#8 of 11, in the series, 1 Corinthians: The Church Troubled and Triumphant
I want to begin this morning by bringing to your attention a news story about Emerson University in Boston. Emerson University has made an important decision for this new school year. In response to pressure from and in order to accommodate the school’s ‘transgendered’ student population, the school has changed the formerly gender-specific signs on many of their restrooms to non-gender specific signs. That is, rather than symbols denoting men and women restroom both symbols are placed over all the restrooms so that either male or female could use any of these restrooms.
There have been several other universities who have developed unisex restrooms and they most certainly will not be the last. Here is what an associate dean of housing, David Haden, said about this decision at Emerson. “I am all in favor of supporting students and their expressions…having gender-neutral bathrooms doesn’t take anything away from anyone; it just gives students more options.” So, we live in a culture that is increasingly non-gender or better agender (against gender). Increasingly our culture believes and teaches that maleness and femaleness are not an intrinsic part of who we are as human beings, but that we can choose to be either male or female and perhaps best we can choose to be neither. This thought is pervasive and it is a very important issue.
Is it true that if we have a gender-neutral culture that nothing is taken away from anyone, but rather all are simply given more options? As we turn to 1 Corinthians 11.2-16, we find God’s word instructing us in a much different direction. According to this text, every person is created as male or female. Our gender is central to our identity as human beings and image bearers. This text helps us to see what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman, and why it all matters?
Now, I want to focus on these important answers because they are so important for us today. Before we jump in to that, I would like to try to clarify the head covering difficulty that this passage poses right up front. Notice verses 4-6. What does this mean? As concisely as possible, in the 1st century head covering was either a shawl of some kind, not a typical Islamic veil but some sort of shawl or the women might have worn their hair up in some sort of bun. The head covering was either a shawl or a bun. Paul says that it was to be worn as a symbol of a woman’s happy submission to her husband and to male leadership in the church.
The head covering itself was a standard form of dress in the 1st century that we do not share. So, we would not read this passage and deduce that all of our women should start wearing head coverings! But what we can deduce here is that there are appropriate and important ways of dressing and presenting ourselves that we should give serious thought to and we’ll talk more about that in a later point. But for now, head coverings are shawls or buns we do not wear those but there are important principles for us to learn in this discussion, which is what we’re moving to.
I. Men and Women function distinctly in God’s order. (3)
I can think of few statements that might be more controversial in our cultural context than this one. Many have sought to convince us that the idea of a man being the head of his wife is something evil, but I hope that it will be evident that this is a beautiful picture of the very relationship between God the Father and God the Son rather than an oppressive evil. Beyond question outside of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself man is sinful and many have perverted the idea of headship into a grounds for the justification of many abuses of women.
We should be quick to say than any abuse or mistreatment of women is sinful, wrong, and deserving of God’s holy wrath and that nothing in all of Scripture teaches that man has authority to abuse a woman. As a matter of fact, when properly understood biblical approaches to manhood and womanhood will lead to the protection, nourishment, and loving care for women and if that is not the way women are treated then the biblical gospel is not applied.
What does it mean for the man to be the head of his wife? The picture of headship is one of loving spiritual leadership. The man who believes in the gospel will love his wife as Christ loved the church. He will not yell at her, but will speak with tenderness even in a disagreement. He will be a man who works hard in his vocation so that he will provide financially for his wife. He will view his home as his garden and seek to bring order to it, so headship means he fixes the leaking faucet, mows the grass, vacuums the floor, etc.
A husband who leads spiritually will provide the majority of the discipline of the children so that his wife isn’t overwhelmed with that task. He will lead his whole family to worship God both at home and in the church. He will point his wife and his children to the all satisfying and all necessary gospel of Christ so that they love and believe in the Savior who alone can save their souls.
Many committed feminists may scoff at the idea of a woman needing or wanting such nourishment and care, but I have a sneaking suspicion that most women would be happy to live with such a man, if he could be found. Men you must understand that the word headship means loving leadership and these are only a few of the implications of such headship. Your profession of faith in Christ means nothing if you are not devoting yourself to grow in such loving leadership for your wife. It is important to remember that you will someday stand before God and be judged as a man.
Now, the wife is called to submit to her husband. Apart from a daylong discourse to delineate specifically what that means and doesn’t mean, let’s say fundamentally that it does mean you lay down your intelligence, ingenuity, or integrity and that it does mean that there are appropriate ways to express your opinions, while demonstrating your submission to your husband’s leadership. The current state of manhood in our culture makes that hard, but it is possible.
Understanding what it means for God to be the head of Christ drives the point that we are distinct in our roles home. This may be the most important truth in all of Scripture! Christ is God, He exists forever in the same essence as God the Father. If we were to say that Christ is something less valuable or less essentially equally to the Father we would be heretics and we would not have the faith. Christ is God equally in essence with the Father. But Christ, the Son of God, exist eternally in glad submission to the Father. We have a Trinitarian God. The Father is head of the Son and Son submits to the Father.
This Trinitarian God designed men and women, especially in the marriage relationship to demonstrate the great reality of Christ submitting to the Father in perfect holy bliss. Submission is not evil, but rather the epitome of divine perfection as Christ submitted to His Father all the way to the cross! Men love your wives. Wives submit to your husbands and in so doing your life will point to the great reality of perfection of Christ in submission to His Father. Men and women are function differently in God’s order as do God the Father and God the Son.
II. Men and Women exist equally in God’s image. (7-9)
Now, the very essence of our Trinitarian God demonstrates this point as well. Just as Christ, though He gladly submits to His Father, is in no way inferior to the Father, so a woman though she is created to submit to man is in no way inferior to man. To think that man is superior to woman is the height of folly, as any sane person would quickly admit! A proper understanding of the equality of the various Persons of the Godhead only highlights the equality of men and women. So, in short, the biblical view is that men and women are equal in essence, yet distinct in role or function, often called complementarianism, or patriarchy as opposed to egalitarianism.
This is important when we read here that woman was created for man and is the glory of man. Paul helps us to see the fundamental importance of divine creation in order to understand manhood and womanhood today. It is not surprising that in our culture we first rejected creation in favor of Darwinian evolution and within a few decades we rejected a biblical perspective on manhood and womanhood. Of course, if Genesis 1-2 are not true then there is not real reason to have different restrooms for men and women, that only makes sense.
But Paul, and God Himself, insists Genesis 1-2 is true! Our existence as man or woman is fundamental to being created in God’s image! God created man first, yes. Woman is created to honor her husband, as Christ honors the Father, yes. But that does not mean that there is some difference in our expression of God’s image, no and never! Yes, we are different men and women, but not in our fundamental image bearing.
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. The Christian message highlights the goodness of maleness and femaleness. Both are equally demonstrative of God’s glory! It points us to the glory of Father and Son. As believers today we must not only teach our children about nature of marriage as one woman and one man for a lifetime, but we must also teach our children about their own identity as a boy, as a girl, created in God’s image. Our maleness, our femaleness is a pre-fall reality good and glorious.
III. Men and Women relate mutually in God’s economy. (11-12)
Now think for a moment about verses 11-12. Paul states with clarity that we, as men and women, are interdependent with one another and mutual in our need for one another. So, God created woman from man, but every man since has been born from woman, including our Lord Jesus Christ! Our fundamental mutual relationship as men and women is demonstrated in our bringing forth of our children.
Our children are born from the normal, natural, God created, God ordered sexual relationships between husbands and wives. Our culture divorces sex from procreation, separates our sexual expression from loving, having, and rearing children. So, if the world becomes agender following the pattern of Emerson University, then children will continue to be despised and abused. The Christian Worldview leads to the solid establishment of the home as the safe place for children. Our culture is sinking in the abuse of children. Brothers and sisters, we should care about children and violence against children. Let me say that there is no safe place for children other than a godly, spiritual Christian home with a loving man as the leader and a submissive wife as the helper.
This is what children need! This is what our culture needs! Our homes ought to be little pictures of the perfection and glory of the new world when Christ returns. When Jesus Christ returns He will rule over the cosmos and all of His people will be safe and secure in His new world. Our homes are to prefigure the beauty of the coming kingdom of Christ.
IV. Men and Women dress appropriately for God’s glory. (13-16)
Now, how do we understand the teaching here that men are not to wear long hair and women are to wear short hair. You can think of Paul’s words like this. God made men to be men and men should dress like men. God made women to be women and women should dress like women. As a matter of fact one of the fundamental ways we glorify God is in how we dress.
1 Peter 3:1-5 Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives-when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external- the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing-but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their husbands,
Now, when we read that we know that the wearing of jewelry is permissible just as the wearing of clothing of permissible! But Peter’s point is that the beauty of a Christian woman is her submission to her husband, not the accumulation of her clothing. Women are to dress with femininity and its ironic that feminism kills femininity. Peter and Paul both are saying that there is something good about women dressing with feminine modesty! And women glorify God by dressing with an attractive feminine modesty and women glorify God by embracing the goodness of a glad submission to the loving male leadership in the home and in the church. One of Paul’s primary points in this passage is that as a woman serves in the life of a local she should demonstrate this happy submission to male headship in the home and in the church.
We could likewise say that there is something fundamentally wrong when a man dresses like a woman and something fundamentally right when a man dresses like a man with modesty for the glory of God. Clothing matters because gender matter. Gender matters because God’s created order matters. God’s created order matters because God’s identity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God matters because He is God! There is no higher reality than God.
We live in a world filled with men and women who spend money everyday on clothing, purses, shoes, hats, skirts, coats, ties, scarves, hairstyles, etc. Now, are we to say that the gospel has nothing to say about all this? Does our faith have nothing to say about fashion? It certainly does and what the gospel says is that our hair and our dress are good and right ways to glorify God. Yes you should dress and yes you should fix your hair but when you do your highest goal must be to glorify God and that means modesty for both men and women. And it means femininity for women and masculinity for men. Dress is not designed to be a means of self-expression, but rather an expression of our devotion to the glory of God.
So, as we come to conclusion of this passage Paul expresses that this practice of happy demonstration of our distinct roles in the life of the church for both men and women is universal among the churches. This leads us to the conclusion that such ought to be the case for any church of our Lord Jesus Christ in the 21st Century as well. Wherever there is a church, there one would expect to find clear expression of maleness and femaleness both by design and function. This is one demonstration of the beauty and glory of God in His church.
Likewise, as we examine the roles and responsibilities of men and women in Scripture it becomes clear that we have all fallen short of God’s glory in some way pertaining to these roles and responsibilities. That is, we have all failed as a man or a woman. We are sinners and we stand in need of redemption and restoration. This truth brings us to Christ.
In Christ, we find the perfect example of both authority and submission. Christ submitted to the Father even to the cross to bear God’s wrath toward sinners both men and women. And Christ was resurrected by the Father and given the supreme authority over all things; all things have been put under His feet. So, whatever your sins and shortcomings as a husband, father, leader, Christ stands ready to save you and restore you to your God given position. Whatever your sins and shortcomings as a woman, mother, and helper, Christ stands ready to save and restore you. So, let us come men, women, boy, and girl to the fountain of all blessing, our Lord Jesus Christ and let us come today!
