1 Corinthians 11:2-16 - Covering Our Heads During Prayer?

jesuschristmysavior said:

(Re-posting this on this board, after I posted it elsewhere and realized it was in the way wrong area)

I am wondering about a certain scripture, and trying to understand exactly what it means.

1 Corinthians 11:2-16

Propriety in Worship

2I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you.
3Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. 4Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. 5And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. 6If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. 7A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head.

11In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. 13Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, 15but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. 16If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God.

So my questions from this scripture are:

Does this mean that women should wear a veil, or some sort of covering, when praying? Or does long hair on a woman act as a covering? I don't quite understand which one it means.

Secondly, it says long hair on a man is a disgrace to him. But didn't Jesus have long hair? Of course, it didn't state how long is too long, but modern depictions of Jesus depict him with shoulder length hair.

Can someone explain these a bit more? Thanks!

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I read it as the long hair is given to women as a veil.

Also don't pay attention to paintings of Jesus. All or almost all paintings of Jesus portrait Him as handsome, but Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 53:2 that Jesus has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. We know He had a beard from Isaiah 50:6, but as far as I know the bible doesn't say anything about the length of His hair.

It means that woman should pray with some type of covering upon their heads e.g. a hat, scarf, piece of cloth etc.

Read verse 5, you'll see that the person being talked about has hair but she is required to cover her head with something additional.

Verse 6 also says exactly the same thing.

Woman also have hair as a covering which is through nature and therefore it should not be removed or cut short either - it should not be misunderstood that this is the same covering as talked about in verses 5 & 6. Male and females should be clearly defined by their hair, i.e. men have short hair and women have long hair.

Regarding Jesus, yes he is depicted as having long hair but this is a stereotypical view of Jesus which is wrong.

the way i see these verses; Paul was drawing from an already existing culture of the place/time. We must also remember that Paul's letters were a two way conversation of which we are now reading one party's side of the conversation, so we can never really know for sure what some of these verses are mean't to be teaching. The best thing is to draw from Christians of that time or who were living immediately after Paul's time; that is if you have nothing against church tradition. My church interprets verses like these in light of what other christians have done through out the ages. Reason being that those who lived during Paul's time (or almost ) will understand the message as it was intended as they understand the culture and the circumstances of the time when the message was written.

Hope i am making sense.

fm107 said:

It means that woman should pray with some type of covering upon their heads e.g. a hat, scarf, piece of cloth etc.

Read verse 5, you'll see that the person being talked about has hair but she is required to cover her head with something additional.

Verse 6 also says exactly the same thing.

Woman also have hair as a covering which is through nature and therefore it should not be removed or cut short either - it should not be misunderstood that this is the same covering as talked about in verses 5 & 6. Male and females should be clearly defined by their hair, i.e. men have short hair and women have long hair.

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It starts off to say that women should cover their head and then later is describes what this covering is, which is long hair. It's a difference in having hair and having long hair.

The covering cannot be hair. If it was hair that means that men are covering their heads and we know in verse 7 it says men ought not to do this.

I would recommend you look at Anthony Thiselton's commentary. He a gives a very thorough report of the different ways that these verses have been interpreted. The Greek is a bit confusing and I think it remains unclear as to whether hair or some type of other headcovering is being spoken of.

In regards to the issue of male hair, it should be kept in mind that what consituted "long" was somewhat longer at the time than what we think of as "long" today.