According to the Scriptures

Guest (Male): Hi there, and welcome to According to the Scriptures. We're so glad to have you with us today. You know, the Jewish customs in the Apostle Paul's day were quite a bit different than what we find in today's culture. For example, wives couldn't uncover their heads in public because it was dishonoring to their husband. And while the specifics may be cultural, there are some lessons which really are timeless in all of this.

Pastor Damian Kyle says it's important to be sensitive to your culture regardless of the day and age.

Damian Kyle: First Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 2. Paul writes, "Now I praise you," speaking to the church at Corinth. "I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things," and in what way specifically? "And keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you." Certainly, one of the traditions, not talking about the traditions of man but scriptural, biblical traditions, namely the Lord's Supper, which he's going to address later in the chapter. But that they keep the traditions that I've delivered to you. Now they practiced and partook of the Lord's Supper, and he's going to have to correct what they're doing up one side and down the other.

But here we see in the Apostle Paul, again, something that's very commendable. It's good for our eyes to be kept upon it. As hard as it was for him to find something good to say about them in the church in Corinth, he tried mightily to find something. He is so corrective in this letter, and he needs to be that. But a spoonful of sugar does help the medicine go down, and that was way before Mary Poppins. And so here is this commending in order that they would then receive the instruction and not misunderstand him as, boy, we can't please this guy in any way.

But he said, and that word "but" is a strong word coming after the commendation that he's just made. "But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved. For if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered."

"For a man indeed ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man. And for this reason, the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman nor woman independent of man in the Lord. For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman, but all things are from God. Judge among yourselves, is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered?"

"Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it's a dishonor to him? But if a woman has long hair, it's a glory to her, for her hair is given to her for a covering. But if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom nor do the churches of God." I think that's so self-explanatory we can just close in prayer here tonight. I think that most often that this passage is thought of supremely as the Bible passage that talks about the importance of Christian women and namely Christian wives wearing a head covering, and the fact that for a man it is a shame to wear long hair.

But I would contend that as important as those issues were to Christians in Corinth at that time, that this passage teaches us a larger and even more important lesson that we as Christians need to apply to our lives wherever God puts us in the world. This passage would preach and would be important to any Christian, whatever the customs of whatever culture that is in existence in the world in which we're living for Christ. And what Paul is driving home here in this particular section is that as Christians, we need to be sensitive to the culture that we're in.

And more specifically to be careful in terms of how we express our liberties as Christians within that culture, and that we need to have a willingness to forego any liberty that we have a right to express as Christians if the expression of that liberty would reflect badly upon the God of the Bible in that culture, or that it would be misunderstood by the culture in a way that would drive them away from the God of the Bible and cause them to never consider Christianity for themselves.

And so this evening, we want to look at what we do know here in this passage and then work our way back to the things that are a little bit harder to understand. What we do know is we know that in the church at Corinth, some number of Christian women, specifically wives is the main focus, had chosen to stop wearing head coverings in church. And we know that in doing so, because of the culture there in Corinth, it produced some very negative consequences, especially for married women. Let's look at these negative consequences for a moment and see how that helps us.

So first, the failure to wear a head covering by wives, women in general but wives specifically in a Christian assembly, reflected badly upon her husband. And so somehow within the culture of Corinth, doing this dishonored her head, dishonored her husband. And so in that culture of Corinth, this action would not have been viewed and understood as her partaking of a liberty. But it would have been viewed as an expression of rebellion against her husband's authority within the marriage, and that she, it would communicate that she is now in control of the family, she's the head of the husband, she's the head of the household, which would have been to then publicly shame or dishonor him.

Second, Paul tells us in verse 3 that it reflected badly upon God. How in the world would that reflect badly upon God? Because God has established an authority structure for the family, an authority structure that makes man the head of the household. And any perceived expression of rebellion on the part of a Christian wife against her husband's authority would also have been seen as a rebellion against God and against His authority structure for the home. And so God's authority structure for the home consists of four layers.

First in authority, there is God the Father. Second in authority is Jesus. When Paul states that the head of Christ is God, he's not saying that Jesus is less than God the Father because, like the Holy Spirit, Jesus is co-existent, He is co-equal, He is co-eternal with the Father. But when Jesus came into this world, He voluntarily took a position of submission to the Father in terms of authority. John chapter 4, verse 34, Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him, that is God the Father, who sent Me and to finish His work."

John chapter 5, verse 30, Jesus said, "I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and My judgment is righteous because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me." Philippians chapter 2, verse 5, "Let this mind be in you," Paul writes, "which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but He made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men."

And so third, in terms of authority, after the Father, after Jesus, then is the husband. "The head of every man is Christ." And this is why, as Paul writes here, a man is not to pray or to prophesy in church with his head covered, as he talks about it in verse 4. Because the bare head represented the fact that there was no human authority between the man, between the husband and God. And then fourth, in terms of authority, is the wife. He says, "The head of a woman is man."

This is not saying that the husband is superior to his wife any more than it would say that a man is superior to a woman intrinsically. In terms of a marriage, a wife can be far brighter than her husband, she can be far more talented than her husband by far. And in the same way that a captain in the military has a higher rank than a private, but the private may be ten times the man, ten times the human being that the captain is. And it's not saying that she's inferior to her husband in terms of how much God loves her or how much God values her or in terms of her importance.

And so it's very important to understand, this is one of the great confused issues within the culture in terms of how this is misrepresented in terms of Christianity. A woman is no more inferior to man in importance or value than Jesus is to the Father. What he's talking about here within the marriage and within this authority structure, he's talking about a functional subordination. That is, when a husband and a wife differ on a particular decision that they need to make, and after a season of prayer and seeking the Lord together, they remain disagreed about what direction to take.

Then somebody has to be given the ultimate authority by God to make that decision, to break the tie. And God gives that authority to the husband, and it's a tremendous responsibility. And then when that husband makes that call, the wife is to submit to it and support him in that decision. Now I know for husbands, wives can be very, very different. Everybody's wife is different. I know that this kind of a place where I've had to operate with a functional, and Karen has had to operate with a functional subordination in we're just shy, less than six months of 50 years of marriage. It's been maybe three times.

So you may do that three times a day with who you're married to, and there's nothing wrong with the fact that you're married to someone like that. But this isn't something that is being brought out as a knife on a regular basis within a marriage. But when the call needs to be made. So often I have found through the years that so often women want this authority within the marriage or within the home. And they want that ultimate authority, and they want to fight against God related to that. And sometimes I think related to that, there's a lot of damage that can be done in that, and I'm not going to get into that.

But sometimes for those particular women, I think to myself, I wish you knew how many husbands wish they could turn that authority over to you. A lot of men that I know, unless God had told them this is your responsibility, they would run from it and throw it on their wife in a moment. So it's not like it's all one-sided in the way that sometimes people think. God's done it this way and there are reasons for it. And in verses 7 through 9, he gives us three reasons for this order concerning authority related to husbands and wives and why men are not to cover their heads and wives are to do so.

Now I do want to stop and say that what he is speaking about here, he speaks about a little bit about general authority, but he is not teaching, not even remotely, he is talking about a wife's submission to her husband's authority. He is not saying that women in general need to submit to the authority of men simply because they're men. We're talking about the context of marriage here. And so here he gives reasons why men are not to cover their heads and the wives are to do so.

First, he says in verse 7, that man or Adam was created first and woman, Eve, was created second. Then he tells us second that man was not created in verse 8 from woman, but woman was created from man. Genesis chapter 2, verse 21, "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept, and God took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. And then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, He made into a woman, and He, that is God, brought her to the man."

Now third reason for this is in verse 9 that Paul gives, and that is that man was not created for the woman, but woman was created for man. She was created, Eve was created for Adam, from Adam and for Adam as a helper. Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, "And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him." This was the introductory statement concerning the creation of Eve and with Eve, womankind. And so a husband clearly is in need of a wife's submission and support, very much in need of a helper.

Why in the world would God create a helper for us if we didn't need help? And women, you know that we need help, and God's working on us to understand it too. But most of us understand we do need help, and we do need what our wives bring to our lives and to the marriage. And so man needs that kind of help from his wife in fulfilling this responsibility and this role that God has given him as the head of the family. So chronologically, Eve comes after Adam, a woman comes after man.

Constitutionally, she was made for the man. Eve was made for Adam. And so Paul is making the point that neither in her origin nor in the purpose for which she was created can the woman claim priority over man or claim a reason for usurping his headship within a marriage. Now I think that this seems like a good time to segue over to verses 11 and 12 and to put any temptation on the part of a husband to use this as a cause or defense for any kind of male chauvinism on the part of the husband.

The definition of a male chauvinist, and you can find, but they all kind of center around something like this: a male who patronizes, disparages, or otherwise denigrates females in the belief that they are inferior to males. And so no Christian husband, not only no Christian husband in their right mind, but no spiritually minded Christian husband is ever to view his wife in this way. And as a result of that, treat their wives with any kind of a combination of intimidation against her or disrespect toward her and then try to use a passage like this from the Bible to support mistreating her in that way.

Such a man is a blockhead, spiritually and otherwise, and is setting themselves up to be judged by God if that is how he treats his wife. It's a failure for such a man to realize that in a Christian marriage, that the woman that we are married to is one of God's daughters. And God takes careful note of how we treat His daughters. Every father does in terms of who's going to marry them, who marries them, how they treat them after they are married. And so that's how God views her. That's how, because how God views her, that's the husband's responsibility to her.

Now as Christian husbands, we are to use our position of authority to express our love and God's love to her. That authority that we have is to be used as a means to be a blessing to her, not to bludgeon her or to keep her in some kind of a small box and never being able to become who she's supposed to be as a Christian and so forth. And so God had to make one or the other, the husband or the wife, the ultimate head of the family in terms of authority, and he's given that responsibility to the husband.

But at the same time, he also granted the privilege and the responsibility of childbearing to the woman. And Paul brings that up because the fact that God gave the privilege and the responsibility of childbearing to the woman, it was done for many reasons, but one of which was to ensure that her vital and critical role in God's plans would never be forgotten by the husband, never be forgotten by the man. Because without her, mankind dies out in one generation. Because no man, no matter what his authority, can conceive and bear and give birth to a child.

I don't care what the insanity is that's going on in the world today, no man can do that. Simply is impossible. And God has designed things in such a way as to make both sexes, both the husband and the wife, realize that they are mutually dependent upon one another. So woman exists because she was created by God out of man, but all life comes through the woman. And every single man in this world exists solely because he has come into the world through a woman's womb. And we are to have that factor into our understanding of how God esteems both male and female and husband and wife.

Guest (Male): We'll stop right here, but there is more to come, so keep listening. Today on According to the Scriptures, we've been in the 11th chapter of 1st Corinthians with Pastor Damian Kyle. If you're interested in a CD copy of today's message, you can reach out to us by calling 209-545-5530. That's 209-545-5530. You can also access our programs online at accordingtothescriptures.com or oneplace.com. And look for us wherever you get your podcasts as well.

To financially support According to the Scriptures, simply log on to accordingtothescriptures.com and then click on Support According to the Scriptures there on our homepage. And thank you very much for standing with us. You know, it never grows old hearing from you, our listeners, and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord for what he's doing on the radio. You can email us at ATTS@CCModesto.com and include your prayer requests as well. That's ATTS@CCModesto.com. All right, well, let's finish up today's lesson, shall we? Again, we're in 1st Corinthians chapter 11. Here's Damian.

Damian Kyle: Now in verses 11 and 12, they constitute a needed pushback against both a common and a growing lack of submission on the part of wives toward their husbands in the culture, and also against a persistent attitude that even exists within many Christian husbands that somehow possessing God-given authority means that we are, as a result, superior to our wives. And Paul says has nothing to do with that at all. God is not declaring that in giving us the authority that he's given us within the marriage. We'll finish up this message from 1st Corinthians next time here on According to the Scriptures, the daily presentation of Calvary Chapel, Modesto.