Tonight we come to a challenging and potentially controversial passage about worship practices, cultural norms, and gender roles. One challenge in interpretation comes from the intermingling of customs and principles. We must interpret which is which, and that isn’t always easy. Principles don’t change over time – if the Bible teaches a timeless principle, it’s still true, as is, unmodified, today.

Customs are specific to a cultural moment – a place, a people, and a time. Customs change (e.g. the holy kiss vs. the holy hand shake). Biblical instructions regarding customs need to be further analyzed to determine the underlying principle expressed by the custom. We are bound by that principle, but perhaps not by the custom itself.

Sorting out customs and principles is tricky – there’s a tendency to claim that anything we don’t like in the New Testament is just a custom, not a principle. But is it? This is the path of lawlessness!

There’s risk the other way – if we fail to recognize a custom and hold it up as a principle, we perpetuate something as a command that is meaningless in itself, or could even have come to mean the opposite of what God intended. That’s the path of legalism!

We’re nominally discussing head coverings for men and women in worship. Based on how few of you ladies have heard coverings, you must be interpreting these instructions as customs! There are some timeless principles being referenced, and we need to hold onto these.

Let me preface by saying that I’m a complementarian, meaning I believe:

• Men and women are both created by God, equal in value, equal in dignity, and equally bearing the image of God.
• I believe God created men and women intentionally, distinctly, and without error.
• Though equal, God has chosen in His will to define certain complementary roles for men and women in marriage and the church, which He laid out in Scripture.
• These aren’t judgments regarding who’s better, worse, stronger, weaker, or anything else. It’s just God’s design for life and the church, a design which I trust as good.
• The curse of the Fall says people will struggle with this concept, and they certainly do.

Following Christ in 21st Century Corinth – Week 15

presented 9 January 2019

1 Corinthians 11: 2 – 16

AUDIO

Lecture Handout

Handout Week 15

Lesson Notes

Head Coverings & Glory (1 Corinthians 11: 2-16)

• Verse 2 – Paul commends them for remembering him and following the traditions exactly as he gave them
  • In verse 17, he will not commend them for the way they worship or observe the Lord’s Supper, which we’ll discuss next week
  • Note, the topic is traditions, so we’re more in the realm of customs
• Verse 3 – The relationships – “the head of” = has authority
  • Each of these relationships is about voluntary submission to authority
  • Christ is God and equal to God, but voluntarily submits to His Father’s will and authority (e.g. coming to earth in human flesh)
  • Christ is the authority for every man, or should be!
  • And a wife should voluntarily submit to the loving authority of her husband, if married
    • Not a ruthless dictator or abuser; rather as Christ loves and leads the church and mankind, nourishing, cherishing, and sacrificing for
    • Ephesians 5: 22-30
  • Each case is voluntary submission to a benevolent and loving authority
• Verse 4 – The custom – A man praying or prophesying with head covered dishonors Christ
  • When worshiping pagan gods, Roman men would sometimes pull the loose folds of their toga over their head
  • So the issue was giving the appearance of worshiping false gods
  • Today we’re still reluctant to wear a hat in worship, but is that really just a custom?
  • Both this covering and the one referenced in verse 5 could refer to long hair – it’s ambiguous in these verses, but clearly the focus in the later verses in this section
• Verses 5-6 – Women and hair: realize that woman and wife are the same word in Greek, as in man and husband, so there’s some room for interpretation here…
  • We  must translate based on context
  • In that culture a married woman covered her head whenever she was out in public
  • Uncovered hair could indicate you were single
  • Short-cropped or shaven hair could indicate you were a prostitute
  • Pagan worship may have included dropping head covering as well to celebrate an androgynous unity
  • The church was a place of radical equality, or it should be, and a prostitute who came to Christ should be able to pray and prophesy as freely as a rich society matron
  • You must eliminate the obvious signs of a checkered past that threaten to disrupt peace within the church
  • Our culture doesn’t denote marital availability by head covering, so the question of head covering shouldn’t be viewed as a principle, but rather we should look for the principle
    • Principles likely center on maintaining some gender distinctions and preventing confusion about who/how you worship
• Verse 7 – “For” – this is the reason
  • Men shouldn’t cover head – as image and glory of God (to show the excellence of God, rather than ambiguously worshiping any of several gods)
  • A wife is the glory (= shows the excellence of), gives honor and brings respect to, her husband
  • Rather than make it look like she’s unmarried while playing a prominent role in worship, she should make it clear she’s married
  • For us, a wedding ring is our most common culture indicator, so don’t slide your ring off right before you read Scripture in church on Sunday
  • Principles in verse 7-10 – husbands and wives should follow culturally appropriate signs of marital fidelity and worship of God
• Verses 8-9 – Here Paul goes back to the creation account
  • That expresses God’s creation design before the Fall
  • So this is almost certainly expressing a principle, one which is expressed elsewhere through customs
  • Man wasn’t made from woman, woman was made from and for man
• Verse 10 – For this reason, women should wear symbols of authority (more literally, she ought to have authority over her head)
  • That she is under the authority of her husband
  • Because of the angels – I don’t really have much to contribute on this part
• Verses 11-12 – the caveat
  • Nevertheless, nothing said earlier reduces the value of women in God’s eyes
  • Neither man nor woman are free from the other
  • This is God’s good will and design for human flourishing – two sexes, equal, distinct, unchanging, and complementary
  • All things are from God – all this is from God, and it’s good!
  • Even if it’s unpopular today!
• Verse 13 – Turns things onto the  Corinthians to decide whether to permit women to pray with head uncovered – to apply various non-theological tests
• Verse 14 – Does not nature? Appeals to their sense of what is natural and normal, i.e. long tradition
  • Long hair – obscuring the difference between men and women, is a disgrace for men
  • What that is would be cultural, a matter of customs
• Verse 15 – Women’s hair is covering and glorifying
• Verse 16 – don’t be argumentative and trouble-making
  • So don’t tolerate it in church!
  • For those who would disagree, none of the churches do differently on this topic
• What Corinthian Christians did with their heads mattered because of either religious or sexual implications of their appearance
  • One timeless principle – Christians shouldn’t seek to blur or erase all differences between the sexes, as the gnostics did, for example
  • When Paul clearly speaks of hair length, he argues for what is proper, normal practice, and contemporary custom
  • We must embrace the principles, not the specific cultural customs

Discussion Questions

1. As we read Scripture, how do we responsibly separate principles and customs?
2. What are some modern equivalents to the head covering customs that may, or may not apply, in modern American churches?
3. Can acceptable, God-honoring customs vary from church to church within the same country and time frame? For example, could there be customs that are acceptable to God in some churches right now, but unacceptable in other churches?

Next Week: 1 Corinthians 11: 17-34