A man dishonors his head if he covers his head while praying or prophesying. But a woman dishonors her head if she prays or prophesies without a covering on her head, for this is the same as shaving her head. Yes, if she refuses to wear a head covering, she should cut off all her hair! But since it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut or her head shaved, she should wear a covering. [1 Corinthians 11:4-6 (NLT)]
I grew up attending the Episcopal Church at a time when women covered their heads during worship and the men worshipped bare-headed. While not a hard and fast rule in the denomination, it was a time-honored tradition. Women wearing head coverings in Episcopal and Catholic churches began to wane in the 70s and, by 1983, the Roman Catholic church no longer had rules regarding headwear for men or women. The last time I attended an Episcopal or Catholic church, the women were hatless and some of the men wore baseball caps! Although culture plays an important role in the way we dress and behave in church, how do we interpret Paul’s words today? Should I dig out my mantilla and must our pastor toss out his ball cap?
Kephalé, translated as “head,” meant both the body part on top of the neck as well as the master or person in charge and Paul used it in both senses in his letter. That is one of the reasons many scholars find this passage in 1 Corinthians 11 one of the most difficult in the New Testament to understand thoroughly. Leaving the semantics to the scholars, let’s look at Paul’s words about head coverings in their cultural context. 1st century Corinth was a cosmopolitan and prosperous city notorious for its corruption, idolatry, and immortality. The Corinthian church, a mix of men, women, rich, poor, slave, free, Gentile, and Jew, was jeopardized by various factions and spiritual immaturity. After attending to three specific problems within that church, the Apostle tried to unify this diverse community of new believers by addressing topics such as food sacrificed to idols, abuses at the Lord’s Supper, the Spirit’s gifts, the resurrection of believers, and proper conduct in worship.
Paul’s directive that men worship with bare heads and women with covered is better understood when we know that male officiants in pagan Roman rituals covered their heads with a fold of their togas when praying, sacrificing, offering drinks, and practicing divination. On the other hand, Gentile women participated in some cultic rituals with their heads uncovered and their hair unbound. With a large Gentile membership, such practices may have found their way into the new church. Worshipping Jesus in the same manner they’d worshipped gods like Apollo and Dionysus put Him in the same category as Rome’s idols and Paul disapproved of dishonoring Christ that way!
Paul’s main concern about women wearing head coverings probably had to do with propriety and respect. Although many upper-class Gentile Corinthian women found it socially acceptable to appear bare-headed in public, it was unseemly for Jewish married women to venture outside their homes without covering their heads. A woman’s covered head was a sign of modesty and regard for her husband and a wife who exposed her hair to the public dishonored her spouse. While an uncovered head was a sign of progressive freedom to a Gentile, it was a sign of impropriety and promiscuity to a Jew. Paul’s reference to the shame of a shaved head was because the Torah’s punishment for an adulterous wife was a shaved head.
In the Corinthian church, the issues of head coverings for both men and women caused discord between people of different backgrounds, social status, and spiritual maturity. Paul’s instructions were meant to ease those tensions and unify the church. Today, however, head coverings don’t carry the same meaning as they did in the 1st century Roman Empire. They’re little more than a fashion statement or a way to protect us from the sun. For today’s believer, Paul’s words aren’t as much about covered or uncovered heads at church as they are about dressing in a culturally appropriate way so that both our attire and demeanor in worship honor God, our spouse, and our fellow believers.
Devotions of the Heart 