In part 1 of 1 Corinthians 11, Paul instructs the Corinthian church regarding the proper display of headship and submission.
Wes
Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study podcast. This podcast is just one of the many resources available to you for free from Two Journeys Ministry. If you’re interested in learning more, just head over to twojourneys.org. Now, on to today’s episode. This is episode 15 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study podcast. This episode is entitled Godly Order in the Public Worship of the Church Part 1, where we’ll discuss 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. I’m Wes Treadway, and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses we’re looking at today?
Andy
Well, this is a part of a very thrilling and vital section of 1 Corinthians in which Paul walks through a variety of issues in the Corinthian church’s public worship. Things that they’re going to deal with such as the issue of gender, women’s roles in the church, the issue of the Lord’s Supper. We’re going to talk about spiritual gifts, prophecy and tongues. And at the end of that whole section, Paul’s going to say he wants everything done decently in good order. And we’re going to see that, especially in today’s podcast as we talk about the ordering of male and female within public worship. And some of the more controversial verses on head coverings that are well known in 1 Corinthians, but I would say vital for our culture today to understand the validity, the significance of gender, how delightful it should be for us, that God created man in his image, male and female. And to understand specifically what these complex verses are teaching about all of that.
Wes
Well, let me go ahead and read verses 2-16 in the passage that we’re looking at today. “I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings just as I passed them on to you. Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”
Andy, what does verse 2 teach us about the importance of obeying and adhering to the apostles’ commands?
Andy
Well, first of all, it’s encouraging as dysfunctional as this church is, and they truly were messed up, Paul is very encouraging. He’s not the kind of a spiritual father that can never say any good thing to his kids until they earn it. Paul is very patient with them, and so he finds something he can do to encourage them in the midst of all their messed-upness. And so, he says, “Look, I praise you for holding onto the things that I passed on to you and remembering the teachings that I passed on” (1 Corinthians 11:2). And at the end of this section, he’s going to say, “If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice, nor to the churches of God” (1 Corinthians 11:16). There is a uniform conformity to the teaching that the apostolic teaching here. It’s not like it was different things in every pocket of the church.
And so, he begins by just saying, “I want you to know, I see in general you’re trying to obey. In general, you’re following the teachings just as we passed on.” And so, I think the same is true of us today. We don’t have the right to just chuck out this half-chapter here because it’s difficult. We need to do our best to walk through it, and that’s what we’re going to do with today’s podcast.
Wes
Andy, what does Paul teach about male headship and how does that relate to verse 3?
Andy
Well, verse 3 is the universal principle that he’s trying to establish here. And I believe that what’s happening in this passage is a timeless transcultural principle which is of male leadership in both the home and in the church. And the principle is given in verse 3, “I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” So fundamentally, he’s talking about male leadership and the idea of headship. And the word head is an important word. There are different ways… some feminists translate the word head here, meaning source. Kephalē in the Greek can mean source like the head of a river. But it’s pretty clear where the word is used. Generally, it means head like the head of a committee, et cetera. Or in Ephesians 1 it says that God raised Jesus from the dead and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, and he put everything under his feet, et cetera.
It’s very clear there that head means “one in authority over.” So, we’re talking about male leadership in both the church and at home. We also can note that this headship and submission is not in any way demeaning because the head of Christ is God. And now, we’re going to talk about that, there’s lots of theological implications for that. But in his role as redeemer, in his role as what he frequently called himself Son of Man, and in his role as the perfect human, he was fully submissive to God the Father. He was fully submissive. He was the servant of the Lord; he did the Father’s will. And so, in that sense, there is that submission to the headship of God over him as mediator. But Jesus is in no way demeaned by that submission to his Father. So, there is a sense of leadership, a sense of headship that is healthy and right.
But unfortunately, our culture pushes back against it. We have a general kind of allergy really to authority, like we’re always saying question authority, et cetera. And also, there’s a sense of pushing back in the issue of feminism, a sense of what some people call toxic masculinity or a suspicion of leadership and headship. And so, these verses end up being very helpful for our culture, we need to hear what they have to say.
Wes
In verses 4-6, why does Paul argue that it would be dishonoring for a woman to throw off the symbol of authority, and why is it vital for a godly vision of headship and submission to be displayed in the church?
Andy
Well, let’s get to that last question first. I think what’s going on here is we have a universal transcultural principle, namely male leadership in the home and in the church. And then we have visible outworkings of that in the local church. Like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:23 about the whole prophecy and tongues thing, “If an outsider were to walk in and see you speaking in tongues with no interpretation at all, he’d think you’re out of your mind” (paraphrase). And so therefore, I want to be certain that everything is done decently and in good order. All right. So again, let’s take that same image. If an outsider were to walk in and see, they would see that men are leading here, and that there’s an order. And I think what was going on is in the Greco-Roman world, women were denigrated, women were subservient, women were not esteemed.
Jesus, more than anyone else, elevated the role of women as equal heirs with men of the gracious gift of life, equally responsible for drinking in the word of God as Mary did when she sat at Jesus’ feet. They’re equally worthy of focus in evangelism as the Samaritan woman at the well was, Jesus very much desiring to win her soul. Commending sometimes the faith of women. And so, women were elevated and given significant roles, but it seems that some of these Corinthian women were taking things too far and that they had thrown off all submission at that point to male leadership, and Paul’s needing to rectify that. So again, to answer the question, if someone were to come from the outside in, Paul wants to be certain that the symbols of femininity, of being a woman are still there. Now, what they are is unclear. It’s not entirely clear if we’re talking about some kind of garment like a shawl, some kind of a prayer shawl or something that women put on.
“Jesus, more than anyone else, elevated the role of women as equal heirs with men of the gracious gift of life, equally responsible for drinking in the word of God as Mary did when she sat at Jesus’ feet.”
Or maybe it had to do with hairstyles where he was objecting to women having hair loose and around their shoulders in the pattern, perhaps even of a prostitute in that Greco-Roman culture. But actually, wanted the women to have their hair up and decently like a godly woman would. In any case, I think probably, it’s more likely, he’s talking about some kind of prayer shawl. But he wants the outsider coming in to see men are leading here in a godly Christ-like way, but they are leading. And so, he wants that timeless transcultural principle of male leadership to be worked out in cultural ways that make sense in that culture.
Wes
Andy, is there significance to the fact that it seems like Paul assumes that both men and women will pray and prophesy in this passage?
Andy
Well, that itself is controversial because later in chapter 14, he wants women to be silent in the churches. And people say, “Well, that can’t be a universal silence, because earlier here in chapter 11, he assumes that they are going to pray and prophesy.” I think they probably did. I think that what he’s talking about in chapter 14 about women being silent in the churches has to do with the evaluation of the weighing of prophecies to see whether they were valid and should be held on to as part of the growing body of doctrine in the New Testament. That role should be done by men, but both men and women can pray and prophesy. So, I think that it was more likely. In any case, he wanted the women who were praying and prophesying in public worship to do so in a submissive way as shown by either their hairstyle or by the prayer shawl.
Wes
Now, how should we understand verse 7? In what way is man the glory of God and woman the glory of man?
Andy
That’s a very important question. First of all, Paul knew better than we do, he was a more meticulous, careful Bible scholar, that both men and women are created in the image of God. There’s no doubt about that. It says it right there in Genesis 1, we don’t have to wonder. And it’s one of the most famous passages on the image of God in the entire Bible. In fact, one of the most famous passages in the entire Bible. “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness… So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 2:26a,27). So, both male and female are in the image of God, and there’s no diminishment of that, not a little bit more or a little bit less in the image of God. No, not at all. That’s not it.
Then what does Paul mean here? Well, I think, I like the word glory. I think that man, both male and female, are the glory of God in that we are the pinnacle of his creation. The best thing that ever came out of God’s physical creation, spiritual creation was the human race. And so that man is the image and glory of God, the pinnacle of what he made. By the same logic then, the first woman Eve who came out of the body of the first man is the greatest thing any man has ever made or has ever come out of a man. She’s the glory of man, that’s the way I would see this verse.
Wes
Why is the order of creation, as you’ve just been alluding to, important to Paul in understanding male-female roles in the life of the church, and how does that point to a timeless principle in this section?
Andy
It is important that according to Genesis 2 there was a time that Adam was alone, and Eve had not yet been created. Now, you would never have gotten that in chapter 1 of Genesis. And this is the marvel of the way Genesis 1 and 2 are written. Genesis 1 is a very egalitarian chapter. Both of them, as I just said a moment ago, equally created in the image of God, equally blessed, equally told to be fruitful and multiply, equally told to fill the earth, equally told to subdue the earth and rule over it. There’s no distinction at all between male and female in Genesis 1. But in Genesis 2 we have a detail that we didn’t know, it’s not contradictory to what we read in Genesis 1, it just complements it with a little more detail. The image I would give is of let’s say a map of our state, North Carolina, and then a blow up of the triangle area that we live in here, which is the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill.
And we’re used to that kind of treatment in a map where you can get, let’s say, an urban area blown up, so we get a little more detail. And I think Genesis 2 gives a little more significant detail and there, you do get some distinction between the gender. There was a time that Adam was alone and then later, Eve was created. Now, Paul bases his command of male leadership in the church, in 1 Timothy 2:12, on that very fact. He said, “I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over man. She must be silent.” Why Paul? Well, Adam was formed first, then Eve. And so, to Paul in 1 Timothy 2, the order of creation is significant. Then you see what actually happens in Genesis 2, who names whom. Adam names the animals and then in due time, Adam names the woman as woman. And then later, even after the fall, he names her again Eve because she would become the mother of all living.
And the naming is a form of authority. And so, the fact of the matter is Adam was created first to establish his leadership in the family and indeed, in that particular case, over the entire human race. Because Adam, the first man, is the head of the entire human race and therefore, is our representative at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as Paul teaches in Romans 5. The way I say it, in Genesis 2, it says, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18a). And that’s true, and that’s exactly right and what God wanted to say. But I also understand it in this way, it is not good for the man to remain alone. It was good for him to be alone for a while, for this very reason to establish male leadership. But he couldn’t remain alone and then fill the earth with the image of the glory of God, and so he needed a wife to do that.
Wes
What does Paul mean by saying that “Man was not created for woman, but woman was created for man”? And why do many people in our culture have difficulty accepting this?
Andy
That would be probably one of the most offensive statements in this entire chapter to a feminist. I’ll just read it in my translation here. It says, “Neither was man created for woman, but woman was created for man.” “Here I am for you,” et cetera, but it’s the fact. If you look at the Genesis account, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make…” What? “A helper suitable for him.” What’s a helper? Somebody who comes alongside to help. And so, the idea here is that the man has a mission to do in the world and the woman comes to help him do it. So, there’s a leadership in the man and the woman comes to be the helper suitable for him to do that. And that’s I think a very good thing for a married couple to understand, the man should be going somewhere in life. He should have a mission that the Lord has given him to do, and he marries then a woman who will help him fulfill that mission.
Now again, this is not to say that women don’t have a mission, or a purpose, or a direction. Or that single women don’t have a purpose or any of that. Just the idea of “I will make a helper suitable for him.” And so, I think that’s what Paul has in mind when he says, “Look, man wasn’t created for a woman, but woman was created for a man.” It’s going back to that original intention.
Wes
So far in the passage, we’ve been talking a lot about, and Paul’s been talking a lot about man, and woman, and Christ, and God. But in verse 10, there’s mention of angels. What does Paul mean by referring to angels in verse 10 and how does this show the difficulty of fully and decisively interpreting what Paul is commanding here?
Andy
All right, so let’s go back to the principles. The idea is gender matters. And this is something we didn’t talk about here, but we are in a very bad way these days on gender confusion. We have gender dysphoria going left and right. Even in our state right now. Even today, I think, literally, they’re debating a bill concerning gender reassignment, surgery on minors, on children. It’s really very tragic and it’s sad that it’s going on. There’s so much confusion on this, but there needn’t be any confusion. What basically, the confusion is that there is such a thing as biological sex but there is a subjective thing called gender. And that gender is subjective to how you feel really, frankly, at any given time in your life. It’s very malleable and it morphs constantly. Well, that’s just completely false. There are two and only two types, male and female. And your biological sex and your gender are the same, and the Bible’s never been confused about that.
“There are two and only two types, male and female. And your biological sex and your gender are the same, and the Bible’s never been confused about that.”
And so, I think we definitely need to reestablish and to be strong on this issue of biblical manhood and womanhood. It’s just we’ve gotten to the point where I don’t think our culture really can even define what it means to be a man and not a woman, or what it means to be a woman and not a man. And so, for us, we need to understand God did intend something by creating male and female. He did intend something by creating the man first and having him name the animals and then later, making a helper suitable for him. And then he names her, and he’s delighted with her, et cetera. There was something beautiful in all of that. And so, the idea then is in the Corinthian church and in all Christian churches, there should be a clear godly leadership by men and cheerful submission by women to male leadership in that church.
Now, here’s the thing. If that whole pattern is thrown out entirely, angels are watching. Angels in the Bible observe human behavior, angels commend specific humans like Daniel and Mary as people that are highly esteemed. Angels in the Book of Revelation, pouring out judgment on planet earth, turning drinking water into blood, saying, “You are right for doing this, because they have shed the blood of your people, and you’re giving them blood to drink as they deserve” (Revelation 16:5b-6). Angels evaluate human behavior. And so, because angels are watching you, O Corinthian church, let’s get the gender thing right. God actually intended something by male and female.
Wes
Why is the interdependence between men and women, that Paul articulates in verses 11 and 12, important for us to keep in mind?
Andy
Right. We tend to go too far. We tend to become excessive. I think that’s the problem that Paul’s addressing here, is that some women with their freedom have gone too far, and they’ve just thrown off significance at all. They’re just trying to lead out and to be in charge of there in the Corinthian church. He’s like, “No, no, no. Don’t do that. Let’s get back to men leading in a godly way,” et cetera. But now, the men or individuals in the church can go too far the other direction and he says, “Look, don’t go so far as the thinking we don’t need each other. We really do.” Yeah, there are these gender-based roles, but we absolutely need to have each other. And let’s just start with biology, Adam could not stay alone or remain alone and fill the earth with other human beings. He needed a wife in order to procreate. He needed a wife so that they could have marital relations and have children, she could conceive and give birth to children.
And so that was essential. So, the entire plan of God biologically, men and women are interdependent. But it’s also true in the church, more mystically and mysteriously, men bring certain things to the table and women bring certain things to the table. And there are just different perspectives. There is without sounding archaic, there is such a thing as a woman’s touch or a woman’s sense of things that men would do well to listen to. In any case, it is hard to define because what we share in common is so much, the intellect, the ability to understand scripture, to make decisions, to have feelings. But there are different perspectives that men and women have. And so, we need each other, we really are interdependent. And then he talks about it biologically, the first woman came from a man from the rib of Adam. But from then on, every man comes from a woman, namely his mother.
And so, we really clearly need each other. I think it’s what he’s going to say later with spiritual gifts where he says, “Look, we can’t say ‘I don’t need you’ to another part of the body.” Just because you don’t have the gift of prophecy or the gift of tongues, you’re not an upfront leader, you don’t belong to the part of the body. Or that they can become arrogant, and say, “We don’t need you.” So here, he’s doing that same thing with gender. We shouldn’t say we don’t need you to each other, we really do.
Wes
Andy, what point is Paul trying to make in verses 13-15 as we near the end of this section?
Andy
It’s not easy. And doesn’t the very nature of things tell you, et cetera, et cetera, and that if a man prays a certain way or a woman prays that it’s violating nature. But I think this is what I want to say about nature. Paul’s going to make this argument very clearly and powerfully concerning sexuality in Romans 1. There is a biological nature which is violated by homosexuality, by men being with men sexually and women being with women sexually. They are doing it, the/ Greek is paraphusis, which is contrary to nature. And so, nature does teach us, the biology teaches us. And I think Paul’s arguing similarly here. There are essential differences between men and women. So, the very nature of things teaches you that men should be men and women should be women. But in our culture these days, because of the transgender issue and because culture is picking up on it, we’re seeing more and more images. Literal photos or people on ads on TV or on the internet where you’re just really not sure what their gender is. You just really can’t tell.
And so, I think what Paul would argue is that that’s fundamentally wrong. Nature teaches us there are two types. And therefore, if a man prays adorned like a woman that’s messed up. And if a woman prays adorned like a man that’s messed up. Let’s have women be women, clearly, evidently women. And let’s have men be men, clearly, evidently men. And let’s have public worship reflect that in how they pray, how they talk, how they lead. There’s just a masculinity and femininity that flows from biological nature that should be established in the culture there of the church at Corinth.
Wes
Now, Paul seems to anticipate the fact that this teaching might bring about a negative reaction. What does a contentious reaction to this teaching reveal about a person’s heart based on what Paul says in verse 16?
Andy
It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it? How much contentiousness has there been over this passage? It’s like almost more than I can imagine. And so, Paul’s saying, “I’m going to stop you right there if you’re going to be contentious, you’re going to push back.” And what does he say? He says, “Look, this is not an option.” I think that’s what I’m getting out of verse 16, “We don’t have any other practice and nor do the churches of God.” And he praised them at the beginning for holding onto the things that were passed on. So essential to the Corinthians continuing as a healthy, Holy Spirit-blessed church is them submitting to his apostolic teaching on these things. For example, this whole epistle, 1 Corinthians, how important was it for them to read it carefully and do what it said? It’s vital. He was the apostle to the Gentiles. And he’s saying, whether on marriage or on Lord’s Supper, he’s about to talk about, it’s like, “You need to do what I say.” There is an authority.
And he actually kind of threatens them to some degree when he says, “What do you prefer? Shall I come in gentleness, or should I come with a rod of discipline” (1 Corinthians 4:21)? And we knew when we walked through that, that that could even go so far as to be sickness and death, as we’ll talk about later in this same chapter about Lord’s Supper, sins. But Ananias and Sapphira’s like, “Look, it’s a serious matter. If you’re going to be contentious, understand that’s coming from the devil. Don’t be contentious.” So therefore, I would have to say to anybody who, whether through feminism or through just suspicion of authority, et cetera, is going to push back, argue, be hostile to this, he’s warning them. Look, you’re going to be outside the norm of healthy churches. We all fit into this biblical doctrine.
Wes
Andy, what final thoughts do you have for us on these verses that we’ve looked at today?
Andy
I think what I want to do is get beyond the contentiousness and the negativity to see the positivity of what God’s done. God made male and female and that’s beautiful. Therefore, it is right for a man, a male, to be very delighted, not in a prideful or arrogant way, but delighted that God made him male. And he should be every bit as delighted that he made the women in his life, his wife, his daughters, his mother, sisters, sisters in Christ he made them female. There’s a beauty to both sides of it. And the same thing on the other side, a woman should be just delighted that she’s female, that she was made by God this way. Because God makes beautiful things. So, I would say let’s make it positive, and then let’s fit into what he says, “God, for his own purposes has ordained some order.”
Now, let’s keep in mind, he’s not saying there’s essential superiority to those that have the authority to lead. He’s not saying that pastors are more beloved and in a better position before God because they’re pastors. Any more than he’s saying the same thing about parents in relation to their children, or husbands in relation to their wives, or governors in relationship to the people. But there is order, and he wants this Corinthian church to be a church that’s orderly in its public worship and the relationship of the genders is part of that. So, my final word here is we need to come to our senses, and we need to be bold as Christians and say, “Gender does matter.” It matters to be a man or a woman, and this is what it looks like. So, I think our culture needs us to lead out of this murky darkness that we’re in now on gender.
“We need to come to our senses, and we need to be bold as Christians and say, “Gender does matter.” It matters to be a man or a woman, and this is what it looks like.”
Wes
Well, this has been part one of episode 15 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study podcast. And we want to invite you to join us next time for Part 2 where we’ll continue discussing Godly Order in the Public Worship of the Church, where we’ll pick up in verse 17, in chapter 11 of 1 Corinthians, and go through verse 34. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Wes
Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study podcast. This podcast is just one of the many resources available to you for free from Two Journeys Ministry. If you’re interested in learning more, just head over to twojourneys.org. Now, on to today’s episode. This is episode 15 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study podcast. This episode is entitled Godly Order in the Public Worship of the Church Part 1, where we’ll discuss 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. I’m Wes Treadway, and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses we’re looking at today?
Andy
Well, this is a part of a very thrilling and vital section of 1 Corinthians in which Paul walks through a variety of issues in the Corinthian church’s public worship. Things that they’re going to deal with such as the issue of gender, women’s roles in the church, the issue of the Lord’s Supper. We’re going to talk about spiritual gifts, prophecy and tongues. And at the end of that whole section, Paul’s going to say he wants everything done decently in good order. And we’re going to see that, especially in today’s podcast as we talk about the ordering of male and female within public worship. And some of the more controversial verses on head coverings that are well known in 1 Corinthians, but I would say vital for our culture today to understand the validity, the significance of gender, how delightful it should be for us, that God created man in his image, male and female. And to understand specifically what these complex verses are teaching about all of that.
Wes
Well, let me go ahead and read verses 2-16 in the passage that we’re looking at today. “I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings just as I passed them on to you. Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”
Andy, what does verse 2 teach us about the importance of obeying and adhering to the apostles’ commands?
Andy
Well, first of all, it’s encouraging as dysfunctional as this church is, and they truly were messed up, Paul is very encouraging. He’s not the kind of a spiritual father that can never say any good thing to his kids until they earn it. Paul is very patient with them, and so he finds something he can do to encourage them in the midst of all their messed-upness. And so, he says, “Look, I praise you for holding onto the things that I passed on to you and remembering the teachings that I passed on” (1 Corinthians 11:2). And at the end of this section, he’s going to say, “If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice, nor to the churches of God” (1 Corinthians 11:16). There is a uniform conformity to the teaching that the apostolic teaching here. It’s not like it was different things in every pocket of the church.
And so, he begins by just saying, “I want you to know, I see in general you’re trying to obey. In general, you’re following the teachings just as we passed on.” And so, I think the same is true of us today. We don’t have the right to just chuck out this half-chapter here because it’s difficult. We need to do our best to walk through it, and that’s what we’re going to do with today’s podcast.
Wes
Andy, what does Paul teach about male headship and how does that relate to verse 3?
Andy
Well, verse 3 is the universal principle that he’s trying to establish here. And I believe that what’s happening in this passage is a timeless transcultural principle which is of male leadership in both the home and in the church. And the principle is given in verse 3, “I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” So fundamentally, he’s talking about male leadership and the idea of headship. And the word head is an important word. There are different ways… some feminists translate the word head here, meaning source. Kephalē in the Greek can mean source like the head of a river. But it’s pretty clear where the word is used. Generally, it means head like the head of a committee, et cetera. Or in Ephesians 1 it says that God raised Jesus from the dead and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, and he put everything under his feet, et cetera.
It’s very clear there that head means “one in authority over.” So, we’re talking about male leadership in both the church and at home. We also can note that this headship and submission is not in any way demeaning because the head of Christ is God. And now, we’re going to talk about that, there’s lots of theological implications for that. But in his role as redeemer, in his role as what he frequently called himself Son of Man, and in his role as the perfect human, he was fully submissive to God the Father. He was fully submissive. He was the servant of the Lord; he did the Father’s will. And so, in that sense, there is that submission to the headship of God over him as mediator. But Jesus is in no way demeaned by that submission to his Father. So, there is a sense of leadership, a sense of headship that is healthy and right.
But unfortunately, our culture pushes back against it. We have a general kind of allergy really to authority, like we’re always saying question authority, et cetera. And also, there’s a sense of pushing back in the issue of feminism, a sense of what some people call toxic masculinity or a suspicion of leadership and headship. And so, these verses end up being very helpful for our culture, we need to hear what they have to say.
Wes
In verses 4-6, why does Paul argue that it would be dishonoring for a woman to throw off the symbol of authority, and why is it vital for a godly vision of headship and submission to be displayed in the church?
Andy
Well, let’s get to that last question first. I think what’s going on here is we have a universal transcultural principle, namely male leadership in the home and in the church. And then we have visible outworkings of that in the local church. Like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:23 about the whole prophecy and tongues thing, “If an outsider were to walk in and see you speaking in tongues with no interpretation at all, he’d think you’re out of your mind” (paraphrase). And so therefore, I want to be certain that everything is done decently and in good order. All right. So again, let’s take that same image. If an outsider were to walk in and see, they would see that men are leading here, and that there’s an order. And I think what was going on is in the Greco-Roman world, women were denigrated, women were subservient, women were not esteemed.
Jesus, more than anyone else, elevated the role of women as equal heirs with men of the gracious gift of life, equally responsible for drinking in the word of God as Mary did when she sat at Jesus’ feet. They’re equally worthy of focus in evangelism as the Samaritan woman at the well was, Jesus very much desiring to win her soul. Commending sometimes the faith of women. And so, women were elevated and given significant roles, but it seems that some of these Corinthian women were taking things too far and that they had thrown off all submission at that point to male leadership, and Paul’s needing to rectify that. So again, to answer the question, if someone were to come from the outside in, Paul wants to be certain that the symbols of femininity, of being a woman are still there. Now, what they are is unclear. It’s not entirely clear if we’re talking about some kind of garment like a shawl, some kind of a prayer shawl or something that women put on.
“Jesus, more than anyone else, elevated the role of women as equal heirs with men of the gracious gift of life, equally responsible for drinking in the word of God as Mary did when she sat at Jesus’ feet.”
Or maybe it had to do with hairstyles where he was objecting to women having hair loose and around their shoulders in the pattern, perhaps even of a prostitute in that Greco-Roman culture. But actually, wanted the women to have their hair up and decently like a godly woman would. In any case, I think probably, it’s more likely, he’s talking about some kind of prayer shawl. But he wants the outsider coming in to see men are leading here in a godly Christ-like way, but they are leading. And so, he wants that timeless transcultural principle of male leadership to be worked out in cultural ways that make sense in that culture.
Wes
Andy, is there significance to the fact that it seems like Paul assumes that both men and women will pray and prophesy in this passage?
Andy
Well, that itself is controversial because later in chapter 14, he wants women to be silent in the churches. And people say, “Well, that can’t be a universal silence, because earlier here in chapter 11, he assumes that they are going to pray and prophesy.” I think they probably did. I think that what he’s talking about in chapter 14 about women being silent in the churches has to do with the evaluation of the weighing of prophecies to see whether they were valid and should be held on to as part of the growing body of doctrine in the New Testament. That role should be done by men, but both men and women can pray and prophesy. So, I think that it was more likely. In any case, he wanted the women who were praying and prophesying in public worship to do so in a submissive way as shown by either their hairstyle or by the prayer shawl.
Wes
Now, how should we understand verse 7? In what way is man the glory of God and woman the glory of man?
Andy
That’s a very important question. First of all, Paul knew better than we do, he was a more meticulous, careful Bible scholar, that both men and women are created in the image of God. There’s no doubt about that. It says it right there in Genesis 1, we don’t have to wonder. And it’s one of the most famous passages on the image of God in the entire Bible. In fact, one of the most famous passages in the entire Bible. “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness… So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 2:26a,27). So, both male and female are in the image of God, and there’s no diminishment of that, not a little bit more or a little bit less in the image of God. No, not at all. That’s not it.
Then what does Paul mean here? Well, I think, I like the word glory. I think that man, both male and female, are the glory of God in that we are the pinnacle of his creation. The best thing that ever came out of God’s physical creation, spiritual creation was the human race. And so that man is the image and glory of God, the pinnacle of what he made. By the same logic then, the first woman Eve who came out of the body of the first man is the greatest thing any man has ever made or has ever come out of a man. She’s the glory of man, that’s the way I would see this verse.
Wes
Why is the order of creation, as you’ve just been alluding to, important to Paul in understanding male-female roles in the life of the church, and how does that point to a timeless principle in this section?
Andy
It is important that according to Genesis 2 there was a time that Adam was alone, and Eve had not yet been created. Now, you would never have gotten that in chapter 1 of Genesis. And this is the marvel of the way Genesis 1 and 2 are written. Genesis 1 is a very egalitarian chapter. Both of them, as I just said a moment ago, equally created in the image of God, equally blessed, equally told to be fruitful and multiply, equally told to fill the earth, equally told to subdue the earth and rule over it. There’s no distinction at all between male and female in Genesis 1. But in Genesis 2 we have a detail that we didn’t know, it’s not contradictory to what we read in Genesis 1, it just complements it with a little more detail. The image I would give is of let’s say a map of our state, North Carolina, and then a blow up of the triangle area that we live in here, which is the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill.
And we’re used to that kind of treatment in a map where you can get, let’s say, an urban area blown up, so we get a little more detail. And I think Genesis 2 gives a little more significant detail and there, you do get some distinction between the gender. There was a time that Adam was alone and then later, Eve was created. Now, Paul bases his command of male leadership in the church, in 1 Timothy 2:12, on that very fact. He said, “I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over man. She must be silent.” Why Paul? Well, Adam was formed first, then Eve. And so, to Paul in 1 Timothy 2, the order of creation is significant. Then you see what actually happens in Genesis 2, who names whom. Adam names the animals and then in due time, Adam names the woman as woman. And then later, even after the fall, he names her again Eve because she would become the mother of all living.
And the naming is a form of authority. And so, the fact of the matter is Adam was created first to establish his leadership in the family and indeed, in that particular case, over the entire human race. Because Adam, the first man, is the head of the entire human race and therefore, is our representative at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as Paul teaches in Romans 5. The way I say it, in Genesis 2, it says, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18a). And that’s true, and that’s exactly right and what God wanted to say. But I also understand it in this way, it is not good for the man to remain alone. It was good for him to be alone for a while, for this very reason to establish male leadership. But he couldn’t remain alone and then fill the earth with the image of the glory of God, and so he needed a wife to do that.
Wes
What does Paul mean by saying that “Man was not created for woman, but woman was created for man”? And why do many people in our culture have difficulty accepting this?
Andy
That would be probably one of the most offensive statements in this entire chapter to a feminist. I’ll just read it in my translation here. It says, “Neither was man created for woman, but woman was created for man.” “Here I am for you,” et cetera, but it’s the fact. If you look at the Genesis account, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make…” What? “A helper suitable for him.” What’s a helper? Somebody who comes alongside to help. And so, the idea here is that the man has a mission to do in the world and the woman comes to help him do it. So, there’s a leadership in the man and the woman comes to be the helper suitable for him to do that. And that’s I think a very good thing for a married couple to understand, the man should be going somewhere in life. He should have a mission that the Lord has given him to do, and he marries then a woman who will help him fulfill that mission.
Now again, this is not to say that women don’t have a mission, or a purpose, or a direction. Or that single women don’t have a purpose or any of that. Just the idea of “I will make a helper suitable for him.” And so, I think that’s what Paul has in mind when he says, “Look, man wasn’t created for a woman, but woman was created for a man.” It’s going back to that original intention.
Wes
So far in the passage, we’ve been talking a lot about, and Paul’s been talking a lot about man, and woman, and Christ, and God. But in verse 10, there’s mention of angels. What does Paul mean by referring to angels in verse 10 and how does this show the difficulty of fully and decisively interpreting what Paul is commanding here?
Andy
All right, so let’s go back to the principles. The idea is gender matters. And this is something we didn’t talk about here, but we are in a very bad way these days on gender confusion. We have gender dysphoria going left and right. Even in our state right now. Even today, I think, literally, they’re debating a bill concerning gender reassignment, surgery on minors, on children. It’s really very tragic and it’s sad that it’s going on. There’s so much confusion on this, but there needn’t be any confusion. What basically, the confusion is that there is such a thing as biological sex but there is a subjective thing called gender. And that gender is subjective to how you feel really, frankly, at any given time in your life. It’s very malleable and it morphs constantly. Well, that’s just completely false. There are two and only two types, male and female. And your biological sex and your gender are the same, and the Bible’s never been confused about that.
“There are two and only two types, male and female. And your biological sex and your gender are the same, and the Bible’s never been confused about that.”
And so, I think we definitely need to reestablish and to be strong on this issue of biblical manhood and womanhood. It’s just we’ve gotten to the point where I don’t think our culture really can even define what it means to be a man and not a woman, or what it means to be a woman and not a man. And so, for us, we need to understand God did intend something by creating male and female. He did intend something by creating the man first and having him name the animals and then later, making a helper suitable for him. And then he names her, and he’s delighted with her, et cetera. There was something beautiful in all of that. And so, the idea then is in the Corinthian church and in all Christian churches, there should be a clear godly leadership by men and cheerful submission by women to male leadership in that church.
Now, here’s the thing. If that whole pattern is thrown out entirely, angels are watching. Angels in the Bible observe human behavior, angels commend specific humans like Daniel and Mary as people that are highly esteemed. Angels in the Book of Revelation, pouring out judgment on planet earth, turning drinking water into blood, saying, “You are right for doing this, because they have shed the blood of your people, and you’re giving them blood to drink as they deserve” (Revelation 16:5b-6). Angels evaluate human behavior. And so, because angels are watching you, O Corinthian church, let’s get the gender thing right. God actually intended something by male and female.
Wes
Why is the interdependence between men and women, that Paul articulates in verses 11 and 12, important for us to keep in mind?
Andy
Right. We tend to go too far. We tend to become excessive. I think that’s the problem that Paul’s addressing here, is that some women with their freedom have gone too far, and they’ve just thrown off significance at all. They’re just trying to lead out and to be in charge of there in the Corinthian church. He’s like, “No, no, no. Don’t do that. Let’s get back to men leading in a godly way,” et cetera. But now, the men or individuals in the church can go too far the other direction and he says, “Look, don’t go so far as the thinking we don’t need each other. We really do.” Yeah, there are these gender-based roles, but we absolutely need to have each other. And let’s just start with biology, Adam could not stay alone or remain alone and fill the earth with other human beings. He needed a wife in order to procreate. He needed a wife so that they could have marital relations and have children, she could conceive and give birth to children.
And so that was essential. So, the entire plan of God biologically, men and women are interdependent. But it’s also true in the church, more mystically and mysteriously, men bring certain things to the table and women bring certain things to the table. And there are just different perspectives. There is without sounding archaic, there is such a thing as a woman’s touch or a woman’s sense of things that men would do well to listen to. In any case, it is hard to define because what we share in common is so much, the intellect, the ability to understand scripture, to make decisions, to have feelings. But there are different perspectives that men and women have. And so, we need each other, we really are interdependent. And then he talks about it biologically, the first woman came from a man from the rib of Adam. But from then on, every man comes from a woman, namely his mother.
And so, we really clearly need each other. I think it’s what he’s going to say later with spiritual gifts where he says, “Look, we can’t say ‘I don’t need you’ to another part of the body.” Just because you don’t have the gift of prophecy or the gift of tongues, you’re not an upfront leader, you don’t belong to the part of the body. Or that they can become arrogant, and say, “We don’t need you.” So here, he’s doing that same thing with gender. We shouldn’t say we don’t need you to each other, we really do.
Wes
Andy, what point is Paul trying to make in verses 13-15 as we near the end of this section?
Andy
It’s not easy. And doesn’t the very nature of things tell you, et cetera, et cetera, and that if a man prays a certain way or a woman prays that it’s violating nature. But I think this is what I want to say about nature. Paul’s going to make this argument very clearly and powerfully concerning sexuality in Romans 1. There is a biological nature which is violated by homosexuality, by men being with men sexually and women being with women sexually. They are doing it, the/ Greek is paraphusis, which is contrary to nature. And so, nature does teach us, the biology teaches us. And I think Paul’s arguing similarly here. There are essential differences between men and women. So, the very nature of things teaches you that men should be men and women should be women. But in our culture these days, because of the transgender issue and because culture is picking up on it, we’re seeing more and more images. Literal photos or people on ads on TV or on the internet where you’re just really not sure what their gender is. You just really can’t tell.
And so, I think what Paul would argue is that that’s fundamentally wrong. Nature teaches us there are two types. And therefore, if a man prays adorned like a woman that’s messed up. And if a woman prays adorned like a man that’s messed up. Let’s have women be women, clearly, evidently women. And let’s have men be men, clearly, evidently men. And let’s have public worship reflect that in how they pray, how they talk, how they lead. There’s just a masculinity and femininity that flows from biological nature that should be established in the culture there of the church at Corinth.
Wes
Now, Paul seems to anticipate the fact that this teaching might bring about a negative reaction. What does a contentious reaction to this teaching reveal about a person’s heart based on what Paul says in verse 16?
Andy
It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it? How much contentiousness has there been over this passage? It’s like almost more than I can imagine. And so, Paul’s saying, “I’m going to stop you right there if you’re going to be contentious, you’re going to push back.” And what does he say? He says, “Look, this is not an option.” I think that’s what I’m getting out of verse 16, “We don’t have any other practice and nor do the churches of God.” And he praised them at the beginning for holding onto the things that were passed on. So essential to the Corinthians continuing as a healthy, Holy Spirit-blessed church is them submitting to his apostolic teaching on these things. For example, this whole epistle, 1 Corinthians, how important was it for them to read it carefully and do what it said? It’s vital. He was the apostle to the Gentiles. And he’s saying, whether on marriage or on Lord’s Supper, he’s about to talk about, it’s like, “You need to do what I say.” There is an authority.
And he actually kind of threatens them to some degree when he says, “What do you prefer? Shall I come in gentleness, or should I come with a rod of discipline” (1 Corinthians 4:21)? And we knew when we walked through that, that that could even go so far as to be sickness and death, as we’ll talk about later in this same chapter about Lord’s Supper, sins. But Ananias and Sapphira’s like, “Look, it’s a serious matter. If you’re going to be contentious, understand that’s coming from the devil. Don’t be contentious.” So therefore, I would have to say to anybody who, whether through feminism or through just suspicion of authority, et cetera, is going to push back, argue, be hostile to this, he’s warning them. Look, you’re going to be outside the norm of healthy churches. We all fit into this biblical doctrine.
Wes
Andy, what final thoughts do you have for us on these verses that we’ve looked at today?
Andy
I think what I want to do is get beyond the contentiousness and the negativity to see the positivity of what God’s done. God made male and female and that’s beautiful. Therefore, it is right for a man, a male, to be very delighted, not in a prideful or arrogant way, but delighted that God made him male. And he should be every bit as delighted that he made the women in his life, his wife, his daughters, his mother, sisters, sisters in Christ he made them female. There’s a beauty to both sides of it. And the same thing on the other side, a woman should be just delighted that she’s female, that she was made by God this way. Because God makes beautiful things. So, I would say let’s make it positive, and then let’s fit into what he says, “God, for his own purposes has ordained some order.”
Now, let’s keep in mind, he’s not saying there’s essential superiority to those that have the authority to lead. He’s not saying that pastors are more beloved and in a better position before God because they’re pastors. Any more than he’s saying the same thing about parents in relation to their children, or husbands in relation to their wives, or governors in relationship to the people. But there is order, and he wants this Corinthian church to be a church that’s orderly in its public worship and the relationship of the genders is part of that. So, my final word here is we need to come to our senses, and we need to be bold as Christians and say, “Gender does matter.” It matters to be a man or a woman, and this is what it looks like. So, I think our culture needs us to lead out of this murky darkness that we’re in now on gender.
“We need to come to our senses, and we need to be bold as Christians and say, “Gender does matter.” It matters to be a man or a woman, and this is what it looks like.”
Wes
Well, this has been part one of episode 15 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study podcast. And we want to invite you to join us next time for Part 2 where we’ll continue discussing Godly Order in the Public Worship of the Church, where we’ll pick up in verse 17, in chapter 11 of 1 Corinthians, and go through verse 34. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
