By Kevin Megill
OUTLINE OF THE PASSAGE
One of the things I try to do whenever I study something Paul wrote is to get a sense of the outline of the passage, to understand the flow of thought as he moves from one point to the next. Paul usually intermixes the points he is trying to make with his arguments for their truth. If we can separate the things he wants to convince us of from the arguments he uses to convince us, it sometimes helps.
In this passage, I think the outline is something like this. Look it over and respond if you think I am looking at something wrong.
1. v 2
Preamble -- he praises them first, before moving on to reproof.
2. Paul takes his stand
a. v 3 Main theological point: God's hierachy of authority
b. v 4-5a Main practical point: when praying or prophesying, women should cover their heads and men shouldn't.
3. Paul explains and defends his stand
a. First reason
i. v 4b,5b First supporting point: not to do so is a disgrace.
ii. v 5c, 6 Argument for this point: if women feel it's not a disgrace to cover their heads, how come they aren't willing to simply cut off their hair? Doesn't that show they somehow know they need a head that is covered?
b. Second reason
i. v 7 Second supporting point: the presence/absence of a head covering reflects the created purposes of men/women. The man is the glory of God, the women of man.
ii. v 8,9 Argument for second point: the woman was created second, and for the purpose of helping man.
iii. v 10 Conclusion of this argument: the role of the woman as submitting to and helping the man is the reason for the head covering, which symbolizes the authority she is recognizing. I have no idea why the angels are referred to here, but apparently Paul must have thought it'd be obvious to the Corinthians, because he didn't worry about explaining it any further.
iv. v 11-12 Balance to the principle of women being for man, man for God: Paul realizes that idea could be taken to far, so he opposes another idea to it, to make sure people realize that he is not intending to downplay the importance of women in the kingdom of God.
c. Third reason (similar to the first)
i. v 13-15 Third point and argument for it: even in nature (custom?) we see the idea that women are embarrassed by short hair and men by long. If God gives specifically created women to have an inborn covering, they should be willing on their part to cover their own heads according to this tradition.
4. v 16 Bottom line: whether you understand it or not, this is the way things are done in the churches.
The most important truths out of all this are the main theological point, the main practical point, the second reason Paul gives for head coverings, and the bottom line. That is, there is a theological order in which men submit to Christ and a woman submits to a man. This reflects the created purposes for men and women, in which man was created to be the image and glory of God, but woman was created to be the glory of man. The tradition of head coverings symbolizes this important truth. All the churches did things this way, and the Corinthians should have too.
QUESTIONS
One of the difficult things about this passage is not just the subject matter, but that many parts of it are simply hard to understand anyway. The three questions that I would most like answered are:
1) I don't get the symbolism. If men have a spiritual head (Christ) and women have a spiritual head, how come one should cover her head and the other not? What is the symbolic aptness of covering or not covering one's head to reflect a spiritual head?
2) Angels? What are they doing in this passage?
3) The 1st and 3rd arguments seem to rely on the idea that in the natural course of things, women have long hair and men have short hair. That seems like a weak argument to me. Was Paul saying this was true in general? Isn't it only true in certain cultures?
CONCLUSIONS SO FAR
1. This passage argues for the practice of head coverings as a symbol of the theological truth of submission to the hierarchy of authority God designed.
2. I don't see any evidence IN THE PASSAGE that the motive for this symbol was missionary in nature; when I compare this passage with chapter 8-10, where Paul discusses the importance of not eating meat sacrificed to idols for missionary reasons, I don't see very much similarity. Paul seems convinced that the reasons for head coverings are rooted in basic theological truths, not in how we come across to the world around us. Where he appeals to custom/nature, it is not to give us a motive for head coverings, but to try to show the universal nature of those truths.
3. Paul seemed to think that head coverings were a great symbol of the truths they were designed to reflect, even though I don't personally see the aptness myself. That shows me there is probably more I need to understand here.
4. When we ask how much of this was merely cultural, there are 3 questions we need to ask.
a) Is the hierarchy of authority in which a man is the head of a woman merely cultural?
b) Is the need for a symbol to reflect that hierarchy merely cultural?
c) Is the fittingness of head coverings to be that symbol merely cultural?
I am convinced a) is more than cultural -- in all ages, there is an order in which Christ is the head of a man, and the man is the head of a woman.
I suspect strongly that b) is not cultural. I suspect that it is important in every age to have a symbol which reflects our belief as Christians in the importance of that hierarchy. I think that most people today have a hard time accepting the need for a symbol -- we live in an age in which there is little value placed on symbols of any kind. (It's interesting that the OT law was filled with various rituals and other things which symbolized spiritual truth, but in the NT most of these symbols were swept away. Not all, however, unless we want to dispense with communion and baptism.)
I'm not so sure about c), but I don't think it's cultural either, because Paul writes as if it's not. He assumes the symbol of head covering is universally supported ("does not even nature itself teach you"). I would be uncomfortable jettisoning the symbol of head coverings until I understood better what his arguments are.
The interesting point to me, though, and one which I've rarely heard discussed, is the possibility of saying that c) is cultural and b) is not. That is, if I became convinced that head coverings themselves were cultural, I would still want a symbol relevant to OUR culture for the same truth. I would look for such a symbol and work towards endowing it with meaning in the Christian community.
What could we do as Christians that would say to the world "we hold to the importance of differing men's and women's roles"? You can see the need for such a symbol in the way in which many Christian women wear their hair longer, wear dresses, etc, specifically in order to make a stand for femininity. Just changing your last name when you marry may be such a symbol. I am not saying that all Christian women should do all these things -- I am just pointing out that we feel a need for some type of symbol. For me, head coverings fits well. If I didn't think so, I'd look for something else.
5. Notice that nothing in this passage has much to do with whether women should be in leadership, it just tells them what to wear while they lead!
Looking forward to other thoughts on this passage,
Kevin Megill