The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Biblical Womanhood & Head Coverings

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.

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00:00:18.000 Hi, this is Pastor Joel with Right Response Ministries.

00:00:20.060 You're listening to another episode of Theology Applied.

00:00:22.520 My special guest for this episode is Non Tenant from It's Good to Be a Man with Michael Foster.

00:00:28.240 and the topic that we address is head coverings. But what's unique about this episode is that we

00:00:34.120 don't just speak about the topic, we actually spend our time, basically have a Bible study,

00:00:39.320 just the two of us together for you to watch by working verse by verse through 1 Corinthians 11.

00:00:44.460 So it'll take a few minutes to get there, but once you're at about probably, I don't know,

00:00:49.120 six, seven minute mark of this episode, you'll see us, Bible's out, and we just start with verse

00:00:54.560 one of 1 Corinthians 11 and work all the way through verse 16. We answer some of the counter

00:01:01.580 arguments against head coverings. We address John MacArthur, his position, and why we think he's

00:01:06.300 wrong. We address Doug Wilson, who we love, and why we think he's wrong. So I think it's probably

00:01:11.860 one of the most helpful one-stop shop episodes that you'll be able to find on YouTube or anywhere

00:01:19.300 prayer on the issue of head coverings directly from the text in 1 Corinthians 11. Thanks for

00:01:25.280 tuning in. Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:01:37.140 All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webman with

00:01:41.080 Right Response Ministries, and today I am happy to have, as a guest, non-tenant, the B is silent.

00:01:46.820 Non Tenet, welcome to the show.

00:01:48.620 Thank you for having me.

00:01:49.700 Yep.

00:01:50.280 So, Non, where do you live?

00:01:51.480 It's not the Great Down Under, but it's close.

00:01:55.500 It's right next to the Great Down Under, New Zealand.

00:01:58.020 New Zealand.

00:01:59.040 Tell us about New Zealand.

00:02:00.080 How are things in the bumbling metropolis of liberty, New Zealand?

00:02:05.700 Slipping from poor to abysmal is how I would describe it.

00:02:09.900 Currently, there is a protest in Wellington going on, which has been going on for about

00:02:13.180 three weeks in front of Parliament.

00:02:14.480 and today the police came out in force with the LRADS and the pepper spray and they started taking

00:02:22.100 down tents and removing all of the infrastructure that's been put in place for people to stay there

00:02:25.880 and it's not looking particularly rosy I would say right yeah I get emails somewhat frequently

00:02:32.920 from people you know all over but a lot of them come from guys in Australia Canada and New Zealand

00:02:38.940 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?

00:02:46.660 You know, because it's hard, you know, getting a work visa and things like that.

00:02:49.420 We have, you know, we have a group of actually four siblings who they, you know, they're in their 20s or so.

00:02:55.940 And they live in Waco and they come and visit our church almost on a weekly basis.

00:03:01.040 And they're not members, but they love the church.

00:03:04.140 and they're all from canada but they're it's hard to get their parents because for them they just

00:03:08.920 they can get the student visa it's easier to do the student thing than uh that's one of the main

00:03:13.900 things keeping us here as well parents yeah right exactly countries are the head of the world

00:03:19.260 economic forum spear the tip of the spear yeah totally well you know we were in california for

00:03:24.160 over a decade my wife and i and for us it was you know it it was a hard choice because we love the

00:03:30.320 church but it was easier in the sense that both her parents and mine live in texas so it's it's

00:03:36.220 different when it's like i'm leaving mom and dad that god's called me to honor you know my aging

00:03:41.380 parents i'm leaving them i'm taking their grandchildren away from them um to to go to

00:03:46.100 some somewhere where it's almost like you're you're stuck in between the choice of uh honor

00:03:50.280 your mother and father and you know and then uh providing for your kids you know it's like your

00:03:55.980 mom or dad are kids and given if that's the choice and i i you know i choose kids but but

00:04:00.380 you're thinking but can i do both and but for us it's like uh would you like to leave california

00:04:05.580 and go to texas where mom and dad already are you know and it became an easier decision yeah

00:04:12.360 kind of a no-brainer almost right yeah all right well today the topic that uh we're going to

00:04:17.640 discuss is the topic of head coverings and so some of our listeners are probably aware of this but i

00:04:23.560 did an episode on this a little while ago, not on our show Theology Applying, that's what we're

00:04:28.440 doing right now, but I have another podcast where I just run solo and I take questions. And so one

00:04:34.500 of the questions was regarding head coverings, but I read one of your articles on the subject

00:04:39.280 a couple months ago, and I thought you just did really good work of talking about the issue of

00:04:44.580 submission and authority, but you brought this other concept into play about glory,

00:04:49.960 which is so prevalent in the text. I mean, it's right there again and again and again.

00:04:55.520 But I didn't really know what to do with it. And you really did a great job, I think, just

00:04:59.580 making it plain, making it simple of, oh, this is an issue of glory, the hair of a woman being

00:05:06.560 her glory and woman being the glory of man, man, the glory of God. And the way you parsed out image

00:05:11.320 and glory, so that both man and woman are the image of God, but woman is the glory of man.

00:05:18.200 you just did a really good job. So I really appreciate that article. And I just wanted

00:05:22.740 to have you on the show to talk about it. And I don't know exactly how to do this, but I've got

00:05:26.160 my Bible right in front of me. And I thought, maybe we just work through the text. I haven't

00:05:30.900 really done that on an episode where we just exegetically work through a text. How does that

00:05:34.980 sound to you? Yeah, that sounds fine to me. I feel like that would be cool. I think our

00:05:39.000 listeners would appreciate this. A little Bible study? Why not? Yeah, a little Bible study. So

00:05:42.500 all right. So this is 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Do you want to go ahead and start? Maybe just

00:05:48.080 read the first couple of verses and you just kind of lead and I'll pipe in from here to there?

00:05:52.880 Sure. I'll give it a shot. So 1 Corinthians 11, these are God's words.

00:05:56.940 Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you that you remember me

00:06:03.000 in all things and hold fast to the traditions, even as I delivered them unto you. But I would

00:06:08.380 have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man

00:06:12.500 and the head of christ is god every man praying or prophesying having his head uncovered dishonoreth

00:06:19.060 his head but every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonoreth her head for

00:06:24.440 it is one of the same thing as if she were shaven that's father reading all right well that's that's

00:06:31.360 plenty to talk about right there go ahead sure is well the thing about this is that um it doesn't

00:06:36.400 get directly into the argument that Paul is ultimately making. So when you start reading

00:06:43.180 the passage and you see, okay, the head of man is Christ, the head of woman is man. You can kind of

00:06:49.440 wrap your head around that, even if you're a modern Christian. But then he immediately says

00:06:54.120 in verse four, every man praying and prophesying, having his head covered is dishonoring his head

00:06:57.800 and vice versa for the woman. And the connection between what came before and what's happening in

00:07:05.560 that verse doesn't seem very clear at all um i do think that there's a lot more going on than just

00:07:12.880 glory i wouldn't want to make out that i've kind of that that glory is the one key to understanding

00:07:18.740 the passage but if you continue to read then a central theme or a central plank in paul's

00:07:28.320 argument becomes much clearer which is related to the nature of headship versus glory and the way

00:07:35.020 that the creation of something is related to its glory.

00:07:39.320 So the way that a man is the glory of God

00:07:42.280 is because man comes from God.

00:07:43.620 And then the woman is the glory of man

00:07:45.220 because the woman comes from man.

00:07:46.740 So he's thinking back to the creation account

00:07:49.280 and he's thinking back to the connection

00:07:51.360 between authority and glory and headship and glory.

00:07:54.760 And then he's basically just putting a symbol on it.

00:07:58.220 He's saying the way that you go about this in worship

00:08:01.100 is important, to correctly symbolizing the order that you are living under, the creation

00:08:08.200 order that Christ has re-established.

00:08:14.540 The idea that we're being transformed into the image of Christ is very important, not

00:08:19.900 something which is directly in the passage, but something that Paul talks about in many

00:08:23.820 places elsewhere.

00:08:25.080 I think that the idea that the Christian church is supposed to image something very particular

00:08:29.280 about god's creation about the um the recreation the idea that we're new men we're new creations

00:08:34.900 is also kind of implicit in the background of this but now i'm getting ahead of myself so maybe

00:08:39.340 okay help me oh yeah let me help you so no that's that's all great so far but here's and i'm going

00:08:43.960 to help by in part giving some thoughts but also asking just asking you some questions so verse 4

00:08:49.000 i know that one of the questions that that jumps off the page for me and probably a lot of the

00:08:52.500 listeners to this is every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his

00:08:56.600 head. So, but every wife, verse five, who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors

00:09:01.880 her head since it is the same as if her head were shaven. Now, if we go further and we cross

00:09:06.880 reference that with like 1 Corinthians 14, for example, where, you know, Paul is, you know,

00:09:12.640 I think of, you know, Martin Luther, you know, we, when we're interpreting scripture, the only

00:09:17.200 infallible interpretive tool of scripture is scripture. And what we want to do is work from

00:09:23.580 the clearest text and let those interpret the ones that may seem to be more obscure and maybe

00:09:28.560 they're really not, you know, but whatever seems less clear, let's interpret it by the scriptures

00:09:32.800 that are more clear, you know, so like, you know, descriptive text of, you know, God repenting,

00:09:38.900 you know, well, let's look at really clear text. It's that God is not a man that he should change

00:09:43.240 his mind. Okay. All right. So now what does it mean for God to repent, you know? And so in this

00:09:48.440 case in rome uh first corinthians chapter 14 paul explicitly says that it is shameful for a woman

00:09:53.920 to speak at church right and so and and and the reason why i reference first corinthians 14 is

00:09:59.680 one because it's in the same letter so that's helpful um and and right where paul talks about

00:10:04.880 prophecy and tongues and here we have in verse four and five uh prophecy and so we you know we

00:10:09.800 have praying and we have prophecy um and then in chapter 14 we have prophesying um and tongues and

00:10:16.940 right in there, Paul talks about how a woman is shameful for women to speak at church. She must

00:10:21.020 remain silent. And I use that text because it's in the same letter. It also is dealing with prophecy

00:10:25.900 rather than something like 1 Timothy 2, verse 9, a woman should learn in quietness and full

00:10:29.980 submission because that's really easy and clear to you. I think that also would say that a woman

00:10:34.860 couldn't speak at church in any capacity, but that's clearest in 1 Timothy 2 to say that a

00:10:41.080 woman shouldn't teach, right? Because that's what it says, shouldn't teach or exercise authority

00:10:44.560 over man. And most of our listeners would agree with that, that they would, you know, they would

00:10:48.680 be, not all of them would be comfortable saying that they're patriarchal. I would be comfortable

00:10:53.740 saying that. Or gendered piety, I think is one of the terms that you guys have used, or at least

00:10:58.940 at minimum, I think a lot of our listeners would say, okay, we're hard complementarians, you know,

00:11:03.380 whatever, a true complementarian, which I would say, yeah, they're patriarchal, me too. But,

00:11:08.620 you know, so with that, you know, all of them, you know, our listeners would, you know, most of

00:11:13.940 our listeners would agree and say, yeah, Beth Moore can't preach on Sunday. But Paul goes further

00:11:19.120 than that in 1 Corinthians 14 and says that a woman shouldn't even speak. And I remember when

00:11:23.760 I was coming into those convictions, wrestling through that and being like, okay, I can't have

00:11:28.000 a woman do the announcements. And then I came into the conviction, we shouldn't even do announcements

00:11:32.500 during the middle of it. That's not an ordinary means of grace. We don't need to be doing

00:11:35.900 announcements right in the middle of a service. You could do them before the service.

00:11:39.060 Exactly, yeah. So it's like, let us now begin to worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy

00:11:43.560 spirit and and then it's just preaching the word praying the word singing the word and seeing the

00:11:48.400 word in the sacraments of the lord's supper and baptism we close with the doxology and a

00:11:52.600 benediction and then we say we have now concluded our lord's day worship service a couple of

00:11:57.780 announcements on your way out you know which it's different it really does make a difference

00:12:01.340 and it's still me or one of the elders um you know who are doing that so my whole point is to

00:12:07.140 say, all right, pray or prophesy, part of the problem is it's like verse five, but every wife

00:12:13.320 who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered, it's like, but she doesn't need to be praying

00:12:18.100 or prophesying. I'm reading from the ESV there. Yeah. Okay. That naughty ESV. Right. Okay. So

00:12:23.520 every wife. So yeah. So every woman, yeah, no, I agree. Yeah. So every woman who prays or

00:12:28.580 prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head since it is the same as if her head

00:12:33.800 we're shaven. But we know, Paul, because of 1 Corinthians 14, that a woman can't even speak.

00:12:41.120 So pray or prophesy can't mean a woman's coming up to give a prophetic word or coming up

00:12:45.000 to lead in corporate prayer. So what does it mean to pray and prophesy? I have my ideas,

00:12:49.500 but what does that mean? Yeah. Well, there are a couple of ways that you can go here,

00:12:53.380 and I think that probably both of them are actually correct. The first is that you could

00:12:57.220 say that this doesn't actually have to do with corporate worship. This has to do with a more

00:13:02.160 general principle of which corporate worship would be one application. So a woman who prays

00:13:06.940 or prophesies at any time with her head uncovered is dishonoring her head and even more so in

00:13:13.020 corporate worship where she shouldn't even be praying or prophesying these, you know, in a way

00:13:17.240 that calls attention to herself in a way that isn't in subjection. And I think that that has

00:13:21.880 some validity to it, but I would say that the whole context of the last few chapters of

00:13:29.540 first corinthians or i think it's 11 to 14 are specifically corporate worship paul is discussing

00:13:35.120 different elements of corporate worship in those chapters so to divorce this principle from

00:13:39.780 corporate worship and to say that really he's not actually speaking about corporate worship at all

00:13:43.100 would be a mistake rather what we should say is that he is speaking about corporate worship but

00:13:47.640 that this is a principle which applies beyond just corporate worship i would take that view so i

00:13:52.200 think that women should cover if they pray so as i have for the okay so with with that so i know

00:13:57.800 where are you going with that? And I've got a couple of guys, friends who would hold to that

00:14:01.560 position. So we know he's talking about corporate worship because in the very same chapter, he goes,

00:14:05.620 I mean, the very next thing that we're going to see is the Lord's Supper. And we know that we're

00:14:09.920 not taking the Lord's Supper as individual Christians at home on a Tuesday afternoon,

00:14:14.840 that that is given to the church and it needs to be administered rightly on the Lord's Day by those

00:14:19.020 who've been ordained to do so. And so it is corporate, but basically what you're saying is

00:14:24.460 the principle, this whole principle of covering a head or uncovering your head if you're a man,

00:14:29.940 is the principle, you can see it as relating to a place, a context, or a function. So is it related

00:14:36.840 to the function that can occur in any place, in any day of the week, prayer and prophecy as a

00:14:42.340 function, or is prayer and prophecy being used as a label to describe the premier context where

00:14:50.040 prayer and prophecy corporately happens namely the the lord's day gathering the saints and you're

00:14:54.800 saying that um you feel more comfortable applying it to function i don't know if i would say that

00:15:01.860 all week long i would say that the the context is corporate and so it is specifically to do with

00:15:09.980 worship but i am hesitant to divorce the function from the context so when i look at the way that

00:15:19.040 a woman prays or prophesies during the week, I want to say that that is like an extension

00:15:25.920 of the worship that happens on a Sunday. It's not gathering with the saints to worship in

00:15:30.700 that particular way, but it is a form of worship. And so the same principle presumably applies.

00:15:36.900 I wouldn't say that I'm hard and fast. I see a woman in church uncovered and that

00:15:41.820 really bothers me. I think that she's in sin, even if she doesn't know she's in sin.

00:15:47.060 i see a woman praying with her husband with her head uncovered privately how i managed to see that

00:15:52.460 who can say but if that were to happen i would bother you less or not or hardly at all i would

00:15:58.660 not be bothered especially by that no so what one thing real quick that's funny so if you if you

00:16:03.840 if you connect it to function that's those are the terms i'm using it helps me think about it

00:16:08.420 maybe there are better terms but if we take the principle of covering uh covering for a woman

00:16:13.680 uncovering for a man that that's the principle and if we're attaching the principle to the function

00:16:18.600 whenever prophecy occurs whenever prayer occurs rather than the the the place the context the

00:16:24.980 lord's day which is the premier context for prayer and prophecy in the corporate sense

00:16:28.780 if we attach it to function it's funny but that actually a lot of people actually hold that

00:16:35.940 theological view they can't articulate it it's probably subconscious they probably don't even

00:16:39.920 know it but there are a lot of people right here in the great state of texas where i'm at who

00:16:44.320 actually do hold that view and they exercise it still to this day used to be much more common

00:16:48.520 and you probably know what i'm about to say but um the men hold that view by virtue of taking off

00:16:54.000 their hat even in their home to pray for a meal so i'm about to do the function prayer and i and

00:17:00.640 i'm a man and i'm taking off my hat and that like it's like where does that come from first

00:17:05.980 corinthians 11 i'm pretty sure that's that's the origin of it so somebody used to think that

00:17:10.500 right yeah we think it's crazy now but somebody that for that to be a cultural thing it didn't

00:17:16.380 just come out of nowhere somebody found that in the bible and that was a widespread practice

00:17:20.760 culture is downstream from religion i got into huge trouble one time at my former church because

00:17:25.900 i wore my hat into the church building and not during church just into the church building i

00:17:30.300 sat down and i took my hat off someone was very offended by that but oddly not at all offended by

00:17:35.500 all of the women who didn't wear anything on the heads in the church.

00:17:39.340 Have you ever had, I've had this happen a couple of times.

00:17:42.460 Have you ever had a young, zealous, overly zealous young man

00:17:47.900 talk about how women in the church should cover their head,

00:17:51.520 but you see him every Sunday wearing a hat?

00:17:55.080 Have you ever had that happen?

00:17:55.920 That would be funny, though.

00:17:57.140 I've had that happen.

00:17:58.400 It's really funny.

00:17:59.720 It's a bit unfortunate. 0.97

00:18:00.780 Just the ignorance and hypocrisy is off the charts. 0.93

00:18:03.400 But anyways, okay, I digress. 0.97

00:18:05.920 So go ahead.

00:18:07.020 So go ahead.

00:18:07.840 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.

00:18:26.580 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.

00:18:33.400 or if we take prophecy to relate to the preaching of the word,

00:18:38.200 even if we don't think that the gift of prophecy continues today,

00:18:40.480 we would think of a man teaching.

00:18:42.340 I don't think that's what Paul has in mind for women.

00:18:44.960 I think that because he's speaking about, you notice verse four,

00:18:48.300 it starts with every man praying or prophesying,

00:18:50.340 having his head covered, disarmouth his head.

00:18:52.320 That's the starting context.

00:18:54.560 So what about women then?

00:18:56.560 Well, every woman praying and prophesying with her head unveiled,

00:18:58.760 disarmouth her head.

00:18:59.480 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, a casual term for the corporate worship service itself.

00:19:12.560 And women participate in that, even though they do not individually stand up and pray or prophesy.

00:19:18.560 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 to this day is Saul among the prophets.

00:19:38.980 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 from God.

00:19:56.480 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 foretelling, so there's prediction, but then there's also foretelling, but then there's also just this, yeah, an exultation in the Lord and praising the Lord, and that seems to also fall under the banner of prophesying.

00:20:21.160 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.

00:20:39.860 They're not standing up to do it solo.

00:20:43.280 They're participating in the corporate utterance.

00:20:45.620 if you want to call that prophecy which is probably reasonable if paul is using the term

00:20:51.480 prophecy loosely in the way that the old testament does then a woman who is singing in church is

00:20:57.120 engaged in a kind of prophecy you know not the kind we tend to think of but um it's something

00:21:03.240 which is totally legitimate people wouldn't say women shouldn't sing in church just because

00:21:06.600 they're not allowed to speak in church exactly so singing we know from ephesians and colossians

00:21:10.980 we're addressing God, but we're also addressing one another. And so there's this horizontal aspect

00:21:15.660 of addressing one another, charging one another. But then I also think of like the Lord's Supper.

00:21:22.720 You do this in remembrance of me, but the Lord's Supper I would hold is more than just a mere

00:21:26.880 memorial. I believe that Christ is spiritually present. I would say it like this, Christ is

00:21:32.640 always spiritually present by virtue of the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit with all

00:21:36.720 believers in all places, in all times. But Christ is uniquely spiritually present by virtue of the

00:21:42.520 Holy Spirit when believers gather together on the first day of the week for worship, according to

00:21:47.420 the prescriptions of God. And so I would say all the worship service on the Lord's day is communion.

00:21:53.080 And then communion, communion is the climax of our communion. We always do the Lord's Supper at the

00:21:58.460 end. The worship service is climaxing in, bellying up to the Lord's table and eating with the Lord.

00:22:05.820 And in that, so it's this remembrance of him, but it's also a rich and spiritually real communion with the Lord.

00:22:14.980 But then it's also prophecy.

00:22:18.220 Because the last thing that Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, ironically, is he says,

00:22:23.400 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,

00:22:29.680 you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again.

00:22:32.340 So there's a proclamation that's occurring in our partaking of the Lord's Supper, and women partake of the Lord's Supper.

00:22:39.080 And so therefore, women are proclaiming the Lord's death.

00:22:42.120 So they're engaged in prophetic ministry as they eat.

00:22:45.920 Yeah, correct.

00:22:47.280 Okay, so you want to keep going?

00:22:49.580 Sure.

00:22:50.600 Where were we?

00:22:51.240 Verse 6, I believe.

00:22:52.620 6.

00:22:53.920 For if a woman is not veiled, let her also be shorn.

00:22:57.700 But if it is a shame to a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be veiled.

00:23:01.320 for a man indeed ought not to have his head failed for as much as he is the image and glory of god

00:23:06.800 but the woman is the glory of the man for the man is not of the woman but the woman of the man

00:23:12.500 for neither was the man created for the woman but the woman for the man for this cause ought the

00:23:18.100 woman to have a sign of authority on her head because of the angels so it's probably quite

00:23:23.960 enough to keep us going right so so you spend plenty of time on verses six through nine but

00:23:28.800 then verse 10 i that's one that that's a tough one with the angels but but go go ahead uh verses

00:23:35.600 six through nine do that first then i'd love to hear what you think about that's actually the

00:23:39.500 angels yeah let's suppose that the key to the passage in some sense might be in verse 10 okay

00:23:46.400 all right and let's have a look at uh psalm eight which i think is what paul has in mind here

00:23:56.320 so in psalm 8 this is a a kind of reflection on the creation the way that god has given dominion

00:24:04.800 to man oh yahweh our god how excellent is thy name in all the earth who has set thy glory upon

00:24:10.980 the heavens out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established strength because of thy

00:24:15.440 adversaries that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger then verse three shifts slightly

00:24:21.320 when i consider thy heavens the work of thy fingers the moon and the stars which thou hast

00:24:24.720 ordained what is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou visitest him

00:24:29.180 for thou hast set him but a little lower than the gods which in hebrews is translated a little

00:24:34.640 lower than the angels which is following the septuagint and crowned him with glory and honor

00:24:40.440 thou makest him to have dominion of the works of thy hands thou hast put all things under his feet

00:24:45.840 all sheep and oxen yea and the beasts of the field the birds of the heavens the fish of the sea

00:24:49.860 whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas oh yahweh our god how excellent is thy name in

00:24:55.460 all the earth so i think that what paul has in mind here as he is reflecting on and trying to

00:25:01.680 explicate explicate that's the word the the relationship between man and one and the

00:25:09.320 importance of it with regards to worship is he thinks to psalm 8 and especially psalm 8 5 you

00:25:15.660 have made him a little lower than the angels and he is putting the the order of man and woman the

00:25:23.260 hierarchical relationship of man and woman into the larger context of the hierarchical relationship

00:25:29.140 between man woman and angels just as he puts it into the larger context of man woman and christ

00:25:34.860 and god at the beginning so he's looking at two different um two different descriptions of the

00:25:40.640 hierarchy and i think that is why he brings in the angels it's very difficult to explain why

00:25:45.420 he would talk about the angels otherwise unless he's reflecting on this passage which it's hard

00:25:50.820 to imagine that he's not reflecting on this passage given that he talks about both glory and

00:25:54.820 honor so the the idea of dishonoring is key in first corinthians 11 and the idea of glory is key

00:26:00.840 in first corinthians 11 and the idea of um glory and honor is key in psalm 85 and being made lower

00:26:07.740 than the angels is key in psalm 85 so it's kind of hard to imagine that there isn't some sort of

00:26:12.740 connection going on there so i think that's what's going on okay so but man so like to play

00:26:21.000 the counter because i i don't have a better position than than the one you just espoused

00:26:25.520 but just to understand what you're saying a little bit better it wouldn't just be that woman is a

00:26:30.700 little lower than the angels but man is a little bit lower than the angel so why does woman have

00:26:35.180 to do something specific namely covering her head to to signify that she's beneath the angels well

00:26:41.760 it's not so much um for the sake of the angels but rather it's um it's referring back to the

00:26:49.920 proper hierarchy and physically reflecting the proper hierarchy which is established in places

00:26:57.120 like psalm 8 5. so paul isn't i i don't think paul is concerned about you know the feelings of the

00:27:04.600 angels as it were he's not concerned about offending the angels he's concerned about using

00:27:09.820 the angels or using the angels in 1 Corinthians 11 as a way of referencing back to Psalm 8

00:27:18.920 5, which talks about the proper hierarchy.

00:27:21.740 So my view would be that he is using because of the angels as a shorthand to refer to because

00:27:27.680 of the proper hierarchy that God has established in the cosmos, the cosmological hierarchy.

00:27:32.840 Got you.

00:27:33.460 Okay.

00:27:34.040 Have you ever heard anybody, just out of curiosity, have you ever heard anybody talk about maybe

00:27:38.380 a reason um i wouldn't be persuaded by this uh per se but uh angels in terms of like looking down

00:27:45.940 on the lord's day worship of the saints here on earth and kind of almost even going to like

00:27:51.820 genesis chapter 6 and talking about angels maybe being tempted not almost sort of i've heard that

00:27:57.360 100 you've heard that 100 yeah that's michael heiser's position is it is it okay i didn't know

00:28:03.460 that michael heiser for our listeners he's the unseen realm uh author yeah i don't think that

00:28:09.980 it's very persuasive because i don't think that it it would be a complete non-sequitur in paul's

00:28:15.500 argument it doesn't engage with the actual flow of his thought at all it's kind of a case where

00:28:23.460 you've got like this filter or this grid that you've put on the scriptures and everything

00:28:28.020 becomes about the sons of God and what happened in Genesis 6 and other places. And so anytime you

00:28:34.680 see angels, you're automatically, you have those things in mind, but I don't think that's the

00:28:39.340 normal way of reading scripture. I don't think that was how Paul read scripture, for instance.

00:28:43.720 I think that to them, I agree with Michael's interpretation of Genesis 6. I think that the

00:28:49.720 sons of God were indeed angels that came down. I also think that they were Sethites. I think that

00:28:53.920 as on earth so in heaven um but i don't think that when paul read scripture every time he

00:29:00.100 saw angels or sons of god he was like oh yeah genesis six that's just not how people back

00:29:05.200 then thought genesis six wasn't like an exciting almost um transgressive idea this idea of the

00:29:12.040 sons of god coming down to fornicate with women isn't something that they would have considered

00:29:16.320 especially racy it's considered sort of oh what's that all about in modern christianity but modern 0.92

00:29:23.320 christians are just very sheltered yep yep no you're right okay so yeah so it just seems like

00:29:27.860 it would be um almost like like paul just had a like just uh tourettes for a moment yeah because

00:29:36.180 it would just be off it would just be off topic it would be almost like a modesty thing and not

00:29:40.280 even modesty for men but modesty well angelic beings i don't think that it's not utterly off

00:29:45.680 topic because there is a strong component of modesty in the passage the passage and one of

00:29:51.640 ways you could describe Paul's argument is an argument from modesty. So, the idea that sexual

00:29:56.740 modesty should be in view as well as general modesty, and I would say that modesty is something

00:30:01.900 that's a much broader principle than just sexuality. So, the idea that sexual modesty

00:30:06.940 could be in view isn't completely alien to the text. It's just that it would be more tangential.

00:30:11.160 So, maybe Paul says because the angels in order to reference both Psalm 8.5 and Genesis 6. So,

00:30:17.540 So he's being, you know, the Bible is often deliberately ambiguous in order to draw out more than one meaning.

00:30:22.160 Maybe that's what's going on there.

00:30:23.340 But I don't think that's his primary concern.

00:30:25.380 Got you.

00:30:25.900 Okay.

00:30:26.740 All right.

00:30:27.100 So that's verse 10.

00:30:28.700 And then you said you were going to use that to work backwards with verse 6 through 9.

00:30:33.120 Right.

00:30:33.540 Well, basically, the idea is that there is a hierarchy of glory, and it's related to the hierarchy of authority.

00:30:39.260 And it's related to also the hierarchy of existence.

00:30:43.760 The man is the glory of God because man exists first and he exists for God.

00:30:47.940 And the woman is the glory of man because she exists from man for man.

00:30:52.120 Right.

00:30:53.220 And the idea that the head is the symbol of that,

00:31:00.640 not necessarily the symbol of the glory exactly,

00:31:04.240 but certainly the symbol of the place where the glory is put.

00:31:08.540 In scripture, a crown is a symbol of glory.

00:31:11.480 it's not actually a symbol of authority specifically it's a symbol of glory which is

00:31:15.560 placed on the symbol of authority which is your head and if you want an extra symbol of authority

00:31:19.660 you get a scepter as well so the scepter is a symbol of rulership but the head is just the

00:31:24.080 symbol of the head you know everything's a body in scripture it doesn't matter what it is a society

00:31:29.480 everything's a body church yeah a church yeah okay so the idea that everything has a head is

00:31:37.160 just kind of natural one at which we've to a large extent lost as modern christians we don't

00:31:42.600 think symbolically anymore we don't think of the idea that the physical image is the spiritual but

00:31:48.320 um everything that god made is actually an expression of a prior spiritual reality just

00:31:53.220 strikes us as even if we think that it's maybe true it strikes us as sort of irrelevant like

00:31:58.800 an interesting bit of trivia rather than as a foundational truth right right um one thing that

00:32:04.220 you said in your article, and I can't, because we talked a little bit before we started recording,

00:32:07.560 so I can't remember if I said it to you before we started recording or if I've already said it on

00:32:10.480 the podcast, but it's worth the risk of saying it twice. But the difference, the distinction

00:32:17.100 between image and glory, right? So verse seven, for man ought not to cover his head since he is

00:32:21.940 the image and glory of God. But then the second half, it says, but woman is the glory of man.

00:32:27.440 It doesn't say that woman is the image of man. So we believe that God created man in his image,

00:32:33.020 male and female he created so mankind but both male and female bear the image of god so it's

00:32:40.120 not to say that man bears the image of god and woman only bears the image of man but male and

00:32:45.340 female as mankind bear the image of god but what we're talking about is distinct from image it's

00:32:51.080 glory is there anything you'd like to add to that that was in your article and i thought that was

00:32:54.780 really helpful yeah i'd like to add that one of the key distinctions we need to draw in talking

00:33:00.880 about the image is between images ontological so having to do with the the very nature of ourselves

00:33:07.200 so when the reformed confessions and most theologians in the reformed tradition talk

00:33:14.060 about the image they tend to talk about specific elements of man's nature his rationality and his

00:33:21.760 ability to love and have relationships these kinds of things his moral nature they talk about those

00:33:28.600 as being the image, which is, I wouldn't say that's wrong, but I would say that it's maybe

00:33:33.940 one step removed from the way scripture talks about the image, at least specifically in Genesis,

00:33:38.720 where the way that the image is couched in Genesis is in terms of dominion over the earth.

00:33:44.300 So the image is more functional. The image is something that you are in order to, the idea

00:33:50.560 of the image is that you reflect God, you bear his name into the world in order to complete the

00:33:55.400 work of dominion that he began in the creation week that's what man is created for that's why

00:34:00.780 man is god's image it's it's like a family resemblance of what they do as much as what

00:34:07.740 they are okay so when people talk about image usually they're talking about what man is what

00:34:13.160 is a woman and if you say well a woman isn't the image of god they think that you're saying

00:34:16.660 a woman is not rational or a woman is not capable of moral action something like that which is insane

00:34:22.220 obviously and it's certainly true man mankind is the image of god so a woman is an image in that

00:34:29.120 sense as well but there's also a sense in which the woman is the image of man because she's made

00:34:34.840 out of man she's made from adam right and so she's a an image of god but she's an image of god

00:34:41.140 in a similar way to the way that scripture relates the or in fact i think all cultures throughout

00:34:46.380 history have related the sun to masculinity and the moon to femininity the sun is strong and

00:34:51.960 bright and goes through the sky it's same same way every day it's um that kind of paradigm of

00:34:57.240 what you'd think of as masculinity and the moon is soft and demure and uh changes cyclically in

00:35:05.220 the same way that a woman does and it reflects the man it reflects the sun right so there is a

00:35:12.120 sense and it's not an ontological sense but more of a functional sense in which the woman is the

00:35:17.860 image of god reflectively whereas the the man is the image of god directly okay which is why i say

00:35:23.380 in the article uh offsetting any potential outrage that may come why i say in the article that woman

00:35:30.100 is subordinately the image of man what i mean there is not that she is you know ontologically

00:35:34.840 inferior to man but rather that in her function uh she reflects god through man i get that okay

00:35:41.800 Okay, so I like how you said that 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?

00:35:55.800 Yeah, you could think of it in that way.

00:35:57.500 He himself is the image of God, but also what he does here on earth reflects the image of God, reveals God.

00:36:06.440 What he does reflects God, which makes the actual doing of it the image of God as well.

00:36:11.100 Exactly, yeah.

00:36:11.800 So he is the image of God, but his work also bears the image of God.

00:36:18.140 Whereas a woman's work that God calls her to does not bear, she bears the image of God, ontologically, but her work does not bear the image of God, at least not in the same direct sense that a man does.

00:36:33.120 Right, not in the same direct sense.

00:36:34.560 It definitely does bear it, but it's oriented toward her husband rather than towards God directly.

00:36:40.040 Right.

00:36:40.980 Okay.

00:36:41.620 Okay, that's really helpful.

00:36:42.700 Did you get a chance to read C.R. Wiley's Tom Bombadil book?

00:36:47.140 No, not yet.

00:36:48.180 I would like to, though.

00:36:48.840 I had him on our show recently, and Tom Bombadil is just having him

00:36:54.280 and talking to Wiley about that.

00:36:56.800 Tom Bombadil is a really great picture of the image of God.

00:37:00.980 Yeah.

00:37:01.100 Just the dominion that he exercises and Middle Earth and his jolliness.

00:37:06.120 Yeah, I'm glad Tom Bombadil is finally getting some action,

00:37:08.640 some attention from theologians because i think that he's a neglected character most people skip

00:37:14.780 over him like what was that about right like peter jackson for example you can't put this in the

00:37:19.060 movie this is crazy yeah you're right yeah but he should have been in the movie um yeah speaking of

00:37:24.420 lord of the rings i'm so afraid i'm so afraid i just man here's the thing okay so when it comes

00:37:33.860 to entertainment i try to limit my entertainment but um but i i think there's a godly place for

00:37:39.480 entertainment and i uh my in terms of genre fantasy is my top genre so i will stomach a b

00:37:46.460 or a c fantasy movie over okay you know an a plus action movie i i like action like the next guy but

00:37:54.140 i love other worlds and and right you know fantasy and story and myth and legend and uh

00:38:01.620 but man if they take lord of the rings and and make it woke and transgender and and i i i feel

00:38:11.480 like i'm gonna i'm gonna hurt someone i feel like i'm going to do terrible things you have to think 0.99

00:38:17.360 about it as non-canonical it's just you know some idiots going and using a lot of their money to 0.97

00:38:23.600 create something terrible that has the same name as something that you love yeah okay all right so 0.99

00:38:30.560 verse 11 now do you want to pick up and keep going you're doing great yeah sure all right

00:38:36.300 verse 11 nevertheless neither is the woman without the man nor the man without the woman in the lord

00:38:41.740 for as the woman is of the man so is the man also by the woman but all things are of god

00:38:47.800 so this is really just continuing the same thought that he's already been on he's establishing like

00:38:53.300 at the center of his argument he's establishing the hierarchical relationship and not just

00:38:58.140 in terms of raw rank but in terms of the mutual interdependence that they have

00:39:04.080 you can't say that because the man is superior in rank to the woman therefore the man is more

00:39:09.980 important than norman because that would imply that the man doesn't need the woman right which

00:39:14.800 is obviously absurd because every man was born of a woman so paul wants them to understand that

00:39:20.420 he's not speaking in terms of he knows the corinthians he knows how their minds work

00:39:26.140 and he doesn't want them thinking that men are therefore more important than women but

00:39:30.200 rather that the the importance of the head covering is to do with the importance of the

00:39:36.720 created order which is a complex order it's not just in terms of hierarchy and rank it's also in

00:39:42.660 terms of mutual interdependence which is why scripture sometimes speaks of mutual submission

00:39:48.600 It's to do with the idea that we rely on each other.

00:39:51.800 It's not just a matter of imposing authority from above.

00:39:54.540 It's also a matter of receiving something from beneath.

00:39:57.620 Reliance, not just authority and submission.

00:40:00.300 In terms of rank, man is the head.

00:40:02.740 But in terms of need for one another, it's mutual.

00:40:07.780 Yeah, 100%.

00:40:08.540 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.

00:40:15.680 if you think of the for example the distinction between a man's sexual drive and a woman's sexual

00:40:21.180 drive right there's a reason that paul is um the scripture it through paul is explicit that both

00:40:28.900 the husband and the wife must render to each other their their sexual duties what they need

00:40:33.300 um because it's easy for a woman to take advantage of her man's sexual desires to exercise control

00:40:41.180 over him because he needs those things in a way that she doesn't right so to the idea that man

00:40:47.420 has to um you know you've got this kind of alpha male idea with a lot of the red pill guys are

00:40:51.980 you've got to maintain frame and so on that's true you have to maintain frame you have to be

00:40:55.720 the center of gravity in your relationship but the idea that that means that you don't need your

00:41:00.300 wife in any way and that there there's no sense in which your wife can exercise any power over you

00:41:05.060 right is it would mean that she's not actually a helpmate exactly that's what i was going to say

00:41:10.260 I feel like as soon as you said in some ways the man needs the wife more than the wife needs the

00:41:14.740 man, I immediately just thought of helpmate. I am not my wife's helpmate, but she is my

00:41:20.160 and we're not mutual helpmates. In a practical sense, sure, I help her around the house at

00:41:25.140 times, but in terms of calling and in terms of mission and what God has assigned to us,

00:41:30.620 it's not that I am her helpmate and she is mine. No, she is just my helpmate.

00:41:35.380 And part of it is because I need a lot of help.

00:41:39.260 There are things that God has called me to do that I cannot do without her.

00:41:43.660 And God has oriented my vision, my focus is very much looking out and looking forward

00:41:49.500 and mission-minded and taking the next hill and exercising dominion and expanding and

00:41:55.060 growing.

00:41:56.280 And her gaze and her focus and vision is very much oriented inward towards me and towards

00:42:01.720 our children and our home.

00:42:02.880 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.

00:42:16.400 And I'm able to look at the big picture, like working on the boat versus working in the boat.

00:42:22.120 My wife is constantly working in the boat, and I'm able to be planning our next voyage.

00:42:28.960 you know and um but she's working in the boat because the children need her but also because

00:42:32.720 i need her and so yeah yeah so it's it's i completely agree with you in terms of authority

00:42:37.500 yes the man is the head but um in terms of interdependence um yeah it's just like a body

00:42:43.860 everything is a body a husband and a wife are a body to say that the head doesn't need the body

00:42:48.360 in many ways like okay obviously the body needs the head otherwise it would be dead there's no

00:42:52.720 brain but at the same time can the brain survive without a heart to pump blood without you know

00:42:58.200 any hands to get things done just doesn't make sense right okay uh you want to keep going

00:43:03.200 where were we that was 11 and 12 i think did you do 12 yeah as the one is of a man's man yes all

00:43:11.980 right so 13 judge ye in yourselves is it seemly that a woman pray unto god unveiled that's not

00:43:18.440 even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair it is a dishonor to him but if a woman

00:43:23.320 have long hair it is a glory to her for her hair is given her for a cover but if any man seemeth

00:43:29.040 to be contentious we have no such custom neither the churches of god i i love that last verse so

00:43:37.820 and well you know what i almost love more than the verse itself is i love um how how feminist

00:43:45.380 evangelical Christians try to exegete that last verse so what are some of the i'm just curious

00:43:51.120 what are some of the things that you've heard people say like, see, look,

00:43:53.780 the apostle says, don't be contentious about this. And I'm like,

00:43:56.000 I'm not being contentious. I'm the guy trying to obey this.

00:43:59.280 You know, like you're being contentious by saying it shouldn't be obeyed.

00:44:03.120 Well, the main one that I've seen is that verse 16 is actually attached to

00:44:06.620 verse 17. So if any man is wanting to be contentious,

00:44:09.100 we have no such custom, neither the church is a God,

00:44:11.400 but in giving you this charge, I praise you not.

00:44:14.880 Which doesn't really make sense if you ask me,

00:44:17.660 but that's the way that they want to read it because then it's um specifically related to

00:44:22.980 the way that they're breaking the practice of the lord's supper right right yeah well it seems to me

00:44:28.880 it seems like verse 16 is the the it's the the finishing remarks of yeah it's the finishing blow

00:44:35.740 if you want to argue about this just go to any other church in the entire world so far and see

00:44:41.040 if they do things the way you do things right and paul's and and that's i mean that's part of it too

00:44:45.200 Because some people want to say, like, okay, well, it was that particular time, you know, cultural.

00:44:49.960 But then people also, in terms of the cultural argument, try to make it, you know, unique to that place.

00:44:54.760 Well, this is what was going on in Corinth, you know, and temple prostitution and all these kinds of things.

00:44:59.480 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.

00:45:10.760 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.

00:45:21.540 So that just kind of destroys that whole, it's unique to Corinth.

00:45:24.720 Well, you know what else destroys that whole thing is just the fact that it's false.

00:45:28.180 It's just made up.

00:45:29.160 As far as I can tell, I can't find any actual historical data to support the claim that, you know, the standard word of simple prostitution.

00:45:36.760 you're saying that uh women women were you know uncovering their heads and made them look like

00:45:41.400 whores i haven't found any evidence that that was the case really um the evidence that i found

00:45:47.400 which is extensive actually we've got quite a lot of descriptions of the way that people were

00:45:51.480 um one of them is one of the early church fathers i forget which one it was was mocking the other

00:45:58.280 religions of the time which were conterminate uh contemporaneous with um paul more or less like

00:46:05.480 maybe a hundred years later,

00:46:06.900 he wouldn't expect things to change very much.

00:46:09.500 But his mockage has to do with the way

00:46:11.780 that they have absolutely no consistency

00:46:13.600 in how they practice anything to do with dress in religion.

00:46:17.340 You know, one sect has all of their heads covered,

00:46:19.960 both men and women.

00:46:21.140 The other sect, everyone's uncovered.

00:46:22.800 It's all completely random.

00:46:24.380 This is one of the criticisms

00:46:25.480 that he brings against pagan religions

00:46:27.380 is how disordered it is.

00:46:29.480 Everyone just does their own thing.

00:46:31.120 So the fact that people try to bring out this idea

00:46:34.860 that there's some specific reason specific to Corinth or maybe specific to Roman culture or

00:46:39.120 Greco-Roman culture. It doesn't make any sense in light of what we know of Greco-Roman culture,

00:46:43.040 which is that covering the head or not covering the head was equally common and didn't carry any

00:46:48.660 particular significance. That's really, I was not familiar with that. That's really helpful.

00:46:54.600 So, okay. So verses 13 through, you know, we covered 16 there. So 13 through 15, 13, 14,

00:47:00.120 and 15 and i think we just about nailed it but maybe not nailed it but we but we we got through

00:47:05.800 it you know i don't know if we nailed it we got through it yeah verse 14 is instructive in terms

00:47:10.840 of the cultural argument because paul doesn't appeal to culture he appeals to nature right

00:47:15.660 he appeals specifically to the way that we have it built into us to have a clear distinction in

00:47:22.380 our minds as to long hair on a woman and long hair on a man or short hair on a woman and long

00:47:28.080 hair on a man whatever the case may be we we understand instinctively that there's something

00:47:31.800 weird about especially young women having short hair or shaven hair and there's something kind

00:47:37.440 of unseemly about men having long hair you think of absalom for example who in the end got tangled

00:47:42.400 up between heaven and earth caught caught on a tree from his glorious locks that he took

00:47:47.400 there's clear irony in that there is that he's yeah he's this effeminate man who glories in his

00:47:53.920 locks and it becomes his undoing he dies because of it so we have it built into us to understand

00:48:00.400 like every culture throughout history with rare exceptions has women with long hair and men with

00:48:04.780 short hair and the length varies contextually you know the relative length is usually the same it's

00:48:10.940 usually so there was a guy i thought it was really funny he was uh i i had a meme that was like i

00:48:15.620 think it was thomas watson or something like that and he was like he'd comment he's like what's up

00:48:19.500 with all these lady haired puritans i thought it was so but and and but but the point you know he

00:48:24.940 had a good point but it's it's by comparison so women their their hair during that time would go

00:48:29.540 all the way down to you know the small of their back whereas you know so this was short hair

00:48:34.420 and in in that culture but it but you're you're absolutely right it's virtually every culture and

00:48:40.020 virtually every single time period because i mean in the in the 1960s like when you think about the

00:48:45.260 1960s men growing their hair out long what was the purpose of them growing out their hair out

00:48:50.580 long it was to to stick it to the man to go against the culture to be against the grain it was meant

00:48:56.300 to be a sign it was the same exactly it was the same purpose as women cutting their hair short

00:49:00.880 and dying it blue exactly taking a natural symbol of their glory and basically defacing it saying i

00:49:06.520 don't want this exactly which is which is to seed the argument because if you're saying this doesn't

00:49:11.620 no, God doesn't have any meaning in this, and this isn't God's word, and this isn't,

00:49:17.000 then why do you do it, right?

00:49:18.940 It's like the atheist being, I am certain that God doesn't exist, and I also am really

00:49:23.140 angry at him.

00:49:24.120 That's right.

00:49:24.700 You know, so it's like, I am certain that 1 Corinthians doesn't apply, and that it's

00:49:28.820 completely cultural, but also, I have to have short hair, and it needs to be purple.

00:49:34.200 Or in the case of Christians, it's often, I'm certain that 1 Corinthians 11 is cultural,

00:49:39.140 and i'm equally certain that that if even if the symbol um is important we can have a different

00:49:46.860 symbol because the symbol that they used is meaningless in our modern culture right and also

00:49:51.480 it'll be completely humiliating to me to wear a head covering right so it's a meaningless symbol

00:49:55.660 but it's humiliating right so let's talk about that for a second let's talk about a couple other

00:50:00.300 guys because some of our listeners you know i think it's i think it's helpful and we're not

00:50:03.160 talking about it in negative ways but uh these these are things that you know when when somebody

00:50:07.680 does something publicly including you or i then it's it's free game and and we can be charitable

00:50:12.200 in the way that we talk about it so but like john mccarthur i love john mccarthur appreciate john

00:50:16.080 mccarthur disagree with a lot of things but um but really grateful with with a lot of things

00:50:20.780 and i think he takes the stance of uh wedding rings right so he would say oh well right yeah

00:50:26.140 so a lot so he's not the only guy but a lot of guys would say like well it'd be wallace is a

00:50:30.140 famous example right and so so they would say well we're not saying it was uh that the command

00:50:34.960 command is not a command, or this was just a narrow command given to one place and one time,

00:50:41.700 namely Corinth in the first century. But we recognize, right? We would agree with you,

00:50:46.300 Non and Joel, with verse 16. It can't be cultural because Paul pulls on creation to make his...

00:50:54.540 I mean, if you use those hermeneutics to say that's just unique to that time and that place,

00:50:59.580 then there goes 1 Timothy chapter 2, 1 Timothy chapter 3, in terms of elders being men and

00:51:04.760 deacons, we would hold to a male deaconate. You lose everything. There goes Ephesians 5.

00:51:09.700 So MacArthur knows better than that. And so he's going to say, yeah, this is a command,

00:51:14.460 and it's always a command. It's part of God's law, and it's based on the creation mandate,

00:51:18.660 and that hasn't changed. It's not cultural. But the application of obedience, how we obey the

00:51:23.840 command, that is cultural. And I would disagree, and I know you would disagree. We would say,

00:51:31.420 but you're not obeying the command in a different way um you're you're just not obeying the command

00:51:37.680 because it's it the practice the the method of obedience to this command is very specific and it

00:51:45.080 has to the the head it can't be well i'll cover my hand i'm gonna wear gloves to church or i'm

00:51:50.900 i'll cover it the head is significant the whole thing is about the head the head do you have any

00:51:56.660 anything you would add to that yeah well i think one of the things that it's helpful to add to

00:52:01.400 to that is looking up pagan head covering in the modern day because there's some very interesting

00:52:08.420 stuff that i found from pagan women who are goddess worshippers who cover their heads because

00:52:14.620 they think that their goddess has commanded it and it's all exactly the same symbolism as paul

00:52:20.380 uses here in first corinthians 11 this is not christian symbolism this is creational symbolism

00:52:26.140 this is something that we all understand at an instinctual level it's built into us to understand

00:52:30.880 it even if it needs to be refined and clarified the basics of it are there in our psyches okay

00:52:37.980 so here here's another thing um another guy so doug wilson we talked i'm almost positive i'm

00:52:42.560 remembering correctly this was before we started recording that we talked about doug wilson it was

00:52:45.900 so so you and i we we both love doug wilson so we you know i think we would both appreciate john

00:52:50.380 mccarthur i'll speak for myself i would appreciate doug wilson more than john mccarthur yes um okay

00:52:55.080 okay 100 so so we we you know which isn't to downplay john right it's not to downplay john

00:53:00.420 mccarthur but i just doug wilson is just yeah i'm just super grateful yeah i've benefited much

00:53:05.660 more yeah much more by him and his willingness to just be hated and ostracized for 40 years in

00:53:11.080 all of evangelicalism and still be jolly about it yeah still be jolly about it and then the last

00:53:15.240 two years is like god just like giving an exclamation point saying like this is doug

00:53:21.040 wilson listen to him you know that sounds blasphemous so maybe that's too far but he's

00:53:25.080 been right he's been right about a lot of things and a lot of people you know he's he's getting a

00:53:30.180 little bit of the credit these last couple of years, the whole world's moving to Moscow. So I

00:53:33.360 think he'll be okay. But anyways, so Doug Wilson, he would say that, well, her hair is given to her

00:53:38.700 as a covering, right? What is that? That's the second half of verse 15. So, but if a woman has

00:53:44.280 long hair, it is her glory, right? Doesn't nature tell you this? Nature itself tells you that if a

00:53:49.180 man wears long hair, it's a disgrace. That's verse 14 for him. But if a woman has long hair, it is

00:53:54.180 her glory for her hair is given to her for a covering. So Doug Wilson would say, there you have

00:53:59.060 it. And again, this is coming from someone who loves Doug Wilson. I've had him on the show three

00:54:03.500 different times, and I know you love him too. But I would just say, man, come on, Doug, you know

00:54:07.440 better than that. Because basically what Doug is saying is, there you have it, verses 2, all the

00:54:12.660 way through 14. Paul was just wasting his time. And then he let us know, you know, right there in

00:54:19.940 verse 15, the hair is a covering. What is this passage about then? Right. I don't... If the hair

00:54:25.740 is the covering what is this entire thing about right um and what does it mean if the hair is the

00:54:31.620 covering what does it mean that if a woman is not veiled or covered since the hair is the covering

00:54:35.340 let it also be shorn but if it's a shame for her to be shorn let her be covered exactly just saying

00:54:41.260 if a woman it's bad for a woman not to have long hair right doesn't make any sense it doesn't make

00:54:46.380 any sense especially like and i like what you said if if if she will not cover her head then

00:54:51.520 then let her cut off her hair be shorn shaven so so right there what's implicit um or really

00:54:58.880 explicit it's it's very plain is he's talking about a woman who has already long hair and he's

00:55:04.780 saying that woman with long hair needs to cover her head and if she won't add to her long hair

00:55:11.140 which does not suffice as a covering in and of itself but the hair itself needs a covering if

00:55:17.360 she will not add a covering to that long hair then she might as well not even have the long hair

00:55:23.300 and go ahead and like that seems so so clear so do you very clear yeah is there any other

00:55:30.080 thoughts that you would well it's the only thing it's the only thing that doug wilson's wrong about

00:55:34.400 so we might as well you know make the most of it i'm sure there's maybe a couple other things i

00:55:38.540 wouldn't want to say what they are i just just to be safe i'll say there might be a couple other

00:55:43.580 things yeah one of the things that i think which surprises me but i think doug misses here and it

00:55:51.320 surprises me because doug's usually pretty strong on biblical connections and symbolism and biblical

00:55:56.780 theology that kind of thing yeah recognizing patterns in scripture it's one of the things

00:56:00.800 that i i learned in large part from him but something that he misses here is a pattern

00:56:06.200 in scripture of glory and covering the way that god appears in scripture is usually as a glory

00:56:13.400 which is covered so there's a covering which is around the central glory as it were and the

00:56:19.260 covering itself is also a manifestation of glory so there's something glorious about the covering

00:56:23.940 so it's almost like there are two layers of glory and the one layer conceals the the more glorious

00:56:29.980 layer you see this in the pillar of fire and smoke for example the fire is the the central glory and

00:56:36.960 the smoke is around the glory, uh, as a, almost like a concealer.

00:56:41.380 And yet at the same time, the smoke itself is, you know,

00:56:44.400 a pillar of fire and smoke is pretty glorious. Okay. It's pretty,

00:56:47.180 pretty impressive. Right. Um,

00:56:50.220 a second one would be in Isaiah chapter six,

00:56:53.180 where God appears on the throne. And I would say that it's not the father,

00:56:56.360 it's Jesus on the throne,

00:56:57.520 because I don't think we ever see the father in scripture,

00:56:59.560 but that's neither here nor there.

00:57:01.320 The God himself is on the throne and he is the central glory.

00:57:05.320 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.

00:57:13.980 So here we see a direct connection between man as the glory and what Paul says in 1 Corinthians.

00:57:19.680 But the way that he appears in Isaiah is he's on the throne and he is the glory.

00:57:23.880 And yet there is this robe that he's wearing, which fills the temple.

00:57:28.260 And at the same time, there's a smoke that fills the temple.

00:57:31.760 And it's not clear if the robe and the smoke are actually the same thing.

00:57:35.320 which would make sense in light of what we know from other Christophanies

00:57:38.860 and the pillar of fire, for instance,

00:57:41.340 the burning bush maybe would be another example.

00:57:43.300 Presumably there was some sort of smoke involved with that,

00:57:46.000 but who knows?

00:57:46.520 It's probably just an example of the pillar of fire in the bush.

00:57:50.780 But the idea that there's this central glory

00:57:53.860 and then there's this outer glory,

00:57:55.200 which is like a robe or a mantle or a cloud or a smoke.

00:58:00.420 There's a conceptual connection between all these things,

00:58:02.840 which you also see clearly connected to 1 Corinthians in that at the end,

00:58:07.780 when it says that a woman's hair is given to her for a covering,

00:58:10.580 it's a different word that is used throughout the rest of the passage.

00:58:14.000 The word there is periboleon, which is used in Hebrews 1.12

00:58:17.700 to refer to the way that God will roll up the sky as a mantle.

00:58:21.820 So there's a connection between this idea of a mantle and a covering

00:58:25.440 and something which conceals glory and it is glorious.

00:58:28.920 The sky itself is bright as a brazen mirror.

00:58:31.600 it's glorious but it's also something which conceals glory behind it it's like

00:58:35.500 in phenomenological terms there is the heavens are behind the sky the heavens are not just the sky

00:58:42.980 the sky conceals the glory of god from us it's like a representation of the glory but the real

00:58:47.960 glory is behind the physical world as it were so all of these ideas are in play in paul's mind

00:58:52.900 which is why it makes perfect sense for him to say that woman's hair is her glory and also it

00:58:57.320 as a covering for her glory. I like that. That's helpful. It's funny because I'm preaching through

00:59:04.480 Hebrews right now, so I'm just like, kind of started thinking about just, because I just

00:59:09.200 preached Hebrews chapter 1, verse 4 through 14, and then this week I'm preaching Hebrews chapter

00:59:16.300 2, verses 1 through 4, and I'm thinking about, you know, if we neglect such a great salvation,

00:59:21.720 But before he says, if the message that came from angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, a just judgment.

00:59:36.140 And the angels, so I had to just do a lot of Old Testament work and cross-reference over to, all right, so what is this message that was delivered by angels?

00:59:44.260 And so I went to Deuteronomy chapter 33, that says that there was a multitude of angels

00:59:50.380 present at the mountain when the Lord met with Moses.

00:59:53.800 And all the people gathered, and it was the third day that God was going to come and speak

00:59:57.020 to them.

00:59:57.360 They had to cleanse themselves, and they get nervous, and don't let the Lord speak to

01:00:01.700 them.

01:00:02.060 Moses goes up on the mountain, and that leads right into that.

01:00:06.040 So all that goes back to Exodus chapter 19, and then Exodus chapter 20, he receives the

01:00:10.820 Ten Commandments.

01:00:11.380 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.

01:00:23.940 And Moses goes into the darkness.

01:00:26.460 And God is very specific about who can come into the darkness.

01:00:30.460 And the darkness is not meant to be God himself, the actual theophany.

01:00:35.360 But the darkness is, I think of even the temple, the tabernacle, right?

01:00:39.280 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.

01:00:47.520 You can't see into the Holy of Holies, but that's not enough in the mind of God.

01:00:52.400 It requires a whole second outer court, you know, the holy place and then the most holy place.

01:00:59.460 And no one who reads the description of Solomon's temple would think that before the holy place was not glorious.

01:01:07.660 you know there's there's gold everywhere and the the veil itself is made of gold uh gold

01:01:13.980 purple cloth and it's you know it's all glorious right but the glory is covering a greater glory

01:01:20.040 exactly yeah um so okay so just i'm trying to think of what are the little quips that i'm going

01:01:27.420 to get in the youtube comments what if you know and and to give the youtube trolls a little bit

01:01:32.520 more of the benefit of the doubt some of many of them are not trolls but genuine questions that

01:01:37.340 people might have okay so here we go what about samson okay what about samson samson did have

01:01:42.420 long hair and interestingly i don't think women were excluded from the nazirite vow okay which

01:01:46.900 means that at the end of the nazirite vow if a woman were to take it she would shave her hair off

01:01:50.960 so both men and women did something transgressive with their hair in the nazirite vow okay and i

01:01:56.440 think that's kind of the point the idea of it is to illustrate something odd is going on that

01:02:01.880 something unusual is happening with this person that there is they've dedicated themselves to

01:02:06.860 god and it's having a physical effect on them which makes them look different from other people

01:02:11.000 right and the fact that they're not allowed to eat great they're not allowed to drink wine for

01:02:16.060 instance is another great example like you wouldn't if you were to sort of it's like a

01:02:20.720 reverse analogy if growing the hair out is bad um then drinking wine is we know drinking wine is

01:02:28.680 good unless you're a particular kind of baptist right no but they weren't allowed to drink wine

01:02:35.140 And so are we to think that because they took the Nazarite vow,

01:02:38.260 the Nazarite vow is therefore showing us that drinking wine is bad.

01:02:40.760 Well, no, obviously not.

01:02:41.620 The idea is that it's symbolizing something.

01:02:44.360 So the fact that they're transgressing these normal creational boundaries

01:02:48.560 is indicative.

01:02:50.240 It's not imperative.

01:02:52.040 Okay.

01:02:52.520 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

01:02:53.920 Who was it?

01:02:54.300 Was it Isaiah, who for seven years was naked?

01:02:57.540 Lay on his side naked?

01:02:58.700 Yep. 0.80

01:02:59.460 Something like that.

01:02:59.940 Yeah, and God's not saying that, hey, that's a great normative practice.

01:03:03.700 to not a great idea yeah he's not saying yeah people if you really love me you'll lay on your

01:03:08.500 side naked in public but it's but but there is it was meant that was the whole purpose it was

01:03:13.600 meant to stand out it was meant to go against what is normal to say something significant that

01:03:19.640 god was communicating so uh any you know what we haven't actually done is we haven't actually

01:03:25.180 worked through the central thesis of my argument okay you thought was most interesting we've gone

01:03:30.640 through the passage and we talk about some of the important elements, but the central thesis of my

01:03:35.460 argument, and I'm not suggesting that this is the key to understand the passage, I'm suggesting that

01:03:39.660 it's an important key. I think there are other important keys that you need to bring in to fully

01:03:44.560 flesh out what the passage is saying. But an important key is specifically relating to the

01:03:50.320 fact that the context of this is worship. And Paul explicitly talks about the glory that is

01:03:56.600 present in worship. And the fact that there are three glories, there's the glory of God,

01:04:01.660 which is man. There's the glory of man, which is the woman. And then there is the glory of the

01:04:05.900 woman, which is her hair. And he doesn't spell this out, but I think he takes it as given as

01:04:10.840 something that you would presuppose as obviously true, that the purpose of worship is to glorify

01:04:16.460 God. And so to have other glories present in the worship service is a problem. It needs to be

01:04:25.040 dealt with in some way so that you're not suggesting that you're bringing some other

01:04:29.260 glory into worship where only God's glory is to be on display.

01:04:33.640 The purpose of worship is glorifying God, not worship, not glorifying the man or glorifying

01:04:37.340 the woman.

01:04:37.640 And so you cover the woman in order to, in order to cover or conceal or attenuate the

01:04:45.960 indicator subjection of the man's glory.

01:04:50.360 And by covering her head, you're also covering her hair, which indicates the same about her glory, her hair.

01:04:56.580 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 and worship.

01:05:04.020 What you're doing is you're essentially competing with God's glory.

01:05:06.400 That would be embodied blasphemy, which is why I think that it is a serious thing.

01:05:12.460 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.

01:05:19.500 They can, 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.

01:05:29.100 It's not like one of those, you know, off the cuff remarks where it's just obvious.

01:05:32.340 He actually takes the time to explicate why it's so important.

01:05:36.260 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.

01:05:45.120 That's really serious.

01:05:46.940 Detracts from God's glory, distracts.

01:05:49.500 And you're saying kind of like two birds, one stone.

01:05:53.560 By covering the woman's hair, she's covering her glory because the hair is the glory of woman.

01:05:58.100 But she's also covering her head, covering herself in a sense.

01:06:01.880 And woman is the glory of man.

01:06:04.220 Man remains uncovered because man is the glory of God.

01:06:09.500 So only the glory of God is what is visible and being displayed.

01:06:15.180 Correct.

01:06:15.780 Yeah.

01:06:16.840 It's a pretty sound argument.

01:06:18.180 I like it.

01:06:20.000 It's a lot better than the semen argument. Whoa, that's a way to end an episode, huh?

01:06:25.120 Real quick. So I can't just say that and say, all right, see you later. Thanks not for coming.

01:06:29.820 Real quick. What is the, I know it sounds weird, but it's a real argument. What's the whole scene?

01:06:34.160 It's a real argument. It's a serious paper. A couple of papers, I believe published by

01:06:38.620 a man called Troy Martin. His contention is that in verse 15, where it talks about a woman has

01:06:46.380 long hair, her hair is given to her as a covering. The word there is periboleon,

01:06:50.180 which we mentioned is in Hebrews 1.12 and means a mantle or

01:06:53.800 something that you cover yourself with. The sky will be rolled up like as a garment

01:06:58.300 of some kind. But his contention is that the primary meaning of periboleon

01:07:02.120 in the first century is Hippocratic. It has to do with

01:07:06.100 physiology. And that periboleon is primarily

01:07:10.000 in Greek used to refer to the testicles of a man. So 0.98

01:07:13.800 the idea is that in Hippocratic physiology, the testicles are the receptacle for semen. 0.53

01:07:20.440 And because women don't have one, the equivalent in women is the hair, which is conceived of as

01:07:26.900 being hollow so that the long hair sort of sucks up all the semen into tubes, which is why it's

01:07:32.520 bad for a woman to have short hair, because if she's got short hair, then where's all the semen

01:07:36.040 going to go? It's just going to become more manly because she's got too much semen in her body. 0.98

01:07:40.640 That's the gist of it. I'm hopefully not misrepresenting Hippocratic. 0.98

01:07:43.660 No, I've read it.

01:07:45.040 It's fairly bizarre.

01:07:45.820 I've read it because when I first came to the head covering, you know, conviction, I think it was 2019.

01:07:53.080 And wouldn't you know it, I share that conviction with one of my friends, a Presbyterian pastor. 1.00

01:07:59.900 And within like an hour, he sent me back that argument as to say, isn't this stupid and aren't you stupid too? 1.00

01:08:07.880 You know, that's not my argument. 1.00

01:08:09.940 You know, because he, you know, his wife doesn't cover and he wouldn't hold to that position. 0.96

01:08:13.940 So he, of course, he probably Googled, what is the dumbest argument for head coverings? 0.93

01:08:19.200 And that's the one that appeared. 0.91

01:08:20.940 Let me play devil's advocate here for a second.

01:08:23.020 Let me defend Troy.

01:08:24.400 Okay.

01:08:24.980 I don't think that he is really correct, but I think that he makes his argument.

01:08:31.600 like he he draws out a compelling number of examples where paraboleon really does refer to

01:08:39.200 a sexual organ male sexual organ specifically and i think that it would be foolish to simply

01:08:46.960 dismiss all that evidence all that linguistic evidence out of hand i think that obviously the

01:08:52.320 analogy of faith is what we use in interpreting terrible so the fact that hebrews 112 uses the

01:08:57.360 the same the exact same word to describe a mantle something that is a garment that's rolled up that

01:09:02.460 covers things is obviously very instructive we need to take that on board but the fact that it

01:09:07.920 had those Hippocratic connotations isn't necessarily irrelevant it doesn't mean that we can interpret

01:09:14.160 Paul as saying well actually women's hair is given as a semen receptacle and therefore it's

01:09:18.740 appropriate for it to be covered in worship but we can interpret this to be saying actually women's

01:09:23.520 hair has a sexual kind of nature and he's playing on that connection so that there is something

01:09:29.100 central about women's hair which makes it even more modest to be on display in worship because

01:09:34.540 there is a sexual component to it and that's certainly something which a lot of cultures have

01:09:40.900 held to it's pretty common in many ancient cultures or many majority world cultures for

01:09:47.040 women to cover their hair because it's recognized that the hair is central and should be reserved

01:09:51.300 um it's it's full glory should really only be on display for the husband because it

01:09:55.680 is something that allures men and attracts men and makes men you know want to look at it

01:09:59.460 so it's immodest for to put that on display where other men will want to look at you

01:10:03.900 all right okay well any final thoughts before we go ahead and sign off

01:10:09.820 uh at this point my mind is like a bag full of cats so yeah really i think you gave us a lot

01:10:17.120 to think about really really helpful and i hope that i really hope that's the best i can hope for

01:10:21.060 in this episode, honestly.

01:10:22.380 Well, no, I think it was great.

01:10:23.380 And I really hope that our audience,

01:10:24.980 because I haven't really done a topic like that

01:10:26.860 where we just take a whole chapter

01:10:28.980 and, you know, or half a chapter

01:10:30.600 and go verse by verse.

01:10:31.780 So hopefully that's really helpful for people.

01:10:34.540 And I really appreciate you coming on the show.

01:10:37.320 I appreciate the opportunity to be here again.

01:10:39.420 Thanks so much for listening.

01:10:40.640 But real quick, before you go,

01:10:42.640 do us a small favor, take a moment

01:10:44.480 and leave us a five-star review

01:10:46.320 if you enjoyed the show.

01:10:47.920 This is undoubtedly the best way

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01:10:55.300 Thanks so much.

The NXR Podcast - April 26, 2022

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Biblical Womanhood & Head Coverings

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