1 Corinthians 11:1-16 Shaved Heads
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: March 5, 2020 1 Corinthians 11:1-16
Notem1: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
Note 2: I had a hard time understanding, so I consulted multiple commentaries and Bible translations. I have included some of them at the end. If you do not want to read the commentaries, stop after the part that starts with “My conclusions.”
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. 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.
(Understanding the Text) This must have been another question that the Corinthians asked Paul. Should people cover their heads when praying? Paul answered according to the culture of his time and the spiritual principles of the Bible. These ideas seem wrong at first from my culture, but I think if I study the principles involved, it will become clearer.
Paul starts out by telling them that they are doing well at maintaining the lessons that he taught them when he was with them and that they needed to keep on imitating him because he was imitating Jesus and so in the long run they were imitating Jesus. They did not have a culture or background to understand what Jesus was like, so they needed to see a human example who could demonstrate how to live a Godly life. Paul was saying that he was their example, not because he was great but because he was following Jesus’ example.
Then Paul starts to answer the question of covering the head when praying. He begins by saying that a wife is under the authority of her husband who is under the authority of Jesus who is under the authority of God. Now the question is, is Paul speaking of cultural authority or spiritual authority when it comes to a husband and wife? Also, is Paul speaking of a relationship between the Father and Son that was always there, or that came into being when Jesus became human? Both questions are beyond my knowledge, but they are essential to understanding this passage correctly.
(Revelation of God) One thing that I do know about the relationship between Jesus and the Father is that the Father never forced Jesus to do anything. Jesus chose to do the actions that He did out of love for humanity and for the Father. The decision was always up to Jesus. The Father had superior knowledge while Jesus was on earth since as a human here, Jesus did not have omniscience or omnipresence. He gave that up to be human. Thus, the Father’s superior knowledge gives Him authority to be obeyed; however, that obedience is always voluntary. Thus, it is difficult to compare obedience between human relationships and the Godhead because husbands do not have knowledge superior to their wives. Thus, obedience cannot be meant by Paul’s statement.
Another way to look at this is ambassadorship. Jesus represented God to humans. Husbands represent Jesus to the world. Wives represent their husbands to the world. If this is about living within the cultural framework of the world of Paul, few people would look to the wives to ask about spiritual issues. They would not judge Jesus based on the wives’ behavior. Instead, they would judge the husband based on the wife’s behavior and judge the religious beliefs based on the man’s words. I think I am right in this, but I might not be.
Another cultural factor seems to be hair length. Men wore their hair short or shaved while women wore theirs long. Paul says that nature teaches them about this, but I don’t understand how. He says that nature teaches that long hair on a man is bad, but on a woman is good. I had a thought that he might be referring to men’s tendency to go bald while women did not; however, that does not seem to fit, so I can’t figure out what part of nature Paul is referring to. The SDA commentary says that the word “nature” here refers to the natural order of things in human society. In other words, the custom of the day for the Corinthians, Jews, and Romans was for men to wear their hair short unless they were under a Nazarite vow. Thus, Paul is appealing to the custom of the day, not nature as in the natural world that God created. Strong’s Greek dictionary does not support this, but Thayer’s Greek dictionary does.
Also, what do angels have to do with having a symbol of authority on your head. Paul says that woman came from man and that is why he has authority, and then he says that she should wear a covering because of the angels. Is it because the angels cover themselves? Do the angel’s cover themselves with their wings in the presence of God’s glory? Thus, women cover themselves in the presence of God’s glory? Or else they totally uncover themselves? But since this was not acceptable in the culture, then they should cover themselves? I don’t know. Guzik’s commentary seems to think of it as witnesses who will condemn the action. The SDA commentary touches on this idea but expands it to the idea I had that the angels cover their own faces in awe when they say God’s name, and so disapprove of disrespect of the one who is loved and should be respected.
Paul then seems to reverse his words to say that men and women come from each other and they both come from God. Whereas before he focused only on woman coming from man and being made for man originally, now he stresses that after that men were born of women. Before he made a hierarchy from God to woman, but now he says that she comes from God directly. What is Paul’s point? Paul ends by saying that in the churches, the practice is for women to pray covering their heads and men to pray with heads uncovered.
(Application / Prayer) My application for myself is that whether man or woman, we are still under the authority of Jesus and should emulate Him giving ourselves for others and living as He would live. Just as the Corinthians were only to emulate Paul in order to emulate Jesus, this idea of husbands standing between Jesus and wives, was situational. Wives could still access the grace of God directly. They might culturally need to represent their husbands and treat their husbands with authority, but reality was that they were ultimately representing Jesus and the Father. No matter who stands in authority above me in the world, ultimately I am representing You to the world.
My conclusions after consulting commentaries and various translations: This would be hard to explain to someone who is determined to apply this to “headship” but I think I understand a little better. Paul is saying that if we take cultural norms of modesty and respect and throw them out the window when we are publicly leading church service, we will be showing disrespect to God and each other. However, this does not answer the question about mixed cultural expectations or about changing societal expectations. The secondary point is that in a marriage, the man has a certain authority over his wife, but it is the authority that Jesus has over His church, which is the responsibility to take care of and love and nurture. Thus, the man has to answer to Jesus for any neglect he has of his wife. The wife shows the world that she respects her husband’s care by not disrespecting him in public.
MY RESEARCH:
Guzik’s commentary, of course, advances the interpretation of headship and applies this to women not taking leadership positions in the church. He quotes commentators as interpreting the angel comment as angels observing the way we act, so we have to act correctly. That does not go together with other statements that Paul has made. Guzik’s logic is that this was all logic from before the fall of Adam and Eve, so headship still applies today. I have two problems with Guzik’s arguments. One is that he applies the wearing of a head covering to culture, but not the headship to culture. He is inconsistent. The second is he extends headship in a worldly way rather than Christ’s way which says that “he who would be greatest must be the servant.”
The SDA commentary looks at the relationship between husband and wife described by Paul in terms of dependency. Husbands are dependent on Jesus for their authority and for their dignity, so women are dependent upon their husbands also. However, the commentary says that it is difficult to follow Paul’s argument here. “In vs. 4-16 Paul discusses the subject of the covering of the head particularly in relation to religious services. It should be stated clearly at the outset that this is one of those Pauline passages to which Peter’s words may have applied, that Paul wrote ‘some things hard to be understood’ (2 Peter 3:16). Commentators, in general, confess to perplexity in their endeavors to follow Paul’s argument, and in their attempts to discover the breadth of application of his pronouncements. There seems to be agreement among them that Paul is here dealing with the basic principle of propriety, religious decorum, and good taste, in the context of the customs and manners of the time in which he wrote and the people to whom he wrote.” “Unquestionably, certain aspects of this prime principle find different expression in different lands, even changing with the centuries in the various lands. The Old Testament provides a choice illustration of this. When Moses came to the burning bush the Lord commanded him: ‘Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground’ (Ex. 3:5). It was evidently the custom in that area of the world–and is, indeed, still the custom–to show respect for holy places by removing the shoes. The Lord, therefore, was calling upon Moses to show the usual reverence for a holy place. Yet no expositor of the Scriptures has ever concluded that the explicit command of God to Moses sets a precedent for religious worship the world over, certainly not in Occidental countries. The principle of proper reverence still stands inviolate, but the method of expressing such reverence may vary greatly with countries and times.” “Similarly, we may understand Paul, in 1 Cor. 11:4-16, to be reasoning of propriety and religious decorum in terms of the particular customs of the day. Though ancient sources fail to give us unequivocal testimony as to custom in headdress in Corinth or elsewhere, it seems evident that custom must have considered an uncovered head as proper for a man but improper for a woman. We say ‘evident,’ for if this were not so, it would be impossible to make sense out of Paul’s argument. Proceeding then, on the reasonable assumption that Paul is here dealing with the application of a principle to the custom of the country and the times, we are able to take literally and meaningfully his words without following on to conclude that this requires the same specific application today. Thus to conclude would require the illogical procedure of surrendering the premise on which much of his argument rests–the custom of the times–while holding to the conclusion that depends on the premise. That would be equivalent to removing the foundation of a building while seeking to salvage and use the superstructure suspended in mid-air.” “There is a further point that may be relevant to the consideration of this whole passage. Paul proclaimed a new and glorious freedom in the gospel. That proclamation had in it the seeds of the Christian principle of the dignity of womankind and her release from the low estate in which all women were held in pagan lands. He declared: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek., there is neither bond nor free, there neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3:28). It would be easy to see how some women converts to Christianity might distort and misuse their liberty in the gospel to bring discredit on the church. One of the libelous, unfounded charges that took shape against Christianity as it spread abroad and aroused the hatred of men was that the Christians were immoral. Indeed, the charge may already have been whispered abroad in Paul’s day. How needful, then, that Christians ‘abstain from all appearance of evil’ (1 Thess. 5:22), how needful that they remember the further counsel of Paul that though a certain course may be lawful it may not be expedient (1 Cor. 6:12).”
The SDA commentary further says that when Paul was speaking of men uncovering their heads, he was saying that they should follow the custom in Corinth of removing a head covering in the presence of a superior. This would be like the old custom of men removing their hats to show respect. On the other hand, it was the custom of the women to have covered heads to show that they were married and as a modesty issue. Thus, for women to change their usual behavior and remove their covering when giving a public message or public prayer would be immodest and reflect badly upon their husbands. “Paul seems to reason that by thus discarding the veil, a recognized emblem of her sex and position, she shows a lack of respect for husband, father, the female sex in general, and Christ.”
The Message Paraphrase Bible says “In a marriage relationship, there is authority from Christ to husband, and from husband to wife. The authority of Christ is the authority of God. Any man who speaks with God or about God in a way that shows a lack of respect for the authority of Christ, dishonors Christ. In the same way, a wife who speaks with God in a way that shows a lack of respect for the authority of her husband, dishonors her husband. Worse, she dishonors herself—an ugly sight, like a woman with her head shaved. This is basically the origin of these customs we have of women wearing head coverings in worship, while men take their hats off. By these symbolic acts, men and women, who far too often butt heads with each other, submit their “heads” to the Head: God. Don’t, by the way, read too much into the differences here between men and women. Neither man nor woman can go it alone or claim priority. Man was created first, as a beautiful shining reflection of God—that is true. But the head on a woman’s body clearly outshines in beauty the head of her “head,” her husband. The first woman came from man, true—but ever since then, every man comes from a woman! And since virtually everything comes from God anyway, let’s quit going through these “who’s first” routines. Don’t you agree there is something naturally powerful in the symbolism—a woman, her beautiful hair reminiscent of angels, praying in adoration; a man, his head bared in reverence, praying in submission? I hope you’re not going to be argumentative about this. All God’s churches see it this way; I don’t want you standing out as an exception. (1 Corinthians 11:3-16).”