July 28, 2009
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Headcoverings in a nut shell
I have many friends who really are Godly women and struggle with 1 Cor 11, which speaks about women wearing head coverings. I have also had the great displeasure of being in church’s which teach that men must cut their hair so that it is no longer than their ears, and that men cannot wear a hat in church. This is a difficult passage, but it can be worked out with a few simple principals in hermeneutics (The art and science of Biblical Interpretation).
Two Big Rules:
- We cannot understand the verse differently than the original audience.
- We know more than the original audience. While we can use that knowledge to know how that info helps us form our theology, we can’t use that to expand what the verse would have said to the original audience. This is especially true in the Old Testament (OT), the Gospel, and the Acts.
The simple phrase “The text never meant, what it never meant before” is quite helpful.
There are 5 steps using the Inductive Method as a means of gaining a grammatically and historically accurate interpretation of the Word of God:
- Observe the Text
- Determine what separates us from the original audience
- Interpret the Text – What is the principle?
- Ask- Does the NT change my understanding?
- Application
Lets take a look at 1 cor 11:5 and use the 5 rules.
1 cor 11:5 But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered disgraces her head, for it is one and the same thing as having a shaved head.
- The text clearly says that a woman who prays with her head uncovered disgraces her head (her husband).
- However, we are separated from the original audience. In that culture, women who did not cover their heads were saying explicitly that they are not married.
- The principal is that women should be in submission to their husbands, because the husband is the head as Christ is the head of the Church.
- No.
- Women should never act in a way outwardly that shows they do not respect their husband or that they are not in submission to him.
So if you are a woman in the church and you are struggling with this, I hope it has added some clarity. You do not need to cover your head, but you do need to be in submission to your husband just as Christ is in submission to the Father.
