Well, you can turn in your bibles to first Corinthians chapter 11. As we embark this evening to understand one of the least understood or most misunderstood texts in the New Testament. First Corinthians chapter 11. Begin by reading it. Verse two.

Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head since it's the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife won't cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it's disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head.

For man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man, neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That's why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man nor man of woman. For as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman, and all things are from God.

Judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it's a disgrace for him? But if a woman has long hair, it's her glory, for her hair is given to her for a covering. If anyone's inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice nor do the churches of God.

So reads the word of the living God. One week before Easter, nineteen sixty nine, a woman was ejected from Milwaukee's Saint John Datapomack Catholic Church for not covering her head. Word of this ejection got back to the National Organization of Women, a second wave feminist movement now, and they organized a protest the following Easter Sunday at that very same church. 15 women wearing comically large Sunday bonnets went into the service, sat there through the whole thing, and then when it came time for them to take up and get up and take communion, they went up to the front and they took off their hats and demanded to be able to partake in communion. It was called the Easter Bonnet Rebellion.

And the now, National Organization of Women, issued a press release about it at the time. Here's what it said. To all news media for immediate release, the outmoded and discriminatory practice of women wearing head coverings at the liturgical services was the target of a protest by the National Organization of Women on Easter morning at Saint John De Napa Catholic Church. Mary Anne Lupa, member of the state steering committee of Now explained that the veiling of women historically symbolizes their subjugation. Dismissing the traditional biblical arguments, she pointed out that the authors of scripture spoke from their historical context, concluding that women are inferior human beings.

This erroneous view of women is responsible for the subservient role of women in the churches. End quote. So is that why most of the women at Emmanuel Bible Church do not have a head covering on Sunday morning? Because we read Paul and we think, yeah, that's what he's saying. Women are subhuman.

They're second class citizens. They're subservient. That's her language. They're subjugated. Some sort of form of ancient chauvinism.

We just buy into that. We're We love that. Is that what we're doing? What about on the flip side of this? Nineteen hundred years of church history with pretty broad agreement that Christian women should wear some sort of head covering to corporate worship and largely did, till about the nineteen thirties or forties.

What about the ancient Roman practice of head covering in Paul's day? Did men wear head coverings? Did they do it when they were worshiping, when they were praying, when they were not? How about women? What about prostitutes?

What about all these different categories? And what on earth about the angels? I would guess that first Corinthians eleven two to 16 is not a passage that's highlighted in your Bible because of those kinds of questions. It's confusing to us, isn't it? It seems like maybe it's a straightforward command that we should be wearing head coverings or not wearing head coverings depending on man or woman, but we're not.

But also, it says things like, woman is the glory of man. Is that true? What does that even mean? Upon a cursory reading of this text, it may just sound wrong to your ears. Right?

Have you felt that impulse? You hear a text like this. Maybe you are sympathetic to the mid century feminists in their take on this passage. You think, yep, Paul was just a chauvinist, just a product of his time. Or maybe on the other side, you're sympathetic to those who would say, we're not taking this text literally enough.

So doily up, ladies. Wherever you land with this inarguably challenging passage in scripture, my aim tonight is just to let the text shine through clearly. And even beyond that, not just to understand what it's really saying, but also to actually apply it. All scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable. That includes this passage.

Paul had an intended application and so we should apply it to ourselves. So So let me tell you where we're going with this. I'm gonna argue in this text that the Apostle Paul says that Christians must manifestly embrace the gender role that God has assigned to them. Men, manhood, women, womanhood, and specifically, husbands and wives in their roles. I'm also going to argue that in the ancient Corinthian context, the embrace of those gender roles look like men not wearing head coverings to pray and prophesy, and women wearing head coverings to pray and prophesy, at least.

I'm also going to argue that, and there's some important words I'm using here, while the principle of wearing your gender role, of embracing and saying amen to and showing that you agree with the gender that God has assigned to you, the role that God has assigned to you, while that principle is enduring and lasting and should be practiced in every church today, the particular practice of that principle in clothing choice does depend on your context. In short, I don't think that the ladies of IBC need hats, But I do think that all the men and women of IBC need to look and act like men and women. I think that's what this text is telling us to do, according to how God has made us. In doing so, I am pushing back on two fronts. I am pushing back against modern so called Christian feminists, egalitarians who would interpret this passage, sort of like the Easter Bonnet rebellion and say that it's chauvinistic.

I'm pushing back against that because they want to do away with the principle of the text entirely. And I'm pushing back against the modern head covering movement, particularly in The United States, which sees female head coverings as a binding transcultural Christian practice. And my hope at the end is that you understand this text better and obey it wholeheartedly, and we'll we'll address these issues as we go. You ready? Look at verse two.

Paul says, now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. There there's a turn here in this text from where Paul has been to where he's going. No longer is Paul addressing issues of Christian freedom, Christian liberty. Now, he's addressing different issues within the life of the church. He's gonna talk about spiritual gifts.

He's gonna talk about communion, and here he talks about head coverings. So what's interesting is he starts out not by rebuking them for this, which is interesting because almost the rest the whole rest of the letter first Corinthians is, hey, Corinthians, you've got something wrong. You've messed this up. But this is the one bright spot, it seems, where he says, I commend you. Like you you actually are doing this correctly.

You're following what he says are the traditions even as I delivered them to you. These are the handed down teachings that Paul gave. Probably not written down at that point, but handed down from Paul, taught by Paul, and practiced by this church faithfully, it seems. The practice of head covering, it seems to be for women, was actually practiced in Corinth. And so Paul is rejoicing in that.

He's committing them for it. This is not a rebuke. So we shouldn't understand it as a correction, but a fuller explanation of something that they're already practicing. That's why he says, I want you to understand. He's wanting to give them a deeper reason to know why they're doing what they're doing.

In essence, he's wanting them to understand the principles behind their practice. They're all doing what practice was handed down to them by the tradition of Paul. Now, he's saying, I want you to understand the principle undergirding that. You don't just keep doing the thing just because we've always done it. You need to understand what's underneath it.

Why are we doing it? And so he starts as deep as he can go and then goes to make a series of successive arguments to undergird the practice of men not wearing head coverings and wives wearing head coverings. And so he gives us the principle in verse three. Here it is. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

This is Paul's central idea, his main principle, what's underneath the shawl. And what it is, in a word, is headship. Headship. This word head here, some have tried to argue that it means source, the thing you come from, particularly egalitarians as they read this text, trying to sort of flatten it, say, no, no, no. Paul's not talking about authority and submission and all that.

No, no, no. He's just talking about where you come from. The problem with that is that verse 12 says that woman is now from man. So apparently then that means that woman is the head of man because she's the source now. Do you see the problem with that?

There's others who have done extensive work to disprove that claim that this particular word means source in this context. It does not. It means the uppermost part, the one in position of authority, the leader. And what Paul is doing here is he's setting up three head to non head relationships. And here they are.

Christ, he says, is the head of all men and women in the church. Then he says the husband is the head of his wife, not the head of all women. And God is the head of Christ. And why do I say the husband is the head of the wife and not all women? Well, there's a debate, you can see there's a little footnote there in the ESV.

There's a debate about this how this word should be translated. Should it be women? Should it be woman? Should it be wife? I think it should be wife, particularly because of how Paul uses it in First Corinthians 14 verse 35 where he says, let them, speaking using the same word, ask their husbands at home.

So I I think he's talking here about married women, talking about wives. It is not the case biblically, you don't find it anywhere else, that Paul or any other biblical author says any given man is the head of all other women. That would be a unique way to read this text. Rather, I think it's just a restating of what we already find in Ephesians five twenty three, for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church. So what he's saying is that Christ has the role of leading the church in some way that is similar to a husband leading a wife and God leading Christ.

And what is it? It's headship. It's headship. Now you have to be careful because that term and the idea of it has, of course, been twisted and shaped into all kinds of different things. So I I want to clarify for a moment just what headship is not and what it is.

First of all, headship is not ontological, meaning a has a husband is not of greater value than his wife being her head. This is not about dignity or worth or significance or status. That's not what headship means. Because if it did, then you've got a real problem because it says the head of Christ is God. Now you've got one member of the Trinity, incarnate though he is, being less valuable than another.

That would be a problem, theologically and for a whole host of other reasons. So no, it's not ontological. Second, it's not universal. This is not all men and all women, though different translations do take different approaches. But the only reading I think that makes sense here is husband and wife, even as Christ only has this special relationship with the church.

And it's also not identical. There is something distinct about Jesus' role toward the church and vice versa. And there is something distinct about husbands' relationships with their wives. In other words, headship means something. It's not just an empty term.

It's not just saying, well, he kind of chooses where we go out to eat sometimes, something insignificant like that. Yeah. Every everything is exactly the same. A % the same. No different role.

No different responsibility. Nothing different. No. It has to mean something. Headship means there's not identicality in every part of these relationships.

Wives should submit to their husbands and husbands should lead their wives. Of course, that doesn't mean that all of these headship relationships work exactly the same way. For example, a wife does not submit to her husband the same way that she submits to Christ, does she? Because if her husband tells her to sin, she has to submit to Jesus who tells her not to. So these things aren't all identical in that sense.

So then what is headship? What is it? Well, it's a responsibility, to be sure. Headship means that the head takes responsibility for the well-being, the protection, and the provision of the other. That's what Christ does for his church.

He lays down his life for her, Ephesians five. He washes her with the water of the word. He nourishes her. He cherishes her, cares for her. He takes that responsibility on himself.

That's what headship is. So too the husband and the wife. Headship is also a role of leadership. That's the most basic meaning of this word head. The incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, in His humanity submits to the will of the Father.

The Father, when Christ is here on earth, he submits to his father's will. We read this this morning, not my will but yours be done. That's an expression of Jesus submission to his father. So too with Christ in the church and with husbands and wives. There's actual authority and submission.

And then it is a relationship. This isn't headship doesn't mean some sort of transactional mercenary affair. This isn't, hey, go pick up something for me. Do my work. No.

This this is intimacy. This is care. This is love. This is self sacrifice and desire and communication. How do you think about the relationship between the incarnate Son of God, Christ, and God the Father?

There's a real relationship there. It's not just a means to an end. So just with that basic outline of headship, and there's so much more that we could say and we'll get into a little bit of it later, but with that basic outline of headship, what Paul is laboring for us to see here is that in the headship relationship between husband and wife, we see a parable of Christ's relationship with his church and even the relationship of the incarnate Son of God to his father. And that is the principle that gives rise to the practice of head coverings in their context. That's the principle that head coverings, whether it's the men not wearing them or the women wearing them, that's the principle that that is somehow demonstrating, somehow showing off.

And I am arguing that that principle transcends culture. That we still embrace and wear that principle today, even if the particular practice of it may look different. So at the outset then, Paul establishes the principle of what it means for a man to be a man and for a woman to be a woman. In God's glorious design, men and women have been given different kinds of bodies, different responsibilities, and different roles towards each other. Husbands lead their wives as heads and wives submit to that leadership.

Everything then that follows about head coverings is in some way flowing back to that principal argument. Everything is reinforcing this wonderful good design from God, corruptible though it may be. And so, Paul's main point here is that he wants you and I to manifestly, meaning in some obvious way, manifestly embrace the gender role that God has given to you. Whether you're a husband, whether you're a wife, whether you're a single man or a single woman, wherever you are, God wants you to manifestly embrace the gender role that God has given to you, to make it clear that you say yes and amen to God's good design. You don't fight against it.

You don't hate it. You're not trying to overturn it, but you embrace it. And what we're gonna see as we look through this text is five reasons why embracing your biblical gender role is a beautiful act of obedience. Or I'm gonna put it this way, when you wear your manhood or womanhood, when you wear your gender, these are the five things that you do. And this is Paul's argument through the text.

And I'll just read them right now and then we'll go through them in order. You respect your head. You reflect your Lord. You admit your need. You accept your lot, and you protect the church.

So that's where we're going for the rest of our time. First, why you should embrace the gender role that God has assigned to you. It's because when you do, you respect your head. This is what he says in verse four. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head.

Now what's the context here? He's talking about Christian life in Corinth. And in particular, he's talking about in the course of your Christian life when a man prays or prophesies. The praying here could be either out loud praying. It could be silent praying.

It doesn't clarify for us. Just any kind of praying it seems. And then prophesying. And here my understanding of prophecy is that it's talking about the gift of prophecy that has now ceased. The the New Testament gift of prophecy whereby prophets would deliver fresh revelation from God to God's people for their edification, a gift that is no longer, I understand, active, distinct from preaching, distinct from teaching, prophesying.

And so when prophets are prophesying, men are praying. Paul says, do not wear a head covering because if you do, then you're dishonoring your head. And And I hope you appreciate the ironic language that Paul is using here. He's intentionally doing that. He's using head in two different ways.

Cover his head, literally it just means down from the head. He dishonors his head, meaning Christ. Remember, that's the the formula that we just read. The head of every man is Christ. So if he does that, he dishonors Christ in some way.

Now some would say that the context of this passage is necessarily church services. And that shapes a lot of how you then approach the rest of this text. If this is specifically about praying and prophesying in church, then some would say you only have to wear a head covering or not in the context of a church service. However, there are those within the head covering movement who would say it's either just the church or they would say it's all of life. There's differences.

How All that being said, I actually don't think that this is restricted to the context of corporate worship. And the reason is pretty simple. It's just because the text doesn't say that. If you want an example for when the text does say that, first Corinthians 14 verse 34, the women should keep silent in the churches. That's an example where Paul makes it very clear I am talking about in the context of church.

He does not do that in this passage. The the argument to say this is talking specifically about church services usually hinges on the idea that, well, he's talking about prophecy, and that's something that in first Corinthians 14 it says they did in church services. Certainly, that's true. However, prophecy and prayer are both things that they also did outside of church services as well. Acts chapter 21, Philip's daughters who are prophetesses are prophesying just in a house.

Or Acts chapter one, there are women praying with the disciples just in an upper room. It's not a church service as far as we can tell. And so Paul's basic point here is that men shouldn't put a cloth covering over their heads because it dishonors Christ, their head. Now there's a view, and there's gonna be a lot of these. I just appreciate that there's a lot going on in this passage.

There's a view that that sees every reference in this passage to a covering as actually a hairstyle. Maybe you've heard this before. That when it says covering, covering the head, because one version of it just says down from the head, actually that's just talking about having like men having long hair. So it says men shouldn't have long hair. Instead, they should have short hair, I guess, and and pray and prophesy that way.

I do not think that that's what it's talking about for a whole host of reasons. In the text, outside of the text, historically, textually, in view is a cloth covering. If nothing else, the word in verse 15, her hair is given to her for a covering, is a very specific word in Greek for an actual piece of cloth that would go over the head. So so I don't think that he's talking about having a a stately man bun or not. I think he's actually talking about a cloth covering.

That aside, you should ask the question when you come to this text, it says, a man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. You should ask the question, why? Why does it dishonor Christ, his head, to pray with a covering? Well, in the Roman Empire, men and women would usually wear a tunic of some kind, like, kind of looks like a dress almost to our eyes. In Greek culture, it was called a keton.

And then often, they would drape over it some loose fabric called a hemation. And think of it kind of like a big scarf or a shawl. And that could then, or a stole or some other piece of garment could then be placed over the head, sort of like a hood draped over the head. So don't think like yamaka, don't think like a doily, a hat, bonnet. No.

That's not what they're thinking about here. They're thinking probably, it seems about some sort of piece of cloth that they would just drape over their head. However, once you get beyond that, the historical evidence for how culturally this worked, men covering their heads, women covering or not, is very complicated and pretty diverse. There are those like Plutarch, who is alive in Paul's day, who say, quote, it is more customary for women to go in public covered, but for men to go uncovered. So there you go.

There's one witness in Paul's day saying that women should cover, men shouldn't. But then once you start looking at the galleries of ancient Greek and Roman statues and art and vases, what you find is there are quite a few women with no covering on their head. And there's some speculation, well, maybe that's because they're the aristocracy or maybe they're single women and it was married women who cover their heads. There's also a lot of statues that have women with head coverings. And there's a statue of Caesar Augustus wearing a head covering because he's praying and it was a normative it seems, to wear a head covering when you were praying or offering sacrifice to the gods.

Some sort of worship. That's why Plutarch again says, why do Romans cover their heads when they worship the gods, but if they happen to be wearing the toga over their head when they meet someone worthy of honor, they uncover? Philo calls the head covering a symbol of modesty for women. Agreeing, one historian says, it was a way for a woman to quote publicly proclaim her respectability and adherence to tradition. And then there were actual Roman laws, it seems, at one point requiring women to cover their heads.

It's not clear how often that was enforced or if anyone took it seriously at all. Honestly, it seems like whatever view you take on this passage, you can find some sort of archaeological evidence to support your view, basically. You you can find a relief somewhere, a mosaic, some sort of picture, a quote that will justify your thinking about this because it's just very diverse. A lot of different cultures, a lot of different people doing different things. But here's the beauty of it.

We don't need to know. We don't need to know. Why? Because Scripture is sufficient. If Paul thought it was necessary for you to understand Roman head covering culture, he would have included that, but he does not.

So it's not necessary to understand this text. What Paul tells us here is that for a man to wear a covering when praying or prophesying is dishonoring to the one he is praying to or prophesying for. That in some way it wasn't becoming of the man as the head of his wife under the authority of Christ to cover his head, so he shouldn't do it. Now if I had to guess, based on the research that I did, I would guess that head coverings for women were a kind of symbol of modesty, a sort of traditional dress particularly for wives. And that for men, it was more respectful particularly in certain contexts of worship, for men to uncover their heads.

But there's contradictory evidence even to that, so it's hard to know. But this actually isn't all that foreign to us, this idea of covering the head or not covering it for worship. You you appreciate this because all of you have been in the situation where someone's wearing a ball cap, you go out to lunch, and someone prays, and then what what do the men do? They take off their ball cap. Right?

It's not that foreign to our culture. This idea that putting something on your head has some sort of significance, particularly when you're praying or when you're having a certain kind of conversation. So there's that kind of significance to it here. We don't have a pinpointed accurate way of saying this is exactly how it worked in the ancient world. But what Paul tells us is that for men to have their heads covered dishonors their head.

And in contrast, verse five, every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head since it is the same as if her head were shaven. So on the flip side, a wife with an uncovered head dishonored her husband. That's her head in the chain. The point is that when a wife wears a cloth over her head, she was affirming in some way her submission to her husband and thereby honoring instead of dishonoring her head. And Paul goes on to say that this uncovering is apparently so disgraceful that it's equivalent to in some way a shaving of the head.

And there's speculation about that too. Oh, all prostitutes in the ancient world, they they all shave their heads. Maybe. Doesn't seem to universally be the case either. But maybe that was the case, and maybe it was a sign of adultery for someone to have their head shaven.

Again, it's hard to tell but it doesn't really matter. The point is Paul tells us it's basically the same. It functions that way in their culture. And so an uncovered head for a woman, one without a cloth covering, is basically the same in Paul's mind as a shaved head for a woman. And then he goes on to say verse six, for if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short.

And Paul is saying, if you wouldn't walk around with your head shaved, you know, burning all of all of your credibility as a wife, then why would you go uncovered and do effectively the same thing? And think about if you got invited to a state dinner at the White House and you just wore a tuxedo t shirt. That's gonna dishonor your spouse and that's gonna dishonor the president, isn't it? Because of your choice of clothing. Some might say, maybe not this president.

Whatever. You can take that up with him. Notice, however, that the issue in verses four to six is all about the same thing, dishonor to the head. Husbands must not dishonor Christ by acting like they aren't the leaders that he has called them to be. And wives must not dishonor their husbands and thereby Christ by acting like they aren't under the leadership of their husbands as he has called them to be.

So no covering for dudes, covering for ladies. Now, one particularly massive issue with this text is whether or not we should take it as a literal command with an abiding relevance to today such that women should wear head coverings in church or outside of church today. There's a kind of groundswell even within the last twenty years of the movement called the head covering movement, particularly in The United States, that sees the practice of head covering for women as a literal abiding command. This this isn't just Mennonite churches, brethren churches. This extends to all kinds of different denominations.

I have friends, that I went to seminary with who would put themselves in that category. There's lots of different people who believe that, who who would say, if you're gonna read this text and not do exactly what it says, you're disobeying it and they would use the word, you're sinning. And they would say, if you don't take this text literally, that's the words they would use, literally, then what gives you the right to say that For instance, when Paul says, I don't promote a woman to teach or exercise authority over men, what gives you the right to say that first Timothy two twelve is also not just a sort of cultural appropriation? If you're gonna play that card here, does that apply to sexual ethics? Well, I mean, how how far does this go?

You just undermine the whole integrity of scripture because you're willing to punt on this issue. You're not taking it at face value. And I'm I'm sensitive to that concern. I hear that. I I don't want to be the kind of person who takes Scripture lightly.

I don't want to just read over it and make excuses just to adapt to my current practices, make my life easy. I don't want to do that. However, I think that Paul in this text is not nearly as concerned with the particular practice as he is the principle underneath it. Paul is commending both the principle headship and the practice head coverings because both were active and relevant in his time and place. And so if you're in a context where that practice is active and relevant, then you should do it.

But if you're not, then I don't think that you have to. And I don't think I'm importing that to the text because Paul puts it in the text. He says in verse six, but since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. That word since. He's saying because it is the case in this cultural context that for a wife to not have her head covered is disgraceful, has a cultural value that disgraces her husband in some way, dishonors her husband.

Because that's the case, because it because that's the case, because it has that cultural effect, she should wear a head covering. So that's in the text. I I don't think I'm making that up. I don't think I'm importing it. The the the counter argument would be, well, what Paul is doing is he's establishing a system of honor and dishonor based on head coverings and not.

But again, I don't think that that's what that language means. Paul is not establishing a system. He's just recognizing the existence of a system. He's saying because it's the case that even just in the context of the church, say nothing about White or Corinth, just just in the context of the church, it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. Because that's true culturally, she should cover her head.

The case here, it's about dishonor. He talks about it five times in this passage. And Paul's blank indicative statement about how dishonoring head coverings can be implies that there's some known consensus about its effect, that some cultural value about it even within the church. And I hope you appreciate what I'm saying. This is not a fast lane to letting the culture define our morals.

That's one of the pushbacks to what I'm saying. If you if you say that, then you're basically saying whatever the culture says, you gotta go along with. No, that's not true because Paul is anchoring everything he's saying in a transcendent principle that gives rise to a practice, not the other way around. He's not going from practice to principle but principle to practice. And I'm affirming the principle forever but not the practice in every context.

And consider verse five. He says, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head since it is the same as if her head were shaven. According to who? Is Paul saying, because I said so in this passage. I'm establishing it here.

Now that's the case. There's no prior precedent to this in scripture. So is this passage then establishing that that's a disgraceful thing? No. No.

He's acknowledging that that's just the reality in their context. Think about it this way. We're cessationists here at Immanuel. We believe in the cessation of the apostolic era sign gifts, prophecy, tongues, healing, miracles, apostleship. And think about then how you would approach first Corinthians fourteen one where Paul says earnestly desire the spiritual gifts especially that you may prophesy.

Let's just take for the sake of the argument, let's just assume that's a gift that ceased. So how are you then today supposed to approach that text? You're supposed to say, well, sorry. He said it. So we have to do it even if it's not happening.

I think we have a grid in the world of cessationism, at least, for approaching a text where Paul is saying, because this thing is happening now in this way, this is how it should work. Even if there's a transcendent principle that will be able to be applied out of this context, but a practice that doesn't. Paul is commending both the principle and the practice because both were active. But if the practice goes away, the principle endures. So it is in our context with head coverings.

Meaning, it just is not the case in Northern Virginia in 2025 that for a woman to walk in to a church service, a wife to walk into a church service without some sort of cloth covering over her head, it is wildly dishonoring to her husband. It's just not. Now there are contexts even today in the world where that is true. There are Russian churches, even in The United States, but in Russia. There are some churches in Africa where this is still the case.

If you're in a church context where that would be the effect, well, then don't do that. If if you need to have a head covering in order to show that you're embracing your biblical gender role and honoring your head, then you do that. But if you're in a context where that's not happening, then you don't have to do it that way. You do still have to embrace and say yes and amen to how God has made you. But you do it in a way that makes sense in your context.

If you're in a context where the practice of head covering still applies, then wear one, of course, which would apply to most churches, by the way, throughout church history. This has been the dominant practice throughout church history. It's just for women to wear head coverings at church. So my argument here is that Paul is not establishing in this one passage an honor dishonor system related to head coverings, but is appreciating how head coverings actually work in his context and speaking into that principally. To put into practice the principle of headship.

So you do not dishonor your head. That's the principle. Do not dishonor your head. That means, husbands, that you do not refuse to lead. You do not refuse to do that which god has entrusted to you, to discharge your responsibility as a husband to lead, protect, provide for, and care for your wife and your children.

And wives, this means that you do not refuse to submit to your husband as God has commanded. And for those who are single, this means that you also embrace the gender role that God has given to you even outside of the context of marriage. One of the ways that this might look for someone to, so to speak, uncover their head in our context would just be to sort of reject biblical gender roles in spirit. The way I've heard this before, someone says, I just don't like that you only have male pastors at your church, which we do. Or someone says they don't like that it's mostly women who are in charge of the childcare here at your church.

I don't care for that. Someone doesn't like that men are doing x more than women. Here's how it can sound from one egalitarian author, Rachel Held Evans. Quote, when a man with no biblical training whatsoever is considered more qualified to teach than a woman with a PhD in theology or woman whose work in New Testament scholarship is renowned the world over, we are not seeing complementarianism at work but patriarchy. End quote.

But appreciate biblical generals are not about competency. They're not about degrees or renown. They're about God's good design. They're about God's purposes to glorify himself by ordering relationships in a family and in a church in such a way that he is magnified. And that Jesus as the head of the church is seen to be glorious.

When you relish biblical gender roles trying to use whatever station God has given you to maximize the glory of Christ, you do great respect to the head of the church. The rest of these will go more quickly. Second, you reflect your Lord. You reflect your Lord. That's the second reason you should wear your gender.

Verse seven. For a man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. This may sound like patently false or chauvinistic or something, but it really isn't. Just pay careful attention to the text. This does not mean that women are not made in the image of God.

Note, the text does not say that. What does the text say? A man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God. But Genesis one twenty eight affirms that God made them male and female. In his image, he created them.

So women are made in the image of God just like men. Instead, Paul here is appealing to the order of creation to notice that gender roles arise out of God's intentional design to glorify himself. God chose to make men and women in a particular order, in a time sequence, in order to say something about how they should relate to each other. Man was made first, as we read in Genesis two, to image and glorify God. And then woman was made to be a helper fit for him, to help him do that.

It wasn't good that he do it alone. And so God's design was for the man to work the garden and to keep it, to protect, to feed, to provide, to lead, and for the wife to help. And Paul's practical point is that that is made manifest through the wearing or not wearing of head coverings in their context. Look at verse eight. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.

Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is God made Adam first, then took from his rib to make a woman. And Paul is saying that there is a reason for that. It wasn't just haphazard. It wasn't arbitrary.

It wasn't like God could have switched the order in that. It wouldn't make any difference. It's intentional. Genesis two eighteen, then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make her a may helper fit for him.

He does not say, I will make the woman so that Adam becomes a helper fit for her. He says, I'm making Eve as a helper fit for him. Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She'll be called woman because she was taken out of man. Notice here Adam is naming his wife.

There's a sense of authority, of headship in naming her. So we see that not only was woman made to be a fit helper to man in fulfilling his mission of glorifying God by multiplying and filling the earth with images of God, but she was also created out of man, implying an intimate personal connection so that he would not do this alone. And if I had to summarize in just my own little rhyming way what Biblical headship looks like in the relationship between men and women, this is how I'd say it. I'll put it on the screen. God made men to serve as head, to lead, to feed, and to defend.

And God made women from man's side to help and bear and bring delight. These are the glorious good roles that God has made us for. He did not make us the same. And that is a good and a wonderful thing. And we could spend a long time unpacking all those, just observing that Paul is saying that's what's true because of the order of creation.

And and this is not the only time Paul does that. Paul also does that in first Timothy chapter two verse 12 where he says, I don't permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. Why? Because Adam was created first. Same exact argument.

That there's a difference in our roles in the context of the church, outside of the church, in marriage because of the order of creation. Head covering advocates then would say, well, so why are you gonna take one passage and not the other? You're not wearing head coverings, but you don't have female pastors. What's the deal? And I would say, no.

I do take both passages. I embrace both passages wholeheartedly because both are grounded in creational realities. But we connect those creational realities not to an obsolete cultural practice, but to a transcendent principle. He says in verse 10, that is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. A symbol of authority, literally just as in the text, authority on her head reinforces what was true from the very beginning that God designed man to glorify him and he designed woman to help man do that.

She does that through intimate joyful submission to his leadership as symbolized by the head covering. Now this phrase, because of the angels. A lot of imaginative interpretations for this over the course of church history. As you can imagine, maybe the most likely one is that, and it's far fetched, but it's the most likely I think, is that it's because angels in some way are watching over church services. They're watching over Christian lives and they're seeing, what men and women are doing to glorify God and and there's a sort of deeper sense of modesty and reverence with this head covering practice.

But I mean even that, it's hard to say. Who knows? I would agree with, several noted theologians on this text when it says, what does it mean because of the angels? And they say, I have no idea. I really don't know.

That's one of those heaven questions you just ask when you get there. Angels care about this. In its context, I'm sure the Corinthians are like, got it. We know exactly what you mean, Paul. I do not.

So we'll find out later. But we understand the thrust of the argument. When you embrace your biblical gender role, you reflect God. And and this is not an idea that's original to Paul. That's God's idea in making man in his image.

Then God said, Genesis one twenty six, let us make man in our image after our likeness. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created a male and female, he created them. Meaning that from the very beginning, God was wanting to show himself off by making not just one kind of human, but two, male and female. He was doing something that would reflect himself.

And that means that we have an incredible opportunity to make God known even in the way we relate to each other as men and women. Third, not only do we respect our head, reflect our Lord, but we admit our need. We admit our need. He says verse 11, nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man nor man of woman. For as woman is made from man, so man is now born of woman and all things are from God.

Paul here with this word nevertheless is saying there is a sinful tendency in our hearts to corrupt this good design. Is it there? Either on the one hand to for men to try to domineer over women or on the other hand, for women to try to domineer over men. And he also here goes back to the creation account to show that though man was made first, men don't keep getting made without women. You still need women for more men to be made.

That's what he says. As man woman was made for man, so man is now born of woman. Meaning, we depend on each other. You can't act like you don't need each other. There's a necessary interdependence of men and women.

That's how God arranged it. And ultimately, he says, all of it comes from God. Both men and women depend wholeheartedly on God for life and breath and everything. So what's Paul countering here? He's he's countering the impulse that we might have to overshoot God's good design for authority in chauvinism or in feminism.

Because of the fall, wives will naturally be bent to fight against the submission of their husbands. It's just true. In their hearts, wives are going to want to it says Genesis three sixteen, your desire shall be contrary to your husband. But he shall rule over you. They'll want to dominate their husbands in some way.

Or Genesis four, Lamech now has two wives who he's domineering over in a chauvinistic way. That's also because of the fall. All of our dispositions toward biblical gender roles are distorted because of sin. And so we need this kind of corrective. We need this help, this reminder, no, no, no.

It's not greater value of one over the other. It's not independence of one of the other. You're dependent on each other. And if you want evidence that we so easily distort God's good design of gender roles, I mean, look no further than a whole history of oppression of women. Or when the pendulum swings too far in the other direction, demasculinization, feminism, and eventual gender erasure.

You want evidence that we have messed up how we think about gender. There's a five year old in Australia A Couple Years ago, five year old, who wanted to get gender reassignment surgery. They carved up his arm in order to make him look like a girl. If that's not proof of our insanity, I don't know what is. We grate against this, and that's why we need a reminder like this.

No, you depend on each other. The good news then of the gospel is that Jesus overcomes that curse. He overcomes that sinful impulse by living a perfect life, by dying an atoning death, by gloriously raising from the dead so that we can be free from that sinful disposition against our own chromosomes to radically embrace the roles that God has beautifully designed for us to show off his brilliance and manifest his glory. Of course, this world thinks every sentence that I'm saying in this sermon is nuts. Of course, they do.

We should expect that. They're hardwired by sin to think that there's no way that leadership assigned by the providence of your genetic makeup can be reliable or good and that any submission is necessarily oppression. But we know better because we know Jesus, don't we? The submissive son and the ruling head. We know that God made us interdependent, needy for each other, not domineering over or subverting each other.

May I suggest one practical application of this, husbands, wives, particularly on Mother's Day? You should, in some obvious way, show each other that you are thankful for each other. Husbands, show your wives how thankful you are for them, not just today. Write them a card, leave them a note, get them some flowers. Show them that you are thankful for what God has created them to do and they do so well.

And vice versa for husband for wives to your husband. Fourth, you accept your lot. Verse 13. Verse 13. Judge for yourselves.

Is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it's a disgrace for him? But if a woman has long hair, it's her glory, for her hair is given to her for a covering. There's a lot going on here. I'm not gonna spend a ton of time here, but just want to note that what Paul is doing is just simply noticing a corollary between the tendency for men to have shorter hair and the cultural practice of married men not wearing head coverings and vice versa.

Again, he is assuming the disgrace culturally and just noticing this natural fact. And it is a fact. Scientifically, it is a fact that men do not, in general, grow hair as quickly as women or as long as women. It has to do with our hormones apparently. And I suppose I'm a testimony to that.

It doesn't mean that Paul is binding the practice of head covering to male and female physiology. It simply means he is noticing a similarity between the two things. He's saying the different physiology of men and women mirrors the different roles of men and women, and in Paul's context that is shown in the practice of head covering. Paul's not establishing a rule for headgear based on hair length or telling all the men in the church, if you have long hair, sorry Jason Nicks, you got to cut it off. No.

No. He's not saying that. He's he's just saying, listen, there's something natural about how we grow our hair that has a kind of corollary that shows that we're different. And that we should embrace those differences. Again, the appeal to nature here is binding on its relation to the principle, but not to the practice in its context of that principle principle.

Kevin DeYoung says the following quote, nature teaches us that a woman should accept her role as a woman, but the expression of womanhood will be somewhat culturally conditioned. And I think the application of this is just to recognize that you are what God made you. You just admit it and accept it. If God made you a man, if He made you a husband, if He made you a woman, if he made you a wife, then you say yes and amen to that. You embrace it.

Thank the Lord for it. You don't fight against it. You don't try to dress like the other. Second century philosopher Epictetus has an interesting passage on this. He says, quote, are you a man or a woman?

Answer, a man. Very well, adorned as a man, not a woman. Woman is born smooth and dainty by nature. He uses the same word that Paul uses there, nature. And she is very hair and if she is very hairy, she is a prodigy and is exhibited at Rome among the prodigies.

Think like the bearded lady. That's what he's getting at. But for a man not to be hairy is the same thing and if by nature he has no hair, he is a prodigy. But if he cuts it out and plucks it out himself, what shall we make of him? Where shall we exhibit him and what notice shall we post?

I will show you, we say to the audience, a man who wishes to be a woman rather than a man. And in his context, that sounded insane. Of course, this text soundly rejects transgender ideology that tries to separate your felt gender from your biological sex. No, they are one and the same. You live and embrace and show and wear what you actually are, what God made you to be.

If you're a man, you be a man and you rejoice in it. If you're a woman, be a woman and rejoice in that. And then finally, and this is where we'll conclude, you protect your church. Here's how Paul ends this strange passage. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.

Meaning, to reject biblical gender roles is to separate yourself from brothers and sisters in Christ. That's what this word contentious means. It's a combination of the word for friend and fighting. If you want to reject the role that God has given to you, then you are going to have to start fighting with your brothers and sisters in the church. Because that's what it's gonna produce.

Infighting, quarreling. Secondly, he says to reject biblical generals is to separate separate yourself from apostolic doctrine. He says, we have no such practice, we being the apostles. Therefore, to go against what they prescribe is to go against the foundation of the faith. And third, he says, to reject biblical gender roles is to separate yourself from the true church.

He says, nor do the churches of God. All the other churches practice this. Meaning, appreciate that if you were to call yourself a Christian feminist, who you are calling a liar? The church. The historic universal church who has held this doctrine for two thousand years.

That's who you're throwing under the bus. One feminist author, Doctor Rita Halterman Finger, writes of this text, quote, We concluded that this is the most confusing passage in all of Paul's letters. Confusing because he starts out with a gender hierarchy and then reverses himself later. My overall take on Paul is that he's still in process when it comes to gender issues. Paul no doubt had to rethink some of his views.

And in first Corinthians eleven two to 16, we catch him somewhere in the middle of that process. Hence, the confusion in the text. I mean, if if that's what you end up doing with this part of your Bible, appreciate where you have put yourself with respect to the author of Scripture, the divine author. You have elevated yourself above the Holy Spirit. That's not wisdom.

That's folly. So we need a reminder, even one as seemingly odd and locked into a cultural moment as this, to follow God's good design for our lives because he loves us and gave his son for us. Friends, God's design for men and women, it is wise. It is good. The question is whether you and I will trust him enough to live like it.

Brothers, will you embrace the call to self sacrificial leadership? To provide, to protect, to care for, to nurture. Sisters, will you embrace the call to joyful encouragement, strengthening, following, and meekness? In summary, will you wear the role that God has given you? Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we admit our confusion and challenge when we come to a text like this, but we know that you have spoken and spoken clearly, and so we ask, give us ears to hear. Help us to embrace and rejoice in and thank you for this text and its truth. Thank you for making us men and women. May we glorify you, our head, for making us precisely as you meant to. And may we then honor our brothers and sisters in the way that we relate to each other as men and women.

Give us submissive hearts to your word, especially in the parts where we are challenged by it. And cause us to glorify you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. And now for a parting word word for pastor Jesse Johnson.

If you have any questions about what you heard today or if you wanna learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to tms.edu. Now if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.