>> Jen: Hello and good morning faithful listeners, and welcome to Part two of the Women's Head Covering Discussions. I can't wait to talk about it, so stay tuned. You definitely want to go back on Tuesday and listen to part one of these episodes before we begin today.
But today's discussion is going to be more about the head coverings and why Paul argues that women should be covering their heads during church, but also why men shouldn't be let's go ahead and read first uh, 1 Corinthians 11:1 16 I'll be reading from the web. Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, brothers, that you remember me in all things, and hold firm the traditions even as
I 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 man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying having his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she were shaved. For if a woman is not covered, let her hair also be
cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to have his head covered, because he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man. For man wasn't created for the woman, but woman for the man. For this cause, the woman ought to have authority over her own head because of the angels.
Nevertheless, neither is the woman independent of the man, nor the man independent of the woman in the LORD. For as woman came from man, so a man also comes through a woman. But all things are from God. Judge for yourselves Is it appropriate that a woman prays to God unveiled? Doesn't even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it's a dishonor to him? But if a woman has long hair, it's a glory to her, for her
hair is given to her as a covering? But if any man seems to be contentious, we have no such custom. Neither do God's assemblies. Okay, so on Tuesday we talked about the first part of first uh, 1 Corinthians 11, basically, verses 1 through 6 approximately. We talked about how it is shameful for a man to have his head covered while he is praying or prophesying. And it's also shameful for a woman to have her hair uncovered while she is praying or prophesying.
I also talked about authority in the church, specifically how this entire portion is really getting down to the root problem of disordered authority in the church. Not necessarily about hair coverings, which is what most people take it as, but really it's talking mostly about authority, how Jesus is in authority over man, how man is in authority over woman, and how the Father is in authority over
Christ. I also talked about how this doesn't mean that women are inferior to men in every single way, because if we took this verse to mean that, we'd also have to say that Jesus is inferior to the Father because it says that the Father is the head of Christ. So because we know for certain that Jesus and the Father are the same, one is not inferior to the other, they just have different roles. The same is true, and
the same applies to men and women. So I highly, highly recommend going back and listening to Tuesday's episode before delving into today's episode, because this is a Part two. I'm not going to discuss everything once again, and you might have some questions if you didn't listen to the first part. So that being all said, in verse seven, it says, for a man indeed ought not to have his head covered because he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the
man. And actually, I'm going to switch over to the Amplified Bible real quick and read this passage in the Amplified A man not to have his head covered during worship, since he is the image and reflected glory of God, but the woman is the expression of man's glory. I actually really like this verse a lot. I think it's kind of sweet that, uh, I am my husband's glory. I mean, hey, that's what it says. It says, I am the glory of the man. What does it mean that woman is the
glory of the man? Well, Paul actually explains it and continues on in verse 8. For man is not from woman, but woman from man. For man wasn't created for the woman, but woman for the man. Now, this is something women and men, honestly will get very upset about. Actually, I get a lot more men that get upset with me when I talk about complementarianism than
I do from women. Shockingly enough, typically women will kind of listen to me and, uh, have some questions, but they never get, like, real salty with me. But men, it's really funny. Men on YouTube specifically get very angry with me when I talk about complementarianism, which is kind of funny and ironic. But not to digress too much it says that women is the glory of the man, and that man is not from
the woman, but the woman is from the man. For man wasn't created for the woman, but the woman for the man. So this brings me to the book of Genesis, which takes us to the creation story. Genesis chapter two talks about the creation of Adam and Eve. I believe Eve specifically. So let me go over here to Genesis 2, and I'm going to read verses 18 to the end of the chapter. Yahweh God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to
him out of the ground. Yahweh god formed every animal of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature became its name. The man gave name to all livestock and to the birds of the sky and to every animal of the field. But for man, there was not found a helper comparable to him. Yahweh God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. As the man slept, he took one of his ribs and
closed up the flesh in its place. Yahweh God made a woman from the rib which he had taken from the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She will be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man will leave his father and his mother, and they will become one flesh. And, uh, that's a beautiful story of the creation of the
woman. And there are so many different resources you can find about people teaching about how special this creation of the woman really is. This was the one person that God made very differently. If you'll notice, god formed everybody else out of the dust of the earth, including the man. But this woman, Eve, was created very differently. So she was unique and she was special from the very beginning. But notice
what God says here. Like, he gives a deep regard for this woman that he makes because he says, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him. So God Himself said, it is bad for men to be alone. And I mean wives. You get it when you go out of town, your husbands are useless. They really are. They need you so bad when you are gone. The man is not good for the man to be alone. It's just not. And god understood this, that it was not good for the man to be
alone. And I'm, um, making a joke out of it, but the point is, Eve, the first woman, was special, and God created her very uniquely. She was created from Adam a rib bone, which some people are like. It's very close to the heart. But notice what Adam does when he finally sees Eve, because God brought him all these different animals to show him. He says, look, there's birds, there's reptiles, there's insects, there's amphibians. There's everything that you can.
Mammals, everything you can name. Go ahead and name them. The reason God did that was to show Adam that there was no helper suitable for him. So he put this longing in Adam's heart. Because what does it say here? Adam was naming all of these animals, but he didn't find a helper suitable for him. That is what it says. So Adam begins to have this longing. So finally, when god makes Eve the woman and brings her to Adam, which it says that God Himself brought her to Adam, Adam exclaims, at
last. At, uh, last. This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She will be called woman because she was taken out of man. Adam glories in Eve, and it's a beautiful story of the creation of woman. So when we go back to first uh, 1 Corinthians 11, it says, the woman is the glory of the man. And that's exactly what Adam does. He glories in Eve. When he finally sees her, he is overjoyed to see her. For the man is not from the woman, but the woman from man, which is
the truth. I mean, the woman literally came from man. God made Eve from the rib bone of Adam. So factually, woman came from man, for man wasn't created for the woman, but the woman for the man, which is also the truth. Because if you look at Genesis 2, what we just read, God made Eve for Adam because Adam needed her, and it was not good for the man to be alone. So God created women because they were the best people to help the men,
not other men. But women were the best, most suitable helpers for the men. So, yes, women were created from the man because God used the man's rib bone to create the woman. And women were also created to help the man. They were the most suitable partner for the
man. And honestly, when you look at it that way, and not like, oh, I'm inferior to my husband, or, I'm inferior, uh, to my pastor, or something like that, when you look at it this way, you can see how special and unique god created women to be. And by the way, this does not mean that women aren't created in God's image, because it doesn't matter. The building material that God uses to create. I mean, for example, Adam came from the dust of the ground because dust is not in God's
image, the same way a rib bone isn't in God's image. But God used those materials to make man and to make woman. And that's also clear in Genesis, where it says God made man in his own image. Man and woman, he created them. But going back to first uh, 1 Corinthians 11, it says that for a man indeed ought not to have his head covered because he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the
man. So we went over the first reasons why a man should not cover his head during church, which was a very popular thing that was done during the days of Paul, was the men actually prayed and prophesied and conducted, uh, worship with their head covered. And Paul was saying, men, you got to start taking the head coverings off. Which, actually, even today, this is still a very common occurrence. Men of many different religious backgrounds will cover their head while they are,
uh, worshiping their god. So it is not an uncommon occurrence. But Paul says, don't do it first and foremost because you have the authority, which is what we talked about on Tuesday. But also because the man was created in the image and glory of God and then the woman was created from the rib bone of Adam. This means that from the very beginning of time, god created an order, and the man had responsibility for his wife, so he had responsibility over Eve.
And because a head covering is a sign of submission, it is not the man's role to wear the head covering, but it is the woman's role, because, once again, the head covering is a sign that somebody has authority over you. So Paul is just putting things into order. He says, men, you have the responsibility over everything in the church, and women, you should be humble and allow the men to take
that responsibility. So really, you know, the people who say that this portion of Scripture shouldn't be in the Bible because, uh, back in the 70s, they actually tried to get rid of this portion of Scripture. They said, no, this is inconsistent with everything else that Paul wrote about. Because Paul is saying that women are inferior to men. Well, he's not, because it is consistent with everything
else in Scripture. The Bible always says that the man has the responsibility, and responsibility is not easy. And in fact, later on, we're going to talk about, we're going to go more into depth about the different roles that men and women have in the church. And Paul often says a lot of the same stuff, that the man is supposed to be the preacher, the men are supposed to be the elders, and then women can do all the other roles in the church. In fact, Paul goes on in 1st uh, Corinthians 11
to say this. He says in verse 11, nevertheless, neither is the woman independent of the man nor the man independent of the woman in the LORD. For as woman came from man, so a man also comes through a woman. But all things are from God. So once again, men and women have different roles. Women are not inferior to men, but they are not to be in charge. They're supposed to give authority over to the men. And wearing this head covering in the days of Paul would be a sign that a
woman was doing that. Once again, all of this applies to the church setting. I just want to be very clear about that. This is talking very specifically about a church service. So women are supposed to humble themselves when they go to church and not try to usurp authority or something along those lines. Now, this is not a very popular teaching nowadays.
I would say at this point in time, most churches are egalitarian, meaning that they believe that women should be preachers and should be elders and should have every single authority that a man has and vice versa. But that is not what Scripture teaches. Scripture teaches that there are roles for men and that there are roles for women. Now, of course, there are churches out there like the one that I grew up in that take this to the extreme and
say, well, women can't really do anything. You know, they can only teach children's classes. And here's the thing. I am terrible with children. Like little children. I love teenagers, but I'm terrible with children. I have zero desire,
zero desire to teach a, uh, children's class. So if I would have stayed at the church that I grew up in, I would have, like, I m wouldn't have been able to flourish because they would have said, well, you teach children's classes or you kind of do nothing, you know, so there's a lot of churches that teach that as well, but that is not the case. And I did an episode about this about a year ago about why I am complementarianist and also what
women can really do in the church. And I backed all of it up with Scripture and looked at different women and what their roles were and what they did throughout the Bible. So you should check out that video. But going back to this, Paul makes it very clear. Men are not above women and women are not above men. The woman is not independent of the man. The man is not independent of the woman. Meaning men can't do very well on their own, and women can't do very well on
their own either. What does god say at the very beginning in Genesis, it is not good for the man to be alone. In order for a church to really be able to function, there has to be women there. If it was a man's only church, can you. I mean, I can't even imagine that type of church. I'm sure it exists somewhere, but I can't imagine what that would look like. The same goes for a woman's only church. Like if a. Oh my goodness, a woman only church, there'd be nothing but just fighting and like,
backbiting. I worked in a salon for years. Okay, uh, the last thing I want to go to is a woman only church. All scripture says here is that women and men are totally equal. They need each other. And in a church setting, there needs to be both a healthy group of men and a healthy group of women who are following God's design for how the church
is supposed to be run. And God's design here, based upon first uh, 1 Corinthians 11, is that men have the leadership and the women allow the men to have that leadership and be respectful of that leadership. But I'd like to talk about verse 10 here before I continue on. It says, for this cause, the woman ought to have authority over her own head because of the angels. So, um, the web, that's kind of a strange translation. So once again, let me switch over to the
amp and read it out of that. The amp says, uh, hold on, what was it? Therefore, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head for the sake of the angels, so as not to offend them. So this sign of authority on her head would literally be the veil that she would be wearing to a church service or the head covering that she'd be wearing to a church
service. But this interesting part about the angels not being offended, apparently according to First uh, Corinthians 11, there are angels participating in our worship services with us. There's a verse in Hebrews that says that angels walk around among us and we don't even know who they are. It says, don't be afraid to entertain strangers because you might be entertaining an angel unbeknownst to
you. So angels are around. They're walking around, and apparently they are participating in our worship services and they get offended when they see things that are going on. And we don't want to offend the angels because they're watching and taking note of everything. So women should act in the appropriate and modest way, which avails in Paul's day would also be the very modest thing to do. So women should wear a head covering or have a sign of authority on her head because the angels might
get offended. Which is kind of, kind of interesting to think about. Let me move back to the web again real quick. First uh, Corinthians 11, then, uh, verse 11 and 12 talk about the equality of the man and the woman. But then to wrap this all up in a bow, Paul says, judge for yourselves in verse 13. Is it appropriate that a woman pray
to God unveiled? Doesn't even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it's a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it's a glory to her, for her hair is given to her for a covering? So many people take that to say, oh, well, Paul is just talking about hair here. We don't have to wear a physical head covering. But I
don't think that's what Paul is saying. Personally, I do think this entire thing is talking about a physical head covering, like a cloth or a veil or something like that, or a hat, whatever. And the reason I think that is because it says nature itself teaches. So women's hair is nature's covering to her. Nature gave women the hair that she has and it's typically much better than men's hair. I was a hairdresser for many years and um, you know,
I've seen my fair share of hair. And uh, women just don't bald the same way that men do. They might thin a little bit, but they don't have like male pattern baldness. If they do, that's a bad problem. But typically that doesn't really happen. Women for a lot later and a lot longer in their life have longer and more beautiful and thicker hair than men do. Men just don't have typically as
nice of hair as women do. And this is like nature's own way of saying that women should be covered because nature already gave her a sort of covering, whereas nature didn't give men that same kind of covering. I mean, I don't know if you guys have seen my husband. You probably haven't because I think the one picture I posted of him, he was wearing a ball cap, but he is completely bald. My husband has been balding since I've known him and now
he just, he gave up on his hair and he just shaves it. He is completely bald and he does not have nature's covering. He just doesn't. Whereas me, I do. I have hair. And it is much thicker than my husband's hair. It's probably thicker than most men's hair. So nature itself even said women need to be covered. But men were not given the same thing. And Paul says here, nature itself teaches that if a
man has long hair is a dishonor to him. Now, I don't think that this means that it's a sin if a man has long hair, because there are instances of men having long hair in Scripture. For example, um, Samson, one of the judges of Israel, was commanded to have very long hair, and it was a sin if he actually cut it. So there are instances of men having long hair. In scripture. Specifically, when it came to vows, men were not supposed to
cut their hair. So they'd make it grow out, and it would look really scraggly and long. And Paul says, yeah, you know, it's a dishonor when you see men walking around with really long hair. And that was the whole point of the vows, was in a way, you were denying yourself to give something to God. So a man having long hair was seen as, you know, you're denying yourself. It's not something that's beautiful or
lovely like a woman's hair. When a man has very long hair, it's more of a dishonoring thing for a man to have long hair. Now, that being said, men throughout history have worn their hair long. And, uh, even now, it's relatively popular for a man to have longer hair. But typically, m. Typically throughout history, women have always kept their hair longer. Even now, what is the popular hairstyle? It's like,
longer, beautiful waves. In the year 2024, that is the popular hairstyle with, like, the curtain bangs, at least shoulder length for women. Whereas the fashionable hairstyle for men right now is, like, kind of shaggy, a little bit longer on the top, but then shaved on the sides. So men don't typically keep their hair longer than women do. Now, do I personally think that women should be wearing head coverings to church nowadays? Um, not
necessarily. I think if you have a strong conviction for it and you think that that's what god wants you to do, then there are ways that you can do it without looking out of place, if that makes sense, because you don't want to. You also don't want to look out of place because that, in its own sense, immodest. If everybody's, like, paying attention to you instead of paying attention to what they should be in the church service. So there's ways to do it if
you feel a strong conviction for it. And not to mention, Paul really only gives this command for women to wear head coverings. It says when they are either praying or prophesying. So it doesn't say that a woman has to go to church and the entire church service she has to wear a head covering. It specifically says praying or prophesying. Now the last thing I want to say about this portion, which there are many things, is that first and foremost, this
applies to every time period. Even though we women typically don't wear head coverings to church anymore, it still applies to us because of what Paul's really talking about here. I know for me, I'm a woman and I'm talking mostly to women, probably in this episode. We need to get to the heart of what this is saying and not feel irritated or upset because God put this design in place. Because if it were being done the correct way, the church would be thriving. The correct way is following
what scripture tells us to do. To be humble people, to be considerate of others, to be helping men achieve what God designed them to do. And that is our design as women. Just a side note here, before I end the episode, I would never want to be a preacher. I see what uh, my pastor goes through. I also see what my brother in law goes through who is also a pastor. And uh, yeah, I'm very happy not being a pastor. And quite honestly,
I don't know how they do it. Just the constant, uh, problems, the constant pushback, the confrontations they are always in. I would never want to do it. Anyway, guys, I hope you enjoyed part two of the women's head coverings in First uh, Corinthians 11. If you did share it on your social media platforms and tell people that the Bible Explained podcast exists. Guys, I won't see you tomorrow unless you're a member, because Fridays are for members. I have a whole separate podcast on
Fridays where we are going through the psalms. If you're interested in becoming a member, you gotta click on the Ko Fi link in the description and then sign up for the coffee tier in order to gain access to Friday's podcast episodes. So become a member and I'll see you guys tomorrow. But if not, I'll see you all on Monday, 6am or whenever you wake up. Happy listening and God bless.