Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I had delivered them to you. But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoreth her head, for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For man indeed ought not to cover his head, for as much as he is the image and the glory of God. but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also of the woman, but all things are of God. Judging yourselves, is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? Doth not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, and her hair is given her for a covering. But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord, we ask now that as we come around Your Word in these moments that Thou would open our heart and give us understanding and that the Spirit of God would be our teacher and would show us what it is that the Word of God is our rule for faith and practice. So guide our thoughts in these moments, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. At my church back in Greenville, we have the same policy that is practiced here, that men don't wear hats in church, and ladies have their heads covered. And I found that it was necessary every so often there to take time to remind the people that we do what we do because of the mandates and the teaching of God word. And it's not just a matter of some little weird Greenville custom or here Grand Rapids custom. What we do is obviously unusual in the day in which we live. Most churches, evangelical, conservative, you'll go into those places and for the most part, men don't have head covering, but neither do the women. So is this a matter of practice, of custom, just church tradition, or is it something indeed that the word of God sets down for us? And it's my contention that it is the mandate and the instruction of the Word of God. I realize that customs change, but the Word of God, and you can see on the outline that I've given the bottom line up top, the shifting customs of society do not influence or abrogate the imperatives of Scripture. So if the Word of God is our rule for faith and practice, then I believe this is what we ought to understand. And in the time that I've been here, now a year and a half or so, had various people from time to time ask me about the issue of head covering, so I thought, given this opportunity, it may be good for us just to reflect upon this passage. My time is very limited. And I'm going to try my best to go through this passage in the segment of time that we have allotted today. There are two issues as we come to the passage. One regards the interpretation. How do we interpret the passage? And there are basically two interpretations. The one interpretation is indeed that this passage is requiring that in the place of public worship, ladies have their heads covered and men do not. The other interpretation basically is that the head covering, the covering is the hair. And so long then as we follow that, then everything is in order. I'm gonna be arguing, obviously, for the first of those two interpretations, if for no other reason, just simply a matter of logic. If it is indeed that the head covering that Paul has in mind here is just the hair, and so long as ladies come to church with hair, then they're all right. Well, what does that do for us men? Because we're not to have the head covering. I look out here, there are some that are approaching. But obviously that's ludicrous, right? That would be absurd. The Bible's not telling us that men must be bald when we come into the place of public worship. So the interpretation, I think, is going to be clear enough. But then we have the issue of application. And the vast majority, I'll tell you, the vast majority of evangelical churches today are going to say, yes, that's the interpretation. No argument with the interpretation. But that was just a Corinthian custom. That was just a local ancient custom. Customs change. And so long as we get the principle that Paul was teaching there, that women are to be subordinate in their functions, then that's the main idea. Is this then to be relevant? Is it to be applied in the day in which we live? And my argument is going to be that ultimately, and we'll see as we go through here as we have time, that even what was taking place in the Corinthian church, in the New Testament church, was anti-cultural. Paul was introducing a distinctively Christian form of worship that was different from the Greeks, that was different from the Jews. Here is something that in Paul's day was out of sync with culture. So I'm saying that culture and style is not the issue, but rather what does the scripture say? Now this context, and it's imperative that we understand this context as being one that is dealing with the issues of public worship. We're very familiar with the latter part of this chapter that gives the apostolic exposition of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as one that we refer to every time we come to the table. And obviously, as Protestants, we believe that there's no such thing as a private celebration of the Lord's Supper, of the sacraments. So the context, certainly unquestionably, of the latter part of the chapter is dealing with public worship. And I would suggest to you that that is in the first part of the chapter as well that I think I can substantiate here in just a moment. Now, I say my time is very limited. If I can just quickly go down the passage with you, and I've got four basic points here on the analysis that you can follow along. But first of all, the authority of the regulation. We see that at the beginning and at the end of the chapter. Paul says that he is putting them in remembrance of all things and that they keep the ordinances. That word ordinances can sometimes be translated as tradition. If you have a marginal reading in your Bible, you'll see that some idea of tradition is there. But don't interpret tradition there just as human tradition, as that which is passed down from generation to generation. This word in the New Testament is used for divine apostolic, that revelation that God gave the apostles, and now the apostles, having been received that truth from God, are now declaring that to others. And so it's interesting, and I think not without significance, that when Paul introduces this section dealing with the head covering, that he does so in terms of identifying it as an ordinance, not a sacrament of the church, but as that which is divinely revealed instruction that he is setting down as an apostle. So verse two, I think, is important. And verse 16, I think, also establishes something here of the authority. But if any man seem to be contentious, if you're gonna argue about this, Paul says, here's what we need to understand. We have no such custom. We have no such practice in any of the churches of God. Now what is he talking about here? What practice? Now remember that Corinth was one of the most cosmopolitan centers in the ancient Greek world. It was a center of commerce. There was all kind of traffic going on. It was a cosmopolitan place. And they were very often influenced by some of the stuff that was being brought into their little city, big city, from the outside. And apparently one of the things One of the things that had come into the Corinthian church that Paul is here dealing with concerns this matter of the head covering, apparently because of this external influence from all of the tradesmen and whatever else coming through. We had women entering into the congregation with heads uncovered. And maybe even that there were some men that were going into the public worship with their heads covered. Both of those are issues here. Both of those are issues. And Paul says we're not going to do that. This is not something, we're not going to argue about this Paul says. We have no custom, there's no such practice in any of the churches that are being established here. Obviously first generation of the New Testament Church. But it's not our custom, it's not our practice. And it's not gonna be done here in Corinth either, that you come in men with their heads covered and ladies with their heads uncovered. It's not just a local Corinthian issue here. The thing that was going on in Corinth was the fact that they were violating this principle. And Paul says, we're not gonna have it. We're not gonna have it. And so with divine authority as the apostle, he then gives this All right, so we establish here that this is not just custom. All right, I think the text makes it very clear that it's not just a practice that had come into the Corinthian church. In fact, what's being corrected is the abuse of what had become the normal dictated Christian policy. Now this is the only place Now, this is the only place in the New Testament that we have, and some people argue, it's only mentioned one time. You see, it's only mentioned one time, so therefore how important can it be? But there's a whole chapter here almost, half a chapter, that is giving the details of this regulation. And it's because of an abuse of it that Paul here is addressing it in the details. that he is so doing. Others are gonna be arguing, right, I've heard this one. Yeah, I've heard this one. How come you do this? All right, how come you follow this one? How come you follow this one, Christ? You remember Christ washed the disciples' feet, right? How come you don't come into church and wash people's feet every time? It's the same thing. Well, it's not the same thing. That's why I'm making it clear to you that the context of this passage is public worship. The context of, what is it, John 13 there, is not public worship. It's a lesson of humility. Yeah, let's follow that lesson. But I say the context here is all vitally, vitally important. Alright, that's the authority. Number two, very quickly, the existence of a hierarchy. Here's the theology of it. Doctrine first and then practice. So here is the theological truth that Paul here is going to be explaining in terms of this practice in public worship. Here's the theology, verse 3, I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. There's a hierarchy here. There's a hierarchy here that is established by God, that's the truth. The imagery of head is understandable, I think. There is a trio of hierarchical statements here, man to Christ, woman to man, and Christ to God. Now, how do we understand that hierarchy? How do we understand that hierarchy? And that's crucial here. And I think the very last one, the very last statement there that Christ is under God, that God is the head of Christ. is the clue here that we need to interpret what this headship is talking about. Now, notice that it does not say that the Son of God is under God. It's Christ. It's Christ. And I emphasize this, and I can only say it very briefly here, but when you see Christ That's a very specialized term in the New Testament. We get very careless I think sometimes even in the way that we designate the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord is first name, Jesus is middle name, Christ is last. That's not the way it works, no, no, no. Christ here is the Messiah, it's the anointed one. It speaks to us of that divine election of the second person of the Holy Trinity to be the only mediator between God and men, to be the only redeemer of God's elect. When we hear the word Christ, it is always speaking particularly of that mediatorial function of Christ that has been defined and ordered in that covenant in eternity that sets in the whole course and plan of redemption. We cannot say that the Son is in any way subordinate to the Father. He's God. He's God, eternal God, very God. All of divine perfection belong to the Son, but as the Christ in the office of His Christhood, His Messiahship, there is a subordination of function. We call it an economical relationship here, a relationship of function. Not a statement here that is dealing with any kind of inferiority, but a statement of function. So that's what the headship means. That's why I say this is the clue here. So when we come to look at the relationship then between man and woman, that the man is the head of the woman, it is not a statement of superiority versus inferiority. It's not. It's a statement of function, that God has established a different function, a different function, and it is as each fulfills the function that God has given to them that they bring the ultimate glory. It is honor for man, it is honor for woman, irrespective of their roles, to work within the confines, the sphere that God has defined for them. We're gonna see in a moment here that the gospel in fact has liberated women. Gospel has liberated women in a way that religion before that and current with that certainly did not do. So that's the theology. We're based here on this hierarchical relationship that God has established between man and the woman. Now what are the implications for that? Verses 4 to 6, every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, so forth. We've read that a moment ago. Now it's important here And again, this I think is part of the key evidence that we have to see this as a context of public worship. You can pray in private, right? You can pray in private. So the word prayer there is not necessarily or uniquely something that brings us to the realm of public function. But prophesying does. Prophesying by its very essence dealing here with a public setting. You don't sit in your closet and prophesy. We are never told to go to our closets and prophesy. Alright, it is a matter here of a public forum. Now what is included in this prophesying? And this is part of the difficulty as well. Prophesying is not just predicting the future. Alright, prophesying is not just even preaching a sermon. There is more to it. Let me show you I think a very key text. Look at 1 Chronicles, I think it'd be worth turning to this very quickly because this will define a very important element of what prophesying is. 1 Chronicles 25 verse 1, David set up all of these people here, verse 1, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, with symbols, and the number of the workmen according to their service was the sons of Asaph, Zechariah, Zodiac, and so forth, the sons of Asaph under their bands, and of Asaph which prophesied according to the order of the king, verse 3, latter part of the verse, who prophesied with a harp. Now we have some infinitives that are explaining what prophesying is here. What is this? You are prophesying with harps, and symbols, and psalteries. What does that mean? To prophesy is to give thanks and to praise the Lord. All right, so there's a sense of the idea of prophesying that carries into the New Testament as well that involves public praise, that involves the giving of thanks, the praising of the Lord. So when we come to this context here of the public worship, The ability to participate then in this public worship to offer our thanks and our praise unto the Lord is set now with these particular requirements. So that's why, again, I would say that the whole context here is dealing with the matter of public worship. And Paul says it's a disgrace. It's a disgrace for a man to come into the place of worship with his head covered. It's a disgrace. We seem to get that, all right? We seem to get that. We're coming into a day, you know, when I was growing up, you know, I got knocked in the head if I came into the house with a cap on and didn't take it off. And now you go to restaurants and whatever, and you know, men are wearing their hats in restaurants, ball caps, and you know, culture's changing, right? But even that, I don't see, I don't know. I've never yet been in a church where men have come in We seem to get that part of it. Be disrespectful. Disrespectful, not honoring. So you take your hat off. If it's a disgrace for man, Paul says, the disgrace is also for the woman to come into the place of public worship with the head down. uncovered. That's the logical extension. God's established this hierarchy. And in the place of public worship, here is a sign, here is a symbol, an object lesson, if you will, that declares that divinely established relationship. Now, I say here that this practice, what Paul is arguing here, is distinctively Christian. This is distinctively Christian. Jews in the synagogue, right? And you see it even today. Men will have their heads covered, right? In Jewish worship, men cover their heads. In the Greek pagan worship, both men and women had their heads uncovered. And now Paul is saying, and one of the things that Paul is doing, right? One of the things that Paul is doing, and Acts makes this very clear. the distinctiveness of the church as an organization, the distinctiveness of the church as an organization, and he's moving away, breaking away from what was perceived to be Jewish moorings, unmistakably, but nonetheless. Here then, I'm saying, is something that even in the first century B.C. or A.D. was distinctively Christian. Jews do it this way. The Greeks do it this way. Now, when you come into the house of God to participate in public worship, here is now a practice, a decorum of worship that is distinctively Christian. It was out of sync, it was out of culture, it was out of style in Paul's day, but frankly, Paul didn't care about style, right? It wasn't a matter about style. It was a matter here of doing something that was going to bear witness to the glory of God. And so he argues here that if a woman doesn't, she might as well shave her head. Might as well shave her head. Now, some take that as being a mark of prostitution, kind of a public, what's that book I read in high school? Scarlet Letter, right? Kind of the Scarlet Letter. You know, maybe, maybe. But I think rather when we come to see later on in the passage here, and I've got three minutes to do this, the hair's the glory. God has given the woman her hair as glory, you see. And I think what Paul is saying really, nothing more, if you're gonna disgrace, you might as well just cut off the glory completely, you see. Just cut it all off. But whether it's a sign of prostitution, but it's a disgrace, that's the bottom line that Paul is saying here. Implications for worship. Because of this hierarchy, because of the hierarchy, then women ought to have their heads covered. Now that he reasons, in most of the passage, 7 to the end, 15, are going to give the arguments. Here is why. Here's logic. First of all, he argues on the basis of creation. Man made in the image of God. Now all of mankind But he's talking about the original creation here. Man made in the image of God. Woman wasn't made yet. Woman wasn't made yet when that statement was made. Woman is the glory of man. And indeed, what an honorific statement that was. Man, there was something deficient, yeah, about man. glorified in a sense of that creation you see, image of God. You read the creation account it was good, it was good, it was good. And the first time God said it's not good when He looked at man being by himself. Not good, it's not good. And so man now put to sleep, you know how the account goes, and here's woman. Here's woman that is made out of man, and this relationship is established, man first, then the woman, by virtue of creation. And there's something there that this relationship established by creation, even outside the place of public worship, that is the case, you see. And so because of creation, because this relationship has been established there in the place of public worship, this is how we're going to manifest that. Now, just so you don't misunderstand this, you know, Paul said, don't misunderstand this. There's an interdependency here and there's a complementary relationship here, he gets in verses 11 and 12. Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman. Neither the woman without the man in the Lord. As the woman is the man, the man also the woman. Yeah, in creation, man first, and then the woman came from the man. But in the natural order of things, yeah, no, everybody's here, owes it to their mother, right? That one's, and so there's that. Don't misunderstand, there's a relationship here. There's a different function here that God has established. Don't take it to a bad extreme. We need each other, there's an interdependency. but here's this hierarchy and subordination of function that is gonna be manifested in worship with the covering of the hair, of the head. Man, no. Woman, yes. So he argues from creation. Then secondly, he argues from nature. He argues from nature. Excuse me. They're in verse, go back to verse 10 very quickly, I'm sorry. For this cause ought the woman, because of this creation, ought the woman to have power on her head. It's a figure of speech. The power here stands for the head covering that gives them the right to participate. The word power here, not ability, but authority or the right to do something. So the figure of speech, the power, it's the head covering that represents the right to so function. Because of the angels, because of the, who are the angels? Some say ministers. Most ministers I know don't care, right? It's not the angels, it's the supernatural beings. Remember they are witnesses to what takes place. Job tells us that the angels were witnesses to creation. They saw the order that God established. There's a spiritual realm out there. There's a spiritual world out there that's observing what we are doing here before God. So you do that. All right, so that's creation. And then finally, and I'm sorry, can I just finish this real quick? I'm almost finished. Yeah. The nature of things. Does not even nature tell you? And this is the natural sphere of stuff, right? Everyday life. Does not even in everyday life, So we're not in the church here, we're just in everyday life. Does not everyday life tell you that it's a shame for a man to have long hair? Sure it does. Now, the long hair, let me stop here. The long hair is not a reference to length, alright? It's not talking about the length of the hair. I have a couple of different words for hair in Greek, right? One word for hair is just hair, the stuff that grows there. This particular word, this particular word that is translated, all one word here, long hair, We get our English word comb from this word. All right, our English word comb. All right, you comb your hair. Comb comes from this particular word. And it views hair not just as the stuff that grows, but it talks about the hairstyle. All right, it's talking about a hairstyle. And it's a distinctively feminine hairstyle, not an issue of length. It's not talking about the length of hair. When I was growing up, yeah, my dad, he took it his length. And we had some serious problems when I was growing up. As soon as my hair touched my ear, we were headed to the basement for, you know, but that's a different story. All right. It's not the length of hair, it's the hairstyle. And Paul says, listen, even in the natural sphere of things, this distinction is to be ordered. You don't expect a man to walk around every day of life having a hairdo. You say hairdo anymore? I say hairdo. I'm old. Having a hairdo like a woman. All right? You don't expect a man to walk around every day of life with a hairdo like a woman. No, it's a shame. God has given that hairdo, that particularly distinctively feminine hairstyle to the woman for her glory. All right? That's what it says here. But if a woman have long hair, that distinctively feminine hairstyle, it is a glory to her. For her hair is given instead of a covering. Instead of a covering. But don't get excited here yet because that word covering is not the word that's covered in the earlier part of the chapter. This particular word has the idea of a wraparound veil, all right? A veil that would disguise and would hide. And Paul says, no, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. Here's the liberation. Here's the liberation that Paul has given to women. In that culture, and you see even in the Mideast today, they cover their face, all you see is their... Paul, no, Christianity has liberated women. And God has given now the woman the hair, this distinctively feminine hairdo, for her glory. That's not hidden. Men don't walk around that way, but women, that's their glory, you see. That's their glory. showing the distinction between, even in the natural realm, even in everyday life, this distinction between man and woman, and now therefore, now therefore, if creation has established this, if it's distinct and evident in the area of every, how are we gonna manifest that in a special, because worship, the place of worship is a special place. It's not just, No, it's a special place. So in the place of worship, here's what we're gonna do, Paul says, men not covered, women covered. And doesn't that make sense? Doesn't that make sense? Because if the hair, if God has given the woman the hair instead in everyday life as her glory, we're coming into God's presence, right? We're coming into God's, and when we come into God's presence, who's supposed to be getting the glory? We want to hide our glory. We want to put a lid on our glory, you see. And Paul's not talking here about a veil. No, just put a lid on it, all right? He's just talking about putting a lid on it, all right? Not a veil to cover, but just hide the glory because you're coming in the presence of God and there's no flesh, right? There's no flesh that is to glory in His presence. All right? It's not just the custom of the Free Presbyterian Church. It's not just the custom of the Heritage Reform Church, all right? Now, there's a reason for it, all right? That's all I'm saying. There's a reason for it, and may the Lord teach us. I'm sorry, time is five minutes past gone. Our gracious Lord, our gracious Lord, we pray that thou would teach us from my word what we need to know and that we would be careful to submit to it in every way that we can. We pray that thy word indeed would have free course, be glorified. So Lord, use it today. Trust that this has been instructive, helpful as we have considered this issue that sometimes we just kind of do because we do it and don't give really a thought to it. But let us, Lord, see that there is a reason biblically for this practice we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.