There is a Comparable Shame to be Distanced From
By this time the apostle has laid the groundwork. There is a tradition, or custom, or ordinance, to keep. There is a hierarchy, or authority structure, to observe. And it must be observed for the sake of the honor of various heads. Now he comes to his leading arguments. His purpose is to restore order in the church, by which restoration the heads of authority are honored once again.
The tail end of verse 5 and the whole of verse 6 make up his first argument. The uncovered woman is “even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.” In other words, the woman’s uncovered head is no less a shame than a bald head is. A woman might as well have the latter if she will have the former. If a woman’s head is uncovered in church, why not shave her head bare and be done with all manner of covering? That is his argument. It may be that he argues similarly with the Galatians when he seems to suggest that those who would circumcise themselves ought to go so far as to cut off the whole (5.12.) John MacArthur thinks that may be the case. If the woman will cast aside the token of subjection that is assigned to her by God, why not take off the one that she is endowed with by nature as well? Paul’s rhetoric in verse 6 might seem anticlimactic to us. But it must have been the apex of horror to the churchgoing women in Corinth. The city was infamous for its modes of debauchery. In the temple of Aphrodite were employed priestesses, who were, in fact, temple prostitutes. These women could be identified by their shorn, or shaven, appearance. So verse 6 likens the appearance of uncovered women in church to that of bald prostitutes in heathen temples. Their saucy behaviors are similar. The latter women are the public shame; the former women are the shame of the church. The apostle’s comparison might seem scathing. But his doctrine is considerate. He only requires that women be covered during church services or functions during which worship services take place, for the letter is about order in the church. Women are not being forced to wear a burqa or sack over the entire body, only a veil on the head. Even during the time of the Old Testament patriarchs, women had more freedom than they presently have in Muslim societies. Rebekah, for example, was not veiled when she saw Isaac in the distance (Genesis 24.65.) And it may be that she veiled herself upon his approach only because she was betrothed to him. Furthermore, we read in Genesis 38.15 that it was ‘an harlot’ that ‘covered her face.’ This means that the women of Israel did not do so. As far back into Israel’s history as one can go, its treatment of women does not exhibit the extremes that oppressive Islam is infamous for. And edification and liberty, not oppression and bondage, mark the doctrines of Paul on the matter. The woman does not dignify herself by refusing to cover up; her sin of omission mirrors indecency. That is the teaching in verse 6 of 1 Corinthians 11.
It is no longer common for women to cover their heads in evangelical churches. And if some do cover, few among these know why. Evangelical women know about this passage in the Bible. Based on what I have observed from both far and near, it is a passage that is generally abhorred by them. Can a person hate a passage of Scripture and be saved? Can that person who hates what the Bible teaches in one place be saved through its message in another place? Should a Christian not love what the word of God teaches? I love the doctrine of hell, not because I look forward to sinners and even loved ones going there. I love it instinctively on account of my new life in Christ, which is mine through regeneration. A child of God loves the things of God, whatever they are. Some women who know about this passage actually look into it, figure it out, and then obey it. I found a testimony of one such woman on the internet: “After my return home,” she says, from church, I guess, “Dad asked me what I thought God wanted me to do about it. That was all it took; I attacked the project, subdued it, wore it, and have been wearing it ever since. Now the veil is precious to me. I would not go anywhere [to any church, I presume] without that announcement of God’s protection. And it pleases him besides!” Far from feeling subjugated by a patriarchal system, this girl felt elated, exalted, and protected. The woman who obeys the word of God is happy and feels honored. It is to a woman’s advantage to obey. Any person who has been around for awhile will tell you that women have become increasingly unhappy and bitter since at least the 1950s. What an opportunity of obedience does the Christian woman have today! What blessing from God would she certainly receive by showing subjection by wearing the symbol of power! A woman who wants to be closer to God has an easy way, in obedience to this ordinance, to get that done. Especially pleasing to God would it be for her to obey in spite of the men in church who do not carry their place of authority well. Is it possible to find even five men in a church who are more biblically literate than the most knowledgeable woman there? Is it possible to find one pastor in ten churches who thinks the forepart of 1 Corinthians is comprehensible and applicable? The Christian woman who obeys in the current milieu will not lose her reward any more than the woman who put her two mites in the offering will lose hers.
The uncovered women in the church at Corinth wanted emancipation on their own terms and according to their own design. The apostle stepped in to stop illicit trends from entering the church. He knew the dangers that a little leaven pose. But our churches do not listen to him much. The covering became a controversy in our churches only recently. Now it is no longer a controversy because practically no one bothers to enforce it. After the pope said that the covering was no longer necessary, Catholic churches began to disregard the symbol; then the evangelical churches, so weak as to be relieved for a way out of being thought discriminatory, obeyed the pope. So in the 1960s the veil started to come off in our churches. Added to the influence of the pope was the even more powerful sway of culture. The covering coming off was a symptom in religion of rebellion in the world. Women were cropping their hair in the 1920s, wearing pants by the 1940s, and did up the length of their skirts along the way. This is generally how feminism progressed. Dresses and skirts grew shorter in churches while women of the world were exchanging women’s attire for clothes that men wore. Before long, women were wearing pants in church as brazenly as that had been done in the world. Then when women began to occupy stations once reserved for men, churchgoing women copied that to become ministers in our churches. One sin led to another until, finally, women were wresting (perverting) the word of Almighty God from sacred pulpits (2 Peter 3.16.) Abyssus abyssum invocat. (Abyss calls to abyss)—: one depravity leads to another. Once the biblical standard is set aside, there follows improper attire from the head on down, then fornication, adultery, and illegitimate ordination, and then feminist propaganda from purloined pulpits—pulpits occupied by women who could pass for temple prostitutes, by the way. That is the situation presently. “For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.”
