The NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - Were Head Coverings Unique To The Corinthian Church？

00:00:00.000 All right, listen, guys, I get it.

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00:00:37.100 take the time to do so. Thank you so much. God bless. Question. You have referenced Corinthians

00:00:47.180 being the Corinthian church, but for, oh, I'm sorry, to the, you've referenced that Paul's

00:00:55.400 letter, first and second Corinthians is to the Corinthian church, but for us. That makes complete

00:01:02.160 sense. Thank you, Darren. I feel like it makes a lot of sense too. How would you then apply this

00:01:07.420 exegetical principle to head coverings? I see what you did there, Darren. Well, the big answer,

00:01:14.220 the long form answer for this one is going to come out very, very, very soon. Our very own Dale

00:01:20.000 Partridge, close friend of ours. He is the founder and president of relearn.org, which is becoming

00:01:27.460 kind of like a sister ministry with the right response because we just, I don't know, I like

00:01:31.880 Dale and by God's grace, for whatever reason, he likes me and we're partnering together. We got a

00:01:36.280 lot of things coming up. He's speaking at our conference in May, Theonomy and Postmillennialism

00:01:40.120 conference. But there's even some talk, I don't want to give away too much, but of me and Dale

00:01:45.000 kind of starting a weekly show together in the future. And we're also doing some other things

00:01:49.980 with other guys like Eric Kahn and Michael Foster. And so anyways, Dale's great. I like Dale.

00:01:58.000 And he's writing a book on head coverings. And I got to write the foreword for that book.

00:02:03.900 and it perfectly addresses this question in like 37 000 words and it's great and um that doesn't

00:02:11.900 really help you today does it darren but but that that will be a conclusive and exhaustive and

00:02:17.000 solidly biblical answer but what i would say um to your question in the short abridged version

00:02:23.880 for today's answer is that uh the apostle paul in first corinthians 11 when he's addressing

00:02:28.900 head coverings he appeals to creation he appeals to creation anytime we see one of the authors of

00:02:37.620 scripture appeal to creation a created order before sin ever even entered the world one of

00:02:45.860 the things that we should be clued in on is that this is a timeless principle timeless that it is

00:02:52.740 not cultural, and it is not temporary. It is ongoing, to the end of the age. So when Paul

00:03:00.540 talks about why a woman should cover her head, he argues from creation, that Adam is formed first,

00:03:07.840 then Eve. That woman was made from man, right? Adam's made from the dust of the ground. Woman 0.90

00:03:12.620 is made from man. God could have made both Adam and Eve from the dust of the ground at the same 0.99

00:03:16.240 time. He doesn't. It's not a coincidence. It is intentional. Everything that God does

00:03:22.040 is not arbitrary but intentional with reason with purpose and therefore authoritative what god does

00:03:28.200 in nature not just what he speaks in his spoken word but also what we see in the natural word

00:03:34.300 in natural revelation what god has created it is authoritative it comes with intentionality and it

00:03:39.940 is authoritative god does not make adam and eve at the same time he makes adam first eve second

00:03:44.820 and he does not make them from the same substance both from the dust of the ground he makes adam

00:03:49.320 from the dust of the ground eve is made from man and for man they are partners in a sense and yet

00:03:57.560 at the very same time adam is not the mutual helpmate of eve they are not mutual helpmates

00:04:02.660 adam is head and eve is adam's helpmate not the other way around they are companions they are

00:04:10.160 partners they are co-heirs of grace equal image bearers right god made man in his image male and

00:04:18.180 female two parts of man both in his image so both man and woman equally bear the image of god but

00:04:25.780 they do not equally bear the glory of god and there is a difference and that's another thing

00:04:31.360 that first corinthians 11 gets into is talking about glory covering unveiling glory the woman's

00:04:38.240 hair is the glory of god no the glory of woman and woman is the glory of god no the glory of man

00:04:45.040 and man is the glory of god yes man is the glory of christ the glory of god so man and woman bear

00:04:53.400 equally god's image but man exclusively bears god's glory he reflects god's glory woman reflects

00:05:01.520 the glory of man and her hair reflects the glory of woman so there's a there's an argument of of

00:05:07.640 of tears of glories that god's glory when when we gather on the lord's day god's glory is the

00:05:15.020 only glory that should be on display. When a woman covers her hair, hair is the glory of woman. 0.83

00:05:19.660 She is covering the glory of woman. And by covering her hair and her head, she is also covering 0.99

00:05:25.180 woman itself, which is the glory of man. So in one foul swoop with one covering, covering the hair, 1.00

00:05:30.900 which also the hair covers woman, both woman and hair, glory of woman and woman being glory of man,

00:05:36.800 the glory of woman and glory of man are both being concealed. So that the only glory that's

00:05:41.540 visibly on display in the Lord's day worship of the saints is man, the glory of God.

00:05:48.720 So it's God's glory that gets center stage.

00:05:51.980 It's God's glory that exclusively gets the spotlight.

00:05:55.760 So there's an argument of glory. 0.93

00:05:57.520 There's an argument of created order, Adam and Eve, Adam made first, woman made from 0.52

00:06:02.860 man, after man, from man and for man.

00:06:06.540 So that's a creation argument before sin ever even entered the world.

00:06:10.240 then there's an argument from angels even um that's you know and you'll have to read dale's

00:06:17.360 book for this he does an excellent job of getting into um the angels and their perspective so you've

00:06:22.200 got an argument from uh creation you've got an argument from angels you've got an argument

00:06:26.260 um from from glories of corresponding tiers of of glory and then paul wraps it all up and says

00:06:33.520 if anybody wants to be contentious about this practice or if anybody wants to be contentious

00:06:37.920 about this. We have no such practice in the church, right? We have no such practice. The

00:06:42.460 practice of head coverings. We don't have the practice of head coverings in the church, right?

00:06:45.660 No. People try to, liberal feminists will interpret it that way. And you'll say, 1.00

00:06:51.300 well, I interpret it that way. Well, you might be a liberal feminist, but no, the practice that 1.00

00:06:56.860 Paul says, we have no such practice in the church. The practice is not the practice of head covering.

00:07:01.200 The practice is the practice of being contentious, arguing with the apostle Paul about head

00:07:06.160 governance and and paul explicitly says this isn't just in corinth this is in all the churches in

00:07:12.580 all the churches so so we know that it wasn't uh geographically limited and we also know that it

00:07:18.840 wasn't uh historically limited so it's not just for corinth and it's not just for the first century

00:07:23.540 it is for all places in all times why because it has a root in the created order and here's the

00:07:29.500 problem if you go with that hermeneutic because some people do they'll say oh well this was

00:07:32.940 something unique with you know there was a unique form of temple prostitution and dale hits that

00:07:37.140 argument too in his book it's fantastic and talks about how that ironically that is well

00:07:41.520 i'll try not to give give too many spoilers um but he dismantles the argument of the whole you

00:07:48.140 know well this was a unique type of temple prostitution in corinth and that's why you

00:07:52.280 know women had to cover their heads because of lewd practices with temple no that's wrong um

00:07:57.020 But I will say this, the same hermeneutic that you would use to say that this is just

00:08:06.460 for Corinth and just for that time.

00:08:09.680 If that's the case, if we're going to do that, we're going to be consistent and not

00:08:13.780 hypocrites, then we should have no problem with Beth Moore preaching on a Sunday morning 0.92

00:08:18.000 from the pulpit because the created order argument that Paul hinges head coverings in 0.92

00:08:23.940 in first corinthians 11 is the same created order argument that he makes in first timothy chapter 2

00:08:29.720 for why a woman should not teach or have authority over a man for woman it was not woman who was

00:08:36.820 formed first but the man right and it was not um the man who was deceived and became a sinner but

00:08:41.240 the woman who was deceived like it's the same kind of argument it's an argument from created

00:08:45.040 order it's an argument from order of fall the order of the fall that woman was first deceived

00:08:49.480 that man sinned with his eyes wide open.

00:08:52.360 He was deliberate.

00:08:53.400 If anything, it makes him even more morally culpable

00:08:56.320 that Adam sinned knowingly, right?

00:08:59.260 So that's not to absolve Adam of guilt,

00:09:01.220 but Adam is not as capable as Eve in being deceived.

00:09:06.560 In general, and I do believe this,

00:09:08.480 I believe the Bible teaches it,

00:09:09.780 in general, women are more susceptible,

00:09:12.120 more vulnerable to deception, 0.95

00:09:14.360 including doctrinal deception. 1.00

00:09:16.580 It is women who are often weak-willed women,

00:09:18.900 the new testament authors say uh that were led astray by certain false teachers so all that

00:09:25.020 being said it's the same hermeneutic arguments um for a woman not preaching as a woman covering her

00:09:32.480 head first timothy chapter 2 verses 9 through 15 and first corinthians chapter 11 so we we don't

00:09:39.260 want to go that route um we don't want to go that route one because it's not faithful and two because

00:09:44.720 if we go that route then um we have to sit underneath beth morris preaching and that would

00:09:48.940 be a tragedy so um no that's not the way to go and in terms of all scripture is for us not all

00:09:55.800 scripture is to us directly there is a specific contextual immediate audience that the scripture

00:10:01.520 is written to it's all for us but that you know first corinthians is to the corinthian church

00:10:06.840 back to your original question in that regard um yeah the the difference i agree with that

00:10:14.860 the difference though with head coverings um again i think the created order arguments

00:10:20.220 the created order order arguments um when paul writes about spiritual gifts in first corinthians

00:10:26.380 12 13 and 14 um he doesn't root spiritual gifts in the order of creation he doesn't make it

00:10:36.740 timeless. He doesn't make it timeless, but he does when it comes to roles, respective roles

00:10:43.680 between men and women, whether it's 1 Timothy chapter 2, whether it's 1 Peter, right? So not

00:10:52.160 just Paul, but Peter, 1 Peter chapter 3. So whether it's Paul in Ephesians 5, 1 Timothy chapter 2,

00:10:58.360 1 Peter 3, Ephesians 5, 1 Corinthians 14, and 1 Corinthians 11. In all these respects,

00:11:05.640 the the respective dynamics and roles hierarchy of authority between men and women it has its root

00:11:13.140 and something that god intentionally did in creation itself before sin ever even entered

00:11:19.500 the world it is a timeless principle for all people in all times and all places that is not

00:11:27.360 the rooting that we find with the sign gifts such as prophecy or tongues in the new testament

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The NXR Podcast - April 29, 2023

QUESTIONS - Were Head Coverings Unique To The Corinthian Church？

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