This evening we're turning in God's Word again to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. We just read this passage together, and so we're not going to read it again this evening, but we will be commenting on the passage, and so we will look at what it says. The very first verse says, Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." Well, may the Lord grant us that in all of our endeavors, especially tonight as we're studying this passage together. Let's bow our hearts in a word of prayer and ask for the help of God's Spirit in our study this evening. Gracious Father, we come to thee this night thanking thee that indeed you have brought us into your family as your children. We are thankful, Lord, that you treat us in a way that we do not deserve. Lord, we deserve your wrath. We deserve to be cast off. and we have fought with thee, we have rebelled against thee, and yet, Lord, you have subdued our hearts and brought us into your family. Lord, we are thankful that you did not leave us on our road to hell. We are thankful that this very night we are indeed considered by thee as your children, and that even the angels of heaven are at our beck and call because they are here to help those that belong to Thee. Lord, we come to Thee tonight thanking Thee that You have marshaled the forces of heaven and earth to bring us to Christ, and that this very night we are in Thy kingdom because of a great love that You have for us. Lord, we would ask that You would give to us a similar love for Thee. Lord, our love waxes cold. Our love sometimes is hot, but then goes cold again. And Lord, we would ask that You would stir our hearts by what You have done for us, that even the hardest task would seem so simple to us because of what You have done for us in Christ Jesus. Our Father, as we study Thy Word, we are thankful for every precept and every jot and tittle of it. And Lord, we would ask that You would give us the mind of Thy Spirit, the author of this book tonight, that He would come and give us understanding into the ways of Christ, into the Church of Christ, even as to how You would have us behave as Your children. Our Father, we come to praise Thee. that you have been pleased to by your spirit dwell in the midst of your people. Lord, we would ask that that dwelling would be manifest tonight and that we would know the speaking voice of thy spirit to every heart. Come, Lord, and teach us thy way, for we ask these things in Jesus' name and for his glory. Amen. A couple weeks ago we were looking at one of the distinctives of the free church, and that is the head covering teaching in Paul's epistle to the Corinthians. I dare say two generations ago, and certainly a generation ago in Northern Ireland, but two generations ago in this country, this would not be a distinctive. And this would be the norm, and this is what churches did, and they did it because it was taught here in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. But times have changed, and we were trying last time when we looked at this passage, we were trying to discern a little bit why we are in the minority when it comes to this whole idea of wearing a head covering. We were looking at the fact that evolution and secular humanism has taken over our society, and with evolution and with secular humanism, the idea of a man and a woman displayed here by Paul is something that is overthrown. It's something that is abominated by those in our society. Therefore, because of liberal churches and modernistic churches, teaching that is derived from God the Creator is also overthrown, and even in some evangelical and reformed churches, these ungodly viewpoints are present, so that when you actually come to what we speak of tonight as head covering, they want nothing to do with head covering, because they want nothing to do with the wife and the husband role that is given to us here by the Apostle Paul. Others in Bible-believing churches remove head coverings for different reasons. Some say it was just a tradition. We looked at that briefly. Others add to the passage here a few ideas. And by adding to the passage, they make it say something it really doesn't say. And we'll have a little bit more to say about that in just a minute. The context for head covering is that of worship. In chapter 10, he's talking about the Lord's Table. You see that in verse 16 of chapter 10. And obviously, the famous passage on the Lord's Table is at the end of chapter 11. So in chapter 10, he's talking about the Lord's Table. Chapter 11, he's talking about the Lord's Table. It would only stand to right that in the middle, he's also still talking about a public worship service. Also, you have the woman is said here to pray and prophesy, and the man is said to pray and prophesy. You see that in verse four, and again in verse five. This is something that is done in a public worship service. Here is a service where men and women are present, where they're praying, where they're speaking, where perhaps the Lord's table is being observed, something that was not done in private, it was done at the public worship service, And so what is given here for head covering, I believe, is not something that's incumbent upon us when we go to our homes, when we are working in the work, whatever the place might be, the workplace. It is something that is governing us as we come to worship here as a body of believers. Thirdly, we find here that the authority of the message starts, according to Paul, with Christ. You find that in verse 1, Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. In other words, the instructions of Paul are really the instructions of Christ, whom Paul is following, verse 1. Then Paul mentions ordinances that he delivered to them. The word for ordinances and the word to deliver come from the same Greek root. It literally has the meaning of delivering over. You see that quite a bit when it comes to the delivering over of Christ when it had to do with his crucifixion Even the word to betray and dealing with Judas Iscariot is this word. Well, this is the word that would be used for tradition That which is outside of Scripture being delivered over But at this time because the New Testament wasn't finished it was something delivered over by Christ to the Apostles and from the Apostles to the church and And so the ordinance and the delivering over has apostolic authority behind it. Look at verse 23. In verse 23 you see this same language being used of the Lord's table. Verse 23, for I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. Same word. The Lord's table was delivered to them. It wasn't a tradition. It wasn't something you could give or take on. It was an ordinance. Turn, if you would, to chapter 15. Chapter 15, verse 3. For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which also I received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures. What is He giving here? He's giving the Gospel. It's something He delivered over to them. Same word. It has authority. It's not a tradition. It is something that God Christ gave to him, and now he has delivered it to the church with the apostolic authority upon it. And so what we have before us is that which, indeed, God has given to the church as to how it ought to be governed. Well, when we come to this passage then, what Paul is giving to them has to do with that which is authoritative. It has to do with head covering. And so I want us then to consider what is the teaching here on head covering that is in such conflict today in our churches around us, and why is it that we require that our ladies indeed have a head covering and that men do not have a head covering when they come to worship. We must accept what Paul gives us on head covering. There is no middle ground here. This is not something that's up for grabs. This is something that is authoritative. And because it is, we must accept it. Now, we're not saying that what he says here is the same weight or authority as what he says on the gospel in chapter 15. Nobody in their right mind would try to compare the two. But nonetheless, because he does say this, it does become authoritative for the Church that they do obey what Paul says here, because he is giving to us that which indeed came from Christ. Now, there are basically five arguments that the Apostle makes in this 16 verses, five arguments that he makes concerning the head covering. And we're going to very quickly go through those five arguments. I said that we would walk through the chapter, and we're going to do that. I have given you the outline to try to help you understand where we are going tonight. The outline is just an outline. Some of what we're looking at will take a little bit longer than other places. Some of it is all that we're going to look at is what's in the outline. But having said that, we're going to go through very quickly as to what Paul is saying here concerning the head covering. First of all, we are to recognize our various relationships. That's verses 3 to 6. We are to recognize our various relationships. Our relationships are ordered by God. And so you find in verse three these words, 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. Right here it is. He just lays it out for you. doesn't hide it just says this is the way it is now if you'll turn to Ephesians chapter 5 Ephesians chapter 5 you see similar words in Paul's letter to the Ephesians concerning the wife and husband's relationship Ephesians 5 verse 23 for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the Savior of the body the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church Now the wife is in the church, so that would make Christ the head of both the husband and the wife. But in what Paul is arguing here, because he's arguing for head covering, he's going to show that there is a distinction between the wife and the husband. Now some would say that the word head merely means source of life. If you stop eating through your mouth, you're going to die. The source of life for your body is the head. But they fail to realize the head is also that which directs the body. And when you look at verse 22 of Ephesians 5, it says, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. And then it speaks of the husband as being the head, indicating that it's more than just the source of life, but that there is authority, that there is the leading in the home that the man has been given. It's a loving leading. You say, well, that is not something that's in vogue today. It's viewed as being evil today. Well, it may be. But if that is evil, then what also must be evil is that God is the head of Christ. And if the man being the head of the woman is evil, then it also must be evil that Christ is the head of man. You can't just single out one of these relationships and say, that is bad and evil, but the other two are okay. Paul is saying in this teaching that indeed God, for whatever purposes, and we're gonna see the purposes explained to us later, but here he doesn't tell us what the purposes are, he just tells us what the roles are in the home. I say this to the ladies that are here, if you're not married, do not pick a man to be your husband that you cannot submit to. I've given that advice to my daughter over and over again. While you're dating, you don't have to submit to anybody. But once you are married, you become a partnership where you are now complete, where you are now completing a picture, as it were. You're not competing with the husband. The husband is not competing with the wife. They are completing one another. They are complementing one another. And the role that has been given is different. But when God made the world, He made it with everything having a role, as it were. All the creatures were there for a purpose. And before sin came into the world, there was this wonderful harmony, there was this orchestra, as it were, of God's creatures bringing glory and praise and honor to His great name. And even in the husband and wife relationship, there was that order, and there was that symphony, as it were, that completing of one another, so that, we're going to see later, the wife was made to complete the man, so that the two could indeed be something in the earth that would propagate the human race and be a benefit for each person. The relationship of head over Christ, God being the head over Christ, Christ being the head of the man and the man as the head of the woman, is not equally the same, obviously. The woman and the man are similar, they're of the same essence, they're saved the same way, there's a unity, as we're gonna see later on, an interdependence, as we're gonna see later on. But nonetheless, there are roles that they have in their relationship that cannot be reversed. They're the roles that God has established. And with that role, Paul says there ought to be then a distinguishing clothing that the woman and the man wear. The man is not to pray and prophesy with his head covering, that is, with cloth, a hat, a veil upon his head. And yet the woman is to pray or prophesy with her head covered. And if she does it uncovered, then she is dishonoring, according to verse 5, her head. She said that's the same as if she were shaven. Now, I have given to you tonight again a handout, and on the back of that handout I give to you a number of commentaries that show that indeed the cloth that is being spoken of is distinct from the hair. He is not talking here about the hair being the covering. He's talking about the covering being a cloth of some type that is put upon the head, so that if you don't wear the covering, Paul says you might as well cut the hair off as well. That is the language of the Apostle Paul in this passage. Now, last week, or last time we looked at this, I gave you another sheet, and on that sheet I gave you the quotations from the annotations of the Westminister Divines as they were commenting on this passage. Same view. Showed you what Matthew Henry said, showed you what Matthew Poole said. In that list was John Gill, Charles Hodge, A.T. Robertson, Jameson, Fawcett, and Brown. These are great Reformed commentators, men who knew the Greek as well as the doctrine. And they all are in agreement that when you come to this portion of scripture, it's talking about something distinct from the hair. It's talking about some cloth upon the head of the woman. And it's saying that the man cannot have that upon his head when he worships, but the woman must have that upon her head because of the different roles that God has established between the man and the woman. There are two head coverings then that are in view. And to not have a cloth head covering for the woman is the same as having her head, her hair cut off. Now, he doesn't give the dimensions of the head covering. And when you read some commentaries, they get a little excited, and they go a little bit further than what the Greek actually says. The word for head covering, literally, is the word to cover with the preposition on the front of it, meaning down from. To cover down. Obviously, the covering goes on the top of the head, and so it's covering that which is below it. Some would say, well, it meant a veil that covered the whole face and all the hair and went all the way down to the shoulders. But it's not stated that way. The word itself doesn't mean that. Now, maybe they did it that way in the early church, but we have no idea of that. We have no pictures that go all the way back to the early church, and we have no example of that in the New Testament. And so in the free church we say that a woman ought to have her head covered, and we allow a lot of liberty that way, but there ought to be something on the top of the head that is covering the head indicating that she is in submission to her husband. And then the man himself cannot have his head covered. Now would you note He says that if every woman that prayeth or prophesying with her head uncovered dishonoreth her head, for that is even all as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn. There you see the two coverings. If it were just the hair, if that's all Paul were talking about, then this makes no sense. If she doesn't have her hair, then cut her hair. What sense is that? If she doesn't have her hair as a covering, then Paul is saying, then get rid of her hair. The hair is already gone. He is saying something beside the hair. And that's why when you go to these old commentaries and you look at what they're saying, they see it's very clear there's something beside the hair being referred to. So that if the woman will not wear the head covering, then she might as well shave her hair. She might as well have her hair shorn. Now, There are some who, when they see this and see the idea of a woman being shorn, that it is a shame for a woman to be shorn—you see that at the end of verse 6—they say that is the idea of prostitution. That in the time in which Paul lived in the area of Corinth, that a prostitute would shave her head, and that was a shame then for a woman who's a Christian to shave her head to look like a prostitute. Now that may be well and good, I don't know, I didn't live in those days. But I have a hard time coming to any passage of Scripture and start adding to it things from the culture that are not written in Scripture itself. By that I mean you let me add to Scripture from outside of Scripture and I'll make Scripture say whatever I want it to. I will destroy commands. I will make up commands. I can do anything I want with Scripture. You just let me go back into the culture and say things that are not recorded here in Scripture. What is the shame here? It's not looking like a prostitute. What is the shame? It's a woman looking like a man. You say, how do you know that? Well, you come down to verse 14, doth not even nature 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, for her hair is given for a covering? There's the shameful thing explained by the apostle in the very context. He's not talking about prostitution. Prostitution is nowhere found here in chapter 11. Now, I say that because there are those who come to this passage, they add the idea of prostitution, and what they say is, Paul is saying, if a woman has already cut off her hair, then she might as well fashion it to look like a prostitute. And by doing so, they're saying that the first statement of covering is the hair, it's been cut off, and Paul is saying, well, you might as well go ahead and fashion your head like that of a prostitute. But I don't see that. That's adding to what is stated there. And what it's doing is it's making stand on its head, as it were, what Paul is actually saying. Paul is saying there is cloth that is on the head, and if you're not going to wear that, you might as well get rid of the natural covering as well. You might as well get rid of the glory that God has given you in nature. Get rid of that as well. If you're not going to obey the law of God when it comes to the head covering, then you might as well not obey the natural order as well. That is what Paul is saying. But there are those, as I say, who add to this passage this idea of prostitution. It's not there. It is not the shame that is being spoken of in verse 6. The shame being spoken of in verse 6 is the shame of a woman looking like a man or a man looking like a woman. That is the shame. God has made us distinct. Now, I believe that because we've been made distinct, we ought to glory in that. Glory in that. That's not something evil. This is the way God created us. Why would we fight with the creator and the way that he has made us? We go into society and we look at what they're doing now in society as they reject these roles. How is that working? How is that working in the home? How is that working in the raising of children? It's an utter disaster. God the Creator has told us these are the roles, this is how we do it, and this is how we go about doing that which is right in His sight. Now I realize that there are some women who have had tyrants for men over them. But those tyrants have no justification in this passage, because the head of the man is whom? It's Christ. There's no man who can be a tyrant to his wife, can be a bully to his wife, can brutally treat his wife and still be in submission to Christ. It can't happen. This leading is a loving leading. This relationship is a loving relationship. But nonetheless, it is a relationship and there are roles here given by God to the husband and to the wife. He comes into an argument that actually flows from this. At this point, he hasn't told you that the order in society is a created order. He hasn't told you that this has come from the original creation. And so you have then a second argument that really further expands what he has already just said in verses 3 to 6. In verses 7 and 9, you have this argument based on the created order. Because of the original creation, man is indeed made in God's image and His glory. Because of the original creation, woman is the glory of the man. And because of this original creation, head covering is to be brought in upon the woman and to be left off for the man because of the way that they were made by God. Look at verse 7, For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God. But the woman is the glory of the man. Now you ask yourself, what does that mean? Well, he's going to explain it for us. When God created man, there was no woman, there was no species of this type on the earth, and he made man from the dust of the earth, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living creature, a living soul. He was not made from woman, but the woman was made from him. Verse 8, for the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. That's the way it happened. That's the way God made the first two people who ever lived on planet Earth. He made the man from the dust of the earth, and then He took from the man, and He made the woman. Verse 9, neither was man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. Man had no help meeting, so He made a creature that was not completely 100% identical. He made a creature that would indeed complement the man, so that the two would become one flesh, They could propagate. They could be a loving union between themselves. They could, as it were, show each other that which was needful in their relationship. There was no meat, help, for man. There was none. And God made a meat, God made a help, excuse me, that was meat for man when he made the woman Eve. And so you have two things being brought to our attention here. It says, the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. And then secondly, the man was created, was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man. And so in verse seven, a man should not have his head covered because of this. And then at the beginning of verse 10, for this cause, the woman ought to have her head covered. All right? There's a difference. There's a distinction. Now again, the husband and wife, they're saved the same way. The husband and wife are in the same body. They're going to the same heaven. That's all true. They're joint heirs with Christ. But in their role in the home, there is a distinction made upon the way that God made them. He made them different. He made us different. And because of that, there ought to be then in the public worship a showing of that distinction, an agreement with that distinction using head covering. Now, I have never met a man who was made from the dust of the earth. Have you? I have never met a woman who was made from the rib of a man. We all come into this world the same way, and we come through the woman. When you come down later, you see this interdependence, verse 11 and verse 12. 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, literally out of the man, out of the man, she came from his rib, even so is the man also by, literally through the woman. but all things of God. So since the creation of Adam and Eve, Eve has had a very exalted and distinguished position in that everyone came through her. And all of us have come through our mother. And with that, Paul is saying there's this interdependency. But there is the original distinction made in creation, and that God made the husband and the wife to have distinct roles in the home, and that these roles are clearly stated here in 1 Corinthians 11, they're stated in Ephesians 5, they're stated in 1 Peter 3. Over and over and over again, the apostles are very clear as to what the roles are in the home. And so we are to, indeed, recognize our various relationships. We are to recollect God's created order, as it's stated for us in verses 7 and 9. And then we have in verse 10 a third argument. We are to remember the angels' constant observations. Look at what he says in verse 10. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head, because of the angels. Now, because of the angels, has brought into the commentaries a whole bunch of very imaginative ideas. And obviously, the reason for head covering has already been given. But Paul now gives another reason, and that is that the angels constantly seem to be observing this role between the husband and the wife. The word authority here is given for head covering. The woman's head covering is a sign of subjection to the Lord, but it is also a sign of authority to worship. She has the authority to worship. She has the authority to pray and to praise the Lord. She has been given that authority. And so what is on her head is called authority or the sign of authority. She has a warrant to come to the Lord if her head is covered. She has a warrant to pray and speak before the Lord if her head be covered. And then he brings up the holy angels. who seem to be the observers of this order. In Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 14, the apostle says, concerning angels, are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? Angels are ministering spirits and they're sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation. Angels are very interested in your worship. Angels are very interested in your life. Angels have been given the duty by God to come at times and minister to us. That's an amazing statement, I know. And because they're spirits that we cannot see, we do not know all that they do behind the scenes. You remember that when Elisha was in the city and he was surrounded in that city by the enemies who were going to overtake them. The servant of Elisha came to him, fearful that they were going to lose their life. And Elisha prayed that the servant's eyes be opened. And what did the servant see but the angelic host around the city? They were there. Years ago, when I was first saved, I heard the testimony of a missionary in Africa. And they were in an area that they had hunters that come through, and they were killing all the believers. And the missionaries were holed up in a home, and the ones coming to kill just stopped at the home and stood outside and wouldn't come in. Later, in interviewing these people that were going to kill them, they found out that the Africans were looking at the home and what they saw were these angelic hosts around the home and they were scared to come in against them. I heard that from the testimony of the son of one of these missionaries. Now, I've never seen an angel that I know of. I may have, but I don't know that I have. There are fallen angels as well as holy angels. Obviously, these would be God's holy angels. But here you have angels that know of God's creation and order. They weren't created yesterday. They go all the way back to the original creation. They saw the way that God made Adam. They saw the way that God made man. They know of man's dependence upon the Lord. They know of man's and woman's sin in the Garden of Eden. They know all of that. And they have an interest in you, in us, in our worship. And Paul now brings the angels into his argument, speaking about the fact that they understand there is a difference in the role between a husband and a wife, or in the church service between a man and a woman. They understand that. And when a woman rebels against God's ordinances, the angels feel that as it were. They're offended by it. There's an offense to them. That's one way of explaining, anyways, this passage in verse 10. They ought to have power on their head because of the angels. Many of the commentaries take it that way. Another thought is that the holy angels themselves are covered before a holy God. They're covered. They don't rebel against that. They don't say, look, I don't need to be covered in your presence. I'm great. I'm greater than the other creatures on this earth. I'm going to just come into your presence. No. In Isaiah chapter 6, verse 2, it says that the seraphim, each one had six wings. With Twain, he covered his face. With Twain, he covered his feet. With Twain, he did fly. Is it an offense to angels? And God has given a head covering for the women, for them not to use that head covering, to see what they might consider to be brazen activity before the Lord and before the one made in the glory and the image of the Lord. We do know that angels are concerned for the worship of believers and that they are called upon to help. And when the believer fights against God's ordinances, Obviously, it's something that the angel himself would not do. Fourthly, we are to reflect on nature's universal voice. The natural hair supports the argument of the Apostle Paul in verses 4 to 6. You see this now when we come to verses 14 and 15, he is talking about the natural hair. We've skipped over verses 11, 12, because that's merely telling us concerning the fact there's an interdependence between man and woman. But when you come to verses 14 and 15, He is dealing now with the natural realm, the natural order. Nature as the regular natural order, to use the language of one of the lexicons, Gingrich. The teaching of nature is in addition to the ordinance of the church. The teaching of nature is more proof, Paul is giving, that there is a difference between man and woman. He is not replacing the head covering with hair. He is adding the idea of the head covering between a man and a woman in the natural realm, he's adding that argument to the arguments he's already been bringing that there is a distinction between a man and a woman. Therefore, the man should not have head covering on him when he worships, and the woman ought to. The natural hair of men and women is different. If a man has long hair, it is a shame to him. Is that not what he's asking? If a man have long hair, is it a shame unto him? Now, the word here for long, as we pointed out two weeks, three weeks ago, has the idea of something that's ornate. It comes from a word that we get our word cosmopolitan from, or cosmetos from, and it has that idea of hair that is ornate. Now, if hair is ornate, it's going to be long. And so it's longer, obviously, than the hair. The woman's hair is longer than the man's, and the man's hair is supposed to be short. Now, some of us don't have any trouble with that because the older we get, the shorter our hair gets because it's no longer there. But in society, even to this day, even in America, there is this distinction between a man's hair and a woman's hair. Go to Congress. And you'll see that the men there have shorter hair. In the military, shorter hair. And yet in Congress, you're going to find that the women have longer hair. TV Guide just looked at the starring people in different programs on TV. NCIS, NCIS LA, NCIS New Orleans. These are programs that are widely watched, and they're obviously trying to imitate what is in society. In almost every single instance, the man has shorter hair than the woman. That is the case. For the woman, the long hair is her glory, Paul says, with very few exceptions. As I said, you have the news, the TV programs trying to reflect what is the natural order in society. Long, beautiful hair, ornate hair, is the way that a director or producer makes the woman attractive to man. still being done on TV over and over again. Millions of dollars are spent on shampoo and hair conditioners and drugstores for women. Whole aisles turn on the TV. How many commercials for women to get shampoo and conditioners for their hair? How many for men? Not many. Maybe you want to go to the drugstore and ask for equal aisles, and an aisle long enough that would be the same as the woman. Why is there a difference? Even the natural world understands that there is difference. Now, I'm not saying that there's no rebellion. In our society, there is. And when a woman wants to rebel against man, oftentimes, even today, she'll shave her head as a rebellion. And even a man will let his hair grow. The hippie movement was that way. The hippie movement was a complete movement of rebellion against the capitalistic society in which we live. That's what it was. And so, capitalism had short hair in a man, they had long hair. Capitalism, you wore nice clothes, they wore scruffy clothes. Capitalism, you took a bath, they didn't take a bath. Capitalism, you were supposed to be monogamous, they were immoral, and they were overthrowing everything in society. Well, hippie movement is gone. It still has its representatives in the rock culture, but for the most part you look in society, it's gone. The natural world tells us there's a distinction between the man and the woman. There is a distinction. And the woman is given for her as a beauty and is that which is good. Chemotherapy oftentimes will remove both a man's hair, if he's taking it, or a woman's hair. For a man, he usually just goes on with it. But for a woman, it's devastating. It's devastating. Women oftentimes will not be seen in public unless there's a scarf on their head or unless they have a wig of sometimes to cover their head. Why? It's just something innate, something inherent in the way that God has made us. Why would we fight with that? Why would we fight with that? Now, what is the difference between long and short hair? As one commentary says, there's no precise length given here. It's not specified. Paul simply says that it's longer than that of a man, and that this is accepted as her glory. Nature is giving a hint at the need for a woman to have her head covered on appropriate occasions. Indeed, her hair is her covering, apart from the time of worship. It is her covering. Now, later in this passage, it says it is given to her for her covering, verse 15. That particular word for covering is indeed different than the word that comes before. This is a word that has the idea of casting around. It is used for someone casting around themselves a mantle or a cloak to stay warm. And it's saying here, God has given, in the natural world, a woman her hair to, as it were, be a covering for her, a glory for her. Glory for her. But Paul is not teaching here that that natural realm replaces the spiritual realm or the church realm. He's not saying that. What he's doing, he's adding the natural realm to his list of arguments. He has said, there are relationships, and a man and a woman are different. Therefore, in worship, there ought to be a difference as to how they worship, how they dress. And then he says the created order, man and woman are made differently and for different purposes. Therefore, there ought to be a difference as to how they worship. And then he brings in the angels and he says that the angels Because of them, the woman ought to have authority on her head. And now he says that God clearly has made in the natural realm, that is in society and in the realm even of the ungodly, he has made it so that the woman and the man are distinct and that the hair itself reflects that distinction. Therefore, if that be the case in the natural realm, it bolsters Paul's argument that in the worship realm, when we come together, the man and the woman ought to be distinct. The woman with long hair and the man with short, or the woman with a head covering and the man with none. The fifth argument and the last argument of the Apostle Paul is that which is given now in verse 16. But if a man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God. If a man seem to be contentious. Some, as we reflected on three weeks ago, say that what Paul is saying here is that contentiousness is not something he allows in the church. Well, that's not what he's been talking about, contentiousness. Obviously, he doesn't allow contentiousness in the church. He never has allowed contentiousness in the church. It'd be kind of odd to just bring it up now and say, we don't allow this. That is not what he is dealing with. What he's dealing with is what he's been talking about from verse 3 all the way down through verse 15. In other words, we do not have, Paul says, another position in the church. The position I am giving you is the authoritative position. It is the position that a man, when he worships, must have his head uncovered, and that the woman, when she worships, must have a covering upon her head. Now, why would he give you, from verse 3 down to verse 15, all of these arguments, and then just throw up his hands and say, it doesn't matter? That's what we're being told by some. That when he gets to verse 16, he just throws up his hands and he says, it doesn't matter. More than that, what are the arguments coming from? They're coming from God's establishment of the relationship between a man and a woman. They're coming from God's creative order. They're coming from the angelic realm. They're coming from the natural order in the world. How can Paul then just throw up his hands and say, that doesn't matter? He has been arguing, strongly arguing for the head covering on a woman and the non-head covering on a man, and he's been using arguments that are indeed divine, arguments that transcend the church there in Corinth. He's not going to then throw up his hands and say, oh, it doesn't matter. How God created the world doesn't matter. The role in the home doesn't matter. The angelic realm doesn't matter. He's not going to do that. What he is saying is that we have no such custom, meaning we have no custom whereby a woman can come into worship without her head covered. We have no custom where a man can come into worship with his head covered. We have no such custom. Now, in saying that, in saying that, The Apostle Paul is giving his own testimony. He says, we have no such. This is divine authority. If Paul says it, you can be assured that it has authority to it. More than that, it has great blessing with it. Paul doesn't give commands that don't have blessing with them. And if this is Paul's command, then you can be assured that in the doing of this, there's blessing for you, for those who are around about you, to honor the Lord's word as it's coming from the Apostle Paul, comes with it great blessing. But not only is it Paul's teaching, his command, it's also the teaching of his companions, because he says, we, we have no such custom. Now some would say he's talking about the apostles there. It could very well be the apostles. Certainly, at least, you'd have to say it's talking about his fellow laborers. They are all united on this. You couldn't have gone to one of Paul's laborers and say, all right, Timothy, what do you think? And Timothy says, yeah, you know, Paul, he's got this wrong. It never would have happened. We have no such custom. And then he says, neither do the churches. This was not something that was just being taught. It was in all the churches what Paul was teaching. All the churches observed this. All the churches did this the same way. They were all under God. They were all under the apostles and scriptures. And there was one divine unity among the churches as they obeyed what was given. Now, I've very quickly gone through this. I could have taken time and worked verse by verse and spent time with each word that we're looking at. Commentaries have done that, and I wanted to try to get through all the arguments tonight. Having said that, when you get all the way through all the arguments, there are still those who say, this is a local custom. In fact, one of the men that I quote in the handout that I gave you, he goes through all the arguments just the way that I have tonight, even the very last verse, verse 16, the way that I have tonight, and then he, at the end, says, but that was just for the church at Corinth. We don't have to do that today. I ask myself, how do you do that? It was just a local custom for the people in Corinth, but today, we don't have to do that. Look at Paul's arguments again. His arguments stem from the role between the husband and the wife. His arguments stem from God's created order. His arguments stem from the angels. His arguments stem from God's natural order. His arguments stem from his authority as an apostle and the fact that the churches are united. Now we're gonna say we don't have to do that? On what basis do you say that? Well, it was just some kind of tradition. That's not what Paul's arguing. There's not a word about a tradition. He's talking about God's created order. There's no tradition here. This is not something limited to Corinth. This is something that was binding. Certainly, if Corinth was rebelling against this command, and it was just a tradition, Paul, why don't you just let it go? because it's not right to let it go. All the churches have the same position on this because it's based on what God has done. Some have said to us, well, this is just a first century custom that Paul has given to us, that which was in the first century, but it's not binding today. Well, you know, they do the same thing with the role of the husband and the wife. Jewett has written a book on that. He's coming from the West Coast, and he has in his book that the husband and wife role is not binding on the Church. Will you show me that from Ephesians 5, please? You show me that from Colossians 3, please? You show me that from 1 Peter 3? You show me that here from 1 Corinthians 11? You might say it has no binding on the day and age in which we live, but again, look at Paul's arguments. He is not arguing from the first century. He is arguing, how? From God's relationships that he has made, from the created order, from angels. Angels transcend the first century. He's arguing from that. How then do you just flippantly throw it off? Paul's teaching is for the 21st century Christianity, if we want to have the continued blessing that comes from following God in our families as well as in our churches. Tonight, I have already stated that what we are going over is not as serious as denying the gospel. And there are churches that we fellowship with, brethren that we love, men that I know who disagree with me outside of the free church. And they're not heretics, they do know the Lord. But when it comes to this passage, we disagree. I cannot see this passage any other way than the way I've expressed it to you tonight. And yet there are those in our churches that when they come to this passage, they say, well, I don't quite see it that way, but if the elders are telling us this is the way it is, then we will submit. And that's fine. We understand not everybody's a theologian, not everybody's the Bible exegete, and not everybody follows the arguments as well as others, and there are some who just submit because the elders ask them to submit, and they do it for that reason. That's not immoral. That is not bad. That is just submitting to the authorities that are in the church. But I hope tonight that you see that there are arguments for why we hold a head covering. We didn't just make it up. It didn't come from Northern Ireland. It was in this country as much as in Europe. And people, as they've rebelled against the Lord, rebelled against evolution or creation, rebelled against God's order, they have also shown that rebellion in other areas, such as the head covering. I think some ministers are so busy fighting evolution and secular humanism, that when it comes to head covering, they say, I'm just worn out. I just can't engage in another battle, and they just let it go. But when you look at what is being said here, it is clear. And because it's clear, this has become a distinctive of ours, not that we asked it to be. This has become a distinctive of ours simply because we're trying to obey what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Let's bow our hearts in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we began our service tonight singing, teach me thy way, O Lord, teach me thy way. And Lord, we are thankful that in your word you do teach us your way. We confess there is so much in thy word that teaches thy way, that you would give us grace to take it all in. We would ask, Lord, that You would help us as men and women, when we worship, to indeed come in the manner pleasing unto Thee. You have said that our dress must be modest, that our dress must not be that which would indeed be sensual or wicked. Yet, Lord, You've also said that our very heads are to reflect glory, the man to reflect the glory of his Creator, and the woman to reflect the glory of the man. Lord, we would pray that You would help us to do that, help us to stand into all that You have given us. Lord, help us to recognize as men that we are answerable to Christ, that we are to be like Christ who loved the church and gave himself for it, that we are to love our wives, that we are to love our children as Christ loves the church. Lord, help the ladies to indeed be submissive to the Lord, to be submissive unto Him, because He is the one who has made them such. Give them grace to stand in to that which He has done for them. And Lord, we pray that You would bless them with all spiritual blessings, even on this earth, as they would seek to honor Thee in the home. Lord, we confess there's confusion all around us in the land in which we live. Homes are breaking apart. Marriages have been torn asunder over and over and over again. Children are being raised with one parent or no parent. And there's bitterness of heart. And there are people now going into sodomy, thinking that perhaps there, there's an answer. Lord, what confusion in the land. And Lord, you have brought us out of that confusion. And we ask, O Lord, as best we know how, you would help us to stand into that which you have made us, to indeed, in our place of worship, as well as in our homes, to be that type of Christian that would bring honor and glory and praise to thy great name. Lord, for any that might be without Christ tonight, we ask that this would be the night that they would seek him and come to know him and submit unto his authority. for those that are indeed a part of His great Church, who would help us in our day to bring glory to Thee and to encourage others to come back to the Scriptures and to live according to that which Thou hast written. Give us grace, we ask, O Lord. Dismiss us tonight with Thy blessing. Be the abiding portion of all of Thy blood-bought people, for we ask these things in Jesus' name and for His glory. Amen.