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Welcome to day two of our look at 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Yesterday we looked
at the beginning of this passage about women and hair and veils and Corinth and
us and worship. We looked at the major principle in this passage, and the major
principle is because we worship with others, an important part of outstanding
worship is our attitude towards others in our worship.

But in this passage there are many questions that come up. And so today I want
to focus on some particular questions that arise out of this passage. There are
four passages, four verses that deserve, certainly deserve a closer look.

So let's look at them. First of all, verse three. Paul says in verse three, "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.

" The head of woman is man. Does the Bible really say that? And what does that
have to do with our culture today?

Now, actually it's important to understand that the original Greek indicates
that the meaning is more exactly the head of a wife is her husband is talking
about a relationship and a home and a family. But either way, what does this
thing mean? Headship, what does it mean?

Well notice at the end it says the head of Christ is God. That's our clue. The
head of Christ is God to what it means and what it doesn't mean.

The head of Christ is God. It doesn't mean value. God the Father is not better
than God the Son, so there's no sense of value here when you say the head of
woman is man.

It does not mean any kind of enforced authority. There have been people who've
read these verses and said, "Oh, well that means that a guy has to be in charge
of this or always has to be in charge of this and will enforce this and make
this happen. " I just want you to realize God never did force Jesus in any kind
of choice of submission.

Jesus willingly submitted himself to the will of the Father while he was on this
earth, but it was willing. It was a choice. So what does it mean?

It means the loving choice to follow another's leadership. Somebody has to lead
and God has said, not primarily in this passage, but you can read about it over
in Ephesians, God has talked about the leadership in a home and how important it
is that we submit to one another, men to women and women to men, wives to
husbands and husbands to wives and children to parents and parents to children.
It's a mutually submissive relationship.

Now that scares us a little bit, but because for us, words like submission and
headship, they always imply a hierarchy. That's just sort of our culture today.
They do not imply that to God.

Jesus lived in submission to the Father even though all three members of the
Trinity are equally God, equally important, equally powerful. For God, these
words are not about some hierarchy of order and control, they're about the way
we relate to each other, not the value we put on each other. Now let's continue
through this passage and in verse seven we'll answer and eight we'll answer some
more of some of the questions you might have about verse three.

Down in verse seven, a second of these four verses we're going to look at, the
scripture says a man ought not to cover his head since he's the image and glory
of God, but the woman is the glory of man. All right, what's he talking about
here? Well, the assumed statement here is that we're both created in the image
of God.

Paul knows that. He knew the Old Testament as a Pharisee, backwards and
forwards, so he understands that God created us man and woman in the image of
God. He's not focusing on that here.

You need to remember, and we'll come to this again in just a minute, Paul is not
giving a theology of men and women here. He's given an argument for why it's a
good idea for a woman to wear a veil. And here the assumed statement is that
we're both created in the image of God.

But Paul says, "I don't want to focus on that, I want to focus on the glory, the
image and the glory of God. " Just as the creation of mankind brought joy to
God, the creation of woman brought joy to man. So Paul is again saying we're
living in relationship here.

This is not just a matter of hierarchy and roles. This is a matter of human
beings living in relationship. We're living in relationship to God and we're
living in relationship to each other.

So any decisions you make about wearing veils, not wearing veils, hair, this,
that, and worship, which should all be made in terms of relationships. We want
to make rules. We love to make rules.

Rules don't work well with relationships. The more rules, the less relationship.
It's just the way that it works.

In the Old Testament, lots of rules. They didn't have a very good relationship
with God. New Testament, Jesus said, "I got one rule for you.

Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Oh, and the second is
love your neighbor as yourself. " And we've got this incredible relationship
with him.

So the word Jesus is telling us and Paul is telling us also here that we need to
live out worship. And if we get into a place where there's too many rules and
rituals, it's going to destroy worship. So any decision that's made, it's made
out of this relationship.

Paul is arguing relationally here. He does that again in verse 8. In verse 8, he
says, "For man did not come from woman, but woman from man.

Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. " Why is Paul saying these
things as we walk through this? Why is he confusing us with all this?

Well, he's giving them reasons why they should cover their head in worship. And
actually, as we've walked through this, we haven't looked at all the verses, but
he's given three arguments. We heard some of them yesterday.

He uses the argument of exaggeration of Scripture and of common sense.
Exaggeration, we read this yesterday. He said, "If you're not going to cover
your head with a veil, you may as well just shave your head.

" That was exaggeration to say, "If you're going to look a little like a
prostitute in this culture, why don't you just look entirely like a prostitute?
" Now, that may sound like a shocking argument to you, but if you lived in that
culture, you would understand it. Paul is saying you're hurting other people's
worship by demanding a freedom that they just don't understand.

So he uses the argument of exaggeration. Then he uses argument of Scripture.
He's doing that right here.

He's talking about woman coming from man, the relationship that we have to each
other. He's arguing relationally. And then he's going to argue from common
sense.

He says, "Just common sense. " When you look at most cultures, even cultures
today, women tend to wear their hair longer than men. So common sense is women
cover their heads because it's a glory to them.

There's some glory in it, not just some order in it. Now, in many ways, I know
this makes you scratch your head as you're hearing some of this. In many ways,
this is the same as the discussion of meat offered to idols.

But because we live in a day that's very sensitive to gender issues, we go a
little crazy when we read this passage. It's important to understand Paul is not
giving a theology of men and women here. He's presenting arguments for why they
should not abuse their freedom and so hurt another believer.

And these were arguments that made great sense in their culture. They may not
make the greatest sense to you right now until you study them some more,
understand where they came from, understand the heart that's behind them. This
is one of the passages of Scripture that the more you study it, the more you
understand.

But I'll have to admit, having studied this passage of Scripture for 30 years,
the more you study it, the more you realize you don't understand as well. I'm
going to have some questions of the Lord when I get to heaven about this
particular passage. But in trying to understand it, to see what he's saying
here, I see that he's saying I'm arguing relationally, that in worship, you
can't forget the relationship.

And he argues in balance here. He says as a woman came from man, we're going to
read later, so also a man is born of woman. We are not independent of each
other.

Because we're not independent of each other, here's the conclusion. We must be
submissive to each other. Now submissive does not mean you blindly follow
somebody else's orders.

The word submissive in the Bible has nothing to do with that. We've made it to
have that sense sometimes. The word submissive means you willingly love someone
else by giving up one of your rights in order to meet their needs.

That's submissive. As you read through this, is the Bible putting women in a
lower place than men? Of course not.

The truth is the Bible did not reflect its culture. Some people say that. It
changed its culture.

The truths of Scripture, of Jesus and of the letters of Paul, as the church read
these truths in the first centuries, the attitude toward women was radically
changed. I could go into this, we could take maybe an hour on this, it'd be a
great study for you to do sometime, just to see how Scripture changed the
attitude toward women, made a more positive attitude toward women as fellow
sisters in love with Jesus Christ. Some others read this passage and they say,
"Well, maybe Paul's like a victim of culture in this teaching.

" No, these are Holy Spirit-inspired words. So while Paul could have been a
victim of culture, probably was sometimes in some of the things that he said,
not in these words. By the way, his culture taught that men should cover their
heads in worship, and he says in the churches now, because we've got Romans,
we've got Greeks, we've got those who came out of the Jewish faith together.

This is what the churches are doing. This is what we've decided to do together
in order that all the cultures could come together and worship together. He's
just dealing with the practical realities of life.

In Bible study, this is an important truth as we walk through this passage about
culture and truth. In Bible study we recognize that some of the examples are
cultural, that some of the practices are cultural, but you have to draw the line
at saying that any of the truths are cultural. Every truth in the Bible is
designed for us all through the ages.

Now with that in mind, there's a fourth verse that needs a closer look, and
that's verse 10. "After saying, women should wear a veil on their heads," in
verse 10 he says, "for this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought
to have a sign of authority on her head. " Because of the angels?

We're just getting this sorted out, and now Paul throws this in. Our research
team, this was their number one question without a shadow of a doubt. What's
this about angels all of a sudden?

Because of the angels you should wear a veil? Why would they care? Well, here's
the sense that I get out of this.

I have to understand, I don't completely understand this, may not until I get to
heaven, because it's about angels and I'm not one. But I do know this, angels
are experts at worship. Just read Isaiah chapter 6, just read Revelation chapter
5.

And so because of that, I know that angels would be shocked at any attitude of
selfish pride or self-promotion in worship. Angels, in fact, cover their faces
before God in worship. Isaiah 6, 2, "Above him were seraphs," those are angels,
"with six wings, with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their
feet, and with two they were flying.

" So for a woman in that culture to cover her hair as a sign of submission
before God in order not to hurt the faith of somebody else, an angel in humility
covers its face before God in worship. And so Paul is writing and saying, when
you think of the angels and how they worship and the depth of humility that
these powerful spiritual beings have, let's humble ourselves before God in
worship. When you worship, conduct yourself as if you were in heaven, in God's
presence.

It's not a matter of how I can proclaim my rights. It's a matter of how I can
look at him. What's the timeless principle here?

The timeless principle is that submission is one of the ways that I exercise my
freedom in Christ. And in fact, submissive humility is one of the keys to a
healthy experience in worship. And so Jesus says, we pray, right now, we humbly
submit our hearts to you.

Lord, I humbly say that I don't understand everything in this passage, because I
don't understand everything in that culture, I don't understand everything about
the angels, but I do know that in order to worship well, I have to humble myself
before you. So Lord, if there's any attitude of pride in my worship, if there's
any attitude of seeking the notice of others in my worship, Lord, seek it out in
my heart and root it out of my life. Cause me to become more and more humble
before you, because you are a God whose love and power and grace and strength,
it's immeasurable.

So let my experience of worship become more and more and more about you, not
evaluating what's around me, what's happening with others, but together with
others, looking to you. I ask this, we ask this, Jesus, in your name, Amen.
Tomorrow we're going to look together at God's solution to a second problem that
the Corinthians were facing in their worship.