Lesson 26

Of Hats And Hair-dos

I Corinthians 11:1-16

Picture yourself on a ship during World War II, coming into a harbor. Although the waters are calm and the skies are clear, you must stop and wait for the harbor pilot to take the ship's wheel and weave you carefully to the dock. Why? Because the harbor has been filled with underwater mines which will explode of nudged by the ship's hull. Only the harbor pilot knows where they are. So he steers you through the waters, discreetly dodging the mines.

Like the waters of this harbor I have just described, the waters of I Corinthians 11 are not difficult, but they are delicate. They are charged with explosive issues that have blown up many churches. Today, it has become my responsibility to be the harbor pilot who guides Dearborn Baptist Church through these mine filled waters. Today, we are going to travel through the first sixteen verses of I Corinthians 11.

Here are some of the mines to look out for ...

· Some believe that this passage gives permission to women to have a leadership role in church worship (public prayer and preaching).

· Some believe that this passage forbids women from cutting their hair and/or requires women to wear a head covering when they attend church.

· Some believe that this passage is totally irrelevant to our times, reflecting only the cultural customs of the ancient world - a world that hated women and gave them no place of importance in the church. According to them, there is no explicit application of these things to our times.

· Some use this passage to begin an argument over how long a man's hair should be.

Make no mistake - this passage is indeed a mine field full of potential explosions. We need to navigate through these waters carefully. Brace yourself! First, let's read the passage.

Follow the leader, v. 1. The passage is introduced in verses 1-2 with a word of encouragement from Paul for the church to follow Paul closely. Paul tells them to follow him (verse 1). The Greek word for "follower" used in verse 1 is the word from which we get our English word "mimic". Paul wants the church to mimic, to imitate, to follow him. Is he worthy of following? Well, (verse 1) he is as long as he follows Christ.

Keep The Ordinances, v. 2. According to verse 2, it is important that the church "keep the ordinances" as they had been delivered by Paul to the church. Elsewhere in the Bible, this same word for ordinance is translated "tradition." There are some traditions that need to be kept. That is not to say that we do something just because "that's the way we've always done it." This word means more than our idea of a tradition. It means "that which has been passed down." We recognize in particular two church ordinances - to practices which have been passed down - namely baptism and the Lord's supper. The second half of this chapter deals with the Lord's table and will be reserved for an upcoming message.

Verses 1-2 taken together are simply an encouragement not to drift away but to stay close to Christ and the apostles in our practices.

Headship

Verse 3 states the purpose or the point of the whole passage. It is about order in the church, about the proper chain of command through which the church must function. It is about headship.

According to verse 3, what is the chain of command in the church?

God ® Christ ® Man ® Woman. Now, please notice and understand that this is not about equality, superiority and inferiority. It is about order, function, authority and subordination. Some people would read verse 3 and say, "The Bible is an antiquated book which reflects the cultural biases of the ancient world in which women were thought to be inferior to men. Paul had no respect, no use for women." By doing that you destroy the inspiration of the scriptures and make the Bible nothing more than human literature. That is not what this verse teaches.

It is true that women in the ancient world were treated without dignity. In secular Greek and Roman societies, most women were little more than slaves, the possessions of their husbands. It wasn't much better in Jewish communities. Divorce was easy and commonplace but almost always the exclusive prerogative of the man.

But far from oppressing women, Christianity and the church has been woman's greatest liberator. In Christ, "there is neither male or female ... all are one" (Galatians 3:28). According to this text, men and women are not independent of each other but entirely dependent on each other, read vs. 11-12. Men and women are complimentary to each other in every way of life, particularly in the Lord's work men and women function together as a team. They serve each other and they serve with each other. Women have always had a vital role in the Lord's work and in ministry. There are numerous biblical examples which could be cited here. This passage, this verse is not about equality, inferiority, superiority. It is about order. It is about God's chain of command in the church. It is about roles and functions. It is about the importance of authority and submission. God and Christ are equal. Jesus said in John 10:30 "I and my Father are one." Yet, in spite of their equality, this text says that God has headship over Christ. It was absolutely essential that Christ submit himself to the Father.

Submission to one's authority is absolutely essential for an orderly community and for effective functioning. It has nothing to do with superiority. It has everything to do with order. A private in military service may be more intelligent than his commander, but in order for that fighting unit to function properly, he must submit himself to the commander and obey the orders that are given to him. A basketball player may be a better athlete than the coach, but in order for the team to win effectively, he must submit the instructions of the coach. A citizen may be, in no way, inferior to the police officer, but for traffic to flow smoothly, he or she must submit to directions of the policeman. And in the church, women are just as intelligent, just as educated, just as spiritual, just as gifted, just as capable, just as knowledgeable of the word of God as men but God has ordained that the chain of command be -- God ® Christ ® Men ® Women. In order for the church to function as God intended, women are not to lead the church. Women are not to usurp authority in the church, I Timothy 2:12.

Praying And Prophesying

Verses 4-5 bring up the subject of praying and prophesying. Notice, that both men and women do these two things. The only difference is the covering or the uncovering of one's head.

How are we understand this prayer and prophecy? The text doesn't define them clearly. We, of course, know what prayer is. It is speaking to God about people, ourselves or others. Prophecy is also a matter of speaking. It is speaking to people about God. There is narrow sense in which prophecy is predictions, foretelling some event before it happens by the revelation of the Spirit. But there is also prophecy in a general sense which is not prediction but proclamation, not foretelling but forth telling. What I am doing right now, proclaiming God's word, preaching, is prophecy. It is speaking to people about God. Now, some people want to use verse 5 as a justification for the public ministry of women. They think that it is acceptable for women to lead the church in prayer and to preach to the congregation.

It is necessary to combine the whole of scripture to get the composite truth in this area. Women indeed may pray and prophesy. Verse 5 says so. Acts 21:9 indicates that Philip had four daughters who had the gift of prophecy. Here are the boundaries. The clear directives of I Corinthians 14:34 and I Timothy 2:12 forbid women from leading in the public worship of the congregations. There is no restriction from teaching (prophesying, if you will) to children and other women (Titus 2:3-4), nor from witnessing (prophesying) in public to others or praying aloud outside the context of the assembled congregation, so long as they do it with a proper sense of submission. In doing that, they should not try to be like men. Men should speak like men and women should speak like women.

His And Her Hats

For a man to pray publicly or prophesy (speak to people about God) with his head covered, verse 4 says, is to dishonor his head, which is, according to verse 3, Christ. Likewise, for a women to pray publicly or to prophesy (speak to people about God) with here head uncovered, verse 5 says, is for her to dishonor her head, which is according to verse 3, man.

Here is a clear difference between the genders. The man's head is to be uncovered. The woman's head is to be covered. This is why it is proper for men/boys to remove their hats at church or during a prayer. It is to show proper respect to Christ himself. I know that it is stylish to wear ball caps. And I know that trick about wearing a cap when you get out of bed at the last minute and haven't taken a shower and have "bed head". ( I look like a baby bird when I get up in the morning). But still, because it is customary for men to remove their hats in church or for prayer, it is the proper thing to do and should be done out of respect to and as a symbol of submission to God.

In verse 5, Paul instructs the women in the Corinthian church that is proper for them to have their head covered when praying or prophesying. During the days of the New Testament, numerous symbols were used to signify the woman's subordinate relationship to man, particularly of wives to husbands. Usually the symbol was in the form of a head covering. In the Greek/Roman world the symbol was a veil. In many Near East countries today a married woman's veil still signifies that she will not expose herself to another man, that her beauty and charms are reserved entirely for her husband, that she does not care even to be noticed by other men. On my first day in the middle east, I got in trouble for trying to snap a photograph of two women, wearing veils and carrying baskets on their heads.

In seems, however that some women in the Corinthian church were not covering their heads while praying or prophesying. I have read in secular history of various women's liberation and feminism movements in the Roman empire during the first century. Women would take off their veils and cut their hair in order to look like men, abandoning all signs and symbols of femininity. Dress is largely cultural. But the biblical instruction is for modesty and for a clear distinction between male and female. Interestingly, this distinction between male and female universally is most often indicated by hair length and head coverings. In Paul's day, the only women who shaved their heads were either prostitutes or radical feminist. Thus, in verses 5-6, Paul says that it is shameful for a woman to have her head shaved and that to be uncovered is the same as being shaved. Christian women should not seek such an identification.

Does this mean that women must still wear some kind of head covering when involved in public worship or ministry? Well, we do not have such cultural customs in our time. I know some women who do that, who always wear some head covering to church for the purpose of obeying this passage. I admire their desire to obey God's word. I know of some churches that insist on this. While I will not criticize those who follow this practice, I do believe that Paul was dealing with a cultural matter here, (in verse 16 he speaks about the customs of the churches) just as he did when speaking about eating meat offered to idols.

The text goes on to say that a woman's hair is given to her as a natural covering, v. 15b. "Her hair is given her for a covering."

His And Her Hairdos

Verses 7-15 make a point of speaking of the differences between men and women going all the way back to creation.. Men and women differ in glory. Verse 7 says that man was created in the image and glory of God but the woman, while created in the image of God, was created in the glory of man. Man shows how magnificent a creature God can create from himself and woman shows how magnificent a creature God can create from a man. Men and women differ in order, v. 8. God did not create them simultaneously. He created man first from the dust of the earth, and woman second from the rib of man. Men and women differ in purpose, v. 9. God designed the woman to be a "help meet" for man which means "a suitable helper". The point is that men and women are different and distinctive from each other.

Because of this truth, it is important that men and women demonstrate their distinctiveness. Men should be manly and masculine. that doesn't mean that men should be macho and mean. They are not to be effeminate in look or in behavior. And women should be womanly and feminine. They should not be masculine in look or behavior. This matter is connected, here, to creation. And, according to verse 10, it is also related to the angels. What does that mean? I'm not sure. It is suggested in the commentaries that women are to give to the angels, who God's most submissive creatures and who constantly observe mankind, a witness, an example of submissiveness but how they submit to authority in the church.

In this text, Paul relates the distinctiveness of the genders to one's hair, vs. 14-15. As a matter of gender distinctiveness long hair is unnatural and shameful for a man, v. 14. On the other hand, as a matter of gender distinctiveness long hair is glorious to a woman, v. 15. How does nature teach that long hair on a man is shameful? I've been asked that. In the animal kingdom it isn't always easy to distinguish between male and female. In some cases the male animal has longer hair than the female (lions). It would seem to some that the natural thing to do is not cut your hair. It seems an unnatural act to cut your hair. But the Bible says here that nature teaches that long hair is shameful on a man..

There is a physiological difference between men and women when it comes to hair. Human biology indicates that hair develops in three stages - there is the formation and growth stage, there is the rest stage, there is the fallout stage. The male hormone testosterone causes men to move to the third stage much more quickly than women. The female hormone estrogen causes women to remain in stage one longer. Because of this, women's hair tends to grow longer than men's hair and by far men are more likely to go bald. In fact, the more body hair a man has, the more likely he is to go bald because of a higher level of testosterone. A biology book I read said that boys that were castrated at a young age never go bald. (In times past, that used to be done to boys for various stupid reasons - in order to sing soprano; to guard the harem, etc.).

The word "nature" carries the idea of instinct, an innate sense of what is normal and right. It is an appeal to the human conscience. We may be talking about custom and culture when it comes to hats and veils, but when it comes to length of hair, this is not a matter of custom or culture; it is a matter of conscience.

Long hair on a man is an intentional or unintentional symbol of rebellion against what is natural by creation. Short hair on a woman is an intentional or an unintentional symbol of rebellion against what is natural by creation.

I use to always get this question. "Well, how long is long and how short is short?" Those are relative words and there is some subjectivity to their definition. The Bible does not define the word long. Here's what I say. If I see a stretch limousine go down the road I say, "Look how long that car is?" I don't know exactly how long it is. I just know a long car when I see one. And, by the same token, I know long hair when I see it and I know short hair when I see it. The Bible says that a man's hair should not be long and that a woman's long hair is her glory.

So, hopefully, I have guided the church through this minefield without any explosions. To summarize, this text has taught us ...

First, the Bible teaches that the church, like the family is to led by godly men. This is not a matter of superiority and inferiority but a matter of order and effectiveness.

Second, women may pray or prophesy so long as they understand that the Bible forbids women from leading in the public worship of the congregations. There is no restriction from teaching (prophesying, if you will) to children and other women (Titus 2:3-4), nor from witnessing (prophesying) in public to others or praying aloud outside the context of the assembled congregation, so long as they do it with a proper sense of submission.

Third, in those areas where custom and culture indicate what shows proper respect for authority, Christians should follow the custom. It is still the custom of our day for men to remove their hats for church or for prayer. But it is no longer custom for women to wear a head covering or veil.

Fourth and finally, hair goes beyond the realm of culture. It is a matter of conscience. In obedience to the Bible, men should not have long hair and women should.