Who Is Your Head?

If you would remain standing in honor of God's Word as we read it together tonight. If you would please turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verses 2 through 16. In his letter to the Corinthian Christians, Paul is responding to several questions that the Corinthians had asked of him in a previous letter that they had sent, and our text tonight addresses the next question in the list, one that had to do with gender distinctions among Christians. It's interesting, isn't it, that despite the cultural shifts and changes that happened over the centuries, mankind since the fall has been wrestling with essentially the same moral questions.

There really is nothing new under the sun. In our gender confused world, let's take a few moments tonight to see how the apostle Paul instructed the first century church with regard to distinctions between man and woman. 1 Corinthians 11, beginning of verse 2. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ. The head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven.

For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short, but since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor man of woman. For as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman, and all things are from God.

Judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is a disgrace for him?

But if a woman has long hair, it is her glory, for her hair is given to her for a covering. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God. This is the word of the Lord.

Let's pray. Father, your law is perfect, reviving the soul. Your testimony is sure, making wise the simple. Your precepts are right, rejoicing the heart. Your commandment is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of you, Lord, is clean, endearing forever. Your rules are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold, sweeter also than honey. And by keeping your rules, there is great reward. So may the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight tonight, O Lord. I rock and I redeemer. Amen.

Be seated. Well, Peter said in his second epistle that Paul wrote some things that are hard to understand. And the text before us tonight is certainly one of those difficult to understand Pauline passages. I'll tell you at the outset that I don't understand a lot of what Paul is saying in these verses. I'll do my best to explain what I think I do understand, but this is going to have to be one of those places in Scripture that I just come back to over and over again until the Holy Spirit gives sufficient illumination. Having said that, I also want to acknowledge that much of what Paul says in these verses is very clear.

What's difficult about the clear stuff is that it runs so contrary to the cultural moment in which we find ourselves. And this makes it difficult, not to understand, but difficult for some to embrace and obey. I think whenever we find a passage of Scripture like this one that runs contrary to the prevailing sensibilities and tastes of our moment in history, it can be a great test case for evaluating our posture toward Scripture.

Is my posture one of eager, trusting submission, or is it one of hesitancy and resistance? Do I want to know what God is saying, or am I more concerned with how to make the Word of God seem palatable to my own flesh, or palatable to an unbelieving world? You see, if God's Word requires something of us, even something that is radically countercultural, we should be willing and eager to do it, right? Scripture, not culture or scientific consensus or social tastes and customs, Scripture is our authoritative word. Now, does that mean that Scripture will always contradict earthly authorities in matters of truth and morality? No, not necessarily. Just because the culture's doing it or the scientific community affirms it, it doesn't mean those things are wrong.

Just because a custom is broadly accepted as normal doesn't mean it's a bad custom. In fact, I think we should expect that much of what we discover in the natural world will confirm and agree with the special revelation of Scripture. But our commitment as followers of Christ, first and foremost and chiefly, is to the Word of God in Scripture, since that Word is the most direct and the least arbitrated source of truth that we have access to. So our starting point with any passage of Scripture, but especially a passage that runs in direct contradiction to the norms of our age, must be one of joyful, unqualified submission to whatever God says.

Only then am I in a position to properly evaluate the customs and practices of the world around me. Well, our text that we just read is about gender distinctions, and I don't have to tell you that the subject of gender distinctions is arguably the most polarizing topic of our generation. Now, on the one hand, it seems absurd that this would even be a polarizing topic, right? Because, after all, what could be more basic and plain than human gender? On the other hand, isn't it interesting that Paul, writing some 2,000 years ago, had to address the same issue that our world today is all up in arms and confused and polarized over?

This is not a new issue. Therefore, the truth regarding these matters must not be as obvious to the fallen mind as perhaps we think it should be. This confusion is not new, and so we conclude gender confusion is not an American thing, it's not a Western culture thing or a modern thing, it's a fallen human being thing.

We get backwards and upside down on this topic, not because we're the product of the Enlightenment or modernism or postmodernism, but because we're sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, the first couple of many who would disregard what God hath said in order to believe and do whatever they wanted to believe and do. Well, with those things in mind, let's go to God's Word tonight, hopefully with an eagerness and gladness to agree with whatever God has said, and let's hear from him tonight. For the sake of clarity, I want to divide our text into two parts. The first part gets at the heart of the issue by laying down a universal truth. The second part then gets into the weeds a little bit of applying that universal truth to situations and circumstances that are relative and changing and complicated.

So part one is the universal principle, part two is the relative and complex application of that principle. So, first, the universal principle is found in verse three. Paul says, I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. The word head in this verse speaks of authority, of the right and responsibility to lead and rule. Notice then that Christ and man and woman are all under someone's authority, under someone's headship.

Christ is under God's authority, man is under Christ's authority, and woman is under man's authority. Now, what does it mean to be under someone's authority? Well, it means to have a moral obligation to obey the authority. It means to yield to the one in authority, to surrender one's personal preferences and choices to the authority, to serve and honor and obey. And so Paul is saying that a role of subjection describes Christ's relationship to God the Father, and it describes man's relationship to Christ, and it describes woman's relationship to man.

There's a hierarchy, there's a chain of command. It's very interesting that Paul grounds his discussion of gender distinctions between men and women in this broader context of the distinctions between God the Son and God the Father, and between Christ and man. I think this analogy has two effects. First of all, it prevents us from raising an objection to women being subjected to men, because whatever objection we raise with regard to women, we're also raising with regard to Christ. If we say, for example, that this arrangement is demeaning to women, we are logically saying that Christ's submission to his Heavenly Father is demeaning to Christ. We're also saying that man's submission to Christ is demeaning to men. On the other hand, this comparison of the man-woman relationship to the relationship within the Godhead prevents us, I think, from abusing the principle of authority by carrying it too far.

To say that women are subject to men, like Christ is subject to God the Father, I think is an acknowledgement that man's headship over woman is not without some very important qualifications and limitations. We know, don't we, that God the Father and God the Son are of the same substance and are both, along with the Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory. God the Son was not eternally subject to God the Father.

But when Jesus Christ took on flesh and became a man, became a human being, Scripture says he emptied himself at that moment of certain divine prerogatives. He subjected himself as a man to the will of the Father. And so we see in the Gospels, Christ subjecting himself to the Father throughout his earthly ministry. We hear him saying things like the Son of Man can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. We hear Christ praying things like, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.

Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Christ voluntarily subjected himself as a man to the will and headship of the Father. But that was a limited submission in time and space for the purpose of making atonement for man's sins.

It in no way diminished his value or his equality with God. Similarly, a woman's submission to the headship of a man in no way diminishes her intrinsic value, nor is it an unqualified license for man to exercise his headship in an absolute or authoritarian sort of way. So bringing the Trinity into this analogy removes any basis for women to object to her role or for man to abuse his role, because both to object and to abuse this concept of headship is to misunderstand the very relationship that exists between God the Father and God the Son. The universal principle then is that men and women have differing roles.

The one is to lead, the other is to follow. And this hierarchical arrangement is not the product of mere cultural customs or historical trends. It's a universal reality that's built into the very fabric of the human race and is as good and healthy as the Father-Son relationship within the Godhead. You know, if it's that big of a deal, it makes sense, doesn't it, that men and women would resist this reality so strongly?

Fallen men and women. I mean, this is one of the crucial points at which, as creatures, we demonstrate God's image. And so it stands to reason that fallen sinners hate the restrictions of order and authority and structure. In fact, a significant part of God's curse on man at the fall had to do with human beings' willingness to accept their God-given roles. In Genesis 3 16, God says to Eve and to every daughter who would come after her, your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. It's very clear men are to lead and women are to follow, but I can't even get those words out of my mouth without our minds revolting and objecting with a hundred warnings for God as to why that's a bad idea.

Church, that reaction is itself a part of the curse. We don't like being under authority because it threatens our sense of autonomy, yet we love to be in authority because it strengthens our autonomy. But God says every son or daughter of Adam will be under someone's authority, even my own son when he takes on human flesh, because headship and submission are good and helpful and wise. So this is the universal principle that Paul is calling us to embrace and calling us to live by. God is leading Christ, Christ is leading men, and men are leading women. And this arrangement of headship and submission is good. Well, the question then becomes how does this headship and submission play out in real life?

What does it look like, say on Sunday mornings when the saints are gathered for worship? That was the specific question, evidently, that the Corinthians were asking of Paul, and so Paul explains some of the complexities involved in applying this universal principle in a world that is constantly trying to distort the concept and practice of headship. So this brings us then to the second point tonight, which is a complex application in verses 4 through 15. Let me just walk us quickly through these verses and give some brief explanation and comment, and then I want to suggest three lenses through which we can consider the application of the headship principle, lenses that I think are embedded in Paul's application here. Verses 4 and 5 set the context in which Paul is applying the headship principle. He says, every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head. Praying and prophesying is shorthand, I think, for leading in public worship.

In fact, for the next several chapters, Paul is going to be addressing matters that pertain to the public worship of the church, and so a good place to evaluate and learn how to properly apply the principle of headship or the exercise of authority is in the corporate gathering of the church. Now, there are a couple of, more than a couple, there's a lot of linguistic ambiguities in these verses. That's why I open by saying this is a difficult passage. There's a lot of ambiguity. First of all, the word head is the same Greek word that's used back in verses 2 and 3.

So verses 4 and 5 might be referring to a man or a woman dishonoring their literal physical head or, pointing back to 2 and 3, dishonoring their figurative head, that is, the authority figure who's over them. It's ambiguous. It could mean either one. Also, the word woman and the word wife are used interchangeably in the ESV, at least. It's the same Greek word. It's an ambiguous word in the Greek that can mean either woman or wife.

It's nonspecific, and so it requires that we make an interpretive decision in translating it. So back to the text in verses 4 and 5, Paul makes an interesting connection between honorable conduct and the way we dress, particularly with regard to our hairstyle. And Paul loads his comments with what I think must be cultural and stylistic customs that were normative in the first century. That's also up for grabs.

I'm not certain of that, but I think so. Let me try to unravel some of those customs, if I can. In first century Rome, men who were engaged in pagan worship would often pull their robe, their clothing up over their heads, as an act of devotion to whatever false god they were worshiping. If Christian men then, in Christian worship, were to observe that custom, they would be unhelpfully identifying with the pagan worship practices of their day. Paul says that would be dishonoring to man's head. And who is man's head? Verse 3, Christ is man's head. And so by the simple act of following a normative pagan custom, Christian men would have been associating Christ with these pagan deities of the time, and it would have been dishonoring to Christ. For first century women, on the other hand, it was customary for them to wear head coverings in public as a sign of submission to their husbands.

Again, there's an ambiguity here. It is unclear whether the head covering referred to an actual veil of some sort or to the woman's hair itself being put up on their head, I suppose like a bun or something. In first century culture, the letting down or loosening of a woman's hair was associated with sexual intimacy. So when Paul speaks here of a woman having her hair covered, he might be referring to an actual covering, a separate object, a symbol that she put on, or to her simply having her hair put up on her head in public. Either way, what matters was that a covering of some sort was used.

Why did it matter? It mattered because that was the custom of the age, and to not follow the custom would be to communicate in that setting insubordination, or worse, adultery. First century women who were caught in adultery were in some places publicly identified and humiliated by having their head shaved. And so Paul is saying by not following the customs of the day with regard to stylistic gender distinctions, Christian women would be sending the wrong message. They would be displaying an attitude toward their God-given femininity that would be contrary to God's created order.

It would dishonor their head. And who is their head? Verse 3, the head of a wife is her husband. Paul summarizes all of this in verse 7, man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God. And covering his head would, by association, communicate that Christ is on par with these false Roman gods. And conversely, women ought to cover their heads either with a veil or with their actual hair because, verse 7, woman is the glory of man.

And to not cover their heads would, by association, communicate that they are not in subordination to their husbands. So if verses 4 through 7 look to cultural customs to maintain gender distinctions and verses 8 through 12 look to creation in order to define and maintain gender distinctions. Paul makes the point that at creation man was not made for or from woman but rather woman was made for and from man. In verses 13 through 15 then, Paul looks to the natural world to demonstrate that distinctions between men and women, between that which is masculine and that which is feminine, are not arbitrary, they're not random or incidental accidents.

No, they are features of how God made us. Verse 14, does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair it is her glory. So he's moving beyond mere first century custom and looking broadly to nature.

Now we need to be careful not to say more than Paul is saying. He doesn't, for example, define the word long. There's not some biblically conclusive standard that defines how long a woman's hair ought to be or how short a man's hair ought to be.

That's not really the point. The point is men and women are different and that difference shows up in even the most fundamental expressions of style and appearance. Furthermore, that difference is something we ought to relish and preserve because it's a God-given difference, God-given at creation. There is an order of function and purpose that is distinct between men and women and that distinction is intuitive in the natural order of things. It's reinforced in the biological and psychological differences between men and women. It has been demonstrated generation after generation through the various expressions of custom and culture and it's even exemplified by a way of analogy within the relationships of the persons of the Godhead. The delineation between male and female is natural and God-given and morally wholesome and culturally expressed. And so as Christians, we ought to value the preserving and maintaining of those distinctions. The specifics of how those distinctions manifest themselves is going to vary from culture to culture, from generation to generation, but we ought to study how those distinctions are best expressed in our culture and we ought to be careful to observe those customs insofar as they convey our acceptance of and delight in God's created order. Just to be clear, I believe this passage is simply requiring women to wear feminine hairstyles in public worship.

Some Christians, I'm aware, take it further than that and require an actual physical symbolic head covering of some sort. The word symbol in the ESV is not in the Greek and so it's not as conclusive as it may appear in the Greek. The Greek is just really too vague to know for sure in my opinion. What's not inconclusive though in this text is that women are to look feminine and men are to look masculine. But even in saying that, we have to acknowledge that expressions of femininity and masculinity are to some extent culturally relative.

I can tell you from personal observation that what is considered feminine in Kenya and what is considered feminine in Harrisburg are not the same and yet femininity and masculinity are noticeably identifiable in both cultures, even though the cultural expressions of those two things are varied. One of the most helpful commentators on First Corinthians for me has been a British theologian by the name of Anthony Thistleton in his huge commentary on First Corinthians. He outlines three lenses through which to view Paul's discussion of gender distinctions and while this doesn't answer every ambiguity we find in this chapter, I think it does help us kind of put the pieces together in a cogent way. Thistleton mentions first the lens of creation. The lens of creation. God has created human beings in a certain way with a predefined role or function that cannot be altered. This is an absolute lens through which to see issues related to gender. If God has made the human race a certain way, we don't need to go tampering with it, we don't need to go altering it.

Absolutes need to remain absolute and anything that is the way it is by virtue of it being created that way is an absolute, a fixed reality. And so as Christians we affirm wholeheartedly and joyfully that gender distinctions exist. That's the creation lens. But next Thistleton mentions a second lens, the lens of culture. Gender distinctions by virtue of God's creative act exist but those distinctions are expressed in time and space through various customs and practices, customs and practices that will vary from generation to generation. And we can acknowledge freely that this lens of culture unlike the creation lens is relative. It fluctuates, it changes, it morphs over time but the fact remains there are cultural expressions of gender distinctions and so as Christians we ought to try to learn those customs and understand what they mean in our moment of history so that we can affirm the absolute principle of scripture in culturally relevant ways.

It's the relative lens of culture. And incidentally I think a lot of our text tonight is Paul's inspired reflection on gender distinctions through this lens of cultural relevance. This means there is a legitimate place for Christians to give consideration as to how they live out their faith in their cultural moment. I don't think this is playing fast and loose with the Word of God. It's actually an attempt to faithfully live out the Word of God in every context.

Well, Thistleton's last lens then is the eschatological lens or we might say the gospel lens. Folks, the gospel has profound implications on the distinctions between male and female. So profound in fact that Paul says in Galatians 3 28, in Christ there is no male or female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. The gospel saves men and women in the same manner and to the same extent there's no gender distinction when it comes to salvation. This means that although we ought to carefully and eagerly maintain distinctions between men and women and how we function and serve and live our lives on this earth, those distinctions are of relative importance in light of eternity.

We don't know what gender differences will look like in the new heavens and the new earth, but we do know that all who are in Christ will alike share in the glory of that day. And so as Christians in the here and now, we treat each other as equals in the kingdom. Men, if you abuse your authority, you've missed the whole point.

If you are exercising the authority you've been given in a self-centered, self-serving, self-glorifying way, you don't get it. There's nothing honorable or masculine about that. Women, if you resent your earthly role as a helpmate to your husband, you're not only making yourself miserable, you're also disgracing the status that yours in Christ as a co-heir with man.

So church, can I say it as plainly as possible? Men need to act like men and women need to act like women. It is shameful and rebellious for us to do otherwise. Well, then the million dollar question is, what is biblical manhood and womanhood? I'll tell you what it isn't. It isn't something that's defined by our favorite personality traits. I think we all have a tendency to define concepts like masculinity or femininity in ways that highlight our natural strengths. And so for instance, the ripped athletic Christian male says biblical masculinity is about toughness and strength. The intellectual Christian male says biblical masculinity is all about truth and reason. The dainty Christian female says biblical femininity is about being quiet like Ruth or patient like Hannah. The ambitious Christian female says biblical femininity is about being a leader like Deborah or bold like Esther. We get all eager to display gender distinctives, but then we define those distinctives in ways that play to our personal strengths.

Folks, that's probably just pride hiding behind an important biblical principle. We need to be careful to let scripture define masculinity and femininity for us, lest we unknowingly fall prey to whatever the current evangelical sentiments happen to be. And so while there is a culturally relative element in all of this, I think it means that the creation and the gospel lenses are primary and the cultural lens is secondary.

Just keep in mind that we can't dismiss any of these lenses because Paul alludes to all of them in our text. Now there's no way we could exhaustively cover the subject of masculine and feminine distinctions tonight, but perhaps I can just kind of point us in the general direction as we close. There are a number of important scripture passages that highlight the differences between men and women.

These passages ought to be our starting place. With regard to femininity, consider Genesis 2, which describes a woman as a helper and companion. Those qualities are going to be central to your femininity, ladies. 1 Timothy 2, 9 through 12 emphasizes the feminine traits of modest adornment and self-control with regard to physical appearance. This implies that women are blessed with physical beauty that can be used in a noble and pure way or in an improper and sensual way. So you need to be on guard.

You need to be wise in your physical appearance. Titus 2 describes the godly woman's use of speech and time. She is to pursue reverence in her behavior. She is to foster, both in herself and in the women around her, contentment in domestic pursuits. That is a feminine trait, contentment in domestic pursuits.

That's not something to be despised, even though our culture despises it. 1 Peter 3, 1 through 6 describes the feminine ideal as respectful, pure, gentle, quiet, and again warns of giving too much attention to merely outward beauty. And of course, Proverbs 31 is the quintessential passage of biblical womanhood. It presents to us an ideal to which every Christian woman ought to look with admiration and expectation that one day in glory she will attain to this ideal, but in the meantime be striving for these qualities.

It's who God made you to be. As for biblical masculinity, in Genesis 1 we see God commissioning man to exercise dominion, rule over all the earth. Man is seen growing food and organizing and naming things so as to have mastery over this world, and in so doing he bears the image of his creator. 1 Timothy 2, as well as 1 Peter 3, speak of man as a praying creature who is charged with coming into the presence of God as a mediator of sorts, a representative of his family. And the prerequisite for this priestly duty is holiness. Let men lift holy hands to the Lord in prayer.

Another prerequisite is understanding and deference in how he relates to his wife so that his prayers may not be hindered. Man is called in Titus 2 to be sober-minded, to be sound in faith. He's called to be steadfast, not prone to fluctuation with every wind of change.

He's called to demonstrate integrity and dignity. All of these are the biblical definition of masculinity. In 1 John 2, men are described as victors who have fought against the evil one and overcome. In 1 Corinthians 16, 13, the masculine man is brave and strong. Brothers and sisters, we are called to love these traits even when the world despises them. We're called to develop these traits, each in our respective roles, even when the world dismisses them or distorts them into some caricature of what God intends them to be.

We are to encourage each other to pursue these ideals. If wives are called to have a gentle and quiet spirit, then men, be the kind of husband that fosters a gentle and quiet spirit in your wife. Women, if men are supposed to live with their wives in an understanding way, then please be understandable to your husband. Help him be the man.

Help her be the woman. Paul closes this passage then with an admonition that anticipates some resistance to what he has said. Verse 16, if anyone is inclined to be contentious about your role as a man, your role as a woman, we have no such practice of being contentious, nor do the churches of God. When you resist this most basic function of being a human being created in the image of God, your actions and attitudes are not consistent with the follower of Christ.

I want to just close by addressing the young people in the room. Young people, you are coming up in a world that has lost sight of these truths in an incredibly breathtaking sort of way. And I have no doubt that this assault on God's created order with regard to gender will continue.

Here's what I want you to remember. Gender distinctions are God's invention, not ours. And as such, God and God alone has the right to define those distinctions. But I also want you to remember that your greatest joy and fulfillment in this area of gender or in any area of life comes as you submit yourself to the one who is your head, the Lord Jesus Christ. Follow his rules.

He really does know what will make you happiest, what will make you most filled with joy. The world will always be trying to invent new ways of rebelling against God. You be faithful. You honor your Creator by bearing his image well. Let's pray. Lord, the world is at enmity with you.

You told us it would be that way. Help us not to be shocked or influenced by that enmity, especially when it seeks to put pressure on us to conform to its rebellious ways. You have done such a work in us that your Word calls us new creations in Christ. Would you help us by the power of your Holy Spirit in us to rest in that work and to pursue attitudes and behavior and thought processes that reflect the character and calling of those who have been redeemed by sovereign grace? Make us men and women who make the world jealous for the joy that only you can give. I pray in Jesus' name and for his honor. Amen.