John Mark Hicks

1 Corinthians 14:34-35 commands silence for women in the assemblies of the saints. Is that absolute, qualified, circumstantial, quoting opponents, an interpolation? Its meaning and application are contested, and in the history of that discussion, both in the American Restoration Movement (e.g., Guy N. Woods, B. B. James) and in other traditions of Church history (for centuries women were not permitted to sing in the sacred gatherings and excluded from choirs), some have taken the plain and clear meaning of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 to include the exclusion of women from singing in the assembly.

Issac Marlow, an English Baptist, published a tract in 1690, and, in part, stated: “The Women ought neither to teach nor pray vocally in the Church of Christ, is generally believed by all Orthodox Christians, and is asserted from 1 Cor. 14.34, 35. . . and 1 Timothy 2, 11, 12. . .I therefore greatly marvel that any Man should assert and admit of such a Practice as Women’s Singing; and that any Women should presume to sing vocally in the Church of Christ, when he positively and plainly forbids them in his Word: for Singing is Teaching, Coloss. 3.16. and Speaking, Ephes. 5.19, both of which are plainly forbidden to Women in the Church.”

Marlow’s question is this: if silence means women cannot speak, and singing is a form of speaking, then why do most [Protestant] congregations encourage women to sing when they are discouraged from other forms of speaking based on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35?

Marlow is cited by Beth Allison Barr, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth, pp. 120-1, an excellent book about the history of patriarchy or complementarianism.

From within the Restoration Movement (Stone-Campbell Movement,” David Lipscomb, “Paul’s Words and ‘Woman’s Opportunity,’ Gospel Advocate 34.42 (October 20, 1892) 661, wrote: “As to the claim that woman is not silent in church when she is singing, we grant it, and if Paul had enjoined unqualified silence upon woman in the church, it would be wrong for her to sing; but this he has not done. The prohibition is restricted to speaking–‘it s not permitted unto them to speak.'”

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