Category: Spiritual Healing

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:3

“But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” (1 Corinthians 11:3, NIV)

A verse I had a problem with

This morning I came to 1 Corinthians 11:3, and it was a tough one. Paul lays out three pairs: Christ is the head of every man, man is the head of woman, and God is the head of Christ.

As always, I wrote the verse out in several translations side by side. Most simply say “head.” But the TEV says the husband is supreme over his wife. The Living Bible says a wife is responsible to her husband. I have a problem with that. It doesn’t fit anything else I know about the God of the Bible.

The Remedy gave the most reasonable rendering. It speaks of every man following the loving leadership of Christ, the wife following the loving leadership of her husband, just as Christ follows the loving leadership of His Father. So I set out to understand what Paul actually meant by “head.”

What does “head” mean?

The Greek word is kephalē. Scholars have argued over its meaning for a long time, and there are three main views:

• Authority over. The traditional reading, and the one behind “supreme over.”
• Source or origin, like the head of a river, where it begins.
• The prominent or honored part, the head as the part that carries the body’s honor.

I was drawn right away to the second. When the Greek translators of the Old Testament met the Hebrew word for head meaning “ruler,” they usually chose another Greek word. Kephalē didn’t naturally mean “boss.”

And Paul tells us what he means a few verses later. Woman came from man, yet every man since has come through a woman, “but all things of God” (vv. 11–12). He is talking about where we came from, and how we need each other.

Why it can’t mean “supreme over”

Paul is not writing about domination. Both men and women, husbands and wives, can build and keep a close, loving relationship with Christ. As a woman, I want Christ to be my head too. He is the one I follow and the one I lean on.

So think it through. If “head” means who rules over whom, then a woman who never marries has no head. Of course that isn’t so. That kind of thinking doesn’t hold up against any other part of the Bible.

Then there is the last pair: God is the head of Christ. If head means “supreme over,” Christ becomes less than God. But Jesus said, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).

The order of the verse matters too. Paul doesn’t give a top-down list from God to Christ to man to woman. He gives Christ and man, then man and woman, then God and Christ. Whatever he is describing, it isn’t a ladder of rank.

Three beginnings

Look at the facts. Man was created first, and he is the first one given a head in this verse. Woman came from man, and he is given as her head. Then Christ came forth from God to be man. Each pair names a beginning, an origin:

1. Man from Christ. Christ is the Creator: “All things were made by him” (John 1:3).
2. Woman from man. Paul roots this in Genesis 2 (vv. 8–9).
3. Christ from God. “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world” (John 16:28).

That third one is a little tricky, because Christ is God. But He came from God to become man. This isn’t about His eternal nature. It’s about Christ as He stepped onto the stage of this world.

And He came because of sin. If man had never fallen, Christ would never have come as a man, and God would never have been His head in this way. So the verse begins in creation and ends in redemption. Paul says in this same letter that Christ is “the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45). He made the first Adam, and as the last Adam He re-creates humanity through the power of God. Even though He is God, in Christ He was human.

We are His twice over, by creation and by redemption. This isn’t order forced on us. It is how life came about, and how it is restored.

The last pair is the key

Why does Paul save “God is the head of Christ” for last? Because it shows us what headship looks like. Christ and the Father are equal. Yet Christ freely chose to come, to honor His Father, and to “do always those things that please him” (John 8:29).

That is headship between equals, entered freely and carried out in Love. If that is the model, it tells us what “head” means in the other two pairs.

Within a marriage, a man by his nature and the way he is put together is to cover, protect and cherish his wife, and give of himself for her and his family. She in return responds and gives him a loving home, a place to come to when the work day is over. Men and women are not the same; we are equal but different. And Christ is the head the man is to follow in his decisions, while the woman has her say and a right to her own mind.

This is exactly what the Remedy says: the wife follows the loving leadership of her husband, just as Christ follows the loving leadership of His Father.

Surrounded by God

Look at the shape of the verse once more. Christ as man’s head comes first. Man as woman’s head is in the middle. God as Christ’s head comes last. Man in his fallen state is surrounded by God on all sides. It is a bit like being in the middle of a God sandwich.

Scripture says the same thing. “Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me” (Psalm 139:5). The Lord goes before us and is our rearguard behind (Isaiah 52:12). And “underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27).

Looking at this through the eyes of Love, what do we see? Christ at the head of fallen man, saying, “Follow Me, I will show you the way home. I am here for you always; you can depend on Me.” In the middle, how we are to relate to each other: a man treating his wife and family with the same love and respect, the same value, that Christ put on him. And God, our foundation, ready to give all the power of the universe through the life of Christ for the healing and salvation of humanity.

That is what it means to have a head. Not someone supreme over us, but Someone before us, behind us, and underneath us, from whom we came and to whom we are being brought home.

Still reading on

I want to be honest with you: this is not a finished understanding of this verse. It is one verse standing alone, and I am sharing the struggle as much as the answer.

Graham Maxwell used to say that when you come to a place of confusion, read on, and it will make sense at some point. It always has for me. Paul’s own explanation is still ahead, in the verses that follow, and I expect this picture to fill in as I work through them.

So take this as a first look, not the last word. I’m trusting the Lord to make it clear in His time, and I’ll share what He shows me as I go.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:1

“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1, NIV)

At first it sounds bold, maybe even a little proud. Who would tell a whole church to copy him? But read it again. Paul is not calling for followers of his own. He is saying, as long as I am following Christ and you can see Christ in me, let me be your example, just as Christ is my example. The condition is built right into the sentence. Phillips puts it plainly: copy me, as I copy Christ himself.

The Remedy adds what that example looks like — following Paul in reaching others in love. That fits the verses just before it, where Paul says he seeks not his own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved (1 Corinthians 10:33). The chapter break was added much later; this verse is really the closing line of Paul’s thought in chapter 10.

We Cannot Imitate Someone We Do Not Know

We cannot imitate or follow someone we do not know. When a person first comes to Christ, they don’t yet know Him well. So the one who pointed them to Christ becomes the example they follow, until they meet Him and develop their own relationship with Him. That is a sobering place to stand.

It is our duty, through daily time spent with Christ, to allow His character, His mind, His Glory and His Love to envelop us, fill us and saturate us, until we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). By beholding we become changed (2 Corinthians 3:18).

It Is Not Us

Each morning I need to remember that it is not me, my talents, or anything in me that draws these lost and hungry souls. No, it is the mind and heart of Christ we have become. The mind and heart of Christ in us will draw those seeking truth.

Then we are a useful tool in the hand of Christ — no longer a raw recruit, but a soldier He can place anywhere in His ranks and count on to carry out His orders as He would (2 Timothy 2:3–4), a worker in His field (Matthew 9:38), His light on a hill (Matthew 5:14). And to us He continues to be a lamp unto our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105), the Good Shepherd (John 10:11), a friend that sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24) — our closest and dearest friend, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

We Do Not Stand Alone

Because Christ is our example, we can say with Paul to those newly come to Him: you may follow my example, because I am following the example of Christ. And as soon as their own relationship with Christ is strong, they will begin to bloom, the Love of Christ flowing from them as they show His Love to their world. Then they become the example for someone else, and the chain goes on — each link pointing past itself to Him.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:2

“I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions just as I passed them on to you.” (1 Corinthians 11:2, NIV)

The Remedy says it warmly: Paul is so pleased with them for remembering all he taught them and holding firmly to the truth he shared. The word “traditions” here is the Greek paradoseis — things handed over. Paul received the gospel from Christ and handed it on (1 Corinthians 11:23; 15:3), and these believers were holding on to what had been handed to them.

The Hard Part Is Keeping It

Paul recognized the effort it took to stick with the changes they had taken on while he was with them. He understood how hard it is to accept something new, to learn it, and then to keep doing it until it is no longer a new thing. The science of the brain wasn’t available then, but observation and wisdom could see how the mind works.

Think about who these people were. The society they came from was different in every way from the truths they had embraced into their hearts and minds. It was an entirely new way of living — and they learned it and kept living it without leaving the city and community they lived in. They changed their gods. They took a new foundation to build their lives on, right in the middle of the same society. That is truly huge.

A Perfect Storm

A change like that could not have happened if society had been at rest, with nothing stirring the heart to go looking for somewhere to rest. The Roman world was that storm. People were weary of the drama — of leaders, of politicians, of a military that could turn on itself at any moment. The more affluent Roman culture became, the more corrupt its leaders grew, and the decay was already in public view when Christ was born. A single ruler could give an order and every boy in a town would be killed, as Herod, Rome’s appointed king, did in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16).

Brain science shows the mind holds hard to its old foundational ways of thinking until something strong enough — a crisis, an epiphany, a force — pushes it to look for something new. Into that weary world, Christ brought something new.

The Imprint That Remains

Two thousand years later the whole world carries the imprint of what Paul and the disciples of Christ left behind. Slavery, once ordinary everywhere, has been abolished by law nearly everywhere. The life of Christ is known in every corner of the earth — not accepted by every culture, but known well enough that some fight against it. It began with ordinary people like those Corinthians, holding fast to what was handed to them.

So Paul’s praise is for us too. What Christ hands us is new at first, and it is hard. But we keep at it, day by day, until it is no longer new — until it is simply who we are. And then we hand it on.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:33

“Even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.” (1 Corinthians 10:33, NIV)

The Remedy says it this way: remember to be winsome in dealing with others, not promoting your own agenda but spreading the Remedy of Jesus Christ, so that many may be eternally healed.

What does this look like, trying to please everyone and not looking out for your own advantage? It begins with keeping your word, whatever the personal cost (Psalm 15:4). It means noticing the little things that would make someone else’s day, and doing them when wisdom allows.

Balance is the key. An organized life leaves you free to do the little things. A cluttered life keeps you so busy with your own mess that you never notice anyone else. Living an open, other-focused life does not mean you stop living your own. It means you become organized and responsible, aware of how your own growth affects your ability to bless others.

Start at Home

Start with your family. Clean up your world, and really notice each member of your family. Do it for yourself; they don’t need to know you are doing it. Do special things to draw them out, so you can know them better. Start growing your loving muscles at home with the ones closest to you. As kindness and the little extras become your habit, they will naturally spill over into the rest of your life.

Start small: one choice, one day. Learn to be consistent with your new habits. It takes time to heal and change a lifetime of how you react and speak to those around you. Some people will not approve; they were comfortable with the old you. That is fine. Paul was not seeking approval but the good of others. Growth is never easy or completely painless. Stay with your plan, and stay with your time with the Lord. You will find your life expanding. You will become more.

Making close companions of your family is a true gift to yourself. Enjoy them, let them in on the new you, and see if they don’t jump on board and begin working on themselves too. And so the wave of Love and Light moves out from you, first to those your heart is bound to most, then out into the world around you.

Don’t Announce It

It all begins with one person making one choice to change. That choice, made alone between you and Christ, gathers strength in the currents of Love and Truth flowing through the universe, on into eternity. You are not alone in it. You are standing with the God of all creation, and all heaven is ready to help you in your new life.

These are not changes you announce. This is a new life you begin quietly, one observation at a time. When you notice one thing you can do, just do it (Matthew 6:3–4). The reward is greater when someone asks, “What has changed about you? You seem different.” Then what you share is not just words, but a real answer to a real question, from someone who truly wants to know (1 Peter 3:15).

People are drawn to Christ because they are drawn to the winsome way you have begun treating them.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:32

“Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:32, NIV)

The Remedy puts it this way: do not knowingly act in ways that confuse others about God, or lead them astray, whether believers or non-believers.

Be open and caring toward everyone, regardless of who they are or how they affect your life. Every soul born into this world is a child of God and deserves to be treated with the wisest, most interested concern. No one is beneath your notice.

We cannot be aware of everyone we affect. The wave each choice creates travels far past our ability to follow it. Picture it this way: we are all living under water. Every movement, no matter how small, shifts the water around us. You cannot pass by anything without changing it in some way. You cannot even come close enough to notice another person without having an effect on them. Water carries every twitch, every slight change in us, out to everything around us. Nothing we do is of no consequence.

This is why Paul tells us to put no stumbling block in anyone’s way. We never know how far the ripple of a careless act will carry, or whose faith it may unsettle.

God created the water, and He sees all of its movement at once. He is with us in everything we do, yet He is not tied to physical reality as we are. He lives in eternity, but He chooses to participate in linear time with us. In eternity, past, present, and future are one before Him (Psalm 90:2). He can see everything without being pushed around by any of it, and when He chooses to act in time, He acts with perfect control.

We cannot do that. We affect each other on every level. So move carefully through your life, not with fear but with understanding, aware that what you think, say, and do reaches far beyond yourself. Live in the moment, aware of all that moment holds and all you can do to better your own life and the lives of everyone sharing it with you.

And never stop learning. Knowledge ennobles us, empowers us, and lifts us above the life we were born into. The more we understand, the better stewards we become of ourselves and of everyone our ripples touch. The more you know, the more you are.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:30

“If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?” (1 Corinthians 10:30, NIV)

Paul ate with a clear conscience. He thanked God for the food, and gratitude settled the matter between him and his Lord. The Remedy puts his stance simply: he would not be held hostage by the opinions of others.

The opinion of others is never meant to shape our actions. But the heart of someone searching for truth should always be a soft place in our souls.

Sometimes the person criticizing us is that searching soul. They don’t yet have the understanding, experience, or relationship with the Lord to sort out the truth behind everything they believe. It takes time and maturity before they can look at those they admire in the faith and comfortably let each person walk their own journey. We are not all learning the same things at the same time. A truth one soul finds a glorious comfort, another must struggle to accept.

So be slow to judge and slow to criticize. Trust what your past experience with someone has shown you about their heart, and give them room to explain their current choices. If something directly affects your life, ask your questions in Love, ready to hear the best answer. Don’t shy away from the questions that need asking. And when offense is given, be ready to do whatever you can to make it right. When it’s your responsibility, own it, fix it, and move on.

There will be many times we stand alone in our decisions, alone except for God. What a great exception He is. These are the times to know yourself and to know your God and Friend, the One who guided your life to that very decision. Stand firm. Know what you know. The Lord will give you the strength and wisdom to continue in the truth He has shown you.

But standing firm is not the same as closing your ears. The most valuable piece of wisdom I can offer is this: remain teachable. We can fool ourselves into believing the Lord led us to a decision simply because it makes sense to us. Stay willing to hear truth from people you respect who have also been walking with the Lord.

If God really has shown you something others don’t yet understand, their objections won’t change it. In fact, you need their objections to refine that truth even further.

Your only safeguard against fooling yourself is to stay in a truly teachable spirit.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:29

“I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience?” (1 Corinthians 10:29, NIV)

Paul anticipates the objection. If I know an idol is nothing, and the meal in front of me is good food, why should someone else’s conscience limit what I do?

His answer isn’t that your freedom is wrong. You remain free. The question is how Love chooses to use that freedom when someone is watching who doesn’t yet understand. The Remedy puts it plainly: the confusion isn’t yours, it’s theirs. They still believe the idol has power, and you don’t want them to think you believe in their god.

This is what Love does. It protects and cares for those who lack understanding.

Think of how we raise children. Some things we model, and we smile when they try to mimic us, because their efforts build the ability to do it one day. Other things we forbid them to touch. Hand a young child an ax or a power tool, and the gift of your skill becomes a danger to them. They don’t yet have the understanding to respect the tool, the maturity to give it full attention, or the strength to handle its blowback.

Our infants in the faith need the same care. A new believer will naturally copy their mentor, even when they don’t understand what they are stepping into. Sometimes experience is how they grow. Other times, wisdom says not to introduce a truth too early, before they have laid a solid foundation to build that belief on. Wisdom and Love advance no faster than the soul can follow.

So don’t run ahead and leave your child stumbling around in confusion while you enjoy good company and a well-prepared meal. There’s no sin in that meal for the mature in faith. But your child is still on infant formula. Because you love them, you’ll share their fare and change your plans to give them time to grow up.

Stay aware of the people in your sphere of influence. The Holy Spirit, or the energy you sense in a person, or both, along with your own experience and wisdom, will guide your attention to a soul struggling alone in a moment of distress. Sit beside them. Ask why they’re troubled, and point them in a better direction. Stay a while, answer their questions, and enjoy their eager discovery of new life in Christ.

This is our work: what Love can see and do for each other.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:25–26

“Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.’” (1 Corinthians 10:25–26, NIV)

The church in Corinth had a real dilemma. Much of the meat sold in the city’s markets had first been offered to pagan gods. Was it safe for a Christian to eat? Paul’s answer was simple: buy it, eat it, and don’t worry about it. Everything on this earth was made by God and still belongs to Him.

Dr. Tim Jennings’s paraphrase, The Remedy, puts the reason plainly: physical matter cannot soil the conscience. So don’t waste your emotional energy and time worrying about things that have no ability to affect your heart, mind, or body. The demons cannot affect God’s creation. They are not gods; they cannot create or change created matter. Just like us, they cannot effect a single change to a hair on their own heads.

It Starts in the Mind

The demons must live and move in the laws of reality just as we do. Food offered to an idol is physically just as it was before it was offered. It is the value we place on the act of offering a sacrifice to demons that affects us.

The effect takes place in the mind first, and then how the mind is affected transfers into the body. We can affect our own physical bodies for good or ill by the way we choose to assimilate and process the events of our life. Our past history and the way we were taught to approach an event all play a part in how something will affect us emotionally, and then move into the physical part of our lives.

But we are also free to examine our beliefs, to understand the science, truth, and reality behind an event, and to reapply it to our heart and mind. This changes how things are able to affect us.

Far More Than Food

This applies to far more than food. Think of the death of a beloved pet. A constant companion for a decade or longer cannot vanish from your life without a feeling of loss, an empty space right next to your heart. Yet the reality is you will have the company of your beloved pet again.

The Lord who loves you, and who created that creature to fill your heart and life, will return him to you with all the love he had for you when he fell asleep. So the event, though sad, is not an eternal loss for someone trusting in the Lord. You now have a deposit waiting for you in heaven. Like the loved ones we say goodbye to in this life who fall asleep trusting Jesus, he will at last be reunited with us.

An event in this life only carries the emotions, for good or ill, that we personally give to it.

We Still Choose the Good

That doesn’t mean anything goes. The food we eat and the places we go still need to be healthy for us in reality. Praying over unhealthy food, or before going into a place of entertainment that is not good for the mind or heart, will not change the effect it has on your body. Unhealthy food is still unhealthy, and mind-numbing entertainment will not become enlightening and uplifting.

You have to choose the good for yourself, and know that the devil has no ability to touch the good you choose or how it blesses you. It is your mind and your choice how you take in reality and apply it in your own heart.

We Are Free

We can live knowing the devil has no power to taint the heart and mind that trusts in the Lord, regardless of what another misguided person might do or think. Even Job, who lost nearly everything at the devil’s hand, was not touched where it counted.

We are free to live walking in heaven, surrounded each day by the glories and protection of heaven. We are free to move through this world, never needing to ask questions or be concerned with what the devil or someone else has done before us.

We are free!