So What About This Headcovering?
by Sarah Wootten Corinth Missionary Baptist Church
Over the last two weeks, we considered the foundation for the command that women should wear headcoverings while praying or prophesying in the gathered worship service (1 Corinthians 11:2-7). This instruction isn’t random; it’s based on God’s good design in creation, in the Trinity, and in marriage.
Today, we wrap up this discussion by considering the actual instruction regarding headcoverings.
Because God has created order (11:3), women should cover their heads while praying or prophesying within a gathered worship service, while men should never cover their heads while doing the same activities (11:4-5). Why? Because husbands, while in submission to Christ, are the head of their marriages, and women are to be submissive to their husbands, just like the Church submits to Christ (Ephesians 5:22-24). The headcovering is an outward symbol of inward submissiveness.
This instruction seems odd to us. In our culture, it’s not a standard practice that women cover their heads, like it was in the first century.
However, it was very important for Paul to instruct the church at Corinth in this way. Most people deduce from the Corinthian letter that the church was acting chaotically.
During the observance of the Lord’s supper, many were getting drunk and gorging themselves (1 Corinthians 11:17-22).
Those speaking in tongues or prophesying were speaking over each other, leading to confusion, rather than fruitfulness (14:26-33).
And there was an instruction that women cannot exercise authority over the men in the worship service, but that women should remain in submission (14:34).
Therefore, we understand that the Corinthians women were operating outside their God-ordained roles and exercising an authority that God had not given them.
Therefore, Paul calls them to repentance by reminding both men and women of their God-given roles.
So yes, the women needed to cover their heads while praying or prophesying to show that they were in submission to the authority God had placed over them.
More than that, however, they needed to submit to God from the heart and live in the beautiful design He had given them.
There’s something else important to note – Paul assumes that women WILL be participating in the worship service.
Paul isn’t restricting their praying or prophesying. He is telling them the way in which they need to do it in order to align themselves with God’s design.
The Lord has gifted women of the church with many spiritual gifts in order to worship Him and serve others.
If God has instructed women to not do something (such as pastoral ministry, see 1 Timothy 2:12), then we aren’t gifted to do that thing, and we will not be fulfilled by it.
But where God has not restricted and if He has gifted a woman for the job, then she SHOULD be encouraged to serve the Lord in that manner.
Churches are greatly blessed by the women of the congregation who are serving in the ways that God has called.
If we restrict where God does not, then not only is the woman missing out on the great blessing the Lord has in store for her, but the entire congregation is excluded in what God has in store for them.
What does this have to do with us today? Some argue that the headcovering Paul speaks of is hair, based on 1 Corinthians 11:14-15.
I tend to disagree. The headcovering was meant to be a sign of submission, and hair isn’t viewed in that way.
Others would argue that all women need to wear a headcovering while at church. I also disagree with that argument since Paul was clear that this was to be done while praying or prophesying.
Where I have landed for now is that if a woman is rightly exercising her God-given gift in the worship service and the use of that gift has a component of leading that might be misinterpreted as usurping the authority given to men to lead the congregation, then there should be an outward sign present to reflect an inward submission.
Personally, I would imagine that this can be accomplished in a variety of different ways based on the context, but sticking with the headcovering tradition could accomplish the intended result.
In the Lord, God men and women are dependent upon one another (11:8-12).
A difference in roles does not mean that a difference in value exists. Instead, God has created us both to work together within our various giftings to glorify Him in marriage and in the church.
