Women in Ministry

In our verse by verse through 1 Corinthians 11, we now come to verse 11:

1 Corinthians 11:11  However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.

Paul once again breaks with tradition.  Paul gives the woman the right to make her own decision in verse 10 about what she will or won’t wear on her head when he says the woman ought to have “authority” (exousia) on her head.  Although the cultural tradition gave a woman no authority to make her own decisions, Paul dismisses that tradition as a non-Christian tradition.  However Paul quickly follows the woman’s authority to make a decision (exousia) with the qualifier “however”.  However, Paul says, “in the Lord”, woman is not independent of the man.  She has the right to make her own decision but she is not independent of the man.  In what way is she not independent of the man?  She is not independent of the man in the exact same way that the man is not independent of the woman.

Paul gives the reason for the interdependence in 1 Corinthians 11:12 –

For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God.

Paul makes use of the Greek word “gar” (for) which is a primary particle; properly assigning a reason  for his argument.  The woman is not independent of the man Paul says, because the man is the original source of the woman and she wouldn’t exist without him.  Paul also says that the man is not independent of the woman because the woman is the original source of all men since her creation.  No man would have his existence now without her.  Adam’s position of primacy as the first one created and his being the source of the woman is balanced out and equaled with the woman’s primacy as the source of all men.

Paul sums it all up by saying that the woman is dependent on the man and the man is dependent on the woman but the ultimate source is not man and it is not woman either.  The ultimate source is God.

So how does this all play out regarding decision making?  The woman has the right to make her own decision, but since she is also joined in a one-flesh union with the man, she must consider her husband and his conscience with the issue of the head covering because what she decides to do may bring his weak conscience deep shame.  The cultural tradition of the head covering which brought shame to a man whose wife was uncovered in public needed the time to be exposed and accepted as a faulty tradition.   Instead of bringing the man shame, Paul said that the woman is his glory.  The decision is now in the hands of the woman with her full knowing that she is not completely independent of the man.  As a Christian wife she is to respect her husband and to consider his conscience in her decision.

The woman is the only one given a choice regarding what she will do regarding the head covering.  The man is never told that he can choose to wear the head covering or not.  For him, the decision has already been made because there is only one who is shamed when he wears the head covering.  The cultural tradition that brought shame to Christ is to be abandoned.

Next post we will get into the “hairy” issue of the length of one’s hair in 1 Corinthians 11:13-16.

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.

Here are links to the posts in this series:

Shaming the head 1

Shaming the head 2

Shaming the head 3

Several posts back we talked about how Paul shows in 1 Corinthians 11 that the head covering shamed Christ. This post will discuss why a woman without her head covering shamed her head. Let’s start again with 1 Corinthians 11:4, 5 –

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 and the same as the woman whose head is shaved.

Paul has identified the man’s head as Christ and the man who had his head covered during his praying and prophesying shamed Christ. Paul also identified the woman’s head was the man. When she prayed and prophesied with her head uncovered she shamed her head which is her husband (verse 3). Paul doesn’t say why going without a head covering shamed the woman’s husband since the Corinthians would have understood the cultural reason. However we need to do some research to find out why a husband would experience shame when his wife exposed her head in public.

Both the Greek women and the Jewish women wore head coverings in that day but the Jewish women had a stricter standard that punished them if they were caught without their head covering. John Lightfoot gives us a glimpse into the mindset of the Jewish culture of that day. Lightfoot was a Hebrew Scholar who lived from 1602 to 1675 and during his day there was a revival of the study of the Hebrew Bible as well as other Jewish works. Lightfoot’s scholarly writings produced several volumes called “Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica”. In these volumes Lightfoot discusses the reasons why married women wore the head covering.

On page 231 of Vol. 4 Lightfoot writes

“It was the custom of the women and that prescribed them under severe canons, that they should not go abroad but with their face veiled. If a woman do these things, she transgresseth the Jewish law; if she go out into the street, or into an open porch, and there be not a veil upon her as upon all women…”

On a woman’s wedding day she was required to veil herself. The Jewish law was that women who were married were required to cover their hair. The Talmud interprets this custom as a sign of a woman’s shame – guilt for Eve’s sin. Lightfoot elaborates:

“And they fetched the shame of the woman thence that she first brought sin into the world.”

That was their view – that the woman brought sin into the world and her veiling at her marriage was a sign of shame, because they said the woman led the man into sin. The Talmud said that as a result of Eve’s curse women must go about covered as mourners. In the Jewish culture when a woman got married, from that day on she was under compulsion to veil herself and if found in public without her veil, the Talmud prescribed strict consequences.

If she was found without the veil in public her husband could divorce her without payment of her dowry. Without her dowry she would be destitute.

The Talmud explains the reason for the shame of a uncovered head. The husband considered the hair on a woman’s head to be part of her sexuality so the public viewing of her hair was a great shame.

“Some rabbis considered the exposure of a married woman’s hair to the exposure of her private parts since they felt that a woman’s hair could be used for erotic excitement. They forbid the reciting of any blessings in the presence of a bare headed woman.”

Lightfoot goes on to explain that although women wore a veil in public, they unveiled for worship.

“But however women were veiled in the streets, yet when they resorted unto holy service they took off their veils and exposed their naked faces; and that not out of lightness, but out of religion.” Vol. 4 pg 231

 

Wouldn’t this have shamed their husbands by exposing their hair publicly? No, because no man would have seen them because in the synagogue the women were kept separate. Lightfoot continues:

“…that women should sit by themselves, divided from the men, where they might hear and see what is done in the synagogue, yet they themselves remain out of sight…when the women therefore did thus meet apart, it is no wonder if they took off the veils from their faces, when they were now out of sight of men, and the cause of their veiling being removed, which indeed was that they might not be seen by men.”

So the veiling was a sign of shame before men but worshipping before God she was to go with a bare face.

In Paul’s writings we find that Christians are meant to reflect the glory of God. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:17, 18

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with unveiled face, beholding 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.”

Men and women were both meant to reflect the glory of God and both were to come with unveiled face before in worship. Yet for those Jewish women whose husbands were not yet saved and who had not yet come to understand the glorious liberty we have in Christ, these women were in a predicament. The problem came when Christians met in homes where the men and women were together. If a Jewish woman whose husband was not a Christian found out that she had unveiled in public, he could divorce her, often at the insistence of his family for her public shame.

Paul could not tell her that she needed to unveil in worship in the Christian congregation because that would have infringed on many of their marriages. So although men were forbidden to wear the veil of shame and must pray and prophesy in public without a head covering, women were allowed to make a choice when they prayed and prophesied. Next post we will discuss more about the woman’s choice and the third reason for shame that might require a woman to veil.

But for now let’s talk about the culture that promoted the cultural sign of shame. Paul in this passage rejects the cultural sign of shame. Instead Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11:7 –

“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.”

Do you see that? The woman is the GLORY of man. As his glory she brings him honor. As his glory she needs to be uncovered so she can shine forth his glory. Just as the man is to shine forth the glory of God, so she is to be allowed to shine forth the glory of man. Do you see that Paul is dispelling the myth that the woman is the shame of the man? Do you see that Paul is dispelling the myth that the woman is to be hidden and kept away from the congregation and hidden and kept away from men? Paul is telling the men that the woman, his wife, is to be his glory. He is not to be ashamed of her. She is not his competitor, she is not to reflect shame – she is to be his glory!

What a marvelous freeing word from Paul! Paul hasn’t used this passage to say that women are not in the image of God nor is he saying that they are not the glory of God. He is comparing one glory with another glory. The Corinthians should be able to see that the man is God’s glory and as God’s glory he is not to be covered. Men are to be uncovered in worship in order to shine forth God’s glory. In the same way they are to see that the woman in the very same way is the husband’s glory. As the husband’s glory she is not to be covered instead she is to shine forth the man’s glory. As the glory of the man, the glory is to be barefaced and he is to be proud of her not ashamed. The culture had taught them that the woman was not the man’s glory, but Paul’s correction changed all that. Now they knew that God intended the woman to be the outshining glory of the man!

Have you ever wondered why Christian women do not wear head coverings? Now you know.

Here are links to the posts in this series:

Shaming the head 1

Shaming the head 2

Shaming the head 3

Paul refutes a faulty tradition

In the last post we discussed that the man is the image and glory of God and Christ is his head. Why does Paul emphasize that the man is the image and glory of God but he says nothing about the woman having God’s glory? It is because Paul is working on a contrast that will blow the lid off a faulty tradition.

In Corinthians 11:3 Paul had just taught the Corinthians that Christ is the head of man. In verse 4 he relates that the one who is the head is not to be dishonored. How is it that a man can shame Christ? The head covering was used historically to show reverence for God and unworthiness to come into God’s presence because of the shame of one’s own sin (see this previous post for the discussion on the historical meaning of the head covering). When a Christian wears something that symbolizes the shame of his sin and his unworthiness to come into the presence of God, Christ is shamed and dishonored for it was Christ himself who died to take away our shame and to be the door of righteousness that takes us into the presence of God. By wearing a reminder of the shame of his sin, the man dishonors Christ. Instead of focusing on his sin, the man is to bring honor to Christ because Christ died to take away the shame of sin, and the penalty that it caused. The man is to respond by bringing honor and glory to Christ, his head. So when a man comes publicly before God through prayer and prophesying, he is to reflect the glory of God.

Now let’s skip down to 1 Cor. 11:7 to see the connection between Christ and the man, and the man and woman.

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.

Paul is saying that just as the man is the glory of God, so the woman is the glory of man. Now remember, Paul isn’t saying here that the woman is not the glory of God, but he is going to draw a specific comparison for a specific purpose. The woman is the glory of man, Paul says. This means that what she does brings him glory. She was created to be his glory. He is not to be intimidated by her nor should he consider her to be his competitor because she is his glory. Verse 8 says:

For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man;

Woman originated from the man and because of that she is to be his glory. Verse 9 says:

for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake.

The man had a need and the woman was created to meet his need. Woman is man’s glory. The word glory means reputation, praise, and source of honor and glory.

Paul was saying something that was totally counter-cultural. The culture of that day did not believe that the woman was the glory of the man. They believed that it was a shame for her to be in public. They also believed that for her to be unveiled in public brought great shame to her husband. They did not believe that she was his glory. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul dismantles this false tradition.

Paul teaches that glory is meant to be shown not hidden. Glory is meant to be revealed and to be proud of because it brings honor. Just as the man is not to hide the glory of God, but to fully reveal God’s glory so also the woman is not meant to be hidden by a veil because she is the man’s glory.

But why then does Paul allow a woman to be veiled, if she really is the man’s glory? The answer is all about cultural shame. More in the next post.

Last post we discussed how the head covering shamed Christ.  Before we carry on with 1 Corinthians 11:5 in our verse by verse discussion, I want to skip over to verse 7 to discuss the second reason that a man is not to have his head covered and this has to do with honoring his head.  1 Corinthians 11:7 says:

For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God…

The man is not to cover his head when he prays or prophesies because the covering of the head hides the glory and the glory of God is not to be hidden but to be reflected.  Matthew 5:14-16 says:

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.  “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

The glory that shines through us is not to be hidden.  The glory properly reflected glorifies the Father in heaven.  2 Corinthians 3:18 says:

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.

Do you get these points?  The man’s head is Christ.  He is not to have a head covering that signifies the shame of his sin (see last post) because Christ has died to take away that shame.  He is not to cover the head because he is a reflection of Christ’s glory and he is to bring glory to Christ through his being transformed into Christ’s image from glory to glory.

Now does this mean that the woman is not the glory of Christ?  No not at all.  2 Cor. 3:18 says that we all are to be with unveiled face.  We all shine forth the glory of Christ.  So why does Paul emphasize the man as the image and glory of God?  He does so to teach an extremely important lesson that will help to get rid of a faulty tradition concerning women.  More in the next post.