Passage Flow (NIV) |
Thoughts |
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V1. Paul wants the Corinthians to follow his example of self-sacrifice with regard to restraining freedoms so that others may be saved. In this, he himself is following Christ, so in the end it is the glory of God revealed in Christ that Paul is hoping for them to reveal as they seek the good of others. This does not appear to directly lead into the following verses, but perhaps the idea of them mimicking him reminds him of the various teachings and traditions he passed onto them, in the hope that they would follow them. |
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V2. Paul does not praise the Corinthians very much in the letter, but here at least they appear to be continuing on in some of the things he has passed onto them when he was amongst them (Acts 18). In the context of the rest of the chapter, he is clearly talking about the gathering of believers for prayer and prophecy, and for the Lord’s Supper. So they are still doing these things, it seems, although Paul will go on to correct the manner in which they are doing them. |
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V3. The “Now” indicates that we are turning to a particular matter Paul has in mind, which is one of the practises he has passed onto them. V4 reveals that it concerns the state of the person praying or prophesying in the church gathering. As the input to this discussion, he states a hierarchy of headship, from woman to man to Christ. There is some ambiguity over whether Paul is referring to husbands and wives in particular, or just men and women in general. The strong assumption of most of the NT, and the historical reality, was that men and women were almost always married. So we need to be careful not to think only in terms of men and women in abstract – relationships matter. But the truth at hand is that there is that Christ is in the role of ‘head’ over the man, which in the context of talking about the physical human head, cannot merely be the ‘source’ like the headwaters of a river, but the organic headship where one part of the body oversees the nourishment of the rest. The headship of Christ to man is clearly ‘every’ man, but the headship of man to woman is most immediately that of husband to wife, although a general headship role of all males for all females is conceivably in view. It is hard to see how someone can have more than one head, however, so it would seem to be specifically husbands and wives in view, and perhaps also fathers as the ‘head’ of the household, thus including his unmarried daughters. An unmarried man does not quite fit into this reading, but given that Paul is himself unmarried at this point (1 Cor 7), that would not seem to be a problem. The headship principle remains, which Paul is going to apply to church gatherings. |
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V4. Paul applies the headship principle firstly to males. The church context, and the use of “every” indicates that Paul is talking about males generally, implying that headship has an application not just in marriage or in the home, but in the church. The application is that males who pray or prophesy with some kind of head-covering are dishonouring themselves, or dishonouring Christ, their head, depending on how it is read. As the application of v3, the latter seems more likely. At this point, however, the cultural gap becomes very apparent, although the custom of removing hats in church is still around. It is possible to read this passage as referring to hair rather than head-coverings, so that the male should not pray while “long-haired”. However, the distinction between a shaved head and an uncovered head in the next two verses suggests that headwear is in view rather than hair. |
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V5-6. The principle applies in the opposite way for women – to have an uncovered head would dishonour her herself or her husband – the latter again seems in view. To abandon the “sign of authority” (v10) is to dishonour the one in authority. This practice is much less common today, so it is tempting to read it as a purely cultural thing. Nonetheless, if we take it at face value, Paul’s argument is that a shaved head is obviously shameful for a female, and she might as well shave her head as not have her head covering, so in conclusion she should wear a head-covering. The historical background is that most women in the ancient world wore a veil of some kind when in public, to indicate, effectively, that she was “taken” – or under someone’s authority. At the other end of the scale, prostitutes commonly shaved their heads, so being either veilless or hairless was shameful for a women in society at large. However, some commentators point out that Jewish males wore a veil when they prayed, as a mark of their unworthiness, and which Paul explains in his second letter as being a sign of their estrangement from God (2 Cor 3). So it could be that head-coverings are applied differently here in part because they had a different cultural symbolism for men and women.The question also comes up as to how v5 relates to 1 Cor 14:33-35, where Paul says that women being in submission means they should not speak in church, which is a disgrace. At face value, the simplicity of v5 means that Paul is not referring to prayer and prophesy in ch14, and the example Paul gives in that passage, of women enquiring of their husbands, suggest that he’s not referring to teaching ministry in particular. Regardless, in this passage Paul simply assumes that women are praying and prophesying in church. His statements in ch14 about prophesying in turn suggest he is not talking about women prophesying at the same time as everyone else, as if they were not leading. |
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V7-10. Now Paul teases out how these statements relate to the headship principle. He says that the man should not cover his head because “he is the image and glory of God”. The point seems to be an allusion to Genesis 1:27, although that passage appears to refer to both man and woman as being created in the image of God (although it is true that Paul doesn’t say here that woman isn’t in the image of God, just that she is the glory of man). So perhaps Paul is referring to the uniqueness of man as having been created first in God’s image, whereas woman was created physically out of man, even if in the same image. This is what Paul goes on to argue in v8-9, which alludes to the fact that God created woman specifically for the man, because it was not good for him to be alone, and because he needed help in tending the creation.The question, then, is how the man’s creation precedence translates into the need for his head to be uncovered during prayer. Perhaps it is to do with the relationships involved in prayer. The man is praying to God, so the authority in the relationship is already clear – he submits himself to God implicitly in prayer. However, when the woman prays, she is certainly submitting herself to God, but she also has a husband who is responsible for her, and therefore a “sign of authority” is appropriate. Given the possible differences in symbolism of head-coverings for men and women, the problem Paul is addressing could be two-fold. It could be that for men, Jewish custom was creeping back in, such that men were tempted to wear the veil in prayer. That would justify Paul’s further explanation of this issue in 2 Cor 3. And it could be that for women, the temptation was to apply their freedom and equality in Christ in terms of throwing off cultural norms. The arguments of ch8-10 would then apply quite naturally to them in terms of restraining their freedom and adhering to culture when that is helpful to others. The only problem with this is that Paul is not explicit about these connections, whereas in ch8-10 it is very clear that Paul’s ongoing argument is about selfish uses of freedom. He offers no variation based on circumstances here, as he does with eating meat. So although the theme of freedom is still behind the scenes, the theme of God’s glory expressed through headship seems primary.
Now, head-coverings are outward signs, so it is hard to see why Paul argues so strongly for them, given he has just dismissed the importance of meat as a symbol of spiritual allegiance. It is also a problem for us in a culture with many unmarried women, for whom there does not appear to be a person whose authority needs to be acknowledged. In NT times this would have been her father, but it is hard to work out how to apply that today. Perhaps for married women, at least, we can say that what is important is the sign of authority – seen in the wedding ring perhaps instead of a head-covering? It is tempting to say the sign does not need to be material at all, but could be visible in the manner in which wives relate to husbands. But at that point we have to ask whether a “non-visible sign” is a contradiction in terms. However we apply this, the point is clear that Paul wants the Corinthians to understand and apply the headship principle, which has been built into creation and salvation to their practise of prayer and prophecy, by men praying with head uncovered, and women having a mark of authority. However, Paul throws in one more tricky reference, which is to the “angels” as somehow also providing an implicit reason for women to pray with their head covered. This could be a reference to the appearance of angels, if common lore was that they also had some sign of God’s authority on them. Or it could be the opposite, that they have long hair but are not under any authority except God’s, so women should distinguish themselves from the angels. Again, it is not entirely clear, but it doesn’t change the point at all. |
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V11-12. The next two verses are an aside, which qualifies everything Paul has been saying by arguing that in relation to God, there is no ultimate precedence of men over women. And Paul again alludes to Genesis, or perhaps just to physical reality, by pointing out that men are given birth by women, so there is a difference in role but no ultimate inequality. Men and women should not be considered apart from their relationships to each other – to do so is to deny the way God has created things. So Paul applies the counter-argument that everything comes from God – gender differences are significant but not ultimate. It is similar to his argument earlier about the stomach and food – there is a natural order and relation between the two, but God will “destroy them both”, so don’t get so caught up in the application as to forget the principle (1 Cor 6:13). This reminds us again of the theme of the glory of God which was raised in Ch10, and was raised again in v7. The glory of God should be our concern, whether in praying or prophesying or eating or drinking or whatever we do. So no-one stands independent of God, and neither do males and females stand independent of each other. Therefore Paul limits the application of gender differences to functional matters within the church (and the household in Eph 5). |
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V13-15. Paul returns to the argument for the fittingness of head-coverings for females and uncovered heads for males. The strength of the argument seems somewhat lost on our culture, although Paul expects it to be clear. The “very nature of things” should lead to men having short hair, and women, long hair. At this point we have moved beyond church practice into general appearance, which is even more controversial. It seems the issue comes to a head when the person breaking with convention is the one up front, leading prayer or prophecy. This is similar to the high standard of godliness required of church leaders in 1 Tim & Titus. But the issue exists for all Christians, as with godliness. Paul argues, again from creation, that long hair has been “given” to the woman as a covering. It is ornamental in a sense – it is for her “glory”. We could argue, perhaps, the physiological differences between the hair of men and women (?), but that is not directly the point. We can also recall the special cases of the Nazirites, and Samson, of long hair having at least some exception, even as it reminds us of the norm. But the point is that long hair is supposed to be something honouring to women, whereas we normally approach this issue in terms of our freedom – that we should be free to choose. So although we need to be careful not to re-invent the misogyny of the church’s past, we also need to be careful to note that God chooses what is honouring and praiseworthy for us, not ourselves. Our freedom is not for us, per se, but for God’s glory. So at the very least here there seems to be a strong teaching for a differentiation in the appearance of the sexes that reminds us of the creation order. It acknowledges the responsibility of husbands, but ultimately gives glory to God as the creator and Christ as the saviour. Perhaps we can say that the precise expression of femininity or masculinity does not need to be hair length, but it is emblematic of the issue. But also, this passage would seem to say that we should not deliberately emulate the appearance of the other gender (humourous contexts might be an exception), as this would be to deny God the glory of responding rightly the way he has created us and the roles he has given us. We are only free to choose roles that God himself assigns.This of course raises the issue of homosexual and transgender inclination. We should not jettison the whole argument on this basis, and we cannot justify immoral practise, but in terms of appearance we also need to be sensitive to the range of appearances that might still fall within the genders, and allow for people to struggle with the issue even as we insist on the need to move towards glorifying God in how we express our gender. |
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V16. Finally, Paul himself acknowledges that this is a contentious issue, and appears to say that this is common practise, so people should stop arguing against it. We could read this as an additional argument, saying that beyond the principle of headship, it is obvious from practice, not just from nature. The ESV says “we have no such practice” rather than “no other practice”, which allows more latitude, although it could be referring then to the fact that we have no practice of being contentious (which seems an unlikely reading in context). It could also be taken as setting up the Corinthian church as the only church which has this practice, so it should not be taken as an issue for division, but this would then seem to overthrow the whole argument Paul has been making. If he argues from the created order, it can hardly be specific to only one church. The Greek original has the same ambiguity as the NIV, but in context it seems that Paul is indeed saying that this is common practice, so if you disagree with the theology, you should still go along with it for the sake of harmony. If that is right, then the overall message is that our expression of gender should glorify God for the differences between men and women, without thinking that there is any ultimate inequality – we all stand equal before the cross and under God. |
1 Cor 11:1-16
9:11 am
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