Women should be silent during the church meetings. It is not proper for them to speak. They should be submissive, just as the law says.
Parallel translations
- WEB Let the women be quiet in the assemblies, for it has not been permitted for them to be talking except in submission, as the law also says,
- KJV 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.
- BSB Women are to be silent in the churches. They are not permitted to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.
- NKJV 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.
- NASB the women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Paul instructs that women be silent in the assemblies and remain in submission, as the law also says. This concerns proper order in the gathered church.
Overview
This instruction comes within Paul's broader call for orderly worship and is understood in various ways by faithful Christians. Many take it to address a specific disruptive practice, perhaps interrupting the weighing of prophecy, rather than a blanket prohibition, especially given that 1 Corinthians 11 envisions women praying and prophesying. Whatever its precise scope, Paul's concern is peaceable, edifying worship that honors God's order.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- 1 Tim 2:11–12Let a woman learn in quietness with full submission.
- Gen 3:16To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bear children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
- Num 30:3–13“Also when a woman vows a vow to Yahweh, and binds herself by a bond, being in her father’s house, in her youth,
- 1 Cor 14:35if they desire to learn anything. “Let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to be talking in the assembly.”
- Col 3:18Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
- Titus 2:5to be sober minded, chaste, workers at home, kind, being in subjection to their own husbands, that God’s word may not be blasphemed.
- 1 Cor 11:5But every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered dishonors her head. For it is one and the same thing as if she were shaved.
- 1 Pet 3:1–6In the same way, wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; so that, even if any don’t obey the Word, they may be won by the behavior of their wives without a word;
- Eph 5:22–24Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
- 1 Cor 11:3But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
- Eph 5:33Nevertheless each of you must also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
- 1 Cor 11:7–10For a man indeed ought not to have his head covered, because he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man.
- Esth 1:17–20For this deed of the queen will become known to all women, causing them to show contempt for their husbands, when it is reported, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, but she didn’t come.’
- 1 Cor 14:21In the law it is written, “By men of strange languages and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people. Not even thus will they hear me, says the Lord.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Christ crucified is the wisdom and power of God; he is our Passover sacrificed for us, the firstfruits of resurrection, the foundation on which everything is built.
How 1 Corinthians 14:34 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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