Does God see gender as a barrier to women taking certain positions of leadership in the church or in the world?
It’s a nagging question for many believers today. Some think that God does see gender as a barrier; others think that he doesn’t. But many are still a little nervous that he might.
1 Corinthians 11:2-16 brings all this to the surface in one of the most controversial and difficult passages in the New Testament. Paul seems to say that women must pray/prophesy with their heads covered because if their heads were uncovered it would bring shame on their head. He also seems to imply that only men are created in the image and glory of God, while women are only the glory of man. Man isn’t made for woman, but woman for man because woman was made from man.
Needless to say this passage has caused many interpreters to blush, while causing others to institute oppressive practices on women in worship.
The typical way of handling the passage is to slough it off as a “cultural” issue. But on a closer reading we find that the text grounds it all in a theological rational.
To make matters worse, Paul seems to be of two minds in the passage. In fact, he seems to outright contradict himself; saying one thing, but then taking it all away in the next breath. Verses 4-10 offer a sort of (odd) creational theology for why there is a hierarchical relationship between men and women, but verses 11-16 seem to disagree completely, offering a vision of mutuality and reciprocity between men and women “in the Lord.”
All this and more make the passage one of the most difficult in the entire New Testament.
Here are few NT scholars on the difficulty of the passage:
C.F.D. Moule: “[The problems raised by 1 Corinthians 11] still await a really convincing explanation.”
George Caird: “It can hardly be said that the passage has yet surrendered its secret.”
Craig Blomberg: “This passage is probably the most complex, controversial, and opaque of any text of comparable length in the New Testament.”
Gordon Fee: “This passage is full of notorious exegetical difficulties including the ‘logic’ of the argument as a whole… [along with] uncertainty about the meaning of some absolutely crucial terms…”
Lucy Peppiatt, lecturer and Principal of Westminster Theological Centre, offers a possible alternative reading of the passage in her book Women and Worship at Corinth.
It is a well-established fact among scholars that Paul regularly quotes the Corinthians and their slogans throughout his letter—usually to disagree with them or to tweak their theology.
The Greek text of 1 Corinthians doesn’t have any quotation marks in it, but almost every modern English translation adds them because it makes sense of what would otherwise be contradictory passages. There seem to be two voices all throughout 1 Corinthians: Paul’s voice and the “Corinthians’” voice.
Her thesis (and it is only a thesis!) is that perhaps there are two voices speaking again in chapter 11. Maybe Paul is quoting from the Corinthians again and using a rhetorical method to show the inconsistencies and problems within the Corinthians’ theology of men and women at worship.
Here is Peppiatt’s reading of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 (the bolded and italicized sections indicate Corinthian thinking or phraseology that Paul is disagreeing with):
1 Cor. 11:2-16 2 I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions/teachings, just as I passed them on to you. 3 But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, but the head of Christ is God. 4 Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head 5 and every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. 6 So 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! 7 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. 8 For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9 neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head. 11 Nevertheless, [the point is] in the Lord, woman is not independent of/separated from man, nor is man independent of/separated from woman. 12 For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. 13 Judge for yourselves: Is it fitting for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, 15 but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her in place of a head covering. 16 If anyone wants to be dangerously divisive about this, we have no such custom—nor do the churches of God.
I think she’s on to something! But either way, as Peppiatt points out, all readings of 1 Cor. 11 must be held with humility because of the absolutely opaque nature of the entire passage.
In the class I replicated as closely as possible the way Peppiatt teaches the passage. If any are interested in hearing more from her, you can watch this interview and this lecture:
Women, Head Coverings, and Worship