Good morning, welcome to the Faith Debate. I'm Troy Skinner, your longtime host. I started the show when I was three, okay? I'm not that old. You can find me online. Is that a sin, what I just did right there? You lied. If it's obvious that every listening knows that you're in jest, then I think it's not a lie. Okay, so I got a loophole there. Thank you. So I got my Get Out of Hell for free card from Daniel Rasby there. I appreciate that. The other voice you heard momentarily was David Forsey. We'll be joined here in a second by the author of The Head Covering, Josiah Bonjwani. You can find his book, The Head Covering, on Amazon. You can go to his website as well, which is josiahbonjwani.com. Good luck spelling that. So just put in The Head Covering, Josiah, and you might get a good search engine result hit on that. We've been informed by by Daniel. And I just want to say, you know, make sure you understand the terms and conditions of your get out of hell free card, because there are specific terms. The fine print is believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who died for your sins and rose again the third day. He is the only way to heaven. Those are the terms and conditions of your get out of hell free card. And repent, of course. Well, repent, that's the belief in repent, right, that's true. I'm gonna go meditate on such things, and you guys will carry on for the next 25 minutes or so on the faith debate. So legalism, right? Yeah, we've been covering the last three, this is now four shows, this is the fourth show, I believe, on the head covering question. Issues tangentially related, pretty tightly tangentially related. We talked a little bit about women speaking in church and preaching in church or prophesying in church, that sort of thing, as it relates about the role of women and what it means to have your head covered, that sort of a thing. Josiah's written a book where he's advocating in the book that women should wear a head covering when praying or prophesying, and I guess mostly like in the context of a worship service is mostly what I think he has in view there. Daniel is mostly... But also other times. Josiah would say other times when they're praying, even privately, they should also be wearing a head covering. I would not necessarily add that And Daniel is mostly agreeing, although I don't know that he's quite as strident. I would say only worship service is when it's required. You could wear it other times if you want, but it's required in worship service. Daniel thinks it's referring more to a public display in corporate worship. Right. Yeah. Okay, and David's kind of been on the, his role has been the fly in the ointment the last few episodes, asking for clarification and trying to figure out, now he's, the generic, or generic? The more generalized sense of things, he's in agreement, but when it comes down to application and what exactly, precisely it means in particular cultural contexts, He's really squirrely on that. He's asking questions saying, well, if we're going to be consistent, then wouldn't it mean that? And I appreciate where he's coming from on those kinds of questions. And I'm, I'm kind of a free agent on this one. I'm up in the air and, uh, you know, dangling by a spider's thread on these questions. So we'll see if I can get firmer and get, get a backbone on one side or the other as though there's only two sides or a multiple sides. And that's, Part of what we were getting to towards the end of last week's show, we were talking about the charge of legalism, those that would require head covering, being accused of being legalists. And then Josiah was right to clarify what we mean by that term because it's a word that gets thrown around all the time and people don't understand what it means. Technically speaking, to be a legalist is to say that you need to legally meet certain requirements yourself by your deeds, your works, in order to make it into heaven. You're not resting upon the full sufficiency of Christ. You're resting upon what you do, and you have to be strong legal adherence to things, or you're screwed. Pardon the common vernacular on that. And he is right. And I began to try to push back a little bit. We ran out of time, and so here we are this week kind of picking up where we left off last week. I'd add a little bit to that. In my thinking about legalism, I think that's the hardest version of legalism, and then I think there's softer versions of legalism which say that I need to do certain things in a certain way. I can still be a Christian if I don't do them. But I need to do those certain things in that certain way in order to gain favor or to be right a So the people will like me well accept me yeah, or so or I can fit into the group Well, no, I'm thinking about in terms of like relationship with God, right? So like I can, you know, a form of legalism would be, okay, there's nothing I can do to be saved, but there are things that I can do to have more favor with God. And I think what you're saying is the term can be variously interpreted. Like, there's broader senses, and there's the more narrow sense that I showed, or talked about last time. But I think in the broadest sense, I read a definition, it's just the abuse of the law. Legalism is the abuse of law. But in its most specific sense, which is the most common way it's used, it's working your way to heaven by obeying certain commands and things. Right, yeah. That's legalism pure. Yeah. So I see what you're saying. In a broader sense, it could include a lot more. Yeah. Now I think that one of my hesitancies on taking a strong stance on this has been related to this question, because kind of a core tenet for my theological framework is, you know, union with Christ. You know, it's the most probably the most common phrase that the Apostle Paul uses in his New Testament writings. In Christ, in Christ Jesus, in Jesus Christ. He uses the idea of in Christ and phrases very much like that over and over and over again. A hundred, couple hundred times maybe. And so it's really important to Paul, and so it's become very important to me. And if we are in Christ, then we have the fullness of God's blessing, because Christ has the fullness of God's blessing, and he shares all that is his with others. And so there's a loveliness about that. There's a freedom in that. There's an assurance that comes with that, that I'm in union with Christ. And so all that has to be done has been done. Everything that's required is finished at the cross of Christ and will be fully consummated at His return. And those are like foundational truths for me. So anything, this is one of the reasons why I was so agitated by the requirements that some churches placed on their members a few years ago when they said, well, you can come back to church, but you got to wear a face covering. And I was like, how dare you place a requirement on somebody to come and corporately gather as they've been commanded by God to not neglect the gathering. You're gonna put a requirement on them? Only the women should wear masks. So anyway, so I'm sensitive to that. So something that would say, You, female, in order to be acceptable here and to come worship God with the rest of us, must put a head covering on. If it were clear to me in the Scriptures, well then, you know, it's just one of these clear things. It's not as clear to me as it is to you, Josiah, or even to you, Daniel, apparently. And I think David's agreeing that it's not as clear as those who are strong advocates for the head covering issue think that it might be. It's certainly not clear for me whether or not, and I'm not saying that God's Word is unclear. I'm saying that our muddled minds have had a hard time making it understood in a way that is clear. So what do you say though? There are people, and you would not consider them to be Christians, but there are people who say that, oh, it is not very clear that the versus condemning homosexuality refer to all homosexuality it may just refer to non-consensual non-monogamous homosexuality there are people that call themselves christians that say that and they give a whole bunch of biblical arguments of as to why they think that you and i think those arguments are garbage because i know based on what we said in the But what I would say in those situations, what I've said on this show, and I've said, you know, out on the street when I've had opportunity to evangelize and these questions come up, that's a popular question to get pushed back on, right, in today's culture. Sure. You open the Bible and you look at the context. Every single word only has meaning in context. And so you have to look at the broader context, which is why, was it last week or two weeks ago? I can't remember now. We were looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and I was trying to look at the surrounding context. And the argument that Paul's making there, it begins very clearly with a spiritual reality. And then immediately, and I would want to check the Greek and the sentence structure there. I'm not positive it's a different sentence. in the Greek. You know, sometimes what is 12 sentences and three paragraphs in an English Bible is one long run-on sentence for Paul. So I'd be curious to see if it's even a different sentence for Paul, and I don't have time to figure that out right now. But the point is, Three times in a row, he uses the word head. Head, head, head. And it's spiritual every time. And then he hasn't even taken a new breath yet. He's still speaking from the same lung capacity, it seems to me. And he says head two more times. And it's at that point that those that would advocate your position strongly that there should be a head covering are saying, now we're talking about something not spiritual. I'm like, are we sure? And I'm personally not sure. And I think there are others who would join me and say, well, I'm not sure either. And whatever it means, it doesn't mean that it can't be a physical thing. But what's prominent of preeminence is the spiritual truth. And so that's why those who want to make an argument and say that it's, well, it's about a spiritual reality. You know, God is the head of Christ. Christ is the head of man. Man is the head of the woman. That's positional. It's a spiritual covering, a spiritual headship. I use that language in my home all the time. My wife does too. Probably David does in his home. It's an important thing. My wife will come to me and say, I need you to step up here. You're the spiritual leader of the home. I need you to be the covering. I need you to be the man. It might sound weird to the uninitiated, but those are actual words that happen in our house. And she calls me, holds me to account, says, okay, because what does a man want more than anything? To be let off the hook from his leadership responsibilities. And too often, what does a woman want more than anything? To take up the slack for the man who doesn't want to do what he's supposed to do. And so good Christian wives are on guard against that, and good Christian husbands are on guard against that. So if it is a spiritual reality, whatever that's supposed to mean, what does that look like? And I think I haven't made up my mind strongly theologically, but practically how I've lived this out as a pastor and in my home is the spiritual reality is that as the man, as the husband, I am the head of the family, the head of the relationship. So I need to conduct myself in such a manner in all areas of life, whatever that might look like in our house, in today's culture, you know, those sorts of things. And my wife needs to encourage, not only abide by it, but needs to encourage that in whatever way that should look like. And it might mean wearing dresses, or it might mean having long hair, or it might mean carrying herself in a way that is distinctly feminine, that any onlookers who might be peeping Toms looking into our house would recognize immediately. he's clearly the man in this relationship and she's clearly the woman in this life because he's behaving in a masculine way and she's behaving in a feminine way and so practically that's how I've kind of understood what this is supposed to mean as it plays out and not to make it specific to putting a piece of cloth on the head. So that's kind of where I've been but again I'm not real. I know Josiah has something to jump in but I'll just say I agree with you on that, but that has nothing to do with this passage. Just all throughout scripture, there's a lot of commands to men and women are different. They have different roles, and they do different things. They appear different. It's obvious which one's a man, which one's a woman. That's all throughout scripture, but this passage is specifically speaking about heads and head coverings. It says nothing, at least in the NIV, which is what I'm looking at at the moment, which again, not intended for veracity, I get that. But the word fabric, cloth, hat, I don't see it. The closest thing I see is hair. And you specifically said it wasn't talking about hair, but that's the only thing that's specifically mentioned in the passage. So why do we jump to it needs to be cloth? Well, if you read through the passage, there's multiple reasons why it should be a cloth covering, not just like some spiritual thing that's difficult to understand. And one of those is, we've said it's not hair. However, hair is the analogy that's given to it. So this, whatever this head covering is, is compared to hair. So in the same way, women generally have long hair and men have short hair. How do we know it's not a metal helmet? I mean, a metal helmet could do the part of a head covering, yeah? It's one of many stylistic options. Covering is the operative function. But there are actually several Greek words in here, and if you do a little research on it, you'll find out that these words mean something that hangs down. Like hair. So covering means something that hangs down. So it's compared to hair, so it's like hair in some ways, but it's not hair itself. So what could be like hair? but not be hair and be on top of your head. And that would be some sort of cloth. I don't see the word like. So for instance, it says in verse 14, does not even nature itself teach you that a man, if a man has long hair, it is a dishonored him. And if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her hair is given to her as a covering that we're covering. There's actually a little different than the previous ones. Um, so there it's, it's an analogy that's given. Why do you say so? And it's also given in verse six, which is one of the first times, I believe it's verse 6, "...for if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn." She's not covered, let her also be shorn. So it's two different things. If I were to be persuaded that some sort of physical head covering is required by this passage... Yes. I could possibly see myself aligning with the idea that women should have long hair and men should have short hair because hair is specifically mentioned. I don't see it used analogously by necessity. It might indeed be an analogy, but the text doesn't require an analogous reading. So will you say if it says she's, if she's uncovered, then she might as well be shaved also. So that means she was uncovered before she was shaved. So you should also shave her cause it's just as bad. So, Shaving the head and cutting the hair is different than uncover it being uncovered Yeah, it's kind of well I would say that that sounds an awful lot like Paul saying you want to be circumcised take off all the junk Do it all the way. So if the woman wants to have her hair short, shave it completely off. Why should she have any hair at all? Why wouldn't the same kind of logic apply there? So I totally get what Daniel was saying, and I was just about to say the same thing myself. This word shorn here actually means either bald or having short hair. So it's one or the other. I mean, it could refer to either one. So if her hair is already cut short or bald, how is he saying that a good punishment for her is to have her hair cut off? That doesn't really make sense. So he must be saying if you don't wear a head covering, you don't wear a fabric head covering. I would suggest that in this context, we have to decide, does it mean short hair or bald? In this context, it would clearly mean short hair because it's being compared to bald. It would be nonsensical to say, if she's bald, make her be bald. So in this case, we have to make a decision. Does the Greek mean short hair? Just like we have to make a decision sometimes, does the Greek word gynae mean Woman, does it mean wife? Does it mean bride? It can mean different things in different contexts. We've got to make a decision on the context. So back up for a minute. It says, if she is uncovered, she might as well be shorn. Okay. And what Josiah is saying is shorn can mean either bald or short hair. Either one still works for my argument because either one, it's still different than being uncovered. But the only way you can read it is if you're saying, well it has to be shaving completely off because short hair is the uncovering in the first place. But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the passage because it talks about, he's saying, doesn't even nature itself teach you that you should have long hair and short hair and men and women? As if, see this is obvious to you guys. But, and I'm making this comparison because of that, you need to be having your hair covered or not covered if you're praying or prophesying. So, if you're comparing it to the hair, it can't be the hair. And just to piggyback on that, you mentioned you have two possible beliefs that you could go for at the moment, which are, you know, it could be a spiritual covering, or it could be a covering of long hair. But since it does say specifically that this is only to be worn, or specifically the requirement is when praying or prophesying, you can't take off long hair or put it on. You can't take off spiritual coverings and put them on during prayer and prophecy. So this is something that must be physical that can be taken on and put off at will. Well, how does your translation read for verse five? That's similar to what the NIV has. So it doesn't say that when every woman prays or when a woman prophesies she'd have her head covered. It's just saying that any and all women who are those who pray and prophesy, would be Christian women, which is David's point from like two shows ago. This is talking about, because in my point from two shows ago, we're to pray without ceasing. But does every Christian woman who prophesies? Any woman who prays and prophesies would by definition be a Christian. Right? Isn't this just a flowery way of saying all female followers of Christ? Or is that at least a possible understanding of that verse? Well, I think that would probably be the understanding of some of the elders at Josiah's church, who would say that women are taught by this passage to always be covered. But yeah, I mean, what you're saying is, yeah. I'll just throw in one thing. It does say in verse five, you know, you could make the argument in verse five, but this concept also deals with men. So if you look at the context in verse four, it says, every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered. So this is now an action that he's performing, and in that state, he's to keep his head uncovered. Yeah, it's the same point, though. In verse four, the NIV, it says, every man who prays or prophesies, i.e., every Christian male, I guess we need to delve into the Greek, I guess. Is that a way to understand what's being said there? Saying basically any Christian male who doesn't have headship, that allows himself to be underneath the husband, for example, to be positionally underneath the woman, is dishonoring his head, and his head is Christ. in this context, because we just heard in the verse right before that, that the head of every man is Christ. So isn't it possible? I'm not saying that it must mean that. What I'm saying is, is it possible that it means that? And if it is possible, then those who would disagree with the requirement for women to have to wear a head covering every time they pray or prophesy or attend a worship service or what have you, would be able to say, no, that's not what's being said here. I understand it this way. And they could be wrong, but they could be right, it seems to me. And that's why I was saying before, this isn't as clear, crystal clear, as some of us might hope it to be. And some of the other things, like the man laying with a man, for example, if we were to pull out those passages right now, we could go through the same exercise, and I could prove unambiguously that in context, it means what everybody in this room would say it means, right? That gay sex is an abomination, right? homosexuality is against the created order. We could prove that in context. I think we struggle to make that same ironclad kind of an argument on this head-covering question in this passage. And, I mean, we're centering only on this passage. Are there other key texts you would have us turn to? Well, let me just ask you a quick question then. From your perspective, how would you interpret verse 4? How is it a dishonor for a man having his head covered? How is that a dishonor? Because it says it's a dishonor there. In what way, according to your interpretation? Every man praying or prophesying having his head covered dishonors his head. If it's spiritual or if it's long hair, how is he dishonoring? Well, I would actually expound on what you said just a minute ago, and I believe, and Troy can correct me if I'm misunderstanding his point, but I think the point he just made is, if you are a man that prays or prophesies, means you are a Christian, and you have your head covered And he's what he would say maybe this means spiritually so that means you are covered spiritually by the woman right not by You don't have your head uncovered so you are putting yourself under women therefore you are dishonoring your head, which is Christ, you're dishonoring Christ, you're taking God's name in vain, you're taking his name in vain, saying, I'm a Christian, but you're putting yourself under a woman's authority. So that is the way Troy said it might be able to be read, not that he believes it necessarily, but he wants to know, are you open for that interpretation that somebody could read the passage, and it seems kind of logical to say that. And not only has he captured what I said, he said it better than I did. And so then from that and along that those lines of thinking then a Woman who is seeking to Go go around the authority of her husband and in her prayer or her teaching to subvert her husband in prayer or teaching, right, would be... Yeah, would be dishonoring her head, dishonoring her husband, and also by ascension Christ, but Again, I don't I don't think that that we have to say it can't mean that Right there is a spiritual significance to the head covering without the spiritual significance the head covering is meaningless It's only a symbol, but what the point I'm making I think Josiah is trying to make is the symbol is also important because it shows us what the spiritual reality is Right so and that gets back to what I was asking a few minutes ago And we're running out of time by the way just because it heads up. We have like a minute or so left I So we can do another show, but for this show, we're running out of time. But it comes down to, okay, I think that, and I think David agrees with me, so maybe all of us agree, the prominent thing here is the spiritual reality. Right that that God is the head of all that the God man Christ his head is God that man is his head is Christ and that in the order of things the way God has made them that the the wife is Her head is her husband like that's kind of the pecking order and there's a spiritual reality that doesn't mean that that like you made the point was it a week ago or two weeks ago Josiah that doesn't mean that like the son is inferior to the father in heaven there's just positional differences so that doesn't mean that the the woman is inferior to the man it's just they have different roles uh there's different um structure and there's a structure in place that gives them a different responsibility uh that kind of thing that's all that's being said here but that that's all that's being said here that's a lot that's being said here and then we get into what's the physical practical symbol of that that Paul is talking about here. And Daniel and Josiah have been holding the position that it's some sort of a, typically could be a metal helmet, I suppose, but typically like a fabric covering, a habit perhaps, or something like that on the head, a bonnet at least. And David and I at least are not persuaded at the moment that it's quite a specific as that. So we got to wrap up because we've got now like 30 seconds. So I'm going to bid our dues to the wonderful listener right now. David Forsey, thank you. Daniel Razvi, thank you. Josiah Bone Joani. Did I get it right? Without even looking at my phonetic spelling that I gave myself a little cheat sheet. His book is called The Head Covering. I encourage you to find it and get the full list of his arguments there. You can find it on Amazon. Just go to a search engine and look up The Head Covering Josiah and you'll find a hit for his book. Until next week, 167 and a half hours from right about now, God bless.