(The Head Covering) 01 - How We Use the Old Testament — Tom Chaplin

I have observed on this particular topic, and I'm wondering if you have too, is that most of the popular literature that we have access to basically looks at the issue from the perspective of 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

In other words, if you're like me, a lot of the first brochures and pamphlets that I got came from Anabaptist type sources, Mennonite sources. And they pretty much focus on this issue as though it was strictly a 1 Corinthians chapter 11 issue.

Have you found that to be the case yourself in your investigation, pretty much? Well, you'll find out in the way I'm approaching it that I look at it a little bit differently. In fact, this is the title I decided to give to this segment of our Bible study, namely Understanding the Head Coating, a Whole Bible Approach, and I've underlined whole Bible because as I have looked at this issue, I've come to believe that it is a far broader issue than just can be contained in one passage of scripture, 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

I've come to believe that if you're really going to get a proper understanding of this issue, that you actually have to consider a number of scriptures, and many of them are Old Testament scriptures, such as Genesis chapter 2, 21, 2, 3, 24, Genesis 24, Numbers 5, Isaiah 3, 16 through 26, and several others.

Now if you were perhaps to look those passages up in the Bible, you might want to ask me right off the bat, what do some of these have to do with the head covering? We'll just have to keep coming back to find out, because we'll be looking at all or most of these scriptures in the course of this study in light of what they have to say to us concerning this issue.

Now why is it important that we look at other scriptures other than 1 Corinthians chapter 11? Well, actually, if 1 Corinthians chapter 11 was the only passage that had anything to do with this issue, then that's all we have to look at.

But you know, it's very dangerous for you or for me, if we're studying any particular issue from a biblical perspective, to leave out any scriptures in our investigation, isn't it? Let me give you a case in point.

Reading All Scripture on a Biblical Issue

Look in Luke 14, verse 26, and now imagine if you were doing a study on the relationship between parents and children, and this was the only verse you studied, what conclusions might you come to? The verse says this, if any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Now, I would suggest that if you were studying that issue from a biblical perspective, and this was the only passage you looked at, you might possibly come out with some erroneous conclusions, mightn't you?

Some very seriously erroneous conclusions. It's very important for us to look at all the scriptures that have to do with a particular issue. And I'm kind of hoping I don't disappoint you, because maybe some of you came here thinking tonight that I was going to jump right into 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and that's what you were expecting, but I can't do that.

I honestly can't do that. If I do that, I will not fully proclaim to you God's word on the subject. It's very important that we start at the right place and progress through the study before we get to probably what you all are waiting for, 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

We will get there, but there's a lot of ground I have to cover before we do, so that when we get there, you'll have a lot of foundational information that will help you to properly assess the passage.

If I skip that, you're liable to end up with some erroneous conclusions, because frankly, I'll tell you, 1 Corinthians chapter 11 has some ambiguities in it, and many people will not buy an Anabaptist argument because of those ambiguities, but I think if we take a whole Bible approach, we can remove those ambiguities from a scriptural perspective and not leave it up to our own opinion as to how to resolve them, okay?

That's why it's important that we look at all the scriptural information on the subject. So that's what we're going to do in the course of this study. We will start with the Old Testament, and we're going to work our way right on through into the New.

Presuppositions About Interpretation, Culture, Authority, and Modesty

However, before we do that, we have to do this. I've come to feel that on the issue of the head covering, that many times we have as individuals certain thoughts about certain issues that we bring to a passage like 1 Corinthians 11, and we may not even be aware we're doing that, but because we've already reached some conclusions, we read 1 Corinthians 11 in a certain way, or we read other scriptures.

This doesn't just apply to the issue of the head covering. These are issues that, while not specifically dealing with the head covering, nevertheless form a foundation for the way you're going to resolve the issue in your mind, such as how do you handle Old Testament interpretation?

We're going to look at Old Testament scriptures. Well, what part should they play in our understanding of the head covering? There are some that relate to the head covering, but how you use Old Testament scriptures to make decisions concerning ethical issues will determine how you look at the Old Testament scriptures we're going to use here today.

It's very important what we think about that issue. The role of culture in biblical interpretation, that's a biggie. Many people will say you don't need to wear a head covering because that's just a cultural issue.

For that matter, just about any issue in the Bible that a person doesn't like, you might use the cultural issue to say I don't have to do that. So how we use culture, the role of culture in biblical interpretation, your thoughts on that will influence how you look at the head covering.

The authority relationship between man and woman. We don't have any women's livers here today, I'm certain of that, but if we did, they'd really struggle with the head covering because the head covering is all wrapped up in what you think about how men and women relate to one another.

So we need to understand what the Bible says about that. And issues of modesty. I would suspect that very few of you here have ever thought of the head covering in terms of modesty. I want to show you, I hope, that there is a connection, and there's a connection between these two boxes here, and I want to demonstrate that before we even get to the Old and New Testament scriptures.

But these issues here kind of lurk in the subconscious. What you think about these issues. And I think you'll see as we go through this study, what you think about these issues will influence what you think about the head covering.

So it's important that we address these things. It's important that we be biblical in these areas. It'll help us tremendously to come to the right conclusions concerning the issue we're going to address here first.

Now let me say this, I don't claim to have all the answers, and perhaps I'm the one that's in error, but I can assure you that what I think about these issues has influenced my view of the head covering.

And it will influence yours too. Now one thing I want us to do in this study is, where it is directed, I still want input. I consider this to be a learning endeavor that should involve all of us, and I'm going to ask you questions.

And any time you hear me say something and I don't make any sense, you just say, raise your hand and say, Tom, you don't make any sense. Explain that again. Please don't hesitate to do that. I want you all to have that liberty.

We're such a large group, I feel more at liberty to give that to the men and the older boys that may be here, that freedom. So you men and older boys that may be here, if you're having some questions and you want something clarified, you ask me.

And maybe you've got the word. Maybe I've missed the boat here. And you can raise the issue and maybe you'll correct me. So I want that free flow of ideas. I just want you to know that. But anyway, what we're going to do first is we're going to look at these issues, and then we're going to go into the Old Testament scriptures, then the New Testament scriptures, and we will get to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, because it is the most important scripture concerning the issue of the head covering.

But it's very important that we deal with this first before we get there. Any questions so far that you'd like to ask me? Does this make sense to you? This may be a little bit hazy at this point, but hopefully I'll clear it up over the next few weeks.

If there's anything I've said that you want to ask questions, go ahead. What I want to look at then today is I want to look at principles of biblical interpretation, Old Testament interpretation. That'll form the bulk of our study here this evening.

I guess you could call that the heading for our study. How should we use the Old Testament scripture in New Testament times? What does the Bible say about that? The way I want to do it, first I want to look at what our Lord has to say about that issue.

Jesus' Fulfillment of the Law in Matthew 5

Come with me to Matthew 5, beginning in verse 17. Probably in all of the New Testament, maybe, well, I think probably in all of scripture, this is the key scripture regarding how we should relate and understand the Old Testament.

Let me begin reading in verse 17. And again, this is what our Lord has to say to us. So it's important that we understand it. He says this, Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets.

I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach them so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Let me ask you a question. Jesus said, think that I am come, excuse me, think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. Now, what do you think he means when he says, I have not come to destroy.

Anybody want to give some thoughts, Steve? The old testament, the law is still valid. He's not come to destroy that or make that invalid at all. Does anybody else want to make a comment there? The word actually in the Greek is the word kataluo.

In Bible school, luo is the word that they use to teach you the Greek tenses. You learn luo, lues, lue. You're conjugating a verb and it means to loose. And the word kata, which is appended to the front of it, is the word that kind of means down.

And we'll run across kata when we get to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. The kataluo, luo means to loosen down, literally. And it's translated destroy in this case. To loosen down, I guess to tear it apart, more or less, is what the emphasis is in the word.

Well, how do you think we can destroy the law? I think Steve has hit on it, but what does that mean, to destroy it, in context? In context, he's referring to obedience, isn't he? He says, For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be filled.

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

So I think the very context itself kind of shows us what our Lord had in mind, doesn't it? He's saying that, how could you destroy the law? It's by not obeying it. By acting though it has nothing to say to you.

That it's of none effect to you. If we do that, then for us, we're destroying the law. And Jesus said, I didn't come to do that myself. I didn't come to set it aside. I didn't come to ignore it. I didn't come to treat it as though it wasn't important.

He said, I didn't come to do that. I came to fulfill it. Now what does that word mean? What does it mean to fulfill the law? And again, Steve, you made a good comment. Would anybody else like to say anything?

Because a lot of scholars have jumped on that word fulfill. And they've made the verse say something I don't feel it does. Anybody want to comment? Okay, well the word in the Greek is the word pleuro.

And it's an interesting word. It literally means like to cram a net. Like if a fisherman's out there fishing and he pleuros, he fulfills his net. He's got it crammed full of fish. In other words, to fill it up.

That's what the word means. Well the question is, how did Jesus fill up the law? What did he do? Somebody tell me, what did he do? It's an ambiguous term. I mean, somewhat ambiguous. In what sense did he fulfill it?

Anybody want to jump in there? Now you look like you've got a comment. No, I don't. Okay. Two things I think he did. In the Old Testament, you have many prophetic types. You have the Lamb, right? Jesus was what?

The Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world. The whole sacrificial system, right? Jesus fulfilled those types in the sense that he was the embodiment of all the things represented. He was the antitype.

Is that a familiar word? You have the type as the picture. He was the fulfillment. He was all that the picture pointed to. And so when he came, he came to make reality to those pictures that were taught through the ceremonial law in the Old Testament.

So in that sense, he fulfilled the law. He was the embodiment of all those figures and all those pictures that God used to teach Israel concerning the coming Savior. But he also fulfilled the law, and this seems to me to be the burden of this part of the passage, in the sense that he obeyed it.

Right? Isn't that the emphasis in this whole part of the section of Scripture? That he obeyed the Scriptures in saying, you'll be great in the kingdom of heaven if you do that too. So he fulfilled it in the sense that he was the fulfillment, he was what the pictures pointed to, and in the sense that he fully kept the law himself.

In that sense, he fulfilled the Old Testament law. But if you interpret that word fulfilled, and some people do, they say, okay, Christ came, he fulfilled the law, all those pictures, now it's all done away with.

That's what they say. But is it right to make the word fulfilled destroy? Isn't that what we're doing? That's the interpretation. He said he didn't come to destroy the law. He established it in his ministry.

And furthermore, he says, we should be that too. We should keep the law as well. And if we do, we'll be great in the kingdom of heaven. And this is the key verse in the New Testament for this whole subject as to how we relate to the Old Testament law.

If we keep it, we'll be great in the kingdom of heaven. If we don't, we'll be least. Right? Is that what the passage says? Any disagreement? Any comments? Have I missed the boat here? And this is our Lord's teaching.

Right? So this is his doctrinal teaching, the central doctrinal passage on this subject. But I want to also look at how Jesus used the law himself practically. Look in Matthew 4, verse 1. This is the account of the temptations of our Lord.

Jesus Uses Old Testament Scripture in Temptation and Conflict

It says, then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. When he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward and hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him up unto the holy city and setteth him on the pinnacle of the temple.

And saith unto him, if thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down. For it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against the stone.

Jesus said unto him, it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.

And saith unto him, all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, get thee hence, Satan. For it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Then the devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto him. Now, Jesus was having an encounter with the devil. How did he deal with him? Did he, now he was the Son of God, he had authority in and of himself to tell the devil, get lost.

Didn't he? But is that how he dealt with the devil? Old Testament scripture, right out of the law. And it was the law of God that Jesus used in his battle with the devil to defeat him and send him packing.

Jesus practiced what he preached. He had total confidence in God's law. He knew of its power and strength because God was behind it. And he used it that way to defeat his enemies, his spiritual enemies.

Look in Mark 7 verses 5 through 13. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? He answered and said unto them, well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups and many other such like things ye do.

And he said unto them, for well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honor thy father and thy mother, and whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death.

But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or his mother.

Make him the word of God of none effect to your tradition, which ye have delivered, and many such like things ye do. Now, this law that Jesus appeals to is very offensive to modern men. This is one of the laws that many would use to say, the Old Testament has nothing to say to us today.

Because it is so offensive, what law is he referring to? He's referring to Exodus 21 -17. You might look there for a second, Exodus 21 -17. It says there, He that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

Now that's kind of strong, isn't it? Jesus is not only taking one of the hardest laws for, I guess, I don't know how hard it would have been 100 years ago to receive, but in modern 20th century America, the idea that if a child was to say, curse his father or mother, that that would be something worthy of death, most people would recoil from that, wouldn't they?

And yet, Jesus took this very law and he confirmed it. And he even confirmed the penalty. And he rebuked the Pharisees for setting it aside for the sake of their traditions. Again, I think we see just how Jesus himself regarded God's law.

He took it all seriously. Even the civil penalties. Look in Luke chapter 18 for a second, beginning in verse 18. And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? None is good, save one that is God. Thou knowest the commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor thy father and thy mother.

And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up. Now, here again, I mean, what must I do to be saved? And how did Jesus respond? He said, What does the law say? What does the law say? Now, of course, we understand, or at least, I don't want you to think I believe that you're saved by words.

You didn't come here to hear me preach and teach you that. I'm not going to do that. I believe we're saved by grace. But if you want to be saved by your efforts, guess where you can still go and try it.

You can go to the law and try it and see if you can do it. It's still, and was to Jesus, that perfect standard by which, if you want to be righteous with God, that's where you've got to go. If you go to the book of Romans, you'll see that Paul says, We know that the law is holy and righteous and just.

It still is. And if you want to be saved by works, that's where you're going to have to go. You're going to have to go to Sinai. Well, now, how can that be unless the standard is perfect? It's still perfect.

Jesus, Moses, and the Law of Divorce

That's the way Jesus looked at it. The moral law is still valid. Let's go to one other passage, which is another passage. It's a primary passage where if you were to deal with Anabaptists, Mennonites, they would take you.

Because if you know much about Anabaptist theology, you would know that they would strongly disagree with everything I've been sharing with you so far this evening. They basically would say that the Old Testament has nothing for us today definitively.

It might be good for non-authoritative illustration purposes, but as far as teaching you authoritatively right and wrong, that's really not where we should look. We should look to Jesus in the New Testament.

And maybe I'm overstating the case. That's not necessarily perhaps what they all would say, but that's the drift of Anabaptist theology. And one of the passages that they would take you to would be this.

Look in Matthew 19, verses 1 through 9. This is our Lord's teaching on divorce. And let me say something about this whole subject of divorce and remarriage. It's a very difficult issue. In the days of our Lord, it was a difficult issue.

That's why they asked him the question. If you were in the days of Jesus, you would have found parties that were divided over what the Old Testament actually taught on this subject. Some said it was only right to divorce your wife for adultery.

Others said, well, you can divorce her for any reason at all. So, apart from what you think about the issue of Old Testament interpretation versus New, this is a difficult issue. But let's see what our Lord said.

And great multitudes followed him, and he healed them there, beginning in verse 2. The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

And he answered and said unto them, Have you not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female? And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, shall cleave to his wife, and they, twain, shall be one flesh.

Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a word of divorcement and to put her away?

He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your heart, suffered you to put away your wives. But from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery.

And whosoever marrieth her, which is put away, doth commit adultery. Now, many will look at a passage like that and they will try and pit Moses against Christ. And they will say that here Jesus is going against the teaching of the law of the Old Testament.

And he's pitting himself against Moses. And he's giving us a new teaching on divorce. Well, I guess the first question I'd ask, Well, how in the world could that possibly be in light of what we read he said in Matthew chapter 5?

Is that really how we should understand this? I will note this. When Jesus is dealing with this issue, where does he go? He goes to the first book of Moses. He goes to the first book of the law, Genesis.

And he appeals to the law, to the Old Testament. He's debating this issue with the Pharisees. He doesn't come up and start a new doctrine of Jesus. He explains the meaning of the Old Testament law. And that's the foundation of his whole teaching on divorce and remarriage.

Now, you and I may not fully understand how he reconciled Genesis with later books in Deuteronomy. I mean, the Pharisees were having trouble with that. But understand, Jesus as a teacher was not leaving the law and starting his own doctrine.

He was reasoning from the law with the Pharisees. And to make this really clear, there's an interesting passage in Luke. Look in Luke 16. I can't begin to address this issue because I have a six-message series on divorce and remarriage.

And I don't think we want to do that right now. It's not an easy subject. Maybe someday we'll look at that issue. But you have to understand it from my perspective. I don't pit Moses and Jesus. I think that's an improper way to even begin addressing that issue.

We assume that they love one another and they're in harmony because Jesus said he didn't come to destroy the law and the prophets. And so I've got to seek to harmonize what the New Testament and the Old Testament say on this issue and don't start out from the assumption that they're pitted against one another.

Now, it may be hard for me to harmonize all that. But that's still the context in which I think we have to address the issue. And this is really made clear to me in Luke 16. In verse 16, beginning in verse 16.

Luke 16, 16. Listen to this. The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is preached and every man presses into it. Now, look at verses 17 and 18.

And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fail. Now, where did we read that? Back in Matthew. Now, look at the very next verse. Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery.

And whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband, committeth adultery. Isn't that interesting? Do you think he's trying to tell us something? He's telling you that what I'm teaching you on divorce and remarriage is not contrary to the law.

Now, again, it's not my point here to explain to you how that can be. Because that's a difficult issue, reconciling all that the Bible has to say on the subject. But I hope I've given you enough to at least see that however we approach an issue like that, we don't approach it from the idea that Moses and the Lord are at odds with one another.

It ain't no party. God is, he doesn't change. I am the Lord, I change not. And his ethics are eternal. His moral principles don't change. And so to say that they have is to say that God is a mutable character.

The Great Commission and the Continuity of Christ's Teaching

And that's not so. The law of God, the moral law of God, is forever. Whatever moral law is found, whether it be in the Old Testament or in the New, it's for us today. It's good for our instruction. But what if somebody wants to argue that all this took place before the cross?

That, yes, that was the Old Testament and everything was being faded out and now it's different. Christ has been crucified, he's risen, now we're in the New Age, the New Covenant. And some would argue that way.

Look in Matthew 28, verses 19 through 20. This is the Great Commission. Notice what our Lord said. Now this is after the resurrection, right? This is how our Lord is getting ready to be taken up into heaven.

These are the last words of our Lord on earth. His charge to his disciples. He tells them this, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. What were the disciples to teach? They were to teach everything that Christ had taught them while he was on earth. He doesn't indicate that now.

He doesn't say, teaching them to observe all things that I am about to teach you now that I have been resurrected. He says, you teach the things I taught you. That's what you're to share with all men.

So again, I would say the continuity is there. Christ upheld the law during his life. He taught the law during his life. And he says to his followers, to those who he had appointed to be leaders, you do likewise.

I mean, if you think I've missed the boat there, I'm open to be corrected. Would anybody like to maybe qualify that even? What do you think, Steve? I want to go on, though. That's our Lord's teaching.

Again, though, the challenge might be made that, well, yeah, but Christ rose and the Spirit of God came, and that affected things, and now we don't exactly teach things or do things the way that happened either in the Old Testament days or during the lifetime of our Lord.

So we want to deal with that by looking at what the Apostle Paul taught about this issue. What does the Apostle Paul teach? Look in 2 Timothy 3, beginning in verse 15. This is our Apostle Paul's doctrinal contribution to this issue.

Paul's Doctrine of Scripture and Its Practical Use

This is a very familiar passage, I would suspect, to all of us, beginning in verse 14. Speaking to Timothy, Paul says, But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Now, tell me, what scripture was Paul referring to? He said, Timothy, all, you know, all scripture. He says that from a child you've known these scriptures. What scriptures is he referring to? You might have thought the New Testament.