Lydia

“- what makes “church” so special that women can’t teach there, but they can present the identical teaching to an equivalent (and even possibly, identical) audience (adult men) if the setting is not “church”?”

And how do we know if there was just one Body of believers meeting in homes in Corinth? Perhaps there were several. I can remember reading some archeologists who said that the typical 1st century home could have crammed about 35 people in. There would be no pews, no stage, no altar, no pulpit. One home was excavated in Ephesus that had obviously been remodeled to fit in 70 or so people.

As we read in 1 Corin where Paul advised that several prophesy and some others judge what was said is so alien to our tradition, we can hardly imagine such a thing.

We would not really think of this as a church today. How much of tradition is our filter for these rules and roles of ‘pastor’/elder? 1 Corin does not say only pastors or elders can prophesy. Elders would be the most spiritually mature. They would look the most like the salt elements of Matthew 5!

Was Lydia, being the first convert in Europe, not allowed to teach men in the Body that met in her home?

It seems the 1st century church was quite informal.