Worship, Wardrobe, and Honor - 1 Corinthians 11:2-16

Is that what you're gonna wear? Have you ever said that to someone? As a parent, maybe to a teenager? Is that what you're gonna wear? Maybe as a wife, to a husband? Is that what you're gonna wear? Maybe to an employee. We probably all had it said to us at some point, and more than likely we've said it to someone. Is that what you're going to wear? We know that our clothing sends a signal. It sends a message about who we are, how we think of ourselves, how we think of those we're interacting with, that clothing is culturally coded. And we get this instinctively without having to think about it. We kind of grow up in a culture, and you know that certain clothing sends certain signals. I'll show you a picture as an example of this. I imagine all of you right away know what every one of those people are, right? You don't have to guess or wonder. Guy on the left, a soldier, guy on the right, an umpire, lady in the middle is a nurse, guy on the 2nd to the right, flies planes. I was in the airport this week, couldn't get a flight, didn't have a crew, but there was a guy dressed like that. I was like, well, someone's in control. He knows what he's doing. That just by looking at those things, you recognize immediately that sent a signal. that clothing signals something. Often, though, our clothing can send like the wrong message, if we're not careful, check out this picture. Right? You go, yeah, that seems off. Unless you're at a Hawaiian funeral, are you a Wayne beggarly? It just seems off, that you would be at a funeral. with a Hawaiian shirt and a lay on. It's like it's at a place. And if someone showed up like that, you would either say you're intentionally trying to say something or you're just unaware completely of like the cultural norm at a funeral. Imagine if you're at a wedding. And as a bride comes walking down in a white dress, over here in this section is another lady, in a white dress that looks very similar to the bride. You would kind of go, oh, no, no. I think you're sending a message that you probably shouldn't be sending. If you showed up to a job interview in your pajamas. If, if, you know, next week, Dalton's preaching. What if he showed up in some shorts and a t-shirt and some flip-flops? You'd go, you're sending a message. in the context, and we would get that, and you're wondering, what does this have to do with the Bible? Well, this was Paul's problem. Paul's been writing to the church at Corinth and the passage we're going to look at today. He's dealing with some dress code violations from the Corinthians, both men and women. that they and their culture would have understood instinctively, they were sending a certain kind of message, and Paul saying, don't send that message. That's the wrong message to be sending when you've gathered to worship. Now, we are 2000 years removed from the Corinthian culture, which was really a conglomeration of 3 different cultures. So you had a Roman culture, which was a dominant culture in Corinth. It was a Roman city. You had a Greek culture, which would have been more of a background culture, and then you had a subset Jewish culture where the church had begun in the synagogue. So all 3 of these cultures are swirling around and trying to figure out how do these different cultures address their dress? How do they think about what they're wearing? Paul's asking the same question to the Corinthians. Are you really wearing that? or not wearing that during worship. So we want to unpack what he says. The main idea of these passages in 1st Corinthians chapter 11 verses 2 to 16 is where we're going to be, is this. Our worship should glorify God by reflecting his created order and design of men and women. Our worship should glorify God by reflecting his created order and design of men and women. This was the issue. I think that Paul is getting at in what is a very complicated passage. This is one of the most complicated passages to unpack in scripture. So usually at the end, we say, if you have any questions, grab a connect card. I want tell you now. Just go ahead and grab a connect card. I got one up here, so I'm gonna write myself some questions about what I'm saying. If you have questions about anything I say. I have like 35 minutes to unpack this. Write them down. And I would love to reach out with you and explain in more detail. We can spend hours unpacking what Paul's saying here. I'm gonna do the best I can to unpack in the time I have, what he's saying, but grab that connect card, don't be afraid to go, I mean, I'm confused by that. I'm not sure about what you meant by that. I'm sure I'll say something that I didn't say as clearly as I could have, or that needed more time that I can unpack more fully if you have a question. Corinth was an honor shame culture. We don't live in an honor shame culture. We live in a rights-based culture, and so we have a harder time recognizing the impact that honor and shame would have upon not just the person, but the other people connected to them. We get this somewhat. especially like in sports, if a player on a team is misbehaving, it kind of brings shame to the whole team. We get it in work at times. If someone is doing something so bad, you say, you've brought kind of an embarrassment on the whole company. We can see that with politicians. So we have some sense of this, but the Corinthians lived in a very honor shame-based culture. And so when Paul's writing about how they are shaming or honoring each other. It would resonate deeply with them. So if you have your Bibles, turn with me to 1st Corinthians chapter 11. We'll look at verses 2 and 3 to start with, but we're going all the way through verse 16, try to unpack it as we go. Paul starts this way. Now, I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain their traditions, even as I delivered them to you. Paul starts with a compliment because he's going to go right into correction. And chapters 11, 12 and 13 and the 14 are correcting the things they weren't doing well. But he starts with, I commend you because you keep the traditions. The teachings we have passed on to you that are in alignment with the gospel. You're keeping them. And he says, yeah, for the most part, but now let me tell you what you're not doing, right? And he points out some things the Corinthian church was getting wrong. Again, as we read this letter, be aware it's a letter. Paul's writing to a specific group of people in a specific time and place and addressing their specific issues, and we're hearing one side of that argument. I've told people regularly if I could time travel. If that was a thing, I would go back to Corinth for about 3 months. and figure out what all these issues were, like, really know them. I spent a lot of time reading books about what we think was going on, from what the research has said, what we've been able to uncover. But I go, let me go live with these people for 3 months and find out explicitly. They knew what their problems were. They knew exactly what Paul meant. We're doing the best we can to unpack that to understand their situation so we can then apply it to our situation. We're in a different cultural context completely than 1st century Corinth. So Paul begins by commending them. And then he has in verse three, this issue about headship, and that's going to tie into how they were worshiping. He says this, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ. And the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Let me unpack a few words here because they become very important. Just by a show of hands, I'm not going to embarrass any of you. We use the ESV as kind of our standard Bible here. So if you have the Pew Bible, it's an English standard version. It's a good translation. That's why we use it, there's a lot of other good ones. If you're using a different translation than the ESV, raise your hand. So in this verse, it doesn't say wife husband. It says man, woman. And you're going like, that's not what mine says. Here's what's going on. Let me start with the word head. The word head in English has several meanings. The primary meaning of that word is this thing. The thing above your shoulders, it's your head. It's a physical part of our body. That's the primary meaning. In Greek, the word that's used is Kefala, and it means the same thing. It's the thing on your shoulders. It can mean the top of a column, which makes sense if the head on your body is the top, then the top of a column is the head of a column. means that in Greek, it means the same thing in English. It can also mean the source or the origin of a thing. So in English, we could speak of the head of a river. It's where the river starts, where it comes from. Greek has the same meaning for Kefalae. From that, you can also get the idea of like ahead of a family, or the head of a military unit, someone who has some sort of authority, and in Greek, the word can also carry that meaning. It doesn't mean authority, but it has some relational connection to authority. So our English and Greek function the exact same way. Paul's going to play on that, because what he says here is, I want you to understand that the head, not the physical thing, not the noggin on your shoulders, is that the head of every man is Christ. He using it metaphorically. And by means by that is this origin. this relational connection, this source, and this authority. The head of every man is Christ. And then he says, the head of a wife is her husband, or if you have a different translation, the head of a woman is man. And wait, why is it different? The Greek words here, we don't use Greek a lot to explain things, unless we need to. It's Gune and Anir. Gune means woman, Anir means man. in Greek. And they function just like our English word man and woman. And this is what it means. A man could mean a male. So, you know, we see I see a lot of men in the room. And woman could mean a female. That's English. So you go, he's a man, she's a woman. That's obvious. It could also mean husband and wife. So if I were to say, my woman's in Orlando today, and she's flying back later, you would go, he's not talking about just a female in general, he's talking about his wife, the person he's dating, my woman. And if Leslie, who's in Orlando, says, my man's preaching today to one of her friends down there, they would know she means my husband. So contextually, the words can mean both. So hopefully you grasp that, right? It could mean husband, wife, man, woman, depending on the context of what you're saying. So in this case, different translations are kind of reading this going, is Paul talking about husbands and wives are men and women. I think in context. The predominant kind of structuring of the church would have been people who were married. We live in a weird time, culturally, historically, in which there are way more singles. And it's not bad to be single. Paul and Kex encourages it, but there's way more singles than there has been in most of history. So in First History, Corinth being single would have been uncommon. And so the church would have been composed of people. Once they reach kind of adulthood, they would have been probably married pretty quickly. So when Paul speaks of the head of a woman is man, most people could have defaulted to the head of a wife as her husband. Paul uses this same language in Ephesians 5 to talk clearly about a marriage relationship. And then he says, in the head, of Christ is God. And so Paul makes this argument about headship, this ordering this going on because Corinth was distorting that in some ways. And then dishonoring God, dishonoring each other, and in fact, impacting their worship. Now, this wasn't everyone in Corinth. Don't think everyone in the church was doing this. It was probably a very small number of people. But it doesn't take too many people in a group doing something wrong that you have to call out kind of the whole thing. quit doing that. Quit doing that thing. Quit acting that way. I was in student ministry for a long time. most of the students would behave on a Wednesday night. But I'd be one or two, and I would have to say, hey, y'all, you all need to be quiet. Y'all need to be quiet and calmed down. I'm talking to 2 or 3 people, but everyone else has to get hear the thing. So Paul is talking to a subset, when he begins to talk about what he's going to talk about, but he starts it with this reality of man in Christ, man and woman, and Christ and God, and their connection. He then moves into worship, head coverings, and God's glory, which is the emphasis in his passage. His point is that God's glory shouldn't be diminished or distracted from in worship. And again, the problem in Corinth was how people were dressing. Men were dressing in a way that presented themselves in an effeminate manner, as a female, and women were dressing in a way that presented themselves as sexually loose. That would have been the cultural understanding of what was going on. So let's see what he says. So Paul says, here's the issue going on. Every man who prays or prophesies, with his head covered dishonors his head. So what is Paul saying here? When he says he has his head covered, he means his physical head, and there would have been some sort of covering on it. And he says he dishonors his head. So is he talking about his own physical head? So if I had something on my head? Was I now dishonoring my own physical head, or am I dishonoring Christ? It's obvious that he's talking about Christ because he had just said, look, let me explain the head relationships in verse 3. And so then he says, any man who prays and prophesies with his head covered is dishonoring his head. But every wife, or woman, who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered, dishonors her head, which in the normal structure would have been the husband. So this wife, who's praying with her head uncovered, is dishonoring her husband, since it's the same as if her head was shaven. For if a wife or woman will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife or a woman to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. We're like, what's going on? How do we unpack what Paul's trying to say? We have to go back and understand a little bit of 1st century culture, Roman culture. And the best we can do is kind of what archaeologists have dug up, what historians have worked with, but here's a picture of what we think, kind of we know this existence with statue. If someone's carving statues, they tend to represent pretty well what's going on. So when we think of a covering, it would have probably looked like this, that the typical Roman woman would have had some sort of covering over her head, that covering implied propriety. Modesty. That's what it would have meant to have this covering on. And most Roman women, as you went out, there was always some deceptions, so we're not fully clear, but they would have this on, and it would just signal, like, I'm modest. I'm chase. I'm trying to live respectfully with my husband and with a wider culture. I'm not loose, would have been the message being sent by having this on. Now, you can see the covering hangs down. over where her hair is. And so what's probably happening in Corinth was there were women who were taking that off when they prayed to prophesied. Now, a Corinthian worship gathering didn't look like this. They didn't have pews. They didn't have one guy standing on a stage talking to everyone else. It probably felt more like your life group. where a group of people gathered in someone's home. They would have had a meal. We'll talk about that next week. They would have a meal together, and then they would have had a time of teaching and interaction. If you've been in a life group, you know, quickly, more than one person talks. And so, So there was... Praying and prophesying. and they would have had the attention put on them. A woman, some women, were taking that veil off, and sending a cultural signal by doing it, and some men were putting a veil on. Now, there's some speculation. What I think what that would have implied was the veil would have mimicked a woman's long hair. And so the man was putting a veil on, and in a sense, mimicking being a female. Now, we know from 1st Corinthians chapter 6, you can turn back there verses 9 through 11. Paul says that some of the Corinthians, they come out of pagan practices. And they had all sorts of ideas in their head that were wrong. And he describes those people. He says, you are drunkards, revilers, swindlers, idolaters, adulterers. He says, men who practice homosexuality. There's 2 words in there. One of those is called Malachoy. In Greek, it means soft. And we have from other writings, this idea that there were men in Corinth who would have presented themselves as effeminate. And they would have been called Malikoy. So some of them had come into the Korean Church, except to Christ, now trying to follow Christ, but probably retaining some of their past. And they would put the veil on, and in doing so, they are mimicking being a woman. The woman taking the veil off is saying, she's available. And Paul says, if you pray or prophesies with your head covered and you're a man, you dishonor your head. You're dishonoring Christ, because you're rejecting how he made you. And if you're a wife or woman, and you take the veil off, you're dishonoring your head, which would have been more than likely for most of them, their husband, but it could have been a father also. And then he says, it's the same as if her head was shaven. Now, we can hear that, and almost immediately we get some reaction. If a woman had her head shaved off, her hair shaved off, we would go, why is that happening? Then we know it can happen because of disease. And you have to end up having your head shaved. But in 1st century Corinthian culture, if the people shaved a woman's head, it was a sign to everyone, she had been unfaithful in her relationship with her husband, or she was a prostitute. These were the normative understandings of that look. And so Paul says, if you're going to take the veil off, Why don't you shave your head, ladies. Now, they weren't shaving their head. because they recognized the message that would have sent, and they didn't want to shave their hair. But he says, it's the same as if you've done that. You're sending the same signal culturally by taking this veil off as if you had shaved your head. So he says, don't do that. Because you're now changing where worship is focused. If you keep reading, Paul then gives a rationale for why men should not cover their head. He says, for the women, if you take this off, it's like your head shaved. And the head shaved was a symbol, everyone would have recognized of loose morals of having committed adultery or being a prostitute. or being a slave. And so he says, don't do this, ladies. And they weren't shaving their head, so he knows they recognize, they're not going all the way with this thing, but they're presenting it a little like that. Then for the many, he says this. For a man not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God. But woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. And you go, what in the world? You're hearing this and going, That sounds odd. If you're honest, you're going, that sounds odd. And if you're a woman, you're probably going, I don't know if I like the way that sounds. Here's what Paul is saying. He says, a man ought not to cover his head. Why? Since he is the image and glory of God. And you go, what does he mean by that? Well, one thing he's not saying for sure is that women aren't in the image of God. If you go read Genesis chapter one, It's very clear that God made humanity, man and woman, in his image. Paul would have had 1st Genesis one memorized. So Paul's fully aware. Paul talked in other places about how men and women are both being conformed into the image of Christ, who is the image of God. So Paul's not saying, men are in the image of God and women are not. That's been said in history to subjugate women, to suppress women, to keep women down. Paul's not saying that. He goes to the creation story, and he says, well, man is in the image of God. And he's not saying woman's not because he doesn't say woman's not. He says, and man is the glory of God. When you start thinking of glory. It's this outward kind of manifestation of someone's greatness. But you can see it on the outside. It's not just an inward thought. Let me show you a picture that maybe conveys this of a king with his crown. Like the crown represents the glory of all that is the king. And so he has his crown on. God, if you read Genesis one and two, the crowning achievement of his creation, isn't the stars with all their power? It's not the ocean with all of its depth and greatness. It's not the rhinoceros with all of its strength. It's humanity. And he creates Adam first. Now, in Hebrew, the word Adam has 2 meanings, it means dirt. And so God, if you read this story, he says, he created man from dirt. He took dirt and formed the shape of a man and breathed into him the breath of life. And he said, I'm gonna call you Adam. So the 1st human's name was dirt. And then that name also became a word in Hebrew for just human, human being. So the 1st human's name, who was a male, was dirt and human. That's how a Hebrew would have read this. And so he said, I made human. And he says, he says, you shouldn't cover your head, denying your maleness. Because you're dishonoring God, and you're messing with the glory he's given. says, but woman is the glory of man. So if you read the creation story, God created Adam, Genesis one, in case Adam and Eve, but in Genesis 2, he unpacks this more. And he creates Adam. And in Genesis one, he said everything was good. He created the stars and they were good. He created the moon and it was good. He created the oceans and the fish, and they were good. He created all the animals and they were good. All the plants and they were good. He creates man, and then he says, it's not good for man to be alone. And he brought all the animals to Adam to name, and he says, none of these fit, none of these work. of these are me. And he says, he put Adam to sleep. And from Adam, he made Eve. Now, that's Genesis 2. That's what Paul's living when he's writing this language. And he says, God's glory, like the crowning achievement, was creating Adam. But then he goes a step further and he says, but then from Adam, he makes Eve. And Eve is the glory of man. It's not an issue of saying, oh, man's more important. It's the idea that as you read this, And if you read the Genesis 2 account, I think it comes to me very clearly, Adam goes, nobody here, none of these animals are mine. of them are me. And then God creates Eve, and what's Adam's reaction? It's not, oh my gosh. A woman? This is what you made for me? This is what I have to deal with. His reaction is, this is the most amazing thing you've made, God. This is the pinnacle. This is so amazing. Bone in my bone, flesh of my flesh. And the 2 become one in marriage. That's Genesis 2. That's where Paul's working from here. And he says, a man shouldn't hide his maleness. And because he is the glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. It's this order of creation is all he's talking about. He has nothing to do with value or worth or who's a human who's not. He's talking about this order of creation. It says for a man was not made from woman. That's just Genesis two, but woman from or out of man. Neither was man created for a woman, but woman for man. Now when you hear that created for you, you think, oh, yeah. And if you're a guy thinking, oh, women were created, just take care of me. That's not what he means. When God said it's not good that Adam should be alone, the command he gave Adam in Genesis one was, be fruitful and multiply and have dominion. Adam's all by himself. Now, I think we're all old enough in here. If you have a little kid in here, you have to go and explain these things to them. But babies don't get made with just dudes hanging around. And so he says, woman was made for man, because he was incomplete. He wasn't full. And so he creates woman. And then the 2 are together. And then humanity. All of us have been made. And then he says, this is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority. Now, in the original language, that word symbols not in there. It's just a wife ought to have authority on her head. Because of the angels. You go, what does this mean? I think what Paul is saying is, he's not saying she should have some sign that she's under someone's authority, but she needs to kind of take care of her head. He says, you need to have control of your head, because you're dishonoring your husband by taking this veil off. You know what it means culturally. You're dishonoring your family by taking the veil off. You know what it means culturally. And then he adds because of the angels. This is probably one of the most confusing statements in the Bible. It probably means one of 2 things. It either means, because the word angel in English just means a supernatural being, in Greek, it's angelas is the word, and it means a messenger. The reason angel, supernatural beings are called messengers. So you should just say every time we have like this angel showed, this messenger showed up. And we have to determine if it's human or supernatural. When Paul uses this word in his other writings and in one Corinthians, except here, it means a supernatural being. And here I think it means the same thing. So why is he saying, hey, women, make sure you're having the veil on because of the angels? We know in other places in scripture that the angelic world, the spiritual world, is aware of what's going on in our world, and that they look in on worship. And so Paul saying, we need to have decorum. We need to be correctly presenting who we are. And the message that we're sending because it's not just us gathered here. There's this other being. Now, if it was just human angel showing up human messengers, it wouldn't change the meaning. of the passage in general. But he's saying there's things outside of the local gathering beings, whether they were other humans showing up, who were messengers from other churches, or whether they were spiritual beings. I think they're spiritual beings, looking in on worship, and Paul's saying, we need to have the right order. This isn't just about us. It's about us as we worship God. And so he says, this is why we should do this, but he doesn't leave it there. He goes on verses 11 to 16 to talk about God's complementary design of men and women. It is important to get. When you hear the word complimentary, you may think, it's just like saying, man, that's really nice. I like that jacket. That's a good jacket. I compliment you in your jacket. It's a well-done beard. You think, wow, that's a good compliment. We all like getting compliments. That's not what we mean by complimentary. Complimentary means they go together well. Check out this picture. You can see what I mean. It's, you know, you go to the movies, popcorn and soda. They just, they're meant to be together. And you're like, this is great. But you don't need to have them together. They just fit well together. Look at this next picture, and this is more about what Paul is saying. It's a light bulb and a lamp. They are built for each other. And they don't function completely without each other. This is what Paul's going to get at here. Because you could have heard his prior statement, he says, look, in creation, God created a man first, then he created a woman. And then you could think, oh, man, men could think, this is what we do. Oh, man, we're more important. We're a bigger deal. And Paul's going to divest us of that idea. in the next passage. Look what he says. He says, nevertheless, in the Lord, in Christ, woman is not independent of man, nor man of woman. So we need each other, for as woman was made from or out of man, that's adamant Eve, the original 2 humans. So now man is born or is through woman. That's everyone else Adam was made by God. Eve was made from Adam. Every other human being has come through a woman. And what Paul is saying is, we desperately need each other. I don't want to live in a man's world. I don't want to live in a woman's world. I want to live in the world God created and wanted to say which is a world of men and women. that they are complimentary to each other. They connect with each other. And in Corinth they were blurring these lines in various ways. So he says, men and women need each other deeply. That's how God created us. And in Corinth, they were blurring that need, trying to negate it by their actions. He goes on, it says, judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a wife or a woman to pray to God with her head, uncovered? This judge for yourself is Paul going, just, you know the answer, Corinth. You know the answer. For some reason, you're not following this. At least some of you are not. You need to stop that behavior. Is it proper? And he says, practice, is it fitting? Is it the normal way we do things? For a woman to pray to God, and that to God is important. that we're not on our own. It's not just humans deciding how we want to live. We don't get to decide as humans, who we are. We live in a time where the kind of underlying cultural current, the phrase that's being used now is called expressive individualism, which means I get to express exactly what I want to be, and that's what I am. But the Bible's clear. We don't decide who we are. God has created us and he says, this is what you are. live into that truth. When we push against that and try to live outside of God's truth, we come into all kind of problems. And eventually it will fall apart. You can drive a stick shift car and grind the gears all day long for a while, and you can get where you're going. Eventually it will fall apart. You can't grind the gears forever and expect the car to be, you know, in good maintenance. We can grind the gears of our humanity as a culture, and it will fall apart eventually. And Paul is saying here, just for yourself, it's not proper. And then he goes on with this common sense idea. Does it not, does that nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, is a disgrace for him? But if a woman has long hair, it is her glory. For her hair is given to her for her glory, for a covering. And he says, if anyone is content, inclined to be contentious. So someone in church was fighting, says we have no such practice nor do the churches of God. Now you hear this. And when I was a teenager, I had long hair. At least I was trying to get long hair. I never got really long hair, but I had longer hair. Now God has blessed me with no hair. For all you men with hair, you understand the time I have saved every morning by not doing what you do. When Paul speaks this, so you're thinking, okay, how does this work? What does it mean that long hair is a disgrace? So he says this, does not nature teach you? When you hear nature, our mind goes immediately to biology. Like, does it nature, just the way the world actually works biologically by the laws of nature? That's not what Paul means by this word. Because nature says that if men didn't cut their hair, we would have long hair also. Now, a lot of us would have long hedges hanging down from the side looking really weird and bad. But we would still grow. I mean, it would eventually grow. I think my hair would grow this way and then go down. That's why I'm never going to grow hair again. for as long as I live. But when he says nature, it's the way the culture would have understood the natural working of things, like how it works. And men would have had short hair in Corinthian culture, and men would have, women would have had long hair. So it says, does it nature itself teach you if a man wears long hair? It's a disgrace for him. Now, when you hear long hair, in our culture, we don't necessarily have that same male female dynamic of long and short hair, and Corinthian culture, long hair on a man would have signaled effeminacy, a female presentation. We get this kind of instinctually, though. When I was growing up, it was the 1980s. How many of you are in 1980s kids? So if you're the 80s, you're going to get this, right? You had rock bands that came out, and the hairdos on these guys were very effeminate hairdos. They were puffed out with a lot of hairspray, and you just looked and went, that's kind of like girl hair. And then the 90s came, if you're into grunge, all the flannel guys out here, it was just long hair, but it just was never washed. It was never combed. It was just horrible. Like they had been out in the woods for, you know, two, 3 years. And he went, well, that doesn't look like a girl's hair. It just looks like kind of ratty long hair. that we can recognize even on a guy. If you style it like a woman, we would recognize, that's not just long hair. You're doing something different with that. That would have been the Corinthians message. He says, isn't it obvious to you that long hair on a guy? Now, I don't know if the men had long hair, but they were putting on a veil that was mimicking that. That's what Paul's saying. You're mimicking that and presenting yourself in that way. That was the problem he had. He said, but a woman, if she has long hair, it's her glory. And we get this culturally. At least I do, my bank account does, because I have a wife and 2 daughters. Now, I spend maybe $10 on hair care products a year. A year. My daughters, I have to get a 2nd job. And my wife, it just, it costs more, guys. We all know this, and ladies, you know this too. There is a sense, even in our culture, where we would go, women's hair matters more than men's hair, on average, just culturally speaking. Now, men, if you're out there and you spend a lot of money on product and all that, okay, fine. I'm just saying on average, it's not what we do. And Paul saying that the woman's hair is given to her. It's her glory and it's as a covering. So when a man puts a veil on, he's trying to mimic that. And the reason a woman put a veil over her hair, because it's her glory was not to bring attention to herself, but to let in worship, attention be given to God. Now, in our culture, that's different. This is 2000 years ago that Paul's writing to them, and they would have got it instinctively. So what do we do now in our setting? How do we apply this? Because what we have to do in scripture is understand the principle of what's happening and then apply it in our day and age in a culture that's different. Again, the main point is our worship should glorify God by reflecting his created order and design of men and women. The 1st thing we can see from this passage, and it's not Paul's main argument is this, that God desires the active worship of women and men. Now in our culture, that's not shocking at all. But in 1st century, Corinth, it was very shocking because women were not active in worship for the most part. And yet in the Corinthian church, Paul was saying, when men or women, pray or prophesy. When they're in the church gathering and this happens, they need to present themselves in the correct way, but he didn't say women quit doing that. Which would have been kind of the culturally expected answer. You should stop doing that, men only do that. He's saying when they do that. God desires the praise of all of his creation, both male and female. And that's an encouraging thing for us as we gather to worship. Second, and I think this is probably the main part of what Paul's saying is, do not present yourself in a way that dishonors your head. Now, in Corinth, that would have been very easy to unpack if we were living there. The woman, the wife took off her veil. And in doing so, she sent a signal to everyone else there, that I'm like a woman who has a shaved head. Now, imagine if you're the husband of that woman. And the message just being sent is, to the culture, I'm available. Now she may be saying, oh, no, I'm not trying to send that signal. That's not what I'm saying, but by doing it, that's how everyone would have interpreted it. You have said, you've dishonored your head. You've dishonored this husband. You've dishonored your father. In doing that. For the men as they put a veil on and presented themselves as female. You're saying you're dishonoring God and how he made you, how he created you. Stop doing that. Don't do anything that dishonors your head. In Corinth, that's how that would have worked out. We live in a different culture. And we have to figure out how do we make sense of how we honor and dishonor each other and also God by our presentation. Head coverings in the sense of veils, just we don't do them. If someone was here today and they had a covering on a Shaw on and they took it off, no one would be shocked. And they put it back on, no one would think anything. You was going, that's a fashion choice. If that same woman was in Iran today and took a veil off. They would know right away, you have just made a political statement that the revolution happening in Iran, you're on its side, and you want the Ayatolas to be overthrown. You've put your life in danger by doing that. Culturally, you've sent a very different signal. So we have to wrestle with, am I doing things in my life that are dishonoring. to others. in my worship and how I present myself. And that's just a matter of getting in small groups, like life groups, and discussing, and wrestling, and asking each other, and just being aware, am I doing something, this dishonoring God, or someone who is in a headship position over me? And then finally, rejoice in the complimentary nature of men and women. Again, I said earlier, I don't want to live in a man's world. I don't want to live in a woman's world. I want to live in a world of men and women. That's how God created his world. Both men and women living into that creation. We live in a culturally confused time in many ways. We live in a time where people say, well, I'm neither a man nor a woman. The Bible just says, nope, you're a man or you're a woman? And we should live into that. If you struggle with gender dysphoria, we want to reach out with love and help you. This is not what Paul's wrestling with here. He's wrestling with people who are intentionally and willingly doing things to mess with that created order. But we want to live into the complementary nature of man and woman. And let that reflect to God the glory that is due him, the honor that is due him, the beauty that is due him. Because he made men and women. And it's okay to have forge men's ministry and abide, women's ministry. Those are good things. What we never want to do is say, well, there's just men and women, and we need to stay separate. I don't need no man. I don't need no woman. That kind of language doesn't work. If you're saying, well, I still need to be married, that's different. But if we're saying, I just, if women were gone from the world, we'd be happier, if men were gone from the world, we'd be happier, we can't, as followers of Christ, say that, and we wouldn't be happier, by the way, we would be so deprived of what each brings to God's creation. This is how he created us. We are to live into that beauty, into that joy. And the Corinthians were kind of twisting that a little bit. At least some of them were. And Paul writes to them to correct that. Then he speaks to us today. In the same way. Culturally, we manifest it differently. We need to be aware of that in your life groups this week. You get to talk about that. But our goal should be to glorify God by reflecting his created order and design of both men and women. Will you join me in prayer? Father, we thank you for today, for your grace and mercy. Thank you for your love. Father, I thank you that you have created us as men and women. Father, help us to model that in our worship of you both in this place and in our lives. that help us to lean into the joy and the beauty of your creation, to live in harmony with you, and not in rebellion against you, or fighting against you. Father, help us to as men live out what you have called us to be, and as women, to live out what you have called us to be, and that together, Father, we would reflect you into this world, that we would be a witness of your love for us, of your grace to us and of the magnificence of your creation of us. All to your glory, all to your praise, because ultimately it is all from you. You created us. We didn't create ourselves, and that our lives are to reflect your glory. And we pray for that. In the name of Jesus, we ask us.