Roots holding fast beside still water. “He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.” (Psalm 23:2–3)
“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 1:3, NIV)
Paul opens nearly every letter with these two words, and always in the same order: Grace first, then peace. That order matters. Peace cannot come first. It grows out of Grace.
Grace is the gift from God, and it comes with knowledge. Peter writes, “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2). Knowledge is power: the power to live your life knowing that the God who loves you has your back, your front, and both sides. “Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me” (Psalm 139:5). That is how you can have peace in the storms of life.
All heaven is offered to us, ready for our needs. His Grace includes all things needful in this life, and it is a living, healing power that fills our hearts and minds as we choose to follow where He is leading.
He is our Father: a father who truly loves, guides, provides, and protects, careful and wise to allow only the best for His child. In His loving wisdom He allows us the consequences of our poor choices, not as a punishment but to help us learn. This is like no father I have ever known.
He is also the one who increases us: our talents, our friends, our means. He will not allow us to have more than is good for us. We can look at others and feel we are lacking, but that takes our eyes off the Lord. The endless stream of comparison tells us we are not our best, that everyone else is doing it better. That is a trap you do not want to fall into. Allow the Lord to increase you as you grow and can carry a fuller cup. The full cup is a heavy burden to bear, and we must have Him to help us if we are asked to carry it.
Peace is how we live and breathe. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you… Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). Calm assurance is ours as we rest in His Grace, following each day the duties given us for that day. His peace and Love follow us everywhere we go, and His Spirit directs our steps through this world.
The One who knows you best loves you most. His faithfulness is proven. “His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).
The path bends out of sight. We don’t have to see where it goes; we only have to choose the next step.
“Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people…” (1 Corinthians 1:1–2, NIV)
Paul opens his letter to the Corinthians with a single word that carries the whole story of his life: called. He was “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” And the people he writes to are called too, “called to be his holy people.”
But a call is not the same as an answer. Paul was called by the will of God, yet the call was not answered until Paul chose to answer it. God can call us, and we are free to refuse. That is how much He respects us.
When Christ met Paul on the road to Damascus, He read a heart that was true but misguided. Paul later wrote that he had acted “ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13); he honestly thought he was serving God by fighting Jesus (Acts 26:9). When his eyes were opened and he understood, he stopped fighting the truth and allowed it to take hold in his life and heal his heart and mind. That man became one of the most powerful tools in God’s hand for carrying the gospel to the world, and through his letters he is still sharing it today.
It did not all come in one day. After his conversion Paul went away into Arabia, and three years passed before he went up to Jerusalem (Galatians 1:17–18). Then came years back home in Tarsus, until Barnabas went looking for him (Acts 9:30; 11:25). Paul had to grow into his calling, just like we all do.
We are all called. Those of us who answer are then made holy, set apart, by the work of healing done in us through the truth about God we have accepted. And whatever we accept as truth will change us all the way down to the DNA. Our only power is to choose what we will believe; after that, what we have taken in has the power to heal us or to destroy us.
We are our choices. Our choices will either heal us through the power of God’s Love and Truth, or they will shrink our understanding of reality until the mind has no want or capacity to embrace truth again. Paul describes people who have gone that far as “past feeling” (Ephesians 4:19).
That is why it matters to begin now. Doing the work now gives us the time to move slowly as healing comes. Each choice for the good makes the next one stronger, until the desire to be a blessing to others outweighs every old habit and longing. We begin the journey sick and in need of healing everywhere. As we take in more and more of the truth, things in us begin to change, and we learn how powerful a single choice can be.
You do not have to see the whole road. Make an intentional choice, a choice with your will behind it, and leave the results with God. The Father is with you. Every day is an adventure, a new beginning.
3 a.m. on our field. Whatever stands in the light casts its shadow across everything near it.
“Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him?” (1 Corinthians 11:13–14, NIV)
Paul does something unusual in 1 Corinthians 11:13. After a long discussion of head coverings, he hands the question to his readers: “Judge for yourselves.” The Remedy renders it, “Consider the evidence for yourselves: Is it healthy for a woman to try to deny her own identity and instead live like a man?”
Paul isn’t asking about fabric on a head, and in verse 14 he isn’t asking about the length of a man’s hair. Both were symbols. In Bible times, long hair on a man like Samson marked him as set apart for a work of God; today it is mostly a matter of style. What Paul is pointing to lies underneath the symbols: the natural laws God built into life, creation, and all matter. Those laws speak to the way we were made to live for the greatest joy, fulfillment, and growth into who we can become.
Notice what Paul does not do. He issues no condemnation and no reprimand. He doesn’t need to. When we step out of harmony with the way God created us to thrive, the results come on their own. You cannot disregard a natural law and escape its cost. The loss falls not only on ourselves but on everyone we influence; instead of light and warmth, we cast a shadow over the lives of others.
Growing Into All She Can Be
This isn’t about the work a woman does publicly or the career she chooses. A woman can be anything. She has the talent to become, and she can develop herself beyond where she begins. But she will not do it in her own strength. It comes only through the healing and restorative power of the Lord and a good companion to walk with her in life. The “head” in Paul’s picture is not a ceiling over her; it is the support she grows through.
And no one is left out. For the woman with no husband, God has pledged Himself to be a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless. Christ fills that place Himself, the friend who sticks closer than a brother.
The Same Holds for Men
“Doesn’t nature itself teach that each individual has their own place, role and responsibilities?” (The Remedy). We each must grow up into the people God made us to be, and it won’t happen without choice and deliberate action. To let life roll by without taking responsibility for where it is taking us is to choose against growing up. A woman can refuse her place just as a man can fail to fill his. Either way, no rule needs enforcing; the results are lived out for all to see.
So the real question of these verses is the heart. Are you taking up the responsibility God intended for you? Are you growing, in His strength, into more than you could ever become on your own?
These roles are not a burden. They are the path to a well-lived life here and never-ending growth in eternity. Christ’s invitation still stands: come walk with Him. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.
And when we look at others, we look past the outward things, just as Paul looked past hair and head coverings to the heart. “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Sometimes it is hard to see the hurting person underneath. That is when the Lord brings them to us for care, and He expects us to be careful with His hurting children.
Every fine line painted, every tendril curled. If He cared that much for a single flower, He cares for every detail of you.
“For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.” (1 Corinthians 11:12, NIV)
For ten verses Paul has been talking about heads, hair, and coverings, and for two thousand years people have argued over what that means we should wear. But in verses 11 and 12 Paul does something we often rush past. He says “nevertheless,” and lifts our eyes above the custom to the Source of it all. Woman came from man; every man since has come through a woman; and everything comes from God. This verse is not finally about what we put on our heads. It is about who our God is.
To see why, we have to go back to the beginning, and to why there was a beginning at all.
An answer the universe needed
Before this world was made, lies had been told about God by one who knew Him well and chose to misrepresent Him. Satan insisted he was Christ’s equal. If there was no difference between them, why was he shut out of God’s counsels? Those lies were no small matter. Left unanswered, they could have destroyed the harmony of the entire universe. For the sake of all His creation, God needed to reveal Himself as fully as He possibly could.
Creation was that answer. This world became the palette, the storyboard, the book in which God would show the angels and every watching world who He truly is. And the first thing it showed was that Christ is no angel. No created being could speak a world into existence. At Creation, Christ revealed that He was, and is, God.
The God of every leaf
Look at the care in it. God is not simply powerful, blowing everything into place and walking away. In the single day He made the plant life, every beautiful detail of every leaf and flower was attended to. The power was magnificent, but so was the charm, the beauty, and the wisdom of a God who put so much of Himself into it all. If He cared that much for a leaf, He cares for every detail of you.
The frame and the masterpiece
Day by day the story built toward its crowning act. Everything else, the light, the land, the seas, every creature, was the frame. Man was the masterpiece, the most complete revelation of God’s character that He could give to His created beings. Adam was formed from the dust of the very earth he would live on, and God breathed into him the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). He was full grown in body, but young in heart and mind, placed right into the middle of a conflict he did not yet understand.
Then God did something remarkable. He took Eve from Adam, the only person ever to come into being that way, so that the same breath of life given to Adam would be shared by her. She was like him in every way, yet her own person, free to think and choose as she would.
What does that tell us about God? The same, yet very different. Christ came forth from the Father (John 8:42), yet He is fully God (John 1:1), not an extension of the Father but a real Person acting on His own. We see a small picture of it in our own children: they come from us, but they become who they choose to become.
Back to Paul
Eve came from Adam, but every man since has come through a woman. Man does not rise above woman. They share completely in everything, and neither can grow into all it was meant to be without the other, or without the God from whom we both came. That is not a rule imposed on us; it is the natural law of how relationships work, written into the way we were made. When we honor each other, we honor God’s answer to the lies told about Him. When we lord it over each other, we contradict it.
So how do we usually read the Creation story? We blast right past the big finale to get to the fall, or we blow it all off as a fairy tale. But there is something truly huge here. Every detail matters, because every detail is God telling us who He is.
The next time you read Genesis 1 and 2, slow down. Ask the Holy Spirit to sit with you, as He sits with me when I try to put these thoughts into words. Read it as the answer God gave the whole universe, and the love story He is still telling to you.
Two rails, side by side the whole way, never merging, holding one path between them. “In the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.”
“Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.” (1 Corinthians 11:11, NIV)
Reading this verse across the translations, one phrase keeps showing up: in the Lord. The NEB says it beautifully: “in Christ’s fellowship woman is as essential to man as man to woman.” The Living Bible puts it simply: in God’s plan, men and women need each other. The Remedy carries it further. In God’s design, and in unity with Him, husband and wife are united in an intimate bond of love and trust.
One version did not sit right with me. Phillips says that in the sight of the Lord neither man nor woman has any separate existence. But Paul is not erasing the two people. The whole beauty of the verse is that two distinct persons, made differently, complete one another.
Made to complete each other
This is the perfection in the truth that “the two shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). We are different in how our bodies were made, in how our minds process information, and in how we relate emotionally to life. There is a balance we give to each other. Two working, happy, healthy minds become more together than either could be without the other.
When you are looking for your “other half” for life, it is not the heat of the moment that makes the union last. It is not the draw to a pleasing look or body type. What makes a good fit for a lifetime is a mate who fills in where you lack. Your weaknesses are his strengths, and his weaknesses are yours. The rest comes over time as respect grows.
Women are drawn in by care for the heart. Men notice the view first; that is simply how they are made. But often what catches a man’s eye is the inner light of a beautiful soul shining through to the outside. If nothing catches his eye, he will never look deeper. A man who walks with Christ, though, doesn’t stop at the view. He comes to find the mind and soul even more attractive. A man without Christ is only seeking something to own for his pleasure, with no regard for the heart and mind of the woman.
It takes three
To truly become one takes a third party: Christ. Without His life in us, healing the sin-sick condition we were born with, a true union is impossible. The life of Christ in us is the glue that joins two into one. It makes the one they become more than either could ever be alone. As Solomon said, a cord of three strands is not quickly broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12).
This is the natural law of relationships, the true Law of Love in marriage. The husband has Christ as his head, the wife has her husband, and Christ has the Father as His head (1 Corinthians 11:3). That is the order God designed for a happy life.
Don’t settle halfway up the mountain
No matter how healthy we are, emotionally, mentally, or physically, alone we are only half of what we could be. But to marry poorly is to doom yourself to a mediocre existence. Even with Christ in your life, trying to fit together two halves that don’t complement each other leads to an unremarkable union, one that brings second-rate gifts to the cause of Christ. He will still lead us onward and upward. But the journey is so much richer when the one we travel with is our true soulmate, able to share and complete us well, and we them.
Who you join your life to is one of the most important questions you will ever answer. So spend more time with the Lord. Take the time to really get to know the person you’re with. Discover their heart, and let the inner beauty of their soul dazzle you with the invitation to spend a lifetime exploring its depths. That is the work of a lifetime, and a joy to do. And be that someone for them too: open, honest, and free to become more.
Become whole first
This is the life Christ is calling you to. But don’t sit around waiting for the prince of your dreams to suddenly appear. Work now to make your life as strong and whole as it can be without your completing other half before— Before what? That is for you and the Lord to decide. Without putting in your time with Christ, you will never become the person who fits the full life He has for you, with the other half who fits you perfectly.
Walking the road together
My dear friend George walking the trail with me, years ago, with Michael behind the camera as always. George has since gone to his rest, and I still miss him.
Paul’s “in the Lord” reaches past marriage, too. In Christ’s fellowship we were never meant to walk alone. He gives us friends who walk the road beside us, and He Himself is the Friend who never leaves.
Every true union begins with our friendship with Him.
Two fronds rising from one stem, each its own shape, both drawn from the same source. “As woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.”
“For man did not come from woman, but woman came from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” (NIV)
These two verses have been used for centuries to put women in their place. I don’t believe that is what Paul is doing here at all. This is not a bunch of rules on how to address a husband or how a woman should dress; that would be petty and not worth a place like this in the Scriptures. This is a conversation, given under inspiration, about the natural laws of relationship between a husband and wife – laws that, if ignored, will cause strife and pain.
A Picture of the Godhead
God created man a social being; he needed a companion to share his life with. But God was also doing something more. In the creation of man and woman He was demonstrating the relationship between Christ, His Father and the Holy Spirit. Christ came out of God, and after that all other created beings, worlds, the entire universe came from Christ. In the same way Eve, woman, drew her original life from Adam.
Yet Adam has no ability to conceive and bear children. That is what woman does, with the cooperation of man. Every man since Adam has come through a woman – Paul says exactly this a few verses later: “as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God” (1 Corinthians 11:12). God is revealing Himself in this. And here is the beautiful part: this was the way God planned to reveal Himself before the fall, so sin never marred this part of the illustration. Every child born is still a small sermon about where life comes from.
The Lies It Answered
Satan was already spreading lies about the Godhead. He had access to and knowledge of the relationship between them that no other angel had witnessed, and there were no other witnesses to refute what he said. The creation of Adam and Eve, two becoming one flesh, one in heart, mind and purpose, gave the universe something it could see for itself: an unmarred representation of the three in one.
The Most Important Choice
How does this relate to us today, after sin has destroyed the perfection of God’s creation? Marriage is the most important relationship we form in this life. No one else can have the influence a married couple have on each other, for good or ill. A man who lets God be his head will begin to reflect the character of Christ – it is a law of worship that cannot be avoided. The woman who accepts him as her head will in the same manner begin to reflect his character, and he will mirror hers. The two become one.
This is why God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18). Man needed woman, and she was created to fill that place in his life – to grow into, mature and become exactly the partner for him. As you spend years with a person, loving and caring for them, you develop traits to fit them best, to please them. You become an extension of each other. And sadly, this choice is often made in the heat of the moment, with little thought of what it will do to our personality, character and happiness over a lifetime.
Made For Growing
So what does it mean that woman was made “for man”? Not for his convenience. There would have been no way for Adam or Eve to mature into loving, dependable creations of God without someone to care about. We need people to care for, those we can do for and make happy. Without that, life would be completely self-focused, and a self-focused life is not an expanding or happy life.
One translation, The Remedy, puts it beautifully: woman was created “to help man enter into the fullness of Godlike Love by being the selfless recipient of man’s humble, loving service.” Eve gave Adam someone to love, and in loving her he became more like God. And the same was true for her. Neither is the servant of the other; both grow by giving. That is the circle of Love God built into the very first home.
The golden heart of a daisy is not one flower but hundreds, each tiny floret complete in itself, all spiraling together as one bloom. Two become one and remain themselves.
“It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels.” (1 Corinthians 11:10, NIV)
Why the angels?
Of all the strange verses in this chapter, this one seems the strangest. What do angels have to do with what a woman wears on her head? The translators can’t agree on what she wears—some say a symbol of subjection, others a sign of authority—but every one of them keeps the angels. They are watching.
Looked at through the eyes of Love, it is not hard to understand. Christ intended the relationship between Adam and Eve to show the Love relationship within the Godhead, and how that Love flows out into all creation in the care given to each created being. Paul says elsewhere that we have been made a theater to the world, to angels and to men (1 Corinthians 4:9). Woman’s relationship to her husband is God’s character of Love played out on that stage.
Growing into one
As Eve honored Adam in her heart and mind, the angels could see her growing more like her husband, taking on his traits of character. And since Adam’s head is Christ, and he mirrored the Glory of Christ—His character—that was the character Eve was drawing into as she became one with her husband. Not just joining him, but being drawn into something that called to her. Being drawn in usually means losing yourself, but in perfect Love you don’t. Love encourages you to be who you are.
This is what being one with someone is like. You share your hearts only to discover you were already thinking along the same lines. You don’t need to pick up the phone and check with your husband on most things, because you already know you are on the same page about the foundations of your life together. The answer already lives in your heart and mind. His loving presence fills you even when he is away. You are covered with his love and care—all the little things fixed, his hands always busy doing something to please you, not because you asked, just because he wants to make you happy. And that love is returned in all you do to make his home a pleasant, welcoming place for him.
Love speaks in different ways, though. My husband is a fixer. He knows that because of the confusion of my upbringing and the abuse I suffered, when I am in emotional turmoil I cannot tolerate clutter or brokenness around me; I just start cleaning. So when something has gut-punched me, sweet little things done to straighten and put in order calm me quicker than a hug. Jumping in with me to clean a closet while I sort out my hurt is the best way he can support me. Other husbands may speak their love in words, or with flowers. Do not judge your relationship by someone else’s. Allow your husband to express his love, and be willing to see it in who he is. Nurture the one you have. It is good, and it is perfect for you.
This is the covering a woman wears. His authority is not laid on her from outside; it has become her own. His character, his love for her, is part of who she is. It is not domination or subjection, simply the natural law of relationship: you become like the one you worship and admire. So her head shines out of her eyes. What the angels see is love drawing two separate people to work and act as one while each remains fully themselves. All the specialness of you is still in you, and you glow from the inside out with the personality that is uniquely yours. The two have become one, but remain themselves.
The answer to Satan’s lies
This union was God’s answer to the accusations against Him. God is Love. Everything He does is for the best interest of His whole creation, and because Love flows from Him throughout His universe, all creation thrives—growing, becoming more, happy in who they are, wanting to bless everyone in their sphere of influence. A man uplifting his wife through loving care was how God planned to show the angels how His own Love works.
Very little time was given for that to play out. Then Adam fell, and everything changed. He threw Eve under the bus: Why did You make her? It was her fault—and Yours. It was the first self-protecting act the universe and the angels had ever seen. How shocking it must have been to watch the man who had been willing to die with her lose all love and care for her the moment he broke trust with Christ. All that was left was fear of the future and the need to protect himself.
Seeing Him again
It has taken nearly six thousand years of healing for humanity to be able to view God again, to see the truth about Him. But we can begin to see Him again—and as we do, we become like the God we worship. The angels are still watching, waiting to see that broken picture restored. They saw the first act of self-protection. Now they are seeing damaged humanity healed, acting in love for others without regard for self, and they rejoice (Luke 15:10). What they long to see on our heads is not a piece of cloth, but Love.
Questions to sit with
If the angels looked at your closest relationship today, what would they learn about God?
Where have you felt that being one with someone made you more yourself, not less?
When fear pushes you toward self-protection, what helps you see God’s Love again?
“For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head. A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.” (1 Corinthians 11:6–7, NIV)
A hard verse, and a harder morning
I will be honest. When I sat down with verse 6, the paraphrases stirred something hard in me. One of them says such a woman should “advertise the fact that she is selfish and not on God’s team.” My first pages that morning came out the same way: selfish, shameful, a disgrace. I was judging “that woman” as harshly as anyone could.
Then it dawned on me. I was that woman.
I came into my adult life carrying a great deal of hurt. So many times I shamed myself and realized I had acted like a fool. A young woman just starting out, confused, with every possible outcome in front of her: at any point I could have started choosing very badly and wrecked my whole life. The harsh words on my page were not God’s words. They were the old voice of shame I had once used on myself.
What God does with “that woman”
Look at what Paul does not say. He does not say cast her out, or even discipline her. The consequences of refusing God’s design are self-evident; they play out on their own, because that is how a natural law works. You cannot step around it, because you do it to yourself. And yet this is not a lukewarm soul the Lord gives up on. This is someone He allows to remain in full standing among His people while she plays out her choices, and while He keeps working.
He does not leave you, but He does allow you your consequences. That is how we learn and grow. I know, because that is what He did with me.
The nails
The Lord kept me with a man who could walk this walk with me. And what held me there was not that I understood headship or submission. I didn’t. What kept my feet nailed to the floor was the compassion in my heart for another human being. He loved me so freely that I could not bear to hurt him by leaving when he didn’t want me to go. So I stayed.
I think of the other nails. It was not the nails that held Christ on the cross. He already knew what love was, and love kept Him there. The little I knew of love at that time was the man beside me, who had never done anything to deserve to be dumped. That was all I had to give. But the Lord was able to work with that much, and He kept me in place long enough for me to learn what love truly was.
The glory of God is His character
Verse 7 says man is “the image and glory of God,” and woman “the glory of man.” Some read that as a rule about hats. That is concrete thinking, and it misses the whole point.
When Moses asked to see God’s glory, God hid him in the rock and let His goodness pass by, describing Himself: merciful, gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth (Exodus 33:18–19; 34:6–7). God’s glory is His character. He is Love. And He came and showed us how Love acts: He kept stepping down, down from heaven, down to this sin-infected earth, down to the death on a cross, until He had saturated this world with His Love and there was no way He could give more of Himself.
Man was made to stand uncovered before God, open to that flow of truth and love, and to reflect it. We are either reflectors of His glory or we are repulsed by it. There is no middle ground.
I was still stumbling
Then came “woman is the glory of man,” and I got tangled. Was Eve only a moon, with no light of her own, reflecting what Adam received? That didn’t fit the God I know. I wrote at the bottom of my page, “I’m still stumbling around with this.” I share that because this is how Bible study really goes. When you’re confused, read on, and keep following the truth wherever it goes.
The answer was already in my own life.
In our early marriage, Michael showed me what love truly was. I had never been loved; I didn’t even know what it would feel like. At first it felt strange and uncomfortable. I wanted it, but I wasn’t used to it. It was probably ten years before I was sitting comfortably in his love, able to accept it freely without feeling strange about it. When I finally could, and was able to give back more, it was a very freeing experience, to be able to accept love and to give love.
That is what it means for a woman to be the glory of man. A husband’s character shows up in his wife. How he loves her becomes visible in who she becomes. And I was never cut off from God, receiving my light secondhand. The Lord was working directly in my heart the whole time; Michael was the one He loved me through.
Love has to be done to you before you can know it or give it. “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). That is why Christ did not just announce that God is love. He came and did it, and it killed Him, because the people could not tolerate that much love. Some of us take a long time to receive it. I did.
By beholding
I read all of this to my husband at morning worship, and as we talked, the last piece settled. The head is the personality of the one who is your head. Christ shares His glory with man; man shares his character with his wife. There is a natural law that makes this happen, and Paul names it with the same two words, glory and mirror: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
By beholding we become changed. We become like the one we look up to. And it goes both ways, as Paul says a few verses later: neither is independent of the other, and all things come from God (1 Corinthians 11:11–12).
A woman’s true beauty is her character. It shows in her eyes, her expression, where her attention is focused. What we hold close to our heart will show in every move we make. I pray that what shows in me now is the love I was finally able to receive: first from God, and through a patient man who let me learn it.
So now I finally understand what my head is. It is not being dominated, or some rule about wearing a hat. It is the transfer of personality: character shared with the one in this world who means the most to you.
Michael and me on our 30th anniversary cruise, October 2019
“But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved.” (1 Corinthians 11:5, NIV)
In my last post I wrote about the man’s covering in verse 4. I came to see it as a veil over the mind, the lies about God that keep a man from knowing the One who is his head. Remove that veil, and he can speak of Christ without bringing Him shame.
Today Paul turns to the woman, and the picture flips. The man is to be uncovered; the woman is to be covered. If the man’s covering is a veil of lies between his mind and Christ, the woman’s covering cannot mean the same thing. So what is it?
I’ll be honest: I came away from this verse with more questions than answers. But I think the questions are worth sharing, and a few things did come clear.
What the Translations Say
Nearly every translation ties the uncovered woman to a shaved head. Knox and Moffatt say she is “no better than” a shaven woman. The TCNT says she makes herself “like one of the shameless women who shave their heads.” The Remedy explains it as breaking the circle of God’s Love, making it appear that she is selfishly seeking to sever herself from her husband and take his place in God’s plan.
The Living Bible, as with verse 4, gives the most concrete reading: her covering is “a sign of her subjection to him.” But I keep coming back to what I said about verse 4. Christ is not petty. There is no merit in a piece of cloth. The covering is a symbol, and the question is what it symbolizes.
What Is She Veiling Her Mind Against?
The man was to remove the veil so he could see truth. Is the woman then to veil her mind against something, against lies? Why would a woman with an unveiled mind be such a disgrace to herself and to her husband? What exactly is the veil, and what is she to cover herself with?
So I looked at how the Bible clothes its pure women. In Revelation the woman is “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet” (Revelation 12:1). The bride of the Lamb is arrayed in fine linen, “the righteousness of saints” (Revelation 19:8). The pure woman’s covering in Scripture is light and righteousness, never cloth.
Eve’s Covering of Light
In the garden before the fall, Eve was covered with the light of God’s presence shining through her. It was her clothing. Ellen White describes the sinless pair as clothed “with a covering of light and glory.”
Here is what caught my attention. There is no mention that Eve lost that light when she ate. When she brought Adam the fruit, he did not see that she was naked. It was only after Adam ate that “the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Genesis 3:7).
What does that say about Eve’s deception? Being deceived is not the same as choosing, with full knowledge, to distrust God. Paul himself says that “Adam was not deceived” (1 Timothy 2:14). It was not until Adam deliberately chose to break the trust and agreement he had with his Creator that the connection was severed for both of them.
She Does Not Need a “Head” to Be Saved
This much I am sure of. A woman’s head is her husband, but a woman can have a close relationship with Christ on her own. The verse itself takes for granted that she will pray and prophesy in public, just as the men do. Her covering in no way shields her from Christ or keeps her connection with her Saviour from forming and growing strong on its own.
Her husband does not take the place of Christ in her life. If he did, an unmarried woman could not be saved. Peter calls husband and wife “heirs together of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7). A woman does not need a “head” to be saved.
Then What Is the Head For?
So what is the husband’s purpose in Christ’s plan for a married couple? How does he cover her? We are told the two shall become one. He is to share in her life, support her plans and goals, and be her protector and wise best friend.
Paul gives the pattern in Ephesians 5: the husband is head “even as Christ is the head of the church,” and he is to love his wife “as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:23, 25). Christ’s headship is self-giving, not ruling. A husband who would be his wife’s head must be someone she can respect and whose counsel she can trust. If they do not grow together, there will be strife and upset at home.
It seems the covering lets a woman say without words that she welcomes her husband’s counsel. A woman who will not allow herself to be reasoned with by her husband shames him. But I am still not sure what it fully means that he is her head.
Does It Go Back to the Fall?
I suspect it does. After the fall God told Eve, “thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee” (Genesis 3:16). Ellen White puts it this way: “In the creation God had made her the equal of Adam. Had they remained obedient to God… they would ever have been in harmony with each other; but sin had brought discord, and now their union could be maintained and their harmony preserved only by submission on the part of the one or the other.”
If that is right, then the headship Paul describes isn’t God’s original design. It is God’s provision for keeping a home happy in a fallen world.
Only in Public?
One more thing troubles me. Paul speaks only of the woman’s public spiritual life, how she is seen when she prays or prophesies. Is the covering only for appearances? That is not the Christ I know. He would not have us put on airs, pretending to be something we are not for others to see.
In Corinth, a married woman uncovered in public sent a message about her marriage, so the covering said something true to everyone watching. But the same rule holds for the woman as for the man: the outward sign honors no one unless it is true in the heart.
Questions I’m Still Carrying
This is a first look, and I have more questions than answers:
What exactly does the woman’s covering symbolize, if it is not a barrier between her and Christ?
Paul says man is “the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man” (1 Corinthians 11:7). Is her covering meant to hide the glory of man in worship, so that only God’s Glory is seen?
What does Paul mean when he says she ought to have “power” on her head “because of the angels” (verse 10)?
Is the husband’s headship a part of creation, or God’s remedy for what sin did to the home?
As Graham Maxwell used to say, when confused, read on. Paul doesn’t finish this thought in verse 5; he keeps building it through verse 15. I’ll keep going one verse at a time and trust that the picture will clear. What I can say today is this: whatever the woman’s covering means, it does not stand between her and her Saviour. Like Eve before the fall, she was made to be clothed in His light.
“Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head.” (1 Corinthians 11:4, NIV)
I had never really looked at this verse before this morning. Lining the translations up side by side, most say much the same thing: a man who prays or speaks for God with his head covered brings shame, disgrace, or dishonor on his head. Then I came to the Living Bible, which turns it into a rule about hats: if a man refuses to remove his hat while praying or preaching, he dishonors Christ.
That is a very concrete reading, and I believe it misses what Paul is saying. Christ is not petty. There is no merit in the outward action of removing a hat. The covering of the head is a symbol of something, and the question is, of what?
Two Heads
Paul has just told us in verse 3 that the head of every man is Christ. So when he says a covered man dishonors “his head,” he is speaking of two heads at once: the one on his shoulders and the One he answers to. The Remedy catches this, describing the covered head as a man symbolically hiding himself from God, as though he were going his own way instead of following the loving leadership of Christ.
What Truly Dishonors Someone?
The translators reach for strong words: dishonor, shame, disgrace, disrespect. So I asked myself, what act truly meets those descriptions? What can we do that shames and disgraces another person?
We refuse to tell the truth about them. We publicly lie about them, saying they have done something horrible, something despicable that they would never even think of doing. That is what dishonors a person.
Christ is our head. When we pray, or talk about Him to others, with a veil between ourselves and the knowledge of Him, a barrier between our mind and Christ, and we choose to keep that barrier in place, we are acting dishonorably toward Him. He has done everything possible to make Himself known to us. Yet we can refuse to know Him personally while publicly telling others that we do know Him and this is who He is.
The Lie Behind the Veil
By calling ourselves Christians we accept the Christ who came to earth and lived a life to overcome and heal the damage caused by Adam’s breach of trust with God. Adam broke faith with his Creator and chose to believe the lies told by a talking snake over the truth spoken by the loving Creator who came daily to spend time with them.
A man keeps his head covered when he refuses to know the One who is his head by creation and redemption, when he believes the lies about Christ and God that Satan has been spewing since before the world was created: that God does not have your best interest at heart, that He would withhold something good from you, that He is vindictive. It is the picture the devil has painted of God all along, a god who needs the appeasement of a blood sacrifice to turn his anger away from the fallen, sinful humans he created.
This is Satan’s lie. If we believe that God requires the torture and brutal murder of His sinless, faithful Son to appease His anger, we are holding a veil between ourselves and the truth Christ came to reveal about Himself and the Father. That veil, that head covering, must be removed before we can speak of Christ publicly, pray, or preach about Him without bringing Him dishonor or shame.
Paul’s Own Veil
I was encouraged to find that Paul himself uses the veil this way. In 2 Corinthians 3:13–18 he writes of a veil that lies over the minds of those who read Moses, a veil that is taken away when a person turns to the Lord. Then, he says, “we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image” (2 Corinthians 3:18, KJV). And just a few verses on in our chapter, Paul says a man ought not to cover his head because he is the image and glory of God (1 Corinthians 11:7). A covering hides glory. A false picture of God hides His Glory.
In Paul’s day the covered head was a real practice. Roman men drew their togas up over their heads when offering sacrifices to their gods, so a covered head in Christian worship could look like pagan worship. Paul was speaking to that. But behind the outward custom is the symbol, and the symbol is what speaks to us today.
Adam’s Choice
Thinking about the veil took me back to Eden. Scripture tells us Adam was not deceived; it was the woman who was deceived (1 Timothy 2:14). I believe Adam knew Eve had fallen. He did not eat because he believed the serpent. He ate so he would not lose her. He broke faith with Christ by not trusting Him with his own life and the life of his wife, not trusting that Christ could and would fix the damage done to Eve. His fear was focused on himself and on losing her, so he chose to let what had happened to her happen to him too.
Then look at what sin did to him by that same evening. When God came to speak with them in the garden, Adam threw Eve under the bus: the woman You gave me, she gave me the fruit (Genesis 3:12). Before he fell, he was nobly willing to share her ruin. After he broke faith, he was willing to let her take all the blame to save himself, and he blamed God for giving her to him besides. That is what believing the lie does to us. Once we believe God is not for us, we start protecting ourselves at everyone else’s expense. And Adam hid from God among the trees. The veil was already in place.
Questions I’m Still Working Through
This is a first look. I have not yet worked through the translations of verses 5 and 6, where Paul says the woman should be covered. If the man’s covering is the veil of lies between his mind and Christ, the symbol must mean something different for the woman, and I don’t want to force an answer before I’ve lived with the text. Here are the questions I’m carrying forward:
Is the woman’s relationship to man different from her relationship to Christ, and how does that shape what her covering means?
Does the man’s place over the woman come from the fall, “he shall rule over thee” (Genesis 3:16), describing what sin does to the relationship rather than God’s design? If so, how does that fit with Paul’s appeal to creation in verses 8 and 9?
If a woman’s life gives her husband a false picture of Christ, as Eve’s choice did for Adam, does she in some way dishonor her head? And is the other side of that her power to win him by the life she lives (1 Peter 3:1)?
Why does Paul so quickly add, in verses 11 and 12, that neither man nor woman is independent of the other?
When confused, read on, as Graham Maxwell used to say. But I stand behind what I have seen so far: what dishonors Christ is not a hat. It is the lie we keep between ourselves and Him. Remove that veil, and we can speak of Him with honor.
