Women Libbers - [1 Corinthians 11:4-16]

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Well, why don't you turn your Bibles to the most controversial passage in all of Holy Writ? 1
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Corinthians chapter 11. Turn there if you would. Some passages are difficult because they're hard to understand.
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Some passages are difficult because they're hard to implement. And some passages are hard because they're both difficult to understand and to implement.
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And I think this passage falls into that camp. 1 Corinthians we're working through chapter by chapter and now we're in chapter 11 dealing with men's and women's roles.
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If you automatically default to, I just want to know, will there be doilies at the door next week or not?
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Then you're going to have a problem because that is not the issue. When you look at 1 Corinthians chapter 11, 2 to 16, if that's the thing you want to have answered, well, that's the head covering passage.
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I'll tell you right now, you've missed it. You've already missed what Paul is going to teach. And here's what
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Paul is going to teach, big picture. Men and women are different and they are different in homes and in the church.
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When a society says we're all the same by function, this androgyny, if you want to wear
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Calvin Klein 1, you can, but if you have a philosophy and a theology that says we are one by essence, one by nature, one by function, one by no subordination, and subordination equals inferiority, then you've missed what the
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Bible says. We are people who are under a book. God has authority and we are under that authority.
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And so as S. Lewis Johnson likes to say, we are people that are meant to be mastered. God makes us as creatures.
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And as creatures, we have a creator and we are under God. We are subordinate to God and what
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God says goes. And what God does is right. And for God to say there are different roles in the family, then guess what?
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There are different roles in the family. If God were to say women are better than men, then women are better than men.
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Whatever the Bible says, we just tuck ourselves under that and we want to be subordinate to our master, submissive to our master, because after all, what do we deserve?
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Think about it. In light of your sins, what do we deserve? It's as if one commentator said if you were to go to hell,
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Jesus not interrupting you and you were to go to hell, you could go to hell and say, God, give me my wages, because I've earned death and separation and hell and wrath.
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I've earned it. Give me wages. But you know, in Christ Jesus, although we've earned the wages of sin and death and hell,
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God has graced us. He's given us freely redemption. He's given us freely forgiveness.
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He's given us His Son dying in our place. He's given us a spirit to seal us to the day of redemption.
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So whatever God does is right. And if He says there are different roles in the local church, then guess what? There are different roles in the local church.
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So when we go to this passage, I don't want you to automatically think, you know what, I just want to know if I need to wear a hat or not.
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Do I need to wear a veil or not? Do I need to go to the store and buy my wife a toga or not? I just need to figure it out.
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One commentator said this passage is probably the most complex, controversial and opaque of any text of comparable length in the
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New Testament. It is difficult, but if you think of the background, you understand what
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Paul is trying to say. It's not really that tough. Here's the major background issue at hand.
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Paganism was slipping into the church. So in chapter 8, 9 and 10, there's all kinds of issues with food offered to idols and it snuck into the church.
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Corinth was pagan. God saved some people out of Corinth, but they still live in the system and the world is slipping into the worship services.
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And Paul doesn't want that paganism, that paganism that would say men and women are just the same.
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And he says men and women are the same as image bearers, but they have different roles. And so this passage is going to teach us a lot.
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At the very end, I'll give you some takeaways and tell you, should you wear a head covering if you're a lady, should you not?
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Back in those days, if you were a Jew or you were a Gentile and you were a woman and you were married, you would show your submission to your husband by wearing something on your head.
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Not necessarily a hat, but you could either take your shawl and wrap it up and over, kind of a toga thing, up and over.
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Or there could be kind of a veil, but something would be on your physical head to show that you were a woman and you were married.
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If you were a young daughter and you weren't married, you didn't have to show that. But this sign said, I have someone over me, functionally, my husband.
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Those that weren't married didn't have to wear the hat or the head covering or the toga. My mind just said togar.
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You wouldn't have to wear that because there isn't a husband over you. And so what they would do is they would say, all right,
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I'm a lady who's married and I go into the pagan worship service at Corinth of the false gods and there's no man over me.
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There might be a man over me over here and I might have to submit to my husband. So when I go worship
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Diana or any other false crazy god, off goes the hat because nobody's above me, only the goddess or God is above me.
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So what do you think was happening at Corinth? What was happening at Corinth is that was slipping into the church and ladies who would say,
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I'm a Christian lady, I'm married, I have something on my head. By the way, I just think if somebody takes a picture of me like this, they're like, you know, put this on the website, this is going to cause a lot of controversy.
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Now I'm going to go to the local worship service to worship Jesus. No man's above me, only
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God is above me. And off goes the symbol of authority. So that's what
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Paul is dealing with. Jewish women and Greek women who were married always covered their head in public.
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And here we go to chapter 11, verse 2. Let's pick it up. Paul is talking about what to do in public worship, later communion.
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But now, what do women do in public worship? We saw last time, verse 2.
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Now I commend you because you remember me and everything. They remember Paul that he was there and he taught, and maintain the traditions even as I deliver them to you.
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And then he starts giving some reasons why Corinthian women should have their head covered if they pray or they give prophecies.
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The first one is found in verse 3 to 6 because of the divine order. There are differences because God has decided there should be differences.
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Verse 3. But I want you to understand. Remember, he says lots of times, do you not know, do you not know, do you not know?
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Well, I'd like you to understand. It's a little bit nicer that the head of every man is Christ. That is the authority.
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Everybody would say, fine. The head of a wife is her husband. The authority of a wife is her husband.
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Try preaching that in Harvard Square. And the head of God, almost to make it easier for us to stomach in our day and age, the head of Christ is
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God. So Christ the Son, God the Father are equal essence -wise, nature -wise, but Jesus is eternally subordinate to the
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Son. But that doesn't make Him inferior. So the head of a man is Christ. The head of a woman is a man.
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The head of Christ is God by nature equal, by function. God decrees. There's a difference. This has nothing to do with culture.
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This has nothing to do with the fall. This has everything to do with God's decree. Verse 4.
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Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. Not only were ladies saying, when
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I go into a worship service, off with the head covering because God alone is above me.
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Back in those days, if a man went to a pagan worship service, we have statues and we have evidence of this, that a man, before he gave a libation or a sacrifice or an offering to a false god, he would take his shawl and put it up over his head.
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So now Paul is saying, men act like men, women act like women, we can't blur the distinction.
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Literally that word covered there in verse 4 means having down from head. There are differences with roles in the
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New Testament church. And Jesus is dishonored by a man. You see, dishonors his head.
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This is not the man dishonors his own head, my own skull. This is a man dishonors
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Jesus if he puts something on his head. Why are things on people's heads back in those days?
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To show you that there's somebody over you. Women, over you is your husband. Men, over you is not someone else, only
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God is over you, so don't wear anything on your head. Stop acting like a pagan. Shameful.
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If you pray or if you prophesy, what does prophesy mean? Pray is a general term, but prophesy is thus saith the
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Lord. Do I prophesy when I preach? Well, you might think so in terms of if I'm forth telling the truth, but technically this word is used every single time in the
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New Testament, 28 times, maybe one exception possibly, for inspired words coming out of my mouth, revelation that comes out.
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When Paul prophesies, it's thus saith the Lord. I never prophesy. I wish
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I could, that'd be kind of nice, I could throw my weight around. But I can only proclaim the truth.
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So remember, the canon's not put together, all the books haven't been written. This is about 55
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A .D., books are still being written, and we don't have all of God's truth yet. And people would stand up in the middle of the service and say, thus saith the
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Lord. The Spirit of God would attend to them, and they would give a prophecy. And so he says, when you're going to give a prophecy, men, don't have your head covered.
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Christ only is above you. This is a leadership kind of talk. Pray or give a prophecy.
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Don't be a pagan. There's a clear distinction between men who are Christians and men who are pagans.
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Likewise, verse 5, women don't act like pagans. What do pagans do?
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They run into worship service and off with the head covering because nobody's above them. You think my husband's over me? You don't know my husband.
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But every wife who prays or prophesies, thus saith the Lord, with her head uncovered, dishonors her head.
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She dishonors her husband, since it is the same as if her head were shaven.
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Morna Hooker said from Cambridge University, according to Jewish custom, a bride went bareheaded until her marriage as a symbol of her freedom.
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When married, she wore a veil as a sign that she was under the authority of her husband. But you know, this gets interesting.
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Go ahead to chapter 14. Move ahead with me, and I want you to see 1 Corinthians 14, verse 34 and 38.
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I don't really think chapter 11 is arguing for women to pray publicly and to prophesy publicly because in light of chapter 14, we see that can't happen.
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Certainly in light of 1 Timothy 2, ten years later, the canon's almost complete. Paul says women aren't to teach or exercise authority.
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But here, even in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul said in verse 34, that women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the law also says.
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If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husband at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
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Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks he's a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things
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I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.
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Back to 1 Corinthians 11. I don't think Paul is saying this is how a woman should pray and prophesy, but he said if she were, she's supposed to still act like there's a head over her.
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And then Paul goes into hyperbolic mode. Look what he says in chapter 11. For she is one and the same whose head is shaved.
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You give glory to God recognizing men and women's roles. You give shame to God if you say, you know what, there's no husband over me.
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Matter of fact, Paul says if you're going to take your hat off, you might as well keep going and just shave off your hair like an adulterer or like a prostitute.
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It's not glory to God, it's shame to God. Humiliation. Now here's one thing that we don't really know today, but it's interesting.
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In the culture back then, if you wanted to excite a man and get his attention, sexual excitement and enticement, you would do it with your hair.
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They would never think of doing what they do today and just, there's nothing left to the imagination.
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Everything was covered up back then, so the only way they could show that they were interested and they were kind of promoting themselves and advertising themselves is they'd have their hair a certain way.
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One man said public worship was neither the occasion for women to become objects of attraction, to be sized up by men, nor an occasion for women to offer cryptic suggestions to men.
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Women are not to be oogled as sex objects during worship. Now we don't wear these kind of linen things that they did back then or wool things, but I will say as a side note, ladies, men have their problems, but ladies in particular, since it's more contextual, if you are wearing form -fitting dresses and low -cut dresses, you ought not to do that because it would make a brother stumble, especially in church.
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Now we have visitors all the time and sometimes visitors come and I think, I can't believe they just wore that to church.
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But they're visitors and they might be not Christians, they might be new Christians, but if you're a Christian and you walk in and you're trying to get men to look at you or you never even think the fact, you know, men could look at me, then
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I think you should double -check. By the way, fathers, if you let your daughters go out the door with low -cut things and form -fitting dresses, then you ought not to do that.
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You should just be a dad, a kind dad and say, honey, I love you, there's a time and place for everything, you can wear that on your honeymoon, but you can't wear that to church.
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Right? I'm not a person that says no to things. There's always time and place. It's like I remember when my daughter was a kid and she wanted a bikini badly.
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Dad, can I get a bikini? Sure. You can wear it on your honeymoon. It's fine. The way women wore their hair was to get other people to look at them.
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That's hard to do if you've got your head covered with something up and over it. God has intended roles for men and women.
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Women would say, I've got a hat on, a robe on, a toga on, or anything else. That's the way
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I live my life outside in public. And when I go into the worship service, roles are irrelevant.
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They might be okay for home, but gender differences in the church I have nothing to do with.
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And Paul said, that's not true at all because the roles between men and women still are in effect in the local church.
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If the veil or head covering was a sign of subordination at home, it should be in the church as well as a sign of subordination.
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The big picture is not, do I have a head covering on? The big picture is, look at how these Corinthian worship services are now no longer different than the church worship services.
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You say, well, I kind of don't like this language. I'm a lady and I think we should have equal rights. Paul has come a long way from the
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Old Testament temple days where there was a court of the women and a court of the Gentiles when the men get to go over here.
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And just repeat it for effect, verse 6, for if a wife will not cover her head, physical head, then she should cut her hair short.
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It's kind of Galatians language. Since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or to shave her head, let her cover her head.
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I'm not talking about hair there, obviously. Let her put something on her head. Don't look like a man.
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Don't act like a man. Don't fall into the slogan you had earlier in chapter 6, everything's permissible.
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I say it a hundred times, I love masculinity in men. I love femininity in women.
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I don't like men who act like girls and I don't like girls who act like men. Paul doesn't mean a woman's hair can serve as a substitute here.
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Context won't allow that. But Paul goes further. He says divine order shows
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Corinthian women should have a head covering, but also creation, verses 7 through 9. This is second reason why the
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Corinthian women, if they pray and prophesy, they should have their head covered. Let's go to verse 7.
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For a man ought not to cover his head, physical head, since he is the image and glory of God.
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But the woman is the glory of man. Nothing in worship should detract from we give
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God glory. God alone is to be praised. A man ought not to cover his head. He was made first by God.
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Yes, made in God's likeness and image, and so was the woman. But here it's added, but the woman is the glory of man.
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A woman ought to cover her head because she's the glory of man. That's Paul's point. And he's interpreting
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Genesis 1 .27 for us. Don't shame your husband.
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Give honor to God. Woman reflects the glory of man, not of God, even though women are equal.
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Now, what does he say in verse 8? Why should a woman bring glory to man? You might want to underline the word from in verse 8, because it's going to be for in verse 9.
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Why should women bring glory to a man? For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Think about Adam and Eve.
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God makes Adam from the dust. God makes Eve from Adam, his rib, and some of the tissue by the rib.
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Creation order. Women was taken out of the man, Genesis 2 .23. You say,
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I don't like that. Well, it's the fact. God's word is God's word, and there are differences.
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Paul's not saying women are inferior. Christ's redemption obviously includes women.
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But look at verse 9. Women aren't just from men, but women...
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Here we go. If you're not mad at me, you're going to get mad at me now. Stall my feminist friends.
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Women are made for men. I just can't believe I said that.
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But it's right in the Bible. Neither was man created for a woman, but woman for man.
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To help, right? Not to dominate and to be domineering and to be under my foot, and meet
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Tarzan, caveman, you know. No. To help.
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Eve was Adam's helper. And God is even said to be, in Hebrew, a helper.
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Helping humans out. Here Eve helps Adam out. And of course, the ladies are thinking under their breath because the men need a lot of help.
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That could be very much true. Probably is true. It's not good for a man to be alone.
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I will make a helper suitable for him. By himself, man could not fulfill his duties.
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He needed a helper. Paul is not arguing from the fall here. He's not arguing from custom.
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He's ordering from creation order. No. 3. Men and women are different.
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Women shouldn't prophesy with their head uncovered. Pray because, No. 1, divine order.
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No. 2, creation. And No. 3, the wild one. Verse 10, angels watch a worship service.
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Angels are watching a worship service. I wonder what they're watching right now. I wonder what they see. Can they see into your heart?
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Let's see what it says in verse 10. This is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head.
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Because of the angels. Charles Hodge said, There is scarcely a passage in the
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New Testament which has so much taxed the learning and ingenuity of commentators as this.
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After all that has been written, it remains just as obscure as ever. I don't really think this one is that obscure.
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Angels watch worship services. And what they're watching for here is, are there differences in roles?
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And are women who are praying and prophesying having their head covered? Now, who are these angels?
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I do know this. The Corinthians would go, Oh, we know what he's talking about. Because remember,
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Paul had been there for 18 months. But for us, we have to study a little bit more. There are three main options. The first two are kind of wild.
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The third one, I think, is the best. Option one, who are these angels? They're demon angels. And they're demon angels watching.
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And they're watching for a woman without a head covering because if they've got that kind of sexy, advertising hair, they're those kind of Genesis 6 demons that want to come down and cohabitate with some of the women in Genesis 6.
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And so they're looking for easy prey, kind of a prostitute kind of like hairdo, and these demons are watching.
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Okay? So far, nobody's sleeping. But angels are never referred to as when you have the word angel.
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It's never bad angel. So here's angel. It's a good angel. Another possibility is angels are in heaven, seeing the glory of Christ Jesus, Isaiah 6.
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Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And even though sinless angels, they still know they're creatures and they cover their face with their wings and they blush.
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They cover themselves. And so if angels cover themselves in the presence of God, they're looking to see if anybody else covers themselves.
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I don't think that's it. Jewish tradition said angels guard creation order.
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They want to make sure everything's ordered right. God is an ordered God. Is today actually Earth Day? It seriously is.
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I think it was 15 years ago today, I said something negative about Earth Day and said, there's going to be a real
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Earth Day. It's called Revelation chapter 19, when God comes and floods the earth with fire. That'll be the
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Earth Day. So I think today is just a Earth Day, or to be proper, an Earth Day.
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Angels, according to Jewish tradition, they like things all ordered, proper, man, woman, different, created, first, second.
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They like all that. So the angels are watching the services of God's people to make sure there's a creation order in worship services.
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That's probably what's happening here. The angels are looking on in worship services.
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By the way, that's just a wild thing to think about. Angels watch worship services.
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Now, just so you don't think men are better than women, Paul moves in verses 11 and 12 to show some interdependency.
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We don't want you to think too negatively of ladies. They're equal in God's eyes, in Genesis and Galatians chapter 3, verse 28.
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Redeemed. And here this is to kind of counter any thinking that men say they're better and want to throw around their weight.
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Verse 11, Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor man of woman.
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Do we need each other? The answer is yes. For as woman was made from man, so man is now born from woman.
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So Eve was made from the side of Adam, but now every man here was born from a woman who wasn't.
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You all were, so you need women. You at least need them to birth you and many other things.
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We're having a family, a Christian family class on Thursday nights and we're not recording it, so it's so fun just to say whatever
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I want. But you could tell just a moment ago I was going to say something, but I did not say it. Because it is the second sermon that goes on the world wide web.
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So man is now born of a woman and all things are from God. Paul's point.
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Don't be mistaken and somehow think that because men and women are different functionally, that men are better.
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We are interdependent. There's a mutuality here between sexes.
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We need ladies. Ladies need men. Number four. Paul argues why
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Corinthian women should have their head covered if they pray or prophesy. Found in verses 13 to 15.
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There is a sense of right and wrong found if you want to call it in nature.
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Let's take a look at the passage. Paul kind of comes back full circle here and seems a little more aggressive.
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Verse 13. Getting back on point. By the way, didn't you love that in Philippians chapter 3 today?
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Paul's got two full chapters to go and he says in chapter 3 verse 1, finally. So you start putting your pen away.
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But then it's chapter 3 and chapter 4. Full circle. Judge for yourselves.
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You tell me. You make the call. Is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered?
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Of course it's not proper, Paul says. Of course not. Now he gives a bunch more questions.
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Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it's a disgrace for him? But if a woman has long hair, it is her glory.
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For her hair is giving to her for a covering. What do we do with that word nature right there in verse 14?
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Here's what some people want to do with nature. Men's hair grows slower than ladies'.
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Ladies' hair grows longer. So nature teaches you. Guy's got short hair. I'm not talking about bald.
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Not talking about premature bald spots or anything like that. See, on Thursday nights
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I'd say more. But you know what? At the end of the day, men's hair and ladies' hair both grow an average of 6 inches a year.
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So what do you mean nature? The word nature can also mean society's expectations.
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What happens in society? Now let's think about this for a second. God makes Adam. God makes Eve. God decided to put hair on both of their heads.
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True? Some of you were probably born bald. But Adam and Eve, they both had hair on their heads.
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If it grows at the same rate, why is it back in these days, in our days, you look at a woman, and short of chemotherapy or something like that, if she's got some super butch -cut hair, and you see some other guy, and he's got hair down to here, why does every culture, almost every culture, go, that's not right, and this is?
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Because even nature teaches you. Not nature meaning their hair grows faster, our hair grows slower, but the common norms of society tell you that shouldn't be.
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Women have longer hair. Men have shorter hair. That's what Paul's talking about. Because if nature has hair growing the same length, it has to be the other definition of nature, and that is societal expectations.
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Now you say, ah, there's a difference in such and such a society. But in general, nature teaches that if a man wears long hair, it's a disgrace to him.
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If a woman has long hair, wow, look at her hair. For her hair is given to her as a covering.
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In other words, Even the way society says women should have long hair, that should give you a little inkling to say, yeah, society knows women should have longer hair, therefore this head covering thing is going to be no big deal because we even know she should have longer hair than men.
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That's Paul's point. He's not saying their long hair is a covering. He's saying in societies, they think of her long hair as right, therefore how much more do they need a covering?
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Long hair is the norm for women. When you say that, then people are like, how short is too short?
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How long is too long? Ladies look like ladies. Men look like men. We're fine.
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Number five, we're almost done. We're almost ready for practical application. The ushers have the doilies.
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We're almost ready to implement them. So you're getting close. Universal church practice tells us that Corinthian women should have their head covered.
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The divine order, creation order, angels watching, society itself, and the universal church practice.
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Paul says to these fighting, bickering Corinthians, if anyone is inclined to be contentious and you want to fight about this, we apostles have no such practice of having women not having their head covered.
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Or you could translate it, we have no other practice. We don't have any other practice besides women having their head covered when they pray or prophesy.
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Nor do the churches of God. You go around the area of Corinth, you're going to go up to Athens, you want to go up to Thessalonica, you want to go up to Berea, you want to go over someplace else, everybody does the same.
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Men and women are different. Women who are married outside the church have their head covered, they're in submission to their husband.
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When you go into the church, you have your head covered in submission to your husband. Somebody is over you and it's not Christ, it's your husband.
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So what about today? Let me give you a few takeaways. Number one, God cares about the way you worship.
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God has ordained worship. He makes up the rules. Remember Nadab and Abihu who offered strange fire?
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God doesn't say, just wing it, go with your gut, Disney theology, just follow your heart.
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Your heart will make you fall every single time. And so God prescribes worship.
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You say, well why don't you do drama in the church? Because it's not prescribed in the Bible. Why do you read Scripture? Because it's prescribed in the
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Bible. Why do you sing? It's prescribed in the Bible. Why do you give? It's prescribed in the Bible. Why don't you do some kind of crazy other things?
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It's not in the Bible. Let's do what God says. God cares about the way you worship. The how matters.
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Number two, men and women are equal in the local church but they have different roles. Just like at home, just like in the church.
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Elders, 1 Timothy 2, male. Pastors, male.
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Overseers, male. Presbyters, male. Deacons, male. Why?
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Because we're creatures and God's a creator and this is the way God has it set up. Nobody's better, Paul argues from 1
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Timothy 2, because of the order of creation and the fall.
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Ladies were more deceived due to the fall.
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If I can just speak frankly for a second, and I can, when
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I see a woman pastor, the same feeling I get when I see a woman pastor,
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I get the same feeling I do when I see a transgendered man who's at the
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Miss Universe contest. It's revolting. When I turn on the
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TV and see Joyce Meyer spouting her heresies, number one, it's heresy. Number two, she ought not to be a pastor.
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Why? Because I'm better than her? No, because God has said clearly in the Bible, Titus 1, 1
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Timothy 2, men are to be preachers. So when I walked into the hospital, Gracie was going to be born.
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I was going to get induced, go into the emergency room at St. Vincent's, 5 a .m., and I walked in and above the receptionist, there was a woman preaching on the
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Heretic Bible Network or whatever it is, and I walked down the hall to go into the labor and delivery room, there was another
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TV with another different woman preaching. I thought it's like in stereo. You say, well, that's pretty unkind.
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You probably don't know this because you live in this little bubble here at Evangelical Bible Church, BBC, but there's a raging war going on in evangelicalism between the feminists and the non -feminists.
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Egalitarians who say we're equal in person and equal in roles, and the group that says they're complementarians, we're equal in position, but we're different in roles.
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And it is going major gangbusters. Gordon Conwell, we will not hire any pastor that teaches men and women have different roles.
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We're not hiring any professor, rather, that teaches there are different roles. You say, well,
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I could preach better than you, Pastor Mike. Maybe you could. It was 12 years ago at the church, and someone said, we started doing
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Scripture reading, and they said, you know, you can't read Scripture very well in public. Welcome to New England.
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Well, that might be true. And this lady said, well,
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I'd like to read Psalm 103. And I said, well, you can't read Psalm 103 from Scripture because 1 Timothy 2 makes it clear.
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I don't allow a woman to teach or exercise authority in the church. And it should be men, and it shouldn't be ladies.
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I'm not better. This is just the truth. Creation order and deception. She said, oh, I want to read.
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I tried to be nice. We did this kind of dance for about a year, and she said, I want to read Psalm 103 because you're just not very good at it.
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Men and women are equal. And I finally had to say to her, you can read Psalm 103 in this pulpit over my dead body.
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Number three, don't forget about progressive revelation. When you're thinking about this issue, if you say to yourself, well, it says pray or prophesy in chapter 11.
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They can pray and prophesy. Why aren't women leading the prayers today and prophesying? Answer, because 1
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Corinthians was written in 55 AD when there still was speaking in tongues, interpretation, prophesying.
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But now as the canon gets closed and getting closer to get closed, 1 Timothy chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 is written in 65
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AD. We don't need people to stand up and prophesy anymore. We have the canon is complete. So that's not a good argument.
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And then the one you're all waiting for, should women wear head coverings today? Should they wear head covering today?
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We'll find out next week. Let's pray. All right, let's think about this for a second.
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Some visitor came in today. I wonder what they're thinking. Probably wanted like five steps for healthy living in the
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Christian age. But what we do here is we just preach verse by verse by verse.
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If in the culture women who were married, both Jew and Gentile, said, I've got a head covering on, outside of culture, and they'd go into the church and take it off to show that there's nobody above them, and Paul said no.
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What do we do in a culture where outside the church, short of Mennonites and people overseas in the
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Eastern culture, nobody wears a head covering? Now for all the ladies that came in today without a head covering, out in the world, were you trying to show that you were anti -authoritarian?
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Were you trying to say, my husband's not over me. It's like taking your wedding ring off and it's like throwing it away. There's no man over me.
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Who do you think you are? Were you trying to show that? If you are, if you were, then we're going to have some special extra long baptism for you after service.
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But you weren't trying to show that. What were you saying? Does our culture say, no head covering, rebellion?
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That's not what we're trying to say. So if you said to yourself, you know what? I have no head cover in the world, but I go to the church and now
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I put one on, I think if you're going to do that, and by the way, people say, you know,
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Mike never changes. He's the same old kind of troglodyte that he used to be. I have changed in my theology.
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I used to not think that God looked at the world covenantally. I think God looks at the world covenantally.
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We're either in Adam or in Christ. Before the time began, God, the Father, the Son, and the
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Spirit had a covenant, a pact, a guarantee to save us. And so I've changed on some of those. I've also changed on this particular point.
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Is it difficult? Is it hard? Is it hard to say, I think I wasn't right? No, it's not that hard to say.
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You guys have been saying that for a long time. It's easy to say. It's easy to say, rise up and walk or your sins are forgiven.
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Which ones are easy to say? Schreiner said, in the first century, failure to wear a covering sent a signal to the congregation that a woman was rejecting the authority of male leadership.
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Paul was concerned about head coverings only because the message they sent to people in that culture. What's being sent today?
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For the ladies that don't have head covering on, what are you trying to tell us? I don't think you're trying to tell us anything.
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By the way, ladies, while I'm on it, if your husband says, even though Mike's changed his mind, I've changed my mind.
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I used to didn't think you should have a head covering. Now listening to this exposition, I think you should. Women, would you wear a hat, a shawl or anything?
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Because if you wouldn't, you're doing exactly what Paul is condemning. And that is no differences in roles and no submission to God -ordained leadership.
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If your husband says, I think this is what you should do, you say, honey, I disagree. Let's talk about it. Let's work through it. And at the end of the day, you think, you know what?
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He asked me to do it. I disagree. I wear it anyway. But I don't think we're trying to tell people in the world, for those of you who don't wear hats outside,
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I'm a rebel. Secondly, I don't think this is for today anymore, is because Paul said, if women pray or prophesy, and those two words together, public prayer, public prophesy, that's not allowed anymore because time has gone on.
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We have progressive revelation. No women are allowed to give public prayers and no women are allowed to give public prophesies.
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So there's no reason to wear a head covering to show that you're under the authority of the man when it's no longer needed in the
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New Testament church, nor allowed. If you wear a head covering today, by the way,
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I commend you. And I'm never going to say, oh,
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I just got done reading 50 commentaries and 20 articles and have been studying this for the last two months.
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And you know what? I can't believe you didn't take my word for it. You say, you know what?
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I really think it's for today and I'm going to continue doing that. I think it takes a lot of courage to say that. To say,
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I think I'm still tucked under my husband, whether I'm out of the church or in the church, and therefore I'll wear one.
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And so, by the way, in our church, for the ladies that don't wear head coverings and the ladies that do,
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I hope you're going to get along. I hope you're not going to go, if you wear one and you see another lady and you're like,
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I can't believe she doesn't wear one. She probably never submits to her husband. She's one of those wild women.
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And if you go to people who wear head coverings on a regular basis and snicker and laugh and hearty -har -har and all those things,
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I don't know who you are. I don't know who you think you are saying, well, you know what?
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Here's this and here's that. It's a very difficult passage. There's all kinds of issues. By the way, Paul doesn't use any cultural argument to say women need to have a head covering on their head.
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It's all non -cultural things. And if you say at the end of the day, I can't get past this. Angels watch.
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I should have a symbol of authority over my head. I commend you. So, to quote the theologian
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Rodney King, I just want us all to get along. And know there are differences between men and women in this local church.
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And there will always be because God has ordained it. God has ordained it.
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And if you think to yourself, maybe I should wear a head covering, or I am wearing one, and maybe I should not.
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Then don't just default today and say, you know what? Mike said it. I'll do it. Because like I said, for two months
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I've agonized through this passage because I don't want to change my view because it's easier.
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I don't want to change my view and think, you know what? I was wrong. But I have to just let the text go.
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And what the text says, then I'm under the text. Is it controversial? Yes.
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I think R .C. Sproul in his book, 300 Questions, do you think a woman should wear a head cover? I think his answer is going to be yes.
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John MacArthur, his answer is going to be no. But even if we boil all those things down, here's the issue.
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Paganism in the church is bad. Women and men blurring is bad.
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Lazy men who don't do anything and vacuums that have to be filled by women, it's bad.
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It's the man's fault, but women shouldn't do it either. Men are
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God's ordained leaders in the church. Women should gladly follow.
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The ushers have the doilies. I actually know a church that they'll stand with doilies out front and if you don't put one on and you're a married lady, you can't get in the church.
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If you want to wear a hat, shawl, I commend you and don't go against your conscience.
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If you don't want to, you can say, Mike, for 20 years I've told you so. Let's pray.
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Thank You, Father, for our time together in Your Word. Thank You that there are differences between men and women, equal yet different.
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And Father, what do we care how You order Your church? We're sinful people deserving what we have earned and yet You've given us grace, grace upon grace.
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Help Bethlehem Bible Church, Father, I pray to be united and the factions that were involved in Corinth would not be here.
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Help us to love one another when people differ in secondary issues and help our church,
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Father, to have men who want to lead and ladies who will gladly follow for Your glory in Jesus' name.