1 Corinthians: Headship & Head Coverings
1 Corinthians • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 158 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
INTRODUCTION
We come to chapter 11 in our study of 1 Corinthians… a very controversial chapter among brethren. Verse 2 and verse 17 seem to create division within the text where Paul deals with two subjects within the letter that they sent him.
VERSE 2: Paul tells them that he praises them for keeping the traditions and teachings that he has given to them.
It seems that, as before, Paul here is quoting what he had written to him by the Corinthians. They were saying, “We are keeping the traditions as you handed them down to us.” Paul says in essence in this passage, this is great! I praise for this, BUT…” Just as earlier in the epistle whenever Paul was interacting with their claims, questions, or beliefs, he says, “yes, but” There always has to be a “but” somewhere in there in this epistle…
Paul uses the word “traditions” in this passage. The word itself means “something handed down.” Whether or not the tradition is binding as God’s instruction for man depends on who hands down the tradition – whether it be from Jesus through the Apostles or from man. If they are following the traditions that were given to them by Jess through Paul, they are to be praised, but if they were following traditions of men that contradicted God’s instruction or were violating the traditions giving to them by God through sin, then they would not be praised, as we see in verse 17, where Paul does not praise them for something…
TEACHING ON HEADSHIP
VERSE 3: 3 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.
The idea here is the idea of order and authority. Jesus, for example, is submissive to the Father. Now this does not mean that Jesus is less valuable than the Father or that he is a lesser being than the Father. Scripture teaches that Jesus is the fulness of deity bodily – God in the flesh… He is equally divine, but there is a structure in the relationship. The Father takes the lead and Jesus is submissive. The concept of headship does not inherently mean that someone is inferior.
This is an idea that we need to keep in mind even today. It is at time assumed that because God has a specific order to things or that God put woman lower in authority to man that this means that man is superior or is greater in value to God… This kind of teaching is looked at as old-fashioned and archaic because of this mindset. It is argued, “we know better today… women are equal to men, if not superior in many areas. What the Bible says is outdated.” This response is based on a misunderstanding of Biblical headship.
Even so, the idea that someone has authority over someone else is not popular today, especially when it deals with God placing the man over woman in authority. But Paul’s teaching on headship (v3) applies whether it is what is practiced in our society or not.
Paul’s response here to the Corinthians may show that there may have been an issue within Corinth regarding the topic of headship, especially in the idea of the woman’s role in general (which it seems like he is dealing with here) and during the assemblies… (which he will deal with in ch14). This is a teaching that he handed down to the Corinthians, but they were not observing it as well as they should.
This doctrine of headship that Paul asserts here is the main foundation that the rest of the argument of this chapter is based upon…
APPLICATION OF HEADSHIP TEACHING: THE COVERING
The application Paul gives to this teaching on headship in this passage is “who should and who should not wear a covering.” This passage is challenging and it is variously understood. There are many different views about how it applies to today.
What is sad about this passage is that it is not one that is commonly studied by God’s people today. We tend to just accept what preachers and teachers who we trust say about it and not question it. Or we may tend to just gloss over it because it is considered by many to be challenging to understand and apply. But we shouldn’t do this with scripture. We need to study and struggle with even this passage in our own personal studies so that we can come to OUR OWN conclusion on the matter.
So with these things said, let’s walk through this passage… Let’s see what Paul is saying to the Corinthians in applying his teaching of headship to this issue of the covering/veil.
THE COVERING
So let’s begin by reading verses 4-5. Paul says, “4 Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. 5 But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved.”
Based on his teaching of headship in verse 3, he says to the Corinthians that the men should not pray or prophesy with something on their head. If they do, they disgrace their “head” and the women who does not wear something on her head disgraces her “head”. There is a question as to what the “head” that is disgraced is referencing, either your physical head that is on your neck or the one who is over you in authority. There are arguments made for both, but it makes more sense to me from verse 3 that he is talking about the one who is above you in this order of authority, but I wouldn’t be dogmatic about it. Either view you may hold the teaching is: women wear something on your head, men do not, or you disgrace/dishonor your “head” when you are praying or prophesying.
And he says in verse 6 regarding what he says in verse 5 about the woman, that if a woman prays without a cover on her head, that she may as well cut her hair completely off… It seems like he is trying to take this to an extreme conclusion. He is saying something along the lines of, “if she prefers a bare head, why don’t you just go all the way with it. Remove all distinguishing characteristics of your gender from your head.
I could be wrong, but I don’t believe he is actually saying to the Corinthians, “shave your head f you won’t wear a covering.” But he is trying to show that they should be wearing a covering while praying and prophesying, and arguing that they be consistent to the extreme.
Another example of such an argument would be, “if you aren’t going to feed your kids, why don’t you just kill them, but if it’s shameful to kill your kids, then feed them… This may be a bad example, but it is the kind f reasoning Paul is using. He is telling them to do something that they would have never thought of doing in cutting all their hair off… something they would have looked at as shameful and unthinkable. So Paul’s answer? Cover your head then.
CREATION
Then in verses 7-9, Paul ties in his argument with God’s work in creation…
7 For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8 For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; 9 for indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.
He takes them all the way back to creation. God created man in his own image… woman was taken out of man… woman was created for man to be a helper… Because of this, the man is not to cover his head and the woman is to cover her head.
Then verse 10… First, there are some words in italics… The verse reads, “the woman ought to have authority on her head.” The words “a symbol of” that most translations have is not in the original, but it may be implied. Either way, I don’t know for sure what Paul is saying here. It seems that what Paul is saying is that the woman shows, by her use of the covering, that she recognizes she is in submission to her head…
But then we have this phrase, “because of the angels.” What does that mean? It is difficult to know for sure. There are many possibilities though:
· Is he showing that there is a parallel to the woman covering her head and , where we are told the seraphim covered their faces and feet to show respect for the presence of the One they were in – the presence of God? May there be a connection?
· May he be reminding them in general about the idea of God’s angels presenting themselves as men, such as in , where the Hebrews writer says that while you are being hospitable you can, without knowing, be entertaining an angel?
· Another possibility is that he could be drawing a parallel with , where we are told how God condemned angels that did not keep their proper place/abode in rejecting the authority over them…
· May he be talking about something else altogether… it could be something as simple as the angels watching us or the fact that God’s people are a display of God’s wisdom to the heavenly beings…
Either way, the women were being instructed by Paul to wear a cover because of the angels.
A CLARIFICATION
But then, in verses 11-12, Paul gives a clarification in order to show that this teaching did not diminish the role of women or the importance of women…
“Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord. 12 For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman; but all things are from God.”
Men come from women. We would not exist if it were not for the role of the woman. We need each other. Men need women. Women need men. Both are valuable and important to God. But what is most important for all of us to recognize is that we are all under authority! We are under the authority of the one who all things came from: God.
PROPRIETY AND NATURE
Then he appeals to them in verse 13 to reason this out based on all of these things he has said… “Judge for yourselves, he says… It seems like he is giving a rhetorical question here and that he expects them to come to the answer that it is indeed improper for a woman not to be covered based on their reading of the arguments that he gives up to this point. It does not seem to me that he is saying in verse 14 that they were make a judgment solely based on their own reasoning and what they experience in their lives. That doesn’t seem to fit the line of argumentation to me.
Then in verses 14 and 15, the final argument Paul makes about why men should not wear a covering and women should is what nature teaches them. It is difficult to know for sure what Paul is appealing to here, but it seems like he is saying, “just look around you, what naturally do you see?” Nature teaches the same thing regarding the hair. God has given the woman long hair for a covering, and it is a glory to her. Doesn’t this fact ,, that God gave woman her long hair as a covering and even that women in general, by nature, wear long hair – doesn’t this show that God desires them to wear another covering?
THE CONTENTIOUS
Quote verses from slide…
The position that Paul is arguing for is the universal position within the churches. If you prefer to have another position, remember that it is not the position of the Apostles and the tradition that the churches of God hold to. This is in my judgment one verse that is generally misunderstood.
APPLICATION
Well, that is what Paul is saying to the Corinthians in the passage regarding wearing the covering… Now, what does it mean for us? How does it apply? As I said in the beginning of the lesson, there are many different views on the application. Here are some questions that we would need to answer to come to a conclusion for ourselves:
· Does the “propriety” of a covering in our culture today affect it’s application (v13)? Does the appeal for the Corinthians to “judge for themselves” mean that we should do the same – that we must decide for ourselves if it is proper in our culture and wear/not wear a covering based on our answer? This question usually accompanies the argument that the covering was a custom in Corinth – or a cultural thing within that part of the Roman empire.
o It seems to me that Paul is telling them to make a judgment based on what he said, and that he expected them to give a certain answer. It would seem strange to make our own judgment that the covering is improper to wear and dismiss all of Paul’s arguments based in this. Besides, it does not seem to me like our culture even today would say that it is “improper” for women to wear a covering. They may say it is different or weird or that it makes you look radical spiritually, but they would not say that it is improper or in appropriate to do.
· Is the woman’s hair the covering? (v15) This is the stronger of the arguments in my judgment from the camp of those who do not believe women should wear a covering today since v15 does say that the woman’s long hair is given to her as a covering.
o But what I would struggle with from this passage is that it seems in the passage that Paul is using the fact that women naturally wear long hair as a reason why she needs to wear a covering. Verse 6 is a clear example, in my judgment, of an instance where it seems like two separate coverings are in mind. He gives the argument that if you don’t wear a covering, you should cut your hair off also. It sure seems like the covering is not the same thing as the hair here. To say that the hair is the ONLY covering this passage talks about does not seem like a fair interpretation of the passage.
· I will answer the last two questions together: Did Paul’s teaching reflect Corinthian customs, gentile or Jewish customs, or practices delivered by the Apostles? (v2)
o The view that Paul is just talking about a custom in Corinth is probably the view I struggle the most with accepting… I believe it is the weakest of the views… It seems to me that how he starts out this discussion in verse two makes it seem like what He teaches is verses 3-15 is a tradition that he passed on to them that they were not following as they should have been, and verse 16 makes it seem like Paul is saying that this practice was not just a Corinthian issue, but this was the practice of all the churches, whether they were made up of Jews or gentiles. The belief that this is purely based on custom, to me, is a weak argument based on the arguments in this passage as well as what is said about the covering by 2nd and 3rd century Christians.
CONCLUSION
These are all questions that all of us must struggle with in order to come to our own conclusion on Paul’s teaching to the Corinthians (the key words being all of us) This is not just a decision that women need to struggle with, but men also. We tend to look at this passage only from the perspective of how it applies to women, but men need to wrestle with the passage also. There are many things that men do in which they wear some kind of covering on their head… I wear a hat during the winter when its cold, during the summer so my head doesn’t get burnt. I wear a helmet when I am riding my bike… Based on a study of this passage, I have come to my own conclusion regarding whether or not I can pray and even teach while wearing these things? And I would encourage you, men, to study this passage for yourselves and come to a conclusion. You may have never thought of even asking these type of questions.
Obviously, there are a lot more questions to ask about the passage. I only touched the surface. I have another slide full of difficult questions that you need to ask if you believe this teaching DOES apply today (I can put it up on the screen). I don’t have the time to answer these questions, but I will leave them up so you can jot them down. In my judgment, these questions are not even answered in the passage… But this at least goes to show that this passage is more complicated than it seems on the surface. Even if you believe it applies today there are complicated questions that need asked, and hopefully this study at least whets your appetite to do some more study and research for yourself so you can answer many of these questions for yourself and come to a conclusion as to whether or not you should apply this teaching about the covering to yourself. Just don’t take someone else’s word for it. Study it for yourself and come to a conclusion.