Dressing for Order?

1 Corinthians 11 and the Problem of Order in Worship

Our scripture this morning is 1 Corinthians 11 verse 2 through 16. Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions just as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.

Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying shames his head. But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying shames her head, for she is one and the same as if a woman whose head is shaved.

For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut short. But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut short or her head shaved, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God.

But the woman is the glory of man. For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man. For indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake. Therefore, the woman ought to have authority on her head because of the angels.

Nevertheless, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman. But all things originate from God.

Judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him? But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her?

For her hair is given to her for a covering. But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have any of the churches of God. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, it is a time that we come to a text that is divisive.

Lord, in people's application, your word is perfect and you have a meaning that is clear. Lord, help us to find it. Lord, help us to not be contentious, as is to our shame so often the tradition of the modern church.

Lord, we long to be a church of God. We long to obey your scripture. We long to have consciences that are properly attuned to your law, Lord, so that we would not sin against you. Lord, I pray that we would act charitably.

But most of all, Lord, I pray that we would have clear consciences and a heart that loves your word, that loves to obey your word. And Lord, that our love would be shown, and it would show to one another, and that it would indicate and be the sign that we are your people.

Lord, help us to understand. Help us to be clear. And we trust in you to do that work through your Holy Spirit this morning.

Amen.

You may be seated. All right, before we get into what you all want to know, after reading a passage like that, I think we have to see that there has been a turn coming in 1 Corinthians. And what's been going on is there is a beginning on the centrality of the cross of Christ.

Really, chapters 1 through 3, we start to get into trouble. There is this constant thing of the Corinthians are wise. They are so learned. They are knowledgeable. All this kind of stuff. But in the midst of that, there is trouble in the church.

There's trouble with their interpersonal relationships. There's trouble outside the church. And so Paul has talked about the sexual immorality in the church, the lawsuits in the church, eating meat offered to idols that's going on in the church, secular pagan worship, a lot of burdening of consciences.

And then in this section, in chapter 11, we get into a block of a text that really goes from chapters 11 through 14 that is talking about the mayhem and the disaster that is going on during the gathering.

It's crazy in there. If you've ever watched YouTube videos, I would recommend it. If you ever look at a situation where you've got people who are jumping around, running over pews, slobbering on the floor, turning in circles, yelling, wailing, shooting strobe lights everywhere, that is really pretty akin to what's going on in the normal weekly gathering in Corinth.

But then they add a layer to it because you can't take communion because if you're in the end of the line, all the elements are gone. Because the rich cut in line so that they can drink to their fill and get drunk at the love feast.

And that's what you'll see next week. And so what is often happening is, and I see this, as we turn to head coverings, what's going on in this passage is it is the beginning of a salvo of fire where Paul is trying to correct the internal workings of the Lord's Day gathering.

It's out of order. It's a problem. And so we can be excused in seeing that this passage is unique in the New Testament because the situation in Corinth is different and unique compared to the other churches that Paul writes to.

It's really a mess in there. And so there is going to be a lot of word spoken and we get to some of the more confusing passages in the New Testament in this block between chapter 11 to chapter 14. And we're going to walk through that together.

But the big idea is this. There is something that is required of men and women in worship. And there is something required that is based on the natural order of creation that God has instituted hierarchies to work in a certain way.

And then when we throw off those hierarchies, when we do what is right in our own eyes, whether that is cultural or whether it's based on our own idea of sola scriptura, where we just take interpretations for ourselves and run with them, we can run amok and messes come.

And we have to examine fruits because the fruit is what shows the rightness of one's action over time. So this morning we can't dodge it. My dad said a couple of weeks ago, like, why don't we just do the traditional Baptist thing and just miss this section?

Let's go on to the next thing. The problem is I think we got issues with communion too, and that's next week. So you really just have to skip the whole chapter. And then people notice. It's like I was looking at a Lifeway pamphlet, Sunday school stuff, and it was going through Romans.

And we know that Calvinism is abhorrent to many in the Southern Baptist Convention. And what Lifeway did was they just skipped chapter 9, Romans 8, Romans 10. Here we go. We can't do that. I would get threats on my life.

But, Trumbose, I'm not going to make you feel bad this morning, I don't think. So I'm going to take a break from that, and we're going to talk about head coverings. So if you're with me, and I say this all the time, I say it jokingly and lovingly to my brothers who are here with me in the social media reform ghetto, I will tell you that one of the fights that comes up periodically and consistently in the reform social media world is endless arguments over head coverings.

How could you be so stupid as to not cover your head? What are you, some kind of blue-haired leftist feminist? Oh, you're a weirdo covering your head. What are you doing there? Is it okay to be immodest while you cover your head?

I see it. And what we do is we pick at each other. We pick at each other. And what I don't want to do here, and the point of this sermon is to determine, what does God require of us? That's the most important thing.

What does God require of us? And then, how do we not tear each other and other churches and other people in the church apart with good faith, different interpretations of certain scripture? Now, that is a big deal because what's going to happen is there is one position that is pretty easy to understand and pretty understandable, and we should understand it.

And I think oftentimes we do. I think it's the other position that takes work, and much of the work has not been done. I think that it's been rather lazy at times, and so we're going to go through that.

So there are multiple positions on this text. I'm going to give you four of them. I think that in my studies I found that most of the positions of these texts devolve and dissolve into really these kind of four main ones.

Number one position on head coverings is that women are apostolically commanded during the Lord's Day gathering to cover their head. Usually this is restricted to wives, although that has been disputed in church history to mean virgins also, that sort of thing.

So that is position number one. Wives must cover, and then there are sub-positions under that one that would be, you know, maybe daughters also, and maybe they have to cover all the time everywhere, not just in church.

So those would be sub-points of that position. Another position that has been championed for a long time, it's probably been the dominant American position. In fact, there was a joke told this weekend about it, and that is this, that head coverings were a cultural practice that was encouraged for a time and place, and Paul is commending them in this text in a time and place.

And so the argument goes that if these were a cultural commendation for the church at Corinth, we are not in Corinth today, and therefore this passage is totally cultural and is not binding on anyone today.

The problem with that interpretation is that the cultural thing, there are passages in this scripture that are rooted in the very created order. There are truths that have to be uncovered that never changed.

Man is created before woman. There is a hierarchical position, and what Paul argues for the covering is based on this hierarchical position. So we can't just wave a magic wand and say that was for Corinth, this is for now.

I notice that you're not kissing each other with a holy kiss when you come in. That was a cultural moment. We can just wave that one away, like these sorts of arguments. I'm not going to deal with that one too much because I just don't think when you really get into the scripture, I just don't think it's very convincing, although there are obviously cultural aspects in this text.

So I'm not calling anybody an idiot for this. I'm saying that it's not convincing to me. The third one is that the hair is the covering, so there's no need for any other covering. I'll just be honest.

I don't really understand that argument because what Paul does in this text, if you take that, that the hair is the natural covering that takes care of the commendation in this text, the problem is that Paul specifically says that if the hair is a covering and you're not going to cover it with something else when you pray and prophesy, you should all just shave it off.

That makes no sense. So the hair can't be the covering. That makes a hash of the text. It doesn't work. Now, there is a fourth one, and that is that the covering is a symbol, whether that symbol is a cloth or it's something else, and I'm going to argue today that, you know, look, here's the deal.

Let me say this. I rarely do this, so take it from my heart in this. My goal today is not to convince you of a position on head coverings. My goal today is to convince you of the good faith arguments from a couple of different camps so that you can make up your mind whether this is a baptism issue or whether it's a, like, hymns versus psalmody issue.

Now, there's problems within that dynamic, and I hopefully am going to be explaining those, but we know with Baptists, right, that we have a difference of interpretation with Presbyterians, and we do not throw Presbyterians into the outer darkness for their interpretation on baptism, but at the same time, we often do not have church because when a baby is born, there's a decision to be made, right?

And we're a Baptist church, so we're not baptizing babies. So we have decided there are some times that we're going to have to separate. That doesn't mean that we are throwing each other in gloomy darkness.

You will have to decide for yourself whether this issue is one of those, and I do see the argument for it, so I'm not throwing those people into the outer darkness, okay? So here we go. In the modern church, no matter the view, you're going to hear a phrase like this, we allow the conscience to dictate.

Now, I will say that three of the views that I mentioned, number two, three, and four, that you're basically the not covering people, the not covering people do have a consistent basis on which to say, let the conscience dictate.

Option number one, if this is apostolic command that women wear some sort of cloth veil or head covering on their heads, if that is an apostolic command, then the conscience has nothing to do with it because we do not have a conscience when it comes toward the commands of God.

We have to follow the commands of God, period. It doesn't matter what your conscience says. If your conscience tells you not to follow this command of God, your conscience is a liar, and it's going to bring you into hellfire, so don't listen to it.

So that is an incoherent position with number one. Now, one thing that is absolutely certain from this text that I do hope to convince you of, and that I would be adamant about, is that women have to be covered when they're praying and prophesying.

If we're going very specifically in the text, it is pointed towards when women pray and prophesy, they must be covered. It is a disgrace if they're not. Okay, so here we go. You guys might think that I'm a crazy, wild person for this.

I've debated and struggled, and I'm going to read some stuff here, and I'm going to make my argument, and I'm going to start, hopefully, shaping my position. I'm not alone, but I am in a stark minority with this, so I'm aware of that, and I hold it with some humility.

So here we go. Section 1, there is praise for Corinth. Praise for Corinth. Verse 2, and verse 2 was actually the stumbling block for me in this whole passage. I know what everyone wants to ask is, what about the angels?

That's the first question everyone has. But I think the first question really should be, verse 2, what is Paul talking about? We have read the letter up to this point, right? Let me remind you, I'm not going to talk to you guys about anything besides the cross of Christ, because what you're doing right now is you're basing your whole salvation and your whole spiritual place on whether you're of Apollos or Paul or Cephas and for the most holy of Jesus.

And then you have a man who you're showing your great love for one another in the church by tolerating that he is currently sleeping with his stepmother. And you are going to the pagan courts to sue each other so that you can raise your standing up.

This is going on in the church. You're suing one another, appealing to the pagans, because none of you lacks the wisdom to determine these matters in house. And if that's not enough, you're inviting everyone over to dinner, and you're serving the meat that was just on the idols, and you're arguing out the space in direct opposition to the council of Jerusalem that we should be able to go to the temple of the pagan gods and eat the meat that was fresh off of the big idol.

This is what's going on in the church. And then Paul breaks, and he's going to commend them and praise them. Why? Because they've remembered him in everything, and because they have held firmly to the traditions just as Paul delivered them to them.

Strangely, in chapter 4, verse 17, Paul writes, and he says,. Why does he need to send Timothy to remind them? They already know, right? They've remembered everything. Have the Corinthians really remembered the doctrine that Paul taught?

Have they remembered the essentials? In chapter 3, verses 1 and 2, he says,. And I, brothers, was not able to speak to you as spiritual men, but as to fleshly men, as to infants in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not able to receive it.

Indeed, even now you are still not able. You guys cannot receive the basic fundamentals of Christianity. Flip the page in the letter. You've remembered everything I taught you. You've held to every tradition.

Let's talk about these traditions. What are the traditions? You've held to all of them. Paul uses this in a couple other letters. Both in 2 Thessalonians, Paul says this, in chapter 2, verse 15,. What do the traditions mean?

They mean to do what Paul has said. Paul has planted these churches. There is a way that the church is organized. Follow the tradition. He clarifies in chapter 3 of 2 Thessalonians,. So we get clarification.

To walk in the tradition is to stay away from unruly men who are not following the tradition. What is going on in Corinth? These are the traditions. The gospel. Loving your neighbor. Purity from sexual immorality.

Brotherhood and unity. And casting out unruly people and wolves. These are the traditions. And so I ask you. This is a pebble in my shoe. I knew this sermon was coming. We've had it mapped out. I've been reading the books.

The people who are closest to me are like, Josh, can we stop the head covering conversation? My wife is tired of it. I'm sure Corey's tired of it. We've done hours on Monday mornings talking about this.

And here we sit. And what I could never get past is verse 2. What in the world is Paul talking about? What traditions have they held to? And have they remembered him in everything? He's just been chastising them that he can't even be paid by them because they won't believe him if he gets paid by them.

But I praise you. You've remembered me in everything. So I'm going to give a nod to this one man who is in the foxhole with me. And I have to. His name is Douglas Van Dorn. This guy, he writes very interesting books.

Very interesting books. And I was on this path. And I was asking these questions. And I was thinking through this letter. And then David Basin, who I was having a breakfast with, and I said, man, this book, this letter, it's so sarcastic all the time.

And David goes, oh, I think I need to send you a book. And he sent me one. And it was by this wild man named Douglas Van Dorn who's a reformed pastor. In fact, he gave the book to a group that he calls the Reformed Fringe.

Now, I'm going to tell you, I like that.

All right?

Because I am reformed. And some people, I think that I'm a centrist, a moderate centrist. But some people would think that I'm on the fringe. And this is what Douglas Van Dorn posits. He would say that what's going on here is basically this.

In the midst of bedlam in the church, people are, you can't even hear the preaching of the word because people are crying out random prophecies and blathering in tongues. And they're all so proud of themselves because the number one thing that's going on in the Corinthian church, that we know this, is they are puffed up with pride and they want to exhibit their holiness to everyone so that everyone can applaud them for how amazing they are.

And the thing that is most amazing is the outpouring of spiritual gifts. And I'm going to throw one dagger, it's probably the only dagger in this sermon. If you can imagine a situation where a bunch of people are blowing up with tongues and prophecies, what do you envision?

Because I envision a bunch of loud women in the church. And there we come to chapter 11. Because what I think Paul is doing is he is arguing and building a case for what he wants to stop. And what he wants to stop, he tells us very explicitly later in chapter 14, and that is that the women need to be quiet.

So the letter itself makes an argument for sarcasm. Let me read you a couple parts. I've already given you some, but let's go. Chapter 4, Paul writes to them,. You are already filled. You have already become rich.

You have ruled without us. And how I wish that you had ruled in deeds so that we might also rule with you. This is the Apostle Paul telling the church. Chapter 6, verse 5,. Is it really this way? There is not one wise man among you who will be able to pass judgment between his brothers?

There's no one wise in the church. You're so wise. There's not one person that can render judgment. Chapter 9, he says, Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?

He's using rhetorical questions. Verse 6 of chapter 9,. Or do only Barnabas and I not have authority or refrain from working? Scathing in 2 Corinthians, which the whole book is really sarcastic to the same church, he says this,.

For you being so wise are bearing the foolish gladly. For you bear it if anyone enslaves you, anyone devours you, anyone takes advantage of you, anyone exalts himself, anyone hits you in the face. To my shame, I must say that we have been weak by comparison.

But in whatever respect anyone else is daring, I speak in foolishness. I am just as daring myself. Even in this passage, there's sarcasm. Verse 6, Historical commentators will say that the apostle is being, quote, peevish in this passage.

Verse 6, If a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut short. But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut short or have her head shaved, let her cover her head. If you're not going to step into the order that you are called into doing by throwing off any man, by throwing off that cover, then what you're going to get is you should shave your head as the shameful act of a collaborator or an adulteress.

And this passage, specifically verse 6, that is sarcastic, has led some people to make a mishmash of this text and think that the head covering has to do with modesty. This text is not about modesty. This text is about the posture of women during certain things that are happening in the church.

Now, we must, I'm going to, oh, sorry, half dagger. I don't intend it this way, but it's going to be a little bit, sorry. It is no wonder to me that in a church, and we have to see where we are, friends.

We are in this blob of churches that's called the conservative church, okay, where we haven't just thrown off Scripture and done whatever we want, right? We do want to follow Scripture, but in the conservative church, what we have done is we don't really even have a basis to see what Paul's talking about because there is no prophecy, and there's very little praying out loud.

And so what we do is we instantly transport. We don't really pay attention to what Paul is saying here because we really don't have a way to do that because what does it mean when it says that a woman should cover her head when she prophesies?

And we're like, oh, that's weird. That doesn't even happen. That gift has ceased. Interesting. But let's put it back together. So here's my argument, and I will make it succinct. The application and the end result of my argument does not depend on my argument, okay?

And I'll explain that, but here is my argument. I think that what Paul is doing is that he wants to get the church in order. And so what he is doing is he is writing because he wants the women to be silent.

He wants there to be order to what is going on so that people can orderly worship, order in communion, order in preaching, order in administration of the gifts, all of this stuff. And I think what he starts with, as you can almost hear a slow clap, is I think what he's doing is in the midst of chaos, he is taking time out to rhetorically congratulate them for wearing a cloth on their head while they're doing it.

See, you guys are blabbering in tongues and blasting off prophecies, and no one understands what's going on, but at least you have your head covered while you're doing it. I think that's what he's doing.

Now, like I said, the rise and fall of my argument does not depend on the passage being sarcastic, but I do think the passage is sarcastic. There are a couple of reasons why. I'll explain those as we go.

But first, let's peel it back, and let's go to what's timeless and inarguable. Verse 3, timeless truths and principles in this passage. I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.

Here's one thing that we have made total disarray of, and one of the reasons why this thing gets so complicated with us is that up until about a hundred years ago, every woman in the church would have had a cloth covering on her head.

And what has happened since then is that women in general said, we don't need no man, and they took that covering off, and they burned it along with their bras, and they took over the church, and the only person who even inhabits an area like this is someone who has all the approval of the women in the church.

Because the men are checked out and gone, and they don't care anyway, because all they hear coming from up here is TED Talks to make you feel better. That is the situation we are in, and it has confused stuff.

And I think that that is a very strong argument for wearing cloth coverings. Very strong indeed. So I am more than sympathetic. I understand it. Like I said, I'm not trying to convince everyone, because there is a timeless truth that is in play here, and that is this.

Christ is the top of the hierarchy. Not controversial to say, right? I can say this in any conservative church. Christ is the head of the church. Amen. Amen. That's great, brother. Keep saying it. The problem is we don't really care what he says a lot of times.

So is he really the head? Because if you love him, you will obey his commandments. If you respect the authority of Christ, then you're going to do what he says. And if you don't do what he says, you're not under his covering anyway, and your church is not under him, and so it's not a church at all.

Christ is the top. Man is under Christ, and woman is under man. Church father after church father would talk positionally and hierarchically that man is superior and woman is inferior. That's not talking about ontological value and worth.

What that's talking about is a position of hierarchy. There are superiors and inferiors. We know this. We talk about this. The CEO of a company is superior to the mailroom worker. That doesn't mean that he's better before Christ.

It means he's in charge. So let's not be confusing. Let's be clear. We know that the head... The feminists make arguments in this passage and say, head means source. No, head means the controller. Who controls your body?

The head.

We all know this. We all know this. The head is a position of authority. The head of the family is the authority in the family. The head of the church is Christ, and he is appointed under shepherds who are called elders, who are heads in the church, who make decisions.

This perfectly reconciles with the doctrines of the church, the family, and marriage. All of these. And I would... Well, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do the civil magistrate thing right now.

I don't have time. Sorry. You know my thoughts. Here we go. Another timeless truth, 8 and 9. We are not in a position where because men are in charge, because men are the superiors, that doesn't mean that women are tools for our pleasure.

Timeless truth, verses 8 and 9. For if a man does not originate from woman, but woman from man, for indeed man was not created for woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake. Nevertheless, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.

For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman, but all things originate from God. We don't get to do this alone. We don't take our ball and go home. Men and women need each other.

Natural law tells us this. Revealed scripture tells us this. That men and women, for the good of humanity and for ultimate glory to God, we need each other. Woman was created for man, not man for woman.

If you doubt me on that, go back and read Genesis. That's the only reading of chapters 1 through 3, that what happened is it was not good for man to be alone. He was looking at all the animals. He was naming them, but there was nothing according to his type.

And so what God did is in his mercy and his grace and his ultimate plan that he caused deep sleep to come over the man, and he pulled a part of him and fashioned it into woman. And Adam woke up, and he saw what God had fashioned, and he said, this is flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone.

We will not be separated. We will be together, and there will be nuclear power in the family by which this union, there will be procreation, there will be dominion, and she will help him, and he will lead her.

And when you throw this upside down, things start to break. Things start to break. So let's not throw it over. The church has to be run by men. Not in name only, but in reality. You can't have shadow elders who are ruling from the dining table on Sunday afternoons.

Well, dear, I think you really should tell so-and-so this. This is characteristic of the patriarchal church in America today. It is so hard to be ruled by men in a thoroughly feminist culture because men are aggressive and violent, and men don't nurture, and men don't make things feel comfortable.

Men do not seek consensus. Men seek truth and clarity. It makes you uncomfortable right now. We all just want to get along. Men do not primarily in their masculine urge seek to get along. Men seek to win.

What's fun for men? Winning. It's always fun, right? The most fun game is the one you win the most often. And the better the competition, the more fun it is to win. That's why men are constantly wanting to play against better people so that they can be tested more sharply and win because we know in our hearts that what we want to do is be the best.

It is a masculine urge. Now, it can't run amok. It has to be restrained and trained. But we talk often about how feminist stuff is, and then we have to look. In this passage, are we being ruled by women?

Boy, I hope not. The temptation's always there, and it's easy to slide in the temptation. But the timeless truth is this, is that men have to rule the church. Men have to rule their family. We have been given that position.

God is the one who appointed Christ as the head of the church. It was because of God's plan that Christ came and gave grace to all the people. It was the Father's plan, and Jesus perfectly submitted to the will of the Father in his person and work, and he saved all of us.

And it was a model of how headship and submission works. See, if women throw off this authority in rebellion, they will be ruined. And if men disregard their own authority, they will be disgraced and ruined.

Where does this leave us? 30 minutes, and I haven't answered the question. I'm not afraid. It just takes work. There is a culture of chaos and rebellion in Corinth. Let's go back to Corinth. Women are praying and prophesying boldly and without order.

Now, here's where I'm going to make distinction number one. I'm going to tell you that there are two positions of the four that I most respect, and I'm going to illuminate those. Position number one, women have to wear cloth coverings on their head in the gathering of the saints.

I respect the position, and I see its point, and I want to carve out room and say, I'm okay with that. And I look at our arguing about that point to be like inter-varsity squabbling around a table with a pint where we're all going to hug each other's neck afterwards, and I'm fine with that.

And I look at position number four, and I say, is the real covering something else? And that is the position that I'm going to argue here. I do not think the hair thing and the cultural thing bear the weight.

I don't think they're good arguments, and I would try to convince you out of those arguments because I just don't think they are good faith, and I don't think they're the position that lands us and where we can understand each other and we can disagree understanding because that's ultimately what I want is to build unity without disobeying God.

So this passage makes me tremble, and it should in a way because even if it's the smallest little command that seems like, what are we fighting about? If it's a command of God, we need to do it. So here's part number one that I have a problem with with apostolic command view.

Part number one that I have a problem with and that I'm having a hard time getting past, and it is this. I think that you equate the specific action of praying and prophesying. Remember, if she is praying and prophesying without a covering on, then she's a disgrace.

And if a man is praying and prophesying with a cover on, he's a disgrace. Now, I do think that it is a leap to turn this thing into the Lord's Day gathering at large, and I'm going to explain why. And this is traditionally what has kept me as a non-cloth covering guy.

Okay, I do think that Paul wishes to be clear. I do not think that this is a good way to describe the gathering of the church. It's by saying, it would be like this. What are you doing this Sunday morning?

Well, I'm going to sing and pray. That would be strange. We all say we're going to church, and then it involves all of these things. Women are told if they are uncovered when they're praying and prophesying, they are a disgrace.

Now look, I'm not lampooning anybody, but I am saying that there is other stuff going on in the church. There's preaching, there's singing, there's reading, there's communion, there's baptism. There's all this stuff.

And then to make matters worse, and this is where I've been for a long time, there are these verses that have to be dealt with. So remember, women are told if you pray and prophesy without a covering on, you are doing a bad thing.

Now, what does that mean? That means by definition that if you have a covering on, you're okay to pray and prophesy, right? It's a disgrace if you don't have a cover, but it's okay if you do have a cover.