This is the sermon I preached last November setting out a stall on our understanding of Paul's theology of women and men and ministry. It may be of interest still, as the PCC has just voted out Resolution B, which effectively would have barred a woman from applying fro a job as incumbent here. I must apologise for the dodgy formatting, as this talk initially went our accompanied by PowerPoint slides, which I haven't worked out yet how to paste in, so you just have the texts from some of the slides.
As we begin our series on worship from 1Corinthians 11-14 this week we are going to look at a passage, which has had more interpretations of it published than I’ve had hot dinners. Indeed I’d expect there to be several different threads of interpretation running around your minds even now as we just get started. It might seem that the subject matter of the first half of 1Corinthians 11 is not to do with worship, but it does have serious implications for the worship life of any church, and especially our own.
For this reason I want to begin by reminding you of our Lord’s command, from the gospel reading.
Jesus said
“My command is this:
Love each other as I have loved you.”
In 1979 as Skylab fell back down to earth, a pub landlord in Devon found a small piece of scorched metalwork on waste ground behind a cheese factory. Because of media speculation he was already convinced that Skylab was going to fall on Devon, so of course he rushed off to the local paper with the story “Did a little bit of Skylab fall on Devon?” and he proudly displayed the artefact over the bar in his pub.
Well that sounds like a good story but it is in fact a wind up; the metalwork was made by one Paul Shackleton and with the help of colleagues they placed it in the path the landlord walked every day. He believed it because he was already predisposed to do so. His own convictions overrode any other information available to him. So far as we know he still thinks it is a piece of Skylab to this day.
Now that’s a funny story but it has a serious point. We are susceptible to influences – in society, church and even our families, which shape the way we look at things, the way we view reality and the way we live our lives. All of these things, being different for each of us, can lead us to hold different understandings about matters peripheral to the Christian faith.
We are going to begin with a little quiz
Which of these three words appears in the Bible?
TRINITY BISHOP HEADSHIP (THE ANSWER IS BISHOP)
If you doubt me then turn in your pew Bible to Titus chapter 1 verse 7, and read the footnote.
Now here is another word.
PROJECTION
Projection is something that happens when we meet something or somebody new. We project our understandings of life, relationships, ministry, the church, and so on, onto their lives, especially if they appear to be fairly similar to us. Mostly, this results in harmony, where the projection fits snugly into the reality.
However, since we first knew we were moving to Stebbing it was clear to us that there would be some projection going on that would in fact result in some difficulty, because of differing understandings of how men and women relate to each other in the church. Indeed I’m now fairly sure these inappropriate projections have been going on for some years, and have caused difficulty for some of you too.
Effectively it comes down to assumptions we make about other people – that because they go to the same church as us, sing the same songs and hymns as we do, reads the same Bible as we do and love the same Jesus as we do, they must believe everything we do as well about men and women, marriage and ministry.
But as we have been learning on our listening course, when we assume, we make an ass out of you and me.
And here are some more assumptions, which I’m sure no one here would make …
A man who wears a hat to prophesy in church appears to be a woman
A woman who does not wear a hat to prophesy in church appears to be a prostitute
But in first century Greece, the context in which the original readers of this letter lived, these assumptions would have been correct, according to the cultural norms of the day.
Here’s another one.
Semen is made in the brain
Crazy, you’d say, but that’s what significant numbers of Greek philosophers thought in the first Century.
And there are many other things that the Greeks took for granted which we do not hold true today, yet the fact that the New Testament Writers lived and wrote in a context such as they did means that when we read the New Testament we need to do so carefully. When I was at Bible College my lecturers often used to say a text without a context is a pretext for a subtext.
That means be careful when you read the Bible that you do not use passages or verses out of context to justify your theology, and be sure that you do not impose your world view onto the writers, who undoubtedly saw the world very differently; if we do this it is usually a sign that out interpretation of the Bible is coloured by what we already assume to be right.
When we make assumptions, they have consequences for our interpretation of what we read and hear.
Because the Greek worldview said that the brain was the source of man’s reproductive system, the head of the body became associated with the source of life. There are lots of other reasons why they thought this but we don’t have time to talk about them today because we would then be here all day.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 is using the image of the head as a metaphor to address the issue of people’s behaviour in church. Elsewhere he uses it to address the specific issue of marriage, but it is the same image in both cases. This idea has long had two possible interpretations, which hinge on the meaning of a single word. But before we come to that word we need to go back a bit.
Essentially as far as I can see, to cut a long story short, there are two ways of thinking about how men and women are meant to relate to each other.
Either, (A) when you read the account of creation of humanity in Genesis you conclude that male domination of women is part of the created order, or (B) following verses such as Genesis 3.16, you conclude that it is part of the curse of the fall.
Just as an aside we need to make sure we are clear that this verse doesn’t mean that if you had a particularly painful childbirth you are particularly sinful.
If you follow A, then it also follows that you consider male domination of women to be part of the natural order. If you follow B then it also follows that you consider male domination of women and society as a whole to be part of the fallen world, with no place in the Kingdom of God or the church.
Christians who have an understanding like A that I have just mentioned, will appreciate the difficulties that can arise when they project that understanding onto the life or ministry of a person or couple whose faith and ministry is built on the foundation of Galatians 3:28, that in Christ there is no longer male and female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus, and Joel 2:28, that God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh, on men and women, young and old.
Projection can’t focus if the understanding is not the same.
I did try quite hard to remain objective and impersonal here but I’m sure you don’t need to many nudges to work out that I’m reflecting on how our ministry – Ruth’s and my own, has been understood and accepted – or not – over the first year we have been here.
But it isn’t just about us; it’s about everyone here, every man and every woman.
I can’t force you to change your understanding of the Bible, but I would like this opportunity to show you how an understanding of how men and women relate as complementary equals can be drawn from the Bible. Not from a liberal approach, not by discounting difficult passages but by taking the Bible for what it is, God’s word for us today, and seeking to interpret these difficult passages in the light of the whole message of the Bible, the gospel, the power of God to save us through the cross, and enable us by the Holy Spirit to live as God’s people, in the Kingdom of Heaven that has come and is yet to come.
So let’s get back to that one word I mentioned a while ago
Kephale
This is where the idea of headship comes from; the Greek word kephale, meaning head.
Your understanding of how men and women are meant to relate to each other, in A or B from just now, will also hinge on what you think this word means.
Traditional conservative doctrine says that this word means “head” as in boss or authority, and that its use here and elsewhere in the New Testament denotes a relationship of authority, of a man over a woman, a husband over a wife.
However, evangelical scholars such as Tony Thistleton and Rosy Ashley have now realised that there is no established theological connection between “head” and “authority over”.
When “Head” had an authoritative sense in Hebrew – such as the head of a tribe – the translators of the Old Testament into Greek avoided using kephale, and instead used words that carry an unambiguous sense of leadership or rule.
The metaphor of “head” is not used anywhere in Greek outside the letters of Paul to describe the relationship between men and women, so the New Testament data is all we have to go on.
And if “head” doesn’t imply authority or “boss”, what can it mean? Well I’ve already mentioned another word that the Greeks associated with head – source.
Greeks thought that the heart was the part of the body associated with decision-making and reason and understood the head for various reasons to be the source of life.
Some traditional conservative interpreters might still be happy with this meaning, imposing an hierarchical structure onto the sequence of creation – that woman came after man and from man (man as source of woman), could still imply male superiority.
However there is no evidence from the Old Testament that the first thing in a list or sequence is necessarily to be understood as the dominant or most important one. After all, in Creation, man and woman are last; does that mean we are less important to God than the animals and trees he created before us?
I’m not supposed to be preaching on Genesis so I will try to stop there, but there are many more ways in which the account of creation can be read – faithfully, as the word of God, without implying authority for men over women.
Perhaps we need to return to our text to be reminded of this for Paul certainly seems to be talking about a source rather than an authority figure in 1 Corinthians 11 verses 11 to 12.
Yes, woman came from man – Eve was made from Adam’s rib – but ever since, man comes from woman in that we are all born from within our mothers’ bodies. And he gets back to the point with the end of verse 12, everything comes from God. To me this means the same as verse 3 – the head of Christ is God.
As I said before I cannot force you to change how you understand the right way for men and women in marriage and ministry to relate to each other; however as we reach the end of this marathon I want to show you a chart that will summarise the two approaches and will also make explicit the one I follow, if you haven’t already guessed it. (aargh chart won't paste, ed.)
When Paul uses the metaphor of the head in relation to how God relates to us and we relate to each other, his concern is not with hierarchy, but - especially in his words to the Corinthians who you may recall were not the most united, morally upstanding or harmonious church – with appropriate relationships.
Let us recall that in the Corinthian church both men and women were praying and prophesying in public worship. Let us be clear – this is one of the few things that all the commentators I read seemed to agree on – for the first century church prophecy was a way in which teaching was given to the people. For the reasons why this does not contradict the passages in Paul’s letters that appear to forbid women to speak or teach, see me afterwards.
Let us also remember, even if it confuses us, that, in common with the rhetorical approach prevalent in his day, sometimes in corresponding with churches that are dysfunctional – such as the one at Corinth, Paul rehearses their arguments before giving his response. With that in mind we might consider verses 1 to 10 to be the Corinthian position, which Paul then comments on in verses 11 to 16.
Anyway, the passage really is about worship, and about how a church that held in tension many complex cultural influences – Greek, Jewish, Christian and Pagan – should conduct itself in a way that glorifies God.
Let’s go back to those crazy assumptions we started with.
Effectively, rather than saying Women need to be subject to men and wear hats to show it, Paul is saying, when any of you stand up to pray or prophesy, make sure you are not wearing anything that may confuse or distract the rest of the church. In the clash of cultures between Greek and Jewish Christians that runs through lots of the New Testament, what people wore could be very confusing, added to which, women’s hair uncovered, for a first century Greek audience, was rather like the top shelf men’s magazines of today – an object of lust.
It is very significant I feel that the words “a sign of” in verse 10 are inserted by the translator, and do not appear in the Greek. A head covering is not therefore a sign of submission. Rosy Ashley concludes that in fact this verse is Paul giving women freedom to exercise a ministry that is not under the authority of anyone else, but “on her own head”
We must not pretend that this passage is easy to understand and I have only scratched the surface as a way of getting into this new series. I do not expect you ladies all to turn up next week in hats, not do I expect there to be no further baseball hats at the back, especially since the Greek text here referring to head covering is never clear whether it means a hat or long hair!
As I conclude let us remember these two important things
We live now in an environment of grace, not an environment of law; Paul’s exhortations to the Corinthian church do have relevance to us, but perhaps not the immediate applicability they may have been given in the past. God gives to his people gifts according to his will. Galatians 3:28 and Joel 2:28 show us that God does not have a glass ceiling for women – or young people for that matter, when it comes to the Kingdom of Heaven.
This is a series about worship, so we have started with a passage about worship; Paul is addressing a situation where prophecy and tongues were very prominent in church – Oh how I covet his problems sometimes!
I have outlined briefly two different approaches to this matter and I have I hope made it clear which one I think is right. However, I also wish to make absolutely crystal clear that if you do not hold the same understanding of human relationships as I do, there is still a place for you in this fellowship, your local church.
To reinforce that I end with a return to our first slide.
Jesus said
“My command is this:
Love each other as I have loved you.”
