There isn't enough space on this blog, or time for me to write it, to do a full justification to this passage, so I'm going to suggest a couple of ideas for you to think about.
- What is the relationship, if any, between eating the meat sacrificed to idols, and the admonition for women to have their heads covered? How do we apply the former to our lives, and do we apply the latter in the same way? Why or why not?
- What does it mean for God to be the head of Christ? Is this about authority?
- What is the context in which the instructions given in v.11:2-16? In particular, what teachings follow these verses and how would you group them all together?
4 comments:
I'm looking forward to the dialog on Sunday. I've seen these verses used as proof that women should (blindly) obey men. I figure this is more of a cultural context of the time and don't agree with the meaning. However, I don't want to brush it off and not make sure I'm looking deeply enough at the passage.
I appreciate your willingness, Jonae, to submit your opinion to the teaching in the Bible. Our goal will be to get to Paul's intended meaning and then look at the significance of that meaning for our lives. To do so we'll need to look at the cultural context, the meaning of certain words, and other Scriptures to fully understand God's teaching for us. I'm looking forward to it too.
I believe C.S. Lewis said something about not neglecting the difficult passages in Scripture. If we only stick with the ones we like we might never learn anything new.
Now, I'm not about to tell you what this one means . . .
Re the "food offered to idols" I think Clark did a pretty good job of that this past Sunday on the passage about the church in Thyatira. (Re not compromising with the world, even when there is strong pressure to do so.) But I'm not sure how it relates to the hats. Perhaps you can enlighten us.
Whoa, this might actually turn into a conversation.
Robb, you mentioned what C.S. Lewis said about difficult passages and it reminded me of Thomas Jefferson, who created his own version of the gospels by removing all the supernatural bits and miracles, so that Jesus became an ethical teacher only. In his version Jesus was more like -- (surprise, surprise) -- Jefferson.
So not only is the danger that we don't learn anything new, but we begin to make God in our image.
I think the reference to what Clark taught about meat to idols is a good way to think about Paul's teachings about head coverings for women. The specifics of Paul's teaching about how to deal with meat sacrificed to idols are not applicable today. But there are general principles we can take from them -- and that's what Clark did.
We could also look at Paul's teachings about "idol meat" in a meta way. How did he advise the Corinthians? By looking at his methodology, we have a another applicable lesson -- here is how to handle situations that come up in life, as a Christian. His methodology was a combination of deduction from special and general revelation, common sense, and taking known principles and applying them to new situations.
In the same way, then, we can ask, "Is the situation Paul was addressing when he spoke of head coverings for the women is applicable today?" If it is, then we know what to do. If it isn't, then we know there are general principles, commands, or ideas we can take from what Paul wrote. For the moment, I'll leave open the question of whether head coverings for women is applicable today, although I think we can safely say that question has been definitively answered (rightly or wrongly) in the American church.
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