As to women speaking in any way in the assembly, scripture is clear—it is not to be. 1 Cor. 14:34-35 cannot be misunderstood by those who only desire to do the Lord's will. The whole chapter gives the fullest liberty to the saints when gathered together, the only rule being that all must be done to edifying, which I need not say calls for the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit, without Whom nothing can be to profit, or to the Lord's glory. Then we get the exception: “let your women keep silence in the assemblies: for it is not permitted unto them to speak,” &c. Substantially the same thing is found in 1 Tim. 2. Verse 8 says that “the men (for the definite article should be there) are to pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.” Then the women's word comes: “In like manner also that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel,” &c., followed by “Let the women 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.” I doubt not these words refer to the assembly, as 1 Cor. 14, for the great object of the first Epistle to Timothy is to show how one ought to behave (for so the verse should read, it not being merely, personal direction for Timothy as the A. V. would infer) in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. There are two reasons assigned why women should not lead: (1) the place God gave her at her first creation; (2) her part in the fall. (1) God formed Adam first, then Eve, and as 1 Cor. 11:33But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. (1 Corinthians 11:3), puts it “the head of the woman is the man,” never vice versa. God having given her the second place, it becomes her never to seek the first. (2) “Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” Satan introduced sin by means of the weaker vessel (Adam's case being worse rather than better or excusable, for, not being deceived, he sinned with eyes open): God therefore sets her aside from leadership.
A further reason for her subjection or silence seems to be given in 1 Cor. 14:3636What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? (1 Corinthians 14:36). “What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you?” Now, weigh this word well and see what it involves. The word of God comes to the church (the woman), not out from it, as Romanists would teach us; the Christian woman is to learn and act upon the great principle, and learn from the man, and not assume to be the man's teacher.
It is noticeable that scripture nowhere forbids a woman to preach; but it is easily accounted for. An Eastern woman (and we must remember that the Bible was first placed in the hands of Easterns) had too secluded a place given to her to permit her ever dreaming of such a thing. But in the assembly of God, where all present are members of one body and saints of God, she might suppose a measure of freedom; hence the injunctions we have been considering.
But this is scarcely the point that is exercising some souls at the present moment; to it I now come. Is it permissible for sisters to take part at a Prayer meeting or a Bible reading? I admit freely that such meetings are not meetings of the assembly as such, unless specially so called at any time from the Lord's table; but may sisters take a part? My conviction is that, being a meeting with the doers opened to the public generally, it is out of order. I know no scripture which sanctions a woman acting in public. Though such gatherings are not strictly of the assembly, I feel the principles apply; and in a day such as the present, when women in the world and to some extent in the church are changing entirely in their deportment (even in their attire), those who through God's mercy, stand for God's order in the assembly, at no small cost in many cases to themselves, should of all men stand firm in such a matter as this. Surely Christian sisters wish to do the will of the Lord, and net to follow the spirit of the age, though it is the easiest thing possible to get infected by it.
The instructions of 1 Cor. 11 I take to be of a different character. There, beyond dispute, women are allowed to pray and prophesy, provided they 'they do it with covered head, “because of the angels.” Now this is clearly not in the public assembly, for the same Epistle, as we have seen, expressly forbids it (and no reverent reader of scripture believes that scripture contradicts itself); it must therefore be in meetings of a private nature. In the early days more than now, saints often got together in an informal way, in private houses and elsewhere, for prayer and edification. TO such gatherings, not meetings of the assembly as such, and not of a public character, I conceive the exhortations of 1 Cor. 11 to apply. This' was resisted, I may remark, by some lately.
I trust I have written clearly and given the mind of Lord as revealed. I believe so, but if in any wise there be error, I shall be thankful to be corrected, by whomsoever the Lord may choose.
W. W. F.