mle said:
I have many questions regarding this teaching. I Corinthians 11:13-16 seem to say that it is for us to decide ourselves. Did Jesus have long hair(verse14)? If I have short hair am I not covered and have no glory at all?
Could this teaching have to do with the custom of the day simmilar to the scripture referrrance of I Corinthians 14:34-35?
Is the womans head for the hat or the hat for the head?
I am so glad to see that you have questions!!! Would you like to be a new wineskin?
Nehemiah 8:14-17 was written for such a time as the time we're in now. The children of Israel had just been through 70 yrs of chastening. They were willing to be new wineskins or whatever else God wanted them to be. When the law was read, it told of a long forgotten custom, as you might say. It was a command of the Lord actually - to dwell in booths in the seventh month.
If you have ever been taught that we can now arbitrarily select certain New Testament teachings to classify as culture or time-specific, you've been taught wrong according to I Cor 10:11 - "Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and
they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."
I Cor 11:16 does NOT say "But if any man seem to be contentious, we apostles and all the churches of God will just discontinue this custom." Neither does it say "...pretend we don't have this custom." Nor does it imply that only Corinth was being given this teaching. That would go against Paul's insistence that he was giving them the same instructions taught to other churches -
1:2, 4:17, 7:17, 11:16, 14:33, & 16:1. It says that the churches of God and the apostles had no such custom of doing something
wrong. That wrong thing could be forsaking women's head coverings as the Corinthians were probably doing or simply being contentious. That's the only way to make sense of this!!!
You ask what "glory" might means. I think it refers to something akin to beauty or comeliness.
You ask about long hair. Paul uses long hair in this teaching as a
parallel principle from nature. Very much like comparing the body of Christ to the human body in 12:12-27. Or comparing the passing of the gifts to a child becoming a man in 13:11. Or like musical instruments giving distinct sounds in 14:7. Etc., etc., etc. Paul does this all the time. He could just as well have said "Doth not even nature itself teach you it is a shame for a woman to prance around topless?" He is saying that God patterns the natural after the spiritual, and by observing the natural, we learn many spiritual things. So short hair is not the problem. Actually, it is the solution. It is the solution to hypocritical women that would want to pray and prophesy with head uncovered. Paul says they should bear their shame in the natural since they don't seem to mind it in the spiritual (
11:5,6).
The historical record reveals that the early churches all understood Paul to be talking about a cloth veil head covering, not long hair. The only thing that wasn't clear to some of the early Christians was whether or not Paul's instructions apply to all females or only to married women. For more historical information, visit
ScrollPublishing.com.