Once More, With Understanding: Headcoverings in 1 Cor. 11

The Public Square
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Ok, well I’ll comment once more and leave you to keep thinking.

The passage reads like Paul is referring to the Church meeting. This is the consistent reading of 1 Cor 11:2-16 throughout Church history with a couple of exceptions. 1 Tim 2 is likewise not explicitly talking about church meetings, but 1 Tim 3:14 makes it clear that was the context. And that makes sense because outside of Church meetings women do not have to be silent, appeals to Creation notwithstanding :).

All the best on your continued thinking through this topic. I myself have a ways to go, too.

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I appreciate it.

Yes, still lots to think through.

As this was referring to teaching and having authority, should the church not be an example for the world? I know at most jobs guys are uncomfortable with lady bosses, pointing back to the creation mandate through natural revelation…

I’m also not saying that it can never happen, but where are we bent? If praying and prophesying with your head covered up is a good idea in church, is it suddenly a bad idea outside of church? If men having teaching authority in the church is a good idea, is it a bad idea in the world?

I think our modern sensibilities are /bent/ the wrong direction, we seem to be asking “where are the hard and fast limits?” vs “what might be a good example for the world?”. I think /especially/ in the modern American context with Miley Cyrus, scifi shows with shorn women, etc. etc, voluntary veiling outside of the home seems like a good witness to God’s creation order, conversation starter, or even just your local news reporter catching someone in the background and people getting used to it. If women were doing it in public, there’d be a lot less resistance to /just/ doing it in church.

Thanks to Tim for writing this article that helped me think through this, even though it’s not directly applicable. I think bending in the right direction is important.

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Odd, this. Most places I’ve consulted for 50 years divide 1 Corinthians into two parts - chapter 1-10, where specific doctrinal issues or occasions for pastoral intervention in the case of specific errors is treated. Beginning in chapter 11 and going through chapter 14, maybe 15, it’s matters where the context is the congregation gathered for worship that serves as the background for whatever St. Paul brings up.

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I think I’m landing the plane in Christian unity.

There’s an argument to be made for veiling outside of church whether or not the context of 1 Cor 11 is the Sunday gathering. If it is not, then women should veil whenever praying outside of church. If 1 Cor 11 is about Sunday, then the link to the creation mandate and the overwhelming witness of church history still points to it being a good idea.

But in either case, we should stress unity in the body and let each woman decide for herself whether or not to veil outside of church. At least that’s what I’ve worked out so far.

If any of you think I’m off my rocker, please let me know. These are all thought I’ve been working out over the last month. Kind of fun discovering old truths.

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The funny thing is that the way I read 1 Cor 11:16 it seems like the Apostle Paul’s instruction lands the opposite way, as “this is what all the churches do, and rightly so.”

Love,

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A couple of thoughts here:

  1. The context of 1 Cor 11 and following doesn’t need a lot of “proof,” any more than the sun needs any proof that it’s positioned in the sky. Doh.

  2. If one were a hyper-legalist when it comes to hermeneutics (and modern folk are masters at this!), then one could argue that Paul’s teaching in 1 Cor. 11 says nothing about whether a woman dons a cover outside the church gathered for worship. Consequently, she may go uncovered wherever she pleases outside the church gathered for worship.

  3. Now, it’s interesting to notice (where we may do so) just what happened in the Church down through the past 2,000 years. Data from the earliest eras indicate that over time the church adopted the practice that was common among Jewish women in the First Century, namely that women covered themselves in public - not just in the context of corporate religious worship. You can see this habit fading in Western portraiture post-Renaissance, until we get to the 20th Century when among Christian communities women still put something on their heads when going to church, though they mostly had abandoned the cover in public, except for reasons of fashion.

The Point: If Paul is addressing a specific context (corporate religious worship) in 1 Cor 11, the habits of Christians for most of the Church’s life has been this: that women covered in public and also when present for corporate worship.

I stumbled on to this “sensability” as a green intern right out of seminary. An elderly single women had volunteered to serve as my secretary. One morning I came out of my office to behold her seated at a desk, elbows planted on the top of her desk, her hands folded OVER THE TOP of her bowed head. The posture immediately suggested some manner of severe pain in her head!

“Louise! Are you all right?”

Her head popped up. “Oh, yes,” she replied, evidently abashed that I had found her so positioned. “I was praying,” she stammered.

I must have looked confused. She continued, “I forgot to bring a covering. I was using my hands.”

That was 45 years ago. Louise at that time was in her seventies. I’d wager she grew up with the idea that a woman ought to have some sort of cover when she prayed. Anywhere she prayed. Later, I noticed that on Sundays she was always wearing something on her head - a scarf mostly.

My experience over the past 50 years is this: when women, even a small minority of them, make it a practice to cover during corporate worship, they draw to themselves all sorts of opposition from women who insist that the practice is utterly unnecessary, legalistic, divisive, unloving, and so forth and so on. I observe that the covered woman - though she never intends this - presents a challenge to the conscience of many uncovered women. “Live and let live” seems not to apply in this case.

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Yup. This is something that stuck out to us when some of the men in our church, and our pastor, discussed this topic in a “men’s theology night.”

In the end, it seemed to us that if we really were persuaded that women were to be wearing head coverings in corporate worship, it wouldn’t follow that we treat it as an issue where every woman or husband decides the matter for himself. Rather, it would have to be treated as a matter of orderly worship for the whole body. Just as the tradition of the Lord’s supper (which is tied right into his discourse on head coverings) isn’t an every man for himself matter, neither then could head coverings.

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I should clarify, I meant the issue of whether or not to veil outside of the Sunday gathering.

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There’s a thoroughly fundamentalist Christian sect called The Apostolic Christians. They are concentrated mostly in Illinois; my wife’s paternal line comes from this group. They’re pacifists, and as I said thoroughly fundamentalist in the Anabaptist style.

Here’s an amazing thing: when it comes to women covering, their practice is identical to the Roman Church’s practice pre-Vatican 2, namely that the covering of women is a matter of pan-church order.

In pre-Vatican 2 Roman churches, the parishes would supply scarves in the narthex of their church buildings, so that ANY woman (Christian or not, Roman or not) would don one when she entered the nave of the church building. The intensely Protestant Apostolic Christians have the same practice to this day - in the foyer of their church houses, they supply a standard “cover” which all women wear inside their church. It’s a band of cloth about three inches wide and around 24 inches long, to be draped from side to side over the top of the woman’s head. The “standardization” short-cuts any concessions to fashion that might tempt women who opt for veils, scarves, and similar gear.

Anyhoo - I was fascinated that Christian communities which are so thoroughly different in so many ways have come to the exactly same conclusion on the practice of headcoverings.

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That’s actually a really good idea!

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Did you guys discuss veiling outside of the Sunday service? Seems like it was pretty universal in church history until recently, but the text itself could go either way. I’m inclined to think that since it’s a creation order mandate, we should caution ourselves and lean towards veiling outside of the service as well, especially given church history. Thoughts?

This position, I realize, would have pianos thrown at me from almost everyone in the modern church.

That is, if a man were to say to his wife: I think you should cover while praying outside of the service. Furthermore, i recommend, but don’t require, that you veil in general, in public, like the Christian women of yore, as a big middle finger to feminism.

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We didn’t get too far into that, mainly just because of time constraints.

It does seem clear to me that if you’re going to be a person who makes a primary argument out of the notion that head coverings were culturally relevant to Corinthian culture – and more specifically the avoidance of dressing like a harlot – then you are forced to broaden the application beyond the corporate gathering.

Personally, I think there are better, simpler arguments to be made to support the conclusion that head coverings aren’t to be understood as perpetual command for the church, rather than making a big deal out of Corinthian harlotry thing.

One of the fun things about theology is disagreeing with people on the path they take to arrive at the same conclusions you do. :slight_smile:

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I wonder if they saw covering outside of the assembly as connected to the creation order or if it was just cultural? If the creation order, ought we return to covering outside of the assembly?

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I’m way too removed from being an historian to even speculate. Will that stop me from doing so anyway? :crazy_face:

At the very earliest point (i.e. in Corinth just after Paul’s letter - or, at least, chapter 11 thereof - had been read to them) the practice of head covering by women may have arisen merely from the fact that an Apostle of our Lord had delivered to them a dictum (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:37!). We would hope that all concerned heard and understood Paul’s appeal to creation order in delivering that dictum, as well as the other supports he marshals.

Now, fast forward a few centuries wen the covering of women is an established custom within the churches. Is it because all the women understand the appeal to creation order in the first half of 1 Cor. 11? Or, do they cover because all the other women in the parish do so? Do they wish to avoid any charge of disorderliness by doffing the cover?

We could likely compare the covering of women - insofar as the reasons for its practice are concerned - to the erection of Christmas trees in homes during the month of December. Leaving aside the origin of that custom for the nonce, once it’s become customary then to decline the custom is immediately noticeable in the congregational society, uncomfortably noticeable.

The point: When one is a member of a cohesive society (i.e. a church congregation, in fellowship with many similar congregations), then any custom is likely energized more by the habits of tradition than anything else. There may, indeed, be powerful theological, biblical, logical reasons for a specific practice (head covering, mode of baptism, marriage rites, orders of worship, etc.), but for the well-ordered member of the Church it’s likely that he’s guided more by societal customs than conviction of some doctrinal truth.

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Thank you. I’m new to this, so ( I know you said you aren’t a historian ) do you have any recommended sources to read if I were trying to figure out if the early church connected covering /outside of the assembly/ to the creation order? I’ll try to dig some up. I read the head covering movement book and wasn’t convinced in the chapter on /where/ one should cover. He argues just in the assembly, but that’s not historic Christian practice and he fails to address the strength of the creation order argument for covering f outside the assembly.

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Across history, the one thing certain among wedding traditions is the covering/veiling of the bride. This is still largely practiced today and it would be helpful to explain the Biblical precedent and significance to those following tradition. I’m told Jewish tradition views the union of Isaac and Rebekah to be the ideal marriage, and here was its beginning:

Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, camels were coming.

Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she dismounted from the camel. She said to the servant, “Who is that man walking in the field to meet us?”

And the servant said, “He is my master.”

Then she took her veil and covered herself.

The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and he took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her; thus Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. (Genesis 24:63-67)

This is no slam-dunk about worship, although it seems to me the Biblical command combined with the clear significance of submission and modesty (in the woman covering) would cause wise women today to cover in worship as brides still do as they’re brought to their groom. And would cause wise husbands to require it of their brides, among other things not wanting to harm the angels.

I should add that we don’t require women to cover during our worship. It may well seem inconsistent given Mary Lee’s covering (along with a number of other women in our congregation), but there you have it. Example is also leadership. Love,

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I think I’m just in the cage stage where you and Sproul have been quite helpful to me. I know the churches that do practice this usually make it optional, which seems like it would let us gradually return to the practice. Being in the cage stage, I’ve blown past optionality and am thinking: why not require them like Rome did until the 80s? Beyond that, why not encourage them /in public/ like the Presbyterian women of yore? (ducks pianos being thrown)

Your 4 part sermon in 2012 was helpful. I certainly want to take appropriate precautions to not be the family with the bossy wife who veils. Or the wife who has the bigger veil, so the bigger pride. Just exploring the space.

It seems to me that a family could have the women voluntarily veiling anywhere as a matter of witness to the world, assuming all else is in order. I don’t think anyone here is arguing against that, people probably just think it’s weird, or Jewish or Muslim.

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I take “praying and prophesying” in 1 Corinthians 11 to be a synecdoche for church worship. This best harmonizes with Paul’s comments regarding the place of women in worship elsewhere when he says that they are to be silent (1 Corinthians 14:34-35; 1 Timothy 2:11-12). I have spoken with my wife about these things. She now wears one during worship. Some sermons that deal with this subject well.

As for “because of the angels”—I think Fairbairn’s handling of this phrase is the most sound and sensible I have encountered. He reasons that it is an analogy: as man corresponds to God, woman corresponds to angels. Here are his full comments:

We see, then, the fitness and propriety of the veiled appearance of the woman’s head—it is the becoming sign of her place and calling, as made of man, and, in a sense also, for man. But why should this be said to be because, or for the sake of the angels? Whatever may be meant by the expression, one thing should be distinctly understood regarding it—that, from the brief and abrupt manner in which the allusion is made—not a word of explanation going before or coming after—it can have reference to no recondite or mysterious point—nothing in itself of doubtful speculation, or capable of being ascertained only by minute and laborious search. Points of such a nature, together with the Rabbinical or heathen lore, on which they are grounded, must be out of place here, as the allusion (had it referred to such) could only have tended to perplex or mislead.

Proceeding, therefore, on the ground now laid down, we have to dismiss from our minds all the peculiar and unusual applications of the term angels sometimes adduced by commentators; and also all fanciful notions regarding the acts of real angels such as their supposed habit of veiling their faces before God (which is never mentioned of angels, strictly so called), or having a sort of superintendence and oversight of Christian assemblies (a matter also nowhere else intimated in any earlier Scripture:) and we have simply to consider, whether there be any broad and palpable facts respecting the angelic world, which, without violence or constraint, may be fitly brought into juxtaposition with the proper place and bearing of women. We know nothing of this description, unless it be what their very name imports their position and calling as ministering spirits before God, from which one section of them, indeed, fell, but which the rest kept, to their honour and blessing.

This, however, is enough; it furnishes precisely the link of connexion between them and woman. Her place, in relation to man, is like that of the angels of God; it is to do the part of a ministering agent and loving help not independently to rule and scheme for herself. It is by abiding under law to man, that she becomes either a subject or an instrument of blessing. Hence, when she fell, it was by departing from this order, by attempting to act an independent part, as if no yoke of authority lay upon her, and she might be an authority and a law to herself quitting her appointed place of ministering, for the coveted place of independent action. So, too, was it, in the higher regions of existence, with the angels that lost their first estate; they strove, in like manner, against the prime law of their being, which was to minister and serve, and aspired to be and act as from themselves. By this vain and wicked attempt they fell; and the fall of Eve, through their instrumentality, was but the image and echo of their own. Now, is it unnatural to suppose that the apostle, while tracing up the matter concerning woman’s place and bearing in society to the origin and fountain of things, should also have reminded them of these instructive facts? should have pointed their thoughts to the higher region of spirits?

The order here—he virtually said to them—the order of things in this lower world, serves as an image of the heavenly. Relations of superiority and subservience exist there as well as here; and the harmony and blessedness of both worlds alike depend upon these relations being duly kept; to disregard them, is the sure road to confusion and every evil work. Let the woman, therefore, recognising this, and remembering how the evil that originated in ambitious striving in the heavenly places, renewed itself on earth by the like spirit taking possession of her bosom—feel that it is good for her to wear perpetually the badge of subjection to authority. It is at once safe and proper for her to retain it; and so, instead of constantly repeating the catastrophe of the fallen angels, she will show her readiness to fulfil that angel-relationship, with its ministrations of service, for which she was brought into being, and exhibit before the blessed ministers of light a reflection of their own happy order and loving obedience.

—taken from pp251-53 of Hermeneutical Manual, found here for free: https://archive.org/…/hermeneutical00…/page/252/mode/2up

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simple statement of the truth

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And just before your quotation he says:

It is plainly the attire and aspect of the woman, as indicative of her proper place, that the apostle has here more immediately in view, and not merely nor directly her appearance and bearing in the church; this last and more specific point he would derive simply as a practical conclusion from the other.

So it would seem that he comes to a “veiled all the time, not just in church” stance, even though he agrees that this passage is about the assembly. We’re talking about the Amish in the other thread, one thing they have kept in their 300 years is the practice that most of Christendom has since lost, veiling all the time.