Head Coverings

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you.

I'm Dylan Hamilton, and with me are Michael Deere.

And David Kazin, Chris Giesler.

We are happy to answer a question about head coverings that we've had sent into our list on the website, and we do appreciate all questioners that log in and send us stuff. We want more of it, so we are always asking anybody in the church body or anybody outside the church body who may have questions about the Bible.

Send them in. It doesn't matter if you think it's a simple question or a weird question. Send it in, we'll take a look at it, and we won't name you.

Chances are somebody else has asked the same question. But didn't write in.

Yeah, or made the same connections that you might have about the Bible. So go ahead, send it in. Don't have any reservations about that. So this question reads, are head coverings relevant today, or is it culturally specific to Corinth?

And this is referencing 1 Corinthians 11.

Head Coverings in 1 Corinthians 11 and the Question of Relevance

Right, so when we get to 1 Corinthians 11, and again, in 1 Corinthians, there is more than one location in that long epistle where Paul's concern is proper order in worship. How is the church to go through the processes of worship, the gatherings for worship?

What's supposed to happen when we get together? What is inappropriate? What is appropriate? So there's a lot of helpful passages in 1 Corinthians, and this is one of them. And the question is, of course, is it relevant today?

Well, all the scripture is relevant today interpreted through the light of Jesus Christ. And so there are some perhaps ancillary cultural issues that are helpful to understand when you read this text.

But I think best thing to do right now is just read it out loud. So 1 Corinthians 11, and look at verse two. Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.

But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ. The head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved.

For if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.

For man is not from woman, but woman from man, nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man. For this reason, the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels.

Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman nor a woman independent of man in the Lord. For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman, but all things are from God. Judge among 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 anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.".

Male and Female Distinctions Rooted in Creation

So the important thing to do in this passage is to read the whole thing. And there are some elements to the passage that might seem weird, that seem hard for us to wrap our heads around. However, it's important to start with what you know, that which is clear, that which you can correlate with other passages in the Bible and build out and pay close attention to the way that Paul builds his argument here in this passage.

I think that one of the main offenses of this passage, one of the main reasons why this passage is perhaps avoided, perhaps thrown into the wastebasket of cultural irrelevancy, I'm getting hard to say the word, but just kind of tossed aside and not used today, is because this passage dares to claim that there is a difference between male and female.

Now, this is one of the passages where it is stated most clearly, there is a difference between man and woman. There's a difference in the role of man and woman, even a difference of man and woman before God.

In the worship practices of the church, a difference in their creation stories, and yet, at the same time, there is a togetherness of male and female, that they're not to be seen as independent from one another.

A lot of the common cultural practices today are about feminists trying to say, we don't need men, and Sigma males saying, we don't need women. Marriage is completely thrown away. The whole design of God for male and female from creation is being denied.

And even in the church, we are encouraged in the name of loving one another to bypass all differences between male and female. And this passage is talking about proper order in the church, proper order for how men and women are to behave in the church, and it's rooted in the creation order.

So let's look at a few of these elements. First of all, the difference between man and woman is rooted in creation. We are reminded that Eve was formed from Adam. Woman is from man, we read. Right, so God made Adam.

In Genesis chapter two, God formed him from the dust of the earth and he breathed the breath of life into him and man became a living being. He was then given instructions to tend and keep the garden.

God caused a Noah-like parade of the animals two by two in front of Adam and he named the animals showing his dominion over them. However, he saw that although there was a help meet, a female to a male, with all of the different animals that God made, there was no help meet for him.

And this was to emphasize that it was not good for the man to be alone. And God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. He took a rib from Adam and from that rib, from that wound in the first Adam, God made the first Eve and brought her to the man and he gloried in her and he rejoiced in her and this was a glory to God in this design, male, female, man and woman in marriage before God.

This is brought up in our passage to talk about there's a difference in how men and women are to worship, that there should be a sign of authority, a covering upon a woman's head when declaring, setting forth the truth of God or praying.

There's a prophesying or praying, there should be a sign of authority, a symbol of authority over her head and with the man there ought not to be. So a lot of the discussion in church traditions and history and even current concerns about customs and so on immediately go to things like, well, men shouldn't wear hats inside the church building.

Okay, well, I can accept that as a custom and I understand that that would be problematic for a lot of people. If I stood in the pulpit with a hat on and I preached, that would be a stumbling block to many of my brethren.

Is the hat a sign of authority?

I don't think the text is pointing to that but there's something about, okay, so I wanna know what the text means. What does Paul mean when he talks about a head uncovered and a head covered? Because he talks about that and he sets that up but then he defines his own terms.

Okay, in the text, he defines his own terms and so he says that a woman ought to have her head covered and we'll talk about the angels in a moment but that a woman should have a symbol of authority over her, on her head that she should not have her head uncovered.

If her head's gonna be uncovered, you might as well just cut off all the hair and have her go around bald. Now, if that seems shameful to you, he says, then have her head covered and guess what? There is a covering that's given to a woman by nature, by the created order.

What is that?

Her hair.

Her hair, her long hair. So it says there's not even nature itself. In other words, the way that God designed the differences between men and women, he's already talked about created order, he's already talked about it and now he says from the very building blocks of how God has made a woman and made a man, you know it is a glory to a woman to have long hair and her long hair is given to her as a covering.

Now, I got a question for you. If God has given by the created order, if God has given to a woman long hair for a covering, does she need another covering?

Logically, no.

Right, so if man says, okay, yeah, so God has given by nature long hair to a woman as a glory to her, as a covering for her and this is fitting and this is something that is good and should be celebrated by the way, right?

Now, should we then say, well, you know, God has given you a covering but what you need now is something made by man. You need a big hat. Now, if a woman wants to wear a big hat on Easter, that's fine, I don't care.

I don't think it's filling the requirements of this passage, mind you. Does she need a shawl to cover her head when listening to preaching or when she's praying? Well, she might if she doesn't have long hair, right?

Think about what the text says. It says, every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head. Now, let's take this term uncovered. Now, so Paul says, if a woman has a head that is uncovered, you might as well just shave it all off.

She might as well just be shorn. So there's a state in which a woman can be uncovered and not yet be shorn. And Paul is saying, if it's shameful for a woman to be shaved, well, it's also shameful for her head to be uncovered.

Now, who else in the passage has a head uncovered but it's a good thing?

The man. The man.

So his head is uncovered. Does that mean he's shaved and bald?

No.

So what is Paul saying? If a woman presents herself as a man in her hairstyle, which is a very typical way, and if you think about the debates today, think about the controversies today about men who are identifying themselves as women and trying to present themselves as women, what's one of the first things that they do to try to present themselves as women?

What do they do?

Bosworth on this side, Amy Winehouse on this side.

Right.

So they start messing with the hair. And then so a woman trying to present as a man does something with her hair, and a man trying to present himself as a woman does something with his hair, okay?

Yeah.

And Paul is saying in the text, now a man has his head uncovered, and that's a good thing, but doesn't nature tell you that long hair for a man is shameful? Well, he's also saying for a woman to present herself as a man, meaning short hair, trying to present herself like a man, I'll say shorter hair.

How about. I'm gonna use the comparative, okay? Sure. Shorter hair. Then that is as shameful as if she was shaved. So what Paul is saying is she should have a symbol of authority over her head, and her long hair was given to her by God for that.

But what if a woman doesn't have long hair? Was she in an accident? Is she coming out of paganism in our current day? Is she coming off a chemotherapy?

What is it?

If she doesn't have the long hair that God has granted to her by nature, and she's struggling with that, then Paul says it's fitting for her to have a covering over her head.

It serves the same theological purpose.

It does.

The purpose of displaying submission and respect for authority. It's serving the same purpose.

Right.

So when my mom went through chemotherapy more than once, so she had wigs, or she had head coverings, shawls, and all sorts of things to help her through that process, and it was helpful to her. It was shameful for her to have to go around bald, but it was a comfort to her to have head coverings that would, it would not replace her hair, but it served the purpose, you see.

I mean, even with all the technological advances that we have, it's still difficult for men to grow long hair, and we're talking about long hair.

Yeah, exactly.

We're talking halfway down your back or longer, but women, especially younger women, can do it quite easily. They actually don't need a lot of chemical help. They can just do it. It's just part of how men and women are different.

Exactly.

So when you read the text, obviously Paul's arguing from creation. He's arguing from the difference between male and female, and he's saying the differences, now watch this, the differences between male and female should be kept and celebrated and established in the church.

That this should be a place where male and female, the differences between them should be readily apparent, and this is glorifying to God.

It's a form of worship to recognize how God has created men and women differently.

Yeah, and it's proper order of worship. Now, what about the angels? All right, what does it say? It says that, verse 10, for this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels.

Now, when we deal with anything with the angels in the scripture, it's always helpful to actually read what the Bible says about angels, and not to go on long benders of speculation wherein there's all kinds of nonsense.

We see angels at work in the scriptures as the messengers and the agents of God. We think of Jacob and his vision, Jacob's ladder, the angels ascending and descending upon the ladder. Christ saying to Nathaniel, you're going to see the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

We think about the role of angels ministering to Christ and ministering to his body, as angels ministered to the apostles and ministered to the Christians. We see in Hebrews that the angels are sent forth to minister to the believers, to the saints.

We see angels attending and participating in worship in heaven, and as it's in heaven, so we are to emulate our worship here upon the earth. So, what do we expect? If Jesus was ministered to by angels in his prayers, in his wrestlings with God, in his worship of God, are we not also aided by the angels?

Is that not what they are equipped to do? All we gotta do is just read what the Bible says about angels, to see the relationship the angels have to the saints as one of assistance and measuring and sending forth blessings and helping us.

So, have you ever been to, have you ever visited a church and you've walked in, it's your first time there, and you walk in and you're trying to gauge what's going on there, and all of a sudden, somewhere in the middle of the service, you're kind of thinking, can I get out of here?

Because you are so offended by what is going on. I've been on a few services like that. Maybe something is being sung and it's like, this is heresy, maybe the way in which they're conducting their worship service is like it's just grieving your soul.

Maybe something is said from the pulpit or they've got the wrong kind of people in the pulpit, so on and so forth, and you're just like, I've gotta get out of here. Angels minister in the presence of the glory of God, and if they're to come to a church service and we're out of order, and we're not worshiping with proper order, and we are counter to the word of God in our worship, I think they're leaving.

I don't think they're sticking around. I don't think they're helping. I don't think they're blessing. You see, I don't think we're getting the aid and the help of God in our worship if we refuse to worship according to the order that he's given to us.

So if we're denying the basics of, it doesn't matter the distinctions between men and women in our worship at our church, that's going to turn into a lot of different problems, not only the problem of the roles of men and women in the church that reflect the order set forth in creation that is forged in the family, but what if you have a bunch of women presenting as men, and what if we have men presenting as women?

What do we find from this text that is shameful, shameful, shameful? And I've been to shameful church services, and I wanted to get out. I don't want the angels leaving because we have shameful things going on in our church services.

So why is Paul selecting, identifying head coverings as a sign of authority? Why that? And I think he might answer it, that Paul didn't select it, God selected it. And God said, this is a symbol of femininity.

So he says, well, you know, this is the only place that this is mentioned. It says, well, no. Talking about the differences between men and women, men not presenting as women, women not presenting as men, dressing in the clothes of the time, getting short hair or whatever is the culturally masculine, culturally feminine trait.

You have to have those standards in place before you can even present as a woman or present as a man. You have to have what those standards are. Those principles are repeated over and over. You can see it actually in the Mosaic Law.

Men shall not dress as women, and women shall not dress as men. That is the principle to which Paul is appealing. It's not just head coverings. Hey, make sure, women, make sure you have a piece of cloth on your head.

That's missing the point entirely.

Yes.

It's men are men, women are women, and it's been like that since the very beginning. The principle is repeated in the Mosaic Law. It's repeated in the Law of God, and Paul is appealing to that very principle here, talking about the created order and how men and women are created differently, that they have those different roles.

And the authority is derived from God, and he makes it very clear. Look, it's all from God. That any authority is all derived. Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.

They are distinct, but they are not independent. They are not identical, but they are interdependent. This is subject to God's design. It's always from God.

Yes.

So if this passage were more, I guess, robustly grasped and celebrated, what kind of pitfalls could we avoid in studying this passage? I mean, one of the things is simply this, that maleness and femaleness is based in God's good creation and based in nature, and that to present as something else is shameful.

So there's a lot there, and it's not about, okay, women need to wear doilies on their head or some sort of cloth over their head in special circumstances. And those who do that, I understand why they do that.

I'm not saying that they're sinning. To my reading of the text, I think they go beyond that which is necessary, but I don't think they're trying to be rebellious or disobedient. I don't think they're trying to be prideful or so on, and I rejoice in my sisters who do that and the brothers who encourage them to do that in their, and they're gonna worship according to their convictions, and they're gonna do so in their liberty, and I rejoice in that with them.

You would consider that a conscience then issue that they want to do that, but you do disagree with a woman who has long hair. She is living according to God's designs. She is living as a woman recognizes that she's female.

In addition, she's putting another piece of cloth on her head. Although it's a conscious issue, you would disagree with it.

I would because, again, when we look at this, I don't know how long Paul's hair was.

Right. He probably had a high and tight. He was a Marine.

Yeah.

He probably had a high and tight.

Something. I don't know how, but men have shorter hair, and women have longer hair, right? If we say men have short hair and women have long hair, and we just leave it at that, then now we're looking for the ruler and how many inches and so on, but if women have longer hair, and if a woman has longer hair, and maybe her hair is sitting at the jawline, and then there's another woman, her hair is sitting at her waistline, okay?

One is not in sin and one is not more holy. You see, there's liberty in Christ, even as we embrace the different roles that we have. A guy may have longer hair, longer hair than another guy, but they're both shorter.

They're both presenting as male, right? And so they're not trying to present as something other than male, and Paul says that that's not a subjective thing entirely. Nature itself, the way that God has designed, says there's something shameful.

Now, if you go back, you go back a few decades, what were the rock bands doing?

The exact opposite, putting makeup on, long, big hair, long hair, perming.

Right, and then, you know, punk rock, the women, what would they do with their hair?

Cut it short.

Right, where'd they get that idea from, you know? What were they doing? The whole idea was about rebellion.

Casting off authority.

So we're gonna rebel against nature itself, right? And of course, the independent fundamentalist Baptists who were like, you know, that's from the devil, that's sin. Well, they weren't wrong, okay? But then to get out the ruler and say, your hair is touching your ears, you know, that's not the answer.

They knew Paul was right, but they didn't know what argument he was making.

Right, exactly.

Yeah, if there are men out there with a bowl cut, you know, there are reasons not to do that, but it's not a theological issue.

Well, it seems, that's called presenting.

As one of the Three Stooges, or Kim Jong-un. Oh, man.

Authority, Headship, and the Meaning of Dishonor

So I have a question about some of the wording here and the issue of authority and maybe hierarchies. So in verse three, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

There's seeming to be a hierarchy there. In verse five, it says, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head. Is there a little bit of wordplay happening here? Is he saying that she's only bringing dishonor on herself, or is it claiming she brings dishonor to more than just herself, also her husband?

And we have some of that language, like say in weddings, who gives this woman her mother and I? Can I have this conversation with my daughters? I'm in charge of you. Not I'm the boss, but you've been given into my charge to take care of you.

I have authority over you, and one day I'll pass that authority off to another man.

Correct.

And in our current culture, a lot of times, and maybe this is just anecdotal, but a lot of times when you see young women that have shaved their heads, you can ask them, how's your relationship with your father?

And it's non-existent or rebellious or just antithetical to everything their father stands for, and it just seems to be like that's just nature. You're rebelling against nature, and you're throwing off all of the authorities above you.

What translation do you have?

ESV.

Yeah, so what they do in the text is that they translate the woman as wife because in modern new evangelicalism, what has to be stated again and again to preserve our place in cultural positivity is that there is no sense in which, on any scale, that men have a role and responsibility in society for authority, and women have a role and responsibility in society generally of submission, right?

That it's only ever in respect to the marriage relationship particularly that there is any kind of authority of a man over a woman. It's only husband and wife. It's the only way it ever applies, and that is the neo-evangelical interpretation.

However, we have problems with that interpretation when we read the Bible out loud. Now, some translations unnecessarily become very specific where the ESV does that. We live in a society today where feminism is so ingrained that it's so much in the water and in the air and so on that these assumptions just have to be automatically made and so on and so forth, but that's not what the text says, right?

So the text says the head of every man is Christ. The head of woman is man. That doesn't, of course, that doesn't mean that every woman is under the authority of every other man. However, Paul is dealing with the types, the archetypes of male, female, okay?

And what is the general relationship there, okay? And by the way, in the wedding ceremony, it used to be who gives away this woman, and the father said, I do.

No, yeah.

Because he doesn't, he didn't say her mother and I.

Yeah.

Which makes sense with this text because he's the one with, man is the one with authority.

Who is the young man supposed to ask for permission?

He didn't go ask the mom and the dad. You go ask the dad. Now, that makes feminists crazy. They're like, you're just treating us like property and so on and so forth. And the Bible, of course, affirms the full image of God in the woman.

Yes.

As well as in the man. This is not about being less than.

That's Genesis one. Both male and female, he created them in his image.

You can't get any more basic than that. But when God made the woman, he made her from the man and gave her to the man. Was there a situation somewhere in God's very good creation where the woman stood apart from the man and they both thought of themselves as unrelated to each other?

No.

And was this relationship one of absolute dominion and absolute degradation?

No.

She was not made, the old trope goes, she was not made from his foot so that he would step on her. She was not made from his head that she would rule over him, made from his side to be his help meat. But there was a relationship there of hierarchy, of authority, which Paul is referencing here.

Paul didn't know that he wasn't supposed to say this. He didn't know. Poor Paul.

Right?

But he is talking about some principles in the way in which God has made things. Now, he's gonna go on later on and talk about, now, think about this dynamic in 1 Corinthians 14 that sometimes we just totally miss.

In 1 Corinthians 14, in proper order of worship, he says that the woman should remain silent and ask her own husband at home.

Okay?

If it's simply a matter of the authority, that the difference in the relationship between male and female is only ever about husband and wife, then the husband should be able to say to everyone around, hey, I've given her permission to preach.

I've given her permission to help, to be an elder in this church. And we've talked about it, and she's under my authority, but she's good to go as a pastor here.

Right?

And once you've settled that, there should be no more differentiation between male and female. Because remember, it's only between the husband and the wife that there is any kind of hierarchy. It's not between male and female at all in general.

There's no difference, right? They're totally fungible in terms of roles. But that doesn't work in 1 Corinthians 14, because not only is she not supposed to be contradicting and saying, hang on a second, I'm not sure if that's correct or not, to those who are prophesying each in turn in an order, that's not what she gets to do.

But she does get to talk to her husband about it and say, yeah, I think the guy was a lunatic. I think he was totally off on his doctrine. Why didn't you say something? Help me understand. And then the husband's like, I was asleep, sorry.

Or something like that. But there's a role there that persists even in 1 Corinthians 14.

Well, in 11, when it says if she's praying or prophesies, it doesn't say anything about preaching or having that role of authority.

So when you look at the text and you have this idea of hierarchy, does she dishonor her own head?

Yes.

So every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one in the same as if her head were shaved. It's not only in particular regard to her husband only, her head being her husband.

It's a disgrace to herself.

It's a disgrace to herself, because what is she doing? She's presenting as if she's not a woman. So proper order in the church went away a long time ago. A long time ago. We stopped celebrating the differences between men and women.

We stopped honoring God with the differences between men and women. So why did it go away?

Well, in our culture, any difference, if you draw any difference at all, that is an opportunity for continued further oppression.

Right.

This is a defense mechanism. I tread into these waters at all, really with anyone. But just going through the scriptures itself, this is a minefield. It is seen as a, really as a personal attack. You read any of these, oftentimes you have to, we have to have a caveat and you have to have a disclaimer and you have to have this, this.

Well, it doesn't mean that you get to treat women as slaves. It doesn't mean this. It doesn't mean this. You have to couch it. Well, our culture is spring-loaded for self-defense. And you read any of this, and I'm not talking about radical feminists.

I'm talking about Christian women who want to understand the Bible, want to submit to God's design. They read this and get scared.

Sure.

And I can't say that I blame them all that much, but they read this and get scared. How do you address the fears of a, especially a new Christian, a new Christian woman who has been steeped in the culture itself, has been rebellious, and says, I don't want to be like that anymore.

You know, I was miserable and Christ has reached down and saved me. Now I'm willing to be, you know, submits to his rule, but this, how far am I supposed to go? I mean, I'm willing to go all the way, but I don't, does this mean that I have no voice, that I'm only worthwhile if I get married?

I mean, my head was, my hair was really short. I'm not trying to present as a man, not anymore. What do I do? How do we assuage those fears?

That's a good question. Paul roots this whole thing in the design that God has for men and women, for maleness and femaleness. Right, so he points back to the created order. So what is this passage on about?

It is advocating for not only men to do what is manly according to God's definition, not some sort of pagan Greek definition or some pagan American definition.

Put the rulers away, stop measuring hair lengths.

Yeah, or anything else that becomes a common pagan trope of maleness in a materialist Marxist society, right? So what is maleness in a materialist society? Muscle mass or something, or here's my bank account.

I drive these cars.

Collecting wives as trophies or girlfriends as trophies.

Yeah, so that's what gets read into maleness, and that's why everyone, like, well, that should be against that. And then what about femaleness? Are we actually reading what God has to say about maleness and femaleness?

What does it mean to be a man, what does it mean to be a woman? So this passage is about, hey, it's a glory to you, oh woman, that you would be given this covering, this long hair. It's a glory to you that you would present as a woman.