1 Corinthians 11:2-3

September 23, 2018

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

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The sermon starts at 17:00 in the audio file.

Or, The Glory of Heads, Hoods, and Hairdos

Here is the most agonizing yet applicable passage yet in 1 Corinthians. There are formidable challenges trying to figure out what Paul said and what that means before getting to what we’re supposed to do. No paragraph so far in the letter provokes so many questions that affect so many consequences.

Reasonable people may disagree on how to interpret issues in these verses. The bigger problem is that we don’t seem to be living in reasonable times. Confusion, under the costume of sophistication, reigns both outside and inside the church. Confusion affects what we know about God, which affects what we know about ourselves, which affects how we worship and how we relate to one another. It affects how we relate to one another in worship, and that affects our witness in the world.

Until this past week I have never really tried to understand the first half of 1 Corinthians 11. Having begun that process, I then began to wonder if/how it would be relevant for us. Head coverings are a big part of the passage, so will I need to exhort the ladies to start wearing bonnets or doilies? If that’s what God wants, are we ready for it? And then there is the part about long hair and short hair; do you remember how enjoyable the discussions were the last time I talked about hair cuts?

And yet doesn’t every thumb’s width matter? Doesn’t our hair matter, and what we wear to worship God together matter, including our “church clothes”? Isn’t it important to submit to God in all things, and doesn’t that include the relationships He’s called us to? The answer to all of those questions is Yes.

How we present ourselves says something about who we’re with and about who we worship. We live in a day when we almost only ask, How does this make me look? Even if we give the benefit of the doubt and assume that that question is for sake of modesty (rather than for vanity), it is often only a question asked by the individual about the individual. We ought to be asking, How does this (hairstyle, outfit, etc.) reflect on my authority? And by “authority” I don’t mean how does it reflect on your personal persona, but how does it reflect on the person you answer to? Can you imagine how commercials could even sell that mindset?

We’re accustomed to personal choices (which the last three chapters in 1 Corinthians have also addressed); right and wrong is important for me. And it is, but it’s more than that. We’re accustomed, even in corporate worship, to think about how what we’re doing reflects on ourselves rather than to think about how what we’re doing reflects on our head.

Now I’m (meddling and) past the point where I should acknowledge the (multiple) problems in trying to understand the point of this passage. Obviously we don’t know what Paul doesn’t write down; we don’t share knowledge with the Corinthians about what Paul previously taught them or what it was like living in Corinth in the first century. Here are some of the major questions, not just as tools for meditating, but to show that there are serious issues and to help us know what we’re looking for:

Is this about man/men or a husband, woman/women or a wife? In other words, how should we translate and interpret the Greek words aner (ἀνήρ) and gune (γυνή)? (3)

What does “head” (κεφαλή) mean? Is it a reference to authority, to source, to preeminence, to something else? (3)

In what ways are the three “heads” similar and different? That is, is man “head” of woman the same way that Christ is “head” of man and that God is “head” of Christ? (3)

Where does the importance of one’s head being cover[...]