1 Corinthians 14:34-35, Gals, you gotta be quiet in here!

For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. [Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.] Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. But if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant.

//I apologize for the length of today’s passage, but it really needs to be quoted in full. See the section enclosed in brackets? Verses 34 and 35? Textual scholars are all but certain that this passage was not written by Paul’s own hand but was added later. Read the passage again, omitting the bracketed section. Now it reads seamlessly.

These two verses, inserted in to an authentic Pauline letter, radically contradict Paul’s stance about women in the church. Isn’t it Paul who wrote “there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female?” In fact, Paul established many female leaders in his churches: Junia, Phoebe, Prisca, Tryphaena and Tryphosa.

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