Genesis 1:26–27; 2:18–25 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 1 Timothy 2:9–10 1 Peter 3:3–4
Honour, Identity and Worship
In my last sermon on 1 Corinthians, we considered Paul’s challenge to imitate him as he imitated Jesus and we concluded that the goal of the Christian life is not merely to behave better, but to become more like our Lord. When an ordinary church, made up of ordinary believers, learns to lay aside pride, surrender its rights, bear with one another in love, and gather around the one Bread as one Body, it begins to resemble Jesus. There is no greater revival than that.
But how do we put this into practice? Well, Paul’s letters repeatedly move from the great truths of the Gospel to the practical realities of everyday life and here in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16, he considers how men and women honour God and one another when they pray and prophesy in the gathered church.
Now we know that the Corinthian church was a diverse community. Romans, Greeks and Jews, freemen, slaves, and day labourers, all lived alongside one another. Some believers were wealthy, others poor; some had Jewish backgrounds, while others had worshipped the gods of the Greco-Roman world. In other words, their customs and expectations were not identical and therefore Paul was teaching these believers how to worship together as one body in Christ.
He begins generously: “I praise you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you” (11:2, ESV).
Now, Paul recognises what they have received, but he also remembers that a tradition is not always the same as understanding its purpose. So, the question is not whether they are following traditions, but how their conduct in worship reflects their identity in Christ and affects the whole congregation.
But before we proceed, I must tell you that this passage contains some of Paul’s most difficult expressions…difficult to translate and therefore difficult to interpret…but if we rush past or ignore those difficulties, we may make him say more, or less, than he intended. Now, two issues are especially important: what Paul means by the word “head”, and what he means by the phrase “down from the head”.
So, let’s begin with the word translated as “head” first. Paul writes in verse 3: “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”
Now, it is tempting to read this as a simple chain of authority: God over Christ, Christ over man, and man over woman. But before drawing that conclusion, we must ask what the Greek word kephalē, “head”, means in this context.
In English, we call someone the head of a department when that person is in charge; we may also speak of the head or source of a river. A metaphor’s meaning depends on its context. But we cannot assume that every meaning associated with the English word is automatically present in the Greek word.
Scholars have therefore debated whether Paul’s metaphor emphasises authority, source or origin, relationship, or some combination of these ideas. So, the debate cannot be settled simply by consulting a dictionary. We need to examine Paul’s argument as a whole.
In this passage, Paul is addressing a practical question about worship, not setting out an abstract theory of authority. Besides that, we must read all three relationships in verse 3 consistently. What I mean is that we cannot use “head” to mean one thing when speaking of God and Christ, but then assume it proves something quite different when speaking of husbands and wives.
This is where the Council of Nicaea, in AD 325, provides an important theological boundary as to the interpretation of the word “head” when used of the Son’s relationship with the Father. In response to the claim by some that the Son was a created being and therefore inferior to the Father, the Council confessed Jesus Christ as “begotten, not made” and “of one substance with the Father”.
In other words, the Son is not a lesser deity or a creature lower on a ladder of divine existence. He is truly God. Now, of course, Nicaea was not settling a question about marriage, and we must not claim that it was. But its confession reminds us that the Son’s willing obedience in accomplishing our salvation does not make him less divine than the Father. The persons of the Trinity are distinct, but they share the one divine nature. So, in this case, head does not mean that God is superior to Jesus as they are equal.
Now, does that settle every question about responsibility within marriage? No. Christians who affirm the equal dignity of men and women differ over how gender distinctions and marital responsibilities should be understood.
But my point is that verse 3 cannot, by itself, bear the weight of an entire doctrine of male authority. We cannot make the word kephalē prove a hierarchy of worth, nature or stature that the passage has not established.
Then, in verses 4–6, Paul speaks of a man or woman praying or prophesying in a way that dishonours their “head”. The traditional interpretation is that Paul is speaking about a cloth covering or a veil: a man should not cover his head during prayer, while a woman should.
That interpretation deserves serious consideration. Some men in Roman religious settings did cover their heads during ritual acts, and the Greek wording can refer to a material covering. So, we should not dismiss the traditional reading as linguistically impossible.
However, the expression in verse 4, kata kephalēs echōn, is literally translated as “down from the head” or “having [something] down from the head”. But as Paul does not explicitly name the object, translators and interpreters must infer what he means from the context.
Is he speaking of a cloth covering? Or is he speaking of hair arranged in a particular style? Or the appearance of the head more generally? The wording alone does not settle the question.
Personally, I have come to favour the view that Paul is speaking primarily about appropriately styled hair as a visible marker of gender distinction and marital status. This reading takes seriously his reference in verse 15 to a woman’s hair being given to her as a covering.
Yet we must be fair: many scholars understand Paul to distinguish between a woman’s natural hair and an additional cloth covering. The comparison between being uncovered and being shorn in verses 5–6 gives that interpretation genuine force.
So I do not want to pretend that the translation question has been definitively solved. My own hair-based interpretation is a considered reading of the passage, not a literal translation of every Greek expression.
But you may be wondering why appearance would matter so much?
Well, because in the ancient world, as in ours, appearance could communicate social information. For instance today, a wedding ring may indicate marital status; a uniform can identify someone’s occupation; clothing may signal belonging, occasion, or social position. But these conventions are not universal. The same garment or hairstyle can communicate different things in different societies.
When Louise and I served in north-western Namibia, we learnt that among the Himba, hairstyles and clothing could communicate a person’s stage of life and marital status. These were not merely matters of fashion; they made aspects of a person’s social identity visible.
Of course, Corinth did not necessarily follow the same customs, but the example illustrates the point: appearance can carry a meaning beyond the appearance itself.
In the Greco-Roman world, hair could be associated with gender, respectability, honour and shame. Writers such as Philo of Alexandria criticised men whose elaborate hairstyles blurred conventional distinctions between masculine and feminine appearance.
Of course, this does not prove precisely what Paul meant by his phrase, but it does show that hair and appearance could carry moral and social significance.
Paul’s concern, then, need not be that a particular hair length is intrinsically holy or sinful. It may be that the way someone presents themselves communicates something about their identity, brings shame upon another person, or affects the church’s public witness.
As with us today, the congregation did not worship in a cultural vacuum. Its conduct could be observed and interpreted or misinterpreted by visitors and neighbours.
And this helps us hear the broader principle: the Gospel does not require every culture to adopt the same hairstyle or clothing, but it does require Christians to consider what their appearance and conduct communicate about God, themselves and one another.
Two other New Testament passages help clarify this concern. In 1 Timothy 2:9–10, women are instructed to dress modestly, with propriety and decency, not making elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls or expensive clothing the focus, but adorning themselves with good works appropriate to those who profess to worship God.
Similarly, 1 Peter 3:3–4 says: “Do not let your adorning be external – the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewellery, or the clothing you wear – but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.”
Neither passage says that women must neglect their appearance, that beauty is sinful, or that jewellery and careful hairstyling are always forbidden. The contrast is between the outward display as a means of securing status on the one hand, and the deeper beauty of a life shaped by godliness on the other.
Now, while these passages do not prove that 1 Corinthians 11 is exclusively about hair rather than veils, they do show, however, that the apostles could address hairstyles, clothing and adornment as culturally meaningful expressions of identity, modesty and status.
Having said that, we should also avoid reading later religious customs automatically back into Paul’s words. For instance, Jewish and Christian practices of head covering developed over time and varied between communities. While later traditions may preserve older practices, we cannot simply assume that a later, fully developed custom is exactly what Paul had in mind here.
We must distinguish the text’s actual command, the customs of the first-century world, and then later practices developed through interpretation.
But moving on. Verse 10 is particularly difficult to understand: “That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels” (ESV).
The reason this verse is so hard to understand is because the Greek noun for “symbol” and the ordinary Greek word for “veil” do not appear in this verse. Paul says that a wife ought to have exousia (“authority”, “power” or “the right to act’) upon her head.
The ESV, like many translations, supplies the words “a symbol of” to make sense of the sentence. But that is an interpretative decision, not a word-for-word rendering.
The traditional interpretation is that a covering signifies the husband’s authority over his wife. That has a long history, but we should acknowledge that the phrase “a sign of authority over her” is not what the Greek explicitly says.
If exousia is understood in its ordinary sense, which I tend to favour, Paul may instead be speaking of the woman’s own authority or her own right to participate in worship in a manner that honours God and the community.
But this interpretation is not certain either. The precise connection between authority and the woman’s appearance remains disputed. But we can safely assume that something about her head indicates that she has some form of authority that others can recognise simply by looking at her.
Now, the reference to “angels” is also puzzling. Some understand Paul to mean heavenly beings present in worship, while others suggest human messengers or itinerant preachers, since the word “angeloi” does refer to human messengers elsewhere in the New Testament.
The latter meaning would fit the concern for the church’s reputation among other congregations, but it remains a proposal, not a certainty.
Whatever Paul means by “the angels”, one thing is clear: he assumes that women pray and prophesy in the assembly. He does not regard their participation as inherently improper. His concern is how that participation is expressed and understood.
We should therefore be cautious about translating “authority on her head” as though Paul explicitly wrote “a symbol of her subordination to her husband”. That may be a plausible interpretation, but it should not be mistaken for the only possible meaning of the Greek.
Paul next appeals to the creation narratives.
In verses 7–9 he writes that man is “the image and glory of God” while woman is “the glory of man”, and he refers to the fact that woman came from man and was created for man.
These words can sound as though Paul is assigning women a secondary place in creation, and we should not evade that difficulty. But neither should we stop reading before we understand the rest of his argument in its totality.
Genesis 1:26–27 declares that God created humankind in his image: “male and female he created them”.
So, both woman and man bear God’s image.
Genesis 2 expands on Genesis 1 and tells us that initially the man was alone, and that God declared that this was not good. So the woman was given as the partner who corresponds to him, the one who answers his need for companionship and partnership.
Now, the Hebrew word often translated “helper” here does not imply an inferior assistant. In fact, the word “ezer” is frequently used of God as the helper of his people. So, the woman is not a lesser human being; she is the corresponding partner without whom the man’s life would be incomplete.
However, while Paul does refer to the sequence of creation (woman came from man), he does not stop there.
Verses 11–12 begin with a crucial word: “Nevertheless”.
Paul writes: “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.”
That “nevertheless” prevents us from turning the creation story into a claim that men possess inherent superiority over women.
The first woman came from man, but every subsequent man comes into the world through a woman. So, neither sex can claim self-sufficiency. Both owe their existence to God, and both depend upon one another.
So, we need to read verses 7–9 alongside verses 11–12. To preach the first without the second is to preach only half of Paul’s argument.
While Paul sees distinction between men and women as meaningful, appealing to the creation narrative, he also insists upon mutual dependence and the sovereignty of God. Difference does not mean independence; distinction does not mean superiority in human worth.
This is important because we can take a genuine theological principle and bind it too tightly to a particular cultural expression of that principle.
Paul’s appeal to creation should not be dismissed as a passing cultural opinion. But neither does it follow that every outward convention by which the Corinthians expressed gender distinction and marital status is a permanent command for every Christian community.
Now, in verses 13–15, Paul asks the Corinthians to judge for themselves whether it is proper for a woman to pray to God uncovered. He then appeals to “nature”: “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory?” (vv. 14–15, ESV).
At first glance, this might seem to settle the matter: perhaps God commands men to have short hair and women to have long hair. But the Greek word “komao” does not necessarily mean “long hair”…it can imply flowing, curled, or painstakingly groomed and styled hair rather than simple length…and, while the word translated “nature” can refer to the created order, it can also describe what is regarded as natural, customary, or fitting within a particular social world.
And these meanings may overlap. A society may regard its conventions as reflecting the order of creation.
Either way, Paul clearly believes that the distinctions his readers recognise matter. But that does not mean we should assume that he is making a timeless rule about a particular length or style of hair. His appeal works within a society where hair and appearance communicated gender and respectability in recognisable ways.
Verse 15 is also central to the interpretation of the covering. Paul says that a woman’s hair is given to her “instead of a covering” or “as a covering”. If Paul means that her hair itself is her covering, his argument forms a coherent discussion of hair: inappropriate appearance, the shame of being shorn, the glory of a woman’s hair, and finally the covering nature of that hair.
If he means an additional veil covering her hair, interpreters must explain how that veil relates to the natural covering of hair. The phrase does not remove every difficulty.
Personally, I believe the hair-based reading offers a coherent explanation, particularly when verse 10 is understood as speaking of the woman’s own authority rather than simply a sign or symbol of subordination. But I recognise that other Christians, including many careful interpreters, reach a different conclusion.
The 4th Century Church Father, John Chrysostom, understood Paul’s instructions to refer to women’s veiling and he treated the covering as an expression of the order between husband and wife. That interpretation became influential, and head covering was reinforced in many Christian communities.
Now, while we should not dismiss this as foolish or dishonest because these believers were seeking to understand and obey Scripture, as they lived out their witness in societies different from ours, nevertheless, we must understand that interpretation is never entirely untouched by the assumptions of the interpreter’s own time. In societies where husbands were assumed to possess general authority over wives, it was and still is natural for readers to hear verse 10 as requiring women to display that authority through a covering.
And once a reading or interpretation becomes familiar, we can forget that it is a reading at all. We may assume that the translation simply says what our tradition has always taught.
But the Greek does not explicitly include the words “symbol of”, nor does it say in so many words, “a sign that she is under her husband’s authority”.
And this reality should make us humble, not cynical. It does not prove that every traditional interpretation is wrong, any more than the antiquity of an interpretation proves that it is right.
Our task today, as responsible interpreters of Scripture, is to return to Paul’s complete argument: to read verse 3 in the light of the Christian confession of Christ’s full divinity; to read verses 7–9 alongside verses 11–12; to take the wording of verse 10 seriously; and to consider the cultural meaning of hair and clothing without confusing every Corinthian convention with a universal command.
So, what does this mean for us? What was Paul asking of the Corinthians, and what is he asking of us today?
Well, I think we may safely conclude that he is addressing the conduct of men and women as they pray and prophesy in the gathered church. Their appearance matters because it communicates something about their identity, their relationships, and their regard for the worshipping community.
Paul appeals to creation because he believes the distinction between men and women belongs to God’s created order. He appeals to honour and shame because outward appearance carried public meaning in Corinth. And then he appeals to nature because the conventions familiar to his readers reinforced the distinction he was describing.
Yet he also insists that men and women are mutually dependent, and that everything comes from God.
So, three enduring principles emerge.
First, our worship should honour God.
We do not gather to draw attention to ourselves, advertise our social standing, or compete for recognition. Our conduct should direct attention towards God rather than our own vanity.
Second, we should honour one another.
Paul’s concern about shame is not permission to humiliate people whose appearance differs from ours. It reminds us that we belong to one another. We should consider how our behaviour affects others and whether it builds up or damages the fellowship of the church.
Third, we must distinguish the truth of God from the cultural forms through which it is expressed.
We should not assume that every convention in our own society is a divine command; nor should we dismiss every inherited practice simply because it is old. We must ask what Scripture teaches, what a practice communicated in its original setting, and how the enduring principle can be expressed faithfully in our own setting.
And this calls for discernment and humility. The difficulties in this passage are real, and Christians who take Scripture seriously have reached different conclusions about them. We should not pretend that a difficult text is easy simply because we have inherited a familiar interpretation.
But neither should we use the difficulty as an excuse to avoid its demands.
Whatever we conclude about the precise nature of the covering, Paul wants the Corinthians to worship in a way that reflects their identity as God’s people. Our appearance, words, relationships and exercise of spiritual gifts should contribute to that end.
So let us return to Paul’s balancing words:
“Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God” (11:11–12, ESV).
“All things are from God.”
These words direct us away from the temptation to establish our own superiority and towards the God upon whom we all depend.
Men and women are not rivals competing for honour before God. Nor are they isolated individuals who owe nothing to one another. They are God’s creatures, made to live in relationship with him and with one another.
Paul’s appeal to creation reminds us that our identity is not simply something we invent for ourselves, his insistence on mutual dependence (woman from man, man from woman) reminds us that we cannot understand that identity apart from the relationships God has given us, and his concern for honour reminds us that the way we live together matters.
So, we must resist two temptations:
1. turning the passage into a rigid system of outward rules without understanding the purpose those rules served in Corinth; and
2. dismissing Paul’s concern with appearance, gender distinction, and communal honour as though it had nothing to teach us today.
Neither response does justice to Scripture.
Instead, we should seek to understand Paul’s words in their historical setting, read them within the whole counsel of God, and apply their enduring principles with wisdom and grace.
The question is not simply whether we have retained a tradition, but whether we understand what it is meant to teach us.
The question is not whether one sex should be honoured at the expense of the other, but whether men and women together honour the God who created them.
And the question is not whether our worship conforms to the expectations of our age, but whether our lives and worship bear faithful witness to Jesus Christ.
For the final word belongs not to men or women, not to cultural convention, and certainly not to any system of human status.
It belongs to God.
Everything comes from him. Everything depends upon him. And everything we do in worship should be directed towards his glory.
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2026
