Women in the Church--Part 1

2I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings,[a] just as I passed them on to you.
3Now 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. 4Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. 5And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head�it is just as though her head were shaved. 6If 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. 7A man ought not to cover his head,[b] since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head.
11In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. 13Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, 15but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. 16If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice�nor do the churches of God.

This is a difficult passage to read in the Bible. It has been used to abuse and repress women, and try and make them docile. Although the subtext of this passage--that women can worship, participate, and have a leading role in worship just like men--is often ignored. And this subtext was significant because women were not allowed to worship in Hebrew temples in synagogues on such an equal footing.
Much like slavery passages of years past, a text that should speak to us of the Spirit moving through the messiness of human relations toward an egalatarian community has been twisted to repress women in unbiblical ways.

In order to understand this passage better I advise you take a number of steps.

1.) notice the contextual clues of this passage that shout to you that Paul was speaking to a specific cultural situation:
--we have no other practice (or tradition)
--"judge for yourselves"
--"is it proper"
--in order to not be an offense to...(I Cor 10:32)

2.) Read vv. 8-12. Read the sense of mutuality here, the sense of interdependence, not men lording power over women.

3.) The word "head" here is better translated source--and refers to the creation narrative. The word is "kephale" in Greek, not "arche". Kephale literally means "one who precedes another into battle", whereas Arche means boss or ruler. What the source argument is arguing for is not as much submission as it is saying this. Women were begotten (preceded) of Adam, and Jesus is God's only begotten Son of God. Woman was created God to complete humanity. This completeness and partnership does not necessarily mean sameness.

4. Point 2 and 3 lead us to think about what hair meant in the culture in which this was written. Hair, at certain places and in certain cultures, reflected marital status. Covering of the head in public was much like wearing a wedding ring. (The word woman and wife are the same in NT Greek..you are supposed to figure this out by context.) How far would the gospel get if women today discarded their wedding rings and went butch the moment they accepted Christ? Not a lot of men would be happy. Nor would very many women be happy if the minute their hubbys became Christian they all became metrosexual as a matter of biblical conviction.

5. So Paul is making this weird complicated argument (not foreign to Jewish midrash then or now), that says this. What a wife does is reflective of her husband. To take off her head covering and speak in church disrespects and shames him. (See modern fundamentalist Islam and how the veil is used in places like Iran for a parellel). Don't shame each other, but rather support one another. Because we need one another. A woman should not feel like she needs to be like a man. She has full partnership in the gospel as the person God created her to be. And a man should not appear to be more like a woman for the same reason. God created him and loves him just like he is. (thus the references to sources thus creation) Paul is saying in effect, we don't have to be a monolithic, unisex community to be a mutual community that honors how God speaks through each individual. In fact, that would make a mockery of the good news of Jesus. Instead of honoring our individuality and blessing it, when the Corinthians were mocking the blesssing of diversity of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2.

SO ANYWAY...for some of you a little boring, but I was asked the question, and I thought it might be something to think about for my blog friends. Especially some who may have written off the Gospel because of a misinterpretation of Scripture.