[0:00] 1 Corinthians chapter 11 will be verses 2 through 16. 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 2 through 16. As we were beginning our time in the book of 1 Corinthians, we acknowledged that this book will force us to face things that we would not normally face.
[0:21] There are undoubtedly a number of difficult passages in the book of 1 Corinthians. We have gotten to a couple of them, but we have not exhausted the list. Along with the difficult passages, there are also great passages like 1 Corinthians 15, which brings such hope and comfort even as one nears the end of their life.
[0:41] There are difficult verses, there are difficult subjects, there are difficult matters. But we need to be mindful of the reality that what we have before us is the Word of God written by the man of God to the people of God.
[0:54] Paul, being led by the Spirit of God, is writing this letter to the church which is at Corinth. Sure, it's a church with problems, but they're still saved, redeemed people because he refers to them as the saints which are at Corinth.
[1:09] These are people who know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. They have been saved beyond a doubt. The sanctification process is an ongoing work. Paul is admonishing them, he's encouraging them, and he's even challenging them.
[1:25] But it's the same thing with us when we open up the Word of God. The sanctification process is an ongoing issue. And at times when we read the Word of God, we are admonished. Sometimes we are encouraged, sometimes we are challenged, and sometimes we are reproved.
[1:40] But we take it as it is, and that is the Word of God. So if you are physically able and desire to do so, I'm going to ask you to join with me as we stand together. We read the Word of God together in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, starting in verse 2.
[1:53] Verse 1, if you remember, is, Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. That we saw undoubtedly fits better with the passage which precedes that.
[2:05] In the 10th chapter, Paul is raising himself up as an example. Now he is transitioning into a different subject. He says in verse 2, A woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off.
[2:45] But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off, or her head shaved, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man.
[2:58] For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man. For indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake. Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels.
[3:09] However, in the Lord neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman, and all things originate from God.
[3:22] Judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him? But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given to her for a covering.
[3:38] Verse 16. But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this day.
[3:49] We thank you for the opportunity we have together with the people of God to sing praises to your name, but also to read the word of God. We pray that by the power and presence of your spirit, Lord, that you would help us to come to a better understanding of it, and that our understanding would lead to an application which changes us to become more and more like your image for your glory.
[4:11] Lord, may you speak clearly. May there be no hindrance. May there be no calls for stumbling or offense found within me. Lord, may the word of God speak to us as it is in clarity and simplicity.
[4:25] And we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. There are some passages in Scripture that simply the public reading of them will suck the air out of the room.
[4:37] This is such a one. There are some that if I was picking and choosing text, that these would not be the ones that I would settle on. There are some that are the whole reason why many years ago I committed to preaching through books, so that I could be faithful in preaching the full revelation of the word of God.
[5:00] Because my natural tendency is to pick and choose the passages which I am most comfortable with. And in doing that, I would lay aside passages that seem to be difficult or maybe seem to be offensive, but they are equally as much as the word of God as John 3, 16.
[5:17] So when we open up the word of God, we open it up in its authority, not in the authority or the opinion of man, but in the authority of Scripture. And we anticipate and we expect that God would speak to us in every part and every portion.
[5:31] Because if not in your daily Bible reading, I didn't say if you read your Bible daily, I said in your daily Bible reading, because I encourage and expect you to do so. You will encounter passages which seem to be very offensive or seem to be very difficult, and the tendency would be to gloss over them and to skip beyond them, rather than to know what it is that God is saying to you.
[5:54] But if the word of God is true, and if all of Scripture is given for God-given purposes, to mold and shape us and conform us more to His image and glory, and it is, then it is very becoming of us as His people to look at the entirety of Scripture.
[6:10] Surely, there are portions of Scripture which seem to be more relevant to our personal settings. There are portions of Scripture which seem to speak to our situation in which we find ourselves.
[6:22] But all of Scripture is given that we may know Him better, and that we may understand His calling and His ordaining and His purposes in our life. This passage as much as any other.
[6:33] What Paul is beginning to address here in the second verse of the 11th chapter will be continued on for a number of chapters. And really, we could give one grand theme to it, but it seems to be the same theme that we have this morning, and it is a concern for properly ordered worship.
[6:50] It is a concern for properly ordered worship. And as Paul is addressing their public worship, we will get into those difficult passages.
[7:02] We will get into chapter 12 as it speaks to spiritual giftedness. We will get into 1 Corinthians 13, a chapter which is used quite often in weddings.
[7:13] And I use it in weddings. And that's not to say that it's wrong to use it in weddings. I believe I use it in Brother Caleb and here's Miss Allison's wedding. I believe that I use it just about in every wedding that I officiate.
[7:24] But its direct application is given to the church, the chapter of love. We will get into 1 Corinthians 14, which will be another passage that when I read it, it will probably suck the air out of the room.
[7:34] There will be a lot of questions that happen after it. And then we get in, finally, we end the public worship in the 14th chapter, and then, praise the Lord, we get into 1 Corinthians 15, right? But even then, there are some difficult passages found in 1 Corinthians 15.
[7:48] But as we begin to look at this concern for a properly ordered worship, Paul is moving beyond what was going on with the individuals of the church to what was taking place during the church.
[8:01] The very next set of scriptures we get to in the 11th chapter refer to their taking of the Lord's Supper together and how a number of them die because they're taking it in an unholy manner. Really, the focus is on the public worship of the saints.
[8:15] And he addresses this to speak to the individuals because all public worship is more than a corporate exercise. It is a corporate exercise of individuals.
[8:27] So how the individuals behave really affects what the corporate body is doing. That is a good way of saying, what I do matters in the public worship of the saints because I affect your worship and you affect mine.
[8:41] Paul takes it to another level in this passage and even refers to the reality that angels are participants and observers of the public worship of the saints of God.
[8:53] That when we gather together, we stand on holy ground and surely there are angels in this place. That they're concerned about how we worship.
[9:03] This is why worship has such a high priority in all of scripture. And this is why when we begin to refer to the proper order of worship, the things that are going on inside of the church, that they begin to be controversial.
[9:17] Now, before we get into the text and we try to dissect it and we try to see exactly what it is saying, let's see some things that it is not saying. First of all, this text is not an excuse for chauvinistic male domination.
[9:34] So don't look at it that way. This text is not an excuse because we need to be careful how we pick and choose texts. Some would see these texts and say, oh, well, the women were prophesying.
[9:46] That's the same word as preaching. Here is a reason in the backing for the women to preach. Wait a minute. Just as in everything else, just as it is not an excuse for chauvinistic male domination, it is not an admonition or it is not an endorsement for that either because you need to see the totality of scripture.
[10:02] Paul addresses that in the 14th chapter. We know that this text is not a text that is used to exalt one gender and to belittle another because the Bible is very clear and that all are created in the image of God.
[10:21] This text is not a contradiction of the text in Galatians where it says that there are neither Jew nor Greek nor male or female. In Christ all are equal.
[10:31] It is not. It is really a building up of that. It is kind of helping you live that out. This text does not do a number of things which on surface level it seems to do, but still it hits us in places that we wish it wouldn't.
[10:50] One understanding that we need to have before we really get into the text and we really dig into it is we need to know this. Sin greatly affects how we view scripture.
[11:01] And the further we get away from the garden, the more entrenched in our sin nature we are. The book of Judges is a grand picture not of just what was happening in the period in the nation of Israel before the kings became into existence.
[11:18] It is not just a picture of what transpired over 450 years. I believe the book of Judges, if you were here on Sunday and Wednesday nights when we went through it, you will remember me saying this, is really a portrait of humanity beginning in creation to the end of the age.
[11:32] It is the downward spiral of man. That man finds moments of redemption, but when he goes back down, he goes down further than he ever did. We are on a downward trajectory.
[11:44] We are not progressing. We are digressing, my friend. I know we may have progressed and advanced in technologies, but we are still trying to figure out how they built things a number of years ago that we cannot construct today.
[11:57] We are digressing. We understand these realities and we know that sin affects how we understand that. And I say that the way it affects either our sins or the sins of others committed towards us.
[12:11] We need to acknowledge that. And when we come to the truth of Scripture, then we need to let Scripture be true. And we need to understand that the truth of Scripture may rub us wrong.
[12:23] It may upset our apple cart, so to say. It may displease our favors. By the way, this upsets the apple cart of men just as much as it does women. Just stay with me.
[12:34] It may make us feel uncomfortable, but it is the truth of Scripture, not the thoughts and opinions of men. This text is not a text of declaring that women should wear head coverings today.
[12:51] We will see that. It's not that if you came in here without a shawl over your head, we're wrong. It's not saying that. We will see, as you take every text in its context to its people, we will see the application of the text and hopefully grow therein.
[13:06] So, with that being said, let's get into the text. Number one, I want you to see the problem addressed. Paul says, Now I praise you because you remember me and everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I also delivered them to you.
[13:23] Paul was very quick to praise when praise was due. Paul has brought a lot of challenge to the church at Corinth up to this point in his letter.
[13:34] He has really confronted them as to the sin that is in their individual lives. He has come to them and really made them very uncomfortable. And yet he pauses here before he goes into the public worship.
[13:45] He pauses and he gives praise where praise is due. It is not wrong to praise people. It is wrong to exalt people, but we can thank them for their work. We can thank them for their labor of love, as it says in Scripture.
[13:59] We ought to acknowledge that. We ought to give praise where praise is due. And Paul doesn't do this just so he can hit them with the right hook, so to say, and make the impact even harder.
[14:12] He is genuine in his thankfulness for the people of God. And he is so genuine in it that he has a concern for the disruptions of what is happening in the church when they gather together.
[14:25] He says, But I want you to understand. By the way, verse 3 is the key verse for our interpretation of verses 2 through 16. And I'll show you why. Verse 3 is a key that unlocks our interpretation.
[14:39] And if we skip over verse 3, then we wrongly interpret the rest of the verses. He says, But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.
[14:55] Throughout these verses, we read the head of, the head of, the head of, a covering on the head, and all these things, and the symbol of authority on the head, and all these things. We need to understand exactly what Paul is meaning when he is talking about being the head of.
[15:08] Clearly, from this verse, he is not referring to inferiority or a lowered position. He is not referring, now position, I mean, maybe, now position is the wrong word there, because I will give you just a minute in position.
[15:25] He is not referring to inferiority or to graded individuals, to degrading an individual. He is not saying that someone is of less value. He is not saying that someone is greater in personage than that person.
[15:38] And the reason we understand that, here's the text, because it says that God is the head of Christ. Now that is key, because you need to understand that God the Father and Christ the Son are equal in their divinity.
[15:56] Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. Okay, you need to understand in all of Scripture that you cannot be more God than Jesus in the flesh is God. God the Father is not greater in personage than God the Son, who is Jesus Christ.
[16:12] But the Bible tells us that the Son submitted to the Father in all things. So God the Father is positionally ahead of God the Son because of the Son's intentional submission.
[16:28] That does not mean that Jesus is inferior to God. Jesus declares this when He is asked questions about the end times. He said, those are things for the Father to know alone.
[16:39] It tells us in the book of Hebrews that He submitted to the Father in all things that He may be found approved. When He went to the baptism of John the Baptist, He said, it is fitting for this to happen so that we may submit to the Father.
[16:51] He is not greater. God the Father is not greater in His divinity than God the Son. But the Son, Jesus Christ, positionally submitted to that place.
[17:05] Now, I know that's deep. Stay with me. Because if you begin to divide the Trinity and you begin to make one greater than the other, then you get in dangerous ground theologically.
[17:16] And the reason that is so important is because it helps us to understand this. That if Paul uses the same word in reference to God being the head of Jesus that He does for man being the head of woman, it means we're not talking about one being inferior and one being superior.
[17:36] We're just talking about a voluntary positional alignment. Okay? You say, voluntary? It ain't real voluntary in my life now. Stay with me.
[17:47] We're getting there. So we understand here the key to the text. Now let's begin to see the problem he's addressing. He says in verse 4, Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head.
[18:01] By the way, this would have been very offensive to any Jewish man reading this. Because the Jewish men, when they went to their synagogues, went in with veiled faces, just like Moses' face was veiled when he came out of the tent of meeting.
[18:14] Paul later writes this, says, To this day the law is veiled as the faces of the people, but they're removing the veil from the face. Right? They went in as to stand before God with veiled faces and have their faces covered as a sign of humility and humbleness and all this.
[18:28] And Paul is declaring here that anybody does that, he disgraces his head and his head is Christ. That the man shouldn't do that. So he challenges the man. And he is the Jewish man, not the Gentile man, but he's challenging the Jewish man.
[18:42] Verse 5 says, But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved. So here's the problem. We want to see the problem.
[18:52] What was going on is when the church came together, this is our context, by the way, that when the church at Corinth came together, you need to understand that in all of society, Corinth was really a melting pot of nationalities and societies.
[19:06] So you had Gentiles and, or you had Romans and Greeks and Jews, everybody living there. But in all of society, the norm of society and the expectation of society, both Roman, Jewish, and all the Greek influence, was for the women in public to wear a head covering.
[19:24] That was society's standard. Everyone in society did it. I'm taking it in context. What happened when the Corinthian believers came to faith in Jesus Christ, they understood the liberty of Christ.
[19:42] Christ has set us free. They understood what Paul refers to. They're neither Jew nor Greek. They could worship together. The church is the only place in all of history, in all of Roman history, in which you find a corporate gathering of such diverse individuals.
[19:57] You have slaves. You have free men. You have people in high ranks of society, most excellent Theophilus, as the book of Luke is written to someone who is probably in the Roman courts. You have people of great stature.
[20:09] You have men and women, and you have everybody gathered together. In one group, nowhere else in Roman society would that happen. And they understood that there's neither Jew nor Greek. All people were welcome.
[20:21] They also understood there's neither male nor female in Christ. We're on equal ground, right? That men and women, for the first time in all of history, have equal access to the good news. That at the cross, Jesus Christ sends his offer to anyone.
[20:37] It is not that this is only offered to the men. As a matter of fact, one of the great apologetics or the defenses of the gospel was that the women left the tomb first and brought back the news that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.
[20:49] If there is anything that makes the gospel of Christianity stand out, it is the fact that the first heralds of the gospel were women. And God uses this to demonstrate and to really just broadcast abroad that there's neither male nor female, that the offer and extended invitation is to whosoever will.
[21:08] And when they gather together, this freedom in Christ, this removal of societal barriers began to be played out in ways that was improper.
[21:21] Because it says that when they came together, some women were prone to removing their head covering, praying and prophesying in public. We'll get to that later. He's not addressing that here right now.
[21:32] He's addressing what's going on. They are praying and prophesying. They're declaring and they're removing their head covering. He says it shouldn't be this way. You shouldn't do it. You say, well, if we're free in Christ, what's the problem?
[21:42] The problem was is the only people in society that did that were the false prophetesses at the idol temples who were also living a life of adultery.
[21:52] And the way they would show their availability as a prostitute would remove their head covering. It would say, I'm making myself available to anyone. So historically, this is a picture of being available to anyone to serve a false god in an immoral way in the midst of that society.
[22:14] So imagine, if you will, that when the church was being effective with its invitation and gospel declaration, and someone would walk into the corporate gathering of the saints, and as they walked into the corporate gathering of the saints, they saw women running around just like the prostitutes at the false temples.
[22:39] See the offense that would happen. See the offense that that would cause. Because see, the problem was the reality that they were beginning to look a lot more like the world than they thought.
[22:54] If we take it in context, they were not positioning themselves as free in Christ, they were positioning themselves as free to anyone else.
[23:05] It would be the quality of a lady taking off her wedding ring, laying it aside, and dressing very inappropriately, and putting herself on display for anyone and all.
[23:18] You say, well, I'm free to do that if I want to. Au contraire, my friend, we've already read in Scripture where it says that my body is not my own, it belongs to my wife, and my wife's body is not her own, it belongs to me.
[23:31] Oh, well, that's so degrading. No, it's not. It's so biblical. For the two have become one. And we ought to be jealous over one another as husbands and wives.
[23:44] We ought to have this jealousy over one another. Not a jealousy that leads to sin, but a jealousy that is concerned and wants to hold on to those things and see what was going on.
[23:56] And the problem is their freedom in Christ was used as a license to sin. They were taking freedom to the access and declaring liberties which they just did not have.
[24:08] And their liberties were making them look like false prophetesses. They weren't offering Christ, they were offering themselves to whoever was watching.
[24:21] And as Paul says, we don't want to give offense to the Jews or to the Greeks, to the saved or to the lost. We don't want to cause offense even to the church. So here's the problem addressed.
[24:34] And we're okay with that, right? We say, well, that's a contextual problem. That's a problem in the city of Corinth. We can bring that application today that if the church does not look less like the world when we gather together than we look like the world, then we have a problem.
[24:52] We have a problem. I'm not trying to be legalistic here. I'm not trying to make these great declarations. I'm just saying there ought to be a difference between the people of God and the people of the world.
[25:05] Number two. The second thing we see is the positional roles affirmed. The positional roles affirmed. This is where the further we get away from the garden, the more this rubs us wrong.
[25:20] But you understand this order that Paul is referring to has a theological root. Because he goes all the way back to creation to undergird the reality of what he is calling upon the church to do.
[25:34] Because not only does this disruption and order look bad in society, this disruption and order seems to be an offense to the great creator who designed it this way. And he goes back.
[25:48] He says, For a man ought not to have his head covered since he is the image and glory of God. But the woman is the glory of man. Now I know you're going to get upset but stay with me.
[25:59] The Bible says when we open up the book of Genesis, let us create man in our image. In the image of God he created them both male and female. Sure.
[26:10] Male and female both bear the image of God. When you turn the page and you go into the next chapter and chapter 2 is where the author of the book of Genesis slows down that creation account.
[26:23] Genesis 1 gives it to us rapidly. Comes, comes, comes, comes, comes. We get to Genesis 2 and it's, Whoa, let's slow down. Because by the time we get to Genesis 1 it was the seventh day and God rested. When we turn into Genesis 2 we go back to the creation of man.
[26:38] And he wants to spend some time here because, see, God spoke into existence everything we see. He said, Let there be light and there was light. Let there be a division of the dry land and the waters and there was a division. And let all the expanse be there and there was.
[26:49] He created the sun and the moon. He created all these things. Right? He created the animals. He created the sea creatures. He created the birds of the air. He spoke them into existence. He spoke them into existence. He spoke them into existence. And he says that he created man in their own image and the image of God.
[27:01] He created them both male and female. And then we come back to Genesis 2 because Genesis 1 says he created them. He spoke everything else into existence but he created them. So that's kind of a special wording there.
[27:12] So in Genesis 2 we go back and we revisit that. Right? Let's look at that again. And he slows down. It says, From the dust of the earth God formed and fashioned a man. He created man from the dust of the earth.
[27:22] Now stay with me. And he created man in his own image. And then he gave man a job and a responsibility. By the way, we've talked about this a lot because this is why Adam gets in trouble when Eve eats of the tree. Eve doesn't get in trouble.
[27:33] Adam does. We've talked about that. This is why. Because before Eve was ever created God gives Adam a job. He gives him a job. It's the whole purpose of man. And men, I'm talking to you right now.
[27:45] It's the purpose of man. None of the ladies were there yet. They weren't created. I believe in literal creation. Right? I believe it happened just like the scripture says. So men, I'm talking to you. God never declares this to the ladies.
[27:58] He declares it to the men and this men's role and responsibility to share it with the ladies. That's why Adam was in trouble. But what we see is he gives man. And when we read in English, it says that he puts him in the garden and tells him to tend and to keep it.
[28:11] And we're like, oh, so I'm supposed to be a gardener my whole life. No, it's a little bit more than that because when you go back to the original language, what we find is is that the job description that God gives men is that men should honor and obey God and bring Him glory in all they do.
[28:24] that the whole responsibility of man is to obey God and to honor Him and walk faithfully and give Him the glory He's due by their efforts.
[28:35] Men, that's your job description. I don't care how you play it out. I don't care what your occupation looks like. I don't care if it's cleaning toilets, if it's digging septic tanks or if it's sitting in an executive office. Your whole job responsibility is wrapped up in one thing, even if it's in retirement or recreation, is to honor and obey God and bring Him glory in all we do.
[28:54] That's our job description. And man is given that job description, right? Adam, we'll just say it like this so we don't get any confusion. Adam is given that job description. After giving the job description, all the animals pass before him, he gives them all names and he does all these things.
[29:07] There's no helper suitable for him. Paul is talking about this here, right? Because man was created for the glory of God. You were created to give God glory in all of your efforts and all of your workings and all of your doings and all of your activities.
[29:19] That's your responsibility. It's offensive. It doesn't matter. It's your responsibility. Men, that's your responsibility. I'm going to stop right here for just a moment because I don't want to get in too much trouble.
[29:31] Well, I do too, but I don't want to get in trouble just on one side. We'll get in trouble with all sides. The reason we see such a void in male leadership in the churches today is because men like to put their responsibilities on the women.
[29:45] And that's your responsibility. And that's my responsibility. I hate to say it, but that's what it is. I don't hate to say it. I'm going to say it. That's what's going on. I see it across every spectrum of the church.
[29:56] This is our responsibility. Now, we shift. We go along. And I'm, hey, it's Q&A night tonight too, right? I bet a lot of you come back. You wouldn't come back. So anyway, we go along. All the animals pass before Adam.
[30:07] He gives them all names, all this other stuff. He says, but there was no helper suitable for him. So God caused a deep sleep to fall upon. Now, this is beautiful. I look at this in pre-marriage counseling and I do this to let my husbands to be know they'll never understand their wives.
[30:20] Right? I do this and I do it in purpose because I remember when I first read this, I think I've shared this with you before, but it bears repeating. When I first read this, I went, ah, that defines everything. Right? God gives man a really quick job description.
[30:33] He, from the dust of the ground, he created him. He formed him. Right? And boom, there's a man. It says, and then he caused Adam to fall asleep and he took from the rib. Paul says it this way, that woman was taken from man.
[30:44] Right? God created him. Woman was taken from man and he took the rib of the man and it says he fashioned. In the wording there, he fashioned in a more complicated and intricate manner. That's why husbands never understand.
[30:57] Women, you're just more complicated. By design. And it's not a bad thing because the reason when we reject that complication, we are rejecting God's created work, creative work.
[31:11] The divine creator created you in a more complicated, intricate manner than he did men. And he did it with intentionality. Why? Because the man has to focus on his job description.
[31:23] Right? The greater responsibility, he says, and she is the helpmate to him, which is to help him fulfill his God-given responsibility.
[31:36] He says, oh, that's so belittling. No, it's not. You know how much help a man needs to fulfill his responsibilities? What a glorious position God establishes in the very beginning of creation.
[31:52] Tony Evans asked one of his daughters one time. I think, actually, I think it was one of his daughter-in-laws. Tony Evans, two sons and two daughters. He teaches the same thing. And I remember reading one time, he asked one of his daughter-in-laws who was married, I think he was married to his oldest son, and said, do you find this offensive?
[32:09] And she looked at Tony and said, offensive? No, I find it freeing. I said, what do you mean you find it freeing? She said, the responsibility is on him. It's his responsibility.
[32:21] Remember what I said. The reason we're offended by this is because of sin. The sin committed to us or sin committed by us. What has happened are men have abused this job description, they have misused this job description, or they have failed to fulfill this job description, which has led to society saying, that's wrong.
[32:43] But it's there. Positionally, right? And he affirms this position because he says, for the man does not originate from woman, but woman from the man.
[32:54] Now, he balances that. He says, for the man is not independent of woman, and the woman is not independent of man, because just as she came from the man, he now has his birth through the woman. So, in God's economy, he has a great equalizer, right?
[33:07] He said, oh, well, I might have taken her out of you, but guess what, men, you've got to go through her. That's just the way it works. And God levels the field. This is, again, this has nothing to do with inferior and superior.
[33:20] This has nothing to do with belittling or exalting. This just has to do with positions and order. And he affirms that. He says that God had an order to creative work.
[33:33] And when we don't display that order, we are offending the creator. There's a great difference. And men have to submit themselves to the Lord to fulfill their job description.
[33:50] And ladies need to submit to the reality that God has called them to a greater responsibility that quite often at times appears to not be seen, not be as exalted, not be as magnified.
[34:01] But what does Paul later say? That we give the greater honor to the less honorable parts, the parts that are not seen, the parts that are not the most evident, the parts that are kind of behind the scenes. Those are the greatest honor. Why? Because they're doing the greater bulk amount of the work.
[34:14] But it doesn't mean that one is better or less than the other. It just means that God has a great economy and in that economy there are order. God is a God of order not a God of confusion. And he affirms that position.
[34:28] And he says this is what we need to do. We need to walk according. And then he says why? For the angels' sake. Because angelic messengers observe how the church of God worships God.
[34:46] God. And there is order in heaven. You read it. And when there was disorder in heaven they were cast out. And the angels were present at creation.
[35:01] And they saw the divine design of God. And how you work things out according to a perfect order. And then man comes in and they disrupt that order. And some of them do it because they abuse it.
[35:13] Some of them do it because they just don't want to do it. And some of them it's the sin of man that has led to this disruption order. And some have used it as a license to do things they should have never done.
[35:24] And some have used it as an excuse to not do things that they should have done. And we see this. And the angels observe that and they say well oh there's the church. And the church surely it will look like it's supposed to look.
[35:34] Because they're the redeemed of the Lord. They have been restored and redeemed. And then they come and they observe the church and they go oh oh even the church looks wrong. There are two places that God's very concerned about.
[35:52] Two places. The home and the church. Over and over again all throughout the word of God God reiterates his divine design in the home and the church.
[36:04] Because he knows if he can get the home and the church right then society will be impacted. And he declares this here. There is the positional roles affirmed.
[36:19] Number three and finally. There is the perception alluded to. He affirms the positions that God designed in creation.
[36:31] And then he begins to speak of perception. He says it in verse 13. Being judged for yourselves is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered. And then in verse 14 by the way verse 14 has just equal opportunity to get me in trouble right.
[36:45] Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair he is a dishonor to him. Just in case y'all might have missed it our two oldest sons both had long hair all the way through high school. They had their flow.
[36:56] You know we got the senior pictures to prove it. It's humorous to look at them. It was there and it was it was you know it was their badge of honor. And some people say oh that's amazing that you let your boys grow their hair long.
[37:11] I didn't think it was amazing. I thought it was hot. And that's on them right. Literally it's on them. It's their head of hair not mine. You can do what you want to your head of hair. So again what we're saying here is Paul is not writing here saying if a man has long hair then it's a dishonor to him.
[37:23] Because even when Paul wrote this there were certain segments of society that long hair existed among their warriors among their soldiers and some of the manliest men. Right. What he's talking about is what is perceived.
[37:38] He says but if a woman has long hair is a glory to her. What he's saying is society is perceived. Now again this is controversial in our society.
[37:53] But that shouldn't surprise us the further we get away from eating. What he says is that men should look like men and ladies should look like ladies. And there ought to be a noticeable difference in the two.
[38:11] And the reason he said that is because God designed it that way. He's not saying it's wrong for women to have shorter hair. He's not saying it's wrong for men to have long hair. What he is saying is it's wrong for there no to be distinctive identification when you walk upon them.
[38:28] that men should appear as men and ladies should appear as ladies. Because let's go back to what we just alluded to.
[38:39] If not we are throwing it in the face of the creator who created us this way. And he said what's happening in the church is the perception of the community is they really can't tell you.
[38:58] They can't tell you apart. And how we are perceived matters. I'm not talking about that we ought to have all the men ought to look the same, everybody ought to walk the same, all the ladies ought to look the same.
[39:13] I'm not talking about that, right? I'm not talking about uniformity. I'm talking about unity. And uniformity is what happens in the NFL when the NFL comes together. The NFL is starting pretty soon, right?
[39:24] And uniformity is the big offices up in New York tell every team that they should wear this. The color of their cleats should be this. The color of their socks should be this. They have their uniforms. That's why they're called uniforms.
[39:35] And they submit that to the big office. And everybody on our team is going to look like this. And if a player wears the wrong color of cleats, he's fine because he's not uniform. He doesn't just look just like everybody else. The only thing that sets him apart from everybody else should be the name across his back.
[39:47] That's uniformity. They have one Sunday, well, I think it's like a Sunday and a Monday and probably a Thursday night game, one game a week where they can actually raise money for a charity.
[39:59] And they wear their own special cleats and they wear their own different things. And everybody looks a little different because they're raising money for a charity. Some players kind of skate around that and they're their own charity, right? Like they need to raise a little bit of money for themselves.
[40:10] Anyway, we're not here to talk about that. But other than that, they are to look uniform. They ought to be the same. Every time I coached a team, I wanted everybody to kind of look the same. I didn't tell them they all had to wear the same shoes. But there's something about that, right?
[40:21] You want everybody to look uniform. Everybody needs to look like you're on the same team. That's not what we're talking about. Unity is that we all look different but we're going the same direction. All right? So the church is not a place of uniformity but it is a place of unity.
[40:34] But in that unity, there ought to be clear identity. unity. Which means we need to acknowledge and respect and honor the creator who made us that way.
[40:49] You say, well, I know where we can get into with this, right? We start talking about feelings. My friend, there's a lot of things that I feel that scripture runs right contrary to my feelings and then it's up to me to align my feelings with the truth of scripture.
[41:03] There's a lot of things that I feel that scripture tells me is wrong. Because what I have found is that feelings take us in a very bad direction.
[41:19] He talks here about the perception in the community. And he's declaring to these ladies, by taking your liberties too far, you're removing this.
[41:31] This is why he says it's a disgrace for them to have their heads shaved. By the way, in Jewish culture, the woman caught in adultery had her head shaved. But then all of a sudden the men are going to look like, the men and women are all going to look the same.
[41:44] And it's disgraceful. It's not supposed to be that way because in society there's supposed to be a distinctive difference. Differences are wonderful. They're not limiting, right? We see that, I love the fact that God is such a creator and so divine divine in his creation that he made us unique and he made us different.
[42:07] I'm so thankful for that. Because our differences are what really was so complementarian to one another. And we see this as he's referring to his concern for a properly ordered public worship.
[42:24] The passage for sure could be offensive, but in reality we see that it's really addressing a particular problem. It's acknowledging the positional roles, but it's also referring to the perception of the community.
[42:37] Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for this day. I thank you for your word. Thank you for the truth that it contains. And Lord, I pray that you help us to align with that truth for your glory.
[42:49] Lord, I pray that in our humble submission and alignment, Lord, that we would walk pleasing in your sight. Lord, give us a greater understanding of what it is you've called us to as individuals and what it is you've called us to as a corporate body for your glory and honor.
[43:02] And we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.
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