We’ve all been there right? There’s just something we have to do, but we really don’t want to do it. Giving a presentation in front of the class. Dealing with that one neighbor that irks you with how they maintain their yard. Or for some people, Mondays at work. One of the things that I find funny every year, are the little cartoons that are sent around where that has a guy knocking on the door of a room, telling the occupant of the room to come out it’s time for school. The occupant of the room then yells out, I don’t want to go, their mean to me there. To which the man knocking replies, yeah but your the teacher and they’re just kids.
I love it because two of my siblings were teachers and my brother-in-law still is.
But it’s this idea of knowing that we’re suppose to do something, yet not really wanting to do it that brings us back to our summer sermon series in the letter of 1st Corinthians. This week begins a multiple week dive into the more controversial topics of the letter, which start chapter 11 verse 2. But before we being this trek into the controversial topics, let’s remind ourselves where we are.
Every week we go over Paul’s main point in writing this letter to the Corinthian Church. That main point, is unity. Paul’s desire for the Church is to be unified, and so every issue or topic that he brings up, are causing disunity. Paul wants us to work through these issues so that unity, even in hard topics, would be found.
And so far, Paul has dealt with five of these dis-unifying issues. First Paul addressed, which leader to follow, with his conclusion being Jesus. Which seems easy, but when we allow our preferred human leaders to become more than Jesus, disunity happens. And so Paul reminds us that human leaders are good only as far as they point us back to Jesus and help us grow in our relationships with him.
The second issue is the unwillingness to confront and judge the sin that was happening between Christian brothers and sisters. When we do not view sin as a problem, it naturally leads to disunity. And to compound that, when we are unwilling to deal with that sin, then disunity becomes the norm and the Church has no solid foundation to stand on when the world looks at it. So Paul calls the Church to take seriously our own sin and the sin in the Church, so that it doesn’t grow out of control and makes a mockery of what Jesus did for us on the cross.
The third issue was not being content in the circumstances that God has places us in. A desire to do new things, or go where God has called us is good, but the problem comes when we don’t think that God can do anything with us until we leave where we are. And so, we become dis-unified because it’s never the now that God can work, it’s always the later.
The fourth issue is the fight over non-essentials. When we make the non-essentials of the faith more important than the core teachings of Scripture, we will inevitably cause disunity. This is the reason why we have so many Christian denominations. Most are founded on the unwillingness to be okay with disagreements over the non-essentials.
The final issue that we talked about was the idea of what is the use of knowledge. When we seek knowledge just to be the smartest person in the room, we sometimes get to the point where no one else is worthy of us, this leads to us demeaning and belittling others. But as Christians we are called to use knowledge in a way that is tempered by love. In the Christian’s life, knowledge for knowledge sake is not the goal, rather, knowledge of the betterment of my brothers and sisters is what I should strive for.
With the last nine weeks refreshed in our minds, let us now turn our attention to the first controversial topic of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Church, where we’ll being readying in chapter 11 verse 2.
2 I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions just as I passed them on to you. 3 But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. 4 Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. 5 But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved. 6 For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head.
7 A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. 8 For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9 neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels. 11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12 For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.
13 Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, 15 but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. 16 If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God.
In the remaining six chapters of 1st Corinthians, Chapter 11 is the beginning of a four chapter arc dealing with the issue of worship in the Church. In this worship arc, Paul deals with four areas worship. In the first sixteen verses of chapter 11, Paul focus’ on head coverings of both men and woman. And since this issue has been used to call Paul a misogynist, or attack the Christian faith for making women less than men, I think that this passage warrants a verse by verse breakdown to fully understand what’s going on in these verses.
So, we’re going to read a verse or verses and then talk about each. Let’s start with verse 2.
2 I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions just as I passed them on to you.
The traditions that Paul talks about are not the cultural traditions of the the Israelites, we have to remember that Paul was the leading opponent of making Gentiles, non-Jewish people, become cultural Jews in the way they would follow Christ. This is recorded in Acts 15, where Jewish Christians were trying to make Gentiles take on Jewish cultural practices, Paul rejected this idea that in order to be a Christian one must adhere to certain cultural practices. If you were here last week, we actually addressed this in how Paul used his knowledge to reach past culture to share the Gospel back in chapter 9 of this very letter. And so, it’s not cultural traditions that Paul is talking about, but rather as the Greek word literally translates, we’re talking about teachings (paradosis [par-ad’-os-is]). So the Corinthian Church, as far as the teaching in their worship was concerned, that was good, and Paul commends them for it. But Paul is looking at a different problem that was facing the Church, let’s read verse 3.
3 But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
The problem that Paul sees, is a problem that is rooted in Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree that God forbade them to eat of. This issue is practical submission to godly authority. What I mean by that is, in the Bible we are given two created orders that lead to unity: unity in substance, and unity in authority. Both are alluded to in this verse.
First, let’s talk about unity in substance. This idea speaks to the created order that because we are the same, i.e. humans, there is a unity there. This can be understood through God himself. We can look at who God is in unity and then apply that to humanity’s unity. The biblical concept that we see of God, is that he is one God, and at the same time revealed in three persons: Father, Son and Spirit. The word persons that we used to describe this unique differentiation, is not the use in the individual sense, but rather in the fact that each has personality. This means that that there are three distinct persons and yet all are one God. All are equal in divinity, in power, and authority. There are not three gods, nor is there one God playing three parts. All are co-equal in all sense of the word, and so there is no hierarchy of greatness in who God is. Marriage is the best idea that follows this: man and woman, as the Scriptures say, become one in flesh. This is something we’ve talked about in the arena of sexual relationships. There is a unity there where the two are co-equal in the marriage relationship. This is unity in substance. There are two, but they are co-equal.
The second part is unity in authority. This idea speaks to, even though substantively there is nothing that makes us better than the other, we understand that to work well, one takes the lead and the other submits. We do this all the time when we get into cars. There’s the driver and passengers. The driver is not substantively different than the passengers, as far as humans go, but they take the lead in the actual driving. For God himself, the Father takes the lead, and the Son and Spirit submit to him. This is why Paul says, “…the head of Christ is God.” Paul uses the word God synonymously with the term Father, because Paul uses words like Christ and Lord of Jesus as a way to denote their rolls and this submission relationship. And so, Christ derives his authority from the Father, because he has submitted himself to the Father’s authority, even though, substantively, Christ is not less than the Father.
And so it is with humanity. Men and women are not substantively different from each other, but there is a godly authority structure given to us. Therefore Paul gives it to us as verse 3, “… the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”
For the most part, it is the unity in authority that Paul is focusing on in the rest of the passage, and not unity in substance.
Now I want to make an observation here, Paul uses Greek terms of men and woman that are almost interchangeable with Greek terms for husband and wife. This seems to be because the family structure is the closest human institution, that God designed, that follows both in unity of substance and unity of authority.
So the issue that Paul is trying to get at in these verses, is an issue dealing with submission to authority in the Church, to which the Corinthians, though they preached correct teachings, they were not conducting themselves rightly. And really, we can see this throughout the letter. In fact submission can be seen as the root of every problem that the Corinthian Church has encountered so far. Leadership - unwilling to submit to proper authority, even to Christ. Judgement - unwilling to submit oneself to be examined for sinfulness. Contentment - unwilling to submit ourselves to our situation. Non-essentials - unwilling to submit to the idea that not everyone has to submit to our relationship with God. Knowledge over Love - unwilling to be humbled for the good of others.
Submission is that one thing that we know we’re supposed to do, but really don’t want to.
Let’s keep reading in verse 4.
4 Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. 5 But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved. 6 For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head.
The Greek word kata (kat-ah’) that is translated as covered for the man, has the connotation of “something that separates”. In other words, a man should not have anything that separates himself and God above who is above the man in authority. And so, no covering is needed.
But then Paul uses a different word to talk about the uncovering of the woman’s head. The Greek word akatakaluptos (ak-at-ak-al’-oop-tos) is used, which basically means uncovered. But it comes from another word, kaluptó (kal-oop’-to), which means, to keep oneself covered. This can be understood with the idea that a woman is covered by her husband’s authority, or as the veil covers a bride’s face in a marriage ceremony. The one who uncovers the veil is the husband and so, only in front of him is she uncovered. Just as there is no covering between God and man, there is no covering between husband and wife. But to all others, even to God, the wife is covered. This is because of the joining that occurs between husband and wife.
It’s an interesting idea, because it truly speaks to the deep relationship that marriage plays in our spiritual walk with God. How many lives would be different if marriages continued to be godly? Where the husband and wife were only giving themselves to each other, and strengthening their bond?
It must be this idea that Paul is going for, because he brings up this idea of a shaved head. Now this must be understood in it’s cultural context. Remember, Corinth is a metropolis and indulged in many sexual acts, one of these was prostitution. Corinthian prostitutes had a practice where they would shave their heads, and then put blonde wigs on, this was to announce their availability. So Paul is most likely making a comparison of leaving behind biblical authority structures for sinful acts. This wouldn’t be out of the norm of biblical teaching. Our sin being related to a prositute is a common theme throughout the Old Testament, and in fact, is put on full display in the book of Hosea. Where God calls the prophet Hosea to be married to a prostitute, only for his wife to return to prostitute. God uses this to teach his people that this is exactly what they are doing when they return to sin, they are like one who prostitutes themselves. Paul seems to be associating an unwillingness to submit to this created order of unity in authority as a sign of sin in the vein of prostitution.
This isn’t to stay that a woman who’s head is uncovered is somehow a prostitute, but rather, the an unwillingness to submit to biblical authority structure is a sign of deeper sinful problems. And the unwillingness of men to take their role as leaders in the Church seriously is just as sinful.
Now let’s look at Paul’s two reasons of why these authority structures and coverings are there. The first of these reasons comes in verses 7-12.
7 A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. 8 For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9 neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels. 11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12 For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.
The first reason Paul gives for why there is this authority structure is because of the image of God. Paul states that Man is the image and glory of God. This term glory, carries with it, the idea of honor, or worth given to man by God creating him. Now the knee jerk reaction is say, “So are women!”, and that is correct. Men and women are both made in the image of God, we know this because of Genesis 1:26, that is the unity in substance that we mentioned before, but that is not what Paul’s focus is. Remember, Paul is focusing on the unity in authority.
And so Man is created by God first, as we understand it from Genesis 2, and therefore God’s glory, honor and worth is in man. But also in Genesis 2, we know that the woman is made out of man, this means that the glory of man is in her. The man’s worth his honor is now in her. God creates man and from that, God’s glory passes to man. God makes woman out of man, and so man’s glory passes to her. This is the same idea is found in verses such as Proverbs 17 verse 6, “Children’s children are a crown to the aged…”
Paul speaks of the order of creation here, giving us an understanding of the order of the godly authority structure.
But we also know from Genesis 3 how the breakdown of this order of authority can lead to catastrophic disunity. At the end of the story of Adam an Eve in the garden, when God is giving out judgment, he begins from the bottom in distributing punishment. The serpent crawls on his belly, the woman has increased childbearing pains and a strained relationship with her husband; both of these are personal consequences. But to the man, the very earth that he has to work is now cursed. And so judgment worsens as the one with greater authority is addressed. This is why, to teachers, the book of James says this in the 1st verse of it’s 3rd chapter, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”
So, a woman’s head covering is a display of willing submission. A submission to the original order of God’s creation. Now this submission is supposed to be voluntary. In fact Paul connects his own voluntary submission in chapter 4 verse 9. Where Paul talks about how God has made him a spectacle or an exhibit to the angels. The angels watch at what we do. Paul submits to what God has for him, and the angels see that willing submission, and so Paul calls women to that same willing submission as an example to the angels in verse 10.
Now the thought might then cross our minds, does this mean that men are more important than women? No, and because of that natural thought, in verses 11 and 12 Paul refers back to the reality of the unity in substance, that calls both to be under God’s authority in a rightly created way. Men are not separate from woman, as if they do not need them, and vice-a-verse-a. We are unified in our substance before God, just as God is to himself. Yet, just as God works in a unity in authority, so too are we called to do the same.
Paul’s final thought on the subject is another reason why we should accept this teaching. Let’s drop down to verse 13.
13 Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, 15 but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. 16 If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God.
Paul’s final thought on this, points to a common structure throughout the cultures that Paul has encountered. In Hebrew, Roman, and Greek cultures, men would cut their hair short and women would keep their hair long. This was one way of differentiating between men and women. For a man to wear his hair long in theses cultures (except where specifically mentioned in a culture’s teaching, such as the Nazarite vow with the Hebrews) meant that the man was trying to be a woman. This was a practice also going on in the city of Corinth, which we covered back in chapters 5 and 6. Paul denounced men trying to be effeminate or playing the part of the woman, as to be a part of a sexual relationship with other men.
Most cultures have distinctions between male a female, and so Paul is affirming that even in a natural sense, separate from the biblical teaching, we as humans have a natural understanding that there are differences between male and female. In the Church, we should understand these differences, and embrace the unity that comes from the biblical order.
Then Paul adds this in verse 16, “If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God.”
In our society, we are challenging this idea of unity in authority. We say men and women are the same, but in saying this we are distorting the concept of the unity in substance that the Bible teaches. Out society is moving in a direction we’re saying there is no difference between what it means to be a male, or what it means to be a female. And because we have distorted the unity in substance, we have distorted the unity in authority. Willful submission is kicked to the side as being unneeded because no one should have to submit to another. Yet, what has that gotten us in our society? Confusion of sexuality, which leads to a lost identity.
Feminism once said that femininity should be celebrated, which I agree. But then it began to say there is no difference between male and female, and now we are told that you can change from a male to a female and vice-a-verse-a. And because of this and many other factors, all of which are rooted in sin, we are seeing chaos in our society.
But not just our society, but the Church as well. What if, we take the biblical teaching of unity in authority seriously? You know, I am not the final authority in our church structure? That’s the Elders. And so, I must submit to them. But did you know, that they in turn submit to me has their lead shepherd, and they do this under Christ, because they see that I submit to Christ?
And because of this willing submission, our church leadership is in accord with each other as we follow Christ together. Willing submission is not a place of indentured servitude, but rather a freeing place of understanding our role in God’s work, and being able to work for him all the stronger.
Those over us are there for our encouragement, those under us are there to be encouraged.
We must not fall into the trap where we reject godly submission to godly authority. When we do that, disunity comes easily and quickly. Instead, God calls us to submit in the roles and places we have been given. In this way, and in this unity, the world will understand that we follow Christ, and his teachings.
And so my challenge for you this week is simply to answer this one question, do you struggle with the idea of submitting to another? Why are why not? Are you willing to submit to a person whom God has placed over you or would you leave a church because of it? One of the things I ask every new member is, are you willing for me to be your pastor? I’m not perfect and I will make a ton of mistakes, like I probably already have, but are you willing to place yourself under that authority? Where a guy who is most likely the age of your children can speak into your life? So answer this question of authority and rad through the passage of Matthew 5:38-48; 1 Corinthians 11:2-16; Romans 13:1-7; Ephesians 5:22-6:11; 1 Peter 2:1-4:19.
It doesn’t matter your age, or your sex, submission is hard. It was the root of the first sin, and the root of most disunity in the Church. But when we submit to the authority that God has set up, his Church becomes unified and he is glorified through it. And that should be all our goal. Amen.
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