Shaming the head - 3
Jul 21st, 2007 by Cheryl Schatz
Continuing our verse by verse through 1 Corinthians 11, we come to verse 6:
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.
We have already discussed that the cultural view of women’s hair coverings is “covered” in verse 5. We have also seen that Paul takes a non-traditional view of women by telling the men that his wife is his glory. Paul reveals that the tradition of women being covered is not God’s way of dealing with glory. Glory is meant to be shown or revealed and not covered up. Just as a man reveals God’s glory and is not to cover his head, so a woman reveals the glory of man and she too should be uncovered.
Women whose husbands are Christians and who understand the women’s freedom in Christ to reveal the glory of the Lord just as men reveal the glory of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18) will have no reason to insist their wives cover themselves because of man’s tradition. So Paul says that “if a woman does not cover her head” then “let her also have her hair cut off”. Here Paul is talking about a woman’s freedom to have her hair cut. Is it wrong for a woman to get a hair cut? Is it wrong for her to have short hair? Paul says the tradition of not cutting one’s hair is in the same category as the tradition that women must wear a head covering.
The woman is her husband’s glory and as such she should be free from the tradition of having to cover her head. Covering the head symbolized both modesty and shame. See the previous post about what the culture thought was the woman’s shame. Once a woman is free from the tradition of covering her head, she is also free from the tradition that a woman must have long hair. She may cut her hair and this act is not breaking God’s law. This tradition is not God’s tradition. Why is that? We know that God does not forbid a woman to have her hair cut because God had regulations for a Nazirite vow that required men and women to grow their hair out when they took the vow and then later when the vow was finished, both men and women were required to shave their hair off. So if God required the woman who takes this vow to shave her hair off, then it could not be against God’s law for her to cut her hair.
If a Jewish woman who had become a Christian wanted to take a Nazirite vow, when the vow was finished, she would be required by God to shave off her hair. If a woman who had shaved off her hair was in the congregation without a head covering, she may experience shame because she had no hair. Paul made allowance for this last “shame” and he said that if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut or her hair shaved off, then she was allowed to cover her head if she had a bald head or her hair had not yet grown out. Paul gives her permission to cover her head by saying “let her cover her head”. Paul never demands that she cover, he just gives her a choice to cover.
The rules for the Nazirite vow are in Numbers chapter 6.
Numbers 6:2 Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When a man or woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to dedicate himself to the LORD,
Numbers 6:5 All the days of his vow of separation no razor shall pass over his head. He shall be holy until the days are fulfilled for which he separated himself to the LORD; he shall let the locks of hair on his head grow long.
Numbers 6:13 Now this is the law of the Nazirite when the days of his separation are fulfilled, he shall bring the offering to the doorway of the tent of meeting.
Numbers 6:18 The Nazirite shall then shave his dedicated head of hair at the doorway of the tent of meeting, and take the dedicated hair of his head and put it on the fire which is under the sacrifice of peace offerings.
The man or woman who had taken a Nazirite vow was required to shave off their hair and put it on the fire as a sacrifice. Both men and women then who had taken this vow would be bald. Men would not experience shame from being bald, but many women would experience shame from their baldness.
Paul allows a woman who has a bald head and who would experience shame because of her bald head to cover her head with a head covering. Paul has given two reasons for shame in chapter 11 that a woman may want to continue to wear a head covering. The first reason was that she may bring her non-Christian husband shame if she is caught in public without her head covering, since he may divorce her for defying the cultural tradition of the head covering.
The second reason that a woman may be covered is because of her own shame. If she was bald or if her hair had not yet fully grown out after she had taken a Nazirite vow, Paul allows her to cover her head. Paul gives a woman permission to veil because of two possible kinds of shame, but Paul never gives the man permission to veil since the culture of the day did not bring shame to a man who had a bald head and the only cultural reason for a man’s head covering shamed Christ.
Paul’s purpose in the discussion of the head covering is to bring Christians to a biblical view of our reflected glory and to discard the faulty cultural view of shame. Paul shows us in 2 Corinthians 3:18 the importance of the unveiled face:
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
While some have seen 1 Corinthians 11 as a mandate for women to wear the veil, a close inspection of the passage shows that Paul is advocating the exact opposite. He is not upholding man’s tradition, but blowing that tradition out of the water. Paul shows that it is God’s will that glory is to be uncovered not hidden, and man’s tradition of forcing the woman to be covered because her uncovering shamed him, is the complete opposite of what God teaches. The woman is the man’s glory not his shame. And as the man’s glory she is to be revealed not hidden.
Since we have already covered verse 10 in a previous post, the next post will pick up at verse 11 and discuss the importance of origins and interdependence.
Cheryl, Brava and kudos! Again you’ve shown what is tradition and what is emancipation. For the life of me I still cannot see what all the fuss is in the complementarian camp! Grudem in his extensive tome still can’t point to anything in the Tanach that mandates the subordination of women unless he manufactures it. Moore would have us all on the rack (or worse) to extract a confession and then off to the stake we’d go. I guess it’s all just more drama in church history huh? But you know what’s really disturbing? If Jesus’ work was not finished at Golgotha, and if the LORD is still thundering out of the thick darkness atop Sinai; we’re all in deep you know what.
Respectfully,
H.
The “picture” you drew was painful but true. I for one will never confess my “sin” of teaching the bible to men unless Grudem and Moore can show me from the bible where God calls it sin. Otherwise I would be guilty of saying that the Holy Spirit’s work in my life is evil and THAT I cannot do with a clear conscience.
I really do pray for these men that God will open their eyes and they will stop “burning us at the stake” with their words. Surely this must cause Jesus a great deal of pain to see his own body attacked. But as these men from CBMW continue to intensify the attack against egalitarians, I believe with all my heart that God will open the eyes of many complementarians to see what this is doing to the body of Jesus and they will be given God’s grace see the “spirit” of this hard-core view as opposing God’s sovereignty and God’s design of the universal priesthood of believers.
Well done Cheryl. Now I will have to go back and slowly analyze that section again.
Is this something new about Grudem and Moore that they are calling women who teach Scripture publically, to repent of sin? Can someone point me to where they say this?
Justa Berean,
You can hear the audio at my post below. Audio #6 is the quote where Moore says that egalitarians are shaking their fists in the face of authority and it is a spiritual warfare issue and lives are at stake (therefore we must repent) and the gospel is at stake (therefore we must believe the complementarian gospel).
http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2007/03/24/should-cbmw-fight-egalitarians/
I have to go to the obvious for an explanation on this verse. If the complimentarians are correct, why aren’t the women who hold that view covering right now in church?
This has never made sense to me. Does anyone know what their explanation is for that?
One out they have given themselves is that the woman is to do whatever the husband says. If he says he doesn’t want wife to veil, then she is off the hook. Thus, there is evidence that the husband interprets Scripture for the wife. Since the husband is the authority in the marriage he is responsible if he’s wrong. She is off the hook because she obeyed.
Course, they seldom if ever consider the Scripture about Annanias and Sapphira, which blows some of their teaching about male responsibility out of the water. Actually, it also crashes their teachings about Adam as responsible because he’s the male.
Ultimately, this is not complementary teaching, it is patriarchal or gender hierarchy. As one man just pointed out to me, complementary is a gentle term that is used by gender hierarchalists to cover up a much harsher agenda.
Lin,
I think I have the answer for you. Tonight I was watching a DVD that I had purchased from CBMW. It was a talk by Russell Moore and the DVD isn’t dated which year it was done. In the Q & A section Russell is asked about why Christian women don’t wear head coverings. He gave the answer that the covering of the head shows that one is in submission. However, he said that in our culture the headcovering no longer signifies that women are in submission to their husband so we have a new sign. Women are to have a visible sign that they are coming under the authority of their husband and that sign is the taking of his name.
The problem that Mr. Moore has in his answer is that there is nothing in historical sources that show that the head covering was a sign of submission. John Lightfoot in his commentary said that the head covering was a sign of modesty and a sign of shame but there is no evidence at all that it was a sign of submission. So Mr. Moore has his work cut out for him to try to prove that the head covering symbolized submission. I would like to see his evidence.
The second problem that he has is that CBMW says that this sign of authority (the head covering) is a sign from the creation of man and woman and if this is the case, then they have no legal reason for changing it merely because culture has changed. Do we change God’s ways merely because the world changes their ways? No, I don’t think so. Also Moore has a problem because the woman’s taking of the man’s name symbolizes that the two are now one not that the husband has authority over the woman. I guess this is the way they try to explain away the everlasting sign of the head covering, but I for one don’t buy it. Where in history do we find the head covering being explained that we can now do away with it because God has given us a new sign? How can we as humans change God’s everlasting sign? We really can’t no matter how Russell Moore tries to explain away God’s “sign”. It is only when we really understand what the head covering symbolized in the culture of the time of the New Testament (and it was never a sign of submission) can we truly understand why Christian women no longer wear the head covering. Paul’s words are very freeing for women and these words have been misunderstood for centuries.
Cheryl, You have nothing whatsoever to “repent” of with regards to teaching from the Bible. There will always be men who feel they cannot learn anything from a “woman”. They will always feel threatened that their patriarchal manhood and power are at an end. And that’s what this controversy is really all about;
power and control. Yours is the same struggle fought by Luther centuries ago, except this time it’s not the holy see in Rome, it’s the ecclesiastical protestant hierarchy. My how history repeats itself! As I’ve stated before, if the Pauline letters are to be taken as a new “Mosaic” code which must be followed to the letter, then we’re all in trouble. But if not, the church will be made richer by the contributions of brilliant and Godly women such as yourself.
Respectfully,
H.
“H”,
Your point is well taken. If we continue to lift scriptures from their context, then we are left with following a new “law” to the letter - are men lifting their hands in prayer as Paul “required” (1 Timothy 2:8)? Are women to be silenced completely in church not even saying “hello” or singing (1 Corinthians 14:34, 35)?
My point continues to be that God has given us his commandments multiple times and in multiple ways so that we understand what his laws are so that we do not sin against him. If men are required to lift “holy” hands when they pray, then are they sinning if they don’t lift those hands? This “command” is never repeated in scripture, just like the “command” for “a woman” to not teach “a man”. We make a mockery of God’s law by making universal rules that God has never sanctioned. We also imprison godly Christian women in a fear-induced set of man-made rules that force her to question whether doing her good works before God has become a sin merely by the presence of a man in the room.
When I think about all the men that I have personally helped set free from the mind control of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I wonder if my good works would have been rendered useless if I had been forced to stand at the door of my home and turn away the men? There was no one else doing the work in my city and if the men were turned away, they would have not been reached. Is that what God wanted me to do? Where does the Bible ever command women to refuse to teach men? Would that make women sexist? The Bible never tells me to stop my ministry if a man walks in the room, and such a practice would only help Satan’s kingdom not God’s.
I too believe that there are many brilliant women out there whom God is pleased to use in the church. I thank you for your kind words! I do not consider myself one of the brilliant ones. God has somehow gifted me with seeing the simple things that others have missed. I pray that God will continue to grant me tenacity to push forward no matter how I am treated.
It is interesting that the gender hierarchalists arguments have been claiming origination of so much of their ideas in the Garden of Eden and creation. Problem is that when the studious go back and look for it, it is not there — just like the story of the king with no clothes parading through the streets and his loyal subjects telling him how beautiful his (absent) clothes are.
And when those with their eyes open point out the absence, they then say we are arguing from silence.
???
Go figure.
Cheryl, One of the hallmarks of brilliance is the ability to simplify the complex which you have done admirably. So my previous post is not just kind words, but a genuine and honest assessment. There are many pretenders out here, those who rely on obfuscation, bamboozlement and fear, fear of going against the Bible (1 Timothy 2:12). This site of yours is a Godsend to many who struggle with this fear. And Justa Berean? Love your blog! Full of common sense, which is God-given too. Here’s the link to Grudem’s book “Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth” http://www.efbt100.com/evangelical_feminism.pdf
It’s rather lengthy and tries to argue that gender-based patriarchal hierarchy is mandated from the beginning. But as you’ve stated, when you search the scriptures, it just ain’t there.
Respectfully,
H.
“H” my friend, I had to chuckle with what you wrote. Yes, I have been told before by many that I am “special” but I never believed it because I am only “simple”. It was always amazing to me that others didn’t see the simplicity I saw until I pointed it out to them and then they got it (praise the Lord!) So while I was surprised that others didn’t naturally see all the simple things that I saw, I shrugged it off as one of life’s mysteries and perhaps that “common” sense must not always be as “common” as I supposed. So the chuckle I got, was that this “brilliant” woman had to look up the word obfuscation in dictionary.com. Ah, yes, I get your point! May I add that there are those who are “brilliant” in book knowledge but oh-so-muddled in their thinking ability to really understand beyond their traditional “security blanket” of male superiority (now called male “headship”). They seem to honestly be blinded regarding the transforming of the term “head” into “headship” (also known as taking authority over another human being to conform them to your own image) and how this takes away the ability for another human being to mature into the image of Christ that God has ordained for her to “grow up” into.
When I read Grudem’s books and I listen to CBMW’s tapes and DVDs on all the things that I am not allowed to do merely because I am a woman, it saps my strength and I see rules and regulations that keep women as “children”. I listen and read because I must see both sides in order to provide a proper defense, but I can only take so much at one time or I begin to feel like I am in prison, shackled and chained to the wall. There is nothing in their material that makes me see freedom in Christ for me to serve the body of Christ without forcing me to be prejudiced against men and that is so sad. I love my brothers in Christ and my gifts belong to them too.