The end times are upon us! We must make sure of our salvation before the coming of the Lord. We also must keep our loved ones and friends in mind that are saved and ones that are not saved. The Bible says: that whom God “predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified” (Rom. 8:30).
A Legacy of God's Love
Foundation (Page 8)
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Can, “salvation” be as a real and practical experience for a woman equal to a man? Is she redeemed from her past equally as a man? Do you truly believe that the original sin of a woman is still held against her after she commits her life to Jesus, while the original sin of a man is forgiven? Can you believe that women are truly equal in Jesus Christ or just an appendage to the men of the church? “It was for freedom that Christ set us free … do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1). I am persuaded that new life, joy, blessing will be experienced by the Church when every follower of Jesus can enter the liberty to understand who he or she is in Christ.”
The story of creation in Genesis recounts, “The curse” woman’s “fall from grace” in the eyes of God and men. Though Jesus’ redemption of all humans, women continue to labor under such a curse throughout the ages that has been imposed upon her by Christian men. Traditionally, the church world has gone beyond the curse in its subjugation of women to her husband by severely limiting the roles scripturally available to them in the ministry and placing them under the subjection of all men.Do you really believe that women are inferior to men? Does the creation story imply that man, is in some sense, higher or better than women? What biblical evidence shows that women have equality with men? In what sense are they equal to men and they are not?
That Paul is but quoting the language of the Judaizers in I Corinthians 14:34-35 is in harmony with previous parts of the epistle. Again and again from chapter 5 on to end of chapter 14, it can be seen that he is replying to a letter of questions sent to him by the Corinthian Church. As can be clearly seen in the Conybeare-Howson translation, in instance after instance it can be detected that the reference to the questions is repeated whenever a new point is taken up. We need to remember that in the Greek manuscripts there were no capital letters to words, no quotation marks, and no punctuation such as we have in our English versions of the Bible. Professor Sir William Ramsey, the most widely accepted authority on St. Paul in the early 1900’s says “we should be ready to suspect Paul is making a quotation from the letter addressed to him by the Corinthians whenever he alludes to their knowledge, or when any statement stands in marked contrast either with the immediate context or with Paul’s known views.” Considering Paul’s views on the ministries of Priscilla, Phoebe and others referred to earlier, it is clear that Paul believed in equality of women in ministry.
If Paul really considered it an abuse for a woman to speak in the Christian assembly, he had, without a doubt, the change to make this point in Chapter 11. Instead of arguing for the custom which required that women cover their heads in public, he would have taken advantage of such a strong argument against the supporters of a mistaken understanding of the equality of men and women.
Really the contradiction has a simpler solution. Although eliminating a text to eliminate a difficulty is always bad, in the present instance both the external and the internal evidence suggest that the verses cited above, (I Corinthians 14:34-35), are an interpolation which has nothing to do with the genuine text of chapter 14 as Paul’s true thought. In some important manuscripts these verses are given at the end of the chapter 14, after verse 40, since verse 36 logically follows after verse 33, the verses in question break the continuity of the reasoning process. Sever lexicographic and syntactic details are unusual in Paul’s vocabulary and style, such as the formals as even the law says,” (Katos ho nomos legei).
Finally, some of the ideas of this text disagree with what Paul says elsewhere about women. This short passage actually means that in the assemblies women must not speak, in the most natural sense of the word. If they do not understand something, all they have to do is to ask their husband at home. They should not indulge in whispering or interrupting the speaker or disturbing the meeting in any way. This type of behavior would be unbecoming and contrary to the subordinate condition in which the law intends they should remain.