Cross Dressing? (1 Corinthians 11)

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Did you know there was a difference between men and women? Yeah, who knew, right? Seems like today that is a huge question that causes a lot of people a lot of consternation, and especially if you go into the college campuses and ask people what are the differences between men and women, you'll find that there's a lot of confusion because of social justice and all kinds of other issues that have crept in that have allowed people to come up with all kinds of really weird thinking about what constitutes the difference between men and women.

Men and Women Should Look Different in the Church

Now I bring this up today because of where we are in the Bible. We're going chapter by chapter, and today we are in 1st Corinthians chapter 11. And 1st Corinthians chapter 11 is a passage that has caused a lot of people a lot of questions, because when you get to 1st Corinthians chapter 11, Paul begins to talk about something that seems rather difficult to understand.

He talks about the subject of men and women dressing differently in the assembly. He says that men should not cover their heads, and women should cover their heads. Now, this has caused people to wonder, is this something that is meant for all times, or is this something that is only a cultural thing that Paul is talking about that he is dealing with in his area at this time in this particular scenario?

And honestly, I do think that there's a good conversation that can be had there. Does this particular instance relate to today in any way? And I believe that it does relate to today, but I don't think that it relates today necessarily regarding head coverings.

I think more particularly is the issue of men and women being different and presenting themselves differently within the body. You see, in the first century, women did wear head coverings, they wore veils, they wore things that would cover them, and men did not.

And it was particularly so within the assembly of the church. And Paul is using this example to talk about the difference of authority between men and women in the church, and how men ought not to do this, and women ought to do... excuse me... men ought not to do this, and women ought to do this, and that is regarding the wearing of head coverings.

And ultimately, I think when we come to today, how best to apply this is to simply say this, there is a sense in which men should look like men, and women should look like women. Now, I understand culturally there are a lot of arguments that can be made here about what constitutes a man looking like a man, or a woman looking like a woman, but I think if we were honest, we would say there are obvious times where it would appear that a woman is culturally trying to look like a man, or that a man is culturally trying to look like a woman.

In the United States, for instance, if a man puts on a dress and walks down the street, and he is in every other way a man except for the dress, everyone would look and say that man's dressing like a woman.

And only in our more modern context is that even a controversial thing to say. But honestly, it shouldn't be that controversial. It shouldn't be that controversial. We should just be able to say that that guy is dressed like a woman.

And ultimately, Paul is saying that we ought not do that. Paul is saying that here women are given a certain look, and should have that look, and men are given a certain look, and should maintain that look.

And the idea that there should be some kind of a homogenization of the two, or a way of trying to blend the two, is not something that the Bible would support. Not something that I believe God would support, because God didn't make men to be like women, and he didn't make women to look like men.

He made women to look like women and men to look like men, and so that is what we should pursue. We should pursue godliness according to the the sex and gender that God has assigned. Androgyny is not something that should be pursued by Christians.

Now again, I realize this is very countercultural and probably offensive to some people, but I'm not trying to be offensive. I'm simply following what I believe the Bible is teaching in this passage. Paul is saying that men and women are different, they ought to look like men and women, and anytime those distinctions are blurred, then we are moving outside of the will of God.

That's a very simple message. It's one that I think is often clouded by the the cultural context that Paul is writing in, but it's one that I think is easy to see in the text when you go and look and see what Paul is actually saying.

Could we debate the subject of whether or not women today should wear head coverings in the church, whether a hat constitutes as a head covering, or if a man were to wear a hat in a church, would that be inherently sinful?

Or the issue of men having long hair and women not having long hair, which is also mentioned in the text. All of these things I think are cultural. I think that they are part of the culture in which Paul is speaking to, but that that has a broader, and I've already mentioned it, a more widespread application.

The application is simply this. Men ought to look like men and women like women, and I think that's a fairly simple understanding of what Paul is trying to say in this text. Now, this text actually is divided because the first half of chapter 11 he talks about men and women and head coverings, but the second half he talks about the Lord's Supper, and because I like to keep these videos short, I'm not going to go into a long explanation of the second half, but I will say this.

The Lord's Supper and the Agape Feast

One of the things he points out in the second half of this chapter is that the church was not acting loving within itself because there were those who were coming to the agape feast, which was the the feast that was held and the Lord's Supper was maintained within it, and they were not sharing what they had with other Christians, other believers in the church.

Some would come and they would have food and they would see those who didn't have food and they would hold their food back from them, and Paul says that this certainly is against basic Christian behavior and not something that we ought to do as a church.

So, I bring that up only to say this. The very first part of this I talked about men and women, and some people would think by me saying that that I'm being unloving, that I'm being uncharitable, that I'm being unlike the Church of Corinth that was demonstrating itself to be unloving, but it's never unloving to tell the truth when we tell the truth in love, and we have to be both.

We have to be truthful and we have to be loving. If we tell the truth without love, then we are often hurtful and abrasive, but if we try to love without the truth, then our love is really powerless, because love without truth is a lie.

Truth and Love in Christian Speech

So, I would encourage you today, love your neighbors, but love them in truth, and sometimes that means to be willing to speak the truth in love, even if it's something that they may not want to hear. I hope today has been encouraging to you.

I hope this lesson is helpful to you, and I pray that these daily Bible readings and Bible studies are an encouragement. I pray also that you would please join our, subscribe to our channel, because that helps us to reach a broader audience.

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