Well, Grace and Peace, we're going to be finishing our series on the head covering. This is our third and final message in the series. I hope that you can go back and listen to the first two messages if you haven't heard the first two already. This third message is going to draw on quite heavily things that we've covered in the first two messages. I will summarize the first two messages very briefly though. In the first message, we did two major things.
So first, we saw that this passage, 1 Corinthians 11, is a passage that is used as a beachhead for many of the views of Scripture that I would call low views of Scripture, views of Scripture that don't take seriously the divine inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. We also ask the question, is this passage? Is this teaching about the head covering? Is it cultural or is it countercultural? And I gave seven reasons why it was and why it is countercultural.
I was even thinking after that message, isn't it interesting that so many people, they use this argument," Oh, well, if you had your head uncovered in the first century, what Paul was actually talking about was he was talking about prostitution. It's a complete urban myth. There's no evidence for this whatsoever, but it's a rumor or myth that you often hear. In fact, the Bible specifically refutes that. If you remember way back in Genesis, Tamar, the prostitute, she actually has her head covered.
So yet another reason why we can't simply dismiss this teaching on a mere cultural premise. We looked at the concept of this mighty universal dance where men and women are supposed to be differentiated and complementary, not clones of one another. We also talked about how each gender is supposed to image a different set of God's attributes. I want to elaborate a little bit more on this as we get ready to talk about some new material in this third message here.
There's an author whose name is Todd Wilson who contends that the female and male sexes don't, quote," simply fit side by side like peanut butter and jelly. They fit together in an interlocking pattern like puzzle pieces. They have been created for each other to complete each other in the most profound sort of ways." Peter Kreeft, some of you know him, he was in our just war debate. He, I think, makes a very beautiful point and draws on this metaphor by talking about land and sea.
And he says that land and sea are deeply satisfying together. And we can't quite analyze why we find that satisfaction and that peace and that sense of rightness. The shore is the most popular place on earth. Waterfront property is the most expensive property anywhere in the world because that's where the sea and the land meet. That's where man and woman meet. The land without the sea is kind of boring. It's desert. The sea without the land is kind of boring. Where are we going to land the ship?
But the place where they meet, that's where the action is and that's where we want to be. Another author whose name is McCracken, he says that contrast is fundamental to what we find beautiful. It is central to the most spellbinding paintings, the most memorable culinary experiences, the most stirring symphonies. Why are humans universally drawn to sunrises and sunsets as the most picturesque and strangely transcendent moments of the day?
Because they are the moments of most intense contrast between light, day, and dark night. He goes on to talk about water and rock, salty and sweet. Contrast is attractive and beautiful to us, in part because it gives life. Ecosystems flourish where water and rock intersect. New lives are born, where a male and female mate. Out of two halves, one flesh union. A new flesh is born. In the second message in our head covering series, we did a few things.
We showed how the conservative Protestant evangelical position is hypocritical because they will cite 1 Timothy 2, 1 Timothy 2, as you will hopefully recall, is a passage about how women are not supposed to teach or have authority over men. And conservative Protestant evangelicals will say," You see what kind of arguments Paul makes. He draws from creation. And therefore, it's binding on all of us. They make the argument that it's a transcultural passage.
However, when they come to 1 Corinthians 11 and Paul also makes a creation argument, in fact, he makes a much longer argument that involves creation and the nature of the Trinity and angels. Those same people will say, oh, well, this is obviously cultural, and this is obviously something that was just for the first century. It's a complete contradiction.
We looked at how the head covering cannot be long hair, and we showed that the context demands that this is not primarily about church gatherings, but it's about ordinary life. So again, go back and listen to that message if you missed it. We looked at a crucial passage, which is Matthew chapter 8, verses 8 to 10, where the centurion is interacting with Jesus. And the centurion tells Jesus," Lord, I'm not worthy that you come under my roof.
Only speak a word and my servant will be healed." And the crucial verse is verse nine, Matthew chapter eight, verse nine, where the centurion says," For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, go and he goes and to another one come and he comes and to my servant, do this and he do that." When Jesus heard it, he marveled and said to those who followed," Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel." So notice what the centurion said there.
He said," I also am a man under authority." The centurion realized that Jesus' power derives from Jesus being under authority. Of course, Jesus was under the authority of the Father. Submission generates power, and there is a submissive kind of authority that is more powerful than a bullying type of authority. We know that the crowds marveled at Jesus because of his authority.
In teaching, in doing miracles, we see King David in the Old Testament had a great power and authority from God, and I would say that was also because of his submissive posture. What we see in 1 Corinthians 11 is the woman, as with the man, now has the ability to pray and prophesy when she takes her right place in the celestial order that God has ordained. Now, we can't miss this point.
You know, so many people are blinded by the concept of the head covering, that they miss the fact that this passage is teaching that women have the power, have the ability to pray and to prophesy in this new covenant era. This is especially important because the ability to prophesy, which is no small gift, Paul will go on to say just a couple chapters from this one, that it is the highest gift that this ability to prophesy is now given to our Christian sisters in this age.
So may we not be blinded by this provision, this requirement for the head covering and miss the fact that there's an incredible gift that is being described, a significant power that is being given to our sisters, to our women. So today what we're going to do is we're going to go in the whole passage, verse by verse. We're going to bring in a couple more themes that we haven't yet introduced. We're going to talk about the meaning of the term pray and prophesy.
And I think you will find as we go through this passage now that we've set it up properly, that it's a very beautiful passage that uses a couple of themes very powerfully, and these themes, if you will, unlock the key to this passage. So we'll look at it today. So let's go through the whole passage, verse by verse, so that we can all see how everything comes together.
So let's start in 1 Corinthians 11:2." Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I deliver them to you." So Paul praises the Corinthians for keeping this apostolic tradition, which came from the outside. It was delivered to them. This was not some cultural practice they were keeping. It came from the Apostle Paul.
While most people in Corinth are keeping this apostolic tradition, which came from the outside, there are a few people that are disputing this practice. And this passage is written to correct this argumentative minority. Now, verses three to six, let's read these. But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of 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 that is one and the same as if her head were shaved. For if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered." So verses three through six are arguments rooted in this headship order that man's head is Christ, woman's head is man, and Christ's head is God.
And we talked before about how Paul does not use the language of master slave, but he uses head and body. And we drew on these two key phrases that people have proposed to describe the key dimension of this headship order, which is loving authority, which the head exerts, and glad submission, which the body exhibits. Loving authority and glad submission. And this is what the Father demonstrates. Loving authority. And the Son, Jesus demonstrates glad submission to the Father.
Now we need to come to this expression praying or prophesying. The very first time that this word prophesying is used is found in the Old Testament in Numbers chapter 11. Now the word praying, I think most of us get that. We're not going to spend as much time clarifying what praying means. I think most of us get that. But prophesying is a bit more nebulous. Often it's helpful to look at the very first place in Scripture where a word is used.
So let's look here at the, like I said, the very first place in the whole Bible where the term prophesy is used. Numbers chapter 11 verses 24 to 29. It says," So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord, and he gathered the 70 men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tabernacle. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him and took of the Spirit that was upon him and placed the same upon the 70 elders.
And it happened when the Spirit rested upon them that they prophesied, although they never did so again. But two men had remained in the camp. The name of the one was Eldad and the name of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those listed, but who had not gone out to the tabernacle, yet they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses and said," Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.
So Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, one of his choice men answered and said," Moses, my Lord, forbid them." Then Moses said to him," Are you zealous for my sake? Oh, that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them." All right, let's make a couple comments on this passage here. So Numbers 11, like I said, this is the very first place in the whole Bible where the term prophesy is used.
Here it says that a couple times it actually mentions that the Spirit, the Holy Spirit comes upon these elders, and it comes upon Eldad and Medad, and it rests upon them, and they prophesy. And it seems like what prophecy is, this will be made more clear in the next passage, but it seems like what we can say definitively here is that prophecy is closely associated with the Holy Spirit. Now, what are they actually doing?
Now, I think that what they were doing here was a form of very intense, very exuberant worship that was somehow notable to the people. If this is not clear, it becomes very clear the next time we see prophesying mentioned, which is found in 1 Samuel chapter 10. This is the very next time that the word prophesying is used. By the way, this is true both in Hebrew as well as in the Septuagint. So in 1 Samuel chapter 10, there's a fascinating passage that makes very clear what prophesying is.
In 1 Samuel 10 verses 5 to 6, it says," After that you shall come to the hill of God." So this is, I should say, this is Samuel speaking to Saul. So after that, you, Saul, shall come to the hill of God where the Philistine garrison is. And it will happen when you have come there to the city that you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with a stringed instrument, a tambourine, a flute, and a harp before them, and they will be prophesying.
Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. Okay, listen, a couple associations here. One, the Spirit is right there again. The Spirit is clearly there mentioned as Samuel tells Saul that the Spirit will come upon him and he will join them in prophesying. And what are they doing? They're obviously worshipping the Lord. It talks about these musical instruments that they're carrying and using and they're prophesying.
I find chilling and just an incredible idea. It says," The Spirit will come upon you, will prophesy with them and be turned into another man." Isn't that an amazing expression that when the Spirit comes upon Saul, it will be like he's a different person with a new boldness. This reminds me a little bit also of later on, when David is dancing before all the people, he doesn't care about what anybody thinks. He's bold, he's different from everybody else. This same idea, we won't read this passage.
You should go and read this in your own time. In 1 Samuel 19 verses 20 to 24, it mentions prophesying again. And this time, Saul is trying to capture David. And so he sends men to capture David. But when he sends these different groups of men, the Spirit comes upon them, and they prophesy. And they are unable to capture David because they are so moved by this spirit of worship. And then Saul himself goes to try to capture David and also ends up worshiping God and unable to capture David.
This same idea of prophecy being the Spirit of God coming on a person and worshiping continues in the New Testament. We won't look at these passages in detail. You can study these and read these on your own time. There's a fascinating parallel set of expressions in Acts 10:46. It says," They spoke with tongues and magnified God." And then in Acts 19:6, they spoke with tongues and prophesied. So notice how magnify God and prophesy are parallel there, parallel expressions.
And interestingly, in both of those passages, Acts 10 and Acts 19, the Holy Spirit is mentioned again. So in all of these passages, we have seen that prophecy is spirit-inspired worship. Now, there are other places. In the interest of time, we won't look at these, but you can do a word study on this. And this is a little bit easier to understand. If you look in books like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, prophecy is spirit-inspired speech towards humans.
So when the Spirit comes upon Ezekiel or Jeremiah, they are inspired to speak the words of God to humans. So prophecy seems like in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, it is when the Holy Spirit comes on a person and they either worship God or they speak towards others. I mentioned that prayer is an easier term to understand.
You may not as naturally think about the Holy Spirit being connected to prayer, but that's unfortunate because in Romans 8, for example, Paul says that the Spirit helps us when we pray. So even in New Testament prayer, the Holy Spirit is supposed to be active. So let's try to summarize this. What then are praying and prophesying? They're spirit-inspired activities, prayer, worship, or speech towards others. We can say a little bit more about praying and prophesying.
It's also a literary device called a merism, a merism. A merism is a literary device where the parts stand for the whole. So there's a famous Psalm, Psalm 139, verse 2, where David says," You know when I sit down and when I rise up, when I sit down and when I rise up." And that is a great example of a merism. Is David saying that God doesn't know the middle part when he's walking around? Well, no, of course not. He's saying that God knows the book ends of his day, and therefore he knows the whole day.
Jesus uses a merism when he says," I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." He's saying that he's the beginning and the end. Does that mean he's not in the middle? Of course not. It's describing the totality of existence. A merism is a literary device. In fact, this is confirmed by the fact that in Greek, just like in English, both of these words start with the letter P. There's alliteration there. Greek, which is prayer and prophecy.
So prayer and prophecy are to represent then the range of the spiritual life of a believer, the range of what the Spirit is doing in our lives as we are spiritually active. We need now to state the next key principle in this passage. And this is a common sense principle, but I believe this will completely change the way that you think about this passage. The principle is as follows. Sacred and significant moments call for differentiation of the genders. I'll say that again.
Sacred and significant moments call for differentiation of the genders. Okay, so what do I mean by this? Let's start with an easy example. Let's take one of the most sacred and significant moments in a person's life, a wedding. In a wedding, even among people who don't believe in God, but especially among those of us who do believe in God, we have a differentiation in dress.
Even today, in very secular parts of America, in secular societies, the woman wants to wear the dress and the veil and have the special garments there, and the man has the suit. Interestingly, there was a famous wedding that happened this summer, a royal wedding in England. And of course, the bride and the groom were very differentiated in their dress. The bride wore the traditional dress and the groom wore his suit. It was a military suit.
But what I found fascinating was that even the people coming to the wedding and watching the wedding, the guests, the audience, of course it was a royal wedding, so they had lots of famous people like Oprah and others. And I think every single person, I saw pictures of this event, every single person was differentiated. The women all had dresses and skirts, and interestingly, they wore hats. These are the guests now. These are not the people being married.
Even to witness this special event, it called forth a differentiation among the genders. When women go to a special ball or a special fancy dinner event or a symphony, or if they're playing in the symphony, again, instinctively, women and men differentiate. They wear their special dresses and they get all dressed up and it becomes a fancy event. Even Hollywood that is very anti-God when they have their awards, what are they called? Emmys, Tonys, something like that.
Again, the women, they all wear their dresses and the men they wear their suits. So both godly and ungodly people recognize and act on this principle that sacred and significant moments call for differentiation of the genders.
Now, if we are differentiating ourselves when we go to the symphony or some special dinner or a guest at a wedding, how much more should we not differentiate in sacred moments where the Spirit of God is upon us, where we are engaging in worship or prayer or prophesying to others, speaking the Word of God to others. How much more so should we not exhibit that same principle of differentiating in these holy and sacred activities? These sacred moments, they call for differentiation.
And what Paul is basically saying here is he's saying," Praying and prophesying, these are the bookends of our sacred moments. They call forth a differentiation." Because the woman is under the headship of the man, she is supposed to cover her head. Verse 4 says that if a man covers his head, his role of loving authority is undercut. And verse five says that if a woman uncovers her head, her role of glad submission is undercut.
Verse six goes on to say that if a woman doesn't want to cover her head, then she should just look like a man. She cut off her hair, hair, look like a man. But if that's a shame for a woman to look like a man, then she should cover her head. Okay, so verse two, let's just recap here before we go on. Verse two was an argument from apostolic practice.
Verses three through six are an argument from the headship order and that rely on this principle that sacred and significant moments call for a differentiation of the genders. Now, verses seven through 12 are going to be Paul's argument from creation. And verse seven is a little bit of a transition verse. It's a transition verse that we'll see draws its argument from creation. So let's look at verse seven. This is an important verse.
So it says," For a man indeed ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man." Okay, so this is probably the most challenging verse of the whole passage. It's the most offensive verse as well to our modern sensibilities, to our modern ears. I will contend, though, that this is not a difficult verse to understand.
The first part of this verse, verse seven, says," For a man indeed ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God." Okay, this makes sense. Why does it make sense? Because the man is supposed to be imaging this loving authority. He was created from the very beginning to be exercising dominion and to be the head in this enterprise. And therefore, he should not cover his head. His head should be shown.
The second part of the verse is more difficult, and we'll spend more time on that, where it says in verse seven, that woman is the glory of man. Now the first thing to notice, and this is very important, Paul does not say that the woman is made an image of man. I hope you can see that. In verse seven, it says that man is the image and glory of God, but in the second half of verse seven, it says that woman is the glory of man. Okay, so we need to talk about this. It says that woman is not the image of man.
She's called the glory of man. So what's going on with that term glory? To understand this term glory, it's helpful to look at how Paul uses this same word glory. Glory is a very rich word, and we could spend several sermons just unpacking this very important word glory here. But I want to show you how Paul, the same author, uses the word glory. It's a very important passage that many of you have heard me quote. I quote it often.
It's 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 19 and 20, where he says," For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting? Is it not indeed you before our Lord Jesus at His coming? For you are our glory and joy." Okay, so Paul's writing to the Thessalonians and he's saying like," What's my hope? What's my joy? What's my boasting?" It's you, Thessalonians, before Jesus at His coming. You are, you are my glory, Paul's speaking, and my joy. So when he says glory and joy there, what does he mean?
Well, I think it's obvious in that verse, but he means something like," You're my honor, you're my pride, you're my treasure." Treasure, I think, captures it well. He is boasting about them. Now let's think back to Genesis 1. When Adam wakes up from his surgery, so to speak, and he sees the woman, he rejoices because he has found his treasure. He says," At last!" He breaks out into poetry. It's the very first poem that humans speak is when Adam sees his wife.
He is so, so happy, so overjoyed because he has found what is going to complete him. He's found his wife. When he was naming the animals, he was searching for someone, something to complete him, but that wasn't there. But when he sees Eve, he recognizes that she is what's going to complete him. And thus, we have this beautiful picture from the very beginning of Genesis through the end of the New Testament, where the man cherishes the woman and the woman is to help her husband.
So the woman covers her head in this arrangement as a sign of glad submission that she is the helper and that her man, her husband is her head. Now, both man and woman are made in the image of God. This is very clear from Genesis chapter one, verses 26 and 27, and we're not going to read that. But in Genesis 2, when we get a more careful account, a more in-depth account of the creation of man and woman.
We see that man is made by God from the dust of the ground, and that woman is, of course, made from man's rib, from man's side. There's a bit of an analogy that maybe will be helpful to you about all of this, which is the analogy of moonlight. Now we know that, as I said, that man was directly created by God, and the woman was also directly created by God, but out of the rib of the man. Both, in some sense, come from the same source.
Both man and woman were created by God, but the woman's creation is something like the moonlight. She's created from the man. Just like the moonlight reflects the sun's glory by the moon. The creation order is important because the woman is made as the helper of the man. And this whole interpretation is, I think, confirmed that we're on the right track by verses eight and nine.
Verses eight and nine say," For man is not from woman, but woman from man, nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man." This fact that she was created secondly out of the rib of man does not diminish her significance or her worth. Just like people would say that moonlight is in some sense the most beautiful type of light. So it is with a woman, even though there's a reflected image that is manifest in the woman. Okay, now we come to verse 10.
And I mentioned at the very beginning that there is a mistranslation that has occurred in most of our Bibles, which we need to correct. So in the New King James, which I read from earlier, it says," For this reason, the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels." And if you look in your Bibles, in verse 10, if you have a King James or New King James or NASB, some of those translations do this, where, if you notice, the symbol of is in italics.
And the reason that it's in italics is because it's not in the original Greek. It is something that the translators have added because they think it should be there. In fact, I will make the strong contention that this should not be there. I much prefer the King James translation in this case. So the way the King James renders it is it says," For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels." I think that gets much closer to the sense of the Greek here.
In Greek, it's Exousian Echein Epi tes. So I did a fascinating study where I looked at all the places in the Bible where we have an expression that is close to that. So that word exousian is authority or power. Echein epi is the preposition, and then tes kephales, which is in the genitive. And I think this is just incredible. So I'm gonna read you from three places in the New Testament that have virtually identical language and grammar to what we have here in 1 Corinthians 11.
Revelation 2:26 says," And he," and you should turn to this," And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations." Okay, where it says there power over the nations, that is almost identical Greek to what we have in 1 Corinthians 11. The one who overcomes, this is Jesus talking in one of his letters, to the one who overcomes, that person will have power over the nations.
Revelation 11:6," These have power to shut heaven so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy, and they have power over waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with all plagues as often as they desire." Okay, that expression," Have power over waters to turn them to blood." Virtually identical Greek there.
Another one, Revelation 14:18." And another angel came out from the altar who had power over fire." And he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, and then he goes on to speak there. So all those have the identical grammar, exousian in Greek, epi, the preposition, and then the genitive. In all those episodes, in all those verses, I think you can clearly see the sense here, power over the nations, power over waters, power over fire. It means like power over something, control over something.
So what does this mean? What does this mean in the context of 1 Corinthians 11? Now, this is not my private view. There are excellent commentators who all agree that this passage has been badly mistranslated. What this means is that when it says the woman should have power over her head or power on her head, it's almost like someone else might be gazing at her hair and she's the one who's supposed to be in control. Now here's the light bulb moment. I hope the light bulb moment.
This explains, verse 10 explains why basically everybody or nearly everyone from the first few centuries of the history of the church, from the early church, they took 1 Corinthians 11 to be about modesty. Now a lot of us, when we read 1 Corinthians 11, we don't see modesty in it. We think like, what are they talking about? Where does this come from? Well, in fact, it comes from verse 10 here. And unfortunately, we tend to miss it because of our poor translation. We have a couple of examples of this.
There's more than two, but I'll give you two from the late second century, maybe early third century, that described this verse to be about modesty. I'll give you the references to here. So Clement of Alexandria, this is in volume two, page 578 of the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers. He clearly states that this passage is about modesty. Tertullian, who is writing from Carthage in North Africa, he has a whole book about this on the veiling of virgins.
And the bulk of his book is about how the head covering is about modesty. From chapter one on through the book, that's what it's about. And he says that both of them say that the woman needs to guard her glory, her hair from others' gazes. Now you're probably thinking at this point," Wait a minute, are you telling me that a woman showing her hair is immodest?
Are you telling me that a woman with an uncovered head is immodest?" Well, in fact, that is what I'm saying, and that's confirmed by reading other passages in the Bible. I want you to look with me at this passage here. It's Isaiah chapter 47:2. It's a passage that is a very helpful passage to give us some insight into what, in this case, this is God speaking here, but how God's speaking in the Scriptures, how he understands immodesty or nakedness to be.
So Isaiah 47:2, we're not going to spend much time on this, but he says," Take the millstone and grind meal. Remove your veil. Take off the skirt. Uncover the thigh. Pass through the rivers. Verse 3," Your nakedness shall be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen." Okay, so he gives three elements of what constitutes nakedness. So this is God speaking to Babylon here and Babylon is personified as being a woman. And there's three elements that make this woman naked or shameful.
And that's when her veil is removed, when her robe is removed, or when her leg is showing. Those are the three elements that are indicated there. In the Old Testament for a woman to have her head uncovered was to have nakedness or shame be manifest. This is confirmed as well by we're not going to read this passage.
We covered this in a different sermon series on the book of Numbers, but Numbers chapter 5, we find a similar idea where the woman normally has her head uncovered, and when her head is or sorry, the woman normally has her head covered, and when her head is uncovered, it is a sign of humiliation. Interestingly, it is still the practice today of Orthodox Jews to do the head covering, especially among married women.
So the traditional interpretation of the rabbis and the Jews drawing on passages like Numbers and Isaiah is that it is part of modesty to have the head covered. Now, even in secular society, so this is the Old Testament. This is what God revealed to the nation of Israel. But even in secular societies, we have the same sentiment that is expressed. So there's a work published in the second century. It's written in Latin. It's called Metamorphosis. It's by a man named Apuleius, and totally pagan writer.
And this is a line from this work here. It says," It has always been the prime concern of my life to observe in public the heads and tresses." Tresses are like the long ends of the woman's hair, tresses of beautiful women, and then to conjure up the image at home for leisurely enjoyment. So did you catch that?
He was saying," It's been the concern of my life, the object of my life, to see, to try to catch glimpses of women's hair and the ends of their hair, and then to go back home and try to remember them for basically lustful purposes." If you look at, as I said, secular pagan societies, look at India for thousands of years. This is a Hindu nation that did not meaningfully have revelation of God until much later. It was widely regarded that the women should cover their head.
And you still see that in ancient Indian art where the women will have their head covered with a veil. In Arabia, even before Islam, the women would cover their head in a sign of modesty. See, you're thinking," Okay, so in the Old Testament, God was saying in places like Isaiah and in Numbers that the woman should have her head covered and that when she didn't, it was nakedness. Secular societies have said that, I should say pagan societies have had that same sensibility, India, Arabia, places like that.
What happened to us? Why is it that we in America in 2018 don't even think twice now about a woman having her hair uncovered and that being connected to modesty? Well, I want to point out that we should not be so confident to rely just on our own culture, on our own sensibilities. You look at Europe as an example. You know Europe, which was once a much more explicitly Christian continent, today you go to their beaches, you go all throughout their site. There's nudity, just extreme nakedness everywhere you go.
And they think it's normal. To them, it's nothing. But we look at that and we're appalled and we think," Don't they see how inappropriate that is, how inviting that is to all of the wrong desires and lusts." And so we have an example in Europe of a nation that was once explicitly Christian, that has now lost its way, that it has lost the normal sensibilities and shame that it once had. I would make the contention that's precisely what we have gone through as well.
That as a nation, as a, really, much of the world now has lost that reserve, that God-given reserve that we once had. You know, if you look at pictures in America from colonial times and the 1800s, you know, women usually had their heads covered. This was the practice of women for most of history. So we need to be careful to trust, we need to be careful, I should say, to not trust our sensibilities. We need to remember that societies can lose their God-given sensibilities.
They can lose the revelation and the normal sensibilities that God has given us. We were once, Laura and I were once talking to a young man who had come over to our house. We were discussing this very passage, the head covering, and he made a fascinating observation. He said," Oh yeah, you know if you look at any grocery store magazine, when you're going through the checkout aisle, you see the woman and her hair is all long and flowing and it's just radiant." Why do they do that?
Well, they do that because they want you to put your eyes on that magazine and they want you to buy the magazine. It is a widely appreciated technique that Hollywood and the media uses to get your eyes to move over to a photograph, which is to use the woman's hair. The world knows that it's erotic and enticing and something that catches our eyes. When photographs are put before groups, both men and women, their eyes, they move to the women, and they often look at the hair.
This is exploited time and time again by companies. There's a company called Clairol, which is a company that makes hair dyes. And they ran an advertising campaign, just some of you have seen it, where they just show all of the woman's hair and sort of these lavish spreads as it's flowing about. And just the act of running these kinds of ads, they took the percent of women who dyed their hair. In 1950, in America, it was 7%. That moved up to 40% by 1970. Pretty amazing growth there.
Today, more than 100 million women dye their hair in the United States. So Hollywood knows that Hollywood and I should say marketers know how appealing and eye-catching hair is, and they exploit that. So when we look at verse 10, literally in Greek, it becomes about modesty. Paul in general, when he cares about something, he makes several different kinds of arguments that all support his statement there.
If you look at lengthy passages where he elaborates on, say, the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 or on meat offered idols, he hits that particular argument from several different angles. And so this modesty angle is another angle that Paul is taking there. It's a reinforcing argument. It's a different argument that he's made about headship, but nonetheless, it's an important argument. Now, the next question is, okay, I'm saying this is about modesty.
Having authority, having power over her head in this reading, is about exercising modesty by covering her hair to avoid the gaze of angels. Okay, so now the obvious question is, okay, well, what are these angels? Who are they? What are these angels all about? When we think of angels, we tend to think of these large creatures with these big wings, and we picture paintings from the Middle Ages. The word angel at its core, though, just means messenger. Okay, so the simple meaning of angels, messenger.
It certainly can be supernatural, good angels. It can also be demons. So here's an example, Revelation chapter 12, verse 7," And war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought." So Michael has angels, he's a good angel, and the dragon, who's the devil, and his angels fought. So demons here are called angels. Now the word messenger or angel, Angelos, can also be used about humans. John the Baptist is called an angel. It's in Mark chapter one, verse two.
Interestingly, Mark, when he describes the resurrection account, he says that there's a young man sitting in the tomb when the disciples come there. But the other gospel writers, they call that young man an angel. Hebrews says that people have showed hospitality to angels, but they didn't even know it. So presumably, these angels just look like regular people. So this is an example of a big word. It's a word that encapsulates a lot of different meanings. Good angels and bad angels and humans as well.
I grew up in a bilingual home where my parents would speak to each other and sometimes speak to us in a language called Malayalam. And I think when you especially grew up in a bilingual home, you get more a sense of some of the challenges that are involved in mapping words from one language to another. Because sometimes a word can be a really big word in one language and has all these different meanings and connotations.
But then in another language, you have to resolve it and make it much finer because there's no corresponding big word that maps on cleanly. I remember when I was, I think I was in high school, I was at home, and I was home alone with my grandmother. And my grandmother basically doesn't speak a word of English. And so I would have to use my poor broken Malayalam to speak with her. And I was sitting on the couch and I had asked my grandmother, I think she had asked me if I wanted a piece of fruit.
It was an apple or it must have been a pear, I think it was a pear.
She asked me if I wanted a pear and I said," Sure, I'll take the pear, but please wash it first." And the Malayalam word that I used was Kulikia, and she just bent over first in the confusion and said, like," What are you talking about?" And then I said," Kulica, yeah." And then I went and I took the pear from her and I went to the kitchen sink and I turned on the faucet and I ran the water over it and I showed her what I meant, you know washed the pear, and then she doubled over and laughed her.
And I didn't know what was going on, but she just thought it was hilarious that I said this word Kulakia and took the pear and washed it in the kitchen sink with the water. Well, my parents came home and of course my grandmother told her about that, told my parents about this, and my parents informed me that in Malayalam, the word kulicka, the word wash, is only used for humans. So I use this word a lot. My parents had used this word with me a lot. Like, you know, take a shower, take a bath.
But that there's a different word in Malayalam when you're washing something that's inanimate. And so, of course, you know I had no idea about this. And to this day, my parents tell that story. Whenever they're in the company of fellow Malayalam speakers, they all get a big laugh at my expense. One of the reasons why I'm a little shy to speak Malayalam. But it's just an example of this language mapping problem. So here we have this problem where this word angel is kind of a big word.
And again, most of us when we hear the word angel in English, we're thinking of a very narrow meaning there. There's other examples of this. The word faith. Pistis in Greek is faith, but it's also faithfulness. And it's really hard for us to hold both of those two together. So why is this all important? Well, I believe that the head covering that's described here in 1 Corinthians 11 is for all of those parties. And I think this is validated by the early church as well.
It's for good angels, it's for bad angels, and it's for humans. Good angels, demons, and for humans. And in fact, in the early church, you find people making reference to this particular passage, 1 Corinthians 11, and how the head covering gives protection and gives modesty in front of all of those parties. So let's think about this. Well, the good angels, the good angels remember very well when one of their own stepped out of his place, stepped out of his own order, and fell from heaven.
Of course, that was the devil. And when these good angels see humans and women, keeping with the divine order, they rejoice. When evil angels, when demons see women being immodest, they move in. Okay, so Tertullian specifically references this in his work there. He points out that, and he references that passage in Genesis 6, where it talks about these divine beings that come down and mate, they have intercourse with women, and they produce these nephilim, these giants.
And in some sense, that makes sense, because Paul is in Genesis. He's talking about the creation account. He's very clearly talking about the creation account. And so Tertullian in his mind just went a couple pages forward to Genesis 6. And he connected this reference to the angels and women to what Paul was referring to in 1 Corinthians 11. And this is not surprising as well. I'm going to read to you another passage. I think you should turn to this passage with me.
It's in 1 Timothy chapter 5, 1 Timothy chapter 5 verses 14 and 15. It's important for us to see how, in Paul's mind, the activity of women who step out of their divinely ordered place, how that is often connected to satanic activity.
So 1 Timothy chapter 5 verses 14 to 15." Therefore, I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully, for some have already turned aside after Satan." So breaking gender roles in Paul's mind, breaking these gender patterns that are God-given is associated with satanic activity. It's very clear here in 1 Timothy 4: 15.
So this is the thrust of what Paul is getting at here in 1 Corinthians 11 as well, that there are this array of parties, good angels, demons. Clement of Alexandria mentions humans who are tempted, just regular men who, when they see the woman's long hair, they are tempted to sin. All three of these are alluded to in the early church, and all are part of the meaning of this word angel. We don't need to delimit it just because of our English-speaking limitations.
We need to try to think about this in the original languages, which has, of course, angel being a bigger word. Okay, verses 11 and 12 are Paul's reminder that the creation story should not puff up the ego of the men, of the males, because he says," Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman nor woman independent of man in the Lord. For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman, but all things are from God." Verses 13 to 15 are the argument from nature.
Paul's argument is that according to nature, the heads of man and woman are to be different. He says that there are these validated practices that span cultures and times. He says," Nature itself." He says," Nature itself says that for men, men are not to have long hair." That's an oddity according to the standard of nature. And of course, again, if you look at most societies, most cultures, even today, in America, the norm is for men to have short hair, and the norm is for women to have longer hair.
That is described in verse 14," Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her. For her hair is given to her," and I mentioned this in the last message as a beautiful shawl. That was the first poor translation there. That word is not covering is not the best translation there. It's a different word than Paul uses elsewhere. So this is very, very important.
Now, verse 16 is an argument from the worldwide practice of the church. The verse can be a little bit confusing, but he's basically saying in verse, the King James, or sorry, the New King James translates it as," If anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God." So he's basically saying here that this is such a settled, clear manner that in God's churches, we don't even argue about this.
When it says we have no such custom or no such practice, he's talking about the arguing about it. And this is how the early church interpreted this as well, that this was so clear to them. This was such a given that we don't even have to argue about it. And this is the universal of the churches of God. Okay, so what I wanna conclude with is I wanna just give a few final points and address some commonly asked questions here.
We've gone through this whole passage now, verse by verse, and we need to just spend a few minutes talking about very commonly asked questions. So, the first thing I wanna say is, you know, this is, it is such an important passage, and there's a reason why Paul elaborates on this at such length and he gives so many different verses about it. But there are traps. You know, the head covering, like anything that is important in life, is going to have ditches and traps.
There's a few traps, I would argue, there's three main traps that people have fallen into with the head covering among those who practice it. So the first is fashion. The second is shame, and the third is overregulation. So fashion. So we have seen this, particularly in earlier periods of history, where in America, where the head covering becomes a fashion show, and it becomes these very elaborate displays of beauty.
Well, in fact, the whole point of this head covering is to veil beauty and to be modest not to attract attention. So that's an easy trap to at least recognize in theory. We need to make sure that in practice, we are not falling into that as well. The second trap, which is much more common, particularly among the churches that I have visited in the U.S., where this is practice is shame. You know, I recognize this is a very difficult command to follow.
And so often what we find is women and really the culture of that particular group or the culture of that particular church is ashamed of the head covering. And we've seen this so many times where the head coverings get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. They often are just in the back. You can't see it from the front. You can't see from even the sides or on top. It's just something that's applied to the back of the head. And it's very, to me, very sad when I see that.
These small posterior head coverings that are seemingly things that women are ashamed of. Now, one of the things that I would like to point out here is just the word covering, head covering. You know All of us need to stand before God one day who are husbands or who are women and ask the question and answer the question before God, did I wear something where it was a covering?
You know If I were to say, cover this table right over here, and somebody put a sticker on the side of it, well, we would say you didn't cover that table. Unfortunately, I think many of the so-called head coverings today can't properly be called that. They're not covering the head in any meaningful sense. And I would say that particularly these ones that can only be seen from behind, it is a stretch to call that a covering in any type of sense. So let's be on guard for shame. Let's be on guard of that.
I am very proud of followers of the way. I think our women do an amazing job with that. And often people will come and visit us and they will comment on this. And I've heard this many times where people will say," Oh, your women, their head coverings are larger than they are in many plain churches, for example." And I personally think that is good because our women of their own choice have made decisions to say," I'm going to have my head covered," just like that word covered is used in the normal sense.
The third trap that we have seen with this is the trap of overregulation. We can spend a whole message talking about just this trap, and I won't go into much detail here, but there are some churches that specify down to the centimeter about exactly what the head covering has to look like, and they become very culturally bound practices there. The scriptures don't lay out much detail about what that looks like. And I believe that because they don't, we should not specify either. It just says a covering of some sort.
And we should not yoke people with burdens that we ourselves have been unable to bear. And as I said, very often we have seen the churches have become just hyper-regulated on questions about details of the head covering that make the practice, unfortunately, an ugly, difficult practice. The next question that people will often ask is, oh, well, this is not a salvation issue. This is not a salvation issue, so I don't have to do it. This is something that's just an optional thing.
Well, this is a very unfortunate response, I think, to this. So first, we should say that when we look at the length of space that Paul devotes to it, and the language that he uses, I mean, even by saying, if you even wanna argue about this, you're not part of the churches of God, he doesn't treat this as some kind of minor, indifferent matter. He treats this as something that's very serious indeed. And so I would hope that our language and our gravity would match that of the scriptures.
And I think we can also ask questions like, when Paul does speak about matters that are disputable matters or optional matters, the same writer, you know he writes Romans, and he says," Okay, eating meat or eating vegetables." That's a disputable matter. Let everybody decide, you can stand on their own. Keeping days, wine, no wine. You know He gives specific areas that are clearly areas of liberty. He does not mention the head covering in Romans 14.
And I believe it is a wicked, presumptuous spirit that would say to the apostle Paul, who goes to all this detail here and gives such strong language around it. Oh, well, this is optional, even though when he clearly talks about optional areas, it is not mentioned there. In addition, let's consider the themes and the logic and the principles of this passage. How important are themes of pride, insubordination, modesty, conforming to the world?
As we have seen, when this passage is not practiced, it is a linchpin and the rest of the passages about gender roles tend to quickly fall away. So I ask the question, how important is family life? How important? Because we know consistently when churches fail to practice this, we have the disintegration of traditional gender roles and the biblical gender roles that are commanded in Titus 2, for example. So how important is the family unit?
This is a very important passage, and I believe that this passage is one of the most important passages that are going to hold together the center around a whole array of issues involving gender. Next question is people will say, oh, well, this is just taught by Paul. It's not taught by Jesus, so it must not be that important. Well, again, similar answers can be given there. When Paul, for example, addresses the practice of homosexuality, and he clearly speaks about homosexuality in Romans chapter one.
People make the same argument. They say, oh, well see, Paul talks about homosexuality, but Jesus doesn't. So therefore, this is something that we don't have to take very seriously. And these types of arguments are strained at best. If it is mentioned by the apostles of Jesus, it is binding on us. But even more importantly, this is not just a Pauline command. Well, why do I say that? This is something that Jesus taught, and I will say that it's definitely something that Jesus taught. How do I know that?
Well, when Paul mentions things that are his personal teachings, his personal views, he tells us that. So for example, in 1 Corinthians 7, same book, when he's writing about his own views, his own opinions, he says," I say not the Lord." So like I, Paul, say this, but not the Lord Jesus. So he tells us, he waves a little flag and tells us when he's giving us his opinion, that's not Jesus' view here. But in this case, he's telling us about the universal practice of the church.
It's very clear from chapter 11:2 and verse 16, that all the churches are doing this. So this must be something that all of the apostles are doing. Well, why are all the apostles doing it? Because, of course, the apostles all learned from Jesus. We know that Jesus taught the apostles for 40 days from the resurrection to the ascension. And this must have been one of the teachings that Jesus gave because it emerged as a universal in the early church. Another question is when to wear it.
And we've talked about this before a little bit, but you know we've said in the previous message, I mentioned that the context here is not about church meetings, the context here is ordinary life. And now that we've gone through the whole passage, I think we can ask a couple of other questions and really answer the question. Many people have said this, and I think it's a good answer.
They say," How often should we be praying?" Well, we all know that Paul himself says," Pray without ceasing." Jesus says to His disciples that He wants them to pray always and not lose heart. So to the extent that we're supposed to be praying throughout the day, we should have our heads covered, or women should have their heads covered throughout the day. We can ask parallel questions similar to what the principle is here of this passage. When do we want the power of the Holy Spirit?
We talked about this in the praying and prophesying section. Another question. When is modesty appropriate in verse 10? Verse 10 is certainly about modesty. So we can ask the question, when is modesty appropriate? Well, whenever modesty is appropriate, the head covering is appropriate. It doesn't mean 24 hours a day when you're sleeping, you know when we're sleeping and when we're in the shower. Obviously, there's places that is not necessary.
But for most of life, for interacting with people, again, just ask the question, when is modesty appropriate? How often should I be praying? When do I want the Spirit's power? I want to close by just encouraging our sisters. Our sisters, as I said, I am very proud of them. I am very proud of my wife. I'm very proud of the sisters and followers of the way. I want you all to take heart because I know it is difficult.
Last time after I gave the second message in the series, we had heard stories that Matthew Milioni had mentioned about spiritual power that comes to our sisters who obey this command. In a society that has completely rejected the head covering, I want you to know that you are the real heroes. That we live in a society today that I believe is in deep bondage.
Bondage to Hollywood, bondage to public opinion, bondage to corporations, bondage to just this worldview image that is pumped out again and again and again and again. And when I see a woman with her head covered, I see liberation. Liberation from these powers and systems and worldly structures that are hindering the lives of most women. For most women who follow the path of media and advertising and broader society, well, that doesn't take courage, but it takes courage to be different from the world.
It takes courage to walk down the streets of Boston and to be bold in this witness. We know that God rewards boldness. Just like God rewarded Daniel and his three friends for being faithful in a society that wasn't, so you too will be rewarded. In this life, you will enjoy far greater spiritual power. You know And this is something that I believe our sisters have to apprehend in faith. By faith, when you wear the head covering, you gain God's blessing in praying and prophesying.
This is something that I don't know that it works when we're operating in shame or in prideful displays. But when we're doing it in faith to reach out and apprehend God's promises, we gain God's blessing. And we ought not to forget that God's Spirit gives the highest power, this power that we talked about from Matthew 8, this power derived from submission to those who follow this command. And in the next life, you will be vindicated.
I often joke with my wife about this, and I commend her, and I bless my wife often for her courage and her boldness to follow the biblical teaching here. And I tell her that I wonder whether or not in the next life she will have a richer or greater reward than I will. That her mansion, maybe a more beautiful, greater mansion than my structure is.
And I often tell her that in your greatness and in your reward in the next life, 100 million years from now, I hope that you remember me, your husband, who you were married to in this life. And I believe that there is going to be a great reward in this life and in the next for our sisters who by faith and encourage follow the command of our apostles.