Christ Church Leavenworth
1 Corinthians 14:33-35
August 30, 2026
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OT READING: Proverbs 30:18-19
NT READING: Ephesians 5:31-32
"Miscellaneous Housekeeping"
READING OF THE TEXT
Our text this morning is 1 Corinthians 14:33-35, these are the words of God
“God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”
The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of our God stands forever.
PRAYER
Our Father and our God, we come before You this morning through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit. All Scripture is breathed out by You and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. Equip us now by it for the good works You have prepared for us. In Jesus’ Name, we pray, Amen.
INTRODUCTION
Our NT reading made it clear: marriage is a profound mystery, but it refers to Christ and His church. So, it is not a mystery because it remains unsolved, rather it is a mystery because the solution is beyond comprehension. A man leaving his father and mother and cleaving to his wife and the two becoming one is a miracle both as plain as day and as mysterious as magic. We saw this in our OT reading, weddings are wonderful. Not wonderful as in great, although they are that too, but wonderful as in full of wonder. They are like a bird in the air or a boat on the water. You see it all the time, but you do not always see it for what it is. The bird floats on an ocean of invisible air and the boat soars on a current of liquid wind. The world is full of wonder and weddings are no exception.
THE MISCELLANEOUS DRAWER
But the mystery does not end after the I do’s. It follows the couple back to their home and lives in every nook and cranny. Every home has special places and common areas. There are rooms reserved for particular people, like the master bedroom, and rooms reserved for particular items, like the coat closet, but there are also common areas, like the living room. The same is true of drawers. There are drawers for specific things, like the silverware drawer, but there are also drawers for random things, like the miscellaneous drawer. Perhaps you are familiar. It is that drawer, usually in the kitchen, where all sundry stuff ends up. It is often referred to affectionately as “the junk drawer.” Looking for a rubber band, a paper clip, an old take out menu, a manual for an old appliance, or some gently used batteries? Look no further. What about some disposable chop sticks, a pen without a cap, a pair of scissors, a used lighter, or an assortment of random charging cords? You know where to look. The junk drawer is where we put things when we do not know where else to put them. Our text today is like that. It is in all of our Bibles, but most of us don’t know what to do with it or where else to put it. As such, it doesn’t often see the light of day… until today, that is. Let’s dive in.
THE SILENT BELLES
1 Corinthians 14:33-35, let’s read it again just to make sure everyone is as uncomfortable as possible, and as I do, let me remind you again that these are the Words of God: “God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”
There is a reason people keep this one in the back of the junk drawer. They know they can’t throw it out, but they also know they can’t frame it and hang it over the couch in the living room. Maybe in a garage? “Women should be silent!” Maybe? This passage may be especially hard for women to hear, but it should be hard for men to hear as well and not just because they suspect they’re going to hear about it on the way home today. No, it’s worse than that, gents, you’re not just going to hear about it, you’re going to have to talk about it. More on that later.
Let’s begin by walking through the text. :33 God is orderly, not erratic and principled, not capricious. He is Who He is and He does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Mal 3:6, Heb 13:8) So, the choice, as always, is Christ or chaos. His Word produces peace, but the world produces confusion – like “what is a woman?” levels of confusion. Since God is orderly and peaceful, our worship services follow suit. Covenant renewal is not a random act of spontaneous charismania, it is a regulated act of order and firmness. (Col 2:5) And this was not unique to Corinth, it was true of all churches at all times as :33 goes on to state. We cannot write this off as antiquated or outdated advice. The rule for Corinth was the same as the rule for all the churches.
And what was that rule? :34 “women should keep silent in the churches.” Have you ladies violated this charge by singing this morning? No. Does this mean that you never have anything valuable to contribute? No. So, what does it mean? It means you are not permitted to speak on behalf of God or His people in a corporate worship gathering. Our text goes on to say that if a woman has any questions or contributions, she should pursue them with her husband in her home. God is the Author and He has deputized some with the authority to speak on His behalf or to approach Him on behalf of His people. Women have not been authorized in this capacity. :34 goes on to clarify this by contrasting speech with submission. Note, the contrast is not between sound and silence, but permission and submission. “They (women) are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission.” So the principle is vocation, not vocal. Women may not speak authoritatively, but they must speak submissively. E.g. when we sing, the women are expected to sing with us. But even then, they are called upon to sing their particular parts. The sopranos and altos are summoned, but the harmony is ruined if they try to sing the bass and tenor parts. And when we recite the creeds, the women recite them with us. They are called upon to prophesy with us as we declare the good doctrine of God.
This harmonizes the presupposition of women praying and prophesying from 1 Corinthians 11 with the presupposition of women being silent in 1 Corinthians 14. The two passages are coming at the same subject from different angles. When women speak, it should be submissively as ones whose heads are covered, not authoritatively as ones speaking on behalf of their heads. You must respond when called upon to speak, but you must never presume to call others to respond. You must say, “Amen,” from your seat, but you must not say, “You may be seated,” from behind the pulpit.
But someone will say, “That was then, this is now.” :34 anticipates this by appealing to eternity, “as the Law also says.” This is not something Paul invented in the 1st century. No, this is something God said to Moses. Paul is merely repeating it. This command was not unique to Corinth geographically, nor was it unique to them chronologically. This goes back to the beginning. Paul is not here speaking out of some kind of personal prejudice about some kind of local practice. No, he is repeating and appealing to an eternal and universal Law. This rule is for all churches everywhere at all times: not just Corinth and not just the first century.
Consider 1 Timothy 2:12-15 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” Here we again see the prohibition of women exercising authority over men paired with an admonition to remain quiet. Ephesus, where Timothy was pastoring, received the same command as Corinth. I take the time to point this out and perhaps even belabor the point a bit because this unequivocally addresses the most common rebuttal to these passages, which is, “This was localized, not universal.” Those who utilize this approach attempt to dismiss the clear teaching of texts like these by restricting their application to a specific time and/or place. But the fact that we have the same charge made to two distinct congregations refutes this idea. Corinth and Ephesus were separated by 250 miles by boat or by 900 miles by land if you walked around the Aegean Sea. This issue was widespread geographically. Furthermore, Corinth and Ephesus were separated from Eden by roughly 4,000 years, yet both letters appeal to the timeless Law of God and the beginning of all time in the Garden. This was not a local or temporal ruling, it was, and thus still is, a universal and eternal law.
Thus, the “that was then, this is now,” objection is answered by the text directly. But I’d like to point out that even by its own merits it fails. It presupposes that there was widespread agreement on this kind of backwards stuff back then, but now “look how far we’ve come.” It concedes that the verses say what it looks like they are saying, but it denies that they’re saying that to us. But here’s the problem: everyone did not agree on these things back then. Paul was not talking just to hear his teeth rattle. For him, these were real controversies in real time. He was not arguing with hypotheticals. The sin of egalitarianism was not invented in the 20th century. It was alive and well back then and it needed to be confronted and condemned back then, just as it still does today. Men and women are one in Christ, but they are not the same. And that is what Paul goes on to point out in :14
Men and women were made from different materials at different times for different reasons. Just like in our text, Paul here appeals to the Law, but this time he does not do so in general, rather he points to a particular part of it: the creation of Adam and Eve from the book of Genesis. He points out that Adam was formed first and that Adam was not deceived. Eve may have been formed second, but she sinned first because believed the serpent’s lies. Yet her sin did not plunge the rest of the world into sin. Why? She did not have the authority to speak on behalf of it. That authority belonged to Adam. He was the covenant head. So, when he fell, we all fell, but not a moment before. Eve assumed an authority she did not possess and so her curse corresponds: Genesis 3:16, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
Note, the curse was not that Adam was going to be in charge from now on. That was established prior to the Fall and God called it, “very good.” Patriarchy is not the result of sin. It is not evil, not even a necessary evil. No, in fact, patriarchy is a necessary good. The curse was that Eve and her daughters, from that moment forward, would struggle to joyfully embrace their God-appointed role as helpers and instead would struggle and grasp for Adam’s God-assigned role as head. The curse of Eve is the temptation to believe that the blessing of Adam is better than hers and that the curse of Adam is not as bad as hers. Feminism falsely asserts that Adam’s privileges are greater than his responsibilities and that Eve’s responsibilities are greater than her privileges. It blesses the curses of Adam and it curses the blessings of Eve. The late, great Voddie Baucham put it this way, "Eve's curse is not good enough for feminists, they want to share Adam's too."
So, when the serpent asked Eve, “Did God really say?” What should she have said? “Let’s ask my husband.” But because Eve attempted to speak for him, she is now tempted to continue to do so and sometimes even resents Adam for his ability to do so. But in so doing, she fails to see that Adam’s ability is also a responsibility. When Adam and Eve sinned, who did God come looking for? Adam. As anyone in leadership knows, crap flows uphill and so this mess ended up on his desk. God held him accountable. Feminism wants all the ability of a man and none of the accountability. It wants to retain the blessings of being protected without taking on the burden of having to look out for or protect anyone else. And that is where the text goes next.
Look at :15, “The woman will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” Wait! Did that just say that Eve was saved by having babies? YES!... and no. Let me explain. Consider Gen 3. Prior to cursing Eve with more painful childbearing, God promised her something, if she was paying attention. In :15, while cursing the serpent, He hid an Easter egg for Eve. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” Did you catch it? A seed of Eve would someday overcome the seed of the devil. A Savior would kill all sin. This is often referred to as the “protoevangelium,” or first Gospel.
So, was Eve saved by childbearing? Yes and no. She was not saved because she had a child, she was saved because she believed the Good News and trusted the promises of God. Think about the faith that required. Death was now a part of life. Any child she bore would be destined to die. If anyone ever had a good reason to say, “Who would bring a child into a world like this?” it was Eve… but she didn’t. By faith, she bore the pain of childbirth, the discomfort of breastfeeding, and the heartache of knowing her children would all grow up to die. She believed God and so she obeyed Him. The same can be said of Mary. She believed God and submitted to the pain of pregnancy and to the heartache of knowing her child would grow up to die. So, was Mary saved by bearing a child? Yes and no. Having a child does not save you, but trusting God does, and that includes submitting to the frame He gave you and the responsibilities that come with it as well as resisting the temptation to envy the frame or responsibilities He has given to others. So, in one sense, women are uniquely saved by childbearing and in another sense, all people are saved through childbearing for the Seed of the woman saves.
Notice how Paul reinforces this point in :15. He transitions from a singular “the woman” to a plural “they.” Eve was a real, historical person, but she also serves as a sort of placeholder for all women in general. And just as she is that for all women, Adam is that for all mankind. He is not just a man, he is not even all men, he is all mankind. So, when the Bible says that men are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, that includes women. Thanks be to God! We are saved by federal headship. The same principle that applied to the first Adam applies to the Second Adam. Consider 1 Corinthians 15:22 “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” In other words, the same patriarchy that enrages the feminists is the only thing that can save them.
We are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone and we work out our salvation with fear and trembling according to who God made us to be. Women were made to help husbands and have children. You do not have to have either to be saved per se, but to bristle against either is a sign that faith, love, holiness, and self-control are lacking and/or absent. On the flip side, women who like the idea of husbands and kids assume that being a wife or a mom is a piece of cake. Since they have been rehearsing these roles since they were girls by playing with dolls or pretending to keep house, they assume they’ve got it down, they just need the man or the baby. But as Paul told Titus there’s more to it than that.
Titus 2:3-5 “Older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” Young women do not, by nature, know how to love husbands, children, or how to work at home. They need to be trained and the older women are called upon to be their trainers. Homemaking does not come naturally. But you know what does? Arrogance and presumption. Social media is full of young wives and moms with all kinds of marriage and parenting tips. But Paul here points out what many of you already know: they don’t know what they’re talking about. That is why the older women are called upon to teach them. Note that this is a command. So, it’s not that women cannot teach, it’s that some of them are called to teach certain things to the rest of them. This is an obligation, not an option. Older women must teach the younger. If they don’t, the young trad wives will all assume they are already experts and by doing so, many of them will unwittingly pull down their own households with their own two thumbs. Let the tweeter understand.
The same can be said for “working at home.” Young women need to be trained to stay home. Too many assume “real” work takes place out there and that “real” recognition takes place online. “Working at home,” does not mean that a wife can never attend to anything outside of her home. It does, however, mean that she cannot attend to anything outside of her home until everything inside her home is attended to. Her home must be her top priority. The only leftovers of hers it should get is last night’s dinner. She should not pour herself out all day for someone else’s kids or work hard for someone else’s husband and then come home and give her own family whatever she still has left.
In 1 Timothy 5:14, Paul makes this clear, “I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.” The Greek word translated here as “manage their households,” is oikodespotein. It is a compound word made up of the words for “home,” and “despot.” So, ladies, there you have it: God would rather you rule your own home than serve someone else’s. You want to climb the corporate ladder? Why? So, you can be a manager someday? The entry level position for a wife and mother is manager. Why start at the bottom when you could start at the top?
Women were made to domesticate. They make home wherever they go. So, when women choose the office over their homes, they simply end up turning their offices into a home. They can’t help themselves. This is why we now have “work families” and “food days” in so much of corporate America. Chesterton, in his book What’s Wrong with the World, said it this way, "Modern women defend their office with all the fierceness of domesticity. They fight for desk and typewriter as for hearth and home, and develop a sort of wolfish wifehood on behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do it." Women were made to make home, but the place they were made to do it is in their own – serving their husbands and raising their kids.
If this all seems a bit heavy-handed, consider the stakes. In both Titus 2:5 and 1 Timothy 5:14 Paul says the reputation of the Word of God is on the line. Did you catch that? Women should love their families and work at home. Why? “So that the Word of God may not be reviled.” Women should get married, have kids, and rule their homes well. Why? “To give the adversary no occasion for slander.” If we want the world to honor God’s design, we need to go first. If we slander God’s design, why shouldn’t they?
Chesterton said it this way, “There has happened a strange and startling thing. Openly and to all appearance, an ancestral conflict has silently and abruptly ended; one of the two sexes has suddenly surrendered to the other... the woman has in public surrendered to the man. She has seriously and officially owned that the man has been right all along; that the public house is really more important than the private house." Feminism is not a win for women, it is a loss. It is not a victory for the feminine ideal, it is the final surrender of femininity. It is the idea that the masculine ideal is the only ideal that matters.
Chesterton again, "Feminism is the muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers and slaves when they help their husbands." Submission is simply putting your mission underneath someone else’s (sub-mission), and we all have to do it. The mission of God is above any of ours. Kings are called to submit to Christ. Husbands are called to submit to Christ. Elders are called to submit to Christ. No earthly authority is absolute. 1 Cor 11:3 says it this way, “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” Submission is simply being where you are at the behest of the One who put you there and being who you are according to the design of the One who made you. And we all have enough to do where we are without busying ourselves with other people’s business.
This brings us back to :35 of our sermon text. Women have been given enough to do without trying to do what men do. So, on the Lord’s Day, the bride of Christ submits to her Husband by sending a man to the pulpit. Did you catch that? Christ is the Head of the church. He is her Husband. And what does He command His bride to do? Choose qualified men to preach and administer the Lord’s Supper. That is the Church submitting to her Husband. So, in a plot twist of providence, having men lead is the bride of Christ’s submissive glory. C.S. Lewis said it this way, “Only one wearing the masculine uniform can represent the Lord to the Church…. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all.” It is a shameful thing for a woman to speak authoritatively in church. That is like a wife beheading her husband in public. It is not stunning or brave, it is a shame – one might even say a damned shame.
Rich Lusk said it this way, “Every time a church allows a woman to preside over the Eucharist, the Fall of Genesis 3 is being re-enacted; a woman serving the sacramental meal (especially to men) means Satan’s lies are still being believed… Feminism and egalitarianism are therefore Christian heresies.” There are few things more Satanic than a woman serving the Lord’s Supper. It is a reenactment of the first sin and the Fall of man.
I trust you at this point you see why so many keep these verses in the junk drawer. But we are not them. We are Bible-believing Christians and we are not allowed to have problem passages. We receive the teachings of the Bible as they are, not as the mere opinions of dead men which can be ignored or rejected, but as the Words of living God which must be taught, repeated, and accepted. So, set aside the sticker shock of the text for a second and take a moment to notice something that is hidden in plain sight. Everyone sees the potential offense to women, right? We all see the pressure this puts on her, but most miss the responsibility it puts on her husband: she has to be quiet, which may be a tough pill to swallow, but he has to talk; and not only that, he has to have answers. Did you catch that?
:35 “If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home.” At any given moment, men, your wife can give you a pop quiz and it’s your job to be prepared to pass the test. The men here at CCL talk a lot about preparedness. We discuss how much water and ammo you need stored up, and the answer for both is usually “more than you think.” But do we take the same initiative and interest in storing up God’s Word? You never know what life may throw at you or what questions your wife or child might ask you. Are you prepared to answer them… or are your verses a little rusty? How many verses should a guy have in his heart? “More than you think.” This is heavy lifting, gents. You cannot skip leg day and expect to carry your family on your back, and you cannot skip your Bible reading and expect to know what God says. And you cannot just say, “I don’t know, babe, ask the elders.” Now, you can and should ask the elders for counsel if you are having a hard time making heads or tails of some sticky theological question, but you cannot simply send your wife to them. They are not your wife’s husband, you are. And the Bible does not put the weight of leading your wife on them, it puts it on you.
A husband must wash his wife in the Word and he must live with her in an understanding way. All husbands have to read their own Bibles, do their own study, know what they think about what they believe, and talk to their wives about it. Every man must be able to say, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord… and this is how we do it” He doesn’t just have the privilege of speaking like that, he has an obligation to speak like that. It isn’t just a flex he can do, it is a weight he must carry. Now, given all of this, you ladies might be relieved to know that all they have to do is be quiet and ask questions later. But in a similar fashion, this is not just something you are allowed to do, it is something you ought to do. And if you have questions about how to think through something you hear, ask your husband later. “Honey, what do we think about…?” You do not have to be an empty bucket waiting for him to fill your head with thoughts. You need to bring the thoughts you already have to him and then ask him what he thinks. The husband is not the only thinker in the home, but he is the only head.
So, men, the question is not “who will be the head?” – it is “will you be a good one?” You were made for gravitas. You are the glory of God (1 Cor 11:7), but glory is a heavy business. So, submit to the weight that is placed on your shoulders and rise to the occasion. Act like men. If you want your wife to be a Biblical woman, be a Biblical man. If you want a Proverbs 31 woman, be a Proverbs 1-30 man. If you do not take up your responsibility in this, she will either be stunted or frustrated, or both. If she must be silent, you must speak. If she is eager to grow and zealous to learn, you must keep out ahead of her. Not merely keep up with her, but keep ahead. That is what it means to lead. A godly wife will have some questions and a godly husband must have some answers. And the godlier the wife, the godlier the man he will need to be. Men, you are her ceiling and the higher you go, the more room she has to grow. If it is shameful for a woman to speak in church, and it is, how much more shameful is it for a man to be silent in his own home?
So, we end where we began. Marriage is a mystery and the way of a man with a woman is full of wonder, but its primary purpose is to point to Christ and His church. In that sense, every marriage is a message. Every home is preaching something. It is either the Gospel of God or it is the way of the world. May God make us better men and women who are better at being men and women.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
PRAYER
Heavenly Father, the mystery of marriage and the wonder of the way of a man with a woman is beyond us. Thank You for revealing Your will to us in Your Word and through the covenant of marriage. There is much to discuss and to apply. Give us wisdom as we leave here to put it into practice. Give us Your Spirit that we may better appreciate Your ways and see them manifested in our hearts, in our homes, and in our world as it is in Heaven. We ask all of this in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord, and we offer up the words of the prayer He taught us to pray singing…
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