So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.
— 1 Corinthians 10:31–33 (NIV 1984)
In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.
— 1 Corinthians 11:11–12 (NIV 1984)
Many of us first meet 1 Corinthians through a handful of isolated passages that have been meaningful at some point in our lives, and chapter 13 is the best example, since it is read at nearly every wedding and anniversary. Those passages are good, but they belong to a larger whole, and 1 Corinthians is about something. It is about the gospel, and more specifically, it is about how the gospel changes our lives and our conduct: how we relate to one another, how we handle the differences we see in the body of Christ, and how we show concern for those outside the church. Paul is not teaching the Corinthians to retreat from life, and he is not permitting them to throw themselves into whatever feels good at the moment. He is teaching them how to live in the world without being of the world.
The principle that gathers all of this together comes at the end of chapter 10. Whatever we do, we are to do it for the glory of God, and we are not to cause anyone to stumble. The word Paul uses in verse 32, aproskopoi, describes someone who does not put an obstacle in another person’s path, and it echoes the image from chapter 9 of an army digging up the road behind it so that no one else can follow (9:12). We can block someone’s way to God intentionally or unintentionally, and either way, the gospel begins to seem so strange and unbelievable that no one will pay attention to it. Paul’s list of “Jews, Greeks or the church of God” is his way of saying “everybody,” since from a Jewish perspective the world was divided into Jews and everyone else. Inside the church and outside of it, in everything that we do, we are to seek “not [our] own good but the good of many.”
A Passage We Would Rather Skip
In the study of chapter 11 last week, the section on head coverings and the relationship between men and women (11:2–16) was set aside so that it could receive the attention it deserves. It is an intimidating passage to preach, and most of us know from experience that some of what Paul says here would not go over very well with our neighbors or our coworkers. Yet it is here, and because it is part of God’s Word, we need to pay attention to it, think rightly about it, and allow it to shape our conduct in every situation.
Many years ago a preacher observed that some of his colleagues would qualify and backtrack so carefully, out of fear of being offensive, that they hardly said anything at all. If this passage were posted on social media, editors might insist on a trigger warning, because some of what Paul wrote will cause discomfort, even among a small group of believers who love the Bible. From a preacher’s perspective it would be easy simply to skip it, and that is one of the strongest reasons for expository preaching, the practice of working through books of the Bible verse by verse rather than choosing only the passages we find comfortable.
The alternative is sobering. A member of one well-known church once remarked that after twenty years in the congregation, he still did not know his pastor’s position on abortion. It is tempting to sort issues like that into a category labeled “political” so that the church never has to address them, but abortion is first a moral and biblical issue, and the Bible has something to say about it. When Scripture speaks to an issue, we need to say what Scripture says, even when the culture has claimed that issue as its own.
None of this means the passage is simple. Peter acknowledged that Paul’s letters “contain some things that are hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16), and the word he used, dysnoētos, describes something that is genuinely difficult to grasp, not something that is meaningless or optional. Peter did not tell his readers to ignore those passages. He warned them that “ignorant and unstable people distort” them, and he placed Paul’s letters alongside “the other Scriptures.”
Diet, Marriage, Paycheck, and the Lord’s Supper
One way to see where this passage fits is to ask what Paul’s earlier topics have to do with one another. What does our diet have to do with marriage, what does marriage have to do with a paycheck, and what does any of it have to do with the Lord’s Supper? The answer is that Paul has been applying the same gospel principle to each area of life. He has addressed food sacrificed to idols (chapters 8 and 10), marriage and singleness (chapter 7), and his own right to be paid for preaching (chapter 9), and he will soon address the Lord’s Supper (11:17–34). The passage on head coverings sits between two discussions of worship, the Lord’s table and the table of demons (10:14–22) and the Lord’s Supper itself, and it shares their theme. We are to conduct ourselves in a way that does not cause others to stumble, and positively, in a way that helps the gospel be believable. Living out the gospel and making it obvious in our conduct is what we live for.
This passage does not say everything there is to say about what it means to be a man or a woman, but it does say some things clearly, and its reasoning follows the same order we have seen Paul use throughout the letter.
Freedom That Does Not Become an Idol
A second theme runs alongside the first. Because of the gospel, we are free from sin and free from the burdens of the law, but that freedom can itself become an object of idolatry. Paul twice quotes a Corinthian slogan and corrects it: “‘Everything is permissible,’ but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible,’ but not everything is constructive” (10:23; compare 6:12). The word for “beneficial,” sympherei, describes what brings real advantage, and the word for “constructive,” oikodomei, means to build up, like a house.
We are free to marry and free to remain single, and an apostle is free to receive a paycheck from those he has served, but he does not have to. If limiting our freedom is for the benefit of others, that is the better decision. Our freedom is a privilege, but it is not a trophy for feeding our ego, and it is also a responsibility to care for others. From these chapters we can draw several tests for our freedom: whether it is beneficial and helpful, whether it indulges the flesh (we have not received some spiritual immunization that lets us flirt with sin without consequence), and whether we are willing to give it up for the good of others.
A Word to the Strong
It is also important to notice whom Paul is addressing. He is not speaking to the weaker brother who demands that others give up their rights for his sake. That kind of demand is closer to the situation Paul confronts in Galatians, where some insisted that Gentile believers take on the law. Here, Paul speaks to the strong, those who had taken their freedom beyond what it was intended to accomplish, and he places the responsibility on them. We do not demand that others give up who they are for our benefit, but we willingly give up our own rights for theirs.
Words with a History
Part of what makes this passage hard to understand is that every one of us brings a history to it, and so does our culture. Many of the words that appear in a discussion like this have acquired meanings that Paul and the Corinthians never intended. Our vocabulary is filled with terms such as “virtue signaling,” “cancel culture,” “woke,” and “MAGA,” and when the conversation turns to what it means to be a man or a woman, the words become even more loaded. Many people cannot hear the word “masculinity” without hearing “toxic masculinity,” although “toxic femininity” exists as well, even if it has not entered the popular vocabulary.
“Modesty” is another example. A recent comedy sketch on national television, poking fun at how people dress at the gym, drew a very different reaction from a nearly identical sketch only a few years earlier, and the difference says more about the shift in our culture than about the jokes themselves. Today the word “modesty” is rarely used except to object to the idea that it should be a concern at all. Perhaps the clearest sign of the confusion is that one of the most controversial questions anyone can ask a neighbor or coworker is simply, “What is a woman?”
Even the word “gender” has changed. Not long ago, gender belonged in the grammar book. It was related to sex, but it described whether a noun or pronoun was masculine, feminine, or neuter, and that distinction determined how a word was spelled. English preserves only a little of this, mostly in its pronouns, but in Spanish, Latin, or Greek, including a man or a woman in a sentence changes the endings of the words around them. The English word comes from the Latin genus, meaning “kind” or “class.” Today we are told that there is no such thing as sex and that everything is about gender, and we are deeply confused about what even that means.
This confusion affects how we read the passage. The Greek words Paul uses, anēr and gynē, can mean “man” and “woman” in general or “husband” and “wife” in particular, and translations differ on how to render them here. The NIV reads, “the head of the woman is man,” while the ESV reads, “the head of a wife is her husband.” Paul’s argument from creation in verses 7 through 12 speaks of man and woman broadly, yet his instructions about honor and covering would have been especially visible in the relationship between husbands and wives in a first-century household, and it is wise to hold both senses together.
Affirmations Before the Text: The Danvers Statement
Many of the great historical confessions of the church follow a helpful pattern. They make a statement of faith, then affirm what they mean by it, and then deny what they do not mean, so that readers know both what is being said and what is not. In that spirit, it is helpful to approach this passage with several affirmations from the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, written in 1987 by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood:
1. Both Adam and Eve were created in God’s image, equal before God as persons and distinct in their manhood and womanhood.
2. Distinctions in masculine and feminine roles are ordained by God as part of the created order, and should find an echo in every human heart.
4. The Fall introduced distortions into the relationships between men and women.
5. The Old Testament, as well as the New Testament, manifests the equally high value and dignity which God attached to the roles of both men and women.
6. Redemption in Christ aims at removing the distortions introduced by the curse.
— The Danvers Statement (1987)
These affirmations are worth reading carefully, because the moment anyone suggests that Scripture calls for different roles for men and women, it raises an immediate red flag. For most of human history, people simply understood that men and women are different, but increasingly our society treats any such claim as offensive and regards the differences as nothing more than a social construct. The Danvers Statement holds together what our culture tends to pull apart: men and women are equal in dignity and value, and they are also distinct.
Cosmos: An Order to Creation
When we confess that God is the maker of all things visible and invisible, we mean everything that exists. God did not create Himself, because He has always existed, but everything else belongs to the universe He made. Another word for the universe is cosmos, and while it includes everything, just as “universe” does, it also carries the sense of how everything works together. The Greek kosmos originally meant an ordered arrangement, and it could also mean adornment, which is why we get the word “cosmetic” from it. Peter uses the word in exactly that sense when he tells women that their beauty “should not come from outward adornment” (1 Peter 3:3). There is an order to God’s creation, an order in time and an order in function, a way in which everything fits together.
Because of sin, that order was corrupted, just as each of us is corrupted. Men and women, along with the whole created world, bear the marks of that corruption, and yet a measure of the image of God remains in every person (Genesis 9:6; James 3:9). That is why we can survive on the earth for a time and even enjoy many of the gifts that remain. A family cabin beside a mountain creek can be one of the most peaceful places imaginable, with the sound of the water running over the rocks and a little girl so thrilled to be there that she takes off her shoes and socks again and again to wade into the cold water. Yet that same creek at flood stage can threaten a life, and it has taken lives. Creation is still beautiful, but since the Fall it also has the potential to eat us alive.
The fourth affirmation of the Danvers Statement says that the Fall introduced distortions into the relationships between men and women. “Distortion” may even be too mild a word, because the result has been warfare, not only between men and women but between men and men, women and women, tribes, neighborhoods, and nations. The sixth affirmation offers the hope: “Redemption in Christ aims at removing the distortions introduced by the curse.” When we read 1 Corinthians 11, we are reading Paul’s instructions for a redeemed people learning to live out God’s order in a fallen world.
Propriety in Worship
With that background, we come to the text:
I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you. Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head.
— 1 Corinthians 11:2–6 (NIV 1984)
A fitting heading for this section is “Propriety in Worship,” although “propriety” is itself one of those words that can sound offensive to modern ears. It simply means what is fitting or appropriate, and the idea appears throughout the letter. In verse 13 Paul asks whether it is “proper” (prepon), and he will close his instructions on worship by saying that “everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way” (14:40), using the adverb euschēmonōs, “in a seemly or becoming manner.”
Reminder Before Application
Paul begins with praise. The “teachings” (paradoseis, “traditions”) that he “passed on” (paredōka) are the same kind of carefully transmitted instruction he will describe at the Lord’s Supper (11:23) and in his summary of the gospel (15:3). Verse 3 is not a new teaching. Paul is reminding the Corinthians of truths that come from God, and he has not yet made any application. He is simply stating what God has said: “the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”
The word “head” (kephalē) has been the subject of considerable debate, with some scholars arguing that it means “authority” and others that it means “source,” as in the head of a river. Both ideas have some support, and Paul’s argument from creation in verses 8 and 9 draws on the idea of origin. Yet the most important clue is the final phrase, “the head of Christ is God.” Christ is fully equal with the Father (John 10:30; Philippians 2:6), and yet the Son willingly submits to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:28). Whatever else headship means, it does not mean inferiority, because the relationship between the Father and the Son shows that equality of being and difference of role can exist together without any loss of dignity.
Only after this reminder does Paul make an application, offering what amounts to his own inspired commentary, as he has done elsewhere in the letter. A man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, and a woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors hers. It is worth noticing that Paul assumes women will pray and prophesy in the gathered church. His concern is not whether they participate, but how they present themselves when they do.
The phrase in verse 4 is literally “having down from the head” (kata kephalēs echōn), which most likely describes a fold of the garment drawn up over the head, while verse 5 uses the word akatakalyptos, “uncovered” or “unveiled.” The verb “dishonors” (kataischynei) is the same verb Paul uses in verse 22 for those who “humiliate” the poor at the Lord’s table. In both cases, the behavior Paul corrects brings shame on others.
A Shaved Head
Paul then asks whether it is a disgrace for a woman to have her head shaved. The question is rhetorical, and the expected answer is yes. Elsewhere in Scripture, a shaved head often signals mourning, humiliation, or shame. When the king of the Ammonites shaved off half the beards of David’s envoys, the men were so humiliated that David told them to stay in Jericho until their beards had grown back (2 Samuel 10:4–5), and the prophets speak of shaved heads as a sign of judgment and grief (Isaiah 3:17, 24; Jeremiah 48:37). Paul uses two verbs in verse 6, keirasthai (“to have the hair cut short” or “shorn”) and xyrasthai (“to be shaved”), and his point is that a woman who rejects the covering might as well go all the way and shave her head, since the message she sends is the same.
Reading What We Want It to Say
There is another reason this passage is hard to understand. Most of us came to it with an idea of what we wanted it to say, and when it does not say exactly what we expected, it is tempting to retreat. We conclude that the passage is confusing, that it does not really matter, and that it belongs in the category of “disputable matters” that we are not supposed to pay attention to. Paul does speak of disputable matters in Romans 14:1, but there he is describing questions of conscience, such as eating meat or observing special days, not passages whose meaning we find uncomfortable. Placing a passage in that category simply because we dislike it is a way of setting ourselves above Scripture rather than under it.
The Image and Glory of God
Paul then explains the reason for his application:
A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head.
— 1 Corinthians 11:7–10 (NIV 1984)
Is man the image and glory of God? Again the question is rhetorical, and the answer is yes, which is nothing new. The words “image” (eikōn) and “glory” (doxa) take us straight back to Genesis. Paul then adds that “the woman is the glory of man,” and he grounds it in the order of creation: man did not come from woman, but woman from man (Genesis 2:21–23). In one sense this is an order in time, since the man was created first and then the woman, but Paul goes further: “neither was man created for woman, but woman for man” (Genesis 2:18). This is not only an order in history but an order in function, a description of how God designed men and women to fit together.
Verse 10 is famously difficult. The Greek says simply that a woman ought to have “authority” (exousia) on her head, and translators add “a sign of” to clarify what most interpreters believe Paul means, a visible symbol of the order God established. The phrase “because of the angels” has been explained in several ways, but the most likely is that angels are present as observers of the worship of God’s people. Paul has already said that the apostles have been made “a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings” (4:9), and elsewhere he says that God’s wisdom is being made known “to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” through the church (Ephesians 3:10). The angels, who themselves serve God within an order He established, see whether His people honor that order in their worship.
The application, then, is that men and women are different, that God has assigned them different roles, and that the way we dress should reflect that difference.
Two Truths at Once
It would be a serious mistake to read this passage as saying that women are less than men. The first creation account declares, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Both male and female were created in the image of God, and although that image was corrupted, men and women both still bear something of it. The second account, in Genesis 2, retells the creation of humanity with an added emphasis on how men and women relate to one another, which is not addressed in chapter 1. Paul draws on both accounts, and neither one says that the image of God in a woman is less than the image of God in a man.
In other contexts, we readily understand that two things can be true of the same person at the same time. A man can be a father, but he is not a father to his wife or to his sister. He is also a brother, a husband, and a son, and each of those relationships is real without canceling the others. In the same way, a woman expresses her glory as one made in the image of God, and at the same time she expresses the glory she has in her relationship to her husband. The passage is not meant to put women down, because a person can be two things at once.
Interdependent in the Lord
Paul immediately guards against any misunderstanding:
In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.
— 1 Corinthians 11:11–12 (NIV 1984)
The word “however” (plēn) is a strong qualifier that could be translated “nevertheless” or “in any case,” and the phrase “in the Lord” (en kyriō) reminds us that Paul is describing life within the redeemed community. The first woman came from the first man, but every man since has been born of a woman, so that neither can claim independence from the other. Above them both stands the final truth: “everything comes from God” (ta panta ek tou theou). The order of creation is not a ladder of human importance but a gift from the God who made both men and women and who is the source of all things.
Judge for Yourselves
Paul then appeals to the Corinthians’ own judgment:
Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering.
— 1 Corinthians 11:13–15 (NIV 1984)
The command “judge for yourselves” (en hymin autois krinate) echoes what Paul said a chapter earlier: “I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say” (10:15). God does not expect us to accept His order blindly, because He has written evidence of it into creation itself. The word “nature” (physis) is the same word Paul uses in Romans 1:26–27 for what is “natural” in human relationships, and it points to what theologians have called natural law, the moral order that can be observed in the world God made.
We can see this order when we look at the world around us. The male and the female of any species are different, they fulfill different roles within their herd, pride, or colony, and it is to their detriment when those roles are confused. A pride of lions would not survive unless the lionesses went out to hunt, and in an ant colony not every ant is a queen and not every ant is a drone, but each fulfills the function for which God created it. Paul is appealing to us to look around, because we can figure this out if we are willing to set aside our bias and approach the passage humbly, as though there were something in it to benefit from, rather than feeding our own ego, our pride, and the desire to recreate ourselves in an image other than the image of God.
Paul adds that long hair is given to a woman “as a covering,” and the word he uses, peribolaion, describes something wrapped or thrown around, like a mantle or cloak. Nature itself, in other words, has already given a covering that the outward head covering reflects.
No Other Practice
Paul concludes with a firm word:
If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God.
— 1 Corinthians 11:16 (NIV 1984)
It is good that Paul ends this way. The word “contentious” (philoneikos) literally means “a lover of strife” or “a lover of winning,” and it describes someone who argues for the sake of victory. Paul is saying that it is inappropriate to quarrel over what God has said and what God has created, and to try to reorder the order of God. This should not be a source of division or constant contention. He also goes further: “we have no other practice,” and the word synētheia means a custom or established practice. There is no other way to live out the Christian life in this area of how men and women relate to one another, and the same is true “of the churches of God” everywhere. Some churches simply create their own reality whenever God’s reality gets in the way, and they are free to do so, but it is not what God intended.
Three Authorities
As we consider how to apply this passage, it helps to recognize three authorities that pull on us, especially in the way we present ourselves.
The first is God. Our freedom does not include the freedom to create our own reality. What God has said about the roles of men and women, He has said, and our task is to realign ourselves with it.
The second is society. In Corinth, it appears that some men and women had begun to regard their roles as oppressive, perhaps because others had abused their authority, and they were rebelling against both what society expected and what Scripture taught. That rebellion showed up in the way they dressed. Roman Corinth had its own dress code, just as every society does. In Roman religious practice, men often drew a fold of their toga over their heads when offering sacrifices, and statues of the emperor Augustus show him in exactly that posture. Respectable married women, on the other hand, were expected to cover their heads in public as a sign of their modesty and marital status. A Christian man who prayed with his head covered, or a Christian woman who prayed with her head uncovered, was saying something to everyone who saw them, and Paul did not want that message to hinder the gospel.
Our society also has its dress codes, even if they are not always written down. Most congregations would be startled if the preacher walked into a Sunday service wearing a three-piece suit today, and many would wonder what he was trying to prove, while a generation ago a preacher dressed casually would have drawn the same reaction. Workplaces have dress codes, whether written or unwritten. For many years schools had no written dress code at all, because parents enforced one at home, and only when parents stopped enforcing it did schools find it necessary to put one in writing. A dress code at the gym might be wise as well, both for our own protection and for the protection of those who seem unaware of how they appear to others. The point is that the way we dress always says something, and others are interpreting it whether we intend them to or not, so we must take care not to offend those around us unnecessarily.
The third authority is the created order itself, the “very nature of things” Paul has just described. Just as the animal world reflects distinctions between male and female, there are expectations that go along with fulfilling male and female roles, including the way we dress. The law of Moses made a similar point when it said that a woman must not wear men’s clothing and a man must not wear women’s clothing (Deuteronomy 22:5).
Dresses, Pants, and Plumbers
None of this means that the fashions of a particular decade are God’s universal standard. A question that sometimes arises is whether women are required to wear dresses to church and may never wear pants. That view treats the dress code of the 1940s and 1950s as though it were binding for all time, and that is not what Paul is teaching. Fashion and style change, and many of the pants women wear today are clearly women’s pants, distinctly feminine in their design. In certain work settings, a male plumber and a female plumber may dress almost identically apart from the size of their clothing, and there is nothing shameful in that. What we must avoid is liberalizing our appearance in a way that is unnecessarily offensive, because we do not have that freedom.
Head Coverings, Hair, and Honor
Paul’s specific concern is the head covering and the length of hair, but his principle is broader. Men and women are different, there is an order to how God made them, and one of the ways we express the roles God has given us is through our outward appearance. Paul’s point is not to police particular hairstyles, since some men have hair as beautiful as any woman’s. His concern is the deliberate blurring of what it means to be a man or a woman.
Even in our own society, though less and less, it is considered shameful for a man to dress up as a woman. Some public figures in entertainment and on social media present the most extreme stereotypes of womanhood imaginable, and while some celebrate it, the effect often resembles mockery more than honor, which in its own way shows contempt toward women. Paul’s instruction is simpler and more respectful: in public, and especially in worship, a man should present himself as a man and a woman should present herself as a woman, so that in the way we present ourselves to the world, we are obedient to God and sensitive to those around us for the sake of the gospel.
Freedom Without Unnecessary Offense
This brings us back to the theme of the whole section. We must not take our freedom to the extreme, going beyond the intended blessing of freedom and causing unnecessary offense. Most women in a congregation today do not wear head coverings, and that is not a cause for offense, because the specific symbol Paul addressed belonged to the culture of first-century Corinth. Yet every society has its own ways of displaying womanhood and manhood, and through those ways we display our relationship with God and our concern for the gospel. Our aim is that the gospel will be accessible to everyone, and that nothing in the way we present ourselves will dig up the road that others need to travel to reach it.
Three Questions to Take with Us
The ministry Truth for Life offers three questions that are helpful for any passage of Scripture, and they are especially helpful for one as challenging as this:
- How is God calling me to think differently? Even in this hard-to-understand passage, God is renewing our minds, and we should expect Him to correct some of the assumptions we brought to it.
- How is God reordering my heart’s affections? What we love shapes what we do. We are invited to love this passage of Scripture as much as we love 1 Corinthians 13. Both come from the same author and serve the same purpose, that our lives will be blessed, that we will be a blessing to others, and that we will be more and more pleasing to God. In fact, the two passages are closer than they appear, because when Paul says that love “does not dishonor others” (13:5), he uses the verb aschēmoneō, “to behave in an unbecoming way,” which is the opposite of the propriety he calls for in worship. Loving all of God’s Word includes loving His instructions about how we present ourselves.
- What is God calling me to do? The final question is practical. As we go about our day today, tomorrow, and for the rest of our lives, we can ask what this passage calls us to do, so that whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we do it all for the glory of God.
Editor’s note: For this recording, the audio source was unintentionally changed from the microphone to the recording phone, so the audio is not as clear as usual.