WWUTT 1568 Hair for a Head Covering (1 Corinthians 11:7-16)

The Apostle Paul gives instructions to the church about head coverings, that a man is not supposed to cover his head, a woman is supposed to cover her head, but cover her head with what?

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verses 1 to 16, and we're looking to finish up this section today where Paul is addressing head coverings with the

Corinthians. I'm reading from the Legacy Standard Bible, the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth.

Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. 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 the 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 a symbol of 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 the churches of God.

Now, as I stated yesterday, these instructions are for men and women in general. I do not believe that this is only limited to husbands and wives.

For Paul seems to be more intent on making a distinction between men and women than he seems to be intent on making a distinction between husbands and wives.

We have the husband and wife model that's given in verse 3. I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man.

The man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ. And certainly as these instructions apply, it would most definitely apply to husbands and wives.

A wife must consider how she conducts herself that she not bring shame upon either herself or her husband.

So the statement that we read yesterday, verse 5, every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying shames her head.

And that could be in reference to herself, or it could be in reference to her husband who is her head, for she is one in the same as the woman whose head is shaved.

And then we see a reference to the Old Testament or back to the law of a woman who would have her head shaved in mourning.

Verse 6, 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.

So I mentioned yesterday that the end of verse 5 could have to do with either a woman cutting her hair short to look like a man or having her head shaved.

But really we see both distinctions that are given to us in verse 6, don't we? So if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut short, if it's disgraceful for her to cut her hair like a man, in other words, that's what

Paul is saying there, or for her head to be shaved. Is she mourning over something like the woman with a shaved head in Deuteronomy 21?

Is she being punished for something like the head that God shaves in Isaiah chapter 7?

If she's not in mourning, if she's not being punished for anything, don't have her cut her hair short like a man, rather let her cover her head.

And I think that statement there at the end of verse 6, I don't think that's in reference to a shawl over the head or a veil over the face or something like that.

When Paul says, let her cover her head, he means hair. He means let that woman have long hair.

And we've seen this across the cultures across the centuries, right?

This isn't just in our modern day. It's not just in our country. And it's not just in what was going on in Corinth 2 ,000 years ago, generally around the world.

We see that women have had long hair and men have short hair. Now that doesn't mean that if a man has long surfer dude hair or a woman has cut her hair like a pixie cut or something like that, that doesn't mean that they've done anything sinful.

But generally in the way that God has created men and women, we see even according to nature, as Paul is going to make an appeal to nature here, that women tend to have long hair and men will cut their hair short.

And again, Paul is calling attention to distinctions between men and women in worship. This is not just limited to husbands and wives, but we have women who are talked about in general in a certain sense and men in general as well.

Going back to verse three, because this is what Paul wants them to get out of this.

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.

This is how God has created and structured everything. And so those distinctions between men and women need to be present even in corporate worship.

And like I said, I believe these instructions are generally applied to all men and women in the church, not just to husbands and wives, even though Paul is presented the husband and the wife as the standard.

That was the middle part of verse three. The man is the head of a woman. But the distinctions between men and women are not only present in marriage, right?

I mean, that should go without saying, you know, the distinctions between men and women without them having to get married. And now suddenly there's a distinction between a man as a husband who has certain things he has to do and distinctions that of a woman as a wife and things that she's supposed to do.

No, God has created men and women for particular purposes and they have certain distinctions even outside the marriage bond.

So these instructions that Paul is giving here are not just to wives, like only wives are supposed to have a covering.

But even this statement here in verse six, if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut short or her head shaved, let her cover her head, let her have long hair.

That's something that applies to every women, not just something that Paul is saying to wives.

So we go on in verse seven for a man ought not to have his head covered since he is the image and the glory of God.

But the woman is the glory of man. So now let's jump back to Genesis chapter one, verse 27, where it says, and God created man in his own image, in the image of God.

And he created him male and female. He created them.

The creation of the first man and woman is stated very generally in Genesis chapter one. It's more specific in Genesis chapter two, starting in verse seven.

Then Yahweh God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

And so the man became a living being and Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden toward the east.

And there he placed the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground

Yahweh caused every, he caused to grow every tree that is desirable in appearance and good for food.

The tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, skipping down to verse 15 and Yahweh took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

And Yahweh commanded the man saying from any tree of the garden, you may surely eat. But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it for in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die.

Now notice Eve is not in the picture yet here. This is all Adam. God creating

Adam first, placing him in the garden first and even giving him the instruction before Eve comes along from any tree of the garden, you may surely eat.

So whose responsibility is it going to be to make sure that Eve knows this instruction?

It's going to be Adam's. God has created Adam to be the head of his wife.

He has created Eve, his wife, to be his help meat. So we're going to go on here to verse 18 where Yahweh says, it is not good for the man to be alone.

I will make a helper suitable for him. And out of the ground Yahweh God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky.

And he brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

And the man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and every beast of the field.

But for Adam, there was not found a helper suitable for him. So Yahweh caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up that, that place with flesh and Yahweh God fashioned the rib, which he had taken from the man into a woman and he brought her to the man.

Then the man said, this one finally is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

This one shall be called woman because this one was taken out of man.

That's what woman means to be taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Final verse there of Genesis chapter two.

So as Paul goes on to say here, a man ought not to have his head covered since he is the image of the glory of God who was created first.

Adam was created first. So man is the image and glory of God. But the woman is the glory of man.

She was taken out of man. That's the very word woman meaning out of man.

So therefore she is the glory of man. She is shown to be God's greatest gift to the man is that he made a woman for the man out of his own side.

And as Matthew Henry talks about this, when you read Matthew Henry's commentary on why God would use a rib to give him a woman rather than a bone from his head or a bone from his foot or out of his arm or something like that, if he, if he takes a bone from his head, well,

Adam's liable to think that he's smarter than a woman is. If he takes a bone out of man's foot, he's liable to think

I can stand over this woman. If he takes a bone out of a man's arm, the man is likely to think

I can, I can rule the woman with strength. But instead he takes a rib from his side and fashions the woman from the ribs so that the man would see and understand that we are to be side by side with one another till death do us part.

As we say in our wedding vows. And that's, that's precisely what is in the song that Adam sings when he sees the woman whom

God has brought to him. He says, this one finally is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

We're one with one another. We are side by side in this thing. I wish I could say that I came up with that.

It's an original thought, but it's not, it comes from Matthew Henry and you'll probably hear other preachers use that illustration too, but that's the origin of it.

Matthew Henry is the guy who said, this is why God used a rib and not a bone from another place in Adam's body.

So because the woman is taken out of man, she is the glory of man.

Verse eight for man does not originate from woman, but woman for man, as we've just seen from Genesis chapter two, for indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.

Now notice here that Paul is referring to this story that we just read in Genesis two in a very literal sense.

Is he not? You've probably heard the controversy that stirred recently from William Lane Craig who has said that Genesis one through 11 is not literal history.

It's entirely metaphorical. There is a lesson that is to be taken from a myth rather than to read that text is something that literally happened that way.

Paul is writing about this as something that literally happened exactly the way Moses describes it in those first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis.

So man does not originate from woman, but woman from man. Man was made first out of the dust of the ground.

God breathed the breath of life into him. Out of man was formed a woman, just as it says in Genesis two,

Genesis one through 11 is not a myth with a message. It really happened this way, just as Paul is making reference to it.

Verse nine for indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.

I will make a helper suitable for him. Therefore verse 10, the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels.

Now some might argue because of the definite article there, therefore the woman, it could be in reference to the wife.

So a wife is to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. But again, we're pointing back to something that happens in Genesis.

That is the origin of every man and the origin of every woman. So therefore we're not just limiting this as a reference to a husband and a wife, but the gender distinctions that God has for all men and for all women, especially as it pertains to worship within the church.

Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. Now this is a little confusing and I'm not going to go into explaining this because I just don't have the

Greek expertise to give it to you. But in that middle part of verse 10, the reference to a symbol of, that's not in the original

Greek. Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels.

A symbol of has been inserted there. No matter what translation you read, those words have been added.

They're not in the original Greek because as it would read in the Greek, it would say, therefore the woman ought to have power on her head because of the angels.

That's pretty confusing and so it has been assumed by the translators that what Paul is making reference to there is having some kind of symbol because again, we're going back to the reference to covering here.

So they've added a symbol of and, and a Bible that will give that to you honestly, we'll put that in italics and the italics represents the fact that those words do not appear in the original

Greek. So knowing what it is in context that Paul is, uh, is pointing toward the words, a symbol of have been added so that you understand that's what

Paul means. That is the context. So a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels out of respect and out of reverence for the holy angels who are always present with us, even in our church assemblies.

When Jesus addresses the churches in the book of revelation and revelation chapters one through three, he addresses the angels that are at those respective churches.

So we have, uh, we have the presence even of the holy ones among the saints when we are glorifying

God. So when we worship unto the Lord, the angels are witnesses of our worship, our conduct in worship, that it would be done in reverence unto

God. And in all of this, Christ is glorified. Again, that comes back to,

I want you to understand Christ is the head of every man. The man is the head of a woman and God is the head of Christ.

When we as men and women gather together in corporate worship to worship and glorify

God, it is unto God that he receives all of the glory. The angels even stand as witnesses to the worship that we offer unto the

Lord. So in the ways that we conduct ourselves, as God has called us as men and women to present ourselves in certain ways, may we do so unto the glory of God.

Verse 11, nevertheless, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman in the

Lord. All right. So we do all things unto the glory of God. We who are Christians are in the

Lord together, men and women together, and in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.

So lest any man be thinking high and mighty of himself, this is a statement of humility here.

Verse 12, for as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman, but all things originate from God.

So still coming back to the glory belongs ultimately to the

Lord. 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 the churches of God.

All right. So we've concluded this lesson. We get to the end. First Corinthians 11, one through 16.

Is Paul telling us that women need to have coverings on their head in church or not?

And I'm going to defer to Paul's statement in verse 13. Judge for yourselves. I know that's a, that's a cop out.

The biggest hangup that we have on this particular section is that we don't really know what a covering is.

And that's been the, the question that I ask of a person who tries to use this passage as ammo, who tries to weaponize it and say, well, you don't follow everything that it says in the

Bible because, Hey, do women in your church, are they wearing coverings on their head in church?

My response to them would be, what's a covering? Like can you tell me exactly what a covering is?

What is it that my wife or any other woman in my church is supposed to put on her head to be sure that we're following this instruction?

See, I grew up in the South. I went to churches in South Carolina when I was a kid and the women in the church would wear hats and that was in keeping with this particular instruction.

In first Corinthians 11, the women believed the covering on my head should be a hat. So I'm going to wear a hat.

Some of you have grown up in the South. You know this, right? The big hats, even some women would wear, especially like at Easter, they would have these giant hats.

They'd be all decked out and everything like that. Well, that was a head covering to those women. Is that what Paul is referencing here?

Is it just supposed to be a shawl of some kind or could we limit what Paul is describing to just hair?

Maybe it's not a covering at all, but maybe the reference to covering is just hair. A woman's supposed to have hair.

She's not supposed to shave her head and if she does have a shaved head, well then let her cover her head, you know, something like that.

Maybe that's what this is in reference to. After all, consider what Paul says there at the conclusion, verse 14 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.

So then are we just talking about hair here? We don't know. And because we don't know, we need to be gracious toward one another about the way that this passage is understood and therefore applied.

Now people in the world who don't understand, again, they're going to weaponize this passage against us and they're going to say, well, you don't follow what the

Bible says because there are women in your church that don't have coverings on their head. Now I'm able to say, yes, women in my church do wear coverings on their head because that's true.

Not every woman, but there are women in my church that wear something on their head.

So I'm able to say that and then they don't ever ask for specifics on that. But with regard to how this is applied, we simply recognize that God has called for distinctions between men and women in corporate worship.

And we understand what God has called men to do and what God has called women to do. And let not men try to take the roles that God has intended for women and let not women take the roles that God has intended for men.

But we rejoice that God has made us men and women. The rest of the culture is not rejoicing in this.

They are in rebellion against God for the fact that he's made us male and female.

But we as the church need to demonstrate that we rejoice to be made man or woman and fulfill those roles, those callings that God has given upon men and women.

For Paul is going to go on here in the letter to talk about, God has gifted us in different ways, but we use the gifts that God has given to us to build up the church.

Even when it comes to being made male and female. Let's finish with prayer.

Heavenly Father, I pray that as we continue to wrestle with these things, even considering this passage that we have read, however we understand this, may it be unto your greatness and unto your glory that we with our whole lives worship

God, heart, soul, mind and strength in exactly the way that you have made us, that you would receive all of the glory and we boast in Christ Jesus.

It's in his precious name that we pray, Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Tomorrow we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the