New Testament

Should Women Cover Their Heads for Worship? 1 Corinthians 11:2-16

Nero as Priest

In 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 Paul says “every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head.” But “a man ought not to cover his head” while praying.  Should Women Cover Their Heads for Worship?

William M. Ramsay on cites Dio Chrysostom to the effect that the custom of women going veiled in Tarsus was an oriental and non-Greek custom, Paul is merely reflecting his own (Jewish) background by requiring women wear head coverings (The Cities of St. Paul, 201-5). Because of the popularity of Ramsey’s works on Paul, this theory is often repeated in modern commentaries, but it seems odd that Paul would impose this one Jewish custom on congregations when he frees them from so many other Jewish customs. On the other end of the spectrum, A. C. Wire argued Paul was a male chauvinist who is arguing against a radical female group led by a Corinthian woman prophet. Marg Mowczko has collected man of these sayings on her website.

The application of this rather obscure command in most American  churches is usually some vague platitude that women should be dressed modestly. If the culture includes head coverings in this then the woman ought to not offend the culture. No one ever points out that if this is the true application, then a woman visiting a culture which is comfortable with public nudity is free to “fit right in” when they visit the beach.

I seriously doubt  modesty is the issue Paul is trying to get at in 1 Corinthians 11. There is clear evidence in the Greco-Roman world of prostitutes wearing head coverings.  There are several artistic representations of groups of women with or without head coverings. There is simply no evidence that head coverings were universal in the Greco-Roman world.

Based on his study of Roman statues, D. W. J. Gill suggested it was a Roman convention to cover the head while praying or offering a libation. There are two well-known statues from Corinth, one of Nero and one of Augustus with their heads veiled. The leader of a prayer or sacrifice that would cover their heads, the congregation (if any) would not necessarily do so. Gill argues the social elite in Corinth also practiced head covering while praying or participating in a sacrifice. Since the passage in 1 Corinthians 11 seems to include the whole congregation, perhaps it is only the prophets addressing the congregation that are covering their heads while prophesying.

 “The practice of men covering their heads in a context of prayer and prophecy was a common pattern of Roman piety and widespread during the late Republic and early Empire. Since Corinth was a Roman colony, there should be little doubt this aspect of Roman religious practice deserves greater attention by commentators than it has received.” Oester, “Use, Misuse, and Neglect of Archaeological Evidence,” 68.

As with many of the other issues in 1 Corinthians, the Christians are (continuing) to take their cues for worship from the pagan world. Paul’s command “women cover their heads” and men keep them uncovered distinguishes Christian worship from Imperial worship. They are worshiping in the same way that they would have in a pagan rite, Paul is rejecting this mixing of the world with the Church.

If the problem that is at the heart of the veiling of men / unveiling of women is taking worship cues from the pagan world, then there is a most serious application possible.  How far we want to take this application is quite controversial, from the mega-church movement to modern praise and worship services, it is possible that the American church has taken its cues from the pagan world rather than from the Bible. The modern American church seems to be following MTV rather than the NIV.

There is always a tension between cultural relevancy for the sake of evangelism and participating in the world because we enjoy it.  It is possible that is what was happening in Corinth.  The members of the church of Corinth were routinely acting like the world without taking into consideration how their new Christian world view speaks to their culture (sexual ethics, lawsuits, feasts and banquets at temples, visiting prostitutes, etc.)

So Should Women Cover Their Heads for Worship? The veiling of women or non-veiling of men may seem like a minor problem to use (“it’s just cultural”). But that misses the whole point. If the Corinthian Church was indistinguishable from the world in their worship, how were they going to effectively evangelize their culture?

Bibliography:

D. W. J. Gill, “The Importance of Roman Portraiture for Head-coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16,” Tyndale Bulletin 41 (1990): 246-60.

C. T. Thompson, “Hairstyles, Headcoverings, and St. Paul: Portraits from Roman Corinth” BA (1988): 99-115.

R. E. Oster, “Use, Misuse, and Neglect of Archaeological Evidence in Some Modern Works on 1 Corinthians (1 Cor 7:1–5; 8:10; 11:2–16; 12:14–26).” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 83 (1992):52–73.

 

Food Sacrificed to Idols – 1 Corinthians 8

Of all the issues Paul covers in 1 Corinthians, the issue of food sacrificed to idols seems to be the most obscure in terms of application. In the West, people do not struggle with the problem of food sacrificed to idols, so we usually draw some principles about socially accepted behavior which may not be sinful, but it is better for a Christian to abstain voluntarily.

Paul’s main point throughout 1 Corinthians 8-10 is the proper use of our freedom in Christ. Freedom does not mean “free from all restraint.” Instead, Paul argues for a judicious use of their freedom in the service of others for the goal of presenting the gospel to a world desperately in need of a savior.

Food Sacrificed to IdolsThe issue in 1 Corinthians 8 concerns some members of the Corinthian church have no problem eating “food offered to idols” (εἰδωλόθυτος). This word appears in Acts 15:29 in the list of things the Jewish Christians ask the Gentiles to avoid and again in Rev 2:14, 20 as a description of behavior unacceptable for Christians. In all three cases, eating meat sacrificed to idols is mentioned along with sexual immorality.

The church is not asking Paul a question about the food, but they are making a statement that it is permissible to eat food sacrificed to idols since there are no other gods but God. They seem to think that any limit on their food (either what they eat or where they eat it) is foolish and a restriction of their rights (as citizens of Corinth or as Christians). Paul himself caused the problem with food based on his command not to associate with the immoral person. Like the misunderstanding over marriage (divorce the pagan spouse), Paul’s command may have been misunderstood to mean “do not eat with sinners.”

The word refers to meat sacrificed to a god. The leftover portion could be used in a shared meal in the god’s temple or sold in the market. In the Jewish Temple, some meat from sacrifices was used as part of a family meal (the Passover Lamb, most significantly).

There are three places where the Corinthians might have encountered meat sacrificed to idols (Ciampa and Rosner, 1 Corinthians, 368-8). First, the believers may be eating this food in a temple during some celebration.  Most temples had banquet rooms used for religious and civic celebrations but also for privately hosted meals. These meals would have naturally included meat from sacrifices.

There were various reasons someone might be invited to a meal that is not particularly sinful. For example, what should happen if a member of the congregation were invited to a wedding celebration for a family member who was not saved? Someone would likely be invited to a funeral meal for a parent held at a temple.  Imagine a person who was now a Christian who is invited to attend a funeral meal for a parent at the temple of some god. Socially it would be very difficult not to attend this kind of celebration, not simply awkward, but rude and shameful.

Second, the believers may have been offered meat sacrificed to idols if they were invited to an unsaved person’s home for a meal. In this case, no idolatry is implied in the meal, but they would be offered the food since it was widely available in the markets daily.

Third, people are more likely to be invited to these meals because they were socially significant events in the politics of the city of Corinth. By passing on an invitation from some well-placed member of Roman society, a Christian was risking shame and perhaps a loss of status in the politics of Corinth. It may be the case that someone would have to attend to or lose their position in the government. This is far more than a chance at a free meal!

For Christians living in the majority of the world, food dedicated to idols is a very real problem. Christians in many countries need to worry about participating in festivals or communal meals with food that gods or ancestors have blessed. They take this part of 1 Corinthians very seriously and often suffer some level of persecution from friends and family when they choose not to participate in meals with this kind of food.

Many modern Western Christians struggle with the possible application of this passage. For most American pastors, this is an opportunity to preach against some popular vice, smoking or drinking. Neither are sins in moderation, but some Christians may be offended if a Christian exercises their freedom by smoking or drinking, so the gospel is better served if we voluntarily refrain from these behaviors.

Having talked with Chinese Christians about the application of these verses to their living as believers in a pagan culture, the popular American applications seem watered down to the point of meaninglessness. How can those of us who live in the West take Paul’s command to live differently than the world seriously?

Should the modern Christian de-paganize and reject some elements of our culture as incompatible with Christian faith and practice? Can we apply this passage to the consumerism and materialism of the West? Can we apply this passage to the Americanism of popular evangelicalism?

Gluttons and Drunks in the Church – 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Drunken SatyrWhen he writes to the Corinthians, Paul must correct the church because of of their behavior at private banquets (6:12-20). The issue here is going to banquets given by the rich and elite of the city. There is a great deal of evidence concerning the types of things that went on at a Roman banquet of the first century from contemporary writers.

Bruce Winter gathers a number of references from Plutarch describing the combination of gluttony, drunkenness and sexual immorality that were a part of the “after-dinners” as he calls them. There was an association between gluttony and sexual excess, as is seen from the well known saying reported by Plutarch, “in well-gorged-bodies love (passions) reside.” The writer Athenaeus said that the goddess Cypris (Aphrodite) does not visit the poor, “in an empty body no love of the beautiful can reside.” Plutarch also said that in “intemperate intercourse follows a lawless meal, inharmonious music follows a shameless debauch” (Winter, After Paul Left Corinth, 84).

These banquets would only have been attended by the rich elite of the city of Corinth. The poor were not invited, only those of some social standing. In Corinth there was a major city-wide banquet for all citizens celebrating the games. Not only would there have been pressure to attend these banquets on a social level, there was the added pressure of begin a good citizen of Corinth and of Rome.

These sorts of banquets are in the background of 1 Corinthians. Members of the church are not visiting brothels as we might think of it today. They are attending meals with the elite of Corinth, either hosted in the home of a wealthy patron of the city or in a temple. The practice was considered not only acceptable, but in some cases required for social mobility. If one wanted to gain the favor of a wealthy patron in order to advance a business plan, then attendance at a banquet hosted by the patron was a necessity.

Why would the Corinthian Christians think that they had a right to participate in these banquets? Paul seems to have taught them that Christians are to be separate from such activities, and the strong Jewish ethic of many of the founders would have argued against going to a temple, eating food sacrificed to idols, and participating in the “after-dinners.”

It appears at the very least that some Gentile converts to Christianity did not see this kind of activity as “sin.” As with most of the problems Paul treats in 1 Corinthians, the congregation was slow to de-paganize and think about these behaviors through the lens of their new faith. The practice of going to temples to share meals with the elite of Corinth was socially desirable for the wealthy (and “wanna-be” elite). Perhaps individuals in the church thought they had to do their civic duty by doing to the banquets (a virtue) and did not yet see the additional practices as a vice yet.

This is a very challenging point for contemporary church life. While I do not think that many evangelical Christians are participating in civic orgies, we do seem to tolerate immoral actions among those who are elite citizens (or think that they are elite). A very obvious application is attitudes towards people in public office. The ones who agree with our politics are held to a far less rigorous moral standard than those we disagree with. It does not take too long to think of many examples if this sort of thing.

What are the sorts of behaviors that are accepted (or forbidden) by local congregations in order to better fit into contemporary culture?

Lawsuits in the Church – 1 Corinthians 6:1-8

There appear to have been problems with Christians within the church suing each other in a court of law rather than dealing with the matter “within the family” (6:1-8). We are not told what the content of the lawsuits might be, but it is possible that these are lawsuits the results of perceived insults by members of the “parties” within the church. Perhaps a member of the Paul group insulted a member of the Peter group, who responded as any good Roman would by making a lawsuit against the offender. Imagine a typical argument in a classroom which spills over into Facebook insults which then results in a lawsuit, a counter lawsuit, and a major clash in a court of law.

Frivolous LawsuitAs strange as it sounds, this is the sort of thing which happened in the Roman world. Dio Chrysostom reports that the Roman word of the late first century was filled with “lawyers innumerable, twisting judgments.” (Cited by Winter, After Paul Left Corinth, 62). These lawsuits were politically motivated, between members of the rich and elite class (or want-to-be elite.) These lawsuits were opportunity for young orators to show off their rhetorical talents before the elite citizens (the judge, magistrate, jurors, etc.)

Paul’s solution to the problem is to “shame” them for suing their brothers. Shame is an important factor in first century personal politics. Paul says twice in this letter that he desires to put the church to shame over some behaviors (here and drunkenness in chapter 11.) If the lawsuits were motivated by a perceived loss of honor in the first place, Paul turns a popular expectation upside down by saying that it is a loss of honor for a Christian to take his brother to court.

This therefore is the “shame”: they are suing family members. Paul frequently refers to his readers as “brothers” to emphasize that the Church is a new family rather than a social club. A person is not suing some stranger who has insulted them, they are suing brothers. The Romans did not approve of intra-family lawsuits, therefore Paul is emphasizing brotherhood of the believers.

Paul does not recommend going through a private arbitrator to solve disputes, as was the right of citizens. He says that they church ought to be able to deal with such disputes within the family. There are people within the congregation, presumably, that are styling themselves as orators, and all of the citizens would be familiar with the process of arbitration. Paul is saying that the church ought to function like a family, brothers dealing with one another with “strife and discord.”

How do we “bridge the gap” and apply this sort of teaching in a modern, local church context? At the very least, the church needs to return to the truth than all members of the Body of Christ are brothers and that it is a loss of honor to treat a family member like a stranger. This alone would have a positive effect on the local church.

Sex and Wealth in 1 Corinthians 5

Paul states the sin in the church at Corinth is so bad even the Romans would consider it wrong. (See this post on Corinth as “Sin City.”) Why is the immoral man committing a sin like this? Most scholars think money is the main issue. Perhaps the wife was from a wealthy and prestigious family, and she is trying to divorce his father. The younger man attempts to keep any money or property in the family as long as possible.

A second, more remote possibility is that man is exercising his freedom in Christ. It appears some early Christians believed they were free from the Law, so in order to demonstrate that freedom, they “sinned that grace may abound.” It is possible the young man was trying to prove his freedom from the Law by breaking a very strong taboo and engaging in an ongoing affair with this step-mother.

Sex Corinthians

So why has the man not been arrested and charged with the crime everyone seems to know about? In order to prosecute, the husband would have to sue for divorce. If this was an arranged marriage between wealthy families, there would have been complications in setting the marriage aside.

Bruce Winter points out only the husband has the right to prosecute in this case. There is a sixty-day period for him to do this, after which someone else could potentially bring charges. Perhaps the exclusive period has not expired when Paul is writing, or maybe no one is “wronged” by the relationship, and it is being passed over because of the man’s position and power.

Additionally, if the husband was not a believer, the church didn’t have any sway over him to get him to press charges and exile his son. Because the penalty included loss of property, perhaps the man was not willing to prosecute and possibly forfeit some of his own property.

If this suggestion is correct, then there are two strands of culture that the church is struggling with: sexual sin and the favoring of the rich in the courts. Paul wants to deal with the sinful man within the church itself rather than dragging this ugly situation into the public courts. This has the potential to create an unfortunate principle that Christians who have grave sins ought to be tried in a church court and not by the government, making it possible for some crimes to be covered up by the church. But this was not Paul’s intent at all! Ironically, he is not trying to cover up the sin but deal with it in a public and open way.

How does this idea of dealing with sin “in-house” work in a contemporary context? I am not advocating ecclesiastical courts, nor should people who have broken the “law of the land” find refuge in the church. But there is a need for local churches to deal with some issues like family. But this has caused huge problems when a church tries to cover up a legal and moral issue by dealing with it “in-house.” (I am thinking of sexual abuse by church staff or priests, etc.) Based on his reaction to the young man in an incestuous relationship here in 1 Corinthians 5, I am certain Paul would have dealt with a pastor who is a sexual predator harshly. “Hand him over to Satan” may very well refer to handing his man to the civil authorities and letting him face the full penalty of the law. In a modern context, no church should be sheltering a sexual predator; they should be handed over to the state and prosecuted as sex crimes.

But for issues like petty insults and personal disagreements, Paul does not want these brought to the law courts. If your brother in Christ gossips about you and harms your reputation, you should not sue him for slander. Deal with that kind of an issue inside the church.

How do we draw appropriate applications between the first century and the twenty-first century with respect to church discipline? Does the modern church offer more grace and mercy to the wealthy members of the community and treat the poor harshly? In many cases, the modern church is quite like the Corinth of the first century.