ordinary christianity for the world.
Corinth, A Church Divided
Poetic Praise
Head Dressing
1 Corinthians 11:8-16
"And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them." — Deuteronomy 28:13
Today, children — male and female — come from the bodies of women. That's what motherhood means. But in the biblical story of Creation, the first woman came from or was made from the rib of the body of the man. Woman was a derivative creation of man. The cultural practice regarding head coverings reflected and symbolized the biblical Creation story. The symbol is not about the subjugation of women or the superiority of men, but the universal submission to God's authority and the human responsibility that is necessary in order to live under God's authority. Both men and women were assigned various roles and responsibilities as a cultural reminder of God's authority, and of our responsibility.
Hats (head coverings) have been practically universal as people lived outside in the elements, unlike today when few Western people wear hats and people live inside. Hats are a form of protection from the elements, warmth in the cold, shade in the sun, protection from the rain. Hats, then, symbolize care, protection and shielding.
Men were to uncover their heads during worship, symbolizing their direct or unprotected and unshielded relationship with and responsibility to Jesus Christ. In contrast, Women were to cover their heads during worship, symbolizing their protection, their shielding from the harsh elements of reality by the power and authority of their husbands. Their head covering symbolized the fact that wives honored their husband's (or father's) protective authority and the fact that their husbands (or fathers) honored their responsibility to Jesus Christ. Paul's head covering instructions were not just for women, but were for both men and women. The couple was treated as a unit. It was a kind of double symbolism, reflecting the double bind of the husband's authority under Christ and his service to his wife and family, his commitment to their care and protection, and his commitment of faithfulness to God. It was also a symbol of the covenant union between husband and wife, and also symbolically reflected the covenantal relationship between God and His people.
We need to understand that all biblical government is representative government, and that it always exists and operates through various hierarchies of authority and responsibility. Thus, the wearing of a head covering was for the wife a cultural expression of the representative authority of her husband who was a recognized member of Christ's kingdom (and who was also under authority). He had authority over her, but his primary responsibility was her well-being because of Christ's authority over him.
When all authority is hierarchical, then every person has some other person to whom he or she is personally responsible. In the Christian scheme of things husbands are directly responsible to Jesus Christ through the various authorities He has established through the structures of church and state. Christian husbands are personally responsible to the elders of the churches to which they belong. And wives are directly responsible to their husbands. The personal relationship that wives have to Jesus Christ is a derivative relationship through their husbands. Why? Because the authority of Christ is real, and the derivative authorities He has established are equally real. In addition, the biblical structures of responsibility and authority reflect and symbolize the authority relationships within the Trinity. There is a hierarchy of authority in the Trinity, yet there is equality of being.
We must also remember that the positions of biblical leadership are positions of servanthood. Husbands were charged with acquiring and maintaining family provisions — food and shelter, protection from the elements (Ephesians 5:25-30). The husband's responsibility was to provide for the sustenance and protection for his wife and family, and her wearing of head coverings was a symbol of his protection and authority. It was also a symbol of devotion (Colossians 3:18), of the wife's love and devotion to her husband and the husband's love and devotion to Jesus Christ and to his (the husband's) wife.
Paul goes on, "Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent (choris) of man nor man of woman" (v. 11). Man and woman, husband and wife are not independent entities. The Greek word translated as independent (choris) means without. The woman (gune — literally wife) is not without the man (aner — literally husband). "Man" (the species) is composed of male and female. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). Individuals are not independent units of humanity. Rather, one unit of humanity is male and female (Genesis 2:24). The unit is required for reproduction, for the sustainment of life.
While there is nothing wrong with being unmarried, the Bible teaches that it is better to marry (1 Timothy 3:2). Paul does teach that there are times when it is better not to marry (Matthew 19:10), but the context of that advice was the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. This was not generic advice, but was intended for a specific time and circumstance. Paul also taught that it is "better to marry than to be aflame with passion" (1 Corinthians 7:9).
Until very recently in history families, that is to say husband and wife, were considered to be a single economic unit. This is still part of the U.S. Tax Code. The word economic comes from the Greek word oikos, which means household. It did not mean that men "worked" and women didn't. It did not mean that men worked outside the home and women worked inside the home. Rather, it meant that the family household was the central focus and location of work. The household was an economic unit. With industrialization work moved from the household to the factory and/or office. The point is that the focus of work moved out of the household.
It is also a well-established fact that the industrialization that has occurred over the past 200 years has not only completely changed the most fundamental structures of human society, but has had a particularly detrimental effect on the family, on the bonds of family life and on family responsibilities. It has also distanced contemporary culture from the values and norms of the Bible. So, it is no surprise that we have difficulty understanding and/or adapting to biblical culture. At best biblical culture in contemporary society operates in fits and starts. This is only to say that the Kingdom of God is not yet manifest in its fullness.
Note that the Bible plays a key role in God's long range plan to move biblical culture from the periphery to the center of human society. Christian culture today is a counter culture in that the dominant contemporary culture is not Christian — I doubt that it ever was completely Christian. Nonetheless we must understand that God intends to change human culture and the structures of human societies to conform to the values and practices taught in Scripture. Thus, Christians cannot avoid culture by retreating into various Christian ghettos (sub-cultures), nor by being assimilated into the popular culture — not even in the name of Jesus. Many Christians and their contemporary churches are just as worldly as the surrounding culture, except that they practice their worldliness in the name of Jesus — thinking and saying one thing while doing another. This is not how things should be. Christians are to be actively involved in the centers of human culture, influencing those centers with biblical values and practices. Christians are to influence the centers of culture, not be influenced by them. The difference is critical and has proven to be a difficult row to hoe.
The classic formulation is for Christians to be in the culture but not of the culture, to live in its midst without being caught up in it, without being defined by it, without finding their identity in it. Unfortunately, too many people today are in the church and of the culture. That is, they are caught up in popular culture through a baptized version of it without realizing that there is not much difference between those who covet sin a little and those who covet sin a lot.
This is the primary mechanism that drains Christianity of its strength. People think that they are Christian because they "walked the aisle," or because they go to church, or because they grew up in the church. The world and the church are awash in a kind of logical disconnect, where people say they believe in something but act as if they don't — except at church. At church they dress their secular beliefs in Christian clothes. They believe those who teach that church and God and religion are fine, but must not mix with government, politics or the work place, that it is wrong to practice Christianity if people object to it.
In God's culture Adam was created before Eve, and she was created differently, by a different process, a derivative process. Adam, the man, had greater responsibility because he was created first. So, his greater responsibility required greater authority. Sinful women have envied Adam's position of authority over the years, thinking him to have been more important or of a higher stature in God's eyes. That's not the way that God sees it, but it is the way that sinful people see it. Women (and others) have striven for equality without understanding that their claim to equality is based on the presumption that they know more than God, who created them — or are more moral than God, who did not institute the kind of equality that sinners want.
Paul wrote to the Philippians about this issue of social equality, "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:5-8). Jesus was not concerned about equality. He was concerned about God's justice and He appealed to God's grace. God knew that Jacob and Esau were not equal (Romans 9:13), nor are any other two people.
The very heart of Christianity is about justice and grace, truth and mercy. And God's justice is representational justice, and His grace is representational grace. Why? Because justice and grace are expressions of authority and God's authority is always representational authority. Our union with Christ through regeneration is not a union of equality of any sort. It is, rather, a representational union. Christ is our head, our representative on the cross and through His resurrection in God's judgment court. He represents us before God, sort of like your senator represents you in the senate, or your defense lawyer represents you in court.
Adam was created and given a job — naming and classifying the animals, and only then he was given a wife. Why was Adam given a wife? Genesis 2:20 says it best, "there was not found a suitable helper for Adam." She was not created to be an equal, but a helper. The Hebrew that is translated as suitable helper (??? ???) in this verse literally means exactly that. Sinful people have assumed that being a helper is less valuable than being the one helped. But Scripture does not suggest any such thing.
Is there anyone who does not work as a helper to someone else? I doubt it. All jobs, all work is a form of some kind of help for someone else. Everyone helps someone else and everyone has a boss. There is nothing demeaning about being an assistant, or in biblical terms, a servant. Christians are called to be servants, and the "higher" people rise in Christian authority, the more service is expected of them.
Paul goes on to show two things based upon verse 12, "for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God." First, he indicates that the way things are now is not is not the way they were in the Garden. In other words, God's creation was categorically different in form and structure from the natural processes we see in operation today. At Creation, God made Eve from Adam's rib. But today men are born from the wombs of women. God's ways and methods are not our ways and methods. God established several cultural practices to remind us of that fact, and Paul's injunction regarding head coverings serves in that capacity — as a reminder of the order of Creation and of God's authority.
Secondly, Paul tells us that God's authority is absolute, that "all things are from God." Lest we begin to think that our ways are on a par with God's, Paul reminds us that even the fact that women now give birth to men is not a function of the power and authority of humanity, but is simply another derivative authority that also belongs to God. So, if you don't like the way that things are, they way that Paul has laid them out, you need to take it up with God, not with Paul, and by extension, not with the church, nor with the husband, but with God Himself. At least as long as the husband and the church are functioning according to God's Word. Where they are not in line with God's Word (Scripture) they are liable to correction, but where they are in line with God's Word they are due honor and respect. Obedience to a faithful husband — faithful to Jesus Christ — is faithfulness to God.
Having, then, established that Paul's understanding about head coverings is grounded and established in the Word of God, Paul appeals to conscience, "Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered?" (v. 13). Paul was saying that if you doubt his interpretation or his authority to make such determinations, then use your own judgment. Paul was not forcing his authority down their proverbial throats. Rather, Paul allows — better yet, encourages — people to rely upon their own conscience to determine what to do about head coverings. It is not a salvation issue. It's a cultural practice issue. It's a family issue, and it is an issue of conscience.
The KJV says that it is "comely" (prepo) for women to pray uncovered — proper, becoming, suitable, winsome, graceful, fitting, right. Webster said, "Applied to person or form, it (comely) denotes symmetry or due proportion, but it expresses less than beautiful or elegant." Paul's teaching about head coverings appeals to a sense of propriety, of acceptable behavior or morality. Interestingly, for most of history in most cultures "uncovered" women were considered to be whores or prostitutes, to be without husbands, to be without the authority or protection of a father or husband — unprotected. Only in the Modern and Postmodern West has this changed. Or has it?
Verses 14 & 15 comprise one sentence or idea, "Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering." Paul previously appealed to God's Word — and the various structures of authority given therein — and to human conscience. Here he appeals to nature (phusis) to make his point. Paul is appealing to something that is inwardly innate or self-evident. It is an appeal to character, specifically to Christian character.
May I suggest that Paul is appealing to the cultural maintenance of the social distinction between the sexes. In every human culture there are important social and cultural differences between men and women, differences that are manifest in dress, mannerisms and character. Some of these differences are apparent to an observer, and some are difficult for an untrained eye to see. At root Paul is appealing to the innate differences between masculinity and femininity. And Paul is saying that it is important to preserve such differences both personally and culturally. Men and women should look different and act different because they are different.
Defining or describing masculinity and femininity is quite difficult, if not impossible. Definitions and descriptions — words — struggle to capture the differences. And yet the differences are quite real. People tend to know the difference when they see it, to know it when they experience it. But putting it into words turns it into an abstraction. Words alone don't do it justice. And that is Paul's point here.
Paul is suggesting that God has distributed authority and responsibility differently, that God does not treat the sexes the same, so neither should we. And part and parcel of that difference will manifest — must manifest — itself in various cultural practices. It may not make any difference what those particular cultural practices are, as long as they are different. But if it doesn't really matter what they are, then there is no good argument for disagreeing with Paul's injunctions regarding head coverings.
Paul relates the differences between men and women to their heads because Scripture provides a difference in authority and responsibility between husbands and wives. And the symbolism of head coverings points to the head, to authority. Men are not better than women, or visa versa. They are simply different, and the differences are a matter of character and culture. The differences are also real and are to be respected personally and culturally.
In conclusion Paul said, "If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God" (v. 16). John Gill sums up this thought well:
if anyone will not be satisfied with reasons given, for men's praying and prophesying with their heads uncovered, and women's praying and prophesying with their heads covered; but will go on to raise objections, and continue carping and caviling, showing that they contend not for truth, but victory, can they but obtain it any way; for my part, as if the apostle should say, I shall not think it worth my while to continue the dispute any longer; enough has been said to satisfy any wise and good man, anyone that is serious, thoughtful, and modest; and shall only add, "we have no such custom, nor the churches of God;" meaning, either that men should appear covered, and women uncovered in public service, and which should have some weight with all those that have any regard to churches and their examples; or that men should be indulged in a captious and contentious spirit; a man that is always contending for contention sake, and is continually caviling and carping at everything that is said and done in churches, and is always quarreling with one person or another, or on account of one thing or another, and is constantly giving uneasiness, is not fit to be a church member; nor ought he to be suffered to continue in the communion of the church, to the disturbance of the peace of it. (John Gill's Exposition of the Bible)
Strong words, but worthy of consideration.
