz, Executive
Director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch said that ''while
ordinary criminal law does outlaw violence, and therefore domestic abuse should
be treated as a crime, the issue has historically been ignored by governments
and underreported by women. “
REFERENCES
The
Bible
Spiros
Zodhiates, The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible: King James Version, the New
Testament: Zodhiates' Original and Complete System of Bible Study (Chattanooga,
TN: AMG Publishers, 1985), 1408.
Matthew
Henry, Matthew Henry's Commentary On the Whole Bible, ed. Leslie Church (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1961), 1822.
Andreas
J. Köstenberger, Thomas R. Schreiner, and H. Scott Baldwin, eds., Women in the
Church: A Fresh Analysis of I Timothy 2:9-15 (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1995),
127.
Gordon P. Hugenberger, “Women in Church Office
: Hermeneutics or Exegesis? A Survey of Approaches to 1 Tim 2:8-15,” Journal of
the Evangelical Theological Society 35, no. 3 (September 1992): 351.
Hugenberger quotes Luther’s Works: Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 7, 1
Corinthians 15, Lectures on 1 Timothy (ed. H.C. Oswald; St. Louis: Concordia,
1973) 28.276.
Charles Rosenbury Erdman, Commentaries on the
New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1928), 7:134.
Linda
L. Belleville, et al. Two Views on Women in Ministry (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
2005), 76-7.
Geoffrey
William Bromiley, et. al, “Women in Church Leadership,” in The International
Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol four: Q-Z (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1979).
E.
Maxwell and Ruth C. Dearing, Women in Ministry (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books,
1987), 86-7.
George
Murray Winston and Dora Winston, Recovering Biblical Ministry by Women: An
Exegetical Response to Traditionalism and Feminism (Longwood, Fl.: Xulon Press,
2003), 392.
Women
and Education By Lori S. Ashford, GLOBAL WOMEN΄S ISSUES
Women
Still Face Big Gaps in Access to Health Care, Partners In Health-UNICEF, State
of the World’s Children, 2007, p.36
Richard
H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon,
1999), p.354
What
Did the Apostle Paul Mean By, “Let your women keep silence in the churches”?
2003 Marshall E. "Rusty" Entrekin
Ten
top issues for women's health, Dr. Flavia Bustreo, Assistant Director-General
for Family, Women’s and Children’s Health through the Life-course, World Health
Organization
The
Most Undervalued Leadership Traits Of Women, Glenn Llopis
Conference
on improving women’s access to leadership, 8 MARCH 2016 OECD, PARIS
Eight
Leadership Lessons From The World's Most Powerful Women
Facts
and figures: Ending violence against women
20
Countries That Don’t Outlaw Domestic Violence, Charlotte Alfred, Associate
World Editor, The Huffington Post
Invest
and mobilize to end violence against women- Un Women
Why
Wouldn't God Want Adam and Eve to Have Knowledge of Good and Evil? by Rich Deem
MARIETA MAGLAS
0 Comments
