"The Headcovering - The Beauty of a Woman & the Beginning of Modesty!" - Jason Willis

In the year 2024, the head covering makes no sense.

Imagine, for just a moment, being born not into this world, but into the realms of heavens itself.

Your eyes open for the first time to sights beyond earthly comprehension, a place where every horizon is aglow with the radiance of God's glory, where the very atmosphere hums with the eternal peace. You are an angel, and the heavens are your home.

The street beneath your feet is paved with gold that shimmers like sunlight on the water. The towering gates that make up the gates of the city are massive pearls, and they are the entrance of this divine kingdom, where there is no fear, there is no sorrow, there is no pain, only the overwhelming presence of God's love. You live amongst the heavenly hosts, surrounded by celestial beings who sing in perfect harmony. Your voices join in with theirs in endless praise. The air itself is alive with the fragrance of joy, and the sky above you is an endless expanse of beauty painted with hues that no earthly artist could ever hope to be able to capture.

But there is one thing missing, one thing that heavens do not contain, one beauty that heaven, for all of its splendor, does not possess: the beauty of a woman. As you gaze down from your heavenly palace upon the earth below, you see for the first time a sight so captivating, a sight so breathtaking. It awakens something within you.

And it doesn't matter how hard you try, you can't seem to get the woman of the earth out of your mind, clothed in her beauty unlike anything that you've ever known. Their form, their grace, their delicate strength, there's nothing like it.

And you know for her to be yours would mean forfeiting everything you've ever known: the peace, the glory, the light of heaven itself. You become constantly tormented with this new awakened desire within you, torn between the eternal glory of heaven and the beauty of a woman. Eternal glory, intimacy, eternal glory, the beauty of a woman.

And your decision is made. You step down from your eternal heights, giving your place, giving up your place amongst the angels, leaving behind the throne of God, descending to earth, knowing that your choice will forever change your fate. You take the woman as your wife, and from this union, the Nephilim are born, beings of immense strength, giants of the earth. The legacy of your decision stretches across time, as does the memory of all that you've given up. Heaven may have been your home, but the beauty of a woman was the one thing that you deemed worth trading it all for.

There is a similar story that we read like this in Genesis. "Now I came to pass, the angels saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took for themselves wives of any who they chose. And when the angels bore children to them, their offspring were giants, mighty men who were of old, men of renown, absolute legends."

I contend to all of you today that the beauty of a woman just may be the most powerful potion in all of creation, capable of not only inspiring the highest forms of love and devotion, but also tearing down and destroying even the mightiest of beings. Kings have fallen to her feet, rulers have forsaken empires for her, and even some of the angels, being of immense power and eternal glory, were willing to exchange it all to behold the beauty of a woman.

And I can already hear it now. My skin is too pale. My freckles aren't the cute kind. My nose is too big. My hair is too frizzy. I'm not tan enough. I'm just not beautiful like they are. I'm ugly.

You believe a lie. It's not up for debate, ladies. There is nothing that you can say like this, or nothing that you can even think like this, that could change the fact that every single one of you women here are absolutely beautiful.

And for you ladies who have husbands, it is a concrete reality. Israel is the warm breath that comes out of your mouth, or the sun that blazes down from the sky. It is a concrete reality that you are the absolute glory of your husband.

He may be a really good man, but if he lost you, he would be almost nothing.

There's a very, or there's a whole lot of very difficult teachings in the Bible that at quick glance seem not to be that difficult. That is until the command is against you. Love your enemies. Bless those who persecute you. Do not resist evil. Easy to say until someone's plucking your eyeballs out.

Adulterers will be cast into the lake of fire, and remarriage after divorce is adultery. Pretty easy to chew on that and swallow when you're raised with it in your entire life, and you're a million miles away from that ever being a possibility in your life. But do you realize that 50% of the married population today are divorced?

It's a tough pill to swallow when you learn of these realities, and it's too late for you. What a man or woman experiences as they emotionally deal with the possibility of a relationless, sexless existence forever, the idea of never again having a legitimate sexual expression ever, it's not even permitted in the mind under the law of Christ. These are hard pills to swallow.

Christ's law is no joke, and there's a reason why he told us to count the cost.

But this is just part of reality. Every Christian must and will have to deal with painful and difficult biblical teachings, but not everyone has to deal with all of them equally. And this touches on an unpleasant reality that in some ways men and women are equal, but men and women are not equal in all ways. There are some statutes and commands that apply both to men and to women, some that apply only to the men, some that apply only to the women, some apply that only to the teachers, some apply only to slaves, some apply only to children.

Emotionally speaking, it would be easier for all of us if it wasn't this way, but it is this way. And I say all of this because today we're going to be discussing something that some Christians practice, but others don't.

And to many of them that do not practice these things, not all, but many of them, these things are despicable, offensive, sexist, misogynistic. So regardless of what side of the fence you land on, I plead with you to keep these things that I've said in your mind today, that the beauty of a woman is one of the most powerful and dangerous and addictive things that exist. And I can't say that to be an absolute truth claim, but I personally testify to that.

And I know it's not your fault, ladies. You didn't ask to be a woman. You didn't ask to be so beautiful that both men and angels would be willing to give up eternity for fleeting intimacy with you. That part's not your fault, but it is what it is.

You're a woman, and you're beautiful. And whether you like it or not, this beauty brings a heavy load of responsibility into your life if you're a Christian. This power that you yield is unmatched by any man, in my opinion.

But where are we going with all of this? In the year 2024, the head covering makes no sense.

Daniel's testimony illustrated this in a beautiful way. So here was a man, a child or a teenager at the time, raised in church, but he hadn't really converted. And he's a teenager, and he finds himself sitting in the bushes with a sword because some kid kissed his girlfriend at school, and when he pulled into his driveway, he was going to be a dead man.

Fortunately for both of them, he didn't come home that day. Shortly after that, he does get converted, and he actually becomes a Christian, and Christ transforms him into the exact opposite. His anger issues, and they were deep. I was there. I was his brother. They were wiped away from the face of this planet. He spends the rest of his high school life going to church, witnessing to people, winning souls, the best that he knew how. He shared the gospel with his peers at work and at school, and it was not in vain either. He found himself being a part of a group of young men who were absolutely just sold out for Christ. They went to church together.

They studied the Bible together. They fellowshipped with each other constantly. And then he graduates high school, and he doesn't go off into the workforce like the rest of us worldly people did. No, he went to seminary, Johnson Bible College. There he meets his wife. They graduate. They get married, and then they settle down and have 2.5 kids in a white picket fence.

Yeah, right. Not Daniel and Casey. No, together they moved to China. They didn't have a plan. Didn't necessarily know exactly what they were going to be doing. They just knew that they were taking the gospel to China. Then for over 10 years, they're there planting churches, baptizing men and women, bringing them into a church in an environment where if the government found out, those people's lives would be effectively ruined.

And through all of these years dedicated to Christ, he listens to hundreds upon hundreds of sermons of great Christian public speakers of the world. And through all of that, every preacher he ever had, every professor he ever stood under, every public figure of Christianity that he ever looked up to or admired or studied, all of that, and never once a teaching that a woman should cover her head.

And what I just described is the same reality that plays out in the lives of almost every Christian on the face of this planet, or at least America. I mean, I maybe shouldn't speak about the whole world.

You see, when you find yourself as a Christian your whole life and you make it into your 30s, 40s, like you're not young when you get up into your 40s anymore. Like you've been around a little bit. And you've been dedicated as a Christian in your mind this whole time. And then you find some random small group of people who are dressed like they just came off of an episode of Little House on the Prairie, and they come around telling you that your women need to be covering their heads as a sign of submission and subordination.

That makes no sense. How have you never encountered this teaching?

When I moved to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, I didn't really care about this a whole lot. I didn't understand it, but I didn't have a horse in the race either. I had no kids. I had no wife. And if I'm honest, for the longest time when I would read the head covering passages, it did not translate into my brain.

My brain did not see what I saw being practiced in this congregation. Let's read it together. "Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.

But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for it's one and the same as if she were shaven. But if a woman is not covered, then let her be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, then let her be covered. For a man, indeed, not to have his head cover his head, since he is the image and the glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man.

For the man was not from the woman, but the woman was from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but the woman was created for the man. For this reason, the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels.

Nevertheless, neither is a man independent of the woman, nor the woman independent of the man and the Lord. For as the woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman. But all things are of God. Judge amongst yourselves. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach us that if a man has long hair, it's a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it's a glory to her, for her hair is given to her as a covering. But if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.

This whole head covering controversy, in this whole head covering controversy, this passage, this is pretty much all we get. It's the beginning and end of it. And I didn't just make all that stuff up. I just said people in 2024, they do not preach on this passage. I would suggest that most Christians have never heard a complete sermon dedicated to these passages.

Before these passages and after, yeah, they've heard all that. Okay, guys, today that wraps up our lesson for 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Next week we'll pick up with chapter 11. I think we'll tiptoe around that one. That one doesn't really mean what it says there. Next week we'll pick up with chapter 12.

We've heard before and after. But it's not okay to preach about this in 2024 American culture. Therefore, preachers don't do it. Because if they do, it's off with their heads. Not literally. Today it's more of cancel him. How dare he? How dare he? He has lost all credibility in the eyes of the public, and he will not be heard or associated with. And if you do, you will have the same fate. He is canceled.

And that's why these passages don't make sense, because they are countercultural. To take the position that the passages mean what they say in the eyes of many makes you an enemy of civilized Western society. And that's just the beginning of it. It makes it worse when these passages are almost always paired with, "Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife. Wives submit to your husband as is fitting for the Lord. Let women learn in silence with all submission, and I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. In the churches, women are not permitted to speak.

They should remain quiet and submissive. If they want to learn something, they should go home and ask their husbands because it's shameful for a woman to speak in church." Now, that's not how the passage really goes, but it's the sentiment behind it. I used to have a friend that she ate her up. She would say, "Paul says in Corinthians, the women need to sit down and shut up."

It's the sentiment of the world. In our 2024 culture, it is not okay to say the things that these passages say. And like I said, after living in this community for a few years, I found myself supporting a tradition that I didn't really have the ability to defend. No ability to really articulate it. I could tell you what I believed, but I couldn't necessarily tell you why I believed what I believed. And like I said, when I read the passages on the head covering, I didn't see what y'all saw. I didn't understand how y'all were coming to these conclusions when you read these passages. When I read them, I walked away with everything the world walked away with.

How come the woman has to cover her head all the time, but the men only when they pray? Doesn't seem like that's what it says to me. Is it not evident that these passages are talking about rules for women while they're in the church?

Why is the hair not the covering when the verses specifically say the hair is given to her as a covering? And then I started to wonder how much of this Anabaptist practice is coming from these scriptures versus coming from the tradition.

So I spent a little bit of time. I asked some small group of men, "Hey, so why do the women have to uncover, or why do the men only have to uncover their head when they pray? But then they can pretty much like wear a hat like pretty much all the rest of the time." And then we have these groups that are like where the men, like the groups identified by the men's hats, like, "What is this?"

But when it comes to the woman, she has to be covered all the time. Like, how do we get that from this passage? And the answers that I got made it seem to me that their practice of these things was because of tradition, because of the way that they were, this way they were raised, this way it's always been. None of them pointed to those scriptures themselves and said, "Well, look, it says blah, blah, blah right there."

They did point to some scriptures. You know, well, you say you're supposed to pray, pray without ceasing. You know, so you, well, yeah, the men are supposed to pray without ceasing either. Yeah, but the men could just take off their heads. It's hard to take off a head covering. You know, so I don't know, man. I'm not going to let that be my defense. It's not strong enough.

The most common answer I got was, "You know, that's a good question. I was wondering that myself." I don't want to get me wrong. Operating within a tradition is a beautiful thing. It is something that is lost in the world. A lot of people grow up and they don't even have a tradition to turn to. But let's process this for just a bit. So we have this massive Christian community nationally, right? So think of all of the professing Christians in the U.S. Millions of Christians and just these little small pockets of people practicing these weird things. Let's say you take one of these women out of the who are covering under this tradition and you drop her into the ocean of 2024 Christianity.

Instantly, they're absolute weirdos. To the entire Christian ocean, it's so clear, "Hello, ma'am. That doesn't make any sense. Look, our pastor's a woman. We're all Christians. We've been Christians our whole lives. We've never heard this stuff. It doesn't make any sense." But the absolute opposite is true. If you go back 150, 200 years, you take one of those women out of the 2024 ocean of Christianity and go back 150, 200 years and drop her in that Christian society, suddenly she's the weird one. Like that.

She would be hard-pressed to find a single Christian that had her idea of headship or head covering or submission. All the drops of the 200 years ago Christian ocean would say, "Are you kidding me? Women can't be preachers.

What are you doing without a covering on your head? This is the way it's been for nearly 2,000 years."

Daniel actually had a really good sermon on the history. If you happen to be watching this online, we'll have the link in the description. I encourage you to go look at that. Because if you look at history, what you will find is that these traditions were preserved and practiced in varying forms for the first 1900 or so years of Christianity. Only within the last century and a half or something like that, almost overnight, practically speaking, it's been almost been totally wiped off the face of the planet. And there is no way around it. If you look at history, this is what you will find. So there I was in this weird position that I found myself in, and I didn't necessarily like it.

Believing and supporting these practices that I couldn't necessarily personally articulate or defend myself if I was put on the spot. Yet I was pinned between this belief and the reality that which made me the enemy of some people and the reality that I saw that couldn't be changed is that history says that this whole thing of women leadership and church and uncovering their head, it is a modern phenomenon.

And so I decided to really dig deep, to study this thing out, to find out, is this really defensible or do we just accept it because the tradition is obvious? Do we just hold to the tradition that is quite literally on the verge of being wiped out completely?

And so I started listening to all the teachings that I could pull together. Apparently, I had been listening to the preachings, but I don't know. It wasn't important to me. It was going in one ear, out the other. It wasn't sinking in. I wasn't getting it. So I went back and I re-listened to all of the teachings of all the brothers, listened to some of the teachings from other of our sister churches to find out that it is absolutely defensible.

And then, but I wanted more than what the men of today could teach me. I wanted to know, what did it sound like back then? I wondered back in those days when you wouldn't be canceled and have your life totally ruined for saying such things, what did it sound like in those days? For all of those centuries when these were the practices of virtually every female Christian back when they weren't all sensitive and offended about it, what did the preaching sound like back then?

So for the remainder of this lesson, we will be going back in time and I will be delivering a sermon to you that was once spoken by John Chrysostom sometime in the 400s.

Over the past six months, I've studied this material over and over and I've been listening to it. I don't know how many hundreds of times I've consumed this. I kept going through it until I was able to make every logical connection that I think he was trying to make. And then what I've done is I've contemporized this, meaning I've rewritten it to be able to deliver it in some way that I speak to be understood in our modern language while preserving to the best of my ability what he said.

In the end, it turned out to be a little bit of a mixture. I would go down these little rabbit holes in my own mind. I'd get off script. And so what I tried to do as I made this is I tried to make it pretty clear when it's John Chrysostom and then I kind of use a different background, like a black whenever when you see the black, you know I'm down my own rabbit hole, not necessarily speaking what John said. Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep your traditions just as I deliver them to you.

So out of the gate, we see that this tradition that has been upheld for 2,000 years was delivered by Paul to the Corinthians. It is clear that Paul had previously counseled them in person. This is evident because of the way he initiates the topic.

Why would this have been a starting point if he had not previously taught these things to them? Let us move through this passage by passage. Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things. About what things? Until now, the discourse had been about them not having long hair and not covering their heads, but Paul is very generous in his compliments, making his listeners even more eager to listen to him. And this is why he says that you remember me in all things and you keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.

So it seems that Paul shared these things with the Corinthians, but he did not put them into writing. Back then, he merely shared them, but now he provides their meaning. In doing so, he not only strengthens the steadfast, those who obeyed, but he also humbles those who opposed themselves. And notice, he doesn't specifically say, "Some of you obeyed and the rest of you did not." Instead, he subtly suggests this through his teaching method when he says, "But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of every woman is man, and the head of Christ is God."

This is Paul's explanation for the matter, and he presents it in this way to engage the less attentive. You see, someone who is faithful, as they should be, and steadfast, as they should be, this person doesn't need to know the reason for the commands. The steadfast are content with the rule alone, but for the weaker brother, when he understands the reason for the commands, it helps him to keep it in his mind and to comply more eagerly. And this is why when Paul previously taught these things to the Corinthians, he didn't spell out the reasons in detail. But now that he sees the commandments being violated, he explains the reasons by saying, "But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ."

Does this mean that Christ is also the head of the non-believer as well? Certainly not. For if we are the body of Christ and individually we are members of it, and in that sense, he is our head, then he cannot be the head of those who do not belong to the body and are not counted amongst the members. So when he says, "Of every man, you must understand him to be speaking of the believer," Paul continues, "But I want you, the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.

For if the man is the head of the woman and the head is of the same essence of the body, then the man and the woman are of the same essence. Similarly, the head of Christ is God, meaning the Son is of the same essence as the Father." But no, no, no, no, our critics will argue, "We do not mean to show that the Son is of a different essence, but rather that he is under control."

But how do we respond to this? Well, for starters, whenever anything humble or lowly is said about the Son while he was united with the flesh, what is said doesn't degrade his divine nature. He emptied himself when he accepted the role. To this, they reply, "But it says that just as the man rules over the woman, so does the Father over Christ. Therefore, in the same way that Christ governs the man, so also does the Father govern over the Son." You see, the Son, he is under control.

Listen, if the Son's superiority to us is the standard for measuring the Father's superiority to the Son, just consider to what lowliness you will reduce the Son. And this is why we shouldn't judge all things based on the comparison being made between us and God, even if similar language is being used. Instead, we should assign to God a certain unique excellence as much as is appropriate to God. Otherwise, all sorts of absurdities will follow. For example, we say that Christ is the leader of God, or that we say the leader of Christ is God, and Christ is the leader of man, and he is the leader of woman.

In the scriptures, if we use this term leader or head in the same sense in all of these statements, then the relationship between the Son and the Father would become as distant from each other as the relationship between us and Christ.

Just look at this massive chasm that exists between us and the Son. We stand here, and his superiority to us puts him a million miles away from us. And if this distance becomes the measurement to apply equally in all of these cases, then look how far the woman becomes cast from us, and look how far the Father becomes from the Son, and what Christian in his right mind could accept this. So we are to interpret head differently when it's used to describe the relationship between man and woman compared to when describing the relationship between Christ and us humans.

Does this mean that we should also interpret it differently in the case of the Father and the Son? In what way you interpret differently, you might ask? Well, depending on the situation. For if Paul intended to discuss authority and submission, as our critics suggest, he wouldn't have used the example of a wife, but rather of a slave and a master. Because even if she, even if the wife is subject to her husband, she is still a wife, free, equal in honor. And even though the Son became obedient to the Father, it was as the Son of God, as God himself. And his freedom is greater too because his obedience to the Father is greater than the obedience that we see in humans towards their parents.

And if we admire the Son because he was obedient to the point of death, even the death of a cross, and we consider this to be the great wonder about him, we ought to admire the Father also, that he gave birth to such a son, not as a slave under command, but as a free being.

So great a son was he to be in perfect obedience to the Father while simultaneously taking the position as an advisor. And we know that an advisor is not a slave. And here we are again. What meaning do we extract from these words? When you hear of an advisor, do not take from this that the Father was in need, but rather that the Son holds the same honor as him who sired him. Therefore, do not stretch the examples of men and women in all of these details. Listen carefully. It is reasonable that the woman is subject to man in our society.

Why? Because the Father created man and woman equal in honor. And equality of honor in this fallen world will inevitably lead to disagreements. In a party of two, someone must have a casting vote. So it is reasonable for this, but not just for this reason. Also because of the deceit that occurred in the beginning. Over and over in these passages, Paul takes us right back to the beginning. And when we go back there, we see that Eve was not made subordinate the moment that she was created, nor when God brought her to Adam did either of them hear any such thing from God.

Nor did the man say any such thing to her about submission or rule. Instead, his eyes looked upon her beauty and he proclaimed, "This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." He never mentioned anything about rule or submission to her.

But when she misused her privilege and she was created to be his helper, was found to be a trap, ruining everything, bringing the whole earth under a curse, that is when she was justly told by God for the future, "Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you."

What was God's reason for this, do we suppose? It was likely that this sin would have plunged our race into a state of unresolvable conflict. After ruining everything, the fact that she came from man and was made for him would resolve nothing.

Therefore, God, recognizing the malice of the evil one who would seek to instigate a never-ending war between man and woman, God thwarted the devil's plans by embedding within the woman herself the desire for her man. So let us be careful about what meanings we take from words when they are spoken about God. The understandings must be different for these statements and those statements.

However, we shouldn't interpret everything differently either. Because if we did that, it would seem as if the words were randomly Adam and meaningless. Just as we shouldn't accept everything as the same, we shouldn't completely reject everything either. Christ is referred to as the head of the church. If I were to stick to the human interpretation of this, I would question the purpose of the phrase. If I were to fully invest in the human understanding, it would lead to utter absurdity. This is because the head is just like the body. It is subject to the same vulnerabilities, the same emotions, but this is an absolute absurdity to apply such things to God.

Christ is referred to as the Son. But we don't assume that all aspects of human sonship should be applied to the Christ. Nor should we reject everything either. Except what is suitable for God, that he is of the same essence, that he is God.

The things that are inappropriate and belong to human weakness, leave those things on the earth. Christ is referred to as light. Should we then apply all conditions that pertain to natural light to God? Not at all. For that light circums to darkness. It is confined by space. It is driven by another power, and it is overshadowed, none of which is even permissible to even conceive about the essence of the Father.

However, we don't reject everything either. Instead, we glean something beneficial from this. That is the illumination that comes to us from God, the escape from darkness. That is what we collect from God being called light. Perhaps someone here will also have doubts, asking themselves, "What kind of crime is it for the woman to be uncovered or the man covered?" Learn what kind of crime it was from this point. Many different symbols have been given to both man and to woman, to him of rule, to her of subjection, and among them too that she should be covered while his head is bare. Now, because these are symbols, you can see that both parties, both the man and the woman, are wrong when they disrupt the given order, going against the arrangement of God and rejecting their own proper boundaries.

This applies both to the man falling into the women's inferiority and to the women rising up against the man through her outer garments. For it's the same way that the swapping of clothing isn't allowed. Scripture saying, "For the woman shall not wear what belongs to a man, neither shall a man wear a woman's clothes."

With this being so, how much more inappropriate is it for these symbols of the head to be exchanged with one another, the man covering what should be bare and the woman uncovering what should be unseen? For the former, these rules about cross-dressing, these things were established by the humans first. Did you know that? And then after the humans established these things, God later endorsed them, but this by nature. I mean being covered or uncovered, this was established by nature. But when I say nature, I mean God, for he is the one who created nature. So when you overturn these boundaries, just see how great the damages are that follow. And do not tell me that the mistake is just minor.

For starters, it's significant in its own right, considering the fact that it's disobedience. Moreover, even if it were minor, its significance is amplified due to the importance of the things that it signifies. However, its importance is clear given its powerful role in maintaining order amongst us humans, ensuring that both the leaders and the follows are rightfully maintained in their respective positions by it.

So that he who sends in this manner disrupts everything, betraying God's gift and throwing down the honor given to him from above. But this does not apply only to the men, but also to the woman as well. For to her also, it is her highest honor to maintain her own position. God has established a position for each of us, and it is your highest honor to maintain your own God-given position. As for dishonor goes, behaving as a rebel is the worst of it.

Therefore, he established this rule for both the men and the women by saying, "Every man praying or prophesying having his head covered dishonors his head, but every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head."

So then, a man is not required to always be uncovered, but only when he prays. However, a woman is commanded to be covered at all times. But how do we know this? Because having said, "Every man praying and prophesying with his head covered dishonors his head," Paul just stops there. A little bit later, he tells the man, "Listen, don't be growing your hair long like a woman, but that's it."

In these passages, Paul tells men two things. He says, "Number one, men, if you pray or prophesy, don't cover your head. Number two, men, do not grow your hair long." Paul leaves it at that for the men. But see how, but now see the difference when Paul turns his attention to the woman.

He doesn't just say that they should be covered and then stop. Instead, he gives reason after reason after reason why the application is different for both the man and the woman. "But every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered dishonors her head. Not stopping there," he adds, "for it is the same as if she were shaven."

If being shaven is always dishonorable, then it's evident that being uncovered is always a disgrace. Again, though, he doesn't stop with this point, but continues. "For this reason, the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head." For what reason? Because of the angels.

This implies that the woman should be covered not only during prayer, but continually. As for the man, this course is no longer about covering. Instead, the conversation shifts to growing long hair. We heard our early church father Origen speaking of the woman's need to continually be being covered by saying, "There are angels in the midst of this assembly."

And the woman, by covering their heads, shows that they are under the power of men. Therefore, woman ought to veil their heads, especially in prayer, because of the angels. But also let them be veiled outside of the church, showing respect and humility, for it is not becoming of a woman to pray or to walk about unveiled.

And so here we start seeing that it sounded differently back then. Again, our critics will speak up. That is not true. Paul makes it clear and evident that it is only talking about women during church, not all the time. And we know this because he says, "While they're praying and prophesying," this makes it clear and evident that Paul is only talking about women covering themselves when they're in the church.

But is it really? Is it really clear and evident, as you claim? When we see in this exact same letter, just a few minutes later, Paul saying this, he says, "Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church."

This isn't some far removed passage from some different author written two decades apart. It's the same letter written by the same man. There's just a few chapters between this. And we can look at this and we can emphatically say that this is absolutely talking about women's behavior in the church because it says in the churches, "Women are not permitted to speak." He goes even further to say, "It's shameful for a woman to speak in church."

What are we to make of this? Did Paul just go bipolar schizophrenic on us, telling us one thing and then following up with the exact opposite? Didn't he just tell us in those previous passages that the women are free to pray and prophesy in the church as long as their head is covered? Doesn't even make sense. Let's go back and read that again. "Every man praying or prophesying having his head covered dishonors his head, but every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered dishonors her head." Think about it. There are some very clear things being said in this passage as well. That is, so long as the woman has a cover on her head, she is free to pray and prophesy.

But then he goes on right after that and says, "Once that woman walks into the church, it becomes shameful for her to speak." So how can this be speaking about women's behavior in the church? It is much more reasonable that this passage is teaching women how to conduct themselves as they go through their everyday lives.

This implies that the woman should be covered not only during prayer, but also continually. As for the man, the discourse is no longer about the covering, but the conversation becomes about growing long hair. He only forbids a man to cover his head when he prays, but he discourages growing long hair all the time. And this is why, when it comes to the woman, he says, "But if she's not covered, then let her be shorn." Similarly, for the man, if he has long hair, it's a dishonor to him.

And notice, when he's speaking about the man, he doesn't say, "If he is covered." Our Bibles use that word, "If he is covered," but it's a different word being used there. It says, "Having anything on his head," implying that even if the man prays with a bare head, having long hair makes him seem like he's covered, for the hair, Paul says, is given to him as a covering.

It's very interesting. The passage is clearly talking about women, but I've never heard before Chrysostom him apply it to men, that the hair is given as a covering. So men don't grow your hair long. It makes you seem like you got a covering when you pray to God.

Now notice, in the beginning, Paul simply says that the woman's head should be covered. But as he continues, he implies both the persistence of the rule and the careful adherence to it by saying, "For it's one and the same as if she were shaved."

For if it is always shame, for if it is always a shame for the woman to be shaven, then it is always a shame for her to uncover herself. By this, by pointing out this absurdity, Paul shames the Corinthians, severely reprimanding them, saying, "But if she is not covered, then she should be shorn." It's as if he said, "If you discard the covering set forth by God's law, go ahead and cut off all your hair. That's just as disgraceful."

But if anyone asks, "No, we cannot accept this, how can it be a disgrace that the woman rises to the man's glory?" We respond with this, "She doesn't. She doesn't rise, but instead she falls from her own distinct honor. Because not staying within our own boundaries and the laws established by God, but stepping outside of them, is not an enhancement, but a reduction. It is the same for the thief who covets the possessions of others and takes what is not his own. He has not gained anything. What he had has diminished. He has lost even the dignity that he had. So too, it is the same. The woman does not acquire a man's dignity, but loses even the propriety which she had."

So after acknowledging what was evidently disgraceful and saying, "But if it's shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaven," Paul suggests his own conclusion, saying, "Let her be covered."

And notice, he didn't say she should have long hair. He says, "She should be covered." In this, Paul is implying that both the head covering and the hair serve the same purpose, and that the woman whose head is shaved is effectively the same as the one with no head covering. For it's the same, he says, as if she were shaved.

Aha, there it is. It's right there. It says that her hair is given to her as a covering. So clearly, the long hair, with clearly, she has long hair, there is no need for another covering. Let us suppose that your argument is right, just for argument's sake for a moment. And then just imagine that there is a woman with long, beautiful, flowing hair, and she's respectfully covered. And then she stands up and she begins to pray and she begins to prophesy. And then for some reason, in the middle of her prophesying, she removes her covering. If this position is true, that the covering is not needed because her hair acts as a covering, then Paul's response would have been something like, "Relax, gentlemen.

It's fine. For she has long hair given to her as a covering." But this is not what the apostle said. He said, "No, if she unveils herself in such a manner, then the very hair she has, which you say is her covering, should be shaven off."

Your interpretation of this doesn't make any sense. Just listen to yourself. If she prays with no head covering, then her other covering should be shaven off, which is not only shameful, but also leaves her completely uncovered. So now go back and put on the original head covering, which you took off in the first place.