| Geneva Study Bible {15} 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. (15) Women are commanded to be silent in public assemblies, and they are commanded to ask of their husbands at home. People's New Testament 14:34,35 Let your woman keep silence in the churches. This, in view of other portions of the Scriptures, is confessedly a difficult passage. We have the same teaching in 1Ti 2:11,12. On the other hand, Deborah was a judge and a prophetess (Jud 4:4); Huldah was a prophetess (1Ki 22:14); Joel predicted that in the Christian dispensation the sons and 'daughters' should prophesy (Joe 2:28), and Peter declared that this was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost (Ac 2:4). In addition, the daughters of Philip prophesied (Ac 21:9), and Paul gives directions concerning women prophesying in 1Co 11:5. Probably these apparent discrepancies may be reconciled as follows: (1) Paul's prohibition of speaking to the women is in the churches; that is, in the church assemblies when the whole church is come together into one place (1Co 14:23). It is an official meeting of the church. Church in the New Testament always means the ecclesia. It does not apply to such informal meetings as the social or prayer-meetings, but to formal gatherings of the whole body. (2) It may be that even this prohibition was due to the circumstances that existed in Ephesus, where Timothy was, and in Corinth, and would not apply everywhere. If so, it applies wherever similar circumstances exist, but not elsewhere. Both were Greek churches. Among the Greeks public women were disreputable. For a woman to speak in public would cause the remark that she was shameless. Virtuous women were secluded. Hence it would be a shame for women to speak in the church assembly. It is noteworthy that there is no hint of such a prohibition to any churches except Grecian. Wherever it would be shameful, women ought not to speak. Wesley's Notes 14:34 Let your women be silent in the churches - Unless they are under an extraordinary impulse of the Spirit. For, in other cases, it is not permitted them to speak - By way of teaching in public assemblies. But to be in subjection - To the man whose proper office it is to lead and to instruct the congregation. Gen 3:16. Scofield Reference Notes Margin obedience Cf. Gen 3:16. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 34. (1Ti 2:11, 12). For women to speak in public would be an act of independence, as if they were not subject to their husbands (compare 1Co 11:3; Eph 5:22; Tit 2:5; 1Pe 3:1). For "under obedience," translate, "in subjection" or "submission," as the Greek is translated (Eph 5:21, 22, 24). the law-a term applied to the whole Old Testament; here, Ge 3:16. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 14:34-40 When the apostle exhorts Christian women to seek information on religious subjects from their husbands at home, it shows that believing families ought to assemble for promoting spiritual knowledge. The Spirit of Christ can never contradict itself; and if their revelations are against those of the apostle, they do not come from the same Spirit. The way to keep peace, truth, and order in the church, is to seek that which is good for it, to bear with that which is not hurtful to its welfare, and to keep up good behaviour, order, and decency. | 
