In 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 the apostle Paul gives
instruction on how men and women in the Corinthian church should act when they
meet together in worship.
The text is as follows:
“2 Now I praise you because you always remember me and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.
3 But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ.
4 Every man who prays or prophesies with something on his head dishonors his head. 5 But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since that is one and the same as having her head shaved. 6 So if a woman's head is not covered, her hair should be cut off. But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, she should be covered.
7 A man, in fact, should not cover his head, because he is God's image and glory, but woman is man's glory. 8 For man did not come from woman, but woman came from man. 9 And man was not created for woman, but woman for man. 10 This is why a woman should have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.
11 In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, and man is not independent of woman. 12 For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman, and all things come from God.
13 Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not even nature itself 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 her hair is given to her as a covering.
16 But if anyone wants to argue about this, we have no other custom, nor do the churches of God.” (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
HEAD COVERINGS
In this passage one of the main things Paul
talks about is head coverings in public worship. He tells
the Corinthians that men shouldn’t pray or prophesy with a covered head, and
that women shouldn’t do these things with an uncovered head.
Today, a large majority of evangelicals think
that what Paul says here doesn’t apply to Christians universally in every culture
and every century of the church. They say that in the culture of Corinth in the
first century it was appropriate for women and men to cover or not cover their
heads as Paul teaches. But they claim that this wouldn’t necessarily be the
case in a different cultural context.
A much smaller group of evangelicals claim that Paul’s
instruction on head coverings does apply universally to all churches in every
century. They say that it is a general principle that in public worship women
should cover their heads and men shouldn’t.
In what follows, I will do two things. First, I
will argue that Paul’s teaching on head coverings does apply universally to all
cultures and every century of the church. And second, I will argue that even
though this is a universal principle, it is a mistake to implement it without
further consideration.
MEN
NOT COVERING THEIR HEADS
To begin with, then, we need to ask if what Paul
says about head coverings in this passage is a universal principle or just one
that is dependent on culture.
We will start by looking at what the passage
says about men not covering their heads. The teaching on men is both clearer
and shorter than the teaching on women. So it makes sense to begin with this.
Paul first refers to the issue of men not
covering their heads in v. 4, where he states:
“Every man who prays or prophesies with something on his head dishonors his head.”
In v. 3 Paul has just said that Christ is the
head of every man, so “his head” at the end of v. 4 is a reference to Christ,
and this phrase may also have a secondary reference to the man’s literal head.
Therefore, in v. 4 Paul is saying that a man who
prays or prophesies with a covered head dishonors Christ and possibly also his
own literal head as well.
In v. 4, then, Paul says what the result is of a man praying or
prophesying with a covered head: it dishonors Christ. However, he gives no
reason why doing this dishonors
Christ.
However, when we come to v. 7, he does tell us
why. Paul says:
“A man, in fact, should not cover his head, because he is God's image and glory . . .”
The
argument of those who take the majority evangelical view
Those who claim that Paul’s teaching in 1 Cor.
11:2-16 about men not covering their heads is something that depends on culture
often argue in this way about v. 7:
When Paul says that a man shouldn’t cover his
head because he is God’s image and glory, his point is that men should act like
men and not like women. In Corinthian culture, to cover the head in worship was
a feminine thing to do. It is wrong for a man to act in a feminine way, so in
that culture it was wrong for a man to cover his head. If a man did this
effeminate thing, he would be failing to live out being the glory of God and
would dishonor Christ (v. 4). This means that in v. 7 Paul is not giving a universal
principle about men not covering their heads in public worship. Rather, his
point is that men should please God by not doing something that the culture
they live in finds effeminate.
There are, however, three big problems with this
interpretation.
Archaeological
evidence
First, there is good archaeological evidence that
in Greco-Roman religions of the first century men often did cover their heads while engaged in public worship.
This means that in first century Corinth it is
doubtful that men who covered their heads during Christian worship would have
been seen as doing something feminine. So it seems unlikely that Paul’s concern
in this passage is men acting in an effeminate way.
Too
much reading between the lines
Second, to accept the argument given by those
who say that not covering the head was about fitting in with culture, we have
to do too much reading between the lines.
When Paul says, “A man . . . should
not cover his head, because he is God's image and glory,” it is far more natural to take him to mean
simply that being God’s image and glory is the direct reason that a man
shouldn’t cover his head.
Actually, the reference to men being God’s image
here seems to be a kind of aside that doesn’t form part of Paul’s argument. At
the end of v. 7 he will say, “but woman is man's glory,” where he notably doesn’t say that woman is man’s image
and glory. Paul would, of course, have agreed with Gen. 1:27 that men and
women are equally in the image of God. So women are as much God’s image as men,
yet Paul makes it clear in this passage that women should cover their heads. Therefore, the real reason Paul is giving
in v. 7 for why men shouldn’t cover their heads is surely just that they are God’s
glory, not also that they are His image. And it is very natural to take him to
mean simply that being God’s glory is the direct reason men shouldn’t cover
their heads.
I find it very difficult to believe that the
Corinthians would have interpreted him in any other way. This is the
interpretation that they would automatically have assumed as they read Paul’s
words. To bring in a convoluted argument about culture looks very unnatural and
forced, and involves a lot of unnecessary reading between the lines.
The
logic of the passage
Third, if we understand Paul to be giving a universal
principle, it makes perfect sense of the logic of men not covering and women
covering their heads.
As I have noted, at the end of v. 7 Paul says: “but
woman is man's glory.”
This clause is surely shorthand for “but a woman
should cover her head because she is man’s glory.” That would be a parallel to
the instruction on men not covering their heads in the first part of v. 7. And in
view of how Paul has given parallel teaching on men and women in verses 4-6, we
would expect this to continue in v. 7.
So we should have no hesitation in saying that
in v. 7 Paul is teaching two things:
(1) Men shouldn’t cover their heads because they
are God’s glory.
(2) Women should cover their heads because they
are man’s glory.
What Paul seems quite clearly to mean is that during
public worship God’s glory should be on display but man’s glory should be
hidden. If a man covers his head, something of God’s glory is being hidden, and
this isn’t good during a time of public worship. But if a woman has an
uncovered head, something of man’s glory is on display, and this also isn’t
good during a time of public worship.
This seems to be the logic of Paul’s argument,
and it has nothing at all to do with cultural ways of dressing.
Summing
up
For three reasons, then, the idea that Paul’s
instruction for men not to cover their heads is a cultural one appears to be
incorrect. We do far better to take what he says as a universal principle:
Men shouldn’t cover their heads in public
worship because they shouldn’t hide the glory of God (v. 7) and thereby dishonor
Christ (v. 4).
WOMEN
COVERING THEIR HEADS
Let’s move on now to think about women. Does
this passage teach that women covering their heads in public worship is a
universal principle or just something that applies in certain cultures?
There are good reasons for believing that it is
a universal principle.
The teaching
on women corresponds to the teaching on men
To begin with, in this passage Paul’s
instruction on women in many respects corresponds to his instruction on men. In
other words, the place of head coverings in the life of women is not a separate
issue from the place of head coverings in the life of men. These are parts of
one and the same topic.
So, given, as we have seen, that there are good
reasons to think that the instruction to men is a universal one, we would
expect the same to be true of the instruction to women.
Woman
as the glory of man
Secondly, the third reason I gave above for why
we should take the teaching about men to be universal also applies to women, as
I have already noted:
When Paul teaches in v. 7 that a woman should
cover her head because she is man’s glory, he quite clearly seems to mean that
she should keep man’s glory hidden while the focus is on God in worship. And
this has nothing to do with culture.
Nothing
in the passage suggests that head coverings are purely cultural
It is important to note too that no part of verses
2-16 should lead us to think that the principle of women covering their heads
is anything other than a universal principle.
Verse 10 is probably one of the most difficult
verses to interpret in the entire Bible, and debate swirls around it.
Literally, the text in Greek reads:
“For this reason, the woman ought to have authority on/over her head, because of the angels.”
It is unclear whether Paul is saying that a
women should have a head covering as a symbol of authority on her head (as in
the Holman translation that I quoted above), or if he means that a woman should
take control over what she does with her head. And it is also unclear in what
respect the angels are involved.
Importantly for our purposes, however, there is
nothing in this verse which suggests that the principle of women covering their
heads is merely a cultural one. Nor does anything else in the passage as a
whole point in this direction.
Summing
up
There are two good
reasons, then, for thinking that the principle of women covering their heads in
public worship is a universal one. And, although there are difficult interpretive issues
in this passage, no part of it suggests that this principle is not universal.
I should say too that I am sure that if women in
Western countries today did routinely cover their heads, the number of
commentators who claim that Paul’s principle is just a cultural one would be
far fewer. I think many have allowed themselves to believe what they want to
believe on this topic, instead of allowing Scripture to speak freely.
UNIVERSAL
PRINCIPLES
In view of what we have seen, therefore, it
makes sense to think that in 1 Cor. 11:2-16 Paul is giving two universal
principles:
(1) When praying or prophesying in public
worship, men should not have their heads covered.
(2) When praying or prophesying in public
worship, women should have their heads covered.
Of course, many Christians, myself included,
will find this teaching more than a little strange. To think that a bare-headed
man will somehow enhance the glory of God in worship, while a bare-headed woman
will detract from this, is not what most of us would expect the Bible to teach.
However, there are a couple of points to make
here.
First, it is much more important for us to know
what Scripture teaches than why it teaches it. Knowing why is very helpful and
something we should strive for if possible. But it is far more important to
know what it is that Scripture tells us to do.
Second, the Bible as a whole seems to teach that
there is something deeply spiritual about gender. There is a lot of profound
reality connected to gender that goes right to the heart of God’s creation of
human beings. There is vastly more to this than mere physical differences. That
is why, for example, homosexual practice or so-called transgendering are such
grave evils in God’s sight.
And when deep truths are involved, there are
bound to be things we find mysterious and difficult to understand.
WHAT
SHOULD WE DO TODAY?
This brings us to thinking about the place of
head coverings today.
In Western countries, of course, it is very rare
for Christian men or women to cover their heads in public worship. This means
that nearly every man follows Paul’s instruction in this passage. But it also
means that nearly every woman doesn’t
follow what he says.
In the rest of this article my focus will be on
women, since this is where practice conflicts with biblical teaching. We need
to ask what God’s will is on this issue. Should women always cover their heads
at church services? And how important is this?
Those
who just assume that Paul’s instruction should be implemented
From what I have read, most Christians who
(rightly) accept that Paul’s instruction to women on head coverings is a
universal one just assume that Christians should implement this teaching. In
their view, the Bible teaches that women should cover their heads in public worship,
so that’s what women should do, end of story.
Not
so simple
I believe that things are not so simple. The
fact that Scripture teaches a universal principle doesn’t necessarily mean that
the principle should always be implemented.
I am not for a moment suggesting that there are
times when we shouldn’t do the will of God. Rather, my point is that just
because a universal principle is given in the Bible, that doesn’t necessarily
mean that it is always God’s will for the principle to be put into effect.
Exceptional situations do arise.
Examples
of exceptional situations
Nearly every Christian would agree that there
are some exceptional situations when biblical principles should not be
followed.
For example, the Bible teaches that God has
designed sexual relations only for marriage (e.g., Gen. 2:24; 1 Cor. 7:9; Heb.
13:4). This is a universal principle, not one that depends on culture.
Yet there are exceptional situations when it is
surely not a sin for a person to have sex outside marriage. For example, if,
tragically, a woman is raped at knifepoint and told that she will be killed
unless she cooperates, we shouldn’t hesitate to say that she commits no sin
when she does so.
Similarly, Scripture teaches that people
shouldn’t lie (e.g., Eph. 4:25; Col. 3:9), and this is another universal
principle. Yet Scripture also contains several examples of lies that are
apparently told in the will of God, in various extreme circumstances (e.g.,
Exod. 1:15-20; 1 Sam. 19:11-17; 2 Sam. 17:17-20).
We shouldn’t think that every single universal
principle in the Bible must always be followed no matter what. Life is more
complicated than that.
Exceptional
situations and head coverings
It is true that the examples of not following
universal principles that I have just given involve extreme situations.
Nevertheless, it makes sense to think that there might also sometimes be less
extreme situations when it is right not to follow a biblical principle. Some
biblical principles are much more important than others. And if a principle is not
of first importance, it seems reasonable to believe that even in non-extreme
circumstances it might sometimes be God’s will for the principle not to be
followed.
As a general rule, the more often a topic is
referred to in Scripture, the more important it is, and 1 Cor. 11:2-16 is the
only passage that tells Christian women to cover their heads. It therefore
makes sense to think that the principle of women covering their heads in public
worship is not among the most important biblical principles.
As I ponder this issue, it seems to me that God
is probably often content for a woman not to wear a covering.
If a woman in a Western country chooses to cover
her head for public worship, she will probably be the only woman at that
service who does so.
However, most of us find it very embarrassing to
be dressed differently from everyone around us. So a woman who did this on her
own would probably find it a difficult and distressing thing to do. And it is
likely that this would be her experience time after time.
Of course, as Christians we need to pick up our
crosses every day and follow the Lord (Luke 9:23). Christian discipleship is
costly and painful.
Nevertheless, each of us has a finite amount of
strength. Sometimes we need to pick and choose our fights. There is only so
much God calls us to endure.
I find it difficult to believe that it is often
the will of God for a woman to cover her head if she gets very embarrassed
about doing this. She would probably not look forward to worship services, and,
if this happens, it seems to me that more is lost than gained by the covering.
I really don’t think that this issue is important enough to warrant a woman
going through embarrassment and distress on a regular basis.
There are plenty of moral issues that are important enough to warrant this,
but I find it hard to believe that covering the head is one of them.
Those
who are not embarrassed
Although most women would find it very
embarrassing to be the only one covering her head in a worship service, this is
not true for every woman. Some are not that bothered by it. In such cases, I
think it is probably good for women to cover their heads.
I am not completely sure about this, however,
because I have some concerns about the impact head coverings might have on
visitors to churches. We should want non-Christian visitors to attend our
worship services (1 Cor. 14:22-25). And I am concerned that if many women
covered their heads, non-Christian women in Western countries might be put off
attending.
On the one hand, then, it is good for women to
cover their heads. But on the other hand, we don’t want to put unnecessary
obstacles in the way of non-Christians visiting. I think the first of these points
is probably the more important one, but I am not confident about that.
Anyway, each Christian woman would need to seek
God personally in prayer for insight on how she should act.
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