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VOL. IV. R1CHMC
The Scripture
Work o
The first question which we shali examine is one
which we suppose few, if any, of our readers will
raise; and yet we do bear it and it ought to be faced.
What right has Paul to suy: II permit not a woman
to teach," etc. Wias he not a person who seems to
have ihad little respect for women; who argued
against marriage as inconsistent with the highest
grade of holiness, and who never married himself;
who was in short a Burly bachelor, inclined to be
contemptuous, if not bitter, towards the whole sex and
just the person from whom we might expect such expressions
as have been quoted from his pen?"
To take up the latter part of this question first, the
answer is that any such conception of Paul is utterly
unhistoncal. It is as far from the idea of the man
given us by the only sources of information which we
possess as the poles are apart. Just thnk a moment.
To say nothing of the fact that Paul had always
been a devout Jew and was brought up in a Jewish
home of the strictest type where woman's place was
a moat sacred and honored one, take his experience
since he became a Christian and began to preach the
Gospel. His first convert in Europe was Lydia, a
business woman of Phllipipi, who took him into her
house and entertained him as her guest during all his
stay in that city. His first miracle wrought in
Europe was on a woman, the demonized slave girl of
Phllippi. Again and again as he moves through his
missionary Journeys we read of "devout women not a
few'" who adhered to him and oo-operated with him.
As for his arguing against marriage an examination
of the seventh chapter of I Corinthians will reveal
the fact that he was careful to say nothing disparaging
of the institution itself. He did suggest that
it Involved careB, responsibilities and trials which in
me men state or the church?an exposed and persecuted
state?It might he well not to assume. But it
was only on grounds of Christian expediency that he
advised abstaining from (marriage and not on the
ground of the unmarried state being any holier than
the married state. He freely permitted marriage to
all who preferred it and even enjoined it on some as
a duty. But to this point we call especial attention,
that In all this chapter Paul certainly says nothing to
the disparagement of woman. There seems to be an
impression that the apostle argues here on the sup.
position that a wife is a hindrance to a man's usefulness,
a clog to his aspirations after perfect and
ideal sanctity. Not one whit more than the man is
these things to the woman. Paul Just as earnestly
advisee -women to abstain from marriage under
present conditions as he does men. And for precisely
the same reasons. He no more preached that the
woman binders the piety of the man than he does that
"the man hinders the piety of the woman. We take
at that thle seventh of I Corinthians is the chief, If
not tho sole foundation for the impression floating
about that Paul bad a contemptuous estimate of
"woman and was influenced thereby In all his teaching
touching them. Yet when we read it calmly and
thoughtfully it Is found to furnish not the slightest
foundation for such a view of the apostle. On the
other hand who thinks and writes more nobly of
woman than this same Paul in Bphesians 5:22-33,
where he calls on every man to love his wife not only
as himself, his own body, but even as Christ also
loved the Church and gave himself for it?aye, do you
mark that, "and gave himself for H;w that is the
teaching which has saturated the feeling of the most
Christian peoples so as to make that unwritten law
"women first" in time of peril, so recently exemplified
in the greatest sea disaster of modern times.
HSS<fllNUiuul )
w_ The Soui
)ND, NEW ORLEANS, ATLANTA, MA\
xl Relation of 1
f the Christian
REV. THERON H. RICE, D. D.
If, therefore, any man had' the right to speak to
woman with authority on the score of being her
friend he is this same Paul. His relations with the
women of his own time were, so far as our records
go, most cordial and hapipy and no one has done more
than Ha hv hla toonhln rr erlwA - ? 1 ~ ~ - "x?
? w iu quo numau k,ue piauu auu
'holds to-day in Christendom.
Iln still further ansa*** to the cii?.llcnM: "What
right has Paul to epea^-ytyq on| this subject?"
It may ibe replfed.hhat he has at!''the right
possessed by a sound antl''tnwiful-' interpreter of
Nature. In I r^Hnthhnkk*.-ifo4.jjqpg|J| |rgues the
subordination of the woman to the man from the
very constitution of things in God's world and his
final appeal is "Judge ye In yourselves. . . . Doth
not even nature itself teach you," etc. In other words
iPaul knows that he is just pointing out what all of us
ought to see for ourselves to be taught by that natural
order of which we are a part. And having shown us
that the great truth Is revealed in Nature's open
book h'e steps aside, so to speak, and lets Nature
argue with us.
But the full and final answer to this challenge is,
of course, that Paul has all the right of an Inspired
apostle to speak In Christ's name. None of the
apostles had such occasion to assert and vindicate
men ayvsiuiiv cumiuinoiuuB ab naa faui, " Dorn," as
he put It, "out o< due time." Read his splendid
demonstration of his standing in this matter in the
first two chapters of Galatians. No man's apostleship
was ever mere thoroughly attested. Surely the signs
of an apostle were wrought through him. So large
a part was it God's will that Paul should play in
clearing up and fully expounding the Gospel of Christ
and in organizing his church that If we take away
all that the New Testament contains from his pen we
could hardly say that we have present day Christianity
at all. Same one has said that the Christianity
of Western Europe and America so far as it is Protestant
is humanly speaking virtually the gift of Paul.
Of course this is no place to fully argue the inspiration
of Paul, but we do want those who on this
particular matter are disposed to flout his inspiration
to remember that with that surrendered goes to ruin
the very structure in which for centuries we and our
fathers have been dwelling with a peace and Joy
that pass knowldge. With Paul's right to speak in
God'fc name on this point we must give up his right to
apeak in God's name on the subject of our justification
hv fnltVi QInno In Pnmon, flvn "
W.wuv 1U UTO auu UU1 pm 11C5C ao
God's children in Romans eight and our hope of a
glorious resurrection in Corinthians fifteen, and
much else. Shall we not pause before we do it?
There Is a second question, however, which troubles
a great many more of my readers than the one we
hare just considered. It is this: Did not Paul himself
say somewhere that he was not always Inspired and
may not thrt point he ene of those matters on which
he does not claim inspiration I Such questioners cordially
admit the apostle's Inspiration where he claims
it, but have been told by advocates of oDDosln* vIowb
that he does not even claim it here. Well, let us see.
The passage which objectors of this kind have in mind
Is 1 Corinthians 7:1(K13. Here Paul sems to distinguish
between certain commandments which he
gives and certain other commandments which the
i <Lord gives. Now, as a certain distinguished commentator
has pointed out, if we suppose Paul to be
disclaiming inspiration In this particular injunction,
the fact that he so carefully notifies us here that he
1s not inspired clearly Implies that where he does
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Woman to the
Church
not so notify us he expects us to understand that he
Is inspired. It only gives us the more confidence in
his inspiration elsewhere when we find him so candidly
putting us on our guard at a place where we are
uui iu uuaerauuia mm as speaking by inspiration.
Cut we are not to understand Paul here as disclaiming
inspired authority (or the Injunctions of verses
12 and 13. "The distinction which he makes in verse
<10 and verse 12 between his commands and those of
the Lord, is not a distinction between what is inspired
and what is not; but 'Lord' here evidently refers to
Christ; and the distinction Intended is between what
Christ had taught while on earth, and what Paul by
his Spirit was inspired to teach."?<Hodge. With respect
to the matter of which Paul was speaking in
verses 10 and 12 Jesus had spoken in the days of his
flesh. See Matthew 19: 3-9 and Mark 10: 2-9. There
was no need for Paul to Bay anything on that; he just
quoted Jesus. But in respect to the complication
iwith which he is dealing in verses 12 and 13 which
had arisen since Christ had left the earth and committed
the care of the church to his apostles, Paul
spoke in his Master's name by the inspiration which
he again and again claimed and demonstrated. In
no matter does he more explicitly assert his inspiration
than in one of his utterances on the subject we
now have in hand. Turn to I Corinthians 14:33-38,
wbers st f tor ha vino- "T ?- -''
? o MWb TTVUiVU IVCC^ DIICUUO
in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them
to speak; but let thean be in sujection, as also saith
the law;" he subjoins this strong language: "If any
man thinketh himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let
him take knowledge of the things that I write unto
you that they are the commandment of the Lord."
Still a third inquiry is made by some. Does not
Paul's language in the passage I Corinth tans 11:
4-6 itnply that women might "pray and prophesy"
in the publk gatherings of the Corinthians if only
they were carefnl to wear the yell! In dealing with
this question we must remember a rule of interpretation
which, commends Itself at once to every one's
judgment. It is this: When an Inspired writer speaks
in more than one place on a subject and one of the
places is at all obscure the obscure passage must be
Interpreted In the light of the passage or passages
which are clear. It must not be Interpreted to yield
a meaning which would contradict the passage that
is clear, else would God's Spirit?the author of both
1?be made to contradict himself. Now if anything is
clear it is that in two places Paul does explicitly say
that the women are to keep silence in the churches:
OSee II Corinthians 14:94 and I Timothy.) We cannot
derive from what may seen to be an implication
a teaching in flat contradiction of this clear Pauline
command. The apparent inconsistency between the
two is not difficult to explain. Some assume that the
"prtaying and prophesying" here referred to were
outbursts prompted by the extraordinary outpourings
of the Spirit at this time and especially in the
Corinthian Church?something like the gift of
ioiigue? or wnrcn raui writes at length In the former
part of chapter 14 of this same epistle. By such Interpreters
Paul Is understood as saying: "If the Holy
Spirit comes on some woman and Inspires her to
utter a prayer or prophesy in the course of the meeting
how shameful for her to do this conspicous thing
unvedled! The very prominence she Is called to
assume Is the more reason for her to be sheltered
'by her woman's veil." If this be the case it is plain
that no woman can draw from this passage a warrant
for public speaking in the church unless she
(Continued on Page 11.)