Made in Our Image...Male and Female...

Gods truth always liberates us and lifts us above our circumstance and causes us to walk in the Spirit.

It is that witness of His Spirit that will teach us and lead us into all truth. When we approach the word

with this heart then we will not be deceived. Women everywhere need to hear the truth of the true liberty

that they have in Christ. Today it is my desire to shine some light on a most misunderstood scripture that

has caused much harm to the Women of the Body of Christ. (1Cor 14:34-35)

1Co 14:34  Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; 

but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. 

1Co 14:35  And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: 

for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. 

Paul would hardly cite the Torah (the Law) as justification for restricting roles of women; his entire ministry involved the exact opposite: he preached liberation from the Law. Some Biblical scholars say that Paul is here describing divisive practices being promoted by the Jewish Christians in Corinth - those who believed in Jesus as Lord while still following the Torah. They were generating discord by teaching that "As in the synagogues, women should remain silent.....as the Torah says." That is, they wanted to translate synagogue practice, as defined by the Torah, into the Christian assemblies. Women were not allowed to speak in synagogues, so they should not be allowed to speak in Christian assemblies.

Let me use red quotation marks in Verse 34 and 35 to help you understand.
I believe it is a statement from the church at Corinth that Paul “quotes“ and then responds to in
verse 36-40:

(1Cor 14:34-40) -   34 “the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says.
35 If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.“

           Pauls Response in the form of a rebuke:

(1Co 14:36-40)  What! Did the word of God originate with you or are you the only 
ones it has reached? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual,      

let him acknowledge that the things that 

I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. 

But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant. Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, 
and forbid not to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in order. 

                      

Paul uses the é particle to introduce rebuttals to statements preceding it. As a conjunction, é appears in Paul's Epistles in a variety of uses. This device is called the "rhetorical eta," and many Greek professors confirmed its use instead of quotation marks. Lets take a look at the original Greek letters to confirm this.

You can see eta in the chart. The e of which he uses looks like 

Now lets look at (1Cor 14:34-36) in the original Greek language so that you may see this for yourself.

34  αἱ γυναῖκες ὑμῶν ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις σιγάτωσαν· οὐ γὰρ ἐπιτέτραπται αὐταῖς λαλεῖν, ἀλλ᾿ ὑποτάσεσθαι, καθὼς καὶ ὁ νόμος λέγει. 
35  εἰ δέ τι μαθεῖν θέλουσιν, ἐν οἴκῳ τοὺς ἰδίους ἄνδρας ἐπερωτάτωσαν· αἰσχρὸν γάρ ἐστι γυναιξὶν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ λαλεῖν. 
36  ἢ ἀφ᾿ ὑμῶν ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐξῆλθεν, ἢ εἰς ὑμᾶς μόνους κατήντησεν; 

It's importance here is that it clearly marks a refutation of the previous passage. That is what the rhetorical eta is for, it indicates that what precedes it immediately is being refuted. Since the Greeks did not have quotation marks, this device serves as quotation marks and shows the injunction against women speaking was actually the statement of the Corinthians to Paul.


"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free,
there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus."　 Galatians 3:28 

In the Church, "under the anointing," there is neither male nor female. We can all function as we are enabled by the Lord, totally irrespective of gender. Male and female become a type of our relationship to the Lord. As a "Bride," I am dependent and become "one" with Jesus. As a "son," I enter into a cooperative relationship with the Lord. I "rise above" the earthly as an "overcomer," and His power - His very life begins to flow out through my life. I am then able to give expression to the life of the Lord, as my life becomes the witness of His life. We are approaching the last days, the time of the closing out of the Church Age and the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom, which is the government of God ruling all mankind. May we all female and male lay aside the old order and embrace and recognize what the Lord is desiring to do in each of us as individuals and in His body in these last days.