Headship and Submission Part 2

First Corinthians chapter 11. And we have reacquainted ourselves,
not only with the epistle, having been away from it for several
weeks, but also with the, I guess, the greater context in which
this section that we’re considering is nestled. Back in chapter 7
verse 1, Paul began this, the largest section of his epistle,
which we have labeled, wouldn’t you know it, problems in the
church. No wonder it’s the largest section.
That’s what Paul is addressing all the way from chapter 7 verse
1 through chapter 14 verse 40, problems. Paul has already dealt with many
things that were vexing the Corinthian church, questions pertaining
to marriage, and questions pertaining to idols, and things sacrificed
to idols, and so much more. The Corinthians had many troubling
questions, but at least they knew where to turn, and they
turned to their beloved church planter, Paul, himself, and apparently
they had written out their questions and sent them off to Paul. And
here in this section, Paul is responding, replying to their
many questions. And he opens the discussion in
chapter 11, we saw in a very unique way. He opens with a positive
statement, a verbal encouragement of his church. And that’s very
surprising given the overall tone of this epistle. The Corinthians
were, it turns out, doing something right. Not a lot. They did have their bright moments,
however. And it was their doctrine, as
we saw in verse 2, that’s what they had right. Amidst all their
foibles, all their clumsiness, all their missteps, and just
outright sin, the Corinthians believed the right things. That’s
what Paul affirms in that first subsection, chapter 11, verse
2. Now, I praise you because you
remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions
just as I delivered them to you. And we saw that Paul is not being
insincere there. He sees something positive and
he acknowledges it. This will hopefully make things
easier to digest when Paul confronts a few matters here in the following
verses. The Corinthian church wasn’t
hopeless. We sometimes think of them that
way. Paul will indeed address his
many concerns of this church, but all in good time, and first
he commends them. I praise you, he says, because
you hold firmly to the traditions they held to those teachings
that their dear mentor and friend Paul had passed along to them. the traditions just referring
to that body of information that Paul himself had communicated
to them. Paul is using this word tradition,
we saw, in its very positive sense to refer to the doctrinal
standard that he had communicated to them, those teachings that
Paul himself had been handed, had received, and that he in
turn had handed over to them. like a gift, either orally or
in writing. He had instructed them in the
faith, and they held firmly to it. They held to Paul’s teachings. They held firmly to those things. Their lives were not flawless,
but they believed the right things. That’s a good starting point.
Good, wholesome, sound doctrine that makes for a great and indispensable
spiritual foundation. The Corinthians had that. I guess
one acknowledgement that I had backing away from that is we
don’t do enough of that. That positive affirmation thing
that Paul does here in verse two, encouragement. We see problems. and it’s a lot easier to see
other people’s problems than our own, we see shortcomings. But we so often overlook the
positive. Or if we do see it, we fail to
acknowledge it and verbalize it. And I would just suggest
that we need to look more closely so as to recognize God’s grace
at work in other people’s lives. And when we see it, acknowledge
it. That’s what Paul does here. But
Paul’s commendation is limited and it’s fleeting. Because in
verse three, he resumes his address of the problems in this church.
He will address several in chapter 11, but in verse three, he begins
with a discussion of insubordination in the church. It’s a mild contrast. But it is a contrast to what
Paul affirms in verse two. There are other significant things that Paul will address in these
verses, verses three through 16. But the overall thrust of
this section is insubordination. We have to keep that in focus.
Paul addresses the principle of headship and submission. And
he does so with three points of truth. We saw them last week.
That Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head
of the woman, and God is the head of Christ. By this word
head, Paul identifies the governing portion of each of those bodies. This is spiritual truth. This,
what Paul presents, is divine order. The principles of headship
and submission are woven into the fabric of our entire lives
because it’s an expression of divine order. In nearly every
relationship in which we find ourselves, we are either in a
headship role or a subordinate role. That’s by God’s design.
Last Sunday, in reviewing this principle, we saw it in the sphere
of civil government, in the work world, in the church, in the
home, and we were reminded that in each relationship, there is
leadership, and that headship, by nature, requires submission,
a peaceful yieldedness, arranging itself beneath those placed in
a position of authority over us. because God put them there. And just as the man is subject
to Christ, the head of the church, and Christ is subject to the
heavenly father, so also woman is to be subject to men, and
we saw it in two spheres, the marriage and the church. In the
home, by virtue of the marriage relationship, man stands as head
of his wife and family, the wife being subject to him and to his
leadership. God’s design is that there is
to be order in the home, and women are to take a subordinate
role as well in the church, where male leadership predominates
by virtue of male elders. Well, Unfortunately, the Corinthians
may have understood these things, but they were not living out
headship and submission in their daily lives. Specifically, the
basic tenet of female subordination to male spiritual leadership
was being challenged, contested, and compromised. And that was
undermining the very testimony of the church. And so Paul reminds
these believers of the principle of headship and submission. And in the verses that follow,
Paul takes up some of the more difficult aspects of this trouble
in the Corinthian church. The challenging aspect of headship
and submission was the application of that principle. And so Paul
brings us to the third subsection of this portion, verses four
through nine, the most lengthy section, where Paul recounts
the protocols for prayer. The protocols for prayer. Would
you just glance at verses three? Well, we’ll take it from the
beginning. Verse two, all the way through verse 16, two through
16. 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 woman, and God is the head of Christ. Every man who has
something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his
head. But every woman who has her head
uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head. For she is
one in 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
off. But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair
cut off 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, the 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. However, In the Lord there is
neither woman, 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,
and 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 as a covering. But if one is inclined to be
contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches
of God. And so now here we are at long
last thrust into the heart of this very difficult matter, And
we’ll take up the weightier element of that next week, the matter
of women’s head coverings. But we’ll take things in order,
the order in which they’re presented to us, and look first at the
protocol for men in prayer. Paul first moves here to address
divine order as it pertains to men in the church. Divine order
as it pertains to men in the church. And what he presents
to us is four elements of this divine order. Four elements of
the divine order. The first of which is the violation
of divine order. Look at verse four. Every man
who has something on his head while praying or prophesying
disgraces his head. One of the difficulties with
this entire subsection is that we don’t know exactly what was
going on in Corinth. There are a lot of people that
write and outline this as if they were there in real time. They weren’t. We don’t know with
any airtight precision what the believers there were actually
doing. And given that, it’s even more
difficult to establish a footing on which we can capably evaluate
Paul’s directives here in this chapter. Corinth was a veritable
melting pot of many cultures. So when Paul speaks here of a
man, any man, every man who has something on his head while praying
or prophesying, we can’t be absolutely sure whether this was a problem
that was actually occurring with any kind of regularity, or whether
Paul is just speaking hypothetically here. It’s possible, but it seems more
plausible that Paul’s argument here is purely hypothetical about
men wearing head coverings, that he is simply using that idea
as a backdrop for his discussion regarding women upcoming. He’s
speaking hypothetically, I believe. He presents an extreme case where
a man dons the head covering of a woman, and that’s not so
unbelievable given our current culture, is it? But in Paul’s
day, it would have been, it would have been ludicrous. It would
have been absolutely outlandish for a man to wear a woman’s head
covering. It may well have been a problem
in the Corinthian church, but the greater problem at hand seemed
to be the practice in which the women were engaged. That in their
emancipation, they were mimicking the behavior of the men. and
therein lay the problem. Let’s be clear. It’s not the
wearing of a hat or a bandana for a man that is morally wrong. It’s the context both of a worship
service and a worship service in first century Corinth that
is in view. And to do so there would have
been to reject your God-given role as a man. Remember, this
whole section, as I keep trying to remind you, is first and foremost
about headship and submission. Paul does state the protocol
for prayer, men in prayer, very plainly. Verse four, every man
who has something on his head while praying or prophesying
disgraces his head. The statement stands on its own.
It’s incongruous with God’s design that a man should wear a head
covering, as Paul says, while praying or prophesying. These
two elements, praying and prophesying, have been very simply distinguished
by others in the past. One said that prayer is speaking
to God about men and prophesying is speaking to men about God.
That’s good. It’s a little simplistic. Prayer
is pretty straightforward. We understand that element, but
prophesying, it not only needs to be clarified here with regard
to men, men prophesying, but when we come to the women next
week, women prophesying, things will get very complicated very
quick. We’ll take up those concerns
in the weeks to come, but what about men prophesying? What are
they actually doing? When Paul refers to prophesying
here in verse 4, what exactly is he referring to? It has been described as speaking
under the immediate influence of the Holy Spirit. A kind of
a special message for which God moves you to speak. Well, does
that imply that any believer who is, by the way, indwelled
by the Holy Spirit, prophesies every time he speaks? Very doubtful. In the New Testament,
the word prophetase, you heard it there, prophet, it’s always,
138 times that it’s used in the New
Testament, it’s always translated as prophet. And it refers to
one who delivers a message from God to his people. Not always,
not exclusively does it involve a prediction of future events.
The use of the word does not necessarily imply prediction
of the future. It could reasonably refer more
generally to inspired teaching. And because of that, many commentators
wanted to limit this action to the context of the local church. I see that as a good thing. He’s
talking about what’s going on in church, where we might even
think of it as preaching or teaching. And so this word does carry with
it the implication of a public oration, prophecy in that manner. Well, Whatever the particulars
about this activity of prophesying, Paul says that a man should not
engage in it, prayer or prophesying, with his head covered. To do
so is to disgrace his head, because as Paul will proceed to explain,
he has been placed by God in a position of honor and authority
and glory. This word disgrace, it’s a strong
word. It’s a rarely used word, but
Paul has already used it in this epistle. Would you just flip
back to chapter one? I want you to see this in context. Chapter one, just glance down
at verse 27, where we’ll see the word twice in that one little
verse. Chapter one, verse 27, God has
chosen the foolish things of the world to shame. That’s our word, to shame the
wise. And God has chosen the weak things
of the world to shame the things which are strong. Back to first
Corinthians 11, four. Essentially what he says is the
man who prays or prophesies with his head covered brings shame
or disgrace upon his head. The only question remaining is,
is Paul speaking literally here about his own physical head,
his skull? Or is he referring to man’s spiritual
head, which would be Christ? And it’s obviously a play on
words. He uses this word over and over again throughout this
section. It’s likely both. He not only brings personal dishonor
to himself upon his own head, but he also brings dishonor to
his spiritual head in Christ. Well, with all of that, we are
instantly drawn into an intense and a bewildering cultural vortex. Seemingly every culture and religious
society had then, as it has now, a definitive practice with regard
to headwear. The easiest way to say it is
that the practice of head coverings varies. It varies over time. It varies from culture to culture.
It varies between the sexes. It varies between social stratus. And it varies between occasions,
religious and otherwise. The practice of head coverings
varies. The whole practice of head covering in general varied
widely from culture to culture then as it does now. And even
within those particular cultures, they varied based on sex and
social status, as I already acknowledged. Jewish men. Jewish men, for instance,
one of the earliest occurrence of anything like a head covering
occurs in the context of Aaron’s priesthood. Would you thumb back
to Exodus chapter 28? I’ll let you see this in context. Exodus 28, one of the earliest
occurrences of anything approaching a head covering, and it occurs
in Aaron’s priesthood. If you would scroll down to verse
36, Pardon me. You shall also make
a plate of pure gold and shall engrave it like the engravings
of a seal wholly to the Lord. You shall fasten it on a blue
cord and it shall be on the turban. It shall be at the front of the
turban. It shall be on Aaron’s forehead,
and Aaron shall take away the iniquity of the holy things which
the son of Israel consecrate with regard to all their holy
gifts. And it shall be on his forehead
that they may be accepted before the Lord. you shall weave the tunic of
checkered work of fine linen it shall make a turban of fine
linen and you shall make a sash the work of a weaver for Aaron’s
sons you shall make tunics you shall also make sashes for them
and you shall make caps for them for their glory and for their
beauty that’s the first time really And in that context, turbans
and caps had an ornamental element to them for the priests. Look
at the last line, for glory and for beauty. And here you have
a kind of turban, still typical in the Mideast. It’s occasionally
mentioned throughout the Old Testament as donned by royalty,
nobles, women, The few other mentions for women, for bridegrooms
and others, the details behind it are much more obscure. It’s
a wrapping about the head. That’s about all we know. The
Hebrew word for such a headpiece, pe’er, is translated primarily
as turban. But that word is used seven times
in the entirety of the Old Testament. It’s not like this was a chronic,
regular feature. And the root word pahar means
beauty. It was a decoration. And as such,
these head coverings, whatever they were, were worn for festive
occasions by persons of some honor, as one source identified
them, worn by bridegrooms, priests, and luxurious women. I don’t
know what exactly they meant by that. Over time, these kinds
of headdresses developed into what we now know as diadems,
crowns. Especially outside of Jewish
culture, they leaned more to the metal headwear. For the Jews,
though, at some point of history, they developed this practice
of men covering their heads with prayer in what is called, by
what is called a tallith, a fringed shawl worn, draped over the shoulders,
and then drawn up over the head during prayer. Still happens,
still a regular feature of Jewish prayer. And by this, they showed
evidently their reverence toward God. they deemed themselves to
be unworthy to formally stand before God without such coverings. So this practice was derived
not from any direct teaching of scripture, but it was really
a product of the teaching of the rabbis. And it stands in
direct contrast to what Paul says. Well, That’s the practice
of the Jews. The Romans had a very different
practice. And they were there in Corinth
as well. The Romans, the slaves, were not allowed to cover their
heads. In any kind of religious service, the Romans wore a kind
of cap called a pileus, a kind of a knitted, close-fitting beanie. And in any kind of religious
service, a respectable Roman would wear one. Very different
from what Paul talks about and very different from what the
Jews practiced. The Greeks, the Greeks were also
in Corinth. They too had a very different
practice. Slaves covered their heads. They were commanded to cover
their heads. But those who were free absolutely did not. And
so the Jews and the Romans would cover their heads during prayer,
the Greeks would not. And so for us, making sense of
exactly what was going on in Corinth is not easy. Because
all three of these cultures, the Jews, the Romans, and the
Greeks, along with many other cultures, were prevalent in this
city. Making sense of this issue has
never been easy, Early Church Father Tertullian explained the
problem this way. He said, since a Christian man
is no longer burdened by sin and shame, he has regained the
privilege of interfacing with God with his head uncovered. That’s how he explained it, and
that’s fine as far as it goes, but it’s not a biblically derived
argument. Paul doesn’t say it here. Even
today, men’s hat wearing in our society kind of ebbs and flows.
You see those old movies where every man is wearing a hat. This
too is driven by climate and culture and even subcultures. Many branches of the military
have rules barring the wearing of hats, what they call covers,
indoors. As soon as you step inside, you
remove your hat. But that’s not likely derived
from this passage. There, of course, is also the
near equivalent of our singing of our national anthem. This
is the closest thing I could think of to stepping into a worship
service and removing your hat. And before the national anthem,
fans are asked to kindly remove their caps as a display of honor
for the flag, our nation, and for those who served to protect
them. So as you back away, you can
notice in the broadest consideration of Christianity, priests or clerics
of many denominations wear hats or coverings of many sorts. and
they do so during their worship. This is not the case in evangelical
churches, where the implications of this passage seem to have
carried over right to our modern day. Typically, if a man, you
can notice this when you observe this, whether it’s on the baseball
field or wherever, if a man is wearing a hat of some kind, if
there is an overture to pray, Most men will draw near and remove
their hat out of reverence and respect for God. All we can say
here is that it seems clear that for a man to cover his head while
engaged in worship, formal worship, it’s forbidden. This is the violation
of the divine order. But Paul goes on. Paul goes on
from the violation of the divine order to the significance of
the divine order. Why is there this insistence
on headship? And for that, we have to scroll
all the way down to verse seven to see Paul’s reasoning. We’ll
come back to verses five and six. We’re not skipping it. But
I want you to see the significance of the divine order, and he tells
us about that in verse seven. Four. He’s giving a reason. 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. And we’ll come back to that thought
as well. Now Paul doesn’t provide support for verse four until
all the way into this verse, verse seven. But in verse seven,
he comes around to explaining verse four, and we see that with
the little word for. And he effectively begins by
reiterating his initial point. A man ought not to have his head
covered. This is Paul’s position. And
the reason that he provides for such a prohibition hearkens all
the way back to the creation story in Genesis. A man ought
not to have his head covered since he is the image and glory
of God. Well, that is the language of
the creation story, and for that we would have to turn back to
Genesis. Would you do that? Genesis 1. Genesis chapter 1. I’ll bring you along little by
little. We’re in Genesis chapter 1. And
it’s important to remember that here in Genesis chapter one,
Moses is giving the general account of creation. So get really confusing
if you don’t keep that in mind. He’s just giving a broad overview,
and he’s going to provide much more detail for this account
in chapter two. But let’s start here. The reason
that Paul provides for restricting men’s head coverings is that
he is the image and glory of God. The image of God. This is the exact language that
we find here in the creation account. Would you glance down
at verse 26? Then God said, let us make man
in our image according to our likeness. and let them rule over
the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, over the cattle,
over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps on
the earth. He created man in his own image. In the image of
God, he created them. Male and female, he created them.
As I said a moment ago, this is the general account of God’s
creation. Speaking of God’s creation in
its totality, including woman. Moses speaks of man and woman
as created in God’s image and likeness. This is important because
remember Paul is providing the reason for his prohibition that
a man ought not to have his head covered since he is the image
and glory of God. Because a man occupies this noble
and God-given position, it is improper for him to cover his
head in any manner during worship, because it declares him to be
something he’s not. It declares him to be in a place
of submission, not headship. What about that word glory? Man
is said to be the image and the glory of God, And there is a
sense here, even in Genesis 1 26, that the woman too is made in
the image of God. That’s what it says. But with
regard to God’s glory, that is a designation that is only bestowed
upon the man. It is bestowed on him as the
apex of God’s creation. Adam was the highest and noblest
work of God, the visible representation of God, because he was made in
God’s image and represents God’s glory. But Adam also, Adam was
bestowed with glory by way of the responsibility and the authority
that was given to him. And we see this in the creation
account as it unfolds, as we observe Adam exercising his God-given
dominion in naming all of the creatures. We’ll see that in
a moment. And because he bears the image
and glory of God, a man is not supposed to have his head covered
in the church. It’s a simple argument. With
that, Paul explains the significance of the divine order. That’s where
he gets this. Please keep your finger in Genesis 1. Turn back
for literally one sentence to 1 Corinthians 11 and glance down
at verse 8. We see the violation of the divine
order, the significance of the divine order. Look at the origin.
Where did you get this, Paul? the origin of divine order. Look at verse eight. For man
does not originate from woman, but woman from man. Now back
to Genesis two, if you would. Paul here immediately explains
in his statement of verse seven, the position that man is the
image and glory of God. And he looks back to the order
of creation. And for this, we have to look
at Genesis 2, because in Genesis 2, we see, as I pointed out,
Genesis 1 is the general account, but in Genesis 2, we have the
specifics laid out before us. It’s almost as if he puts the
microscope to it, and we’re drawn down into the details of God’s
creation. In chapter 2, Moses, by the divine
influence of the Holy Spirit, moves to provide the specific
details of the creation of man and woman. And what a fantastic
story this is. Look at verses one through four
of Genesis two. They’re transitional verses,
kind of wrapping up Genesis one and opening up into the details
of chapter two. Thus, verse one, the heavens
and the earth were completed and all their hosts. By the seventh
day, God completed his work which he had done and he rested on
the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then
God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he
rested from all his work which God had created and made. This
is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were
created. In the day that the Lord God
made the earth and the heavens. And so he just kind of parks
us, nestles us into the context of this chapter. Verse four tells
us that we’re going back. We’re going back basically to
Genesis 1-9. Look at that verse briefly. only
one chapter away, Moses tells us the account of
the heavens and the earth when they were created. Now back to chapter two, verse
five. Chapter 2 verse 5, Now no shrub of the field was yet
in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted. For
the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was
no man to cultivate the ground. This is prior to Adam and Eve’s
creation. But a mist used to arise from
the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. He’s just
painting the picture for us. Here we are in chapter two, and
yet again to give us the details of God’s creation, Moses has
taken us back into that moment where there is a heaven and earth,
but no vegetation yet, and no mankind yet. Glancet verse seven,
if you would, then the Lord formed man of the dust from the ground
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became
a living being. The Lord God planted a garden
toward the east in Eden and there he placed the man whom he had
formed. Now you have the details of creation
unfolding before us and there is Adam and there are plants,
but there is no Eve. I don’t know about you, but this
is just such a thrilling story. Moses takes us into the minutia
of creation, God forming man, Adam, out of the very dust of
the earth. Well, verses nine through 14,
they proceed to tell us about the plants and the garden itself
and the rivers. But for our purposes, glide down
to verse 15, would you? God places Adam there in the
garden to cultivate it and keep it, which means work was part
of God’s good creation. And in verse 18, for the very
first time observing his creation, God notes, it was not good. It was not good for the man to
be alone. And he promises to make him a helper suitable for
him. Would you glance at the end of
verse 21? And here we see the creation of woman. The Lord caused
a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept and he took
one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The
Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from
the man and brought her to the man. The man said, this is now
bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She is to be called
woman because she was taken out of man. This is the very event
that Paul alludes to in 1 Corinthians 11, chapter 11, verse 8. Man does not originate from woman,
but woman from man. And it’s quite obvious that Paul
there is speaking of the order of creation, not subsequent,
Procreation. Man is the image and glory of
God, so woman is the glory of man. So this tells us of the
origin of divine order. Where did it come from? Would
you please turn back to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, where Paul will tell
us lastly of the grounds of divine order. How do you justify this,
Paul? the violation of divine order, the significance of divine
order, the origin of divine order, and finally, the grounds of divine
order. We find it in verse nine. For
indeed, man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for
the man’s sake. Here in verse nine, as Paul rounds
out his discussion of divine order as it pertains to the man,
he gives us the grounds. And this thought too harkens
us back to that same section in Genesis 2. As Paul says here,
Paul, man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for
the man’s sake. In Genesis 2, we just saw it.
Not only in the fact that God made Adam prior to creating Eve,
but also in God’s observation of a need. It was not good for
Adam to be alone. Genesis 2.18, it’s not good for
the man to be alone. God identifies a need. And out
of that observation of a need, there is a divine intention.
I will make him a helper. Not just any helper, but a helper
that is perfectly suitable for him. And you know the story,
he presents all the animals and Adam begins naming all the animals.
And there was no helper found. And it’s at that juncture that
we enter into the creation of Eve. In God’s providence, he
creates woman out of the man. God made woman of the man and
for the man. And then he brought her to the
man. How much clearer could it be?
Woman was created for the man’s sake. That’s all Paul is saying.
What Paul wants us to grasp here is that there is to be a divine
order, and that divine order can be violated, but that divine
order has significance and meaning. He takes us back to the very
origin of that divine order, and he gives us the grounds for
that divine order. That will lay the groundwork
for us as we consider divine order in considering the verses
that lie ahead. Until then, would you just rejoice?