article35

§30 Keeping Church Customs (1 Cor. 11:2–16)

This section of the letter takes up a disruptive situation in the life of the congregation at worship. Paul addresses the men and the women in the congregation concerning their manner of dress, although he comes to that point via a complicated route. While the issues are practical—dress and behavior at worship—Paul frames the matters in genuinely theological terms, not only mentioning God and Christ but also bringing into consideration the meaning and implications of creation and nature.

In brief, Paul tries to say that men and women are different, that women and men are dependent on each other, and that in the Lord there is both a mutuality and a distinctiveness that results both from creation and from redemption. One hopes that the Corinthians had an easier time following Paul’s logic than do modern readers who are not fully informed about the situation in Corinth that Paul is addressing. Through careful examination of the text, one infers that Paul’s concern is with an obscure—to later readers—effort on the part of some women in Corinth to eliminate traditional dress codes or social norms in the context of Christian worship, although one sees this situation only dimly in and between all the lines that make up this section of the letter.

11:2 / The section opens with a word of praise from Paul. He offers a commendation that may or may not be in response to a claim the Corinthians have made about their own preservation of tradition as Paul delivered it. Since Paul does not refer to this matter with the words “Now concerning,” the reader of the letter is uncertain whether Paul bases his affirmation on something the Corinthians had written to him or on something that he knew by word of mouth. However Paul knew what he knew about the Corinthians’ attitude toward his teaching, he does praise them for remembering [him] in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as [he] passed them on to [them].

11:3 / No sooner has Paul praised the Corinthians than he begins to offer them further instructions that imply that what they know or think they know may have led them to inappropriate activities. In this verse Paul takes exception to a practice that he views as being outside the boundaries of normal church custom (see v. 16). Paul begins his argument in a striking way, by articulating a scheme of priority of relations, and he will continue in the verses that follow to approach the situation from additional angles. At this point there are three distinct and related statements. Viewing the pattern of Paul’s presentation in a tabular form proves instructive. The reader should notice that the scheme that Paul registers is not a simple stepladder or hierarchy:

Christ	the head	of every man
man	the head	of the woman
God	the head	of Christ

Many interpretations of this scheme have been offered, but one should notice that Paul is not concerned with marriage or with the sheer nature of men and women in their sexuality; rather, he is concerned with the life of the community and the orderly conducting of worship among all the believers.

Above all, one should notice that the scheme begins with Christ in relation to man and ends with God in relation to Christ. The concern at the beginning and the end of Paul’s remarks is with divine authority and the results of that identity coming to bear properly in human relations. While the traditional interpretation that holds to the notion of the man or husband having authority over woman or his wife may offend progressive sensibilities, Paul’s concern is to recognize the divine authority of Christ over humanity and the ultimate authority of God. Other levels of concern are introduced to back Paul’s basic point that humans under the authority of Christ and God do not behave in dishonorable ways.

The scheme that Paul sketches is a Stoic-like system of natural order that values order over chaos. Moreover, the inner framework of this system, focused on every man and woman, relates to the congregational worship in Corinth and the form or order that the worship took or was to take. Furthermore, verse 3 cannot be viewed in isolation as an absolute maxim; as Paul will note in verse 11, “in the Lord” there is a mutual relatedness or absolute interdependence between “woman” and “man” / “man” and “woman” that means that neither is independent or autonomous.

The reader of the epistle must gain some general orientation before proceeding to read the particular elements of the remaining individual verses. Otherwise, logical coherence of the argument is lost to the reader. At this juncture in Paul’s remarks, one should see that what is about to follow in verses 4–6 follows a line of argumentation concerning the scheme of authority laid out in verse 3 in specific relation to the worship activities of praying or prophesying, specifically focusing on the practice of women wearing head coverings.

Paul uses the word head repeatedly, but seemingly in both a literal and a figurative fashion. For the original readers, who had the data to distinguish what Paul meant to say, such a rhetorical ploy or device was creative and forceful, although for later readers it is confusing. (See Additional Note on v. 3 for more information on Paul’s use of “head.”) Thus, there are immediate problems for interpretation. Which instances of “head” are literal and which are metaphorical? Are all uses of “head” literal, all metaphorical, or is there some mix? Clearly the first occurrences of “head” in both verse 4 and verse 5 are literal because of the issue of covering and not covering. But what of the second use of “head” in each verse? Are they metaphors for Christ and husband respectively, or are they literal? (The third occurrence of head in verse 5 in the NIV was supplied by the translators.) From what follows in verse 7—where a man’s not covering his head is explained in terms of his existing as the image and the glory of God and the woman’s covering her head is explained in terms of her being the glory of man—one understands that the dishonored “heads” of verses 4–5 are metaphorical.

11:4 / Paul states that if a man prays or prophesies with his head covered, then he dishonors his head. How? Apparently by altering normal social practices or dress codes to show himself free from such conventions. Such a showing would make a spectacle of the man and, in bringing the attention to him, not bring the honor to Christ. Indeed, such a defiance of cultural norms, especially regarding something so superficial as a dress code, might imply that Christ was producing trivial forms of social discord.

11:5 / In a corollary fashion, this verse argues the converse for every woman. For women to alter dress codes in public worship drew attention to themselves, not to the Lord. What is important but often missed in this morass of reasoning is that Paul plainly assumes that properly clad women would be participating and leading in worship through the offering of prayers and prophecies. The problem here is with the alteration of dress, not with the utterance of prayers and prophecies. Genuinely Spirit-filled behavior is not to be subsumed under a self-aggrandizing show of personal freedom. Exactly the same is true for both women and men in worship.

11:6 / Paul offers a logical twist to his argument at this point, issuing a kind of reductio ad absurdum: If a woman is not veiled, then she ought to be shorn; but since it is a disgrace for a woman to be shaved, then let her be veiled.

Again one must step back from examining the elements of Paul’s argument to see the general lines and connections of his thinking. A glance ahead is necessary. The strange sense of the argument begins to make sense when one sees that Paul understands nature (v. 14) to give indication of the God-ordained pattern of life. Nevertheless, several problems raised by Paul’s statements are not easily resolved. (1) How can a woman, veiled or otherwise, pray or prophesy if she is to be silent in the church as 14:33–35 indicates? (2) Has Paul confused nature and humanly determined fashion? Are male and female hairstyles given by nature or set in style? (3) How is the reader to understand the amount of energy that Paul invests in this section (11:2–16)? Does the show of creative effort indicate the severity of the problem? Or is Paul simply at a loss? Or is he merely biased? (4) What kind of attitude do these lines reflect—Greek, Jewish, or Christian? It is easier to raise such difficult questions than to find gratifying answers related to these verses. Thus, one needs to return to the text and to follow the remaining course of Paul’s presentation.

11:7 / Paul’s bewilderingly difficult argument continues, assuming a knowledge of the situation in Corinth and now also assuming a knowledge of the creation stories of Genesis. In general, verses 7–12 continue to pursue Paul’s point concerning appropriate and inappropriate behavior in worship from the perspective of a set of biblical texts. Specifically, in verse 7 Paul restates the idea with which he is working, bringing in the language of the Genesis account of Genesis 1:26–27—the image and glory of God. In the Judaism of Paul’s day, the ideas of “image” and “glory of God” had become somewhat synonymous, so Paul’s mentioning of “image” and “glory” may be complementary or compound rather than distinct. One must note, however, that Paul is not simply teaching Bible lessons; in fact, the situation in Corinth and Paul’s desire for a resolution to the problems in worship clearly control his selection of texts and the exegesis or interpretation that he offers. Apparently Paul’s logic runs this way: God brought forth man who now as the creature is explicit evidence of God’s glory. Yet, woman was brought forth by God from man, so that if she is displayed explicitly, glory will go to man rather than to God. The point is that the creatures (man and woman) bring glory to the one from whom they come—man to God and woman to man. The argument is difficult, and all attempts at interpretation run the risk of misunderstanding Paul’s thought. The argument, however, serves a clear point: the women should have their heads covered.

11:8–9 / These two verses extend Paul’s argument by taking even more explicit recourse to the creation story of Genesis 2:18, 22. Paul declares that the order of creation, with man preceding woman, shows that woman is not independent from man and that man has a different status from woman because of his place in the order of creation. The statements in this verse are not, however, made for their own sakes, but as logical preparations for the ensuing explanatory declaration that Paul will make as he applies the facts of the creation story to the situation in Corinth.

11:10 / This verse begins simply, For this reason—literally, “Therefore” (Gk. dia touto). Nevertheless, verse 10 is an enigma. The opening words can relate either to previous or to ensuing comments. The phrase probably refers to what went before (vv. 8–9 or vv. 2–9), since still another phrase that begins with because of brings the line to its conclusion. In essence, Paul argues that because of the relationship of men and women at creation, women ought to have a sign of authority on their heads, and this wearing of a sign is related to the angels.

The allusion to the creation of man before woman may be clear, but what does Paul mean by “because of the angels”? The statement is obscure and theories abound. Two sensible suggestions merit attention. Perhaps the apostle is thinking of the fallen angels of Genesis 6 who took human women for wives; or perhaps he means the angels who were thought to be protectors of the order of creation and who were present, according to early Christian thought, in the assembly of Christians at worship (Rev. 2:1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7, 14). The latter suggestion seems preferable because the discussion of behavior in worship directly relates to the idea of the assumed presence of the angels. Indeed the presence of the angels for the ordering of that worship would argue against any disorderly or unprecedented practices (men with coverings on their heads or women without). Moreover, the suggested connection to Genesis 6 would require considerable imagination and would still not be a clear argument. What is beyond dispute concerning this verse is that Paul means to mount still another line in his attack on disorderly innovations in worship.

11:11–12 / Verses 11–12 form a statement in peculiar juxtaposition to what Paul has said to this point. One should note the all-important phrase in the Lord in verse 11. By declaring this crucial theological/christological location Paul is able to make the clear and balanced statement that follows in verse 12. Now one sees that Paul understands the situation concerning men and women as he did the issues of circumcision and slavery in chapter 7. “In the Lord” one recognizes the eschatological abrogation of sexual distinctions, but as Christians await the Day of the Lord they are not to act as if the Day has already come. One remains in the state that one was called as the only valid demonstration of freedom. God stands over all, and in the Lord women and men are interdependent, even equal; but they are still as God made them in creation, men and women. They have not and they will not supersede their sexuality in this life, and showy attempts to rise above the God-given conditions of creation by doing such things as altering normal patterns of dress are inappropriate.

11:13 / This verse begins a final line of argumentation (vv. 13–16) that puts the issue with which Paul has been laboring before the Corinthians for a last time and from still another angle. Paul launches this last piece of ancient logic—a powerful appeal to recognized cultural standards that would have registered in a weighty way with the Corinthians—calling for the Christians in Corinth to judge the matter of a woman’s being unveiled at prayer.

11:14–15 / Paul brings to the attention of the Corinthians the very nature of things. In so doing, he means to offer a kind of evidence—nature itself—that he intends for the Corinthians to use as the basis of their evaluation of the situation. Like other ancients, Paul and the Corinthians would have understood that “nature” indicates God’s will, and so persons should style themselves according to the lines of nature as a copy of nature itself. Paul surely did not reflect on this relatively weak example or argument, for what he attributes to nature is merely human fashion, reflecting culture, not necessarily God—unless Paul thinks somehow that culture derives from nature and, in turn, that fashion ultimately goes back to God. Such thinking may well have been what Paul had in mind, and his advantage in using this argument would have been that the Corinthians probably thought the same way. Nevertheless, the argument strikes the modern mind as strange. Remarkably, in denouncing his opposition Paul cannot cite either revelation or the Lord; rather, he is reduced to custom for his standards and authorization. Indeed, this argument is a kind of natural theology that Paul uses rarely. Despite the peculiar quality of the discussion, however, Paul’s general contention is simple: in worship members of the church are not to act in ways that draw attention to themselves rather than to God.

11:16 / In the end, the issues under discussion in this vivid section of the letter may elude resolution, although one should not fail to see that in verse 16 Paul himself recognizes the potential denial of his argument. Thus, he finishes his remarks on a weighty note: Should someone object to Paul’s arguments, teaching, or reasoning; then that person must realize that Paul’s position is a universal norm, for it is the practice … [of] the churches of God, and according to the practices of those churches, what was happening in Corinth was inappropriate.

In sum, at its root the alteration of custom often although not always stems from individualism, the claiming of personal rights in the name of the Lord—a problem already identified by Paul in the earlier sections of the letter. Christians, Paul tells the Corinthians, are “not to confuse a direct desecularization that is carried on by ourselves with the eschatological desecularization brought about by Christ, but to maintain the imperceptibility of this unworldliness—by dint of Christians wearing their hair normally and clothing themselves in normal ways” (Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, p. 191).