A question please about Head Covering 1 Corinthians 11:5

[Patricia]

Dear All,

I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for your wonderful website.

I am currently studying 1 Corinthians and I have a question please about women's Head Covering. I have no trouble in understanding the concept of the head covering for a woman because of the angels (1 Coriantians 11:10)

However, my question concerns:

1 Corinthians 11:5 "But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved." (NKJV)

I understand that in Corinth, it was the custom of prostitutes to have their head shaved and covered with a wig. I read this note from The King James Study Bible.

Must I cover my hair constantly (e.g. not only when I attend church -- which I don't attend yet as I have not found one) but also when at work and when at home? I am really unsure as to whether I must cover my head non-stop or not. One of my dilemna is the fact that I am constantly thinking about and therefore praying to The Lord and up to now my head was uncovered (because I only read today Paul's comment) and of course I immediately covered my head but now am wondering if I must also cover my head when at work etc..

Thank you for shedding some light. Your help is very much appreciated.

May GOD bless you all.

Amen, come quickly Lord Jesus.

Patricia

[mattfivefour]

Sis, your desire to please God is admirable. But be careful that you are not brought into bondage to some form of law. Don't get caught up in legalism. God accepts you whether you pray covered or uncovered. And notice that the verse you refer to only refers to a woman having her head covered "when she prays".

Paul was dealing—as your Bible note says—with something in the Corinthian culture that was causing problems in the church. Corinth was the center for worship of the fertility goddess, Aphrodite. The female worshippers also served as temple prostitutes ... though they were not prostitutes in the way we think of them today: they were not working for money. It was done as an act of religious devotion. To mark their service their hair was shorn or shaved. Therefore a woman with shorn hair was viewed as being devoted to Aphrodite. You can imagine the disturbance caused in the Christian church when Corinthian women (the very word Corinthian became a verb that meant "to practice sexual immorality") with shorn hair were showing up in services to pray. Paul wanted a clear distinction between pagan worshippers and those who followed Christ. Thus the prohibition against a woman with shorn hair praying with her head uncovered. However a woman who had long hair did not need to cover her head since "her hair is given her for a covering." (1 Corinthians 11:15)

Nowadays, short hair does not signify pagan worship or any refusal to submit to God's order. Therefore it is a woman's choice how to wear her hair and whether to cover her head while praying or not. Legalistic denominations insist on a head covering. They view it as a mark of "holiness". Nonsense. The legalists just love to exercise the flesh by trying to imitate the fruit that only the Holy Spirit can produce. It makes them feel ... well ... holy! God cares about the attitude of your heart, not any outward signs that you yourself manifest.

[Carl]

Thank you Matt for that bit of Bible knowledge. That I didn't know.

[Patricia]

Dear Matt,

Thank you so very much for your response. Yes, indeed, you pointed out correctly my very dilemna as for many years I have been following Judaism and all the various rituals associated with it. Your answer sets me free from this bondage and I am so happy to have found your website.

I have so many other questions which I will post in due course.

May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you abundantly.

Amen, Come quickly Lord Jesus.

Patricia

[mattfivefour]

Joel, I think you confuse the commands. We are commanded to love the Lord our God with everything that is in us and commanded to love others as Christ loved the Church. If we do those things ... which we cannot do in our own power ... but by daily reckoning ourselves dead to sin and to our own desires and ideas, thus allowing the Holy Spirit to work out in us what He has already worked in at salvation (for it is HE who both wills and does in us) then we will keep his laws. Head coverings are a legalistic requirement that had a place and purpose at one time but are not binding upon an individual now. Like keeping festivals, or esteeming one day above another, or sabbaths or eating meat, or not eating meat, each is to be a decision by the individual based on his or her own conscience which, in a Christian, is in increasing synchronocity with the leading of the Holy Spirit. Even in the day of the early church, the leading apostles (James, Peter and John) put no greater imposition of law upon the gentile believers than to "abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well." (Acts 15:29) This was all.

I know those who desire to make universal commandments from certain scriptural verses are well meaning. But it is just another form of outward law keeping, very cleverly concealed in the guise of obeying the Lord. Respectfully, Myron Horst's (whom I presume to be your father or some other close relative's) website on head-covering that you link in your post, Joel, is another example of well meaning attempts that are really another form of law-keeping ... along with other topics on this "Biblical Research Reports" such as the one regarding marrying a divorced person ... and his mis-interpretation of the doctrine that salvation is a two-step process. It is indeed a two-step process ... for it is not completed until glorification. BUT, we have the down-payment now ... with no requirement on our part other than faith. Faith which, I might add, will lead us into obedient communion with Christ ... not through our efforts but through His work in us. Indeed, as John says, Now are we the sons of God. Anything else is adding works to faith, adding works to the finished work of Christ on the Cross. And that, my brother, is another gospel.

Yes, Christ in His Word tells us many things ... but He is wanting us to obey the spirit of what He says ... not the letter ... for truly the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.

[Patricia]

Dear Joel and Matt,

I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for your replies which I have printed and I shall study them.

May GOD bless you

Amen, Come quickly Lord Jesus
Patricia

[Chris]

Calvary Chapel Ellicott City - Media Library

1 Corinthians 11:1-16
Sunday morning, November 1, 2009
Pastor Dan Sexton
1 Corinthians 11:1-16 on Vimeo