Head coverings

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Permanent norm

Temporary custom

Quotes

Permanent norm

Tertullian

"But that point which is promiscuously observed throughout the churches, whether virgins ought to be veiled or no, must be treated of. For they who allow to virgins immunity from headcovering, appear to rest on this; that the apostle has not defined 'virgins' by name, but 'women,' as 'to be veiled;' nor the sex generally, so as to say 'females,' but a class of the sex, by saying 'women:' for if he had named the sex by saying 'females,' he would have made his limit absolute for every woman; but while he names one class of the sex, he separates another class by being silent. For, they say, he might either have named 'virgins' specially; or generally, by a compendious term, 'females.'" - Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 3, p. 687

John Chrysostom

"'And if it be given her for a covering,' say you, 'wherefore need she add another covering?' That not nature only, but also her own will may have part in her acknowledgment of subjection. For that thou oughtest to be covered nature herself by anticipation enacted a law. Add now, I pray, thine own part also, that thou mayest not seem to subvert the very laws of nature; a proof of most insolent rashness, to buffet not only with us, but with nature also." - Homily XXVI

Augustine

"It is not becoming even in married women to uncover their hair, since the apostle commands women to keep their heads covered." (Augustine, Letter CCXLV)

John Calvin

"When he says ‘her hair is for a covering,’ he does not mean that as long as a woman has hair, that should be enough for her. He rather teaches that our Lord is giving a directive that he desires to have observed and maintained. If a woman has long hair, this is equivalent to saying to her, ‘Use your head-covering, use your hat, use your hood; do not expose yourself in that way! Why? Even if you have no head-covering, nor hood, yet you also have something to conceal yourself. You see that it would not be fitting to go bare-headed; that is something against nature.’ This is how this passage of St. Paul’s must be understood." - Sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:2-3 in Men, Women and Order in the Church, trans Seth Skolnitsky, Presbyterian Heritage Publications, pp. 52-53

Matthew Henry

"It was the common usage of the churches for women to appear in public assemblies, and join in public worship, veiled; and it was manifestly decent that they should do so. Those must be very contentious indeed who would quarrel with this, or lay it aside." - Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1706

John Wesley

"Therefore if a woman is not covered — If she will throw off the badge of subjection, let her appear with her hair cut like a man's. But if it be shameful far a woman to appear thus in public, especially in a religious assembly, let her, for the same reason, keep on her veil." - Wesley's Notes on the Bible, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, p. 570

"For a man indeed ought not to veil his head because he is the image and glory of God in the dominion he bears over the creation, representing the supreme dominion of God, which is his glory. But the woman is a matter of glory to the man, who has a becoming dominion over her. Therefore she ought not to appear except with her head veiled as a tacit acknowledgement of it." - John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes, 1 Corinthians 11:7

Charles Spurgeon

"The reason why our sisters appear in the House of God with their heads covered is ‘because of the angels.’ The apostle says that a woman is to have a covering upon her head because of the angels, since the angels are present in the assembly and they mark every act of indecorum, and therefore everything is to be conducted with decency and order in the presence of the angelic spirits." - Spurgeon’s Sermons on Angels (1996), 98

A.W. Pink

"Now God has appointed that because man is the head, because headship or dominion or rule has been delegated by God into the hands of man, God has ordained that that shall be symbolically shown forth when he enters the house of God. His head shall be uncovered; his head shall be revealed; his head shall be manifest because God has given to him the headship. But because God has not given headship to the woman, because he has placed her in subjection to man, therefore that must be symbolically shown forth by her having head covered, her head concealed, showing that she is not her own head, and her own ruler." - A.W. Pink’s Studies in the Scriptures, 1926-27, volume 3, 257-263

Charles Ryrie

"Women should be veiled or covered in the meeting of the church, and the men should not. Paul’s reasons were based on theology (headship v.3), the order of creation (v.7-9), and the presence of angels in the meeting (v.10). None of these reasons was based on contemporary social custom." - The Ryrie Study Bible (1976), p. 303

S. Lewis Johnson

"In the final analysis, the hat, or veil, is not the important thing, but the subordination for which it stands. The prescence of both is the ideal." - The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, p. 1248

Bruce Waltke

"This writer concludes, then, that a woman who prays or prophesies in an assembly of believers should cover her head as a symbol of her submission to the absolute will of God who has ordered His universe according to His own good pleasure... Thus the face with which God chose to reveal Himself to the world is one that the world desperately needs to see, namely, a man who displays the image and glory of God through Christ, and a woman who, despite her ontological equality with the man, submits to him. In the historical process of administering His church, however, God has been pleased with the completion of the canon of Scrip- ture to withdraw the gift of prophecy. In the practice of the churches today the apostolic teaching has relevance directly only to prayer. In this writer's judgment, however, it would be well for Christian women to wear head coverings at church meetings as a symbol of an abiding theological truth." - "1 Corinthians 1:2-16: An Interpretation", Bibliotheca Sacra, 1978

R.C. Sproul

"It is one thing to seek a more lucid understanding of the biblical content by investigating the cultural situation of the first century; it is quite another to interpret the New Testament as if it were merely an echo of the first-century culture. To do so would be to fail to account for the serious conflict the church experienced as it confronted the first-century world. Christians were not thrown to the lions for their penchant for conformity. Some very subtle means of relativizing the text occur when we read into the text cultural considerations that ought not to be there. For example, with respect to the hair-covering issue in Corinth, numerous commentators on the Epistle point out that the local sign of the prostitute in Corinth was the uncovered head. Therefore, the argument runs, the reason why Paul wanted women to cover their heads was to avoid a scandalous appearance of Christian women in the external guise of prostitutes. What is wrong with this kind of speculation? The basic problem here is that our reconstructed knowledge of first-century Corinth has led us to supply Paul with a rationale that is foreign to the one he gives himself. In a word, we are not only putting words into the apostle’s mouth, but we are ignoring words that are there. If Paul merely told women in Corinth to cover their heads and gave no rationale for such instruction, we would be strongly inclined to supply it via our cultural knowledge. In this case, however, Paul provides a rationale which is based on an appeal to creation, not to the custom of Corinthian harlots. We must be careful not to let our zeal for knowledge of the culture obscure what is actually said. To subordinate Paul’s stated reason to our speculatively conceived reason is to slander the apostle and turn exegesis into eisogesis. The creation ordinances are indicators of the transcultural principle. If any biblical principles transcend local customary limits, they are the appeals drawn from creation... What if, after careful consideration of a biblical mandate, we remain uncertain as to its character as principle or custom? If we must decide to treat it one way or the other but have no conclusive means to make the decision, what can we do? Here the biblical principle of humility can be helpful. The issue is simple. Would it be better to treat a possible custom as a principle and be guilty of being overscrupulous in our design to obey God? Or would it be better to treat a possible principle as a custom and be guilty of being unscrupulous in demoting a transcendent requirement of God to the level of a mere human convention? I hope the answer is obvious." (Knowing Scripture, 110)

"I am convinced that when Paul says the women are to cover their heads, he is basing that action on how God created male and female. It would seem to me, using a principle of interpretation of what we call hermeneutics, that if there ever an indication of a perpetual ordinance in the church, it is that which is based on an appeal to Creation. I'm persuaded that the principle of covering the head is still in effect because it was built into creation. And even though it's not culturally accepted anymore in our society, I still believe it's principle. I don't think it matters one bit whether it's a babushka, a veil, or a hat, but I think that the symbol should remain intact as a sign of our obedience to God." (Now, That's a Good Question, 48)

Primary head covering as hair

Douglas Wilson

"Now if you believe, as I do, that the primary covering reference here is to hair, and that this is the heart of the requirement, it does not follow from this that artificial coverings (veils and hats) are irrelevant to the discussion. Think of it this way. A man should have short hair (v. 14). He should have short hair, such that he is in a position to come to worship “uncovered.” But what sense would it make for him to then bring a hat and wear it during worship? That would be an impudence—because he would be doing artificially (with a hat) what he is not allowed to do naturally (with hair). If he may not be covered with long hair, then how much less may he wear a hat in worship? With women, the logic goes the other way. If she comes to worship covered by her hair, as she ought to (v. 15), how much more may she accent that covering by artificial means? This is why the woman may wear something additional on her head, and it is also why the man may not..."

"I remember what church was like when I was a kid, especially on Easter Sunday, and especially if we sat in the balcony. Our congregation was a fair-sized lake of hats—glorious hats. This was far closer to the intent of the apostle." (For a Glory and a Covering)

Temporary custom

CBMW

"Creation dictates that we use culturally appropriate expressions of masculinity and femininity, which just happened to be a head covering for women in that setting... The teaching of nature is the natural inclination of men and women to feel shame when they abandon the culturally established symbols of masculinity or femininity. Nature does not teach what the symbols should be... Nature has given woman the hair and the inclination to follow prevailing customs of displaying her femininity, which in this case included letting her hair grow long and drawing it up into a covering for her head." (Fifty Crucial Questions, question 32)

Jonathan Edwards

"If having the head uncovered were a sign of subjection, it would have been as much against nature for the man to have his head uncovered. And that which is against nature in this sense, is against it in a proper sense. It is against nature in a proper sense, to bow down before an idol, because it is against nature to adore an idol; and bowing down, by universal custom, is used to denote adoration; but if bowing down by universal custom were used to denote contempt, it would not be against nature." (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, II:800)

"Nature it self, Nature in its proper Sense, teaches, that it is a Shame for a Man to appear with the established Signs of the female Sex, and with Significations of Inferiority, &c. As Nature it self shews it to be a Shame for a Father to bow down or kneel to his own Child or Servant, or for Men to bow to an Ido•, because bowing down is by Custom an established Token or Sign of Subjection & Submission: Such a Sight therefore would be unnatural, shocking to a Man's very Nature." (Edwards)

John MacArthur

"It is the rebellion against God–ordained roles that is wrong, and in Corinth that rebellion was demonstrated by women praying and prophesying with their heads uncovered. Dress is largely cultural and, unless what a person wears is immodest or sexually suggestive, it has no moral or spiritual significance... It is the principle of women’s subordination to men, not the particular mark or symbol of that subordination, that Paul is teaching in this passage. The apostle is not laying down a universal principle that Christian women should always worship with their heads covered." (Head Coverings For Women, May 16, 2019)

John Piper

"The issue of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 is secondarily headcoverings but primarily the preservation of God-given distinctions between man and woman in the way they relate to each other. The head covering is culturally relative." (Creation, Culture, and Corinthian Prophetesses, March 1984)

"Paul is saying that nature — that is, natural, intrinsic maleness — inclines a man to feel repulsed and shameful for wearing culturally defined symbols of womanhood. Paul is saying that nature — that is, natural, built-in, God-given, intrinsic maleness — inclines a man to feel repulsed and shameful by wearing the culturally defined symbols of womanhood." (Is It Wrong for Men to Have Long Hair?, August 20, 2018)

Wayne Grudem

"Whatever we think a head covering symbolized in first-century Corinth, it does not symbolize the same thing today. And that means if Paul's concern was over what a headcovering symbolized, then he would not want women to wear a head covering in a situation where a head covering did not carry the same symbolic meaning. Therefore if we cannot be sure what the head coverings symbolized for women in the first century (for interpreters differ on this), the very fact that it does not symbolize much of anything to people today, even to Christians, is a strong argument that Paul would not have wanted us to follow it as sort of a meaningless symbol. I think it also means that God Himself does not intend us to follow this practice today, in a society and culture where it carries no symbolic meaning." (Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, pp. 332-39)

External links

Permanent norm

Online books

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Blog posts

Primary head covering as hair

Temporary custom

Blog posts

  • On Headcoverings, by Barry York - argues that headcoverings were only for prophetesses until the close of the canon