Paul the Apostle
For awhile now, I’ve been preaching some topic-oriented sermons; inspired by scripture, they’ve focused on interpreting current events through the lens of scripture. In my sermon preparation, I’ve tried to follow the advice of Karl Barth, one of the 20th century’s leading theologians. He said that preachers should preach with the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.
But now I’m feeling called to go a little deeper into the Bible itself. Oh, I still have the newspaper in one hand - or, more accurately, I still have one or more tabs on my computer opened up to reputable news sites.
But for the next few weeks, I invite you to join me in becoming Bible scholars. We’re going to focus on the apostle Paul, and the things he wrote, and the things he didn’t write but which some people think he did.
And why are we doing this? Because a lot of Christians have very strong opinions about Paul. For some, he’s the one who set down Christian theology, and explained how faith works, and how salvation works, and they love him for that.
For other Christians, he’s a sexist, homophobic, judgmental figure who distorted Jesus’ message of love into a message of guilt and shame.
But which is it? That’s what we’re going to figure out.
Today’s scripture is from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. It is a scripture that is particularly divisive and controversial… because in the middle of this passage, there are 3 ½ verses that talk about how “women should be silent in churches.”
How does that make you feel?
There are some churches that take this literally. Women are not allowed to be ordained. Even today, in 2021, there are churches that will not ordain women to the ministry. In those churches, women are not allowed to teach, they are not allowed to have authority over men. After all, it says so, right there in the Bible.
But there is something weird about this particular Bible passage. Very weird.
Which is why we are going to be Bible scholars. Scholars & sleuths. We’re going to figure out what’s really going on here.
1 Cor. 12, 13, 14
To start, let’s put these 3 ½ Bible verses in context.
In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he spends a great deal of time talking about spiritual gifts. This is in chapter 12...The gift of prophecy. The gift of speaking in tongues. The gift of healing...and many other gifts … And Paul says that all of them are important. You may have one spiritual gift, and your neighbor may have a different spiritual gift, but all are important, all work together for good, to build up the body of Christ.
Then, in chapter 13, Paul mentions the greatest spiritual gift of all: the gift of love. And for many of us, that passage about love is the best thing the apostle Paul ever wrote. Maybe the only good thing Paul ever wrote. It’s the passage that goes, “Love is patient, love is kind…love never fails...”
Then we come to chapter 14, where Paul continues talking about spiritual gifts. In the part we heard today, Paul is talking about speaking in tongues and prophecy - and then, for 3 ½ verses, Paul stops talking about spiritual gifts and says that women should be silent - and then Paul goes back to talking about spiritual gifts.
Does that seem strange to you? Does that seem weird in any way?
I have a book at home that I love. It’s a book about the history of Knott’s Berry Farm. Knott’s Berry Farm has a wonderful, fascinating history, and I was so happy to purchase this beautiful book earlier this year so I could learn a little more about Knott’s history.
But the book has one flaw. When you turn to page 145, you realize that some of the text is missing. The previous page is talking about the beautiful Charleston Fountain, located in the park, and how it was used as a prop in the film Hello, Dolly!
The next sentence, on page 145, reads: “Seventy-five feet at its highest peak, the coaster made two loops over a placid lake that allowed suspended riders to glimpse their reflection.”
What? Something’s missing. What coaster? I thought we were talking about a fountain!
You can tell that something is missing. It doesn’t make sense. You can’t just take part of the story out and have it still make sense.
Except that in 1 Corinthians 14, you can. If you take out those 3 ½ verses that talk about women being silent, the passage still makes sense. In fact, it makes more sense if you take those verses out.
It’s weird that it would make more sense if you take out those verses. Normally, if you take out some of the text, it makes less sense. In my Knott’s Berry Farm history book, the missing text leaves the reader confused.
But here in 1 Corinthians 14, taking out those 3 ½ verses helps the rest of it flow better. It actually makes more sense with those verses removed.
Weird.
Another weird thing is that some of the oldest manuscripts of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians don't include these verses here at all, but instead placed them after verse 40.
That is also weird.
What do you think that means?
Women leaders & apostles
There’s something else weird about these 3 ½ verses: they completely contradict what Paul wrote just 3 chapters earlier, in chapter 11… There, Paul talks about how women are to act and dress when they teach and pray in worship.
1 Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 5 reads: “Any woman who prays or prophesies” in worship must have her head covered.
Praying and prophesying are not silent activities. In chapter 11, Paul is giving instructions on how women are to pray and prophesy in worship.
That contradicts what is written here in chapter 14, where we have 3 ½ verses that say women shouldn’t be speaking in worship at all.
Weird.
What do you make of that?
Later in this same letter to the Corinthians, Paul mentions two people, Priscilla and Aquila. Priscilla (sometimes called Prisca) and Aquila are a woman and a man - a married couple, I think - who are prominent church leaders. Priscilla and Aquila are also mentioned in the 16th chapter of Romans, where Paul implies that Priscilla is the more prominent leader of the two.
In the first century, to have a woman listed as the more prominent leader, over her husband… that’s weird. … and significant...
In that same passage from Romans, Paul also sends greetings to a number of other people, many of them women, including Junia, who he calls an apostle!
So there are prominent women and even women apostles who Paul mentions favorably and whose leadership he commends in his letters - does that sound like someone who believes that women should keep silent?
Weird.
No longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female
Now let’s move over to Paul’s letter to the Galatians. There, in chapter 3, verse 28, Paul writes that, in the body of Christ, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all are one in Christ Jesus.”
For Paul and the earliest Christians, it was believed that one’s baptism into Christ erases these distinctions and divisions. In baptism, there is a new unity, a new level of equality, when it comes to status and authority.
No longer Jew or Greek. No longer slave or free. No longer male and female.
But still, there’s those 3 ½ verses in 1 Corinthians 14.
What are we to make of them?
By now, you probably have a few questions. Like: Why would Paul write that women should keep silent, if he approved of so many other women in leadership? Maybe you’re wondering if Paul even wrote those 3 ½ verses at all, since they sound so different from other things Paul wrote, and even contradict how Paul himself acted in relation to women who were in positions of leadership and authority.
And maybe you feel guilty for asking such questions, because someone once taught you that you shouldn’t question scripture, that it displays a lack of faith.
But I say that anyone who tells you to not question scripture isn’t trying to help you; they’re trying to control you. They’re trying to manipulate you. And maybe even spiritually abuse you.
Is it OK to question what you read? Of course it is! Asking questions is how we learn and grow.
And scholars who study the Bible ask questions all the time. In fact, they ask these same exact questions.
Rethinking Paul
And this has led many scholars to do some rethinking when it comes to the apostle Paul. Did Paul really forbid women to speak in worship? Did Paul actually write these 3 ½ verses? Because they contradict what he wrote elsewhere… because they contradict how he treated women… because they seem to interrupt what is otherwise a smooth-flowing discussion of spiritual gifts…
And most serious Bible scholars have concluded that Paul did not write these 3 ½ verses. Someone else did. Someone else wrote them, and inserted them here, to make it look like they are the words of Paul. In addition to what I've talked about today, there are many other clues that we don't have time to discuss that also give evidence that Paul did not write these 3 ½ verses, that someone else did at some later time, and inserted them in here.
It would have been easy to do. Everything had to be copied by hand - there was no printing press or anything like that - so it would have been quite easy to insert a line or two about women keeping silent, and passing that off as Paul’s own words.
That’s what most serious Bible scholars believe happened.
Which is why, in some Bible translations, those 3 ½ verses are put in parentheses; or there is a footnote, pointing out that there’s something weird about them.
Now, why would a scribe do such a thing? Well, as the church evolved from one generation to the next, there were different ideas about if and how the church should try to adapt to the mainstream culture. And the equality Paul talked about between men and women was just too radical. It could invite persecution or at least ridicule.
And it’s possible that the scribe who inserted those words even thought that, if Paul were still alive, this is what Paul would say today.
What this means for us is that Paul likely never said that women should keep silent in church. On the contrary, Paul was a big supporter of women in positions of leadership. Paul recognized and affirmed the leadership of women - even to the point of calling at least one woman an apostle.
That doesn't really sound like someone who believes that women should keep silent, or that women should always be submissive.
So what are we to do with these verses? Paul didn't write them, but somebody did, and they are a part of the Bible. Can we just ignore them?
I wouldn't ignore them completely, because they do show how Christian thinking and teaching evolved over time. They even shed some light on how Christian thinking and teaching is evolving in our own time. They show that early Christians didn't always agree on everything, just like Christians today.
But as far as what's authoritative… It's certainly fair to weigh these verses against the many other verses that stress equality among men and women. Jesus welcomed the presence of women when others would have barred them, and Paul welcomed and affirmed women in positions of leadership. That is certainly something to consider, and something that I and many others do consider. And that's why we do welcome and affirm women and men in leadership, and why we believe that our faith and the bible support us in this.
At the very least, it all shows that we don't have to hate Paul. With a little Bible scholarship, we can discover that Paul was not the sexist misogynist that we've always imagined him to be. His teachings and his actions show that he was, in fact, a supporter of women, even in positions of leadership, despite that being an unusual and even radical idea in his time.
And we can see Paul as an ally and not an adversary when it comes to equality. And we can know that even though there are a variety of thoughts and opinions expressed on the pages of the Bible when it comes to the role of women, overall, the Bible is a lot more inclusive and supportive of women in church leadership than many of us have been taught.
It's fun being Bible scholars, don't you think? It's fun being Bible sleuths, and following the clues, and learning about scripture. So… let's do it again next week...
No comments:
Post a Comment