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“Ask Emily” — April 2008

All responses in the "Ask Emily” column are based on spiritual principles, the Holy Scripture, prayer, the Holy Spirit, and principles of worship and are not intended to provide professional counseling or psychotherapy.

Welcome to "Ask Emily" a monthly column dealing with tough issues that teens and young women face. Girls can be assured of a column that will be biblically sound and helpful. "Ask Emily" is written by Emily Stone, an ordained minister in the Church of God with a seminary degree and a graduate degree in marriage, family, and child counseling. Click here to meet Emily!

Dear Emily,

Last month you answered a question about women being the “weaker vessel.”  Two other scriptures that I hear thrown out a lot are about women being submissive to their husbands and that women should be quiet in the church.  Where are these in the Bible?  Are girls supposed to let boys do all of the talking?  I think this is really weird.  If this is true, no wonder people don’t want to go to church!

Sincerely,

Jade

Dear Jade,

What wonderful scriptures you have brought to my attention!  God loves His daughters so much!  There are many verses in the Bible that speak specifically about our identity as women.  You can find a lot of books out there on the subject.  It is an important topic and one that is incredibly personal.  You were born a girl!  Nothing can change that fact.  Your identity as a female impacts your entire personhood.  When individuals throw out misinformed opinions about our own self, it can hurt and be confusing!  I regret that you have had this experience, but I know the joy and reality of Romans 8:28:  “And we know that God works all things together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”  What a wonderful, exciting, and powerful truth!  What Satan uses to destroy us, God can use to strengthen us!  That has been my experience and I pray and trust it will be yours as well.  Now, let’s talk about these supposed “daggers” that you hear being thrown around carelessly!  Let’s clear up some of the confusion or else someone is going to get hurt!

First let’s be clear about the scripture and make sure we are quoting it accurately.  Ephesians 5:21-33 states:

“. . . and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.  Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.  But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.  Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.  So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body.  For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.  This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.  Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.”

Here’s what I want you to notice from this passage:

• Whew!  A whole lot more is there than just “wives submit to your husbands!”
• The passage starts by telling the reader that we should be “subject to one another!”  Men are not free from the call to submission!  As Christians we should all have a submissive heart towards one another.  Romans 12:10 states:  “Be devoted to one another in brotherly (or sisterly) love; give preference to one another in honor.”
• The husband is the head of the wife.  It does not say that all men are over women.  Neither does it say that men are the head of the household.  Men are the head of the wife.  He is her source and covering.  He is her provider.   Together they care and manage their home and children.
• This passage has as much to do with the church and Christ as it does with husbands and wives. 
• Husbands are called to love their wives as Jesus loves the church.  How did Jesus love the church?  Hello!?!  He died for it!  Philippians 2:8 tells us that Jesus “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  Now that is a picture of submission and obedience! 
• The greatest picture of submission is the picture of Jesus on the cross.  Out of that greatest example of submission came the greatest power there ever was:  power over sin.  Paul calls the relationship between man and woman a “mystery.”  Truly, this mystery looks different from one couple to the next.  However, out of this mystery of submission, love, and respect comes great power.  Now that is cool!  Only God can come up with such a cool irony:  out of apparent weakness (or submission) comes power and strength!

So, does the Bible tell women to be submissive to their husbands?  Yes.  It also says a whole lot more.  There is a quote that goes like this:  “It is twice as hard to squash a half-truth as it is a whole lie.”  The reason for this is that a half-truth does hold some truth to it!  It is just missing a piece of the big picture.  So, again, YES the Bible does tell wives to respect their husbands and to be submissive to them and, again, it says a whole lot more! 

Let’s look at the next verse you mentioned.  You are talking about 1 Corinthians 14:34:  

“The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says” (New American Standard Bible).

The first question for me is why does Paul (the author of this letter) tell women to be quiet here when just a couple of chapters earlier he specifically references women prophecying (see 11:5)?  Paul also references women serving as leaders in the church in his other New Testament letters (see Romans 16:3, 6, 7, 12, 15; Philippians 4:2-3; Philemon 2).  To top it off, in 1 Corinthians 1:11 Paul says that he heard about this church’s troubles from the people in Chloe’s house church.  Paul, in this very letter, references both women prophecying and a woman who is the leader of a house fellowship.  I do not think it is possible for a woman to lead and to prophecy while remaining quiet.

So what does Paul mean when he directly says that women are to “keep silent?”  After contending with this passage for years, I have no certain answer.  I do have some ideas.  Here are two:

• Have you ever known a group of women who ran their mouths too much?  Perhaps, they gossiped and their gossip hurt relationships.  Perhaps their talk tore at the established leadership.  I dare say that we have all known women (and men!) who have talked a little too much.  Paul’s letter was written to a specific church in a city called Corinth.  It could be that there was a group of women who were causing problems by saying too much.  This particular group needed to be told to “be silent.”  Paul’s message serves as a good reminder to all of us.  We need to know when to be silent and listen.  There is plenty of scripture to support the value of keeping our mouths shut.

• Back in Paul’s day, the men and women were often separated during worship services.  The men sat in the front and the women sat in the back.  Sometimes the women even sat upstairs above the men.  The women may have had a difficult time hearing what was said and, so, asked their husbands to tell them what they could not hear up in the balcony.  Can you imagine the disruption to the service this would have been?  Can you imagine people from the balcony yelling down constantly throughout the service:  “What was that?  What did you say?”  It would, indeed, be better to stay quiet and ask at home about the parts you missed for lack of hearing.

The Bible is to be “rightly divided” (2 Timothy 2:15).  To rightly divide the Bible means to study the scripture and to know what it says in context of the entire Bible.  It is dangerous to pick out one scripture and to apply what you assume to be its meaning without testing it against the messages said elsewhere.  It takes more time and energy to “rightly divide the Word of Truth,” but unless we do so, we are likely to carry a twisted, oppressive word to the world rather than a word filled with the message of the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

There is a story in the gospels about Peter cutting a soldiers ear off in order to defend Jesus (see Matthew 26:51).  Jesus reprimands Peter and then heals the soldier’s ear.  What can we learn about this story?

• Jesus does not need us to defend Him.
• Jesus does not want us to use our sword, which is the Word of God (Hebrews 4:12) to cut off the ear of others.
• If we cut off a person’s ear with our sword, which is the Word of God, the person will not be able to hear God’s message at all.

Do not allow another person to cut off your ear so that you cannot hear God’s message of Christ’s truth and freedom to you.  Likewise, do not be one who cuts off the ear of another.

With the Love of Christ,

Emily

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