His first sermon is mostly a very good argument for taking Paul seriously and taking his meaning to be that women should cover their heads in church. About 15:00 on the audio he begins to discuss Verse 3 as most important for grasping the whole passage.
3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.Around 36:00 he concludes that discussion:
It is impossible, loved ones, if we want to be biblical, to negate the submission of woman to man without by the same logical deductive process negating the submission of man to Christ and Christ to the Father. . . . and the reason we belabor this point is because until men and women are prepared to come to grips with Verse 3 all of this stuff about what's going on the head will be seen to be absolutely subservient to what's going on in the head. The first issue is what's going on inside your heads rather than what's going on the top of your heads and a lot of people got all messed up with what they're putting on their heads when there's a lot of air within their heads....Although the logic or at least the continuity of parts of this statement isn't all that clear I think we can see some of Dr. Schreiner's argument here, so I suspect he drew from that essay. He arrives at the same conclusion Dr. Schreiner came to, in his posing of the question whether Paul is arguing for covering the head as a divine principle in itself or "as a cultural expression of a principle which is timeless." When he ends with the quip about not needing to buy stock in millinery companies there is no doubt what his answer is going to be.
37:13: Well, the question is, how are we going to apply the principle. Should women, then, just grow their hair long, or is there any reason for a woman to have short hair? Should women wear veils and if so what kind of veils? I mean is it sufficient just to put one of these hankies on your head or what do you have to do? The answer to this question is largely dependent on whether Paul saw long hair as a matter of divine principle as he did the headship issue -- the headship issue, the principle itself is divine in its implications -- but did he see the long hair or the veils as a matter of divine principle, or did he see that as a cultural expression of a principle which is timeless. And it is that question with which I'll be wrestling this week and which of course you will be keenly anticipating the answer to. Next Sunday. There is no reason to rush out to buy stock in any millinery companies.
In his second sermon on this topic he first makes some comments about the phrase in Verse 10, "because of the angels" and the question of whose authority it is a woman is to have on her head, the man's or her own or some combination of the two, and concludes it's probably a combination. Then he goes on to the main questions.
9:00 "What then is the covering to which Paul is referring in these verses? This has perplexed thoughtful Christians in every era."It has? I don't think this is the case at all and I'm not sure where he got this idea. The fact appears to be that after Paul cleared up the confusion in the Corinthian church there really seems to have been no doubt in the churches, all the way down to the mid-20th century, or at least the late 19th century, as to what he required.
And, as with the case of the angel question, two views have predominated.... The first view is that the covering to which Paul refers is actually a woman's hair. ... that it has nothing to do with anything other than her hair, it is only her hair.Tertullian, writing over 100 years after Paul's letter to the Corinthians, objects to the way the women in some of the churches of his day rely on what he considers to be far too skimpy cloth coverings, which shows at least that there was no doubt at that time that some kind of cloth covering was understood to be Paul's requirement. Much later we find Calvin stating that Paul certainly did not mean that a woman's hair was sufficient covering, so apparently that idea had come up by then, but his conclusion along with all the others was that a cloth covering was what Paul had in mind. There is really no perplexity about it to speak of until our own time.
And the concern that he is expressing here is about the way in which some women within the context of the Corinthian assembly were shaking loose their hair and allowing it to hang down their backs.Dr. Schreiner also suggests this as one reasonable interpretation of the passage but I don't see how it's possible to get this out of the passage itself at all. In any case, if that were the meaning of the passage it's got to be pointed out that most women in today's churches who do believe that long hair is the covering are in error, because most of them wear their hair long and hanging down. One lady I talked to online about this bragged about never having cut her hair at all in fulfillment of this command so that it was long enough for her to sit on, with no hint whatever that she felt any need to wear it up for church or any reason at all.
The covering was their hair and what they were doing with their hair was expressive of a disregard for God's created order. OK? And in this view, what Paul is wanting women to do here is to operate in a seemly way by piling their hair up on top of their heads. So that their hair, which is their natural glory, having been given them for a covering, is not to be swung free ..."Again, there is just no way I can see to get this idea out of the passage itself and unfortunately Pastor Begg doesn't offer any reasoning to support the idea. In verse 15 where Paul says that the hair is a natural covering it seems to be implied that it is a covering precisely because it IS long and free which would have it actually doing the work of covering -- of head and neck as well as the top of the head. * The Greek word "peribolaion" used here to describe the long hair means something that "wraps around." The Greek word used in all the other contexts of this passage, to refer to the covering Paul is advocating be worn over the head, is some variation of "katakalupto" which has the meaning of a "down-falling (kata) thing that covers or conceals" (kalupto), ["kata" as in "cataract" or a waterfall, "kalupto" as in "apocalypse" or uncovering or Revelation, in which "apo" is the "un" in "uncovering."]
...[not to be swung free] for that is indicative of all kinds of things in that framework that he doesn't think should be happening in the church. And therefore they should wear their hair like a bun on the top of their heads. Now for those of us who have experienced environments in which those buns are largely in view, never knowing where in the world they came from, this is where they came from. And I could take you to fellowships in Scotland, certainly, where the women would not only have hats on their head but when they take their hats off their head their hair is piled up on top of their head in a bun. ... and the reason that they do so is out of obedience to their understanding of what Paul is saying here in First Corinthians Eleven.Is this true? He offers no evidence. It is not necessary to believe that Paul himself actually advocated wearing the hair up in that passage to conclude that it should be worn up. If women understand that Paul meant that covering the head includes concealing the glory of their long hair, the only way long hair could be completely covered would be by putting the hair up in some way under the hat or other added covering. A "bun" is a way of doing that. This seems the most likely reasoning behind the practice but since Pastor Begg gives no support for his comment there's no way to know why these Scottish women do it.
Now, in favor of the bun view, 11:30 if we might refer to it in that way, we might cite the following: 1) Paul nowhere mentions veils except in Verse 15. No matter if your translation has got 'veil' written into it, it isn't in there. The only time he uses the word for 'veil' --peribolaio is in Verse 15. 'But that if a woman has long hair it is for her glory for long hair is given to her as a veil.'I just can't follow the logic here. The fact that the word "veil" is not used except in Verse 15 is supposed to be evidence in favor of the idea that Paul was talking about wearing the hair up in a bun? In Verse 15 in the KJV at least the hair is described as a natural or God-given "covering" --"veil" is a possible translation of "peribolaion" but not the only possibility and it isn't in the King James. Also, as he himself says later, the Greek word most often translated "veil" (kalumna) is not in this passage at all.
In any case how does calling the hair a veil here mean the hair must be worn up?
That is the only time the word 'veil' is used in the whole passage. It is translated "covering" throughout, expressive of the dilemma that has been in the minds of people throughout the generations as to what Paul is actually referring to. So, number one in favor of the bun view: Paul doesn't mention veils anywhere. So for those of us who have concluded that it is about veils it's funny that he never mentioned them.But there is a BIG problem here. The Greek word peribolaion is only used ONCE in the passage, in Verse 15, NOT "throughout" the passage. It is ONLY used to describe the kind of covering the hair is naturally, not the covering Paul wants women to PUT on the head. And "veil" is not the one and only way to translate it into English: "Mantle" and "vestment" are used in some contexts for instance [see my research post on this part of the passage]. And in the rest of the passage Paul uses a different Greek word for the covering he has been advocating throughout, not "peribolaion" but some variation of "katakalupto" or "down-falling concealer" as I point out above. There are times when this word might also be best rendered "veil" so to insist that "veil" is simply not used in this passage except in Verse 15 and go on and claim that Paul isn't talking about a veil at all is unwarranted. "Veil" is possibly not the best translation of "katakalupto" but it wouldn't be a wrong translation. The simple "covering" probably gets the meaning across best.
"2) Veiling was not practiced as a requirement in Old Testament Israel and it is doubtful if it was required by Jews at the time of Jesus, except perhaps by the wealthy in large cities."Doubtful?" Tertullian, writing about the year 211, says "Among the Jews, so usual is it for their women to have the head veiled, that they may thereby be recognized." -- A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, David Bercot, page 668. Is it likely that the Jewish practice had changed appreciably in the less than 200 years since the time of Jesus?
This also interestingly implies that it was NOT usual for Greek or Roman women to have the head veiled/covered or the Jewish women would not have been recognizable for that practice.
I have to conclude that Dr. Begg has been misled by some source he consulted for this sermon as there is no factual basis for what he is saying here either about how Paul isn't talking about a veil, or about how Jewish women didn't practice veiling.
Since "veil" is the English word used to translate Tertullian's writing, and he wrote in both Latin and Greek, it would be helpful to know what the original word was that he used. As noted above, "veil" may be an apt enough translation but it is probably not the only English equivalent that might be chosen, and "veil" may have problems of connotation in our day that another word might avoid. For instance, Paul doesn't seem to be saying that women need to cover their faces, only the head, and the images in the catacombs don't show the faces covered, but a "veil" often suggests that to us these days.
[About the meaning of a veil as covering the face: Clement of Alexandria, one of the early Christian fathers, DID advocate women's covering the face, arguing that beauty of face can be a snare to others [they had no ugly women in those days?], and Tertullian says something similar: In regard to Paul's "because of the angels" he says,
"What angels? In other words, whose angels? If he means the fallen angels of the Creator, there is great propriety in his meaning. It is right that the face which was a snare to them should wear some mark of a humble guise and veiled beauty."[As a side point, this is an interesting reference to Genesis 6:1-2, implying that the fall at least of some of the angels was due to their attraction to "the daughters of men"? In that case, however, shouldn't it be the still-obedient angels that watch in our churches who should be protected from such a temptation? But again, if that's the case then ALL women should ALWAYS cover their heads, not merely Christian women and not merely in worship. Perhaps the total coverage of some Muslim women protects them in ways we will only find out on Judgment Day? But this does get rather far afield from the context of 1 Corinthians 11. Though I would add that after Paul wrote on the subject Christian women also covered their heads at all times, to judge from European paintings.]
In fact the early fathers in general seem to regard modesty of women as a reason for the covering, though Paul nowhere hints at that meaning that I can see. Tertullian also says:
"Arabia's pagan females will be your judges. For they cover not only the head, but the face also" [p. 668] ]TO BE CONTINUED
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* Near the end of this discussion of Alistair Begg's sermons on this topic I began to see this in a different light. Whereas I'd been thinking of the hair as long and loose as the reason to call it a covering, I now recognize that of course women in those days didn't normally wear their hair loose at all but arranged on top of the head, often in long braids wound around the head, and this was also the norm throughout the centuries in the West down to our own modern time, when not only do we no longer cover our heads but we leave our hair loose. Realizing that women generally wore their hair up and in some sense wrapped around the head gave Paul's choice of the Greek word peribolaion in this one verse more meaning than it had had for me before, as it implies a wrapper of some sort. The other term for a covering he uses in the rest of the passage, katakalupto, implies a covering that hangs down and refers to the additional covering he is advocating, for which the natural way of wearing the hair long is meant to be an argument.
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