NOTE: This is a multi
day study that is potentially divisive. If you aren't willing to study it all
the way through best not to start.
11:1 Imitate me,
just as I also imitate Christ.
2 Now I praise
you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just
as I delivered them to you. 3 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. 4 Every man praying or prophesying,
having his head covered, dishonors his head. 5 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. 6 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.
If you read something like this in the Bible and it makes no
sense to you there is a reason. It's because you just walked into a
conversation about a time and place that you are far removed from. Let me warn
you now that some of this chapter is going to leave you scratching your head. I
actually literally lost two church members to the Muslim religion over this
chapter. They left Christ for Mohammed based on their confusion over this
chapter. Therefore I ask you to prayerfully come with me as we examine what is
happening.
First context is everything. Paul is writing to people from a
culture and circumstance far removed from ours. Unless we accept that and seek
to try and understand what that culture was like we will gain nothing but
confusion and misapplication from this chapter and truthfully from many other
portions of the Bible.
Point number one: Paul commends them for following all the
traditions he taught them. This is critical because then he goes on to address
an issue they aren't following which clearly wasn't anything he taught them
since he started by thanking them for keeping the things he taught them.
Point number two: This issue of women having covered heads is
found nowhere else in all of Scripture spanning thousands of years of history.
Clearly this is not a teaching or practice that God originated.
So now the question is if neither God nor Paul taught this
practice why is Paul bringing it up at all. Well simply put, being a Christian
does not divorce or free us from cultural norms. We already saw in this letter
to Corinth that food sacrificed to idols is perfectly fine to eat yet for the
sake of others who may see it differently we should not eat it in their
presence and certainly not where the offering took place. Our behaviour and
choices have an impact and effect on others. We may be doing nothing
technically wrong yet still be doing something wrong.
Verse three begins with the word "but". Paul is
saying "You are doing everything I taught you but there is something we
need to talk about..." Then he describes what sounds like a chain of
command almost: God, then Christ, then man, then woman.
This is also problematic. It is true that man is under Christ
but Christ is God and woman is equal to man. Paul says exactly that in
Galatians so what is he saying here? Do you appreciate how critical it is never
to build a whole case on a single verse?
Christ is God. John said so. He was with His Father in the
beginning. They said "Let us make man in our image." Jesus only
became subject to or less than His Father when He became one of us. The
"chain of command" Paul describes here is at a point in time, not a
statement for all time. The same is true of the relationship between men and
women. God made them equal. The Hebrew word translated "helpmeet" in
the KJV makes this clear. God used a rib from Adam giving a side by side
visual. He took it from him to show their oneness. Some will argue as Paul does
later that the fact she was created second makes her inferior yet if you look
at the progression of the creation week in that light of "first =
better" you'd get in trouble in a hurry. Women only became seen as
"the weaker sex" after Eve are the fruit first. God clearly described
this subjection as a consequence of events, not as an order He designed. This
is a huge distinction to make. In Adventism we are careful and deliberate to
point out what the original diet was before sin and degradation took over. We
must be as careful to point out that God never intended any human to be
superior to another for any reason.
Paul is making a point that we struggle with because he is
asking the women to submit to the culture even though in truth they are equal
as he himself will state later in the chapter.
That's as far as we're going to take it today. May God lead
our thinking as we wrestle with the difference between what are His
instructions and what are practical submissions to culture. It will become very
clear as we progress through this chapter step by step in the Light of the rest
of Scripture and Paul's own words.
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