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[Bob Pickle]

Inasmuch as this article was printed in the very same year that the WO resolution was proposed by a three-man committee at the 1881 GC Session, it should be of particular interest. It is important to note what it says early on about Deborah and Miriam, and what it says toward the end about the proper spheres of men and women under # 14.

MAY WOMEN PUBLICLY LABOR IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST?

BY N. J. BOWERS.

SOME think not, because Paul says, "Let your women keep silence in the churches;" and, "It is a shame for women to speak in the church." 1 Cor. 14:34, 35. Standing alone, and severed from their connections and other related scriptures, these statements seem to justify such conclusion; but we must not forget to bring into the investigation what the author of the language has elsewhere said directly or indirectly touching the matter of Christian teaching and Christian labor, and also what the Bible elsewhere instructs us in regard to the question.

1. In the past ages of inspired history, women have had important parts to act in spiritual matters. Miriam, sister of Moses, was a prophetess, about 1500 B. C. (Ex. 15:20, 21.) See Micah 6:3, 4, where we learn that this woman held an equal position with Moses and Aaron as leader of Israel.

2. Deborah, about B. C. 1300 (Judges 4:4-10), was a prophetess. She taught the people by divine wisdom. She was a judge in Israel. The people "came up to her for judgment." No man ever occupied a higher position. In chap. 5 :7 she calls herself "a mother in Israel."

3. Ruth, about B. C. 1312, and Esther, about B. C. 518, acted such important parts as servants of God that the record of their lives forms a part of the Sacred Canon, and each separate record bears the name of the actor.

4. Huldah, in the time of Josiah, B. C. 624, was a prophetess in Israel. Hilkiah and others went and "communed with her." 2 Kings 22 :14-20.

5. Anna, a prophetess, at the first advent of Christ, coming into the temple on one occasion, "gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of Him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem." Luke 2:36-38. Here we have an instance of public teaching by a woman.

6. The great prophecy of Joel, as quoted and applied by Peter, has its fulfillment in the gospel dispensation. (Joel 2:28-32; Acts 2:16-21.) "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy," says verse 17. "Daughters" as well as "sons" are to prophesy. Paul tells us that "he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort." 1 Cor. 14:3. Then the Christian woman has the divine right to speak to men in an edifying and comforting manner. Does any one suppose the apostle would give directions contrary to, and in direct conflict with, the exalted privileges and offices conferred by this prophecy on the "daughters" and the "handmaidens"?

7. "Philip the evangelist" had four daughters which did prophesy." (Acts 21:8, 9.) This was twenty-seven years after Peter's discourse at Pentecost. Paul and his company found four "daughters" up at Caesarea, on the Mediterranean coast, fifty miles north-west of Jerusalem, who were exercising the gift of Christian teaching, and we do not read of his rebuking them for using it. This was A. D. 60, one year after he told the women of Corinth to keep quiet.

8. Paul, in Rom. 16, A. D. 60, mentions Phebe, as "a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea" (verses 1, 2; she was a deaconess (original) according to Andrews); Priscilla, a helper in Christ Jesus" (verse 3); "Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labor in the Lord" (verse 12); "the beloved Persis, which labored much in the Lord."—Id. All women. We read further of Priscilla, in Acts 18:26, that she with her husband expounded to the "eloquent" and "mighty" (verse 24) Apollo's "the way of God more perfectly." Here we have a learned teacher instructed in the things of God more fully by a woman. This was in A. D. 55. This devout servant had been thus helping in the gospel for five years. She was one of the apostle's faithful "helpers."

9. Paul speaks of certain Christian women as those "which labored with me in the gospel;" and as "fellow-laborers whose names are in the book of life." He ranks them with brother Clement. (Phil. 4 :3.) These were hardly silent in the churches.

10. In 1 Cor. 11:4, the apostle is giving directions how the men should appear while praying and prophesying in the church or congregation. (Verse 18.) In verse 5 he tells how the women should appear while doing the same. Here praying and prophesying belong to the women no less than to the men. In chap. 14:3, he tells us that to prophesy is to speak "to edification, and exhortation, and comfort." Then the woman hail the right, as we said, to edify, exhort, and comfort, the same as the man.

11. Paul in 1 Cor. 14: 23, 24 speaks of "the whole church "coming together, and all speaking with tongues, and all prophesying. Did the whole church consist of men only, or of men and women? Surely of both. Then the women spoke and exhorted as well as the men. The apostle never found fault with this.

12. But what does Paul mean by saying, "Let your women keep silence in the churches"? From the facts noted above, we may know to a certainty what he does not mean. He does not mean that women should take no part in the public services of the Lord's house. That would conflict with his own direction in 1 Cor. 11; 5. He told the brethren to covet (desire) the best gifts (chap. 12:31), and to covet the gift of prophecy. (Chap. 14:39.) Women along with the men prophesied, as we have seen. (1 Cor. 11 :4, 5.) And this means to publicly edify, as we have also shown. The apostle further says, "I would that ye all spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied." (Chap. 14:5.) "Ye all;" "all the church;" the whole church." Verse 23. Then Paul desired that the entire church should speak and admonish, sisters and all. "He does not mean to forbid any kind of public exercise by which edification, exhortation, and comfort is given to the church." Paul must not be arrayed against Paul, nor must his direction be so understood as to shut off from individual exercise, or out of the church, the gift of prophecy in the majority of believers. So the language in question can have no reference to the public exercises of prayer, testimony, exhortation, and expounding of the word, on the part of women.

13. "Paul is correcting wrongs and irregularities that existed in the Corinthian church." There were times in which it was out of order for the men, even, to speak. (1 Cor. 14:27, 28.) Then there were occasions on which they were to "keep silence in the church," on which the man was to "speak to himself, and to God." This was of course not general. So in the case of the sisters. Both prohibitions had a special application only. That disorders were injuring and imperiling the church at Corinth, is evident. (See 1 Corinthians, chapters 1, 5, 6, and 11.) Now it appears from the fourteenth chapter that when they were assembled in meeting, the women threw everything into confusion by talking among themselves, and acting with such indecorum as to be a matter of shame to them; so that what the apostle says to the women in such a church as this, and in such a state of things, is not to be taken as directions to all Christian women in other churches and in other times when and where such disorders do not exist."—Andrews.

14. It was not permitted women to speak, because "they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law." "This shows that the kind of speaking Paul does not permit is that which shows that the speaker is not under obedience." The Bible shows that woman occupies in one sense a subordinate position to man. She has a sphere, and she cannot with propriety go out of it. She cannot go beyond the circle which nature and propriety have drawn about her. Neither can man go out of his, and invade hers. (1 Cor. 11:8; 1 Tim. 2:13, 14.) Leadership and authority are man's. (Gen. 3:16.) Though woman's place is subordinate, it is not degrading. Every action on the part of the woman which takes her beyond her station, out of the circle which is exclusively hers, and carries her over into the place assigned to the man alone, is disorderly, and not to be allowed. And so says Paul (1 Tim. 2:12), "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." The apostle may have reference to this in 1 Cor. 14:34.

"Let them ask their husbands at home." Verse 35. On this point, Dr. Clarke says: "It is evident from the context that the apostle refers here to asking questions, and what we call dictating in the assemblies. It was permitted to any man to ask questions, to object, altercate, attempt to refute, etc., in the synagogue; but this liberty was not allowed to any woman. St. Paul confirms this in reference also to the Christian church; he orders them to keep silence; and if they wished to learn anything, let them inquire of their husbands at home, because it was perfectly indecorous for women to be contending with men in public assemblies, on points of doctrine, cases of conscience, etc. But this by no means intimated that when a woman received any particular influence from God to enable her to teach, she was not to obey that influence; on the contrary, she was to obey it; and the apostle lays down directions in chap. 11 for regulating her personal appearance when thus employed. All that the apostle opposes here is their questioning, finding fault, disputing, etc., in the Christian church, as the Jewish men were permitted to do in their synagogues, together with their attempts to usurp any authority over the man, by setting up their judgment in opposition to them; for the apostle has in view, especially, acts of disobedience, arrogance, etc., of which no woman would he guilty who was under the influence of the Spirit of God."

He further says on the words, "it is a shame for women to speak in the church," "The apostle refers to irregular conduct, such conduct as proved that they were not under obedience." That some such irregularity as this was what the apostle was combating at Corinth, is evident. It was a local trouble. Then there is nothing in Paul's prohibition in 1 Cor. 14:34, 35, that would silence the public testimony and teaching of a humble and faithful woman.

[Artiste]

I see in this article that there was no question at that time as to the place of women--and women certainly didn't have the rights and privileges (misused or not) in society that they do today.