1 Corinthians 11:2-16
In the great spiritual battle that engages our lives when we begin to follow Christ, probably one of the main battlegrounds is the sacred space of the Christian family. The marriage relationship between a man and a woman, as we know from Ephesians and other of Paul’s writings, is intended by God to be a beautiful picture of the covenant relationship between God and his people. Satan knows this too, and therefore he has tried to destroy marriages and one of his most effective methods has been to distort what Christians think the Bible teaches about marriage.
Today we come to one of the more controversial passages of Scripture. You have just heard it. If there was ever a day that your pastor needed prayer, perhaps this is the one. Perhaps just by hearing it read you ladies are thinking, “Oh no. Here we go.” And perhaps some of the men are thinking, “Finally, I will get some help from the pastor to get her under control!” You would both be wrong.
Let us first of all acknowledge that we all live with a sinful nature that selfishly wants the things in life to be a certain way, my way. Let us remember that the Bible is given to teach us the way things should be, not the way we want them to be. Now from those two remarks you might still be thinking that I am probably going to come down on what you believe to be the wrong side of this, either too hard on the women or no hope for the men. But you can trust the Bible to be perfectly fair and right in what it asks of any of us. You should pray for the interpreter and expositor to get it just as right as the Bible itself.
Now when you just read this text with American ears it sounds like women get a bad deal out of this. It is difficult passages like this one that have fueled the sometimes angry debates about women in ministry, women’s place in the home, male headship and what all that means. This passage has often been used wrongfully by men to keep women under their thumbs. Even well-meaning pastors have actually contributed to the ongoing abuse of women by domineering husbands by misunderstanding this passage and the other ones that address this issue.
So we can’t simply read these words with American thinking. To get to the right conclusions about this passage we are going to have to do a little background/historical work so that we get to Biblical thinking. First of all, this text isn’t really about men and women in general. Verse 4 tells us that Paul is talking about the worship services of the Corinthian congregations. “Every man who prays or prophecies with his head covered dishonors his head.” So whatever arguments Paul uses about the relationships between men, women, Jesus and God, he is doing it in this case to teach the congregations how to conduct their worship services, not their marriages.
Second, Paul is obviously not teaching us that women have nothing to say in church and or should not preach at all. He is only talking about propriety. He is talking about the impressions they are making on the unbelieving people around them who are looking on and thinking about things from the perspective of their culture. Appearances meant a lot more back then than they do today. That is why Paul talked so much about hair length and head coverings in this passage.
Back in those days, how people dressed, and how they wore their hair was meant to communicate something about the identity of the person. So about hair length and head coverings in Corinth, in particular of concern to Paul, women with short hair were known to be prostitutes. The idea here was again that the Corinthians could now see that they have freedom in Christ to wear their hair any length at all. What matters is the heart, not appearances. And yet Paul was begging them to consider appearances for the sake of the lost.
This is especially true for people on a mission, seeking to reach the lost. We have to be conscientious about what our worship services look like to outsiders. It’s the same reason that Hudson Taylor, who we already mentioned weeks ago, dressed and lived like a Chinese person while he was a missionary in China. He didn’t use his freedom in Christ to be comfortable and expect the Chinese to understand and get past their first impressions. No he sacrificed his freedom in order to make the best impression and make it easier for the Chinese to hear his message.
But it is also still true for us to some extent that what we wear or don’t wear says something. For example, what difference does it make to you whether or not I wear my wedding ring? That would tell you something wouldn’t it. Or how about if there were Hare Krishna people around here and for the sake of reaching them I shaved my head and wore the orange robe? Wouldn’t you be concerned? And even if you did understand, wouldn’t everybody outside the church immediately think I had left the Christian faith?
Clearly the kind of head coverings Paul was talking about send virtually no sexual or religious messages in contemporary Western societies. Perhaps the only exception is in those few extremely conservative churches that still insist on women wearing hats, scarves or hairnets. And the message those churches usually send to the culture at large is that they are hopelessly out of touch with modernity! For them it would be best to abandon the practice at once so that they could better implement Paul’s practice of being all things to all people in order to save as many as possible.1 In other cultures however, missionaries have to carefully consider how head coverings often continue to carry great significance.
But besides hair lengths, Paul does have a word to say about the authority structure of the marriage relationship. Note that he specifically speaks of husbands and wives, not men and women. Also remember that he is talking about what marriages look like to outsiders observing public worship. And please note that women are allowed to prophesy and pray in church, that includes preaching! And again, in connection with hairstyles and head coverings Paul is merely saying that Christians should be careful that their appearance does not suggest to outsiders that husbands and wives are not married to each other or don’t respect each other.
The easiest way for me to help you understand what was really going on there is simply to read the same passage in another version of Scripture. This is The Message, put together by a great pastor named Eugene Peterson whose goal was to always look for an English way to make the biblical text speak clearly and correctly to modern Christians. Listen…
“In a marriage relationship, there is authority from Christ to husband, and from husband to wife. The authority of Christ is the authority of God. Any man who speaks with God or about God in a way that shows a lack of respect for the authority of Christ, dishonors Christ. In the same way, a wife who speaks with God in a way that shows a lack of respect for the authority of her husband, dishonors her husband. Worse, she dishonors herself—an ugly sight, like a woman with her head shaved. This is basically the origin of these customs we have of women wearing head coverings in worship, while men take their hats off. By these symbolic acts, men and women, who far too often butt heads with each other, submit their “heads” to the Head: God.
“Don’t, by the way, read too much into the differences here between men and women. Neither man nor woman can go it alone or claim priority. Man was created first, as a beautiful shining reflection of God—that is true. But the head on a woman’s body clearly outshines in beauty the head of her “head,” her husband. The first woman came from man, true—but ever since then, every man comes from a woman! And since virtually everything comes from God anyway, let’s quit going through these “who’s first” routines.
“Don’t you agree there is something naturally powerful in the symbolism—a woman, her beautiful hair reminiscent of angels, praying in adoration; a man, his head bared in reverence, praying in submission? I hope you’re not going to be argumentative about this. All God’s churches see it this way; I don’t want you standing out as an exception.” (The Message)
Many today are understandably uncomfortable with any hierarchical interpretation of Paul’s words. But everything else Paul says in other places, especially the book of Ephesians, about mutual submission, and the husbands’ expectation that they should love their wives the same way Jesus did enough to die for their wives! Part of our problem lies with our own inability to see submission and equality as simultaneously possible. But Jesus himself had no problem with it. In John 10:30 He said, “I and the Father are One.” Then in John 14:28 he said, “The Father is greater than I.” Those are not contradictory statements. They are both true. Notice to that nowhere in Scripture does the Father say, “I am greater than Jesus.”
Instead, true humility is exhibited even in the character of God, and is in accordance with Paul’s definition of humility in Romans 12:10 says, “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” How’s that for a picture of marriage? If there is any hierarchy in a marriage relationship it cannot be imposed by one ordering the other around. But it is the result of mutual respect and humility in which each one considers the other one to be the better one, with neither one demanding anything but each one giving everything to the other freely, as a gift of love.
That ends up looking a lot more like equality. It expresses that otherish love that God calls for in our lives and it is the opposite of our natural tendencies to the normal selfishness that leads to the common earthly marriages having the problems that we are used to seeing. Certainly Paul and all of the Bible intend to elevate the status of women out of the sinful oppression that they have suffered at the hands of selfish men in all cultures for much of human history.
In the great spiritual battle that engages our lives when we begin to follow Christ, probably one of the main battlegrounds is the condition of the Christian family. The marriage relationship between a man and a woman, as we know from Ephesians and other of Paul’s writings, is intended by God to be a beautiful picture of the covenant relationship between God and his people. Satan knows this too, and therefore he has tried to destroy marriages and one of his most effective methods has been to distort what Christians think the Bible teaches about marriage.
So, Paul’s main point in this teaching is this, let everything we do publically, that is in our worship services, portray the image and character of Christ as perfectly as we can. This isn’t a text about marriage. But it must be acknowledged that how we devote ourselves to our marriages, honoring one another and submitting to one another, will have an impact on the ways we worship together. A church filled with good marriages will be an inspiration to people in troubled marriages, and that means we’ll be better able to reach most of the people around us.
We have noticed in the neighborhood around us how disjointed is life, how many broken families occupy these rental homes. You’ve seen it around your homes too. The pain and suffering endured by lost people who don’t know how to do any better, but who still possess the awareness that this isn’t the way life is supposed to be. We have what they need. We can help them if we care enough to love them so that they see that we care and that we have the hope they are seeking. We are saying these days that we want to be neighbors who care. Let us pray that we will be able to do that, and that we will have the courage to come along side of them and not shut them out as if they are not our business, because they are.
One more thing, we also have the forgiveness and grace and mercy of God to bless them with our understanding, with all our similarities in how we sometimes struggle in our own marriages, for we also fail to live up to the ideals written about, and we also enjoy the grace mercy and forgiveness of God. These are gifts we can share. Amen.
In the great spiritual battle that engages our lives when we begin to follow Christ, probably one of the main battlegrounds is the sacred space of the Christian family. The marriage relationship between a man and a woman, as we know from Ephesians and other of Paul’s writings, is intended by God to be a beautiful picture of the covenant relationship between God and his people. Satan knows this too, and therefore he has tried to destroy marriages and one of his most effective methods has been to distort what Christians think the Bible teaches about marriage.
Today we come to one of the more controversial passages of Scripture. You have just heard it. If there was ever a day that your pastor needed prayer, perhaps this is the one. Perhaps just by hearing it read you ladies are thinking, “Oh no. Here we go.” And perhaps some of the men are thinking, “Finally, I will get some help from the pastor to get her under control!” You would both be wrong.
Let us first of all acknowledge that we all live with a sinful nature that selfishly wants the things in life to be a certain way, my way. Let us remember that the Bible is given to teach us the way things should be, not the way we want them to be. Now from those two remarks you might still be thinking that I am probably going to come down on what you believe to be the wrong side of this, either too hard on the women or no hope for the men. But you can trust the Bible to be perfectly fair and right in what it asks of any of us. You should pray for the interpreter and expositor to get it just as right as the Bible itself.
Now when you just read this text with American ears it sounds like women get a bad deal out of this. It is difficult passages like this one that have fueled the sometimes angry debates about women in ministry, women’s place in the home, male headship and what all that means. This passage has often been used wrongfully by men to keep women under their thumbs. Even well-meaning pastors have actually contributed to the ongoing abuse of women by domineering husbands by misunderstanding this passage and the other ones that address this issue.
So we can’t simply read these words with American thinking. To get to the right conclusions about this passage we are going to have to do a little background/historical work so that we get to Biblical thinking. First of all, this text isn’t really about men and women in general. Verse 4 tells us that Paul is talking about the worship services of the Corinthian congregations. “Every man who prays or prophecies with his head covered dishonors his head.” So whatever arguments Paul uses about the relationships between men, women, Jesus and God, he is doing it in this case to teach the congregations how to conduct their worship services, not their marriages.
Second, Paul is obviously not teaching us that women have nothing to say in church and or should not preach at all. He is only talking about propriety. He is talking about the impressions they are making on the unbelieving people around them who are looking on and thinking about things from the perspective of their culture. Appearances meant a lot more back then than they do today. That is why Paul talked so much about hair length and head coverings in this passage.
Back in those days, how people dressed, and how they wore their hair was meant to communicate something about the identity of the person. So about hair length and head coverings in Corinth, in particular of concern to Paul, women with short hair were known to be prostitutes. The idea here was again that the Corinthians could now see that they have freedom in Christ to wear their hair any length at all. What matters is the heart, not appearances. And yet Paul was begging them to consider appearances for the sake of the lost.
This is especially true for people on a mission, seeking to reach the lost. We have to be conscientious about what our worship services look like to outsiders. It’s the same reason that Hudson Taylor, who we already mentioned weeks ago, dressed and lived like a Chinese person while he was a missionary in China. He didn’t use his freedom in Christ to be comfortable and expect the Chinese to understand and get past their first impressions. No he sacrificed his freedom in order to make the best impression and make it easier for the Chinese to hear his message.
But it is also still true for us to some extent that what we wear or don’t wear says something. For example, what difference does it make to you whether or not I wear my wedding ring? That would tell you something wouldn’t it. Or how about if there were Hare Krishna people around here and for the sake of reaching them I shaved my head and wore the orange robe? Wouldn’t you be concerned? And even if you did understand, wouldn’t everybody outside the church immediately think I had left the Christian faith?
Clearly the kind of head coverings Paul was talking about send virtually no sexual or religious messages in contemporary Western societies. Perhaps the only exception is in those few extremely conservative churches that still insist on women wearing hats, scarves or hairnets. And the message those churches usually send to the culture at large is that they are hopelessly out of touch with modernity! For them it would be best to abandon the practice at once so that they could better implement Paul’s practice of being all things to all people in order to save as many as possible.1 In other cultures however, missionaries have to carefully consider how head coverings often continue to carry great significance.
But besides hair lengths, Paul does have a word to say about the authority structure of the marriage relationship. Note that he specifically speaks of husbands and wives, not men and women. Also remember that he is talking about what marriages look like to outsiders observing public worship. And please note that women are allowed to prophesy and pray in church, that includes preaching! And again, in connection with hairstyles and head coverings Paul is merely saying that Christians should be careful that their appearance does not suggest to outsiders that husbands and wives are not married to each other or don’t respect each other.
The easiest way for me to help you understand what was really going on there is simply to read the same passage in another version of Scripture. This is The Message, put together by a great pastor named Eugene Peterson whose goal was to always look for an English way to make the biblical text speak clearly and correctly to modern Christians. Listen…
“In a marriage relationship, there is authority from Christ to husband, and from husband to wife. The authority of Christ is the authority of God. Any man who speaks with God or about God in a way that shows a lack of respect for the authority of Christ, dishonors Christ. In the same way, a wife who speaks with God in a way that shows a lack of respect for the authority of her husband, dishonors her husband. Worse, she dishonors herself—an ugly sight, like a woman with her head shaved. This is basically the origin of these customs we have of women wearing head coverings in worship, while men take their hats off. By these symbolic acts, men and women, who far too often butt heads with each other, submit their “heads” to the Head: God.
“Don’t, by the way, read too much into the differences here between men and women. Neither man nor woman can go it alone or claim priority. Man was created first, as a beautiful shining reflection of God—that is true. But the head on a woman’s body clearly outshines in beauty the head of her “head,” her husband. The first woman came from man, true—but ever since then, every man comes from a woman! And since virtually everything comes from God anyway, let’s quit going through these “who’s first” routines.
“Don’t you agree there is something naturally powerful in the symbolism—a woman, her beautiful hair reminiscent of angels, praying in adoration; a man, his head bared in reverence, praying in submission? I hope you’re not going to be argumentative about this. All God’s churches see it this way; I don’t want you standing out as an exception.” (The Message)
Many today are understandably uncomfortable with any hierarchical interpretation of Paul’s words. But everything else Paul says in other places, especially the book of Ephesians, about mutual submission, and the husbands’ expectation that they should love their wives the same way Jesus did enough to die for their wives! Part of our problem lies with our own inability to see submission and equality as simultaneously possible. But Jesus himself had no problem with it. In John 10:30 He said, “I and the Father are One.” Then in John 14:28 he said, “The Father is greater than I.” Those are not contradictory statements. They are both true. Notice to that nowhere in Scripture does the Father say, “I am greater than Jesus.”
Instead, true humility is exhibited even in the character of God, and is in accordance with Paul’s definition of humility in Romans 12:10 says, “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” How’s that for a picture of marriage? If there is any hierarchy in a marriage relationship it cannot be imposed by one ordering the other around. But it is the result of mutual respect and humility in which each one considers the other one to be the better one, with neither one demanding anything but each one giving everything to the other freely, as a gift of love.
That ends up looking a lot more like equality. It expresses that otherish love that God calls for in our lives and it is the opposite of our natural tendencies to the normal selfishness that leads to the common earthly marriages having the problems that we are used to seeing. Certainly Paul and all of the Bible intend to elevate the status of women out of the sinful oppression that they have suffered at the hands of selfish men in all cultures for much of human history.
In the great spiritual battle that engages our lives when we begin to follow Christ, probably one of the main battlegrounds is the condition of the Christian family. The marriage relationship between a man and a woman, as we know from Ephesians and other of Paul’s writings, is intended by God to be a beautiful picture of the covenant relationship between God and his people. Satan knows this too, and therefore he has tried to destroy marriages and one of his most effective methods has been to distort what Christians think the Bible teaches about marriage.
So, Paul’s main point in this teaching is this, let everything we do publically, that is in our worship services, portray the image and character of Christ as perfectly as we can. This isn’t a text about marriage. But it must be acknowledged that how we devote ourselves to our marriages, honoring one another and submitting to one another, will have an impact on the ways we worship together. A church filled with good marriages will be an inspiration to people in troubled marriages, and that means we’ll be better able to reach most of the people around us.
We have noticed in the neighborhood around us how disjointed is life, how many broken families occupy these rental homes. You’ve seen it around your homes too. The pain and suffering endured by lost people who don’t know how to do any better, but who still possess the awareness that this isn’t the way life is supposed to be. We have what they need. We can help them if we care enough to love them so that they see that we care and that we have the hope they are seeking. We are saying these days that we want to be neighbors who care. Let us pray that we will be able to do that, and that we will have the courage to come along side of them and not shut them out as if they are not our business, because they are.
One more thing, we also have the forgiveness and grace and mercy of God to bless them with our understanding, with all our similarities in how we sometimes struggle in our own marriages, for we also fail to live up to the ideals written about, and we also enjoy the grace mercy and forgiveness of God. These are gifts we can share. Amen.
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