Question:

60.2—At the Young People’s pizza party our group got to talking about how women are supposed to be silent during meeting. I’m wondering if the same thing applies during Young People’s meetings. So should women be quiet during Young People’s or for some reason is it okay to talk?

Answer:

60.2—There is a “law,” or order that God has in creation that is to be applied whenever “praying or prophesying” is made that, “The head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3,4).  We are told that this order is because “Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Timothy 2:13,14).

This is why when praying or prophesying the man is NOT to cover his head but if the woman’s head is uncovered she puts her own head to shame, because man is the image [representative] and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man (see 1 Corinthians 11:4,5,7). Thus women are to be in subjection…for it is a shame for women to speak, when the whole assembly is come together into one place (see 1 Corinthians 14:34,35,23). They are to “not to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but be in silence” (1 Timothy 2:11,12).

Every woman who is seeking to please the Lord wherever there is praying or prophesying should consider these Scriptures. She should keep in mind that “the whole assembly” is NOT gathered in the Young People’s Meetings at the conferences, but they have more the character of a home setting—especially when smaller classes are made. Women ARE to speak in the home—“ask their husbands at home” (1 Corinthians 14:35), and the place for women to prophesy is in private—as Priscilla, with her husband, instructed the gifted Apollos in the way of the Lord in their own home, which is where Deborah also prophesied (Acts 18:26; Judges 4:4.5).