Brother Lewis Kiger, in his sermon Uncovering the Head Covering Issue, attempts to show the head covering was a cultural issue for the Corinthian church by providing a cultural context for the City of Corinth and then a reading of 1 Corinthians 11 which frames the head covering as part of the liberty discussion Paul starts in chapter eight. I hope to prove that both the historical context and the context of the epistle proves the head covering is part of orderly church worship and not a cultural issue of Paul’s day.
Lewis is a dear friend of mine and I respect him enough to offer some public push-back to a public sermon. I don't write this to attack him personally (Proverbs 27:6) or attack expository preaching as a method. I also think Lewis is enough of a man to handle a public critique and hope that he can at least appreciate someone disagreeing with him face to face, so to speak. Since Lewis is a well respected man who has changed is position, this sermon has drawn a lot of attention and I think worthy of a response.
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| Hear me out before you toss the veil... |
The only way out from under the veil is to say the covering is the hair, or Paul was talking to the Corinthians about a cultural issue, and thus not for the church today. It is clear Paul instructs the Corinthian women to be covered. Does the covering then deal with how to live in the culture, thus a liberty issue, or is this a church issue? I will first deal with the context of the epistle, then conclude the historical context.
In the eighth chapter we find instruction on Christian liberty, and whether or not it is proper to eat and drink food offered to pagan idols. In chapter nine, Paul defends his apostolic authority and shows his willingness to deny himself of his rights to be supported in the ministry for the good of others. In the tenth chapter we find Old Testament examples about Israel concerning sin and temptation, applying this to the church. Paul details how the one body, the church cannot partake of the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils.
I contend the natural reading of 1 Corinthians 10:33-11:1 is Paul’s concluding remarks after a long section on Christian liberty. An idol is nothing, but we are not idolaters. We have liberty, but there are bounds to our liberty. All is lawful, not all expedient, and all we do should be for the glory of God. We have freedom in Christ, and no man is our master, but whether it was Jew or Gentile or in the church our out, try to live without offense. 1 Corinthians 10:33-11:1 “Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. (11:1) Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” Verse 1 of chapter 11 is tied to chapter 10. However, it is equally clear verse two begins a new thought and as I will show, the actual context puts the head covering on the church side of the issue, not the liberty side. Chapter 11 deals with the head covering and the Lord’s Supper. Once we leave the subjects of chapter 11, we go on to teaching on spiritual gifts and other church worship issues.
Paul’s liberty message is beautiful. Corinthians, you have liberty, but, like me, you can deny your rights to show love to others by either teaching them truth or preaching the gospel. However, remember Israel, how they sinned against God. Your Liberty doesn’t give you license to sin. Flee from Idolatry. Chapter 10 concludes with instruction to do all things for the glory of God. A fitting capstone to this difficult doctrine. First, he deals with a legalistic view of the Mosaic law, then he shows us liberty is not selfishness, but we use our freedom to love others. Next he deals with the opposite extreme, because having freedom to eat meat doesn’t give you freedom to commit idolatry. He corrects errors on both sides, then exhorts us to walk down the middle of this road, and avoid both ditches, by doing all things for the glory of God, follow Paul’s example as he followed Christ. I think we are all on board so far.
11:2 Now I praise you,brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. The word “now” in the book is either untranslated, used to continue a thought (1:12), or used to start a new discussion (7:1; 8:1) , so it depends on the context. After telling the church to follow him, he praises them for remembering him in all things and to keep the ordinances as he delivered them when he organized the church. He concludes one subject by saying "follow me" and transitions to the next topic by saying they were doing well by remembering previous instruction. Chapter 8 began a new discussion on liberty, “Now as touching things offered unto idols…” Clearly new territory there. In 11:2, Paul praises the church for remembering his prior teaching, which are the ordinances that he had already delivered, which was old familiar ground.
Paul uses a technique in 1 Corinthians called an inclusio. An inclusio begins and ends a section with either the same thought or even the same phrasing Think of them like bookends. You have a bookend on the left, holding the books up on the shelf, and another matching one on the other end, doing the same. Or, think of an inclusio like brackets holding a section of thought together. A clear example is in chapter 11.
1 Corinthians 11:2 Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.
1 Corinthians 11:17 Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse.
1 Corinthians 11:22-23 What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church
of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. (23) For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
- 11:2 I praise you
- 11:17 I praise you not
- 11:2 “keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you”
- 11:23 “ For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you”
Since Paul started preaching, men have attempted to discredit what he taught as non-binding, which is why he spends so much time in the New Testament defending his apostleship. We must hold to Paul’s apostolic authority. If I were in Rome, trying to be all things to all men, I might mention argumentum ad verecundiam. But I’m not, so I’ll just mention that my stack of commentators has quite a few learned men saying Paul started a new line of thought in verse two. It’s also interesting to note that the closer one gets to the women’s liberation movement, the more “insight” men have into the culture at Corinth. The downside with appealing to authority is I've got just as many commentators on my side. Sadder still when we take the authority of commentators and historians over the authority of Paul.
Both issues in chapter 11 deal with the glory of God and order in the church, which fits the overarching theme of 1 Corinthians. Paul's proof for the covering has to do with God's glory and order, not door to door evangelism. In order to make the head covering a cultural issue, the reason for the covering must be the gospel of Christ to the lost world. But the reasons Paul actually provides have nothing which the lost world. The unsaved would neither care about nor understand Biblical headship.
Glory, order, judgment, and knowledge are major themes you'll find weaving in and out the epistle. Paul either addresses these issues positively or negatively. For example, Paul writes about unity or he'll address division from the negative side. There were divisions over the preachers in the church (1:10-11), divisions over spiritual matters in the church (3:1-4), divisions over spiritual gifts in the church(12:25). Divisions over their freedom in the church, and out (8-10). Divisions at the Lord's supper in the church (11:17-21). He addresses order, or disorder. They were out of order in sexual relations and church discipline (5:1-5). They were out of order in how they dealt with problems with other church members (6:1-8). They were out of order in the whole church service, 1 Corinthians 14:40, "Let all things be done decently and in order." Paul needed to come back to put things back in order. 1 Corinthians 11:34, "... And the rest will I set in order when I come." He even set in order how and when they were to give their offerings in the church (16:1-4). They also had a glory problem (5:2, 6; 3:21; 4:18-19), in their glory was out of order. The church is to judge Scripturally (2:15), judge themselves (5:12; 6:2; 11:31), judge each other(6:2), judge right from wrong (chapters 8-10), judge good from better. The church is also to cling to the wisdom of God, revealed in His word, through his apostles, in the power of the Spirit (chapters 1-3). The Bible is a spiritual book and must be understood spiritually (2:15-16). This is opposed to the folly of the world, that "puffeth up" (8:1-2). The context of the whole book is Paul, with Apostolic authority, puts the church back in the right order, for the glory of God.
Lewis said 1 Corinthians 11 is the only place in Scripture teaching the head covering, so you can’t build a doctrine when there is only one verse, or in this case one section of verses. Ok, is Scripture God breathed? Give me two verses. Is it valid for a man to dress like a woman? Lewis, in the third sermon said it was, but give me two verses saying otherwise, or one New Testament verse. I’m not sure where this idea came from, but I don’t think that is a well established principle of theology. This is this potential danger of Biblical Theology. I know saying you have a problem with Biblical Theology sounds bad -- but Biblical Theology is a system of theology, taking doctrinal development chronologically, as it was given, rather than as a whole, like Systematic Theology does. Biblical Theology can lead one to overemphasize the history of the passage over the interpretation and meaning of the passage. Certainly, it can be helpful, but it does have dangers. We have the closed Book. We can know what God has said on every topic God revealed in His Word (Deuteronomy 29:29). To know the truth about the head covering, we don't need to see how it developed over time, or even see how the Corinthians would have received this teaching, to know what God has said. Obviously, it is important to know who is speaking, and who he is speaking to, but if you go too far, you ignore what Paul actually said by trying to get in the head of the Corinthians. The Bible gives us everything we need to know to rightly interpret and understand the Bible. Sequential exposition has a blind spot when not backed up by sound systematic theology. Herman Bavinck, in Reformed Dogmatics, Volume one rightly states, "...according to Scripture itself, dogmatics has the right to rationally absorb its content and, guided by Scripture, to rationally process it and also to acknowledge as truth that which can be deduced from it by lawful inference."
But even within this short passage, Paul connects the head covering to other Biblical truths and principles - headship, the created order, and the glory unto God, creation, the angels, then nature itself. Moved by the Holy Spirit, Paul instructs the church in an ordinance practiced by the other churches (11:16) and previously taught in Corinth (11:2) and based upon the foundation of Scriptural inferences. This not the same thing as saying the head covering is only taught in one place. For example, 1 Corinthians 15:9 talks about "Baptism for the dead", and is a very difficult passage. However, the Scriptures elsewhere shed light on what baptism for the dead cannot mean. We know what baptism is, and what it is for, and who it is for from other passages of Scripture. We know what it cannot mean, even if we are not sure what it actually does mean. The principle is, you cannot build a doctrine on one verse, without supporting verses. If you take 1 Corinthians 15:9 on an island, then yes, you would be foolish to build a doctrine on one verse. But given the analogy of the faith, and harmony and perfection of the Scripture, you know it cannot mean Christians are to baptize dead people. However, the inverse is true. For example, 2 Timothy 3:16, says the Word of God is inspired, and is the only place the word inspiration is used in the Bible. Liberals deny God's inspiration by pointing here and saying, "that's the only place in the Bible where it says the Bible is inspired, you can't build a doctrine of inspiration on one verse!" However, you can see the inferences and supporting passages buttressing the doctrine of inspiration. Just because something is only explicitly found in one place, doesn’t mean it isn’t true and doesn’t mean it isn’t inferred in other passages. A similar tactic is used by people pushing for ordaining women and advocates of the “gay Christian” theory. Paul supports his teaching on the head covering on Biblical principles and foundation of creation and headship. The head covering does not contradict the analogy of Scripture but supports and is in perfect harmony with the whole of the Bible’s teaching on headship, order, creation, and the roles of men and women. Which is someone ironic, considering the my next point.
The whole foundation of Brother Kiger's interpretation is the head covering as a Jewish tradition or a cultural phenomenon of the ancient times and has no bearing for us today (see the second sermon An Exposition of the Head Covering Issue). His entire argument and exegesis of the text is built on this presupposition, and if that foundation cracks, the whole interpretation falls down. But he has a hard time proving this assertion from the Bible. The cultural covering interpretation tells us it was the custom for women wear coverings all the time, and it would be an offence to be seen without one in public. His proof the covering was a liberty issue is based on the presupposition that every woman in town wore one, it was scandalous for a women not to wear a veil, and for the furtherance of the gospel, women had to wear the covering outside the church so they could share the gospel. It sounds very good. He even compares modern day reporters going to Muslim countries, wearing a burkas as not to offend the culture. And hints in the third sermon, that they did wear the burka. Here's the kicker. We have 15 verses on the head covering, that we can’t build a doctrine around because there is no other epistle that talks about the covering , but we have ZERO verses on the fashion tastes of Corinthian women that we are supposed interpret these verse through? Corinthian women had to wear veils all the time in public? Uh, says who? Whose "tradition" are we supposed to listen to? Looks like we’ve got an authority issue.
God’s Word does not show us that women wore veils all the time in Gentile nations. This is also not corroborated in history. The common fashion of the day was either sleeveless (or down to the elbow) tunics called the peplos with hats only for fashion purposes. They also wore “elaborate coiffures and [held] their hair in nets..” Bible Manners and Customs, Vos. You can take 5 minutes and Google ancient Grecian or Roman fashion and you know the veil was not a custom of Corinth. It is just not true that Paul entered a modest city and he instructed women to keep up the secular practice of wearing veils as not to hinder door to door visitation. Yes, look at the Middle East now, and you’ll see women covered from head to toe. The burka and covering you see today is not Greek or Roman influence, but rather Islamic influence, which was still several centuries down the road. Our culture in the United States, indeed all of Western Civilization, is down stream from Ancient Greece and Rome. We have more in common with Corinth culturally than we do the modern day Islamic states. The Jews were Hellenistic Jews, which means they were Hebrews, but lived in Greek culture, spoke Greek, and dressed as Grecian people. Corinth was established by the Greeks, over 700 years before Paul ever came around. Plus, Corinth was conquered and destroyed, and rebuilt by the Romans nearly a century before this epistle. With Corinth’s long and storied history, it would not be hard to find any number of cultural movements in the course of a millennia, dominated by two of the greatest world empires.
Let's imagine, in the year 4017, some scholar was going to write a paper on the spiritual condition of New York City as relating to the dress of the day. Without knowing the exact date, he reads some papers on the fashion and times of New York, from 1750 and applies their dress to his thesis about the culture of New York City in 2018. From the distance of 2,000 years, a hundred years or so doesn't seem like a lot of time, he’s in the ballpark. But the city moved from the hands of British control to independence in the new United States, not to mention the cultural shift the era matters and a lot can change in a decade or two.
With Corinth, there is a whole lot of history and the data in the commentaries that may be true, but what era of Corinth are they describing, and how do we know that is the context Paul is preaching? Some scholars point out much of the historical information used to talk about women shaving their heads in temple prostitution was from an earlier era in Corinth and had long since come to an end by the time Paul arrives (the temple of Aphrodite, where this was practiced, was destroyed 200 some years prior). Plus, we do know from God's Word, women wore their hair in elaborate, and beautiful hairstyles (I Timothy 2:9; I Peter 3:3) not covered up all the time. The idea the Greek and Roman culture was a tad too heavy on the patriarchy, so Paul wanted the women to wear their head coverings is foreign to the Bible (1 Corinthians 14:34; 1 Timothy 2:11; 1 Timothy 2:12; Revelation 2:20). The consistent teaching of the New Testament churches was for women to dial back the immodesty of the culture, and for women to cover their hair, rather than make a show of it, like the world. According to God’s Word, women are counter-cultural, and cover their glory, not to be proud and flaunt it like the world. Wearing the head covering to avoid offending the Greek women of Corinth is the opposite of reality. If this is true, then how far do we apply this principle of dressing like the culture? The cover for the culture theory means Paul meant something other than what he actually said. So my question stands, “Says who?” I’ll need a lot more proof than commentators to deny Paul’s Apostolic authority on the matter. I waited until the end of his series to post a response, but his issue isn't how he treats the verses as he comes to them, but rather his presupposition is false.
But, whether of Greek or Roman influence, can we really say Corinth was a modest culture? I’m sorry, but it’s really hard to fathom the City of Corinth, from reading the text, was so bashful and modest a woman couldn't walk downtown without her head covered, especially in light of the sexual sins addressed in this one letter. Have you ever seen a Greek goddess statue? Read the Odyssey? The Isthmian games were held in Corinth and hardly a modest affair. I’m all for reading history to get as much of a feeling of the culture as possible, but you wrest the Scriptures by putting the epistles in a false setting. Corinth was such a place of women's subjection that men bowed down and worshiped goddesses? How can we, in 2018, know more about the culture than the men who actually lived it? Men such as Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD), Turtullian (160-220 AD), Hippolytus (170-236 AD), Ambrosiater (366-384 AD), Jerome (347-420 AD), Chrysostom (349-407 AD) Headcovering Throughout Christian History, Phillips, all believed and wrote that women need to wear the covering in public worship. Lewis provided a different interpretation of the text by putting Corinth in a culture, assuming it looked like modern day Afghanistan. It is more likely, if a woman happened upon a church service coming home from the market, she might enter and say, "what's the deal with all the veils?"
History from outside sources is not inspired. We have to be very careful with commentators who want to correct the clear meaning of the words of Scripture by showing us a new context or a fresh way of seeing things from sources outside of the Bible. 1 Timothy 1:4, "Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do." “Says who?” If you are going to take off your veil, you need to ask by whose authority. If you won't put on the veil, you need to give a justification of why Paul didn't mean what he said, and is that authority sufficient to stand at the day of the Lord? It would be impossible to come to the conclusion Lewis comes to by Scripture alone. Impossible. To say the covering was a cultural issue, you need Scripture plus something else. A man and a Bible would never have come up with the idea this was a cultural issue. Prior to publishing this article, I read the book of First Corinthians, straight through, front to back, several times. I did this to honestly assess whether or not I had missed the "cultural issue" context. I read honestly looking for any sign of information relating the cultural dress of the day and did not find even the slightest illusion. Having listened to Brother Kiger's message carefully, I looked for any Biblical justification for his claims about the culture, and they are just not there. You cannot, from the Bible, make the case that head coverings were the cultural norm of Corinth. You will find historical evidence to the contrary. Brother Kiger, no doubt, can provide a big list of references showing this was the cultural norm. I can do the same to show it wasn't. Taking the word of fallible men, where there is NOT consensus, to rewrite the Apostle Paul is unwise and dangerous.
If the head covering was cultural, Paul would have contradicted himself to explain the principles of Christian liberty and then immediately tell the women at Corinth they must subject themselves to traditions of men. Would Paul subject Gentile women to Pharisaic tradition? Not likely. He didn’t say they should for the brethren's sake? Paul said with Christian liberty, we are FREE to eat meats offered to idols, but immediately says you are not free to ditch the covering? Paul would have been teaching, "You are not free to take off your head covering, because of all these scriptural reasons about angels, God’s glory, the Trinity, your husband and creation, because you might offend the unbelieving Gentiles?" If the head covering is a “liberty” issue, Paul would have dealt with it in the same way he dealt with it with idols and meats. He would have showed why a woman doesn't have to wear a covering, but then explained why she should.
When Paul dealt with meats offered to idols, he doesn't give any Scriptural reasons why a person should abstain from meats from Old Testament principles. The only reason to abstain is if it bothers your conscience or offends a brother, because we are free in Christ. If it comes down to offending a lost person or offending a saved person, you should offend the lost person. If the head covering were a "liberty" issue, Paul would not have labored to give the Biblical reasons for wearing it, connecting it to the glory of God. Liberty in Christ is a blessing of the New Covenant, not the Old. When Paul told the church they couldn’t commit adultery and idolatry by giving Old Testament examples, but he said you are free to eat meat because an idol is nothing. The Jews would have had all sorts of Old Testament principles to prove why Christians should abstain from meats offered to idols. They had a whole list, I'm sure. If the head covering is a liberty issue, Paul would be doing the same thing the Jews did with meats offered to idols, by drawing from the glory of God and creation that doesn't explicitly say anything about the covering, to command women to wear a veil. But since this is Holy Spirit inspired, we know Paul is rightly applying Scriptural principles. Beside Paul’s explicit instruction (which ought to be enough), he also gives at least 8 reasons why a woman ought to wear a head-covering and gives zero reasons why she shouldn't. Following the way Paul argues, there is no way this was a liberty issue.
Plus, Paul doesn't mention liberty. Paul doesn't mention lost people, or others being offended. In fact, the only people offended in chapter 11 is God the Father, the Lord Jesus, the angels, and her husband, if she is uncovered. If this is a liberty issue, who is the weak Christian in that scenario, or who is the woman trying to win? If she wasn't allowed to go outside without a covering, is she really going to be able to go house to house and witness effectively? Who are they trying to win, by wearing the covering? The central theme of chapter 11 is the glory of God. It has nothing to do with the world at large. If the head covering were a liberty issue, Paul would have shown, as he did with the meats -- the covering is nothing" and women had the freedom to leave it behind. If the head covering were a liberty issue, Paul would have shown how this freedom is good and used for the glory of God. As Paul tied the head covering to headship, freedom from the covering is freedom from submission. It is freedom from headship. It is freedom from the God ordained role of men and women, and that, is not freedom.
The Lord’s church is the last bastion of Biblical modesty, and God glorifying headship. It’s gone in the culture, the workplace, even the home, so any act of Biblical submission or headship is foreign to unbelievers and even many believers. I'm afraid the commentators making the covering a cultural issue were looking for a plausible reason why they wouldn't' have to tell the women in their church they needed a covering. They made a way to be faithful to what the text says without having to be faithful to what the text means. When visitors come to the house of God and see women with covered heads, they may find the veil strange. I have many times answered the question, “what’s the deal with all the veils?” Is the answer then, to take off the veil, so the unbeliever, coming in the church, feels warm and welcome? How far do you take that principle? Are you going to choose your Bible translation based on the preference of unbelievers? Or is the answer to wear the veil for the purpose Paul gave, and model the glory of God in humble obedience? Believers come in the house of God to Worship the Lord of Hosts. If an unbeliever comes, great! But the service is for God and God’s people. Everything about the worship service should make an unbeliever a bit uncomfortable, if holy people, read a holy book and worship a holy God. It is also a mistake to assume that the further back in history you go, the more modest you will find men and women.
Finis
If you are still with me, thank you for taking the time to read. I have heard a lot of slander about Baptist over the last year, on both sides (and yes, there are now two sides) and the last thing I wanted to do was to add more fuel to the fire. I may not have done the best, but I’ve done my best to present my case. It is rather long, and for the internet age, perhaps should have been a series, but I don't want this to drag on for six weeks.
Sequential exposition forces you to deal with the text of Scripture. Even the difficult passages. Indeed, if you stick with the plan, you will have to deal with chapter two before getting to chapter three. However, preaching verse by verse, doesn’t mean you get the context correct, or guarantee an accurate interpretation of the passage. It is possible to miss the meaning of Scripture, going verse by verse by adjusting the context, and to illustrate how you can be in context one way out of context in another.
One reason I felt I had to write this article is because it is dangerous to reinterpret what Paul said by applying a different cultural context. Scholar, N.T. Wright, the much beloved heretic of evangelical intellects, reinterprets Scripture by providing a "new perspective" through which to interpret Paul to deny justification by faith. If you can’t change what the Bible says, try and change the setting, and put a different spin on it. With this same technique, you can make Paul believe in works for salvation in Galatians, you can make him favor women preachers in Timothy, or even condone homosexual relationships in Romans and 1 Corinthians. This happens all day, every day. All you have to do is build an extra-biblical cultural context, say that we don't get what Paul says because we are Americans, then convince people to accept your way of looking at the Scriptures. It's more than a difference of opinion on a"non-essential". A man and his Bible would have never come to the interpretation of the "cultural covering". Foundationally, this way of Biblical interpretation undercuts the authority of the Apostle Paul. I don't think that is a "second tier" issue. This IS a hill I'm willing to die on. However, I would not make the head covering a test of fellowship, and never have. But I do think the root of this interpretation points to a deeper problem than the message itself.
I thought I’d let Presbyterian, Reformed, sequential expositor R.C. Sproul have the last word
from his book, Knowing Scripture.
“The basic problem here is that our reconstructed knowledge of first-century Corinth has led us to supply Paul with a rationale that is foreign to the one [Paul] gives himself. In a word, we are not only putting words into the apostle’s mouth, but we are ignoring words that are there. If Paul merely told women in Corinth to cover their heads and gave no rationale for such instruction, we would be strongly inclined to supply it via our cultural knowledge. In this case, however, Paul provides a rationale which is based on an appeal to creation, not to the custom of Corinthian harlots. We must be careful not to let our zeal for knowledge of the culture obscure what is actually said. To subordinate Paul’s stated reason to our speculatively conceived reason is to slander the apostle and turn exegesis into eisogesis.”
