Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved. For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head.
To understand what Paul is communicating here, we first need to understand two things. First, we need to understand what church was like in Corinth. Now when one attended a church service in Corinth, is that after a time of singing and prayer, people in the church would stand up and speak, sharing either their testimonies or messages that they heard from other Christians. Some would even have the gift of prophesying, which would involve the public communication of new verbal messages from God. It is important to understand that they did not have what we have today as the Bible; the New Testament was still being written.
With this culture of oral sharing and the time of testimonies and messages from God, there would be a need for people of spiritual maturity and authority to keep order and accuracy in the services. These church leaders, known as elders, would evaluate and judge what was being said as to its accuracy with the truth of the gospel message. Then an elder would speak or even read a letter that the church may have received from Paul or Peter, for example. Paul was not referring to Sunday school classes or AWANA or youth group. These did not exist. It is in the context of the main church worship service that Paul was referring to.
Second we need to understand what the word head means. As we saw in verse 3, head refers to leadership and authority. However, in verses 4-6 Paul seems to use head to refer to our literal head that sits on top of our body. So which is which here? To help us understand what Paul is communicating here, let’s look at these verses again and put the word “authority” where it is appropriate:
Every man who has authority over him while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. But every woman who is not under authority while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved. For if a woman does not cover herself with authority, let her also have her hair cut off; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head.
What was occurring in the church at Corinth was that women were publicly and authoritatively praying and communicating new verbal messages from God during the main worship services without placing themselves under the leadership and authority of the male leadership of the church. In verse 4, Paul responds to this situation by explaining that the man who allows a woman to exercise authority during these worship gatherings disgraces, or dishonors his literal head, or himself.
Similarly, Paul explains that a woman disgraces or dishonors herself when she exercises authority and leadership over the male leadership during the main worship gathering. Notice that Paul does not prohibit women from praying or speaking in church. For Paul, the issue was one of authority and leadership. Paul even goes so far to say that the woman who attempts exercises authority and leadership over men during worship is equal to a women who was forcibly shaved, which was done to women in the culture of the day as a sign of dishonor and disgrace.
Paul then continues by making a strong statement, that if was communicated in the language of our culture today would sound like this: “Well if a woman does not want to be under authority, why don’t they go and shave their head”; to which he women of the church would respond “no way, for that would disgrace us if we were to go and do that”. Paul then states, “well if it is disgraceful for her to have her head shaved, then let her cover herself, in the same way as hair covers her head, under the male authority and leadership of the church”.
After revealing the nature of the problem at the church at Corinth, Paul then provides the second reason that Christians act unchristian when men and women act in confusion, which we will look at tomorrow.
So, do you believe that God's design should impact how we relate to one another? Why or why not?
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