THE INTERPRETATION THAT A CLOTH HEADCOVERING IS REQUIRED
I hope I’ve already made it clear in answering the interpretations so far discussed that there is simply no other way to understand Paul’s teaching for today than that women are to wear a fabric covering of some sort on our heads in church. This is nothing more than what Paul actually says in the passage, and the problem of understanding him has really been our reading into some of his confusing references a position he couldn’t possibly have been taking given his actual statements and what we know about him from his writings in general. Paul argues from universals, from the order of creation, from nature, from apostolic authority, and not from ephemeral custom, and to treat the matter as culturally relative is to deny Paul’s own reasoning. We wrongly read him as endorsing such customs because we import our own experience of culture into the discussion, when we should insist on resolving the seeming discrepancies from within Paul’s own apostolic frame of reference.
It is true that there is little in this passage that is intuitively obvious to us in our current cultural situation. The idea of male headship itself is far from intuitively obvious, but it probably wasn’t any more so to the Corinthians. The idea that covering or uncovering the head carries any meaning at all is foreign to us, as commentators keep noting, and even the significance of the length of hair is mostly meaningless although we may recognize more universality in this than in other things Paul says. But our inability to recognize these things is only a problem if we assume we are supposed to recognize them, when in fact we are to sit back and let Paul explain it all to us and try to understand a teaching that is outside of our normal modes of thought.
I won’t speculate on how much of our misreading comes from our fallen nature, from the sense of oppression women get when they think Paul is defining women as inferior, which has unfortunately been promoted from a fallen male perspective in the past, or from the efforts of the feminists to completely rewrite Paul in their own image, although surely the history of conflict over these things has had some effect on how it has been approached. In listening to the many sermons on the subject I couldn’t help but be impressed by the level of anxiety expressed by some of the pastors as they set themselves to deal with this passage. One said an advantage of the method of preaching by topic is that this one can be completely ignored, but since he preaches systematically through the Bible he doesn’t have that luxury, and launched his sermon with the line “Buckle your seat belts.” Another couldn’t help himself from coming to the conclusion that a head covering is indeed for today but he dropped his voice as he arrived at that point in his sermon and appeared to be sifting his words very carefully. He would consider it commendable, he said, if a sister took the position that she would cover her head while praying and prophesying in the congregation, for the sake of the angels, and then quickly went into a digression from the topic. He came back after that to conclude that verse 16 means that Paul didn’t consider it worth the controversy if people were going to be contentious about it. Surely some element of fear of the controversies over this passage has led even normally solid preachers – some of the best of our day -- to be only too happy to avoid this topic altogether and to welcome alternatives to the actual headcovering which is so simply what Paul wants of us.
Here are some references for further reading in support of the head covering as something to be worn over the head and hair:
1. Mary Kassian, in her chapter on “Headship and Head Coverings”, in her book Women, Creation and the Fall, which is online at the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, gently recommends, based on her understanding of the passage, that a head covering should be worn by women in church: Scroll down to Chapter 9, on page 92.
2. This is “The Bible Researcher” Marlowe’s very thorough exegesis of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16.
3. Another very thorough online discussion is by Bruce Terry.
4. Brian Schwertley has a lengthy sermon series on head coverings which can be heard at Sermon Audio.com. Very good discussion. This is a transcript of that sermon series. [I've found this link won't work, but the manuscript is still at that address and I was able to access it through Google by putting in "Brian Schwertley Headcoverings in Public Worship". Try this.] And this link should take you to his sermons on the subject at Sermon Audio.
5. Watchman Nee makes the simple point that “we should not frustrate God’s government by God’s grace” though his argument doesn’t remain quite that simple throughout. Scroll down to #85.
6. The first chapter of an online book on the subject by Tom Shank is at I particularly appreciate his remark on the headcovering as a call to die to self, which is after all THE work of Christian life for all of us -- in Amy Carmichael’s words, “A chance to die.”
7. Historically Paul was understood by all the churches to require a cloth headcovering, which is demonstrated by the fact that women in the Christianized West covered their heads not only in church but at all times up until very recently, which made it specifically the custom of Christendom. David Bercot has a page of pictures of this specifically Christian custom. He has also made a CD on the subject.
8. 9/23/07 addition: I just found this audio discussion online that seems pretty easy to follow.
As anyone who reads through the above references will find out, those confusing points of disagreement on subordinate elements of the argument remain unresolved even among people who agree on the main points. There is nevertheless basic agreement on these main points, and once it is clear WHAT Paul is telling us to do, his subordinate points aren’t as much of a problem.
* * * * * * *
In conclusion, I think the passage is all about the literal covering or the hiding or concealment of the physical head of the woman, in recognition of the hierarchy of authority or headship in God’s governmental order. The creation order of headship had to be taught by Paul; it is not a concept recognized by most cultures, or humanity in general. There is no other symbol that could take the place of this function in any culture. To reduce it to mere expressions of femininity is simply to ignore Paul’s own stated concerns, about headship, about the order of creation, about suppressing the display of any glory other than the glory of Christ in worship; also, femininity cannot be what the Corinthian church was failing at expressing, nor do cultures in general fail at expressing the distinction between the sexes even in our egalitarian age. It is certainly not about women’s hair, which Paul calls a personal glory that, by implication from the context of the rest of the passage, competes with the glory of Christ in the act of worship. Certainly we are called to a submissive attitude and demeanor, but that does not seem to be what the headcovering is intended to represent. Submissiveness is a subjective attitude that can’t be physically symbolized without encouraging hypocrisy. But you can enforce the outward symbol of God’s order of authority and that is exactly what the headcovering does that nothing else could do instead.
Paul’s concern is the honoring of God’s governmental order in the different positions of the two sexes irrespective of their marital status. His concern is the display of the glory of Christ and the suppression of the display of the glory of man (or woman, both embodied in the head of the woman), so that Christ’s beauty and holiness may have the exclusive place in worship and our entire attention, and that God’s order may be honored among us as among the angels.
* * * * * * *
Another point I’d make is that contrary to the general thinking on this subject, this isn’t the responsibility of individual women, but of the leadership of a church or the church as the whole body. It is a matter of church order just as the eldership is. It is too much of a burden to place on the individual believer to understand all the thinking Paul is trying to convey in this passage especially in the atmosphere of conflict that surrounds it today. It’s something to be preached over time and an individual church member may have to take time to grow into it. In a sense it took me three years to grow into it and I’m still struggling with it. Nevertheless the leaders have an obligation to be sure the congregation obeys the directives handed down by Paul, just as with the other ordinances of Christian life we may not understand fully but are charged to obey.
And because it is the responsibility of the shepherds, it’s been dawning on me that failure to enforce it is probably part of what appears to be God’s judgment on the church as a whole these days, less on individual sheep of the flock than on the reputation of Christianity as such, as an effective witness to the world. It seems to me that the church in the West is already under God’s judgment and has been for some time, with the proliferation of apostasies and heresies, the ease with which leaders and flock fall into sin, the weakness in prevailing prayer. Even where we have good preaching of the Word we seem to have a name but without the power that scripture seems to promise us. 9/11 was surely a warning to us, which is being ignored by the culture at large, but it shouldn’t be ignored by the church. Is it possible that one of the major characteristics of Islam, which is the covering up of their women, is something we should take note of? God is certainly using Islam as a sword against the West and judgment begins at the house of God. If we don’t enforce Christian standards, then the much harsher Muslim standards could end up being our punishment.
* * * * * * *
If one does accept that the head covering is required for today, there remain further questions to resolve, such as, What kind? and When is it to be worn? and To what extent does modesty enter into it? -- which for some expositors it does. I’ve also collected quite a bit of information on these questions for a future discussion, but in anticipation of that discussion I’ll just say that I’m coming to the conclusion that complete coverage of the head and at least the bulk of the hair is what is asked of us, not just a token piece of cloth, and not a hat that doesn’t cover the whole head and most of the hair as well: the term “katakalupto” means completely covered, or covered up. And at the very minimum, this covering is to be worn whenever there is prayer or worship or the exposition of the Word.
* * * * * * *
May the Lord make use of this to His glory and our good.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment