1 Timothy 2:11-14; 1 Corinthians 14:34-36
Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
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. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): The root trouble, even among good Evangelicals, is our failure to heed the plain teaching of Scripture. We accept what Scripture teaches as far as doctrine is concerned; but when it comes to practice, we very often fail to take the Scriptures as our only guide. When we come to the practical side we employ human tests instead of scriptural ones. Instead of taking the plain teaching of the Bible, we argue with it. “Ah, yes,” we say, “since the Scriptures were written, times have changed.” Dare I give an obvious illustration? Take the question of women preaching, and being ordained to public ministry.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Scripture is very plain as to the place of the woman. The spirit and teaching of the New Testament are against any such practise.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: The apostle Paul, in writing to Timothy, prohibits it directly. He says quite specifically that he does not allow a woman to teach or preach. “Ah, yes,” we say, as we read that letter, “he was only thinking of his own age and time; but you know times have changed since then, and we must not be bound. Paul was thinking of certain semi-civilized people in Corinth and places like that.” But the Scripture does not say that. It says, “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”
JOHN KNOX (1514-1572): And why, I pray you? Was it because that the apostle thought no woman to have any knowledge? No, he gives another reason, saying, Let her be subject, as the law saith.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Paul’s reasoning is simple—that authority to teach is not suitable to the station that a woman occupies, because, if she teaches, she presides over all the men, while it becomes her to be under subjection.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: “Ah, but that is only temporary legislation,” they say. But Paul does not say that it was only for the time being; he takes it right back to the Fall and shows that it is an abiding principle. It is something that is true, therefore, of the age in which we live. But thus, you see, we argue with Scripture. Instead of taking its plain teaching, we say that times have changed—when it suits our thesis we say it is no longer relevant.
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): Some have objected that Paul was an old bachelor and did not like women, but we need to remember that he was the inspired servant of God and wrote as directed by the Holy Spirit.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): How often we have heard different ones claim that the Spirit moved them to perform such an act, as for example, a woman to preach, which is forbidden. The Spirit quickens and empowers—but He never prompts to anything contrary to Scripture.
C. H. MACKINTOSH: It will perhaps be said in reply, that God uses the preaching and praying of women, for the blessing of souls. Well, what does this prove? The rightness of female preaching? No; but the sovereign goodness of God—God is sovereign, and may work where and by whom He pleases; we are servants and must do what He tells us…To reason from results may lead us into the grossest error. It ought to be sufficient, for every one who bows to the authority of Scripture, to know that the Holy Ghost strictly commands the woman to keep silent in a public assembly. And truly we may say, ‘Doth not even nature itself teach’ the moral unfitness of a woman’s appearing in a pulpit or on a platform? Unquestionably.
JOHN CALVIN: If any one bring forward, by way of objection, Deborah and others of the same class, of whom we read that they were at one time appointed by the command of God to govern the people, the answer is easy. Extraordinary acts done by God do not overturn the ordinary rules of government, by which He intended that we should be bound.
C. H. MACKINTOSH: In the history of Israel, it was always a proof of the nation’s low condition when the female was thrown into prominence. It was Barak’s backwardness that threw Deborah forward, Judges 4:6-9. According to the normal divine idea, the man is the head. This is seen, in perfection, in Christ and the Church. Here is the true model on which our thoughts are to be formed.
A. W. PINK: The Lord Jesus Christ has not committed His Gospel into the hands of women. There were none among the twelve, nor among the seventy whom He chose and sent forth. The preaching of the Gospel is a man’s job.
C. H. MACKINTOSH: There are many and varied ways in which women can “labour in the gospel” without the unseemliness of public preaching.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Paul’s preaching is very plain upon the subject of female preaching. He does not allow a woman to preach; but this by no means bars her from bearing testimony in her own way—and here she can do God’s work quite as effectually as if she occupied the pulpit! A woman was the founder of the Church in Samaria, which was afterwards multiplied by Christ’s teaching, John 4:28-30…The first person baptized in Europe was a woman, Acts 16:14,15; therefore let none of our Sisters in Christ exempt themselves from bearing witness for Jesus Christ! Neither let them think that their witness is unimportant.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): They may teach in private, in their own houses and families; Timothy, no doubt, received much advantage, from the private teachings and instructions of his mother Eunice, and grandmother Lois; but then women are not to teach in the church; for that is an act of power and authority.
A. W. PINK: The part allotted to the sisters—and an important part it is—is to hold up the hands of their ministering brethren by prayer and supplication.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): I do not think it necessary to swell our pages by a comment on what is so plain as to need none.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Note that Paul doesn’t rebuke the women, but he rebukes the men for their weakness in allowing women to preach and teach in their church services, saying, “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.” Therefore, all who argue in favour of this unscriptural practice of women preaching, spiritually cut these “commandments of the Lord” out of the New Testament. But first they had better read Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:19.
C. H. MACKINTOSH: We do not, of course, expect that persons who are bent on carrying out their own thoughts; whose will has never been broken—who reason instead of submitting to the authority of Scripture, and who say, “I think,” instead of seeing what God thinks—we do not expect that any such will approve or appreciate what we have advanced.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): “If any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.” Note: It is just with God to leave all those who willfully shut out the light, to the blindness of their own minds.
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): When women keep their places, and men manage their worshipping of God as they should, we shall have better days for the church of God in the world.
