Understanding Head Coverings in 1 Corinthians

Hey everybody, it's Matt. I just wanted to pass this information along to you. It is the best explanation for head coverings I have ever heard. This subject is sorely misunderstood. I had no idea really what it was talking about until I heard this lecture, and I've saved it for like 15 years, and I feel like it's time to pass this on to you because I think people are very confused about it. It's by Dr. Rick Oster of Harding School of Theology in Memphis, Tennessee, my alma mater, and let's hear what he has to say. Sometimes when people have read... 1 Corinthians 11, particularly verses 4 and 5, where it talks about men praying and prophesying with their heads covered, or women praying and prophesying with their heads uncovered. People have thought that, well, Paul was talking about hats. You know, women should wear hats to church or have on head coverings when they come in the church building. Well, I want to present some information that I think will shed some light on what was really going on in Paul's day, and maybe give us a better understanding. of the kind of situation he's dealing with. Now, before we look at the evidence and actually look at the text, let me talk for just a minute about the city of Corinth. This is a letter to the Church of God in Corinth. Church of God in Corinth. This is not a letter to the church in the Bible Belt. And so this is a letter to a first-generation mission church where the people who are Christians have been Christians less than five years, and a lot of them were converts out of paganism. And so they bring into the Christian community those whose conversions were not as deep or who were weaker Christians. They brought in a lot of their practices and customs that they had before they became Christians. Same kind of situation that our missionaries face today when they go to various cultures and countries. And as people become Christians, they bring some of their culture into the church. And, of course, we all bring some culture into the church, but some of it's more acceptable than other aspects of culture. Sometimes we have the problem when we think about the ancient church and the people who were converted to it. We just lump all those people together as Gentile converts, pagan converts. And we assume, incorrectly, that they were all cut out of the same cloth culturally. We had a variety of cultures in the ancient world just like we do. And everybody who lived in Corinth did not come from the same culture either. The city of Corinth is a Roman colony, even though it's located in Greece. It was made a Roman colony by Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. We've got a strong manifestation there of Roman values, Roman civilization. Since it's in Greece, of course, we're going to have Greek culture there. There will certainly be some Jewish people there. There's going to be some Egyptian people there, people from Asia Minor. So it's a real collection of people from various cultural backgrounds. And these people from different cultures didn't always do religion the same way before they became Christians. And so there is this variety. And I want you to keep that in mind because we're going to be looking at some cultural backgrounds to the practices that are mentioned in chapter 11, verse 2. Now, what has happened in the history of the interpretation of this, if you look at most older commentaries, the way this is interpreted, that is chapter 11, verse 2 following. is that in the church in Corinth, there was a group of women that were kind of troublemakers. And they didn't keep their heads covered like they were supposed to. And maybe people thought they looked like prostitutes because their heads weren't covered when they came to church. And that Paul was trying to tell them that the women ought to go around with their heads with the veil on all the time so they wouldn't look like prostitutes. And that's a pretty standard interpretation. A problem with that interpretation is there's nothing in the section that really indicates that. That's just kind of one of those traditions, kind of like that there were three wise men. Just one of those traditions that kind of grew up and everybody thought it was the right one. We're going to look at some verses in the text that I think will show us that there are other ways to possibly look at this. So let's start in verse 4. Right away we notice that Paul has some concerns about the way that Christians are worshiping that has to do with what the men are doing. One thing that's often happened in the interpretation of these verses is that people have said, well, these troublemakers, these problem areas are because of some women in the Corinthian church. And, of course, the people who said that were men, right? That's who wrote most of the commentaries and said that. Verse 4 indicates that there are some things that the men are doing that also need to change. And so verse 4 says, every man who has something on his head or has on a veil or has his head covered, while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head. And so really what the text indicates, if you just look at the text, is that there are men who have on some kind of veils when they shouldn't, and there are some women who don't have on veils when they should. So I'm going to start by saying that this is not just a problem with the women. And certainly if you read verses 4 down to verse 16, which is the end of the section, you'll see that he has equal attention, gives equal attention, to male behavior that needs to change, as well as to female behavior that needs to change. What in the world is going on when he refers to men having their heads covered when they pray and prophesy? I mean, what in the world is that all about? Well, the background for that, and we're going to look at some slides in a moment and talk about some ancient cultural practices. The background for men having their heads covered when they worshiped comes right out of Roman culture. Right out of Roman culture. It was the normal practice. in Roman culture, not Greek culture, not Egyptian culture, not the culture of Asia Minor. It was the normal practice in Roman culture. And remember, Corinth is a Roman colony. The Romans, when they would worship, when they would pray, prophesy, or offer sacrifice, they would take their Roman toga that they wore, and they would take part of it and pull it up over the top of their heads and kind of cover their head and ears. and we're going to begin in just a second to look at some slides, because I want you to be able to visualize what this looked like in the ancient world, so that when we read a verse, like in verse 4, it talks about men having head coverings on and having their heads veiled, not their faces, their heads covered, that we don't say, well, it's really just a problem with the women, and probably Paul just wrote that verse in there just to kind of have some men mention that they really weren't doing anything wrong. Now, this is a statue of a Roman emperor, and the Roman emperor, as he was portrayed in statuary, would sometimes have on his military attire. Sometimes he would have on the attire for his office as high priest. The Roman emperor was also the high priest of Roman religion, the Pontifex Maximus. And so whenever they wanted to picture the emperor in his religious attire, This is how he would look, and you notice that his head is covered. And the reason it is is because this was the normal way that Romans dressed when they worshipped. When they prayed, they prophesied, or they sacrificed. And so this is one of just numerous examples of some statues. Here's a picture of a bust of a Roman. And again, we don't have all the statues, but we have the part that's relevant to our discussion. And do you see the head covering? It's not a facial covering. It's not like you might find in the Muslim world today where women have their face covered. It's a head covering. And that's exactly what Paul is describing in verses 4 and 5. This is an altar that has a sacrificial scene on it. And you can see that animal is the animal that's going to be sacrificed on the altar. And you see the people standing around the altar who are going to participate in the worship. So that's the three occasions on which Romans covered their head, was prayer, prophecy, and sacrifice. And as you notice in 1 Corinthians 11, 4, and 5, the very two practices Paul mentions are when Christian men and Christian women pray or prophesy. This is a detailed picture from a very important Roman monument that early... first century AD, called the Ara Pacis. It's called the Altar of Peace. And this monument's a pretty large monument, and it has friezes down the side of it, stone friezes down the side of it. And one of the scenes shows some of the Roman royal family going to sacrifice. And again, you can tell that some of these people have their head covered who are going to participate in this. And you see the fellow with the axe over his shoulder. That's to be used in the sacrifice, the ceremony of sacrifice in the animal. That's not for, you know, chopping down a tree or something. Here's another monument, and this has to do with prophecy. It has to do with prophecy. Once again, when Romans did this is when they prayed, they prophesied for an offered sacrifice. And the person on the left in this monument is a woman, because Roman women also did this. This was kind of a unisex. practice in Roman culture that Roman men and Roman women would have their heads covered. And you see the person in the middle has a little wand, kind of like maybe a shepherd's staff in their hand. That is a wand that was used in prophecy. When Romans would prophesy, when they would have prophets or religious officials who would give prophecies, they would carry that wand that's in the hand of the person in the middle. And so that makes it really clear that this is a religious scene. What's being depicted here is a religious occasion that included prophecy. Next, here is another part of a sacrificial scene. This is really only about a third or a fourth of the entire picture, but it's... I showed you the whole thing, it'd be so small, you couldn't see all of it, but this is the part that's relevant. And you see one of the animals that's coming to see sacrifice, and you see the person that is officiating it. The person that's kind of leading in the ceremony has his head covered. Now, if you had 10 or 15 people at a particular religious service, not everybody wore the head covering. If you were just, so to speak, in the audience, you didn't wear the head covering. The person who would wear the head covering would be the person who was kind of doing the ceremony. The person who was praying, the person who was prophesying, the person who was doing the sacrifice would wear this head covering. And the people who were just watching just had their heads uncovered. So you see the person who's at the altar, unlike some of the other people, actually has his head covered. This is a picture from a Roman coin that comes from the late... first century BC, and this practice that I'm talking about, this Roman practice of wearing a head covering when you pray, prophesy, and sacrifice, we can document this in the archaeological artifacts as well as the literature from at least the second century BC up into the second and third century AD, and we can document it from around the Mediterranean basin, everywhere... there were Romans. And so certainly a city like Corinth, which was a Roman colony, and certainly one thing you do in a Roman colony, you promote Roman things, right? That's what a colony does. Well, this coin is a picture from the late first century BC, and it shows the individual with the worship head covering on, and you see that little jug behind his neck? That's a jug that was used for libations. for liquid sacrifices. And then you see in the front part where his neck is, you also see that stack. That was a logo used in religious services, the prophetic, when they were giving prophecies. I just wanted you to be aware of the fact that this imagery, this visual symbolism, was in statues, it was in artwork, it was on the coins that they handled and touched. This information that we're looking at is not... secretive. You didn't have to be a member of the Roman Senate to know about this. This was common knowledge. The evidence for this practice is known everywhere in the Mediterranean world where the Romans went. We have Greek authors, Greek authors, who talk about this and say this is how the Romans do it. We have Roman authors that talk about it. And it's visually available to us through things like statuary, friezes, monuments, altars. coins. So the information for it is pretty widely available in the ancient world. Next? Alright, that's the end of it then. So I wanted you just to have a few minutes to look at that. So as I talked about this, you would in your mind's eye be able to visualize the kind of physical practice that Paul has in mind here. Now, So when Paul says in verse 4 and 5 that there are men in the congregation who are doing two of the three things that the pagans would have been doing, that is, praying and prophesying, that they had their heads, at least some of the men, had their heads covered, and there were some women in the church who were praying and prophesying with their head uncovered, this practice was bothering Paul. Now, it seems to me, verses 4 and 5, you have to conclude, at least I have to conclude, that... as Christians were getting together in Corinth on their assemblies and their get-togethers, that you have men, Christian men, at least some of them, when they prayed and when they prophesied, they would, like they had always done before they became Christians, they would pull this toga up over their head. And you have some women who are in the Christian get-togethers, who are praying and prophesying, who are not doing that. Now, When we think about the church in Corinth, I'm assuming, and I think most interpreters would agree with this, that the makeup of the church in Corinth... would have represented various cultures that were available in the city of Corinth. So when people would get together in house churches, you would have some people there who were Roman. You would have some people who were Greek. You would have people who were Egyptian. You would have people who were Jewish. People who probably came from Asia Minor. And they would all bring to the church kickliness. first-generation mission church, they would bring all kind of practices and customs that they were used to from their pre-Christian lives. Some of those would be acceptable. Some of them would be unacceptable. Just like today, when the gospel is taken anywhere, whether it's some tribe in Africa or a lot of Texas, that people come into the Christian faith, they bring with them. All kinds of baggage, all kinds of things from their culture and their heritage. Some of them are acceptable. Some are not acceptable. Well, that's going on here. And so the men, in verse 4, who would have their head coverings on when they prayed and prophesied, would be people who were Roman. Roman in their cultural background. And when they were growing up, because remember, none of these people have been Christians over probably four or five years. So as they were growing up, whenever they would worship their gods and goddesses, they always pulled a toga over their heads. And that's the way mom and dad had always done it, and grandma and grandpa had always done it that way, and all their aunts and uncles, and all their priests did it that way. And just everybody who prayed and was very religious, that's how they did it. And so when they became Christians, they didn't, some of them didn't seem to need to quit doing it that way. So they, you know, becoming a Christian didn't mean you had to quit wearing a toga. Okay? And so as they wore their togas, when it was time to pray to the true God, they just did it the way they'd always been doing it. They just pulled that thing up over their head. Then you have some women, and these would be non-Roman women, women from cultures that didn't pull up their head coverings when they prayed and prophesied, and that would be everybody but Roman women, women from Greece, women from Egypt, women from Asia Minor, Jewish women. everybody but the Romans, the women would have remained uncovered when they prayed and prophesied. And so Paul gets a report, because when Paul writes 1 Corinthians, of course he's not in Corinth, he's over across the Aegean Sea in Asia Minor, over Ephesus. And so he gets a report from the house of Chloe about various issues that are going on in the church. Some are big issues and some are little issues. Some have grave consequences, some are not so grave in terms of their consequences. Some have to do with morality, sexual ethics. Some have to do with Christian assembly issues, worship issues. Well, chapter 11, chapter 11, is a chapter that has to do with issues that are going on in the assembly when they get together in their house churches. And so the first issue, and this is the one we're looking at in more detail, is head covering and praying and prophesying. And the second issue is Lord's Supper. Now, that's the part of chapter 11 we usually spend more time on, because we, you know, have more focus doctrinally on the Lord's Supper. But for Paul, these are two issues that have a common thread, and that is they have to do with worship issues. Things that the Corinthians are doing in worship that he finds unacceptable or problematic. But, if you look at the two issues, the level of Paul's concern is not the same. If you look, for example, at verse 2, 11-2. This is the introduction to this head covering issue. He says, now I praise you because you remember me and everything and hold firmly to the traditions just as I delivered them to you. So he introduces the first problem that he wants to deal with basically with positive language. He says, now I praise you. Now contrast that with his introduction to the second problem, which is in verse 17 following, which introduces the issues about the Lord's Supper. The abuse is there, and he says, but in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better, but for the worse. So in terms of the two issues in the chapter, the one we're looking at, Paul is not as upset about. He can kind of introduce the topic with language of praise, and then try to get some correction. In contrast to the second issue. where he says, man, I can't praise you at all about this issue, about how you're misdoing the Lord's Supper. In fact, you're doing it so badly, it would be better if you didn't come to church. You'd better stay home. and do it the way you're doing it. So we need to keep that in mind as we look at this issue. Now, why is Paul dealing with this issue? I mean, what's going on in Paul's mind? Why does he care, right, what they've got on their heads? Well, we want to notice that Paul is not concerned about what people wear and don't wear when they come to church. This is not a verse that talks about what men and women do when they come in the church building. Now, this verse has often been put that way. That's why a lot of... Christian women through the ages thought they were to wear a hat to church. They would go look at this verse. Well, this isn't what this verse says. This verse does not say, in, for example, verse 5, okay, but every woman who has her head uncovered when she comes to church disgraces her head. And he's certainly not talking about general Christian attire, like how modestly or immodestly you should dress when you go to the shopping center. for the shopping mall. He's not talking about that. He's talking very concretely and very specifically, he says in verse 5, every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying. That's the issue, okay? As women are involved in a congregational setting, in the presence of men, women are praying, women are prophesying. just like the men are. Paul doesn't have any problem with that. What he has a problem with is the way it looks when you have men who have their heads covered, which is a sign of submission, while in the same kind of worship service, you have women who have their heads uncovered, which tends to be more a position of authority. That's why this section is introduced in verse 3. with some discussion about relationships between men and women. So look at verse 3. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ. So that's kind of the theological position that he's concerned about, is this position of the relationships fundamentally between men and women. That's the issue in the chapter. And that this practice they have, this practice they have, is blurring that distinction, it's confusing the issue. So he hears from Chloé, people from Chloé's house, that when some of the saints get together in their house churches or synagogues or wherever they were meeting, that in the same get-together, because Paul really didn't care what the men would have done by themselves or the women would have done by themselves, and we don't have any evidence that they met separately by gender anyway. There is really no evidence of kind of ladies'Bible classes in the early church. But when they're together, both men are praying and prophesying, women are praying and prophesying, he doesn't have any problem with that. But the problem is, is that the way they're doing it, it's communicating some things about the relationship between men and women and this issue of headship that Paul finds inappropriate. And so what he says is, This cannot go on like it is. Now, verse 16, he just jumped down a little. Paul says, but if anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice nor have the churches of God. One thing you certainly know as you study Paul's letters is that his churches didn't always just applaud all of Paul's ideas. Paul had to write these churches, and in many churches he had people who disagreed with him, people who mildly disagreed with him, people who strongly disagreed with him. He had opponents in these churches. And so in verse 16, he acknowledges that not everybody is going to buy this argument, that when the men and women in the church of God in Corinth get this letter, and they're reading down, and they get to what we call chapter 11, some of them are going to read this. argument he gives in verses 2 following, and they're going to say, Paul, you have lost it. Paul, I do not agree with you. Paul, I don't plan on changing my practice. And so Paul acknowledges in verse 16 that there are people in the church who are contentious. So we're going to read this and say, nah, we're going to keep doing the way we want to do it. Heck with Paul. After all, he's not here anyway, right? He's over in Ephesus on the other side of the GNC. Now, who would have said something? Who would have been so unkind to Paul, right? Well, certainly probably the people who are Roman would have been. They're going to say, Paul, what difference does it make whether our heads are covered or not? Particularly the guy. because this is the way they've been worshiping forever. But their head's covered. And here's Paul. Paul's coming. They've got to quit this. And so we think probably this is some of the opposition that he's anticipating. And that's why, then, he gives the argument about hair. Because a lot of the rest of the chapter, down through verse 16, he says about hair length. Now, what in the world is going on with this hair length argument? This is what I think is going on, is that... Some people are going to say to Paul, Paul, we just don't see it this way, that this head covering has anything to do with anything. It just strikes us differently than it does you from our cultural background, that what's on your head has nothing to do with gender at all. See, because Paul says it does have something to do with gender. And some people are going to say, Paul, it doesn't have anything to do with gender. And so what Paul is trying to do is to give a supporting argument. from nature to say, listen, nature would teach you that what's on your head in terms of a covering has something to do with nature. And so to kind of summarize his argument about hairline and whether your head is shaved, whether you're bald or have long hair, Paul is basically saying, and this is kind of a real paraphrase, is that, look, folks, if you woke up tomorrow morning, and all the men had long hair and a lot of the women were bald, you would know something strange had happened during the night. You just wouldn't see that. The next morning on your way to the forum or whatever, and all the guys had long hair and the women were bald, you would know something really peculiar had happened during the night. You just wouldn't see that and say, so what? And so the whole thing about the hairline is not that you've got... guys coming to church who have hair down to their shoulders or women who are coming to church who are bald. But it's an argument based on what he assumes would be common ground. That they would say, yeah, in terms of gender, what men have as a covering is different, given by God, than what women have. And so it's really just a supporting argument. It's not that Paul is saying you must have your hair cut a certain length before you come to church. But it's just a supporting argument. to try to get them to see where he's coming from. Now, as you're aware, how we view things does depend on our cultural background. Certainly there are women in tribal places in Africa who come to church dressed in a way that would not be acceptable at Broadway Church, right? In fact, even the city would say it's illegal. And in places in the Middle East. where we have congregations. A lot of those people would find the way that most of you women come to church in a long way unacceptable. Because we can see your faces and we can see your legs. That's just unacceptable in certain cultures. And some tribal regions in Africa, they would wonder why we wore so much to church. And so certainly people in different cultures are going to view dress. and custom differently based on various cultures. And so Paul here is a missionary in one of these multicultural settings, and he's trying to bring to bear his understanding of God's plan in terms of men and women and leadership in the church in a setting that has a lot of cultures represented. So in verse... Sixth following, he says, for if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off. But is it disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or head shaved? Let her cover her head. And so Paul is talking about the literal head here when he's talking about dishonoring the head. I don't think he's talking about that she dishonors her husband who is her head. Because he goes on to talk about shaving the physical head, and he says that disgraces the physical head. Now, that might not strike you as the case, but it would most people in the ancient world. And then he picks up in verses 8 following, kind of the theology that he has in verse 3, which talks about headship. There's a lot of debate among scholars about what the word head implies in terms of this context. Obviously, sometimes it refers to this thing on your shoulders, but many times it's used metaphorically. and scholars debate about that, what exactly the imagery is. It seems to me that it includes ideas related to leadership. That's going to be expressed differently in different cultures. The idea of leadership, particularly in this case, male leadership, is going to be expressed differently. For example, in 1 Peter, Sarah is commended for obeying Abraham and calling him Lord. But you see, I mean, that's not something we would really promote, I don't think, in terms of kind of a manifestation of, in every culture, the women have to call their husbands Lord. In the days of Sarah and Abraham, that's the way it was. And in general, Peter is kind of commending that position of leadership of Abraham that wives need to have some term of respect that they use for their husbands in terms of something like sir or lord or salute or any of these kind of things. And so this is going to vary from culture to culture. But Paul is saying, I think, that in terms of just the creation of men and women, that this area of headship has been set up according to verse 3. So he goes through the Genesis account and certainly talks about interdependence between the genders and that verse 11, neither is woman independent of man nor is man independent of woman. But he is trying to spell out here, I think, in Genesis, the Genesis account kind of to support. the theology of verse 3. Then he gets down to 13, and he says, judge for yourselves. Now, Paul's letters are basically letters and documents that are involved with persuasion. I mean, Paul really cannot make the Corinthians do anything. He really can't. He can tell them what they should do. He can make some threats and warnings. He can talk about the implications of their disobedience. But in the final analysis, Paul, really reflecting the character of God, is involved in the issue of persuasion. God is trying to persuade us. I mean, God did not put, you know, a headlock on Adam and Eve. He told them the truth. He told them about consequences. He tries to persuade them. Throughout biblical literature, God's representatives are trying to persuade his people. And that's what Paul is involved in in these letters. These are documents of persuasion. Because Paul knows he's not going to be around forever. And in this case, he's not even in the same town anymore. He's gone off somewhere else. And so as he gives instructions, he does acknowledge. that they themselves have to evaluate this. You know, Paul does not suffer from an identity crisis. He's not, if he writes a letter, he doesn't think, well, I hope I'm right. I mean, he certainly, you know, his conviction is he's speaking at the behest of God, and he's writing with apostolic authority. But he knows that the men and women who get this letter have to evaluate and be persuaded by the argument. So he says, judge for yourself. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Now, again, he's assuming by verse 13 that women are going to be praying and prophesying in these get-togethers. Now, that shouldn't really come as a big shock to us if we are students of Acts chapter 2. Because Joel, the text out of Joel chapters 2 and 3, that are quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost, say that the Christian men and women are going to prophesy. And so we shouldn't be shocked to find women prophets. It was prophesied on the day of Pentecost that the church would have women prophets. And certainly as you look at the birth of Jesus, those first two chapters of Luke, and you see the people who are on the very inner, inner, inner circle of God's plan, you see Elizabeth and Zachariah, you see Anna and Simeon. And you've got both the men and women who are on the very inner circle of God's plan for the birth of Jesus. Both men and women who are being filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. They're kind of anticipating what's going to happen once the church arrives and the day of Pentecost begins. Because they are very special people that God is using to kind of prepare the story for the arrival of God's kingdom. And so what we have in women like... Elizabeth, and of course Mary, and then Anna are women who are giving prophecies that kind of anticipate this in the early church. And so Paul's concern here is certainly not about the fact that women are praying and prophesying. The concern is whether they're doing it in a way that dishonors the biblical understanding of male leadership. So what did you think about that? What did you learn? I would love to hear from you in the comments about anything you learned from that that you had no idea about. I learned so much the first time I heard this. Listening to it again, I just learned so much more. So if you hadn't subscribed to the channel, I would love for you to do that now. And I hope you have a blessed day.

Hey everybody, it's Matt. I just wanted to pass this information along to you. It is the best explanation for head coverings I have ever heard. This subject is sorely misunderstood.

I had no idea really what it was talking about until I heard this lecture, and I've saved it for like 15 years, and I feel like it's time to pass this on to you because I think people are very confused about it. It's by Dr. Rick Oster of Harding School of Theology in Memphis, Tennessee, my alma mater, and let's hear what he has to say. Sometimes when people have read...

1 Corinthians 11, particularly verses 4 and 5, where it talks about men praying and prophesying with their heads covered, or women praying and prophesying with their heads uncovered. People have thought that, well, Paul was talking about hats. You know, women should wear hats to church or have on head coverings when they come in the church building.

Well, I want to present some information that I think will shed some light on what was really going on in Paul's day, and maybe give us a better understanding. of the kind of situation he's dealing with. Now, before we look at the evidence and actually look at the text, let me talk for just a minute about the city of Corinth.

This is a letter to the Church of God in Corinth. Church of God in Corinth. This is not a letter to the church in the Bible Belt. And so this is a letter to a first-generation mission church where the people who are Christians have been Christians less than five years, and a lot of them were converts out of paganism. And so they bring into the Christian community those whose conversions were not as deep or who were weaker Christians.

They brought in a lot of their practices and customs that they had before they became Christians. Same kind of situation that our missionaries face today when they go to various cultures and countries. And as people become Christians, they bring some of their culture into the church. And, of course, we all bring some culture into the church, but some of it's more acceptable than other aspects of culture. Sometimes we have the problem when we think about the ancient church and the people who were converted to it.

We just lump all those people together as Gentile converts, pagan converts. And we assume, incorrectly, that they were all cut out of the same cloth culturally. We had a variety of cultures in the ancient world just like we do. And everybody who lived in Corinth did not come from the same culture either.

The city of Corinth is a Roman colony, even though it's located in Greece. It was made a Roman colony by Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. We've got a strong manifestation there of Roman values, Roman civilization.

Since it's in Greece, of course, we're going to have Greek culture there. There will certainly be some Jewish people there. There's going to be some Egyptian people there, people from Asia Minor.

So it's a real collection of people from various cultural backgrounds. And these people from different cultures didn't always do religion the same way before they became Christians. And so there is this variety.

And I want you to keep that in mind because we're going to be looking at some cultural backgrounds to the practices that are mentioned in chapter 11, verse 2. Now, what has happened in the history of the interpretation of this, if you look at most older commentaries, the way this is interpreted, that is chapter 11, verse 2 following. is that in the church in Corinth, there was a group of women that were kind of troublemakers. And they didn't keep their heads covered like they were supposed to. And maybe people thought they looked like prostitutes because their heads weren't covered when they came to church. And that Paul was trying to tell them that the women ought to go around with their heads with the veil on all the time so they wouldn't look like prostitutes.

And that's a pretty standard interpretation. A problem with that interpretation is there's nothing in the section that really indicates that. That's just kind of one of those traditions, kind of like that there were three wise men.

Just one of those traditions that kind of grew up and everybody thought it was the right one. We're going to look at some verses in the text that I think will show us that there are other ways to possibly look at this. So let's start in verse 4. Right away we notice that Paul has some concerns about the way that Christians are worshiping that has to do with what the men are doing. One thing that's often happened in the interpretation of these verses is that people have said, well, these troublemakers, these problem areas are because of some women in the Corinthian church.

And, of course, the people who said that were men, right? That's who wrote most of the commentaries and said that. Verse 4 indicates that there are some things that the men are doing that also need to change.

And so verse 4 says, every man who has something on his head or has on a veil or has his head covered, while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head. And so really what the text indicates, if you just look at the text, is that there are men who have on some kind of veils when they shouldn't, and there are some women who don't have on veils when they should. So I'm going to start by saying that this is not just a problem with the women. And certainly if you read verses 4 down to verse 16, which is the end of the section, you'll see that he has equal attention, gives equal attention, to male behavior that needs to change, as well as to female behavior that needs to change.

What in the world is going on when he refers to men having their heads covered when they pray and prophesy? I mean, what in the world is that all about? Well, the background for that, and we're going to look at some slides in a moment and talk about some ancient cultural practices.

The background for men having their heads covered when they worshiped comes right out of Roman culture. Right out of Roman culture. It was the normal practice.

in Roman culture, not Greek culture, not Egyptian culture, not the culture of Asia Minor. It was the normal practice in Roman culture. And remember, Corinth is a Roman colony. The Romans, when they would worship, when they would pray, prophesy, or offer sacrifice, they would take their Roman toga that they wore, and they would take part of it and pull it up over the top of their heads and kind of cover their head and ears. and we're going to begin in just a second to look at some slides, because I want you to be able to visualize what this looked like in the ancient world, so that when we read a verse, like in verse 4, it talks about men having head coverings on and having their heads veiled, not their faces, their heads covered, that we don't say, well, it's really just a problem with the women, and probably Paul just wrote that verse in there just to kind of have some men mention that they really weren't doing anything wrong.

Now, this is a statue of a Roman emperor, and the Roman emperor, as he was portrayed in statuary, would sometimes have on his military attire. Sometimes he would have on the attire for his office as high priest. The Roman emperor was also the high priest of Roman religion, the Pontifex Maximus. And so whenever they wanted to picture the emperor in his religious attire, This is how he would look, and you notice that his head is covered.

And the reason it is is because this was the normal way that Romans dressed when they worshipped. When they prayed, they prophesied, or they sacrificed. And so this is one of just numerous examples of some statues. Here's a picture of a bust of a Roman. And again, we don't have all the statues, but we have the part that's relevant to our discussion.

And do you see the head covering? It's not a facial covering. It's not like you might find in the Muslim world today where women have their face covered. It's a head covering. And that's exactly what Paul is describing in verses 4 and 5. This is an altar that has a sacrificial scene on it.

And you can see that animal is the animal that's going to be sacrificed on the altar. And you see the people standing around the altar who are going to participate in the worship. So that's the three occasions on which Romans covered their head, was prayer, prophecy, and sacrifice.

And as you notice in 1 Corinthians 11, 4, and 5, the very two practices Paul mentions are when Christian men and Christian women pray or prophesy. This is a detailed picture from a very important Roman monument that early... first century AD, called the Ara Pacis.

It's called the Altar of Peace. And this monument's a pretty large monument, and it has friezes down the side of it, stone friezes down the side of it. And one of the scenes shows some of the Roman royal family going to sacrifice.

And again, you can tell that some of these people have their head covered who are going to participate in this. And you see the fellow with the axe over his shoulder. That's to be used in the sacrifice, the ceremony of sacrifice in the animal. That's not for, you know, chopping down a tree or something.

Here's another monument, and this has to do with prophecy. It has to do with prophecy. Once again, when Romans did this is when they prayed, they prophesied for an offered sacrifice. And the person on the left in this monument is a woman, because Roman women also did this. This was kind of a unisex.

practice in Roman culture that Roman men and Roman women would have their heads covered. And you see the person in the middle has a little wand, kind of like maybe a shepherd's staff in their hand. That is a wand that was used in prophecy.

When Romans would prophesy, when they would have prophets or religious officials who would give prophecies, they would carry that wand that's in the hand of the person in the middle. And so that makes it really clear that this is a religious scene. What's being depicted here is a religious occasion that included prophecy.

Next, here is another part of a sacrificial scene. This is really only about a third or a fourth of the entire picture, but it's... I showed you the whole thing, it'd be so small, you couldn't see all of it, but this is the part that's relevant. And you see one of the animals that's coming to see sacrifice, and you see the person that is officiating it. The person that's kind of leading in the ceremony has his head covered.

Now, if you had 10 or 15 people at a particular religious service, not everybody wore the head covering. If you were just, so to speak, in the audience, you didn't wear the head covering. The person who would wear the head covering would be the person who was kind of doing the ceremony. The person who was praying, the person who was prophesying, the person who was doing the sacrifice would wear this head covering.

And the people who were just watching just had their heads uncovered. So you see the person who's at the altar, unlike some of the other people, actually has his head covered. This is a picture from a Roman coin that comes from the late...

first century BC, and this practice that I'm talking about, this Roman practice of wearing a head covering when you pray, prophesy, and sacrifice, we can document this in the archaeological artifacts as well as the literature from at least the second century BC up into the second and third century AD, and we can document it from around the Mediterranean basin, everywhere... there were Romans. And so certainly a city like Corinth, which was a Roman colony, and certainly one thing you do in a Roman colony, you promote Roman things, right? That's what a colony does. Well, this coin is a picture from the late first century BC, and it shows the individual with the worship head covering on, and you see that little jug behind his neck?

That's a jug that was used for libations. for liquid sacrifices. And then you see in the front part where his neck is, you also see that stack. That was a logo used in religious services, the prophetic, when they were giving prophecies. I just wanted you to be aware of the fact that this imagery, this visual symbolism, was in statues, it was in artwork, it was on the coins that they handled and touched.

This information that we're looking at is not... secretive. You didn't have to be a member of the Roman Senate to know about this. This was common knowledge.

The evidence for this practice is known everywhere in the Mediterranean world where the Romans went. We have Greek authors, Greek authors, who talk about this and say this is how the Romans do it. We have Roman authors that talk about it. And it's visually available to us through things like statuary, friezes, monuments, altars.

coins. So the information for it is pretty widely available in the ancient world. Next?

Alright, that's the end of it then. So I wanted you just to have a few minutes to look at that. So as I talked about this, you would in your mind's eye be able to visualize the kind of physical practice that Paul has in mind here.

Now, So when Paul says in verse 4 and 5 that there are men in the congregation who are doing two of the three things that the pagans would have been doing, that is, praying and prophesying, that they had their heads, at least some of the men, had their heads covered, and there were some women in the church who were praying and prophesying with their head uncovered, this practice was bothering Paul. Now, it seems to me, verses 4 and 5, you have to conclude, at least I have to conclude, that... as Christians were getting together in Corinth on their assemblies and their get-togethers, that you have men, Christian men, at least some of them, when they prayed and when they prophesied, they would, like they had always done before they became Christians, they would pull this toga up over their head. And you have some women who are in the Christian get-togethers, who are praying and prophesying, who are not doing that. Now, When we think about the church in Corinth, I'm assuming, and I think most interpreters would agree with this, that the makeup of the church in Corinth...

would have represented various cultures that were available in the city of Corinth. So when people would get together in house churches, you would have some people there who were Roman. You would have some people who were Greek. You would have people who were Egyptian. You would have people who were Jewish.

People who probably came from Asia Minor. And they would all bring to the church kickliness. first-generation mission church, they would bring all kind of practices and customs that they were used to from their pre-Christian lives.

Some of those would be acceptable. Some of them would be unacceptable. Just like today, when the gospel is taken anywhere, whether it's some tribe in Africa or a lot of Texas, that people come into the Christian faith, they bring with them. All kinds of baggage, all kinds of things from their culture and their heritage. Some of them are acceptable.

Some are not acceptable. Well, that's going on here. And so the men, in verse 4, who would have their head coverings on when they prayed and prophesied, would be people who were Roman. Roman in their cultural background.

And when they were growing up, because remember, none of these people have been Christians over probably four or five years. So as they were growing up, whenever they would worship their gods and goddesses, they always pulled a toga over their heads. And that's the way mom and dad had always done it, and grandma and grandpa had always done it that way, and all their aunts and uncles, and all their priests did it that way. And just everybody who prayed and was very religious, that's how they did it. And so when they became Christians, they didn't, some of them didn't seem to need to quit doing it that way.

So they, you know, becoming a Christian didn't mean you had to quit wearing a toga. Okay? And so as they wore their togas, when it was time to pray to the true God, they just did it the way they'd always been doing it. They just pulled that thing up over their head. Then you have some women, and these would be non-Roman women, women from cultures that didn't pull up their head coverings when they prayed and prophesied, and that would be everybody but Roman women, women from Greece, women from Egypt, women from Asia Minor, Jewish women.

everybody but the Romans, the women would have remained uncovered when they prayed and prophesied. And so Paul gets a report, because when Paul writes 1 Corinthians, of course he's not in Corinth, he's over across the Aegean Sea in Asia Minor, over Ephesus. And so he gets a report from the house of Chloe about various issues that are going on in the church.

Some are big issues and some are little issues. Some have grave consequences, some are not so grave in terms of their consequences. Some have to do with morality, sexual ethics.

Some have to do with Christian assembly issues, worship issues. Well, chapter 11, chapter 11, is a chapter that has to do with issues that are going on in the assembly when they get together in their house churches. And so the first issue, and this is the one we're looking at in more detail, is head covering and praying and prophesying.

And the second issue is Lord's Supper. Now, that's the part of chapter 11 we usually spend more time on, because we, you know, have more focus doctrinally on the Lord's Supper. But for Paul, these are two issues that have a common thread, and that is they have to do with worship issues.

Things that the Corinthians are doing in worship that he finds unacceptable or problematic. But, if you look at the two issues, the level of Paul's concern is not the same. If you look, for example, at verse 2, 11-2.

This is the introduction to this head covering issue. He says, now I praise you because you remember me and everything and hold firmly to the traditions just as I delivered them to you. So he introduces the first problem that he wants to deal with basically with positive language. He says, now I praise you.

Now contrast that with his introduction to the second problem, which is in verse 17 following, which introduces the issues about the Lord's Supper. The abuse is there, and he says, but in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better, but for the worse. So in terms of the two issues in the chapter, the one we're looking at, Paul is not as upset about. He can kind of introduce the topic with language of praise, and then try to get some correction. In contrast to the second issue.

where he says, man, I can't praise you at all about this issue, about how you're misdoing the Lord's Supper. In fact, you're doing it so badly, it would be better if you didn't come to church. You'd better stay home. and do it the way you're doing it. So we need to keep that in mind as we look at this issue.

Now, why is Paul dealing with this issue? I mean, what's going on in Paul's mind? Why does he care, right, what they've got on their heads?

Well, we want to notice that Paul is not concerned about what people wear and don't wear when they come to church. This is not a verse that talks about what men and women do when they come in the church building. Now, this verse has often been put that way.

That's why a lot of... Christian women through the ages thought they were to wear a hat to church. They would go look at this verse. Well, this isn't what this verse says. This verse does not say, in, for example, verse 5, okay, but every woman who has her head uncovered when she comes to church disgraces her head.

And he's certainly not talking about general Christian attire, like how modestly or immodestly you should dress when you go to the shopping center. for the shopping mall. He's not talking about that. He's talking very concretely and very specifically, he says in verse 5, every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying. That's the issue, okay?

As women are involved in a congregational setting, in the presence of men, women are praying, women are prophesying. just like the men are. Paul doesn't have any problem with that.

What he has a problem with is the way it looks when you have men who have their heads covered, which is a sign of submission, while in the same kind of worship service, you have women who have their heads uncovered, which tends to be more a position of authority. That's why this section is introduced in verse 3. with some discussion about relationships between men and women. So look at verse 3. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.

So that's kind of the theological position that he's concerned about, is this position of the relationships fundamentally between men and women. That's the issue in the chapter. And that this practice they have, this practice they have, is blurring that distinction, it's confusing the issue. So he hears from Chloé, people from Chloé's house, that when some of the saints get together in their house churches or synagogues or wherever they were meeting, that in the same get-together, because Paul really didn't care what the men would have done by themselves or the women would have done by themselves, and we don't have any evidence that they met separately by gender anyway.

There is really no evidence of kind of ladies'Bible classes in the early church. But when they're together, both men are praying and prophesying, women are praying and prophesying, he doesn't have any problem with that. But the problem is, is that the way they're doing it, it's communicating some things about the relationship between men and women and this issue of headship that Paul finds inappropriate. And so what he says is, This cannot go on like it is.

Now, verse 16, he just jumped down a little. Paul says, but if anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice nor have the churches of God. One thing you certainly know as you study Paul's letters is that his churches didn't always just applaud all of Paul's ideas.

Paul had to write these churches, and in many churches he had people who disagreed with him, people who mildly disagreed with him, people who strongly disagreed with him. He had opponents in these churches. And so in verse 16, he acknowledges that not everybody is going to buy this argument, that when the men and women in the church of God in Corinth get this letter, and they're reading down, and they get to what we call chapter 11, some of them are going to read this.

argument he gives in verses 2 following, and they're going to say, Paul, you have lost it. Paul, I do not agree with you. Paul, I don't plan on changing my practice.

And so Paul acknowledges in verse 16 that there are people in the church who are contentious. So we're going to read this and say, nah, we're going to keep doing the way we want to do it. Heck with Paul. After all, he's not here anyway, right? He's over in Ephesus on the other side of the GNC.

Now, who would have said something? Who would have been so unkind to Paul, right? Well, certainly probably the people who are Roman would have been. They're going to say, Paul, what difference does it make whether our heads are covered or not? Particularly the guy.

because this is the way they've been worshiping forever. But their head's covered. And here's Paul.

Paul's coming. They've got to quit this. And so we think probably this is some of the opposition that he's anticipating.

And that's why, then, he gives the argument about hair. Because a lot of the rest of the chapter, down through verse 16, he says about hair length. Now, what in the world is going on with this hair length argument?

This is what I think is going on, is that... Some people are going to say to Paul, Paul, we just don't see it this way, that this head covering has anything to do with anything. It just strikes us differently than it does you from our cultural background, that what's on your head has nothing to do with gender at all.

See, because Paul says it does have something to do with gender. And some people are going to say, Paul, it doesn't have anything to do with gender. And so what Paul is trying to do is to give a supporting argument.

from nature to say, listen, nature would teach you that what's on your head in terms of a covering has something to do with nature. And so to kind of summarize his argument about hairline and whether your head is shaved, whether you're bald or have long hair, Paul is basically saying, and this is kind of a real paraphrase, is that, look, folks, if you woke up tomorrow morning, and all the men had long hair and a lot of the women were bald, you would know something strange had happened during the night. You just wouldn't see that.

The next morning on your way to the forum or whatever, and all the guys had long hair and the women were bald, you would know something really peculiar had happened during the night. You just wouldn't see that and say, so what? And so the whole thing about the hairline is not that you've got... guys coming to church who have hair down to their shoulders or women who are coming to church who are bald. But it's an argument based on what he assumes would be common ground.

That they would say, yeah, in terms of gender, what men have as a covering is different, given by God, than what women have. And so it's really just a supporting argument. It's not that Paul is saying you must have your hair cut a certain length before you come to church. But it's just a supporting argument.

to try to get them to see where he's coming from. Now, as you're aware, how we view things does depend on our cultural background. Certainly there are women in tribal places in Africa who come to church dressed in a way that would not be acceptable at Broadway Church, right?

In fact, even the city would say it's illegal. And in places in the Middle East. where we have congregations.

A lot of those people would find the way that most of you women come to church in a long way unacceptable. Because we can see your faces and we can see your legs. That's just unacceptable in certain cultures.

And some tribal regions in Africa, they would wonder why we wore so much to church. And so certainly people in different cultures are going to view dress. and custom differently based on various cultures. And so Paul here is a missionary in one of these multicultural settings, and he's trying to bring to bear his understanding of God's plan in terms of men and women and leadership in the church in a setting that has a lot of cultures represented.

So in verse... Sixth following, he says, for if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off. But is it disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or head shaved? Let her cover her head. And so Paul is talking about the literal head here when he's talking about dishonoring the head.

I don't think he's talking about that she dishonors her husband who is her head. Because he goes on to talk about shaving the physical head, and he says that disgraces the physical head. Now, that might not strike you as the case, but it would most people in the ancient world. And then he picks up in verses 8 following, kind of the theology that he has in verse 3, which talks about headship. There's a lot of debate among scholars about what the word head implies in terms of this context.

Obviously, sometimes it refers to this thing on your shoulders, but many times it's used metaphorically. and scholars debate about that, what exactly the imagery is. It seems to me that it includes ideas related to leadership.

That's going to be expressed differently in different cultures. The idea of leadership, particularly in this case, male leadership, is going to be expressed differently. For example, in 1 Peter, Sarah is commended for obeying Abraham and calling him Lord. But you see, I mean, that's not something we would really promote, I don't think, in terms of kind of a manifestation of, in every culture, the women have to call their husbands Lord.

In the days of Sarah and Abraham, that's the way it was. And in general, Peter is kind of commending that position of leadership of Abraham that wives need to have some term of respect that they use for their husbands in terms of something like sir or lord or salute or any of these kind of things. And so this is going to vary from culture to culture. But Paul is saying, I think, that in terms of just the creation of men and women, that this area of headship has been set up according to verse 3. So he goes through the Genesis account and certainly talks about interdependence between the genders and that verse 11, neither is woman independent of man nor is man independent of woman. But he is trying to spell out here, I think, in Genesis, the Genesis account kind of to support.

the theology of verse 3. Then he gets down to 13, and he says, judge for yourselves. Now, Paul's letters are basically letters and documents that are involved with persuasion. I mean, Paul really cannot make the Corinthians do anything. He really can't.

He can tell them what they should do. He can make some threats and warnings. He can talk about the implications of their disobedience. But in the final analysis, Paul, really reflecting the character of God, is involved in the issue of persuasion.

God is trying to persuade us. I mean, God did not put, you know, a headlock on Adam and Eve. He told them the truth.

He told them about consequences. He tries to persuade them. Throughout biblical literature, God's representatives are trying to persuade his people.

And that's what Paul is involved in in these letters. These are documents of persuasion. Because Paul knows he's not going to be around forever.

And in this case, he's not even in the same town anymore. He's gone off somewhere else. And so as he gives instructions, he does acknowledge.

that they themselves have to evaluate this. You know, Paul does not suffer from an identity crisis. He's not, if he writes a letter, he doesn't think, well, I hope I'm right. I mean, he certainly, you know, his conviction is he's speaking at the behest of God, and he's writing with apostolic authority.

But he knows that the men and women who get this letter have to evaluate and be persuaded by the argument. So he says, judge for yourself. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Now, again, he's assuming by verse 13 that women are going to be praying and prophesying in these get-togethers. Now, that shouldn't really come as a big shock to us if we are students of Acts chapter 2. Because Joel, the text out of Joel chapters 2 and 3, that are quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost, say that the Christian men and women are going to prophesy.

And so we shouldn't be shocked to find women prophets. It was prophesied on the day of Pentecost that the church would have women prophets. And certainly as you look at the birth of Jesus, those first two chapters of Luke, and you see the people who are on the very inner, inner, inner circle of God's plan, you see Elizabeth and Zachariah, you see Anna and Simeon.

And you've got both the men and women who are on the very inner circle of God's plan for the birth of Jesus. Both men and women who are being filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. They're kind of anticipating what's going to happen once the church arrives and the day of Pentecost begins.

Because they are very special people that God is using to kind of prepare the story for the arrival of God's kingdom. And so what we have in women like... Elizabeth, and of course Mary, and then Anna are women who are giving prophecies that kind of anticipate this in the early church. And so Paul's concern here is certainly not about the fact that women are praying and prophesying.

The concern is whether they're doing it in a way that dishonors the biblical understanding of male leadership. So what did you think about that? What did you learn? I would love to hear from you in the comments about anything you learned from that that you had no idea about.

I learned so much the first time I heard this. Listening to it again, I just learned so much more. So if you hadn't subscribed to the channel, I would love for you to do that now.

And I hope you have a blessed day.

Transcript for:Understanding Head Coverings in 1 Corinthians

Transcript for:
Understanding Head Coverings in 1 Corinthians