Thesis #1: The question of head coverings in Corinth cannot be handled simplistically.
The apostle Peter says that there are some things in Paul’s letters that are difficult to understand (2 Pet. 3:16). So our first task is to come to grips with the fact that his teaching on head coverings is among them. Some difficult passages are simply difficult. No one quite knows what a parbar is (1 Chron. 26: 18). But there are other passages that present difficulties because they seem so clear in themselves when detached from the rest of Scripture, and consequently, when taken out of context they are easy to argue for in a “here’s your verse, what’s your problem?” sort of way. Thus some Christians think the Bible forbids all oath-taking whatever (Matt. 5:34-37), when the Bible repeatedly affirms the propriety of taking oaths (Deut. 6:13; 10:20; Is, 65:16; Heb. 6:13, 16). Some Christians insist that baptizo means immersion and can mean nothing but immersion, when Scripture describes the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as a pouring (Acts 2:17; 11:15-16). Some Christians believe that the sixth commandment forbids the taking of any human life whatever (Ex. 20:13) when the very next chapter requires capital punishment (Ex. 21:12). But if we want to be “all-the-Bible” Christians—tota et sola Scriptura—then we need to look at all of Scripture.
And this is very much necessary when it comes to the subject of head coverings for men and women.
Thesis #2: There are numerous places in the Old Testament where men prayed or prophesied with their heads covered.
Paul says that if a man prays or prophesies with his head covered, he dishonors his head, who is Christ (1 Cor. 11:4,7). We do want to figure this out and obey. But do we have any examples in Scripture of men praying or prophesying with their heads covered? Well, yes we do. While the high priest was in the course of his ministry, he was not to uncover his head (Lev. 21:10; see also Lev. 8:9, 13; 10:6). Ezekiel was told to bind a turban on his head (Eze. 24: 17), and then to prophesy to the people (Eze. 24:20). Moses spoke the Word of God to the people with a veil over his face (Ex. 34:32-33). When Elijah went out to hear the Lord speak to him, he wrapped his face in a mantle first (1 Kings 19:13). When David was fleeing from his son Absalom, he covered his head (2 Sam. 15:30), and he prayed as he went (2 Sam. 15:31). In a time of drought, the men of Israel covered their heads in humiliation (Jer. 14:3-4), and they prayed to the Lord (Jer. 14:7). All of this is stated to indicate that the issue might not be as simple as has been assumed.
Thesis #3: This is not a single issue, but is rather part of a complex web of issues.
Third, the question of head coverings during worship is distinct from, but cannot be entirely separated from other issues such as hair length for men and women both, feminine adornment, sexual discipline and propriety, and so forth.
Thesis #4: The explicit requirement that women be covered specifically applies to them while praying in a public meeting, or while prophesying there.
Paul says that if a woman prays or prophesies while uncovered, she dishonors her head (1 Cor. 11:5), that is, her husband. As before, we want to figure this out in order to obey. The first thing to note is that Paul’s words are not applied by him to “women while in church,” but rather to women who are going to pray or prophesy. And this refers to them praying or prophesying in the course of the gathered meeting. For example, when Hannah was praying at the tabernacle for a child, she was praying privately, silently, in a solitary way. And we know she was unveiled because Eli could see her lips moving, which is why he thought she was drunk (1 Sam. 1:12-13).
Thesis #5: In Hebrew culture, there was no cultural expectation that women be veiled generally,
The fifth point is that there is no indication in Scripture that women need to be veiled throughout the course of ordinary life. The burka was brought in by Islam, and was not at all a feature of the biblical background. Rebekah does veil herself when she sees her future husband coming (Gen. 24:65), but that appears to have been a “first look” kind of thing, as is sometimes even done at weddings today. She had been unveiled for all the rest of that trip and earlier, when she had talked with Abraham’s servant (Gen. 24: 47). The veils mentioned elsewhere in Scripture do not refer to the kind of article that would cover the face (Ruth. 3:15; Song 5:7; Is. 3:23). Sarah did not wear a veil because when they came to Egypt, all the Egyptians could see how beautiful she was (Gen. 12: 14). Rachel was not wearing a veil when Jacob first met her and kissed her (Gen. 29: 10-11). When Tamar tricked her father-in-law into having sex with her (Gen. 38: 14-15), she did it by covering her face. This would indicate that women generally did not do this, and that covering the face meant the opposite of sexual decorum. And when Paul admonishes women about ornate hair styles (1 Tim. 2:9), and when Peter does (1 Pet. 3:3), such exhortations would be entirely beside the point—neither here nor there—if the woman’s hair style, whatever it was, was completely covered up with a veil.
Thesis #6: At Corinth, the men were covering themselves and the women were not. This leads us to wonder why.
Sixth, the men in Corinth were for some reason covering themselves in worship, because Paul tells them not to, and the women were uncovering themselves, because Paul makes a point of saying that if they pray during the meeting, or if they bring a prophecy, they must do so covered. What might those reasons be?
Thesis #7: The men at Corinth may have been influenced by the Old Testament examples mentioned earlier, not to mention the Roman example set by Augustus.
The men could have assumed from the Old Testament examples that they were supposed to pray with their heads covered—just as Jewish men today pray with a covering, assuming it would be disrespectful not to. Perhaps they could have argued that it was a sign of the priesthood of believers. In addition, Caesar Augustus had solidified his reign throughout Rome by distributing tens of thousands of statues of himself. The image just to the right is one of them (currently in Corinth), and notice that his head is covered. This is because he is being represented here in his role as a high priest—and you covered when you sacrificed. Most statues and busts of Roman men show them uncovered and with short hair . . . except here in this example of Augustus.
Thesis #8: Despite the fact that worship services were conducted in private homes, the apostle urges that the public decencies be kept and maintained, especially if a woman were to pray or prophesy in the meeting.
So Roman married women would wear a covering, especially when out in public, to show that they were taken, that they were married. It was like wearing a wedding ring today. See the image off to the right for an example. But why then would any of them be uncovered in the course of a Christian worship service? Remember that the early Christians worshiped in homes (Rom. 16: 5; 1 Cor. 16: 19; Col. 4: 15; Philemon 2). It would have been very easy for the women to assume that they were “indoors now, in a private setting,” while the men were thinking that a worship service should be treated as more of a public event. So in a general way Paul urges that public decorum be maintained, and he particularly requires it if a woman prays in the course of the meeting, or if she prophesies.
Thesis #9: The worship of the Lord, for men and women both, when they are functioning as the congregation, must be conducted with unveiled faces. This would not preclude the typical headdress that signaled that a woman was married, for that did not cover the face.
The ninth point to make is that all Christians in a worship service have gathered to worship God with unveiled faces. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18, NKJV). This includes men and women both (“we all“), and the word for unveiled here (anakalypto) is the same root that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 11 when talking about being covered and uncovered. At this point, everyone is uncovered.
Thesis #10: The requirement here might be affected by cultural expectations, but the principle itself is creational and permanent. We should still be observing Paul’s central point today, in other words.
The apostle excludes the possibility that this was “just a cultural thing,” like having a slave take off your guests’ sandals to wash their feet. He tells us explicitly that nature itself teaches us the central lesson that we are to observe here. He also tells us that nature provides the remedy. A woman’s hair is given to her for a covering (v. 15). But he does not say that “the Greco/Roman milieu teaches us” but rather he says that “nature teaches” us this lesson (v. 14). There obviously would have been certain details that would have been communicated via cultural signals, but the central issue of sexual propriety, as signaled by hair and headdress, would be constant. This is because in Paul’s use of nature, he does not exclude human nature and/or customs. The circumcised Jews were Jews by nature, even though circumcision is an artificial act (Gal. 2:15). Many of our customs are a part of nature, in other words.
Thesis #11: There is no inherent sin in the use of head coverings, but like everything else, sin can get into it.
For women to wear an artificial covering is of ancient usage in the world and also in the church, and if the fundamental realities are being remembered and practiced, there is no sin in it. The non-Christian Roman matrons who started to wear a headdress when out in public were not doing so because of 1 Cor. 11, which hadn’t been written yet. So if women wear a head covering that signals a respectable modesty, there is nothing wrong with it.
The things to be avoided would be a legalistic binding of the consciences of others, on the one hand, and a disreputable or ostentatious display on the other. Another sin to avoid—since the covering is meant to signal a demure and submissive spirit—would be if the demand for coverings is being driven by women, or if there is an inverse relationship between the size of the head covering and the amount of actual submission that goes on in the home.
Thesis #12: The doctrine that long hair is effeminate and contrary to nature should not be taken as a wooden absolute.
Paul’s teaching that long hair is a disgrace for a man also needs to be placed in a larger biblical context. The first thing to reckon with is the fact of the Nazirite vow. Samuel never had his hair cut (1 Sam. 1:11). Samson was a Nazirite also, and he only had one time when his hair was cut—and that was his downfall (Judg. 16:13-20). His strength was in his hair, which means that long hair need not be essentially effeminate. These were lifetime Nazirite vows, but it was also a custom for men to take Nazirite vows for a specified period of time. This is what Paul did one time as recorded in the book of Acts. We are told that Paul spent a year and a half in Corinth (Acts 18: 11), and then a few verses later we are told that he spent “a good while” there (Acts 18:18). So when he departed, he came to Cenchrea—which was the eastern seaport for Corinth, right next door—and had his hair cut there, for he had taken a vow (Acts 18:18). This was the conclusion of his vow, which means that he was growing his hair long while he was at Corinth.
Thesis #13: According to Scripture, there are legitimate instances for a woman to have short or shorn hair.
For our thirteenth point, we need to make a similar point with regard to women having shaved heads. Paul here is referring to a woman’s shaved head as a sign of being morally abandoned, but there were other situations where this would not be the case. In ancient Israel, shaving your head was a sign of extreme mourning. When disaster befell Job, that is what he did (Job 1:20; 2:11,13). This was done by men and women both. “And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; And instead of a girdle a rent; And instead of well set hair baldness . . . ” (Isaiah 3:24). Israel, being compared to a woman, is told this: “Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath” (Jer. 7:29). And this was not an obscure custom (Eze. 27:31; Micah 1:16; Amos 8:10; Is. 15:2; 22:12; Jer. 16:6; 48:37; Ezra 9:3). If an Israelite soldier decided to take a wife from among captives of war, it was required of him that he have her shave her head, and mourn for her parents for a month before she could become his concubine (Deut. 21:10-14).
A modern example of this would be when a woman has her head shaved because of chemotherapy. A wig or head covering is welcome in such circumstances, but there is no need to feel bad about the need for it.
Thesis #14: Paul’s reference to the disgrace of shorn women is most likely a reference to cult prostitutes there in Corinth.
Paul’s reference to the disgrace of shorn women is likely a reference to cult prostitutes there in Corinth. Although there is some dispute about the actual conditions in Corinth, this is the best way to make sense of Paul’s argument in vv. 5-6.
First let’s address the argument, and then the background for it. If a woman prays or prophesies uncovered, Paul argues, that is such a disgrace that she might as well go whole hog and shave all her hair off—her hair is not doing her any good as it is apparently. So this would imply that at least some prostitutes at Corinth were distinguished by (or known for) their shaved heads. So if a woman is going to be impudent in the church service, she might as well go impudent all the way.
Now the city of Corinth was notorious in the ancient world for its sexual laxity, and given the condition of the rest of the Roman world, that is really saying something. Aphrodite, the goddess of sexual love, was the patron deity of the city, and there were five temples to her in the city or surrounding area. The temple at Acrocorinth was the most famous. Now it needs to be understood that the Greek city of Corinth was destroyed in 146 B.C. and then rebuilt a century later as a Roman city in 44 B.C.—the temple at Acrocorinth included. The writer Strabo, speaking of the first temple, said that it was staffed by over a thousand courtesan slaves who brought in significant revenue. There is little reason to believe that conditions were significantly different in the time of the rebuilt temple. We can see this in the fact that the new members class for the Corinthian church needed to spend a week on the unacceptability of patronizing such prostitutes (1 Cor, 6:15-20).
Thesis #15: The woman’s hair, given to her for a covering, did not mean her hair was to be wild and free. It was to be long and it was to be “done.”
The fact that Paul says that a woman’s hair is given to her for “a covering” (v. 15). does not mean that her hair was to be loose or hanging down, to be used as an actual covering. This is because loose hair, hair that was not “done,” was in biblical times a sign of a number of things—none of them suitable for Christian worship. Loose hair, hair undone, was a sign of mourning, or of leprosy, or of a Nazirite vow, or of suspicion for adultery. “And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord and unbind the hair of the woman’s head and place in her hands the grain offering of remembrance, which is the grain offering of jealousy. And in his hand the priest shall have the water of bitterness that brings the curse.” (Numbers 5:18, ESV). In addition, as the Greeks of Corinth would know, the Maenads, the crazy women dedicated to Dionysus, were characterized by wild, windswept hair, and nobody sensible wanted anything to do with that.
Thesis #16: The central message that a woman needs to communicate with her hair is one of modest respectability, as well as submission to her husband.
Coming to sixteen, the intersection of fixed biblical principle and cultural meaning needs to be handled with wisdom. For example, the fixed biblical principle is that Christians must avoid crass talk and coarse joking. But the determination of which words are crass and which words are respectable is culturally conditioned. For another example, the biblical principle is that you should dress appropriately when going to a wedding. But what constitutes that propriety is determined by the culture. If you wore high end first century wedding garb in order to go to a wedding today, you would likely be escorted off the premises. This is because, while principles are unchanging, the language varies.
Like all cultures, ours recognizes hair styles that are modest and suitable, and Christian women should be shooting for that.
Thesis #17: How women adorn themselves for church ought not to cause dissension in church, but rather should be intended to head off dissension in the church.
We need to take some account of that cryptic phrase “because of the angels.” We don’t want to get too far off track, but this actually might help us to stay on track. “For this cause ought the woman to have power [exousia, authority] on her head because of the angels” (1 Cor. 11:10). In the verses just prior, Paul has said that woman is of the man, not the other way around, and that man was not created for the woman, but rather the woman for the man (vv. 8-9). Then he says for this reason a woman needs to have authority on her head because of the angels. This appears to be hearkening back to the great rebellion that brought on the Flood, when the sons of God took wives for themselves from among the children of men (Gen. 6:2). As you recall, that ended poorly.
And what happened with angels can also happen with men. When women are not clearly and obviously in submission to their husbands, disorder breaks out, and the women become prey to unscrupulous others, whether demons or men. I know that this seems ludicrous to the materialist mind, but the last few years have seen multiple displays of unsubmissive women in our streets who appear to be demon-possessed, or mentally ill, or both.,
So Paul appears to be striving to maintain decorum and order in the churches, and one of the fundamental drivers of disorder is human sexuality when off the leash. If Helen of Troy starts attending one of your small group Bible studies, you can expect trouble shortly. I am not here speaking of our sanctified selves in our better moments, but rather about what is going on in our lizard brains, with men and women both. Men like prize-fighting and women like being the prizes. Men want to lust, and women want to be lusted after. In contrast to this, Paul wants men to lift up holy hands, not clenched fists that are ready to fight (1 Tim. 2:8). And in like manner, the women need to dress in a way that does not cause a commotion (1 Tim. 2:8-10). And this includes how they do their hair—“likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire” (1 Timothy 2:9, ESV).
Thesis #18: A woman is to be the glory of one man in public, which is quite different than trying to be a public glory.
In the eighteenth place, compare 1 Cor. 11:1-16 with Isaiah 4:5. The NKJV translates Isaiah this way: “For over all the glory there will be a covering.” This is what Paul is hearkening back to — a godly wife is to her husband what the Shekinah glory was to the tabernacle. This is what John Newton was referring to in his great hymn Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken. “For a glory and a covering, showing that the Lord is near.” All of this ties in with our foundational theology of marriage, and what we believe marriage actually is. The Bible teaches that a woman is the glory of her husband. She is his crown: ‘A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband’ (Prov, 12:4a). And a man does not despise his own crown, or shower contempt on his diadem. The challenge for her is to be his glory in public without comporting herself in such a way that other men begin to covet that glory for themselves.
Thesis #19: The goal that the apostles were aiming for—respectable sexual decorum in worship—needs to our goal as well.
A lot of our problems in this arena would be solved if we simply accepted the goals that Scripture sets out for us. The goal for Christian women should be to strive for respectability, modesty, and decorum, all while cultivating a sweet and submissive demeanor. Women are not taught to strive to be spunky, or sexy, or flamboyant, or cool. And it is generally the case that women hit the target they are aiming for. There is of course the occasional “fail” when it comes to honest attempts, but the bulk of modern problems in this area come from dishonest evasions of or rebellions against the scriptural assignment.
Thesis #20: In modern times, the only time when it might be necessary for a woman to augment her modest hair arrangement with a cloth covering would be if she were going to pray publicly at church.
For our penultimate point, some women will be looking for more specific direction. “Yeah, all this is great but what am I supposed to do? Do I have to wear a head covering to church or not?” The answer to that question is, for almost all circumstances: “No, you do not.” But you do have to dress yourself and arrange your hair in such a way as to achieve the effect that the apostles were striving to see all Christian women cultivate in the churches.
The only two situations where you would need to worry about an obvious additional head covering would be if you were going to lead the congregation in prayer or you were going to prophesy. And as the gift of prophesy is no longer extant, we don’t have to worry about that one. But if you belong to a soft complementarian church—which is another problem but not today’s topic—and they ask you, a Christian woman, to lead during the prayer time, I would urge you to do it. But find the largest white shawl you have in your house, take it up there with you, and put it on your head before you pray. You will never have to worry about being asked again.
Thesis #21: Many of the outlandish hair styles that directly contradict the scriptural instructions to women really should be covered up.
Bringing up the rear, in twenty-first place, if the hair in question is a three-inch purple Mohawk, go ahead and wear a head covering. All the time. Any kind of head covering.