DENOMINATIONAL DOCTRINES: Should Women Wear a Veil?
The New Testament cannot be read as a law code, for several reasons, the most obvious one being it is not written that way. Read the Book of Leviticus and you will see what a law code looks like. Everything is spelled out in minute detail and you are not left to wonder, “How do I interpret this?” or “Is this right or wrong?”
The New Testament is a book of principles. We are not under a law system. During their infant stage, the people of God had to be treated like children with everything spelled out. But as Christians, we are to be like adults who live by principles. Therefore, when we come to a difficult passages of the New Testament, particularly those of the Apostle Paul, we have to keep in mind we are looking for principles, not laws.
Paul’s letters were written to Christians in the first century who were facing specific situations. For example, in First Corinthians 7:1 we learn that they had written a letter, asking Paul questions, that he wrote First Corinthians to answer. The problem? We don’t have those questions. So we are listening to one end of a telephone conversation in the letter of First Corinthians. We don’t know what all the issues were.
Now, people have studied the background of ancient Corinth and have come to some conclusions, but does a person have to study the background of Corinth to follow the New Testament? No, of course not. So if you look at Paul’s instructions in this chapter as a legal code or a list of laws, it’s going to be very confusing. “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” (1 Corinthians 11:14-15). If this is a book of laws, we have big trouble here. How long is long? In American culture, long hair in the 1960s was the way The Beatles wore theirs. That would not be considered long hair at all today.
When it comes to laws, you have to know exactly what to do. Paul didn’t specify how long “long” is. Men have tried to interpret it for him and make laws where there are none. Mature Christians will stick with the principles. What’s the principle? A man is supposed to look like a man and a woman is supposed to look like a woman (And this in no way deals with the thorny questions of gender identification or sexual orientation. That’s the furtherest thing from Paul’s mind here).
This was not written as a law code—it was written in answer to questions and also to correct errors in doctrine and behavior in that church. So assuming we read the Bible devotionally, with our heart set on seeking and pleasing Jesus, and we look for principles rather than trying to figure out everything Paul says, what will we come up with?
By the way, that is the only responsible way to read this because of the statement in verse 10 about angels: “For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” No one knows for sure what that statement means. Now, if this is a law code, we have to be certain about every little thing. But it’s not a law code. It’s a book of principles. So frankly, I don’t care exactly what that verse means because there is no way to know. You could study the background culture of ancient Corinth from now until the day you die and you will never be absolutely certain what Paul meant by that statement. But I can assure you his first century readers knew what he meant because it had something to do with what was going on in their church.
So here’s what we learn when we look at 1 Corinthians 11 as principles rather than laws. 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 teaches that a covering on the head of a wife signified her submission to God and her husband in that culture. Even though the word is translated “woman,” the Greek word for “wife” and “woman” is the same word, so the context has to determine what kind of “woman” he is talking about. Women are not in submission to men. But, a wife is, properly understood, in submission to her husband (Eph. 5:23). So this is not talking about women in general, it is talking about wives in particular.
The key verse of this passage is 1 Corinthians 11:3, “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” Translated that way, the verse is not true. Yet most the translations follow the King James Version here to avoid controversy. And all they do is create more controversy.
It’s obvious he’s not talking about women, he’s talking about wives. Because the head of Christ is God, the head of the husband is Christ, and the head of the wife is the husband. That’s all taught very plainly in Ephesians chapter 5. It’s also talking about spiritual submission, not the kind of submission that the world employs or understands. A Christian husband and wife, if they are both focused on Christ, will have no trouble understanding what mutual submission in marriage is all about (Eph. 5:21). A woman is in NO sense in submission to men in general.
So in the Corinthian culture and in most places in first century Middle Eastern culture in general, (and today too, I suppose) women wore head coverings to show that they were in submission to their husbands. Don’t go against the culture to turn people away from Christianity. In other words, Christians do not need to become known as the group that rejects societal family norms. Just as Paul told believers to kiss each other with a holy kiss because of the culture in several verses (a cultural thing), he told the wives here to have a symbol of authority on their head. Which could have been a veil, or, if you read it closely, could also have been talking about long hair. Her hair was definitely not to be shorter than her husbands.
Either way, none of it matters as far as the particulars. What matters is that we show God and his ways to the world and don’t do things to cause people to think negatively about him. In our culture today, we would not want people to assemble together without any clothes on, as one Western church did, and become known as the group that rejects decency laws in its culture. That may be an extreme example, but still the point is we are to abide by the norms of culture.
But culture changes. Today we shake hands and hug instead of giving kisses. And today a woman could show her submission to her husband by being kind to him and it would be just as meaningful in American culture as coverings were in Corinthian culture. No veils or long hair is necessary today. Neither of those things mean in this culture what they meant in that culture.
So what is the principle? Husbands and wives should show themselves to be loving Christian couples and not bring undue negative publicity or persecution upon the cause of Christ. In other words, men and women are to act like they have good sense when Christians meet together and everywhere else.
Dewayne Dunaway
