Paul Whiting raises the tricky issue raised by Paul in 1 Cor 14 regarding the place of women in the church. It follows on from my post on tongues in 1 Corinthians. Just to refresh, here's the troublesome text in question:

As in all the congregations of the saints, ³⁴women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. ³⁵If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

 ³⁶Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? ³⁷If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. ³⁸If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored.^[i]

 ³⁹Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. ⁴⁰But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way. (1 Cor 14:33b-40)

Texts like these don't sit comfortably with modern readers. It seems terribly un-PC to insist that women ought to be silent in church and that they should rather be instructed by their husbands when they get home. It is also rather common to gloss over Paul's treatment of women as merely 'cultural' rather than treating such texts as an equally authoritative part of Paul's Gospel. Whilst there are perhaps some grounds for maintaining that Paul's attitude to women in the church is simply just a part of his contextual theology (is there such a thing as non-contextual theology???), we ought to dig a little deeper to really try and get to grips with a text that has all kinds of potential for misuse and misunderstanding.

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I came across this insight into the Trinity by Rowan Williams over at Klippt och skuret. It is a defence of the Trinity in the light of misrepresentation of the doctrine by some Muslims:

"We call him the Son of God. But we do not mean by this that God has physically begotten him, or that he is made to be another God alongside the one God. We say rather that the one God is first the source of everything, the life from which everything flows out. Then we say that the one God is also in that flowing-out. The life that comes from him is not something different from him. It reflects all that he is. It shows his glory and beauty and communicates them. Once again, our teachers say that God has a perfect and eternal ‘image’ of his glory, sometimes called his wisdom, sometimes called his ‘word’, sometimes called his ‘son’, though this is never to be understood in a physical and literal way. And we say that the one God, who is both source and outward-flowing life, who is both ‘Father’ and ‘Son’, is also active as the power that draws everything back to God, leading and guiding human beings towards the wisdom and goodness of God. This is the power we call ‘Holy Spirit’.

So when we speak of ‘the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’, we do not at all mean to say that there are three gods – as if there were three divine people in heaven, like three human people in a room. Certainly we believe that the three ways in which God eternally exists and acts are distinct – but not in the way that things in the world or even persons in the world are distinct. This is why when Christians read in the Qur’an the strong condemnation of ‘associating’ with God other beings that are not God, they will agree wholeheartedly."

You can't help but notice that one of the recent hot topics of discussion in the blogosphere has been the debate between charismatics and cessationists. I started writing a post on prophecy which I haven't finished yet but this post by Mark Heath caught my attention. I think there is a great deal of confusion over the issues of tongues, and inparticular their use in worship and in witness.

Tongues in Acts

The gift of tongues seem to have been part and parcel of early church life, and speaking in other tongues was part of the church at its inception (Acts 2:1ff). There is however a remarkable difference between the gift of tongues at Pentecost and (seemingly) the gift of tongues found at Corinth and indeed in modern charismatic-pentecostal circles.

The apostles do not speak in the unintelligble spiritual babble that Paul instructs the Corinthians in the correct use of. Rathe we find that:

    "...there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome both Jews and converts to Judaism Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" (Acts 2:5-11)

Under the power of the Holy Spirit, the apostles 'declare the wonders of God' in other human languages in a way that is fully intelligible to their hearers. This then leads into Peter's public sermon and a large scale conversion to Christ by those who hear the preaching. The sending of the Spirit and speaking in tongues seems to be a complete reversal of the damage done at the Tower of Babel, and Good News of God is made intelligible even for those who do not speak the native tongue of the apostles. The gift of tongues here is very different to the gift of tongues we find at Corinth and in the modern church. It is connected not with worship or private devotion, but with mission and witness. It is an eschatological sign which heralds the good news that the blessings promised by God will no longer be restricted simply to one ethnic group, but that now the Gospel is going to be declared to people of all nations, as Jesus has already instructed the apostles back in Acts 1:8. Read more...