1 Cor 11:10 Exegetically understanding "exousia/authority on the head". (It is neither man's nor woman's authority)

The Public Square
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Greetings, Tyler,

I was likely the one who mentioned a Christian denomination/community which had shawls at the back of the church. We never had such while I was Rector of St. Athanasius Anglican Church.

I was likely referring to the churches in the communities of Woodford County in Illinois, where my wife’s father and his ancestors lived. They styled themselves Apostolic Christians, an Anabaptist group from Switzerland. My father-in-law’s grandfathers/uncles immigrated to that part of Illinois in when it was mostly swamp and bog. They knew how to drain such land, so they purchased many thousands of acres of it for a song, drained it, and made their fortunes in agriculture - not mega rich, of course. Just very prosperous.

When my wife and I visited that area about 20 years ago, we noted that the AC women in the community still covered themselves in public. Their hair would be gathered into a bun at the top/back of their heads, and that bun was then covered with a smallish “cup” of cloth.

The covers the women wore during worship were standardized in size and shape - bands of cloth about 3 inches wide and 20 or so inches long which they draped side-to-side over the top of their heads. The standardization went a long way to frustrate any notions of showiness or fashion.

It was some of these bands which their church buildings had at the entrances for the use of visiting women who ordinarily did not practice this custom, or for women who inadvertently forgot the standard covering when rushing out to worship in a crowd of their own children.

At St. Athanasius, covering was never “enforced,” Most women and girls covered, but women who settled in with us would soon adopt the custom on their own. Interestingly, it was the girls who seemed eager to cover.

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There are 2 separate issues at play, but they are related.

I take the same position that Dr. Mcfall takes in his work “Good order in the church”; that is, that the context of the first part of 1 Corinthians 11 is not limited to the public gathering. That is, when we walk outside the walls of the church, the headship of man does not disappear, and both men and women pray in and outside of church (daughters prophesied at home in the NT). Therefore, whenever a man is praying he is to have his head uncovered and whenever a woman praying, her head covered. Wherever.

I experienced this culturally growing up in the south. At high school football games, we’d all say a prayer and the men were asked to remove their hats. At the time for me, it just seemed like a custom. Now I wonder why women weren’t asked to don a tichel.

In our day-to-day life, my wife has found it easier just to put a scarf on in the morning when getting dressed. That way you are covered wherever you in case there’s an opportunity to pray. When this sort of thing starts to happen, after not too long a time it becomes customary to see women with their hair covered in public, and to see one uncovered becomes the unusual thing.

That’s the kind of society Calvin lived in, and the kind I’d like to live in. Of course if a woman has to go out without her shawl on, it is no sin. Calvin addresses this directly in the institutes and he says it’s obviously not a sin since her religion is not in her scarf. “What if she hears someone drowning outside?” Calvin asks. “Should she put on her scarf”? No, just run out and save the drowning man.

This public covering of the head held in America until feminism drove it out, my great-grandmother in the deep south being one of the last holdouts. I’d like to see a return to such a culture.

From Calvin, for reference:

What? Is religion placed in a woman’s bonnet, so that it is unlawful for her to go out with her head uncovered? Is her silence fixed by a decree which cannot be violated without the greatest wickedness? Is there any mystery in bending the knee, or in burying a dead body, which cannot be omitted without a crime? By no means. For should a woman require to make such haste in assisting a neighbour that she has not time to cover her head, she sins not in running out with her head uncovered

Calvin, J. (1997). Institutes of the Christian religion. Logos Bible Software.

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Jason,
thankyyou for your reply where you say
“…exegesis . I think the issue is pretty plain in favor of head covering/uncovering … speculative arguments about the cultural context of ancient Corinth … the argument that states woman’s hair itself”.
I agree wholeheartedly with what you say. This is precisely why I am laboring that the whole passage is structured around Paul’s main and basic argument which is easy to understand. The man ought not … the woman ought. Hopefully, I will show how one does not really need to be a cultural historian to understand some of his other comments.
For example, Your comment about woman’s hair
" The fact that her hair is given to her as a covering in verse 15 seems to speak to a different kind of covering - an ornament of her station as the glory of man"
is sort of where I will go. Crucial is the fact that the word “covering” in v15 indeed is a different greek word to “covering” and “to cover” in the rest of the passage. I sort of propose that Paul’s comments about the woman’s hair (being her glory) and the man’s hair being “dishonouring” are what nature tells us as we observe people and the world. You just have to look at people to see what Paul says is true about women’s and men’s hair, even today the vast majority of women find “glory” in their hair, and on the vast majority of men long hair is “unflattering” (ie. it does not usually look very good, ie. it is dishonouring in that it is usually unattractive. Men usually look better with short hair than with long hair. This is what nature tells us. ie. what we observe). Once again (just like with the greek words for coveing being different) the greek word for the man’s hair being “dishonoring” is a different greek word to the other instances of “honor” in the passage. In talking about man’s long hair being dishonouring Paul is talking about something different, a different type of dishonouring to when he talks about woman dishonouring man. My proposal is that he is simply saying man’s hair is generally unflattering when worn long. (Paul would actually know this from his own experience with his Nazarite vow). This is NOT a theological statement or a christian law about long hair on men. It is not part of Paul’s main argument. It is so important to stick with his main argument and try to understand the rest of what he says in terms of how it supports his main argument and not to go off and make theology of other supporting things he says. That is, unless he himself clearly uses them as theology e.g. as when he refers to Gen 1 &2 “image” and “woman out of man” or says “the head of Christ is God …” etc … So, if Paul’s comments about long hair on women and men are not theology, then maybe we need to beware of arguing that Paul is saying men SHOULD NOT and women SHOULD have long hair.
My third instalment when I post it will hopefully, outline a possible way of allocating the different types of supporting material that Paul uses, so that we can better understand how they relate to his main argument.

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I found and listened to this sermon. Very good. I admire his bravery.

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The story of what happened afterward is the heartwrenching part - lost 1/3 of his congregation despite making head covering a matter of personal conviction. Devastated him. (Doing well now.)

Apparently this has happened more than once to men who preach that head covering is a biblical requirement today.

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I will chase that up about Carlton McLeod. Do you have a link or location to find his story?

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I heard it second hand from a friend. Carlton McLeod has also written a book on covering that may have an account. There’s also an article on headcoveringmovement.com with a few details:

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I have done a major update on my work on 1 Corinthians 11:2-16
I have put it all in one article.
A very important new point, is that I show how 1 Cor 11:2-16 is linked to and is an expansion of 1 Cor 8 regarding “one God … one Lord”. That is, “the head of Christ is God” in 1Cor 11 is about the immanent trinity.
You can find the article at http://manandwoman-exegeticalblog.com/
or email me at neilkearnstheology@gmail.com and I will send you a copy in Microsoft Word or PDF.

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Very convicting. I know there is a time to speak and a time to be silent, but somehow I nearly always decide “I think it’s a time to be silent…” Is that boldness? Is that willingness to suffer? Sadly, no. I think “being too harsh” or “going too far” is not the problem we face in the church today. It is a lack of conviction, and an unwillingness to put ourselves on the line for what we believe to be true. I certainly see that in myself!

I shouldn’t be surprised that boldness and speaking the truth in love will still make people mad (and even be dangerous). Christ says it Himself! (Matthew 10:22) I need to trust God and rely on Him for the strength I need to stand in the face of persecution.

I have not devoted much time to this particular topic previously, but I doubt this is the only issue that will cause conflict. We’re going to need a firm Foundation to stand on when we take a stand for faithfulness on issues under attack today. And we will need to count the cost. It’s gonna be bloody.

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I am beginning to think that if you want a church fellowship where women consistently wear head-coverings … you will probably need to plant it like that from scratch. Changing things in a church, changing anything in a church, is very difficult:

… There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. For the innovator has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries … and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.

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A Pastor at Trinity Reformed once told me in regards to some situations which arose in our church “you all made the bed, now you have to lie in it.” Truer words were never spoken. How you start the race seems to automatically ingrain practices into the life of a church which seem impossible to reverse without much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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Indeed. As was once observed of the Anglican Church in England, “beware the permanence of a temporary solution”.

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Except that with headcoverings, we’re not dealing with any temporary solution, but the ideological casting off, permanently, of millennia of pious practice confessing submission to God’s Order of Creation of man male and female. So really, the bed wasn’t made, but unmade, right? With shame,

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Here’s a messy bed I lie in every week: in the wake of my breakdown in 2018-2020, my wife succeeded me as the music director at our church. Now I am convinced of headcoverings but cannot ask her to wear one until I free us from the need of her music director salary! :upside_down_face:

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Here’s a paper I began writing on the topic a few years ago in collaboration with a couple brothers in my church. I begin by explaining we’re all men of our times, inheriting presuppositions. I delve into the decline of patriarchy to egalitarianism; feminism’s invasion of the church; the advent of complementarianism and why it falls short of reform, etc.

From there, I intended to go into a no frills exegesis of the passage, which would highlight the arguments John Murray made (I think his points made in this letter are potent, concise, and watertight), and also dispel a few of the most common handlings of this text (e.g. her hair is her covering, etc.). I then planned to end with a simple appeal.

I chose to pause working on it, as it became clear to me that I was headed toward sparking something we weren’t prepared to deal with. Frankly, I’m not sure if I’ll ever pick it up again.

Something brother @tbbayly wrote somewhere on this forum years ago that sticks with me: “Few doctrinaire men have any real responsibility.” The context of that quote had something to do with the need for young men to not hold their church leaders in contempt when they don’t share in their “thunderpuppy” zeal. But I’m less the young man now, and my thunderpuppy days are long behind me. Now I am the man with responsibility, and my convictions are tested.

If my convictions are genuine, then someone has to hold the bag of reformation at some point on this topic. At the same time, I really do have bigger fish to fry.

I am consoled by the fact that I find myself in a church where manhood and womanhood really are exemplified well. Though I believe the symbolism in this case does matter, I am content that the substance of the symbol is modeled well even in the absence of the symbol. Some will indeed say, “Well, doesn’t that prove that the symbol isn’t needed?” My answer to that is to the effect, “Well, then are the Lord’s table and baptism needed, either?”

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Murray is very good, but I can’t get my head around his central argument that the Apostle Paul is merely condemning women praying and prophesying by opening up the incongruity of their doing so uncovered. Seems a long stretch to me. Love,

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I understand Murray to be more or less following Calvin’s argument.

For as the man honors his head by showing his liberty, so the woman, by showing her subjection. Hence, on the other hand, if the woman uncovers her head, she shakes off subjection—involving contempt of her husband. It may seem, however, to be superfluous for Paul to forbid the woman to prophesy with her head uncovered, while elsewhere he wholly prohibits women from speaking in the Church. (1 Timothy 2:12.) It would not, therefore, be allowable for them to prophesy even with a covering upon their head, and hence it follows that it is to no purpose that he argues here as to a covering. It may be replied, that the Apostle, by here condemning the one, does not commend the other. For when he reproves them for prophesying with their head uncovered, he at the same time does not give them permission to prophesy in some other way, but rather delays his condemnation of that vice to another passage, namely in 1 Corinthians 14. In this reply there is nothing amiss, though at the same time it might suit sufficiently well to say, that the Apostle requires women to show their modesty—not merely in a place in which the whole Church is assembled, but also in any more dignified assembly, either of matrons or of men, such as are sometimes convened in private houses. - Calvin commentary 1 Cor. 11

Murray/Calvin’s interpretation is what I find to make the most sense in squaring with 14:33-35.

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The best solution I have found is to recognise that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is referring women speaking individually to the church. Corporate prayer and singing fits into the praying or prophesying mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11:4-5.

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There’s no need for a contradiction between 11 and 14 if you understand the Jewish context of Paul’s world and also understand that in the first part of 11, he’s addressing everyday life (church included).

Jewish women were famous for covering basically all the time. Paul here commends Christian women to cover whenever they pray or prophesy. Phillip’s daughters, for ex, did so at their father’s house. Of course women pray at church, so they should be covered. During the week, you could go the Jedi robe route that some women took for easy slipping on or off, or many women just opt for a more permanent tichel or bonnet. Even our Presby foremothers would just don a bonnet in the morning like the Amish still do.

Jewish women were not allowed to speak authoritatively in a mixed crowd, and neither are Christian women to do so. Ch 14 just solidifies this.

Reject modernity, embrace tradition.

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The second one is of a Dutch Reformed family in a painting from 1660 called “The prayer before the meal”