Pastor Joel Webman and Non Tenant dissect 1 Corinthians 11, arguing that head coverings symbolize a divine hierarchy where women reflect man's glory. They refute cultural relativism by citing universal hair distinctions and assert that uncovered heads during worship constitute blasphemy by displaying human glory instead of God's. Addressing counter-arguments regarding John MacArthur and the "semen" linguistic theory, they conclude that rejecting this practice undermines the cosmological order established in creation. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Welcome to Theology Applied00:01:42
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Thanks.
Hi, this is Pastor Joel with Right Response Ministries.
You're listening to another episode of Theology Applied.
My special guest for this episode is Non Tenant from It's Good to Be a Man with Michael Foster.
That we address is head coverings.
But what's unique about this episode is that we don't just speak about the topic.
We actually spend our time, basically, have a Bible study, just the two of us together for you to watch by working verse by verse through 1 Corinthians 11.
So it'll take a few minutes to get there.
But once you're at about, probably, I don't know, six, seven minute mark of this episode, you'll see us, Bibles out.
And we just start with verse one of 1 Corinthians 11 and work all the way through verse 16.
We answer some of the counter arguments against head coverings.
We address John.
MacArthur, his position, and why we think he's wrong.
We address Doug Wilson, who we love, and why we think he's wrong.
So I think it's probably one of the most helpful one stop shop episodes that you'll be able to find on YouTube or anywhere on the issue of head coverings directly from the text in 1 Corinthians 11.
Thanks for tuning in.
Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
This is Theology Applied.
All right.
Welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.
I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webman with Right Response Ministries.
Context of Head Coverings00:15:29
And today I am happy to have as a guest, Non Tenant, the Bee Is Silent.
Non Tenant, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Yep.
So, Non, where do you live?
It's not the Great Down Under, but it's close.
It's right next to the Great Down Under, New Zealand.
New Zealand.
Tell us about New Zealand.
How are things in the bumbling metropolis of liberty, New Zealand?
Slipping from poor to abysmal is how I would describe it.
Currently, there is a protest.
In Wellington, going on, which has been going on for about three weeks in front of Parliament.
And today, the police came out in force with the LRADs and the pepper spray, and they started taking down tents and removing all of the infrastructure that's been put in place for people to stay there.
And it's not looking particularly rosy, I would say.
Right.
Yeah.
I get emails somewhat frequently from people all over, but a lot of them come from guys in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
Those seem to be the top three where they're just like, Like, hey, did someone in your church have a business that they can hire me?
You know, because it's it's hot, you know, getting a work visa and things like that.
We have, you know, we have a group of actually four siblings, um, who they, you know, they're in their 20s or so, and and they live in Waco and they come and visit our church almost on a weekly basis.
And uh, they're not members, but but they love the church and they're all from Canada, but they're it's hard to get their parents because for them, they just can get the student visa, it's easier to do the student thing than uh, that's one of the main things keeping us here as well, parents.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
Countries are the head of the World Economic Forum spear, the tip of the spear.
Yeah, totally.
You know, we were in California for over a decade, my wife and I.
And for us, it was, you know, it was a hard choice because we love the church, but it was easier in the sense that both her parents and mine live in Texas.
So it's different when it's like I'm leaving mom and dad that God's called me to honor, you know, my aging parents.
I'm leaving them, I'm taking their grandchildren away from them to go to somewhere where.
It's almost like you're stuck in between the choice of honor your mother and father and then providing for your kids.
Like your mom and dad are kids, and given if that's the choice, then I, you know, I choose kids, but but you're thinking, but can I do both?
And but for us, it's like, uh, would you like to leave California and go to Texas where mom and dad already are, you know, and it became an easier decision when you frame it like kind of a no brainer almost, right?
Yeah, all right.
Well, today, the topic that uh, we're going to discuss is the topic of head coverings, and so some of our listeners are probably aware of this, but I did an episode on this a little while ago, not on our show Theology Apply, and that's what we're doing right now, but I have a Another podcast where I just run solo and I take questions.
And so one of the questions was regarding head coverings.
But I read one of your articles on the subject a couple months ago.
And I thought you just did really good work of talking about the issue of submission and authority.
But you brought this other concept into play about glory, which is so prevalent in the text.
I mean, it's right there again and again and again.
But I didn't really know what to do with it.
And you really did a great job, I think, just making it plain, making it simple of, oh, like, This is an issue of glory, that the hair of a woman being her glory and woman being the glory of man, man the glory of God.
And the way you parsed out image and glory, you know, so that both man and woman are the image of God, but woman is the glory of man.
You just did a really good job.
So I really appreciate that article and I just wanted to have you on the show to talk about it.
And I don't know exactly how to do this, but I've got my Bible right in front of me and I thought maybe we just work through the text.
I haven't really done that on an episode where we just exegetically work through a text.
How does that sound to you?
Yeah, that sounds fine to me.
I feel like that would be cool.
I think our listeners would appreciate it.
A little Bible study.
Why not?
Yeah, a little Bible study.
So, all right, so this is 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
Do you want to go ahead and start?
Maybe just read the first couple of verses and you just kind of lead, and I'll pipe in from here to there.
Sure, I'll give it a shot.
So, 1 Corinthians 11, these are God's words Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ.
Now, I praise you that you remember me in all things and hold fast to the traditions, even as I deliver them unto you.
But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ.
And the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.
Every man praying or prophesying, having his head uncovered, dishonoreth his head.
But every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled, dishonoreth her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she were shaven.
Thus far, the reading.
All right.
Well, that's plenty to talk about right there.
Go ahead.
Sure is.
Well, the thing about this is that it doesn't get directly into the argument that Paul is ultimately making.
So when you start reading the passage and you see, Okay, the head of man is Christ, the head of woman is man.
You can kind of wrap your head around that, even if you're a modern Christian.
But then he immediately says in verse four every man praying and prophesying, having his head covered, is dishonoring his head, and vice versa for the woman.
And the connection between what came before and what's happening in that verse doesn't seem very clear at all.
I do think that there's a lot more going on than just glory.
I wouldn't want to make out that I've kind of that glory is the one key to understanding the passage.
But if you continue to read, then a central theme or a central plank in Paul's argument becomes much clearer, which is related to the nature of headship versus glory and the way that the creation of something is related to its glory.
So, the way that a man is the glory of God is because man comes from God, and then the woman is the glory of man because the woman comes from man.
So he's thinking back to the creation account and he's thinking back to the connection between authority and glory and headship and glory.
And then he's basically just putting a symbol on it.
He's saying the way that you go about this in worship is important to correctly symbolizing the order that you are living under, the creation order that Christ has reestablished.
The idea that we're being transformed into the image of Christ is very important.
Not something which is directly in the passage, but something that Paul talks about in many places elsewhere.
I think that the idea that the Christian church is supposed to image something very particular about God's creation, about the recreation, the idea that we're new men, we're new creations, is also kind of implicit in the background of this.
But now I'm getting ahead of myself, so maybe you can help me.
Yeah, let me help you.
So, no, that's all great so far, but here's, and I'm going to help by in part giving some thoughts, but also asking, just asking you some questions.
So, verse four, I know that one of the questions that jumps off the page for me and probably a lot of the listeners to this is, Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head.
So, but every wife, verse 5, who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven.
Now, if we go further and we cross reference that with like 1 Corinthians 14, for example, where Paul is, I think of Martin Luther, when we're interpreting scripture, the only infallible interpretive tool of scripture is scripture.
And what we want to do is work from the clearest text and let those interpret.
The ones that may seem to be more obscure, and maybe they're really not, you know, but whatever seems less clear, let's interpret it by the scriptures that are more clear, you know.
So, like, you know, descriptive texts of, you know, God repenting, you know.
Well, let's look at really clear texts that say God is not a man that he should change his mind.
Okay, all right.
So, now what does it mean for God to repent, you know?
And so, in this case, in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, Paul explicitly says that it is shameful for a woman to speak at church, right?
And so, and, and, The reason why I reference 1 Corinthians 14 is one, because it's in the same letter, so that's helpful.
And right where Paul talks about prophecy and tongues.
And here we have in verse 4 and 5 prophecy.
And so we have praying and we have prophecy.
And then in chapter 14, we have prophesying and tongues.
And right in there, Paul talks about how a woman, it's shameful for women to speak at church.
She must remain silent.
And I use that text because it's in the same letter.
It also is dealing with prophecy rather than something like 1 Timothy 2, verse 9.
A woman should learn in quietness and full submission because that's.
Really easy and clear to you.
I think that also would say that a woman couldn't speak at church in any capacity, but that's clearest in 1 Timothy chapter 2 to say that a woman shouldn't teach, right?
Because that's what it says.
Shouldn't it teach or exercise authority over a man?
And most of our listeners would agree with that.
That they would, you know, they would be, not all of them would be comfortable saying that they're patriarchal.
I would be comfortable saying that.
Or gendered piety, I think, is one of the terms that you guys have used, or at least at minimum, I think a lot of our listeners would say, okay, we're.
Hard complimentarians, you know, whatever, or a true complimentary, which I say, yeah, the patriarchal, me too.
But, you know, so with that, you know, all of them, you know, our listeners would, you know, most of our listeners would agree and say, yeah, a woman can't, you know, Beth Moore can't preach on Sunday.
But Paul goes further than that in 1 Corinthians 14 and says that a woman shouldn't even speak.
And I remember when I was coming into those convictions, wrestling through that and being like, okay, I can't have a woman do the announcements.
And then I came into the conviction, we shouldn't even do announcements during the middle of it.
That's not an ordinary mean of.
Means of grace, we don't need to be doing announcements right in the middle of a service.
They do them before the service, exactly.
Yeah, so it's like, let us now begin to worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
And then it's just preaching the word, praying the word, singing the word, and seeing the word in the sacraments of the Lord's Supper and baptism.
We close with a doxology and a benediction.
And then we say, we have now concluded our Lord's Day worship service.
A couple of announcements on your way out, you know, which it's different.
It really does make a difference.
And it's still me or one of the elders, you know, who are doing that.
So my whole point is to say, all right, pray or prophesy.
Part of the problem is it's like verse five, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered, it's like, what?
But she doesn't need to be praying.
I'm reading from the ESV there.
Yeah, okay.
That naughty ESV.
Right.
Okay.
So every wife.
So, yeah.
So every woman.
Yeah.
No, I agree.
Yeah.
So every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head since it is the same as if her head were shaven.
And, but we know, Paul, because of 1 Corinthians 14, that a woman doesn't can't even speak.
So, prayer prophesy can't mean a woman's coming up to give a prophetic word or coming up to lead in corporate prayer.
So, what does it mean to pray and prophesy?
I have my ideas, but what does that mean?
Yeah.
Well, there are a couple of ways that you can go here.
And I think that probably both of them are actually correct.
The first is that you could say that this doesn't actually have to do with corporate worship, this has to do with a more general principle of which corporate worship would be one application.
So, a woman who prays or prophesies at any time with her head uncovered is dishonoring her head.
And even more so in corporate worship, where she shouldn't even.
Be praying or prophesying in a way that calls attention to itself and a way that isn't in subjection.
And I think that that has some validity to it.
But I would say that the whole context of the last few chapters of 1 Corinthians, or I think it's 11 to 14, are specifically corporate worship.
Paul is discussing different elements of corporate worship in those chapters.
So to divorce this principle from corporate worship and to say that really he's not actually speaking about corporate worship at all would be a mistake.
Rather, what we should say is that he is speaking about corporate worship.
But that this is a principle which applies beyond just corporate worship.
I would take that view.
So I think that women should cover if they pray so desire for the Lord.
Okay.
So, with that, so I know where you're going with that.
And I've got a couple of guys, friends, who would hold to that position.
So we know he's talking about corporate worship because in the very same chapter, he goes, I mean, the very next thing that we're going to see is the Lord's Supper.
So, and we know that we're not taking the Lord's Supper as individual Christians at home on a Tuesday afternoon, that is given to the church and it needs to be administered rightly on the Lord's day by those who've been ordained to do so.
And so all.
So it is corporate, but basically, what you're saying is the principle, this whole principle of covering the head or uncovering your head if you're a man, is the principle, you can see it as relating to a place, a context, or a function.
So, is it related to the function that can occur in any place, in any day of the week, prayer and prophecy as a function?
Or is prayer and prophecy being used as a label to describe the premier context where prayer and prophecy corporately happens, namely the Lord's Day gathering of the saints?
And you're saying, That you feel more comfortable applying it to function.
I don't know if I would say that it would be all week long.
I would say that the context is corporate and so it is specifically to do with worship, but I am hesitant to divorce the function from the context.
So when I look at the way that a woman prays or prophesies during the week, I want to say that that is like an extension of the worship that happens on the Sunday.
It's not.
It's not gathering with the saints to worship in that particular way, but it is a form of worship, and so the same principle presumably applies.
I wouldn't say that I'm hard and fast.
I don't think that I see a woman in church uncovered, and that really bothers me.
I think that she's really in sin, even if she doesn't know she's in sin.
I see a woman praying with her husband with her head uncovered privately.
How I managed to see that, who can say?
But if that were to happen, I would.
It would bother you less, or hardly at all.
I would not be bothered, especially by that.
So, one thing, real quick, that's funny.
So, if you connect it to function, those are the terms I'm using.
It helps me think about it.
Maybe there are better terms.
But if we take the principle of covering, Covering for a woman, uncovering for a man.
That's the principle.
And if we're attaching the principle to the function, whenever prophecy occurs, whenever prayer occurs, rather than the place, the context, the Lord's day, which is the premier context for prayer and prophecy in the corporate sense, if we attach it to function, it's funny, but that actually, a lot of people actually hold that theological view.
They can't articulate it.
It's probably subconscious.
They probably don't even know it.
But there are a lot of people.
Right here in the great state of Texas, where I'm at, who actually do hold that view and they exercise it still to this day, used to be much more common.
And you probably know what I'm about to say, but the men hold that view by virtue of taking off their hat, even in their home, to pray for a meal.
So I'm about to do the function prayer, and I'm a man and I'm taking off my hat.
And that, like, it's like, where does that come from?
1 Corinthians 11, I'm pretty sure.
That's the origin of it.
So somebody used to think that.
Prophetic Ministry and Communion00:05:36
Right.
Yeah.
We think it's crazy now, but somebody, for that to be a cultural thing, It didn't just come out of nowhere.
Somebody found that in the Bible, and that was a widespread practice.
Culture is downstream from religion.
I got into huge trouble one time at my former church because I wore my hat into the church building, not during church, just into the church building.
I sat down and I took my hat off.
Someone was very offended by that.
Oddly, not at all offended by all of the women who didn't wear anything.
Right.
Have you ever had, I've had this happen a couple of times, have you ever had a young, zealous, overly zealous, Young man, talk about how women in the church should cover their head, but you see him every Sunday wearing a hat.
Have you ever had that happen?
That would be funny, though.
I've had that happen.
It's really funny.
It's a bit unfortunate.
The ignorance and hypocrisy is off the charts.
But, anyways, okay, I digress.
So go ahead.
So go ahead.
To continue, the other thing that I would say with regard to the praying and prophesying is that in the context of Sunday worship specifically, which I think is the main context Paul has in mind here.
It doesn't have to be individual and in a way that draws attention to itself.
So, when we think of praying and prophesying, we tend to think of, for example, a man standing up the front and leading a corporate prayer.
Or if we take prophecy to relate to the preaching of the word, even if we don't think the gift of prophecy continues today, we would think of a man teaching.
I don't think that's what Paul has in mind for women.
I think that because he's speaking about, you notice verse four, it starts with every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head.
That's the The starting context.
So, what about women then?
Well, every woman praying and prophesying with her head unveiled to some of her head.
And the idea here is that there is a way in which women participate in prayer and prophecy, which I would take to be a synecdoche, like a general catch all term for the corporate worship service itself.
And women participate in that, even though they do not individually stand up and pray or prophesy.
And I would also say that the word prophecy in scripture isn't something that I've studied in depth, but it Is something that I've noticed as I'm reading the Old Testament, especially.
You come across, for instance, Saul going up and these prophets coming down prophesying, and Saul prophesies with them, which is why it is said this day is Saul among the prophets.
Well, the kind of prophesying that they're doing appears to be something more like anything ranging from just some sort of religious singing to some sort of ecstatic event rather than what we would think of as delivering a specific message to God.
Which that happens in that same passage when Samuel tells Saul all that is in his heart.
So there is the prophecy that is very much the Foretelling, so there's prediction, but then there's also forthtelling, you know, and there's also just this, yeah, an exaltation in the Lord and praising the Lord.
And that seems to also fall under the banner of prophesying.
And to the best of my knowledge, from the earliest times in Christian history, women have always been involved in that individually, in the sense that they are speaking or uttering in the corporate.
Utterance.
They're not standing up to do it solo.
They're participating in the corporate utterance.
If you want to call that prophecy, which is probably reasonable, if Paul is using the term prophecy loosely in the way that the Old Testament does, then a woman who is singing in church is engaged in a kind of prophecy.
Not what we tend to think of, but it's something which is totally legitimate.
People wouldn't say women shouldn't sing in church just because they're not allowed to speak in church.
Exactly.
So, singing, we know from Ephesians and Colossians, we're addressing God, but we're also addressing one another.
And so, there's this horizontal aspect of addressing one another, charging one another.
But then I also think of the Lord's Supper.
You do this in remembrance of me, but the Lord's Supper I would hold is more than just a mere memorial.
I believe that Christ is spiritually present.
I would say it like this Christ is always spiritually present by virtue of the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit with all believers in all places and all times.
But Christ is uniquely spiritually present by virtue of the Holy Spirit when believers gather together on the first day of the week for worship according to the prescriptions of God.
And so I would say all the worship service on the Lord's day is communion.
And then communion is the climax of our communion.
We always do the Lord's Supper at the end.
The worship service is climaxing in bellying up to the Lord's table and eating with the Lord.
And in that, it's so it's this remembrance of Him, but it's also a rich and spiritually real communion with the Lord.
But then it's also prophecy.
Because the last thing that Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, ironically, is he says, You don't just do this in remembrance of me, but he says that when you eat of this bread and drink of the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again.
So there's a proclamation that's occurring in our partaking of the Lord's Supper, and women partake of the Lord's Supper.
And so, therefore, women are proclaiming the Lord's death.
They're engaged in prophetic ministry.
Right.
As they eat.
Yeah, correct.
Man as Image of God00:15:48
Okay, so you want to keep going?
Sure.
Where were we?
Verse 6, I believe.
Verse 6.
For if a woman is not veiled, let her also be shorn.
But if it is a shame to a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be veiled.
For a man indeed ought not to have his head veiled, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man.
For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man.
For neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.
For this cause, ought the woman to have a sign of authority on her head because of the angels.
So it's probably quite enough to keep us going.
Right.
So, you spend plenty of time on verses six through nine, but then verse 10, that's one that's a tough one with the angels.
But go ahead, verses six through nine, do that first, and then I'd love to hear what you think about the angels.
Let's suppose that the key to the passage, in some sense, might be in verse 10.
Okay, all right.
And let's have a look at Psalm eight, which I think is what Paul has in mind here.
So, in Psalm eight, this is a.
A kind of reflection on the creation, the way that God has given dominion to man.
O Yahweh our God, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, who has set thy glory upon the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established strength because of thine adversaries, that thou mightest steal the enemy and the avenger.
Then verse 3 shifts slightly.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the Son of man that thou visitest him?
For thou hast set him but a little lower than the gods, which in Hebrews is translated a little lower than the angels, which is following the Septuagint, and crowned him with glory and honor.
Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands.
Thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, the fish of the sea, whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
O Yahweh our God, how excellent is thy name in all the earth.
Reflecting on and trying to explicate, explicate, that's the way the relationship between man and woman and the importance of it with regards to worship, he thinks to Psalm 8 and especially Psalm 8:5,
you have made him a little lower than the angels, and he is putting the order of man and woman, the hierarchical relationship of man and woman, into the larger context of the hierarchical relationship between man, woman, and angels.
Just as he puts it into the larger context of man, woman, and Christ and God at the beginning.
So he's looking at two different descriptions of the hierarchy.
And I think that is why he brings in the angels.
It's very difficult to explain why he would talk about the angels otherwise, unless he's reflecting on this passage, which it's hard to imagine that he's not reflecting on this passage, given that he talks about both glory and honor.
So the idea of dishonoring is key in 1 Corinthians 11, and the idea of glory is key in 1 Corinthians 11.
And the idea of glory and honor is key in Psalm 8 5, and being made lower than the angels is key in Psalm 8 5.
So it's kind of hard to imagine that there isn't some sort of connection going on there.
So I think that's what's going on.
Okay, so, but man, so like to play the counter, because I don't have a better position than the one you just espoused, but just to understand what you're saying a little bit better, it wouldn't just be that woman is a little lower than the angels, but man is a little bit lower than the angels.
So why does woman have to do something specific?
Namely, covering her head to signify that she is beneath the angels.
Well, it's not so much for the sake of the angels, but rather it's referring back to the proper hierarchy and physically reflecting the proper hierarchy, which is established in places like Psalm 8 5.
So, Paul isn't, I don't think Paul is concerned about the feelings of the angels, as it were.
He's not concerned about offending the angels.
He's concerned about using the angels.
Or using the angels in 1 Corinthians 11 as a way of referencing back to Psalm 8 5, which talks about the proper hierarchy.
So, my view would be that he is using because of the angels as a shorthand to refer to because of the proper hierarchy that God has established in the cosmos, the cosmological hierarchy.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Have you ever heard anybody, just out of curiosity, have you ever heard anybody talk about maybe a reason?
I wouldn't be persuaded by this per se, but angels in terms of like looking down on the Lord's Day worship of the saints here on earth and kind of almost even going to like, Genesis chapter six, and talking about angels maybe being tempted.
Not almost, sort of.
I've heard that 100%.
You've heard that 100%.
Yeah, that's Michael Heiser's position.
Is it?
Is it?
Okay.
I didn't know that.
Michael Heiser, for our listeners, he's the Unseen Realm author.
Yeah.
I don't think that it's very persuasive because I don't think that it would be a complete non sequitur in Paul's argument.
It doesn't engage with the actual flow of his thought at all.
It's.
Kind of a case where you've got like this filter or this grid that you've put on the scriptures, and everything becomes about the sons of God and what happened in Genesis 6 and other places.
And so, anytime you see angels, you're automatically you have those things in mind.
But I don't think that's the normal way of reading scripture, I don't think that was how Paul read scripture, for instance.
I think that to them, I agree with Michael's interpretation of Genesis 6.
I think that the sons of God were indeed angels that came down.
I also think that there were Sethites, I think that as on earth, so in heaven.
But I don't think that when Paul read scripture, every time he saw angels or sons of God, he was like, oh, yeah, Genesis 6.
That's just not how people back then thought.
Genesis 6 wasn't like an exciting, almost transgressive idea.
This idea of the sons of God coming down to fornicate with women isn't something that they would have considered especially racy.
It's considered sort of au fait, oh, what's that all about in modern Christianity?
But modern Christians are just very sheltered.
Yep, yep.
No, you're right.
Okay.
So, yeah, so it just seems like it would be.
Almost like Paul just had Tourette's for a moment.
It would just be off topic.
It would be almost like a modesty thing, and not even modesty for men, but modesty for angelic beings.
I don't think that it's not utterly off topic because there is a strong component of modesty in the passage.
The passage, one of the ways you could describe Paul's argument is an argument from modesty.
So the idea that sexual modesty should be in view as well as general modesty, and I would say that modesty is something that's.
A much broader principle than just sexuality.
So, the idea that sexual modesty could be in view isn't completely alien to the text.
It's just that it would be more tangential.
So, maybe Paul says because of the angels in order to reference both Psalm 8 5 and Genesis 6.
So, he's being, you know, the Bible's often deliberately ambiguous in order to draw out more than one meaning.
Maybe that's what's going on there, but I don't think that's his primary concern.
Gotcha.
Okay.
All right.
So, that's verse 10.
And then you said you were going to use that to work backwards with verse 6 through 9.
Right.
Well, basically, the idea is that there is a hierarchy of glory, and it's related to the hierarchy of authority, and it's related to also the hierarchy of existence.
The man is the glory of God because man exists first and he exists for God, and the woman is the glory of man because she exists from man for man.
Right.
And the idea that the head is the symbol of that, not necessarily the symbol of the glory exactly.
But certainly, the symbol of the place where the glory is put.
In scripture, a crown is a symbol of glory.
It's not actually a symbol of authority specifically, it's a symbol of glory which is placed on the symbol of authority, which is your head.
And if you want an extra symbol of authority, you get a scepter as well.
So the scepter is a symbol of rulership, but the head is just the symbol of the head.
You know, everything's a body in scripture.
It doesn't matter what it is a society, everything's a body.
A church, yeah.
A church, yeah.
Okay.
So the idea that everything has a head is just kind of a natural one, which we've to a large extent lost as modern Christians.
We don't think symbolically anymore.
We don't think of the idea that the physical image is the spiritual.
Everything that God made is actually an expression of a prior spiritual reality, just strikes us as, even if we think that it's maybe true, it strikes us as sort of irrelevant, like an interesting bit of trivia rather than as a foundational truth.
Right, right.
Well, one thing that you said in your article, and I can't, because we talked a little bit before we started recording, so I can't remember if I said it to you before we started recording or if I've already said it on the podcast, but it's worth the risk of saying it twice.
But, you know, the difference, the distinction between image and glory, So verse 7, for man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God.
But then the second half, it says, but woman is the glory of man.
It doesn't say that woman is the image of man.
So we believe that God created man in his image, male and female.
He created so mankind, but both male and female bear the image of God.
So it's not to say that man bears the image of God and woman only bears the image of man.
But male and female as mankind bear the image of God.
But what we're talking about is distinct from image, it's glory.
Is there anything you'd like to add to that?
That was in your article, and I thought that was really helpful.
Yeah, I'd like to add that one of the key distinctions we need to draw in talking about the image is between images ontological, so having to do with the very nature of ourselves.
So, when the Reformed confessions and most theologians in the Reformed tradition talk about the image, they tend to talk about specific elements of man's nature his rationality and his ability to love and have relationships.
These kinds of things, his moral nature.
They talk about those as being the image, which is, I wouldn't say that's wrong, but I would say that it's maybe one step removed from the way scripture talks about the image, at least specifically in Genesis, where the way that the image is couched in Genesis is in terms of dominion over the earth.
So the image is more functional.
The image is something that you are in order to, the idea of the image is that you reflect God, you bear his name into the world in order to complete the work of dominion that he began in the creation week.
That's what man is created for.
That's why man is God's image.
It's like a family resemblance of what they do as much as what they are.
So, when people talk about image, usually they're talking about what man is.
What is a woman?
And if you say, well, a woman isn't the image of God, they think that you're saying a woman is not rational or a woman is not capable of moral action, something like that, which is insane, obviously.
And it's certainly true.
Mankind is the image of God.
So, a woman is an image in that sense as well.
There's also a sense in which the woman is the image of man because she's made out of man.
She's made from Adam.
And so she's an image of God, but she's an image of God in a similar way to the way that scripture relates the, or in fact, I think all cultures throughout history have related the sun to masculinity and the moon to femininity.
The sun is strong and bright and goes through the sky the same way every day.
It's a kind of paradigm of what you'd think of as masculinity.
And the moon is soft and Demure and changes cyclically in the same way that a woman does.
And it reflects the man, it reflects the son.
Right.
So there is a sense, and it's not an ontological sense, but more of a functional sense, in which the woman is the image of God reflectively, whereas the man is the image of God directly.
Okay.
Which is why I say in the article, offsetting any potential outrage that may come, why I say in the article that woman is subordinately the image of man.
What I mean there is not that she is, you know, ontologically inferior to man, but rather that in her function, she reflects God through man.
I get that.
Okay.
So it's, I like how you said it, that there's the man is the image of God, but then correct me if I'm, I think this would work, but man is the image of God, but man also does the image of God in a sense.
Yeah.
You could think of it in that way.
He functioned, he himself is the image of God, but also what he does here on earth reflects the image of God, reveals what he does reflects God, which makes it the actual doing of it the image of God as well.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So he is.
Okay, so he is the image of God, but his work also bears the image of God.
Whereas a woman's work that God calls her to does not bear, she bears the image of God, but ontologically, but her work does not bear the image of God, at least not in the same direct sense that a man does.
Right, not in the same direct sense.
It definitely does bear it, but it's oriented toward her husband rather than towards God directly.
Right.
Okay, okay, that's really helpful.
Did you get a chance to read C.R. Wiley's Tom Bombadil book?
No, not yet.
I would like to, though.
I had him on our show recently, and Tom Bombadil is just having him and talking to Wiley about that.
Tom Bombadil is a really great picture of the image of God.
Yeah.
Like just the dominion that he exercises and Middle Earth and his jolliness.
Yeah.
I'm glad Tom Bombadil's finally getting some action.
Yeah.
Some attention from theologians because I think that he's a neglected character.
Most people skip over him like, what was that about?
Right.
Like Peter Jackson, for example.
You can't put this in the movie.
This is crazy.
Yeah, you're right.
Yeah.
But he should have been in the movie.
Speaking of Lord of the Rings.
No, no, no.
I'm so afraid.
I'm so afraid.
I just, man, here's the thing.
Okay.
So when it comes to entertainment, I try to limit my entertainment, but I think there's a godly place for entertainment.
And in terms of genre, fantasy is my top genre.
So I will stomach a B or a C fantasy movie over an A plus action movie.
I like action like the next guy, but I love.
Other worlds and fantasy and story and myth and legend.
But man, if they take Lord of the Rings and make it woke and transgender, I feel like I'm going to hurt someone.
I feel like I'm going to do terrible things.
You have to think about it as non canonical.
It's just some idiots going and using a lot of their money to create something terrible that has the same name as something that you love.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
So, verse 11 now.
Do you want to pick up and keep going?
You're doing great.
Yeah, sure.
All right.
Mutual Reliance in Marriage00:04:06
Verse 11.
Nevertheless, neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman in the Lord.
For as the woman is of the man, so is the man also by the woman.
But all things are of God.
So, this is really just continuing the same thought that he's already been on.
He's establishing, like at the center of his argument, he's establishing the hierarchical relationship and not just in terms of raw rank.
But in terms of the mutual interdependence that they have, you can't say that because the man is superior in rank to the woman, therefore the man is more important than the woman, because that would imply that the man doesn't need the woman, which is obviously absurd because every man was born of a woman.
So Paul wants them to understand that he's not speaking in terms of.
He knows the Corinthians, he knows how their minds work, and he doesn't want them thinking that men are therefore more important than women, but rather that the.
The importance of the head covering is to do with the importance of the created order, which is a complex order.
It's not just in terms of hierarchy and rank, it's also in terms of mutual interdependence, which is why scripture sometimes speaks of mutual submission.
It's to do with the idea that we rely on each other.
It's not just a matter of imposing authority from above, it's also a matter of receiving something from beneath.
Reliance, not just authority and submission.
In terms of rank, man is the head, but in terms of need for one another, it's mutual.
Yeah, 100%.
In fact, I would say that in many cases, in a marriage, a lot of the need is actually on the part of the husband.
If you think of the, for example, the distinction between a man's sexual drive and a woman's sexual drive, there's a reason that Paul is, the scripture through Paul is explicit that both the husband and the wife must render to each other their sexual duties, what they need, because it's easy for a woman to take advantage of her man's sexual desires to exercise control over him.
Because he needs those things in a way that she doesn't.
So, the idea that man has to, you know, you've got this kind of alpha male idea with a lot of the red pilled guys, oh, you've got to maintain frame and so on.
That's true.
You have to maintain frame.
You have to be the center of gravity in your relationship.
But the idea that that means that you don't need your wife in any way and that there's no sense in which your wife can exercise any power over you is, it would mean that she's not actually a helpmate.
Exactly.
That's what I was going to say.
I feel like, as soon as you said, in some ways, the man needs the wife more than the wife needs the man.
I immediately just thought of helpmate.
Like, I am not my wife's helpmate, but she is my hype.
And we're not mutual helpmates in a practical sense.
Sure, I help her around the house at times, but in terms of calling, in terms of mission and what God has assigned to us, it's not that I am her helpmate and she is mine.
No, she is just my helpmate.
And part of it is because I need a lot of help.
There are things that God has called me to do that I cannot do without her.
And God is oriented, like, my vision, my focus is very much.
Looking out and looking forward, and mission minded, and taking the next hill, and exercising dominion, and expanding and growing.
And her gaze and her focus and vision is very much oriented inward towards me and towards our children and our home.
But the reason I'm able to look out to the next hill is because my wife is meeting a lot of those familial needs right here at home, to where I'm able to look out and I'm able to look.
To look at the big picture, like working on the boat versus working in the boat.
My wife is constantly working in the boat, and I'm able to, you know, be planning our next voyage, you know.
And, but she's working in the boat because the children need her, but also because I need her.
And so, yeah.
So it's, it's, I completely agree with you in terms of authority.
Yes.
The man is the head.
But in terms of interdependence, yeah.
Two Layers of Glory00:15:25
It's just like a body.
Everything is a body.
A husband and a wife are a body.
To say that the head doesn't need the body, right?
In many ways, like, okay, obviously the body needs the head.
Otherwise, it would be dead.
There's no brain.
But at the same time, can the brain survive without a heart to pump blood, without any hands to get things done?
It just doesn't make sense.
Right.
Okay.
You want to keep going?
Where were we?
That was 11 and 12, I think.
Did you do 12?
Yeah, you did 12.
As the one is of a man, so is a man.
Yes.
All right.
So 13.
Judge ye in yourselves.
Is it seemly that a woman pray unto God unveiled?
Doth not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, it is a dishonor to him?
But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given her for a covering?
But if any man seemeth to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.
I love that last verse.
So, and well, you know, what I almost love more than the verse itself is I love how feminist, evangelic, fish Christians try to execute that last verse.
So, what are some of the things that you've heard people say?
Like, see, look, the apostle says, don't be contentious about this.
I'm like, I'm not being contentious.
I'm the guy trying to obey this.
Yeah.
You know, like you're being contentious by saying it shouldn't be obeyed.
Well, The main one that I've seen is that verse 16 is actually attached to verse 17.
So if any man is wanting to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God, but in giving you this charge, I praise you not.
Which doesn't really make sense if you ask me, but that's the way that they want to read it because then it's specifically related to the way that they're breaking the practice of the Lord's Supper.
Right, right.
Yeah, well, it seems to me it seems like verse 16 is the finishing remarks of.
Yeah, it's the finishing blow.
If you want to argue about this, just go to any other church in the entire world so far and see if they do things the way you do things.
Right.
And Paul's, and that's, I mean, that's part of it too.
So some people want to say, like, okay, well, it was that particular time, you know, cultural.
But then people also, in terms of the cultural argument, try to make it, you know, unique to that place.
Well, this is what was going on in Corinth, you know, and temple prostitution and all these kinds of things.
But verse 16 kind of blows that whole thing up because Paul doesn't say, hey, these are special instructions that I'm giving to.
Corinth, because you guys all know about the temple prostitution problem here that's unique to Corinth.
But Paul literally says, if you don't like the instructions I'm giving you here at Corinth, you can ask any of the other churches outside of Corinth and they'll tell you the same thing because they do it too.
So that just kind of destroys that whole thing.
It's unique.
You know what else destroys that whole thing?
It's just the fact that it's false.
It's just made up.
As far as I can tell, I can't find any actual historical data to support the claim that the standard.
Oh, you're saying that women.
Okay.
Women were uncovering their heads and made them look like wars.
I haven't found any evidence that that was the case.
Really?
The evidence that I found, which is extensive actually, we've got quite a lot of descriptions of the way that people were.
One of them is one of the early church fathers, I forget which one it was, was mocking the other religions of the time, which were contemporaneous with Paul, more or less, like maybe 100 years later.
You wouldn't expect things to change very much.
But his mockage has to do with the way that they have absolutely no consistency in how they practice anything to do with dress in religion.
You know, one sect has all of their heads covered, both men and women.
The other sect, everyone's uncovered.
It's all completely random.
This is one of the criticisms that he brings against pagan religions how disordered it is.
Everyone just does their own thing.
So the fact that people try to bring out this idea that there's some specific reason, specific to Corinth or maybe specific to Roman culture, Greek or Roman culture, doesn't make any sense in light of what we know of Greek or Roman culture, which is that.
Covering the head or not covering the head was equally common and didn't carry any particular significance.
That's really, I was not familiar with that.
That's really helpful.
So, okay.
So, verses 13 through, you know, we covered 16 there.
So 13 through 15, 13, 14, and 15.
And I think we just about nailed it, but maybe not nailed it, but we got through it.
You know, I don't know if we nailed it.
We got through it.
Yeah.
Verse 14 is instructive in terms of the cultural argument because Paul doesn't appeal to culture.
He appeals to nature.
Right.
He appeals specifically to the way that we have it built into us to have a clear distinction in our minds as to long hair on a woman and long hair on a man, or short hair on a woman and long hair on a man, whatever the case may be.
We understand instinctively that there's something weird about.
Especially young women having short hair or shaven hair.
And there's something kind of unseemly about men having long hair.
You think of Absalom, for example, who in the end got tangled up between heaven and earth, caught on a tree from his glorious locks that he took some pride in.
There's clear irony in that.
There is.
The fact that he's this effeminate man who glories in his locks and it becomes his undoing.
He dies because of it.
So we have it built into us to understand, like every culture throughout history, with rare exceptions.
Has women with long hair and men with short hair.
And the length varies contextually, the relative length is usually the same.
It's usually very different.
So there was a guy I thought it was really funny.
He was, I had a meme that was like, I think it was Thomas Watson or something like that.
And he was like, he'd comment, he's like, what's up with all these lady haired Puritans?
I thought it was so funny.
And, but the point, you know, he had a good point, but it's by comparison.
So women, their hair during that time would go all the way down to, you know, the small of their back.
Whereas, you know, so this was short hair.
And in that culture.
But you're absolutely right.
It's virtually every culture and virtually every single time period because, I mean, in the 1960s, like when you think about the 1960s, men growing their hair out long, what's the purpose of them growing out their hair out long?
It was to stick it to the man, to go against the culture, to be against the grain.
It was meant to be a sign of the world.
It was the same.
Exactly.
It was the same purpose as women cutting their hair short and dying it blue.
Exactly.
Basically defacing it, saying, I don't want this.
Exactly.
Which is to seed the argument.
Because if you're saying, this doesn't know, God doesn't have any meaning in this, and this isn't God's word, and this isn't, then why do you do it?
Right?
It's like the atheist being, I am certain that God doesn't exist, and I also am really angry at him.
That's right.
So it's like, I am certain that 1 Corinthians doesn't apply and that it's completely cultural, but also I have to have short hair and it needs to be purple.
Or in the case of, Christians, it's often.
I'm certain that 1 Corinthians 11 is cultural, and I'm equally certain that even if the symbol is important, we can have a different symbol because the symbol that they used is meaningless in our modern culture.
And also, it would be completely humiliating to me to wear a head covering.
So it's a meaningless symbol, but it's humiliating.
So let's talk about that for a second.
Let's talk about a couple other guys because some of our listeners, you know, I think it's helpful, and we're not talking about it in negative ways, but these are things that, you know, When somebody does something publicly, including you or I, then it's free game.
And we can be charitable in the way that we talk about it.
But like John MacArthur, I love John MacArthur, appreciate John MacArthur, disagree with a lot of things, but really grateful with a lot of things.
And I think he takes the stance of wedding rings.
So he would say, oh, well, right.
So he's not the only guy, but a lot of guys would say, like, well, Daniel B. Wallace is a famous example.
Right.
And so they would say, well, we're not saying it was that the command is not a command or this was just a command.
A narrow command given to one place and one time, namely Corinth, you know, in the first century.
But we recognize, right, we would agree with you, Non and Joel, with verse 16.
Don't be like that, that, that, you know, because it can't be cultural because Paul pulls on creation to make his art.
I mean, if you use those hermeneutics, right, to say that it's just unique to that time and that place, then there goes 1 Timothy chapter 2, 1 Timothy chapter 3, in terms of elders being men and deacons, we would hold to a male diaconate.
You lose everything.
There goes Ephesians 5.
So MacArthur knows better than that.
And so he's going to say, yeah, this is a command, and it's always a command.
It's part of God's law, and it's based on the creation mandate, and that hasn't changed.
It's not cultural.
But the application of obedience, how we obey the command, that is cultural.
And I would disagree, and I know you would disagree.
We would say, but you're not obeying the command in a different way.
You're just not obeying the command because the method of obedience to this command is very specific.
And it has to be the head, it can't be, well, I'll cover my hand.
I'm going to wear gloves to church.
The head is significant.
The whole thing is about the head.
Do you have anything you would add to that?
Yeah, well, I think one of the things that is helpful to add to that is looking up pagan head covering in the modern day.
Because there's some very interesting stuff that I found from pagan women who are goddess worshippers who cover their heads because they think that their goddess has commanded it.
And it's all exactly the same symbolism as Paul uses here in 1 Corinthians 11.
This is not Christian symbolism, this is creational symbolism.
This is something that we all understand at an instinctual level, it's built into us to understand it.
Even if it needs to be refined and clarified, the basics of it are there in our psyches.
Okay, so here's another thing.
Another guy, so Doug Wilson, we talked, I'm almost positive I'm remembering correctly.
This was before we started recording that we talked about Doug Wilson.
It was.
So you and I, we both love Doug Wilson.
So I think we would both appreciate John MacArthur.
I'll speak for myself.
I would appreciate Doug Wilson more than John MacArthur.
Yes.
Okay, 100%.
Which isn't to downplay John MacArthur.
Right, it's not to downplay John MacArthur, but I just, Doug Wilson is just.
Yeah, I'm just super grateful.
Yeah, I've benefited much more.
Yeah, much more by him and his willingness to just be hated and ostracized for 40 years and all of evangelicalism and turn around.
And still be jolly about it.
Yeah, still be jolly about it.
And then the last two years is like, God just like giving an explanation point saying, like, this is Doug Wilson.
Listen to him.
You know, that sounds blasphemous.
So maybe that's too far.
He's been right.
He's been right about a lot of things.
And a lot of people, you know, he's getting a little bit of the credit these last couple of years.
The whole world's moving to Moscow.
So I think he'll be okay.
But, anyways, so Doug Wilson, he would say that.
Well, her hair is given to her as a covering, right?
What is that?
Is that the second half of verse 15?
So, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory, right?
Doesn't nature tell you this?
Nature itself tells you that if a man wears long hair, it's a disgrace.
That's verse 14 for him.
But if a woman has long hair, it is her glory, for her hair is given to her for a covering.
So, Doug Wilson would say, there you have it.
And again, this is coming from someone who loves Doug Wilson.
I've had him on the show three different times, and I know you love him too.
But I would just say, man, that, come on, Doug, you know better than that, because that basically what Doug is saying is, there you have it, verses two.
All the way through 14, Paul was just wasting his time.
And then he let us know, you know, right there in verse 15, the hair is a covering.
What is this passage about then?
Right.
I don't.
If the hair is the covering, what is this entire thing about?
Right.
He was just wasting his time.
If the hair is the covering, what does it mean that if a woman is not veiled or covered, since the hair is the covering, let her also be shorn?
But if it's a shame for her to be shorn, let her be covered.
Exactly.
We're just saying if a woman, it's bad for a woman not to have long hair.
It doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't make any sense.
Especially, and I like what you said.
If she will not cover her head, then let her cut off her hair, be shorn, shaven.
So, right there, what's implicit, or really explicit, it's very plain, is he's talking about a woman who has already long hair.
And he's saying that woman with long hair needs to cover her head.
And if she won't add to her long hair, which does not suffice as a covering in and of itself, but the hair itself needs a covering, if she will not add a covering to that long hair, Then she might as well not even have the long hair and go ahead and like that seems so, so clear.
So, do you?
Very clear.
Yeah.
Is there any other thoughts that you would?
Well, it's the only thing that Doug Wilson's wrong about.
So, we might as well make the most of it.
I'm sure there may be a couple of other things.
I wouldn't want to say what they are.
Just to be safe, I'll say there might be a couple of other things.
Yeah.
One of the things that I think, which surprises me, but I think Doug misses here, and it surprises me because Doug's usually pretty strong on biblical connections.
And symbolism and biblical theology, and that kind of thing, recognizing patterns in scripture.
It's one of the things that I learned in large part from him.
But something that he misses here is a pattern in scripture of glory and covering.
The way that God appears in scripture is usually as a glory which is covered.
So there's a covering which is around the central glory, as it were.
And the covering itself is also a manifestation of glory.
So there's something glorious about the covering.
So it's almost like there are two layers of glory, and the one layer conceals the The more glorious layer.
You see this in the pillar of fire and smoke, for example.
The fire is the central glory and the smoke is around the glory, almost like a concealer.
And yet, at the same time, the smoke itself is a pillar of fire and smoke, it's pretty glorious.
It's pretty impressive, right?
A second one would be in Isaiah chapter six, where God appears on the throne.
And I would say that it's not the Father, it's Jesus on the throne, because I don't think we ever see the Father in scripture, but that's neither here nor there.
God himself is on the throne.
And he is the central glory.
And in Ezekiel, we see a similar kind of thing where it's literally the man who appears to Ezekiel is described as the glory of God.
So here we see a direct connection between man as the glory and what Paul says in 1 Corinthians.
But the way that he appears in Isaiah is he's on the throne and he is the glory.
And yet there is this robe that he's wearing, which fills the temple.
And at the same time, there's this smoke that fills the temple.
And it's not clear if the robe and the smoke are actually the same thing, which would make sense in light of what we know from.
Other Christophanes and the pillar of fire, for instance, the burning bush maybe would be another example.
Presumably, there was some sort of smoke involved with that, but who knows?
It's probably just an example of the pillar of fire in the bush.
But the idea that there's this central glory and then there's this outer glory, which is like a robe or a mantle or a cloud or a smoke, there's a conceptual connection between all these things, which you also see clearly connected to 1 Corinthians in that at the end, when it says that.
Symbols of Dedication00:11:56
A woman's hair is given to her for a covering, it's a different word that is used throughout the rest of the passage.
The word there is parabolaon, which is used in Hebrews 1 12 to refer to the way that God will roll up the sky as a mantle.
So there's a connection between this idea of a mantle and a covering and something which conceals glory, and it is glorious.
The sky itself is bright as a brazen mirror.
It's glorious, but it's also something which conceals glory behind it.
It's like, in phenomenological terms, there is.
The heavens are behind the sky.
The heavens are not just the sky.
The sky conceals the glory of God from us.
It's like a representation of the glory, but the real glory is behind the physical world, as it were.
So, all of these ideas are in play in Paul's mind, which is why it makes perfect sense for him to say that woman's hair is her glory and also it is a covering for her glory.
I like that.
That's helpful.
It's funny because I'm preaching through Hebrews right now.
So, I'm just, I kind of started thinking about just because I just preached Hebrews chapter 1, verse 4 through 14.
And then this week I'm preaching Hebrews chapter 2, verses 1 through 4.
And I'm thinking about.
Um, you know, if we neglect such a great salvation, but before he says, if the message that came from angels proved to be reliable, um, right, you know, and uh, and and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, a just judgment, and the angels, you know, so I had to just do a lot of Old Testament work and cross reference over to all right, so what is it, you know, what is this message that was delivered by angels, you know, and so I went to Deuteronomy chapter 33, um,
that it says that there was a multitude of angels present.
At the mountain, when the Lord met with Moses and all the people gathered, it was the third day that God was going to come and speak to them.
They had to cleanse themselves and they get nervous, you know, don't let the Lord speak to us.
Moses goes up on the mountain and that leads right into that.
So, all that goes back to Exodus chapter 19 and then Exodus chapter 20, he receives the Ten Commandments.
But in that whole experience, there's this multitude of angels, but there's also fire and smoke and cloud and, yes, this dark shrouding.
And Moses goes into the darkness, and God is very specific about who can come into the darkness.
The darkness is not meant to be God Himself, the actual theophany.
But the darkness is, I think of even the temple with the tabernacle, right?
There's the Holy of Holies, but then there's this whole second layer, you know.
And it's not as though the Holy of Holies doesn't have a veil itself, you can't see into the Holy of Holies, but that's not enough in the mind of God.
It requires a whole second outer court.
You know, the holy place and then the most holy place.
And so it's the description of Solomon's temple would think that the before the holy place was not glorious.
You know, there's gold everywhere.
The veil itself is made of gold, purple cloth, and it's all glorious.
Right.
But the glory is covering a greater glory.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So, okay.
So just I'm trying to think of what are the little.
Quips that I'm going to get in the YouTube comments, whatever, you know, and to give the YouTube trolls a little bit more of the benefit of the doubt.
Some of many of them are not trolls, but genuine questions that people might have.
Okay, so here we go.
What about Samson?
Okay, what about Samson?
Samson did have long hair.
And interestingly, I don't think women were excluded from the Nazarite vow, which means that at the end of the Nazarite vow, if a woman were to take it, she would shave her hair off.
So both men and women did something transgressive with their hair in the Nazarite vow.
And I think that's kind of the point.
The idea of it is to illustrate something.
Odd is going on, that there's something unusual is happening with this person, that they've dedicated themselves to God and it's having a physical effect on them, which makes them look different from other people.
And the fact that they're not allowed to drink wine, for instance, is another great example.
If you were to, it's like a reverse analogy.
If growing the hair out is bad, then drinking wine is good, unless you're a particular kind of Baptist.
Right.
No.
But they weren't allowed to drink wine.
And so, are we to think that because they took the Nazarite bar, the Nazarite bar is therefore showing us that drinking wine is bad?
Well, no, obviously not.
The idea is that it's symbolizing something.
So the fact that they're transgressing these normal creational boundaries is indicative.
It's not imperative.
Okay.
Yeah.
That makes a lot of sense.
Who was it?
Was it Isaiah who, for seven years, was lay on his side naked?
Yep.
Something like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And God's not saying that, hey, that's a great normative practice to.
Not a great idea.
Yeah.
He's not saying, yeah, people, if you really love me, you'll lay on your side naked in public.
But it's, but, but there is, it was meant.
That was the whole purpose.
It was meant to stand out.
It was meant to go against what is normal, to say something significant that God was communicating.
So, any other thoughts?
What we haven't actually done is we haven't actually worked through the central thesis of my argument that you thought was most interesting.
We've gone through the passage and we've talked about some of the important elements, but the central thesis of my argument, and I'm not suggesting that this is the key to understanding the passage, I'm suggesting that it's an important key.
I think there are other important keys that you need to bring in to fully flesh out what the passage is saying.
But an important key is specifically relating to the fact that the context of this is worship.
And Paul explicitly talks about the glory that is present in worship and the fact that there are three glories there's the glory of God, which is man, there's the glory of man, which is the woman, and then there is the glory of the woman, which is her hair.
And he doesn't spell this out, but I think he takes it as given, as something that you would presuppose as obviously true, that the purpose of worship is to glorify God.
And so, to have other glories present in the worship service is a problem.
It needs to be dealt with in some way so that you're not suggesting that you're bringing some other glory into worship where only God's glory is to be on display.
The purpose of worship is glorifying God, not glorifying the man or glorifying the woman.
And so, you cover the woman in order to cover or conceal or attenuate the indicator subjection of the man's glory.
And by covering her head, you're also covering her hair, which indicates the same about her glory, her hair.
So the idea of it is very much related to modesty, which is that it is immodest to try to put some other glory on display in worship.
What you're doing is you're essentially competing with God's glory.
That would be embodied blasphemy, which is why I think that it is a serious thing.
It's not just a case of Christians who don't cover, or women who don't cover, aren't just disobeying a command of scripture.
They're disobeying a command of scripture that Paul.
Goes to some pains to explain and is so serious that he spends like half the chapter on this.
It's not like one of those, you know, off the cuff remarks where it's just obvious.
He actually takes the time to explicate why it's so important.
And one of the reasons that it's so important is that failing to do so is a kind of blasphemy because you're putting something on display in worship that shouldn't be on display in worship.
That's really serious.
Detracts from God's glory, distracts.
Yeah.
And you're saying kind of like two birds, one stone.
By covering the woman's hair, She's covering her glory because the hair is the glory of woman, but she's also covering her head, covering herself in a sense, and woman is the glory of man.
Man remains uncovered because man is the glory of God.
So only the glory of God is what is visible and being displayed.
Correct.
Yeah.
It's a pretty sound argument.
I like it.
It's a lot better than the semen argument.
Whoa, that's a way to end an episode, huh?
The semen argument.
Real quick.
So I can't just say that and say, all right, see you later.
Thanks, Nod, for coming.
Real quick, what is the?
I know it sounds weird, but it's a real argument.
What's the whole scene?
It's a real argument.
It's a serious paper, a couple of papers, I believe, published by a man called Troy Martin.
His contention is that in verse 15, where it talks about a woman has long hair, her hair is given to her as a covering, the word there is parabolaon, which we mentioned is in Hebrews 1 12 and means a mantle or something that you would cover yourself with the sky, we rolled up like as a garment of some kind.
But his contention is that the primary meaning of parabolaon in the first century is Hippocratic, it has to do with physiology.
And That parabolaion is primarily in Greek used to refer to the testicles of a man.
So the idea is that in Hippocratic physiology, the testicles are the receptacle for semen.
And because women don't have one, the equivalent in women is their hair, which is conceived of as being hollow, so that the long hair sort of sucks up all the semen into tubes, which is why it's bad for a woman to have short hair.
Because if she's got short hair, then where's all the semen going to go?
It's going to become more manly because she's got too much semen in her body.
That's the gist of it.
Hopefully, not misrepresenting Hippocratic physiology.
It's fairly relevant.
Because when I first came to the head covering conviction, I think it was 2019.
And wouldn't you know it, I shared that conviction with one of my friends, a Presbyterian pastor.
And within like an hour, he sent me back that argument as to say, Isn't this stupid?
And aren't you stupid too?
Well, that's not my argument.
Because his wife doesn't cover and he wouldn't hold to that position.
So he, of course, he probably Googled, What is the dumbest?
Argument for head coverings, and that's the one that appeared.
Let me play devil's advocate here for a second.
Let me defend Troy.
I don't think that he is really correct, but I think that he makes his argument.
He draws out a compelling number of examples where parabolaeon really does refer to a sexual organ, male sexual organ specifically.
And I think that it would be foolish to simply dismiss all that evidence, all that linguistic evidence out of hand.
I think that obviously the analogy of faith is what we use in interpreting parabolaeon.
So the fact that Hebrews 1 12 uses the same, the exact same word to describe a mantle, something that is a garment that's rolled up that covers things, is obviously very instructive.
We need to take that on board.
But the fact that it had those Hippocratic connotations isn't necessarily irrelevant.
It doesn't mean that we can interpret Paul as saying, well, actually, women's hair is given as a semen receptacle and therefore it's appropriate for it to be covered in worship.
But we can interpret it to be saying, Actually, women's hair has a sexual kind of nature, and he's playing on that connection so that there is something central about women's hair, which makes it even more immodest to be on display in worship because there is a sexual component to it.
And that's certainly something which a lot of cultures have held to.
It's pretty common in many ancient cultures or many majority world cultures for women to cover their hair because it's recognized that the hair is central and should be reserved its full glory.
Be on display for the husband because it is something that allures men and attracts men and makes men, you know, want to look at it.
So it's immodest for to put that on display where other men will want to look at you.
Final Thoughts on Modesty00:00:50
All right.
Okay.
Well, any final thoughts before we go ahead and sign off?
Wow.
At this point, my mind is like a bag full of cats.
So, yeah, I think you gave us a lot to think about.
Really, really helpful.
And I hope that I really hope that's the best I can hope for in this episode, honestly.
Well, no, I think it was great.
And I really hope that our audience, because I haven't really done a topic like that where we just, just, Take a whole chapter and, you know, or half a chapter and go verse by verse.
So, hopefully, that's really helpful for people.
And I really appreciate you coming on the show.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here again.
Thanks so much for listening.
But, real quick, before you go, do us a small favor take a moment and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed the show.
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