Interesting Rev. Buchanan, I have always, just in reading and contemplating the passage, connected the “in like manner also” with the attitude and demeanor enjoined upon the men, “without wrath or doubting,” as Paul goes on to describe for women a life lived with faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. Do any commentators take your same view, especially older ones?
Everyone is encouraged to pray in our morning Bible hour at church, and I have generally refrained, with a very few times of doing so because of the desire on our pastor’s part that all participate. But after the last time of offering prayer aloud during our prayer time I decided to go with what has seemed best to me from Scripture and refrain. I agree with Joshua’s and Ben’s take on the reasoning. If friends, male and female, got together to pray outside of a congregational meeting that would likely be different.
Jerri,
I'm not sure about what commentators might be in agreement. It's been a while since I preached this passage.
I am confident of what the context is about, of Paul's purpose in writing and how the first part of the letter flows from chs.1-3 especially. This part is concerned to promote organized prayer for the church. V8 does not shift the subject under discussion, but summons the whole church (as opposed to designated "prayer warriors") to the task of prayer.
So Paul calls on the men to pray in every congregation (he's not telling them to have impromptu tete-a-tetes "everywhere" when they meet one another on the street). "Without wrath and doubting" are dispositional requirements for all effectual prayer; and I suppose are tendencies men/males may be more particularly tempted to, and should suppress especially in their public prayers.
V9 begins, "in like manner also the women," and I understand Paul to refer to the primary activity of the previous v8 (prayer) and indeed the focal activity of the previous 8vv entire. He hasn't changed the subject. He says that he wants the women to pray in every such meeting as well. The following words (end of v9 and v10) pertaining to the women--as in the case of the men--are describing mainly dispositional requirements (the outward expression is an index of the inward heart), i.e. the manner of the praying iself, which often in the case of women need to be attended to more particularly than men when it comes to social presentation. Even at a prayer meeting, we need to remember we aren't coming there to impress our fellow parishioners; but to pray to God. You are already "dressed up," ladies, in godliness and good works.
And at v11, he dispenses with a false-inference: that the previous encouragement to the women to prayer institutes a change in worship practice. It does nothing of the kind, and he enforces standard church practice with the same arguments he ever used in vv12-15.
If, as some have proposed even here, they understand formal church worship to be of one kind, be it on the Christian Sabbath or any other day or purpose such as the collective prayers during the week--well then, Paul's statement enjoining silence on the women he simply affirms here as across the board. But then, I also think that these will not regard v9, "likewise the women," as applicable to the main subject, i.e. prayer; but make the whole subject shift at that place to a focus on "women in church."
I happen to think my interpretation (whoever may consent to it) preserves the subject (prayer), the flow of the passage, and explains
why Paul shifts into his defense of male-only leading in worship in the closing vv of that section. It does a better job than the alternatives, in my opinion, which is why I adopted it.
I think Sabbath-worship is unique, and is the place most especially governed by minister-led function. Office is tied to the church's formal worship, and must reflect the divine concerns for purity of expression; and so is appointed for men only to fill it. I don't think the prayer meeting is formal worship or subject to the same regulation. I don't believe a woman praying publicly beside other women, and men, and children, has anything to do with the "silence" Paul calls for in v11. I don't think that female piety is anything to be ashamed of, nor is every instance of praying aloud "leading." This goes also for the children who may have something to say (as well as learning appropriate habits in our midst).
I'm not anxious to fight over this, or disparage any who don't agree. I believe I am defending my stance with a faithful, reverent, and consistent treatment of Scripture's text.
