As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. 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. Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only ones it has reached? (1Corinthians 14: 33-36)

This instruction is inconsistent with other teachings of Paul where the role of women in public prayer and prophecy is affirmed.

This paragraph is incongruent with its context; unless we assume that only women were speaking in tongues.

Many scholars have treated this as a gloss imposed on Paul - and the church - by editors and transcribers. In the New Revised Standard version the entire paragraph is bracketed in parenthesis and footnoted as questionable.

Yet Jewish, Greek, and Roman law would have agreed on female deference. Women speaking out in the ekklesia would have offended and put-off many.

Paul tended to view most cultural norms as not worth challenging. His attention was focused on bringing more and more into relationship with God.

In relationship with God the greater reality of radical equality - no male or female, slave or free - would be realized soon enough.

Don't mistake ends with means or means with ends. Paul was consistent in cautioning that we not allow ephemeral concerns to delay achieving the profound goal of bringing the world to Christ.

Above is the entombment of Christ with three women and John by Peter Paul Rubens.