1. Paul required the Corinthian women to cover their heads when praying or prophesying προσευχομένη ἢ προφητεύουσα (1 Corinthians 11:5).
a. By προσευχομένη Paul is referring to those times when the Holy Spirit specially prompted a person to pray in the assembly.
b. By προφητεύουσα, Paul is referring to those times when God gave certain people direct revelations of His will. People who received such revelations were allowed to share these with the rest of the congregation. In the NT, this is referred to as “prophesying”.
i. This kind of prophesying was not the equivalent of OT prophecy. NT prophecy was fallible and needed evaluation by a body of elders (1 Corinthians 14:29).
2. Paul meant this command to be binding on all the churches (1 Corinthians 11:16).
3. When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:34 that women should not speak in church, he means by “speaking” the evaluation the elders would perform of the revelations that different people presented. This evaluation was performed by a body of male elders.
4. Women were allowed to share their own revelations which God had made known to them (1 Corinthians 11:5) and to pray as the Holy Spirit prompted them.
5. This is the resolution of the apparent contradiction between 1 Corinthians 11, where women are allowed to pray and prophesy, and 1 Corinthians 14, where women are commanded to be silent.
6. When women shared the revelations that God had given them or prayed in the assembly, they were required to veil themselves.
a. This veiling was for two reasons; to show her submission to her husband’s headship and because of the angels (1 Corinthians 11:10).
7. The principles of God’s word transcend all cultures and traditions and are, therefore, binding on all.
8. Wherever a principle is found in the Bible, whether in the Old or New Testaments, it must be applied.
9. By “principle” here, I mean a general obligation that contains in it many subordinate obligations. The principle love your neighbor implies the subordinate obligation that I must attempt to warn him if I see his house on fire.
10. By “application” here, I mean the actual putting into practice of a given principle, as in the above example, warning my neighbor would be the application of the principle love your neighbor.
11. Sometimes in Scripture, we find the author commanding his readers to perform a specific application of a given principle.
a. Paul commands Christians to greet one another with a holy kiss.
b. James commands the anointing of the sick with oil (James 5:14).
12. It does not necessarily follow that these specific applications are binding on all Christians even though the Biblical writer makes such a command. The principle must still be applied, but the specific applications which Paul and James command are not binding.
13. There will often be many different acceptable ways of applying a given principle; e.g. the holy kiss might be a hand shake, an embrace, a bow, etc. etc.
14. Some applications will be better than others.
a. God-honoring application requires Christians to understand the principles involved and to find a culturally acceptable way of putting the principle into practice.
b. The best applications are those that capture the truth of the principle and make it visible, clear, and evident.
15. By “culturally acceptable” (14a), I do not mean that Christians should kowtow to every cultural whim. Rather, I refer to the same thing that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23:
For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. 20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; 21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. 22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 23 And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.
and the Westminster Confession (1:6),
…there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.
16. Some of the principles contained in the 1 Corinthians 11 passage are:
a. The headship of God over Christ;
b. The headship of Christ over the husband;
c. The headship of the husband over his wife;
d. Women giving visible expression of her submission to her husband’s headship. (From here on, I refer to this principle as the “1 Corinthians 11 principle”.)
17. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul is commanding the Corinthians to follow a specific application of a principle; i.e. that the Corinthian women veil themselves while “praying and prophesying” (cf. #1).
18. Contemporary women should find a suitable way of expressing their submission to their husband’s headship.
a. This isn’t easy to do in our churches since we have nothing similar to the praying and prophesying that took place in the NT church.
b. Some women might feel that the best thing to do is to cover their heads for the entire service.
c. Others might feel that the closest thing we have to praying and prophesying is women participating in the sacraments and making confession of faith. Such women cover their heads at these times.
d. Others suggest that the wearing of a skirt to church sends the same message in our culture as a Corinthian woman veiling herself did in her culture.
19. If a church already has a tradition which they see as an application of 1 Corinthians 11, then that tradition should be respected and followed by all who join that assembly.
a. Traditions should be respected and adhered to unless they conflict with a Scripture principle.
20. The difficulty of knowing exactly how best to apply the 1 Corinthians 11 principle means that churches and elders should not be dogmatic on what they require of women in this regard.
21. The difficulty of knowing exactly how best to apply the 1 Corinthians 11 principle does not mean that Christians should not make some attempt to apply what Paul teaches here.
22. It is an unacceptable usage of Scripture to dismiss this passage as an outdated custom or tradition with which 21st century Christians no longer need concern themselves.