Lecture 21: The Silence of Women, and Second Corinthians: The Attacked Apostle and the Unity of the Letter

The lecture, section by section

1. The silence of women: the text and its setting

   First Corinthians 14:33b to 36 belongs to instruction about the assembled church, when you assemble, and most exegetes attach the closing phrase of verse 33 to what follows: as in all the churches of the saints, let the women keep silent in the churches. That preface matters: Paul is not correcting a merely Corinthian custom but stating the practice of all the churches. They are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, as the law also says, a referent debated among the Old Testament itself, synagogue tradition, or even legal precedent, though the command stands the same on any reading; if they desire to learn, let them ask their own husbands at home; and the stinging questions close it: was it from you that the word of God went forth, or has it come to you only? A church that reads Scripture its own way against the practice of all the churches has forgotten it is one church among many.

2. The proposals, and where Essex lands

   The apparent tension with 11:5, where a woman prays or prophesies with covered head, has spawned a spectrum. Liberals call it a flat contradiction. Fee calls it a scribal gloss, though not one manuscript omits or moves the verses, which Essex judges subjectivism of the highest degree. Others narrow the silence: only disruptive speech, only the judging of prophecies, only tongues; Dr. Thomas takes chapter 14 as the definitive rule for the assembly and reads 11:5 of settings outside it; the Bible Knowledge Commentary distinguishes wives from women. Essex reads both chapters of the public assembly and finds the key in Paul's own frame at 14:26 to 40: everyone's gift is restrained there, tongues-speakers silenced without an interpreter, a prophet silenced when revelation comes to another, for God is not a God of confusion. Within that order, the woman, however gifted, studied up, and prayed up, does not take the speaking, leading role in the assembly; she joins fully where the congregation speaks together, in singing and corporate response, and pursues her questions at home, a teaching Paul will ground again in 1 Timothy 2, where the discussion will resume.

3. Second Corinthians: the ten attacks

   Second Corinthians is best read as Paul's answer to a coordinated slander, and from his affirmations ten attacks can be delineated. He was vacillating, announcing visits he did not make; with me it is not yes and no. He was dictatorial; not that we lord it over your faith. He was uncredentialed; are we beginning to commend ourselves again? His gospel was obscure; if it is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this world has blinded. He delighted in causing pain; out of much anguish I wrote, that you might know my love. He was a coward, weighty in letters, unimpressive in person. He forfeited apostolic dignity by working with his hands and refusing Corinthian support; I robbed other churches to serve you, forgive me this wrong. He was no original apostle. He was crafty about money, feigning disinterest and then pressing a collection; crafty fellow that I am, I took you in by deceit, he quotes back. And he walked according to the flesh. Chapter by chapter, hints become open defense until chapter 10 takes the gloves off.

4. False apostles, super apostles, and the Satan behind them

   Behind the attacks stood infiltrators Paul names with two labels. Super apostles, or most eminent apostles, is likely their own coinage or his mockery of it; he answers that in nothing was he inferior to them, the signs of a true apostle, signs and wonders and miracles, having been performed among the Corinthians with all perseverance, even though I am a nobody. False apostles is his verdict: deceitful workers disguising themselves as apostles of Christ, and no wonder, for Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, and his servants as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds. Fittingly, Second Corinthians speaks of Satan more than any other Pauline letter, the god of this world, the serpent, the deceiver: Paul sees the hand behind the division, which is exactly why divisions, as Romans and First Corinthians warned, become the avenue of organized attack.

5. Comfort in affliction, and the glory of the ministry

   For all its polemics, the letter glories. Paul recounts affliction to the point of despairing of life itself, and a God-engendered weakness, so that the comfort with which God comforted him might overflow to others; the sequence, afflicted that he might comfort, is the letter's opening logic. And through the heartache he exalts the surpassing ministry Christ gave him: a stewardship of grace he counts himself unworthy of, gloried in even while the Corinthians tested him. The purpose statement is uncontested among exegetes: Paul defends his apostolic authority and ministry against a pointed attack from his foes at Corinth.

6. The shelf on Second Corinthians

   For exegesis, Martin in the Word Biblical Commentary packs the most per page and maps the positions thoroughly, to be used critically; for interpretation, Barnett in the NIC and Garland in the NAC reach, in Essex's judgment, better conclusions; for exposition, MacArthur, joined by Hafemann's NIVAC with its able bridge to contemporary application.

7. Are chapters 10 to 13 a different letter?

   No reader misses the change of tone at chapter 10: nine chapters of resolved struggle and rejoicing over Titus's report, then four of open war on the unreconciled opponents. Four explanations. Liberals identify 10 to 13 as the severe letter itself, written earlier and spliced in; Martin posits a different later Pauline letter spliced in; a third possibility, noted in MacArthur's study materials, is a resumed letter, fresh bad news arriving after chapter 9 was dictated. Essex holds the fourth: a unified letter. There is no textual evidence whatever of splicing, and, decisively, no hint in chapters 10 to 13 of any new report, whereas Paul habitually names his sources, Chloe's people, it is actually reported, Titus has come and told us. The whole letter answers Titus's one report, which contained both realities: a reconciled majority, addressed with joy and the renewed appeal for the collection in chapters 8 and 9, and a remaining nucleus of infiltrators still poisoning fickle minds, confronted preemptively in 10 to 13 before the third visit, lest the reconciliation blow up again.

8. Doxology, travelogue, and the great excursus

   The prologue addresses the church at Corinth with all the saints throughout Achaia, and then, where a thanksgiving would stand, Paul erupts in doxology: blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we can comfort others. The thanksgiving for the Corinthians themselves waits for chapter 7; here the praise goes straight to the God behind the whole painful story. The body then opens with the travelogue, 1:12 to 2:13, explaining the changed plans, the sorrowful visit avoided, the call to forgive and restore the repentant offender, and the open door at Troas that Paul could not take for anguish when Titus failed to appear, so that he went on to Macedonia. At 2:14 the travelogue breaks off, thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph, and the great excursus on the apostolic ministry runs to 7:4: not peddlers of God's word but sincere; ministers of a new covenant whose glory, unlike the fading glory on Moses's face, only increases; a gospel veiled only to the perishing; the treasure carried in earthen vessels so the surpassing power is God's; the coming bema of Christ; the ministry of persuading men to be reconciled to God. Then 7:5 resumes the road: but when we came into Macedonia, and Titus came, and comfort came with him.

1. Essex reads the silence of women within a chapter where every gift is restrained for the sake of order and edification. How does framing the question as one of roles within a regulated assembly, rather than of ability or worth, change the conversation?

2. Paul answered ten slanders, and had to boast as a fool to do it, insisting all the while that he was a nobody. When is self-defense a duty for a servant of Christ, and how did Paul keep it from becoming self-promotion?

3. The letter's first move is praise to the God of all comfort who comforts us so that we can comfort others. How have afflictions in your own life become equipment for ministry to someone else?