1 Corinthians 14:33

The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, a statement that excludes all idea of being moved by an uncontrollable impulse. With men speaking under the power of demons it would be otherwise, resulting in unholy excitement and confusion. God is not the Author of confusion, but of peace. Any scene of confusion in the assemblies of God's people is clearly not of God.

1 Corinthians 14:32 simply teaches that the spirit of the prophet was under the prophet's control — that he was not compelled, as by some irresistible force, to speak, but that he could wait, in calm self-possession, for a fitting occasion to speak. This is a most valuable principle, and one which ought to be deeply pondered. If it were fully understood and acted upon, it would preserve us from a quantity of mere fanaticism and absurdity.

A gift is not God, and the way a gift is used is not always an expression of His will. But God dwells in the assembly, and in each individual saint. This solemn and ever blessed truth lies at the bottom of all special direction as to behaviour in the Church. What God expects from His worshippers is not so much a ready awareness of gifts or powers in themselves. It is a deep and reverent sense of His immediate presence… Confusion is the fruit of human self-seeking, but grace makes us know the God of peace. When His abounding peace fills and quiets their hearts, their outward manner will show their inward state.

Strife and contention in the churches could not come from God. He is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the assemblies of the saints… These things spring from the flesh. We read: "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?" (James 4:1). The devil, the relentless enemy of God, is behind the flesh. He can work upon it; he could have no foothold among the saints of God apart from it.

The assembly at Corinth had the worst confusion and disorder. Even there, the inspired apostle never hints at such a thing as a human president, under any name at all. God was there to keep order. They were to look to Him, not to a man, under any name. To set up man to keep order in God's Assembly is sheer unbelief, and an open insult to the Divine Presence.

God led Paul to write to the Corinthian assembly to set them right about many things among them. But all through the letter we see passages that prove the apostle never treated it as an independent, self-contained unit. He saw it as a responsible and representative part of the whole church of God on earth… The same teaching, and the same principles of action that applied to them, applied to all… What applies to one applies to all.

A full stop clearly belongs after the word peace. A new sentence then begins: "As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches."

Paul called on the saints at Corinth to see that these instructions, with all the earlier ones he gave, were not just his own ideas of what looked proper. They were "the commandments of the Lord." So our duty is plain. It is not for us to explain them away, or to treat them as only Paul's opinion, or as rules that suited the first century but are now out of date. Rather, as far as we understand them, we are to obey them.