August 17

Nehemiah 12:27-13:31; 1 Corinthians 11:3-16; Psalm 35:1-16; Proverbs 21:17-18

Should godly women cover their heads when they come to church to worship?

Paul addresses this issue in the Corinthians passage today. Women have read this for centuries and wondered how to be obedient to God. Men traditionally take off their hats when they pray or enter a house of worship (1 Cor. 11:4), while women in many parts of the world cover their heads with a scarf when they enter a cathedral. Is Paul saying this is necessary?

Perhaps the primary teaching of the passage is not about head coverings but about headship. Paul says the head of the man is Christ and the head of the woman is man (1 Cor. 11:3). Man was created by God from the dust of the ground, but woman was created by God from the side of man.

Before I taught on this passage at Talbot, I read several scholars to help my understanding. Here is what Dr. Craig Blomberg says in The NIV Application Commentary: “Yes it is true that men and women are equal in Christ, but that does not mean that all differences between the sexes may be blurred. The events seem to proceed as follows. Because of their newfound freedom in Christ, women in the Corinthian church were praying and prophesying. Christian tradition from Pentecost on had approved of such practice. But these women were not merely speaking in worship, but doing it in a way that unnecessarily flaunted social convention and the order of creation. So Paul has to encourage them to exercise restraint."

Conservative scholars like Dr. Blomberg are agreed that head coverings in this passage are cultural to the first century and conveyed the symbolic idea of the headship of men and the subordination of women to men.

A man should not, in that culture, cover his head when he prayed or prophesied because as the glory of God, he was to look manly and covering his head would, in that culture, be feminine. His bare head shows his headship; the woman’s head covered shows her subordination. God is equally pleased with both.

Today, as then, the church should be characterized by a lack of rebelliousness against gender differences. Both men and women leaders should be true to their created status. The women are to be distinctly feminine (NOT sexy, but feminine); the men are to be distinctly manly. Androgynous hairdos and clothing are to be avoided—we are made in the image of God as male and female. Women are not to dress like lesbians or prostitutes or like men. Men are not to wear women’s clothing or be effeminate. We are not like the angels who are asexual; we are male and female and our clothing/head coverings/lack of head coverings, as we come to worship, should reflect that.  The angels (who are asexual) observe us and they know that our femaleness and maleness together are reflections of God’s glory.

This is such a profound teaching. Do you see that previous sentence? Being made male and female together reflects God’s glory.

So it’s not head covering that is really being talked about, but being truly male and female and letting those innate differences be known. I like Dr. Blomberg’s distinction of not blurring gender lines. Women are to be feminine in their worship and men are to be masculine in their worship, and their apparel, hairstyle and demeanor should reflect that.

Headship illustrates that there is a difference in being male and being female. It began at creation and it continues to this day. Men are vested with headship and women are vested with being the glory of men (1 Cor. 11:7). Paul writes interchangeably about the literal head of a man and a woman and figuratively about the man as head of woman and Christ as the head of man (vs. 3). Careful reading shows which is which. The point is taking our rightful role as worshippers as a woman or a man, acknowledging our gender differences.

I’m thinking of a woman who led worship last Sunday with her sweet smile and modest dress. The men on the platform looked quite different than she—they were in jeans and shirts. Though she may not have known it, she was wearing a ‘head covering’ as her dress and demeanor were appropriate to her gender.

And I believe that is what Paul is teaching.

- Nell Sunukjian

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