Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.
1 Corinthians 14:34
Introduction
Any verse that mentions women, submission, and silence in the same sentence is going to create a mountain of controversy in modern Western culture. This past Sunday, I preached on these verses and suggested that Paul’s concern is to maintain order in the church. Specifically, I argued that Paul’s concern is to silence women who were talking while someone else “had the floor,” so to speak. Just as we wouldn’t want women (or men) talking during a pastor’s prayer or sermon today, Paul didn’t want women speaking out of turn during the Corinthian Christian gatherings.
One part of the text I didn’t get to talk about much was Paul’s comments about “submission.” Assuming the above view is correct, how do Paul’s comments about submission fit into that bigger picture?
That’s the question I want to answer with this blog post.
Greek, English, and More Greek
Whenever we want to study a passage of Scripture in depth, we should acknowledge that it wasn’t originally written in English. With respect to 1 Corinthians, it was originally written in a language we refer to as Koine Greek.
The Greek word which is translated as “submit” by the NIV in 1 Corinthians 14:34 is ὑποτάσσω. This word is often correctly translated as “submit” in various places in the New Testament. For example, the same word appears just a few sentences earlier in 1 Corinthians 14:32 when Paul says, “The spirits of prophets are subject to the control [ὑποτάσσω] of prophets.” We’ll come back to this later.
As important as individual words are, that’s not what is most important for our discussion here. Rather, what is most important is the way the Greek language works.
First, Koine Greek is an inflected language.[1] This means that the spellings of words change depending on a variety of syntactical factors. And this is especially true with verbs. As a result, Greek verbs tell us a lot of information. The way the verb is inflected tells us the tense, the voice, the mood, the person, and the number of the verb.
In the case ὑποτάσσω in 1 Corinthians 14:34, the actual form of the verb is ὑποτασσέσθωσαν. This tells us that the verb is in the present tense and the imperative mood. It also tells us that the subject of the verb has to be in the third person, and it has to be plural.
Now, if you don’t know what any of that really means, then that’s okay. The main thing I need to explain here is what it means for the verb to tell us the “voice”. I will begin with a few examples in English.
In English, there are two voices: active and passive. If a verb is active, it means that the subject of the verb is doing the action. So, in the sentence, “Bill kicked the ball,” Bill is the person doing the kicking. The verb “kicked” is in the active voice.
English also has a passive voice. Consider the sentence, “The ball was kicked by Bill.” In this sentence, the subject of the verb is “the ball”. But, the ball isn’t doing the kicking. Rather, “the ball” is receiving the action. It is being kicked. And this means someone else is actually doing the action (in this case, Bill). In other words, the voice tells us how the subject of the verb relates to or experiences the action of the verb.
So far, so good. But, things are about to get a bit more complicated.
Like English, Greek has an active and passive voice. But, it also has another voice which is referred to as “the middle voice.” Wallace explains the middle voice as follows “in the middle voice the subject performs or experiences the action expressed by the verb in such a way that emphasizes the subject’s participation… Perhaps the best definition is this: ‘The middle calls special attention to the subject… the subject is acting in relation to himself somehow.’”[2]
With certain verbs in certain contexts, the middle voice can indicate the verb is reflexive. In other words, the subject acts on him- or herself.
Passive or Middle in 1 Corinthians 14:34?
What is most important for us is how this discussion about the middle voice relates to our text. The voice of a verb is also indicated by the way the verb is inflected (i.e. spelled). But sometimes, the middle and the passive voice have the same form.
That is the case with our verb in verse 34 (ὑποτασσέσθωσαν). This verb may be passive. But, it may also be middle. The only way to decide is context, and the decision of whether to understand the verb as middle or passive has an impact on our understanding of the command.
If the verb is passive, then Paul is commanding women to submit to or be subject to someone or something else. This raises the question: To whom must the women submit?
Many people often assume the answer to this question. They assume that women should submit to men. It’s important, however, that we distinguish between how we might instinctively interpret the text and what the text actually says. The text does not say that women must submit to male leadership. That is hypothetically a possible interpretation. But, it isn’t what Paul wrote. In fact, Paul doesn’t tell us to whom the women should submit! And, there is also nothing in the surrounding context that guides us in answering this question.
However, if the verb is in the middle voice, then no explanation is needed. According to Adam Hensley, the “middle voice gives ὑποτασσέσθωσαν a reflexive sense and therefore precludes a specified direct object.”[3] To put this in simpler terms: “There is no corresponding object [to whom the women must submit] anywhere in the text. So here the middle voice makes the most sense, which would mean that the women are to ‘submit to themselves,’ or control themselves.”[4] This is the approach taken by Anthony Thiselton[5] and Cynthia Westfall.[6] If we take ὑποτασσέσθωσαν to be reflexive due to the middle voice, then the verb itself tells us to whom the women should be subject: to themselves.
Bringing It All Together
But what does it mean “to be subject to oneself”? Separated from its broader context, the answer to this question may not be obvious. However, in context, Paul has commanded women to be silent. As a result, we might conclude that for women “to be subject to themselves” means for them to control their speaking.
We can confirm this interpretation. Because Paul has just used the word ὑποτάσσω in verse 32 (as I mentioned above), we can look to that verse to shed light on what Paul might mean in verse 34.[7]
And, when we do, we see that verse 32 also has to do with someone being “subject to oneself.” A literal translation of verse 32 says, “And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.” As many commentators note and as I pointed out in my sermon, this verse means that the act of uttering prophetic speech is under the control of the person of the prophet. Hence, in verse 32, to be subject [ὑποτάσσω] has to do with being self-controlled with regard to one’s speech.
Coming back to the women, this reflexive meaning fits the context of verse 34 perfectly. Paul has just commanded women to be silent because they are not permitted to speak (while others are speaking). Rather, they must control their impulse to speak.
In summary, this interpretation of ὑποτάσσω in verse 34 fits the general context, Paul’s previous use of ὑποτάσσω in verse 32, the missing direct object, and the immediate logic of Paul’s argument throughout verse 34. In these verses, Paul is commanding women to be self-controlled with regard to their speech. He is not commanding them to be submissive to male authority.
[1] By contrast, English is not a heavily inflected language. However, there are instances of inflection. For example, when an indefinite noun begins with a consonant we write “a” as in “a cat”. However, if the noun begins with a vowel, we write “an” as in “an elephant.” “a” and “an” are the same word (the indefinite article). But, they are inflected.
[2] Daniel Wallace in Greek Grammar: Beyond the Basics Pgs. 414-415, quoting Robertson. Italic emphasis original, bold emphasis added.
[3] “Rhetorical Context,” pg. 351. Hensley goes on to disagree with this interpretation because he (a) correctly notes the connection between ὑποτάσσω in verse 32 and its use here but (b) incorrectly (in my view) interprets verse 32 to have to do with authority rather than self-control.
[4] https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/what-say-when-someone-says-women-should-be-silent-church/
[5] I do not have direct access to Thiselton’s commentary. I get this information second hand from Adam Hensley, “Rhetorical Context,” pg. 351, note 23. The citation he gives is Anthony Thiselton, First Epistle, pgs. 1153-1155.
[6] Paul & Gender, pg. 237.
[7] Westfall states it this way: “Verbatim repetition forms powerful cohesive ties in tracing topics and minor semantic chains in close context… the meaning of ὑποτάσσω must be understood as lexical repetition constrained by the self-control of the prophets” (P&G, pg. 237, note 86).