Hair, Headship, and Holiness

2 Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. 3 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. 4 Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, 5 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. 6 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. 7 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. 8 For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. 11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; 12 for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God. 13 Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, 15 but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. 16 If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God. – 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 ESV

What in the world is Paul talking about in this passage? There is little debate that this is one of the hottestly debated sections in the Bible. There are those who write it off as just another example of Paul’s male chauvinism and unbridled misogyny. Others believe that we are obligated to adhere to Paul’s teaching regarding hair length and head coverings in the church today. Some have determined that Paul is addressing a cultural issue unique to Corinth that has no bearing on the modern church.

But if all Scripture “is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16 ESV), then it would seem prudent to discover what Paul is trying to tell us in these verses. Obviously, some of what Paul is addressing is cultural and contextual, and has to do with believers living in the Greek city of Corinth. They had to operate in an environment markedly different from the one in which we live. But that does not mean Paul’s remarks are entirely irrelevant or non-binding for the rest of us. There are timeless truths taught within these verses that apply to us as well.

The challenge is to discover the non-negotiable principles intended for the church in every age, and not to allow ourselves to be distracted or deterred by the seemingly incongruous and archaic arguments of Paul. Verse 3 is essential to understanding what Paul is trying to say in the passage:

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. – 1 Corinthians 11:3 ESV

The real point of this passage is authority; more specifically, God-ordained authority. As you can imagine, in the cultural context of Corinth in which Paul was trying to preach and teach, there were some strong objections to much of what he had to say. And the topic of authority or headship was one of the more controversial. So he lays out the God-ordained order of things:

The head of (authority over) Christ is God

The head of (authority over) man is Christ

The head of (authority over) the wife is her husband

Paul states that man, who was created by God, is “the image and glory of God” (1 Corinthians 11:7a ESV). Then he adds that “woman is the glory of man” (1 Corinthians 11:7b) because she was made from man. The creation account tells us that Eve was created by God from one of Adam’s ribs. So, Paul concludes, “man was not made from woman, but woman from man” (1 Corinthians 11:8 ESV). And while Paul does not state it directly, he infers that Jesus came from God, but not in the sense that He was created by God, because Jesus, like God, is eternal. The apostle John made this point quite clear in the opening of the gospel that bears his name.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. – John 1:1-4 ESV

But Jesus’ birth and incarnation were the work of God. Mary conceived because of the Spirit of God. All of this is to say that God has ordained an irrevocable order to things, and ever since the fall, mankind has been trying to turn that order on its head. It is interesting to note that, as a result of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Eve received a very specific curse. God said, “You will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16 NLT). One of the things that caused the fall to happen in the first place was that Adam failed to honor his God-ordained headship by allowing Eve to disobey the expressed will of God. It was to Adam that God had given His command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, Adam gave Eve the lead and allowed her to make the decision. So, “she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too” (Genesis 3:6 NLT).

The issue of head coverings and hair length appears to be culturally influenced. The real point is headship and the proper expression of it. A woman wearing a veil or head covering as a sign of submission to her husband’s authority, while culturally acceptable, did not necessarily mean that she was truly submissive. A man wearing his hair short as a sign of submission to the authority of God did not necessarily mean he actually lived under that authority. The outward evidences of submission mean nothing if the inward expression of submission is missing.

The bottom line about authority, headship, and submission is that each of us ultimately submits to God. Paul states, “But among the Lord’s people, women are not independent of men, and men are not independent of women. For although the first woman came from man, every other man was born from a woman, and everything comes from God” (1 Corinthians 11:11-12 NLT). There is a God-ordained inter-dependency at work here. Eve was made from Adam, but every male since Adam has come from a woman. It is not that men are more important or of more value to God than women; it is about divinely orchestrated authority and responsibility. 

If we are not careful, we will spend all our time debating head coverings and hair length and miss Paul’s primary point of headship. There comes a point at which we have to reconcile ourselves with God’s will, even when it seems to contradict the world’s patterns and our own preferences. Jesus submitted to the will of God, even though it meant His death. Paul submitted to the will of Christ, taking the gospel to the Gentiles, even though his efforts were met with rejection and persecution.

Men are to submit to Christ, acknowledging Him as their head, even though it means giving up their rights and learning to love sacrificially and selflessly. Wives are to submit to their husbands and daughters are to submit to their fathers, as to the Lord. This divine order of things does not imply that the husband or father is wiser or knows better. As Paul told the Ephesians, each of us is to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21 NLT). And Peter reminds us, “humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor” (1 Peter 5:6 NLT).

We may not understand all that Paul is saying here; we may not even like what we do understand. But we must trust that God’s will regarding headship and submission is best. We must submit to His will and trust His wisdom. This passage has a lot more to say about holiness than it does about hair. God’s will regarding headship is not arbitrary or optional. He has a divine purpose behind all His commands, and the way they manifest will remain consistent over time, although their application may vary by cultural context. Are head coverings mandatory for women in the church? That question remains a hot-button topic in some denominations. But Paul’s greater concern was the state of the heart, not the exposure of one's hair. He was addressing the matter of headship, not head coverings. 

Is it sinful for men to wear hats? If we take this passage too literally, those are the kinds of conclusions we can draw from Paul’s words. But he would argue that we are missing the forest for the trees. In the first-century context of Corinth, head coverings for women were a societal norm. 

“In the Corinthian culture, women normally wore a head covering as a symbol of their submission to their husbands. Paul affirms the rightness of following that cultural mandate—to dispense with the head coverings on women would send the entirely wrong signal to the culture at large. In fact, Paul says that, if a Christian woman refuses her head covering, she might as well shave her hair off, too (verse 6). A woman who refused to wear a covering in that culture was basically saying, “I refuse to submit to God’s order.” Therefore, the apostle Paul is teaching the Corinthians that hair length or the wearing of a “covering” by the woman was an outward indication of a heart attitude of submission to God and to His established authority.” – "Should Christian Women Wear Head Coverings." GotQuestions.org. https://www.gotquestions.org/head-coverings.html.

Paul was encouraging the new believers in Corinth to refrain from doing anything that might damage Christ's reputation in their community. Women without head coverings would have been unacceptable in their cultural context. Men who covered their hair would have been viewed as effeminate and unmanly. This kind of behavior would have sent mixed signals to the unbelievers in Corinth, painting the church in a negative light. But, for Paul, the issue was always about headship and following God’s divine order. He wanted believers to live in a way that honored God by submitting to His divine order. 

Father, You have established an order for Your creation and, as Your children, we have been charged with maintaining that order as Your servants. You made man and woman in Your image, and we are to reflect that image to the world. You created marriage to reveal Your glory to the world as the husband and wife mirror Your sacrificial love and selfless service for one another in the roles You pre-ordained for them. We get into trouble when we decide we know better than You do. We create confusion and conflict when we try to rethink and reorder Your divine plan for the roles and relationships You have established. Chaos ensues, conflict erupts, and our role as Your image-bearers becomes blurry to a lost world that desperately needs to see Your will lived out in real time and clarity. Give us the strength to live out our calling according to Your will and not our own — for Your glory and the good of all those around us. Amen

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Marriage Matters

13 “If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her 14 and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’ 15 then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate. 16 And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her; 17 and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, “I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity.” And yet this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city. 18 Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him, 19 and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days. 20 But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, 21 then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.” – Deuteronomy 22:13-21 ESV

We once again find ourselves in difficult and, this time, delicate territory. In this section, Moses is going to address the God-ordained institution of marriage. As we have already seen, God places a high value on all human relationships, but the one between a husband and wife carry special significance to God. All the way back in the book of
Genesis, we have the record of God’s creation of the first man and woman. 

Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.

“At last!” the man exclaimed.

“This one is bone from my bone,
    and flesh from my flesh!
She will be called ‘woman,’
    because she was taken from ‘man.’”

This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. – Genesis 2:22-24 NLT

From the very beginning, God considered the union between a man and a woman to be much more than a physical or biological transaction involving sexual intercourse. And Jesus Himself provides us with important clarification on God’s view regarding marriage. When asked by the Pharisees if a man could divorce his wife for any reason, Jesus replied:

“Haven’t you read the Scriptures?…They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’” And he said, “‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.” – Matthew 19:4-5 NLT

The marriage union was to be a permanent one. Jesus and His heavenly Father both saw the relationship between a husband and his wife as a mystical comingling of two into one. And the act of intercourse was a part of this union between the two, as each gave to the other the gift of their own body for the purpose of procreation, but also pleasure. That is why Paul warned the Corinthian believers about the danger of sex outside of the marriage context.

And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.” – 1 Corinthians 6:16 NLT

Sex outside of marriage creates an insoluble bond between the two parties. Their physical union was intended to be the consummation of their spiritual union. And God saw their sexual intimacy as a joining together of two souls.

And Paul went on to explain how a husband and wife should view their sexual relationship. The ubiquitous presence of sexual immorality was a constant threat to the sanctity of the marriage bed, so Paul warned that the husband and wife were to view their bodies as belonging to each another, not to themselves. They had no right to share themselves with anyone else.

…because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.

The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife. – 1 Corinthians 7:2-4 NLT

Which brings us back to these rather strange rules regarding marriage found in Deuteronomy. In the first case, Moses outlines a situation in which a husband accuses his wife of lying about her virginity. The circumstance seems to involve a newly married couple because the husband states, “I married this woman but when I had sexual relations with her I discovered she was not a virgin!” (Deuteronomy 22:14 NLT).

Basically, the man married the girl, decided he did not really love her, and then spread rumors that she had been sexual promiscuous before he married her. In other words, he was accusing her of adultery, a crime punishable by death. This accusation would not only ruin her reputation, but it would also result in her being stoned to death. And the sense of the passage is that the man was simply looking for a good reason to divorce his wife.

In His sermon on the mount, Jesus had this to say regarding divorce: “But I say that a man who divorces his wife, unless she has been unfaithful, causes her to commit adultery” (Matthew 5:32 NLT). It would have been easy for the man to level this accusation against his wife, providing him with a sure-fire excuse to divorce her. But Jesus would later provide further insight into the topic of divorce. At one point, He was asked by the Pharisees, “why did Moses say in the law that a man could give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away?” (Matthew 19:7 NLT).

And Jesus replied to them, “Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. And I tell you this, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery—unless his wife has been unfaithful” (Matthew 19:8-9 NLT). God never intended for divorce to be an option. But the provision was provided for in the case of unfaithfulness.

So, the scenario in Deuteronomy involves a man charging his wife of unfaithfulness based on his claim that she had not been a virgin. But Moses provides a strange but culturally acceptable means by which the woman could prove her innocence. It was a common practice in that day for the parents of the bride to place a special cloth on the couple’s bed the night the marriage was to be consummated. The purpose behind the cloth is simple, albeit a bit graphic. The cloth was collected by the parents after the wedding night and kept as proof of the woman’s virginity, the blood found on it providing evidence of her virginity.

The father of the bride could bring this cloth before the authorities to clear his daughter’s name and spare her from death. If the evidence was accepted, the husband was denied his request for divorce and required to pay a hefty fine to her parents. Not only that, he was obligated to remain permanently married to his wife. One of the things that is obvious in all of this is the young girl’s lack of input in all of this. She seems to have no say in any of it. Even the fine was paid to her parents, not to her. The only benefits she received was the clearing of her name and her release from the death sentence. She was still obligated to remain married to a man whom the text clearly states hated her.

But if the man’s charge against her proved to be true and no evidence was found of her virginity, she was to be stoned to death for the crime of adultery. Moses describes her actions as “an outrageous thing in Israel” and accuses her of “whoring in her father's house” (Deuteronomy 22:21 ESV). Prior to her marriage, she would have been living at home with her parents. And while under her father’s roof and protection, she would have committed an act of sexual immorality. This was unacceptable behavior under the Mosaic Law and punishable by death.

But what is the point behind all of this? As we have seen before, God had rules that governed virtually every aspect of life within the Israelite community. He cared deeply about their relationships and wanted all that they did to reflect their status as His chosen people. And because marriage was a God-ordained institution, He created rules to govern the conduct between a husband and a wife. Virginity was given a high priority by God because of the concept of union. Purity was and still is essential to God. Honesty and integrity are non-negotiable attributes that God demands of His people. This entire scenario involves different aspects of falsehood and deception. Either the husband falsely accusing his wife of adultery or the wife attempting to hide the fact that she was not what she claimed to be when he married her. None of this was God’s way. Marriage was too important. The marriage bed was too precious. The union between a husband and wife was too holy.

But the saddest part of this entire passage is the very fact that Moses even had to address this issue at all. It reveals the underlying nature of mankind’s sin problem. God had set apart the people of Israel as His own, but He was constantly having to put restrictions on their behavior to keep them from following their sinful inclinations.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson