Transcript

First Corinthians chapter 11. Let’s turn there together as we continue studying through this wond

erful New Testament book, and we come to a passage of Scripture that flies straight in the face of this contemporary culture. And, a strong passage, a clear passage, and once very applicable to where we are today. But I suppose this area, maybe like no other area, has the church succumb to the world’s perspective. Like this particular area I’m going to preach about tonight. It’s nothing new, but I do not really say that I can understand why the enemy has so attacked this area perhaps more than others, but he certainly has. And that it has the thinking. The world has substantially infiltrated the church in this particular area, and it’s time for us to reclaim it.

It’s time for us to stand on what the word says and not apologize. Our faith is not subject to seasons of man. I’ll say it again our faith is not subject to seasons of man. In different seasons man goes one way and he goes the other. But we stay concretely and fixed on what the word says. The culture may change, the culture may shift culture maybe up, culture maybe down. And often the culture coincides with biblical truth. Paul is even going to point that out. But we don’t stand with the culture. We stand on the word, even though sometimes the culture agrees with us, but often, perhaps more often than not, the culture is against us.

I’ve entitled the message women of principle, Women of Principle. The Apostle Paul has been dealing with the church at Corinth, a church that is filled with in maturity, a church filled with baby believers, a church filled with, myriads of problems. And he’s dealing with those problems one at a time. And for the most part, when you get through chapter ten and come to chapter 12, the apostle Paul has been dealing with more private and personal type problems. Now in chapter 11, he begins to shift gears and look at problems in public worship. Matter of fact, the thing we’re looking at today was a problem concerning public worship, but it covers more than public worship. And then he’ll continue on that theme for quite some time, trying to get them back on track because they were excessive and out of balance and, mixed up on a lot of things.

But I want to talk about Women of Principle, and that is women who stand on biblical principle are women who know that God has given them a subordinate role to men. That is God’s teaching and that is God’s design. That is not the spirit of this age. That is not the, the understanding and the conviction of the society that we live in. But that is biblical truth. A woman of biblical principle understands it’s God’s role for her to be subordinate to a man. Now let’s look at this and I’ll just cover the text as we go along.

Notice the first sub principle here. I call the principle of order. The principle of order. And Paul is going to glean four principles to teach this subordinate role that God has given from creation to women. Now, there are those feminists in the world today who, as they look at the biblical text, they’ll say, well, you know, Peter and Paul and those other men in the Bible who wrote those things about a man being the leader and man being the head and the woman being subject to the man and all things. They were just bringing Peter and Paul, that is their personal prejudice and feelings into the text. If that’s really not what God meant at all. So if you’re going to follow that form of logic and that form of reasoning, then every passage of Scripture and every page of Scripture is subject to whether or not we think the writer put his own personal interpretation into it, and either is the Word of God or it is not the Word of God.

Sometimes we, rejoice in what it says, and sometimes we have to say, oh, me, but still yield to it. And this is one of those times when it takes real spiritual wisdom to see the glory of what the Apostle Paul is saying. Now he has four principles showing this truth about the subordinate role of a woman to a man.

First of all, beginning in verse one, the principle of order, and it goes through verse ten. Paul begins by saying, “be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ”. Actually, verse one of chapter 11 belongs with chapter ten, because at the end of chapter ten, he’s talking about how he is the example that they ought to follow. For whatever reason, the early Bible translators put that verse with chapter 11, but it really does not belong there.

So we’re going on to verse two. He says, “now I praise you”. This is a new paragraph “because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you”. Now the Apostle Paul was fond of doing just what he’s doing in verse two, when he found something to commend, he commended them for it. When he found something to praise, he praised them for it. So he’s going to start off before he deals with this particular problem of the way the women are conducting themselves in worship. He starts off by saying, first of all, I want to tell you that generally speaking, you have kept the essential cardinal doctrines that I’ve taught you. Generally speaking, you’re orthodox. Yeah. You’ve had a lot of problems, a lot of immaturity, even grow some moralities in your in your church and throughout the congregation. But as far as theological doctrines, you’ve held firmly to those that I gave to you.

Now remind yourself again that the Paul that Paul fulfills the office of Apostle and as he orally and verbally taught it, was authoritative revelation. Later, once again, God used these men to pen the New Testament. Now we have the completed revelation of God in Sacred Scripture. But at this point in time, as Paul says there in verse two, “you remember me and everything that made sure you remember my teaching”. Last part of verse two, “you hold firmly to the traditions just as I delivered them to you”. He means the biblical truths that have become the traditional stance of the early church. So he says, man, there’s some good things you do hold the good essential doctrine, I believe, that dealt with things like the deity of Christ, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, the humanity of Christ, and some of those key doctrines.

Now he goes on to verse three. He says, “but I want you to understand” he’s diving right into his subject here, “that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ”. The great theologian of about 150 years ago, Charles Hodge made this summarizing statement about verse three. Listen to what Hodge says. He says, “order and subordination pervade the universe and are essential to its being”, order, structure and subordination within that structure. He says these things pervade the universe and are essential to its being. Paul is pointing out here in verse three that these principles of one submitting to the headship of another, these are fundamental principles that have been laid down from creation.

Now there’s a humanistic feminist teaching that says the ideal of a woman being subject to a man is because of the fall into sin. That is totally incorrect. God designed Adam to be head and leader of Eve before sin entered the Garden of Eden. That has been God’s design. That’s what Paul is saying from creation, from the foundation of creation. These principles have been laid down by God to maintain order and function and well-being in the culture, in the family, in the church, in the community, and in the nature. And when you get away from God’s structure of authority and submission to authority, as he has set it up and designed it, whether it’s the family or the marriage or the church or the government or the nation, then you will find your country, your family, your church, your culture unraveling at the seams. And Satan knows that. And that’s why he is constantly trying to work against these structures of authority.

Now the Christianity, or rather the gospel more specifically, had brought great liberation to the women of this day. In Greek culture, the Greco-Roman culture, those Roman influences and also Greek influences, all of the great influence began to dominate. Women were little more than slaves. Some were just kept for sex slaves. Some were kept to bear children. But women were greatly discriminated against in the truest sense of the word. And then the gospel came in. And of all things, women were shared the gospel like men were shared the gospel. Women were so, you have value to God equally to men’s value to God. And so women felt greatly liberated and most likely what has happened in the church at Corinth. These women, so exalted through the gospel, went out of bounds. They overcompensated, and they begin to think that there’s no place for any subordination to any man at any time.

And so Paul’s writing them to balance them back out. I do not believe the lady’s motives were wicked and rebellious and premeditated sin. I believe they just did not understand. They thought this liberation means, hey, we all have an equal footing as far as leadership and headship goes. And Paul says, no, I want you to understand, even though you’re liberated, even though in essence and in nature a woman is equally valuable to God as a man is, God’s order of male headship and a woman’s submission to that headship is still his plan even after you’ve received the gospel.

Now look at verse three carefully. First of all, he states, Christ is the head of every man. Ladies, God expects you to submit to the authority of your husband. But you must remember, in a unique and a direct way, your husband is under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you better believe the Lord Jesus Christ is quite capable of guiding, leading, correcting, and disciplining him. And you are a wise lady if you fall on your knees and give your husband to God and say, “God, I expect you to lead him, guide him, and correct him, because I’m going to honor him just like you told me to. So I’m trusting you to take care of him and to keep him in line.”

Well, then he goes on in verse three: “And the man is the head of a woman”. Notice these are definite. Now the man, a man is ahead of a woman. When we deal with our secretaries at work here, we try to deal with them in view of the fact that their husbands are their authorities. Many times I’ve had a lady that at work would ask me a question—not a personal type question, but one I thought was not my role—and I would say, “You need to ask your husband about that because he’s your spiritual authority.” God has given a man as authority over a woman. That’s God’s purpose and role.

And then what a great encouragement, what a great statement he makes to encourage ladies in the last phrase of verse three: “And God is the head of Christ”. Now here we have God the Son, as he functioned in the role of Christ, being totally submissive to God the Father. He’s completely equal. He’s as much God as God the Father’s God. He’s equal God. He’s just God as much God as God the Father is God in every way, shape or fashion, in essence and in nature. But for the role he had as Messiah, our Christ, he completely submitted to the father. That is what Paul is saying to women. You’re not inferior. You’re not of lesser value in nature. In essence, you are as worthy to God. I have the same worth to God as any man, but for the role of wife and mother, and for the role and function of society, it is your job to be submissive and subordinate to the headship of your husband. And in the church women to the headship of men.

Now Satan’s master plan, as I said, has always been to disrupt this thing. And these women in the church at Corinth had probably overcompensated through their emancipation. And they were functioning as if they could function in authority over men, or at least equal in leadership to men. And Paul is basically saying, though you are equal in grace, that does not mean that God’s original design for the social order has been set aside. Now, ladies, don’t be frightened by the heretical humanistic philosophies of this age. You need to remember that submission does not equal inferiority. It’s amazing to me that, generally speaking, we accept the idea of authority and submission in most realms, but we really attack it when it comes to the wife submitting to her husband.

Most of you men, or most even ladies go to work, and you generally don’t have any problem with the fact that your supervisor or your manager, whoever it is over you has authority. That’s generally understood in the lost and and saved people of this world that’s generally understood. We do not have any problem with the fact that our children, though they’re just as valuable to God, just as special to God, just as worthy of God, they are the same essence as nature’s us, yet God’s role for them is to submit to the authority of their parents. And that’s always been God’s place.

Now it may be very well true—let’s take the church, for example—that some of the laity in the church are more godly and more spiritual than some of the elders of the church, but they show forth and express their spiritual maturity by honoring the position of elder and submitting to that authority. It may very well be true that a wife is much more spiritual, much more devoted, much more of a prayer warrior, much more of a witness, much more of a devoted Bible student than her husband. But she shows forth that maturity by submitting to the her husband’s position as her husband. That is the expression of her maturity. She has learned that I do not submit to him because of his personality. I do not submit to him because of his performance. I submit to him because of the position God has given him. And that man in that position as husband for the sake of Christ deserves my submission. Now he doesn’t deserve it for his sake, but he deserves it for Christ’s sake. Christ is the one that set it up, son. Respect and honor to the creator who designed it and set it up. That is why we submit.

Now let’s continue on in verse four, continuing with this principle of order how God structured and ordered the social economy. Verse four he says, “every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head”. Now, there was not a problem in the church of men wearing those veils over their head. Now, in this culture of this day, both Jewish and Gentile women wore head coverings, and typically it was like a hood on the back of a garment are a long type, a shawl type thing that hung over their head and hung all the way down. Some other than that, even covered the front of their face. And so it was accepted among believers, nonbelievers, Christians, non-Christians, Jew and Greek or Gentile that women, function in the role of submission, and the covering over their head shows their submission or their subordination to the authority of a man.

Now, so Paul is using this illustration. He’s saying, if a man comes in verse four and prophesying are praying in the church service, he put something on his head that’s a disgrace, that’s dishonoring, because culturally that’s making the statement that he’s in submission and that he’s not in authority. And the what Paul is saying is this if a man came in and put that symbol of authority on his head, that the culture understood in this day as a symbol of authority, then he’s acting inconsistently with the position God has ordained for him as the leader. It’d be much like the general of the army showing up before his troops in the dress of a common soldier. In this day, slaves wore one type of clothing to identify themselves as slaves, and a freed man wore another type of clothing. It would be like a freed man showing up in a slave’s garment. It’s inconsistent with his position.

And so Paul’s saying, don’t do something in the culture that makes a statement that contradicts what you really are and what you really believe as a child of God. Now it will be different from culture to culture. But he’s saying, don’t make that statement. Don’t dress in a way that contradicts the role God’s called you to at least as far as the way your culture interprets that type of dress. Now, I’m going to tell you the water is very muddied in the American contemporary American culture. I thought and thought, and I could not come up with clear parallels of a type of dress, or type of garment that just made a statement of submission and one that made a statement of authority. They had that in this day, we do not have it. But nonetheless, the principle remains the same. Actions, behaviors, customs, gestures don’t do those things that would tell the culture if you’re a man that you function in submission to a woman, that’s unbecoming. That’s acting inconsistent with the position God has given you.

Now he continues on in verse five and gets to the real point. Verse four, just for illustration, men were not putting things on their head. But verse five gets to his point. “But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head first. She is one of the same with her whose head is shaved”. Now here these ladies are, I believe, honestly misunderstanding thinking we’re liberated in Jesus Christ, we’re not to be under anybody’s authority. So although all the other women of the culture were wearing the veil, showing their submission to the headship of a man here, the Christian ladies were waltzing down the road with their show off their veil, off their head, walks into the church, participating in the church services, making a bold statement that we’re not submission in submission to anybody.

And Paul says, you’re dishonoring ladies, your head. His point is you are making the statement that is inconsistent with your role in God’s social order of being subordinate to a man. And he even greatly amplifies this thing, in the last phrase of verse five when he says, “for she is one and the same with her, whose head is shaved.” Now what happened in this day if a woman was caught in some sort of sin, like adultery, some deeply dishonorable sin, then they would shave her head and that would be a strong statement that “I am a woman of disrepute. I am a woman of dishonor.” And Paul says, ladies in the church, that’s the statement you’re making. All the other ladies of your culture are showing submission and you, of all people, the godly ladies of the community, the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, you’re making a statement that you’re dishonorable woman. When you don’t put that veil of submission on your head, when you leave that off, he said, man, if you—he said, let’s make a point. If you’re going to show that you’re dishonorable, why don’t you go all the way and just shave all your hair off? Go ahead and make the strongest statement possible that you’re a woman of dishonor and disrepute.

So Paul is really driving his point home. Not not in the spirit of rebuke, not in the spirit of of clubbing them, but strongly showing them the biblical principle. Now continue on in verse six. “For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off. But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head”. He’s saying, I want to make a strong point, and I want to make it clear if you’re going to sustain that, “I am a woman of dishonor”. Let’s make it all the way and go ahead and shave your head completely. Because in this day, that was the strongest statement that I’m a dishonorable woman and I’m not a clean woman or a woman of holiness and purity. I’m a sinner.

Now he continues in verse seven, “for a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God”. Now notice the difference here, “but the woman is the glory of man”. I want you to listen very carefully. The only sense in which a man in distinction to the woman is the image of God is in that he represents the authority and the dominion of God. Here’s what I mean. When God made man—I mean the male gender—he said, “I’m going to use man, the male gender to represent the authority and the dominion that I have, and I’m going to give him a unique authority and dominion.” So, so in that sense, he is distinct from a woman in the sense that God made him for a distinct role. Now he’s not better in essence, he’s not better in nature, but he is distinct and has a distinct role because he has to express God’s rule and God’s dominion.

And you remember in that in Genesis when God created man, God said, man has dominion over all creation. Man was made in the image of God, which means he’s a rational being. All other animals do not have rational intellectual capacities like man has. Man is a moral being. Man and originally was made understanding and in keeping with the high standards of God’s holiness and purity and uprightness and righteousness, and we’re made in that image.

Now he goes on to say, there in verse seven, “man is the image and glory of God. But the woman is the glory of the husband”. Now, man is made in the image of God, but the woman partakes of the image of God through man. Now listen to that very carefully. Paul is saying, man was made in the image of God, but God, if I could just put it in maybe everyday language: God looked at Adam and said, “this guy is so incomplete. He’s named the cows and the dogs and the zebras and the leopards and the reptiles and he’s named everything. But there’s not a helper suitable for him. I’m going to make him a helpmeet.” And God said, “why should I reinvent the wheel? I did so good on him. I’ll just take a rib off and make another one like him. Yet somewhat different. Another one equal to him, in essence, in nature. But her role will be different.”

Now the verse says she is the “glory of man”. But notice the verse doesn’t say she’s the image of man. A woman is the image of God just as much as a man is the image of God. But man is the “glory and image of God”, but the woman is the glory of man. Now, in other words, Eve was not created to manifest the glory of God in the sense that she used to exercise rulership and dominion. Man shows God’s glory and that he exercises rulership and dominion that God has. But a woman glorifies man, and that she’s created to reflect man’s majesty. She is a reflection of what he is. Therefore, she brings glory to the man in her life. If he becomes king, she is queen. She is there to manifest to others the wealth and the honor which belongs to her husband. Now, I’m not trying to be deep. I’m trying to give you all that the text is telling us. So a man is the image and the glory of God. The woman is the image of God. But she got it through man, and she has the glory of man. She is the expression of that man’s glory.

Now look at verses eight and nine. He says here, “for man does not originate from woman, but woman from man. For indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for man sake”. Now in verses nine and ten, the apostle Paul goes back to creation, and from creation brings out two facts to show the subordination of a woman to a man. He says, number one in verse eight, the woman originated from the man, not the man from the woman. And the number two in verse nine, the woman was created for the man’s sake, not the man for the woman’s sake.

Now verse ten, the last verse under this principle of the order, are the way God structured things. Therefore, since all of that is true, “the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels”. Now I believe this is a cultural expression. It is not saying that all of you women sitting in here in church, you don’t have some kind of head on your head, you’re in sin. But he’s saying since you’re culturally, consistently, predominantly makes the statement by the woman saying she’s under authority by having a covering, you Christian ladies ought to say that same statement by keeping a covering on your head. Don’t do that. And he says, not only because of the culture, then he adds: “because of the angels”. If there are 474,000 scholars who study this, this passage, all 474,000 have a different interpretation of what the angels means here.

I believe it means this: God, the Bible says, has given angels to watch over his church. And I believe every worship service the angels are present. and the angels of all created beings honor and respect God’s structure of order for the universe. Because the angels know about those other angels who rebelled against God structure—Satan and those other angels who are at one time glorified and holy with God. But they rebelled. They didn’t want to subordinate themselves to the authority of God, and they fell. And now they are demons. And so those holy angels who did not fall, they are greatly offended when a woman would carry herself outside of the role that God has given for her. That’s what he means, I believe, when he says, not only culturally are you making the wrong statement, but even before they angelic beings, you’re being offensive. God created the entire universe with order and subordination, and we ought to conduct ourselves within that keeping.

Now, if you would keep your finger in first Corinthians 11 and look at Isaiah chapter three, would you do that? We will not be there long. But look at Isaiah chapter three. Isaiah chapter three. And then look at verse 12. Isaiah the prophet is talking about the fact that judgment has come upon Israel, and Israel is in a deplorable state because of this judgment and he describes the people under the judgment of God. I want you to notice very carefully what he says. He says, “all my people, their oppressors, are children.” He says, you know, a nation has God’s judgment on it when the children are out of control. It was probably the typical thing in Israel in this day for a child to bring weapons to the schoolhouse, for children, to rebel against the parents, for children to be sexually promiscuous and rebellious, to government authorities. Isaiah saying, “this is what it is like when a nation has the judgment of God on it. Children oppress the culture.”

He goes on verse 12, second phrase, “and women rule over them”. He says, you can tell when the judgment of God is on a country because the men are so backslidden, so unprincipled, so unrespectable, that the women have taken the lead in the country. And I want to tell you, it’s not chiefly the women’s fault for taking the lead. It’s chiefly the men’s fault for failing to lead and failing to be the kind of man that can be a leader and be respected as a leader. Isaiah says, you want to know when the judgment of God is on a country? Children start oppressing people and women have to take the leadership. Last phrase: “which was all my people, those who God you lead you astray.”

You know what he’s saying? You begin to look to the humanist. You begin to look to the secularist. You begin to look to doctor So-and-so, who has a Ph.D. in psychology or sociology, who violates every biblical standard but says, “we’ve studied and we figured out how to fix all of our problems. Matter of fact, we’re going to go up to Washington—go up to Jerusalem, that is—and doctor so-and-so and professor so-and-so, an expert so-and-so with their sociological, psychological, psychiatric expertise, is going to plan another government program. We just tax you a little bit more, and we’re going to fix this problem with the expertise of the humanist of the day.” That’s what they’re saying. Those who guide you, lead you astray and confuse the direction of your path. Well, I just wanted to point out that God says very clearly, you can tell when the judgment of God is on a people, because women start taking the headship and that kind of culture.

Well, let’s go back to our text, and I’ll try to be brief on these other points. Certainly the first one was the longest one, but Paul is saying, A woman of wisdom understands the support and the subordinate role God has given to her. And first of all, she understands it from the principle of order that God has structured the whole universe to function with order, and within that order, some are to be subordinate to others. And he gave women that encouraging example that God the Son, co-equal with God the Father, was totally and completely submissive to his father.

Now let’s go to the next principle, and I call this the principle of mutual dependance, the principle of mutual dependance. The Apostle Paul wants to make very clear that we do not understand some important things. Look at verse 11 and 12: “However”, even though all that I’ve said is true. Understand this. “However, in the Lord”—that means in Christianity, in Christian understanding—”neither is the woman independent of man, nor is the man independent of woman.” Well, that is one of the great great schemes of the enemy to get men and women thinking they can do their own thing and chart their own course. It is proper, and it is of God for men to need women and women to need men. This thing of the women’s liberation movement that says a woman can be her own man, so to speak. She can do everything for herself. I mean, she doesn’t need anybody. She doesn’t need anything. She can be a single parent. All this kind of that is not of God. God said, listen, “my design from creation, that Adam needed Eve and couldn’t function without her. And therefore Eve needed Adam and could not function without him.” That’s good and proper. And the way God designed mutual dependency.

Then he goes on verse 12: “for as the woman originates from the man”, we’ve already studied that. “So also the man has his birth through the woman, and all things originate from God.” So he wants to say this very clearly: I want you to know that men and women are mutually dependent, and they are both dependent upon the Lord. So what’s Paul said so far? Subordination is God’s plan, but also mutual dependance is God’s plan. Don’t lose those balancing truths. I believe this is what —or rather, this is one of the strong truths that comes through in verses 11 and 12. And that is this: the man is the head. A wife should subordinate herself to her husband’s authority, but a man should humbly and lovingly lead his wife, understanding that that he is in no way superior to her, even though for function in order in the universe, God set him up his head and her in submission to his headship. The principle of mutual dependency, or mutual dependance.

Now let’s go to the third principle Paul points out here. I call it the principle of human nature, the principle of human nature. Beginning in verse 13 and then going through verse 15, Paul just says, “judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with head uncovered?” He says, you weren’t born yesterday. You see how the culture of your day, how a woman shows her her submission to a man by having her head covered. He said, “can it be proper for a Christian to abandon that practice?” He says common sense ought to tell you that common human understanding would tell you that’s not good. Now, again, this is a cultural application.

And then he continues on there in verse 14: “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.” Now he says, nature itself, and I believe here’s what he means: God designed man and in the heart of man God has placed certain natural inclinations and certain natural understandings. He said: you can look at the world at general, all the cultures in general, and over the centuries generally, some things are understood. He said: even though man’s heart has fallen in sin, still he understands some basic things about what God has put in his heart.

And so he says, first of all, it’s generally understood, although there are some exceptions, it’s generally understood that long hair is not fitting for a man and masculinity. He said that’s been understood from the beginning. Now, there are some exceptions; I’ll go with that. But there have also been centuries and seasons in times when there were strict laws and rules about a man’s hair having to remain short. Now, I do not have absolute scriptural authority to say to you, “if you have long hair and you’re a guy that you’re in sin.” But Paul is simply saying: that’s been the general understanding of man from the beginning. And God put that there—long flowing hair. Beautifully groomed hair has generally, from the beginning, been viewed as a feminine, effeminate thing. And that’s why he continues on there and say, “but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her.” Now, even though there are some exceptions to a man always having short hair, every age that has ever existed viewed long hair as proper for a woman.

Now, again, I’m not—Paul’s point is not to measure hair. You’re going to line the ladies up next week and see how many, so many inches we got from the roots to make sure you’re spiritual and proper. That’s not his principle. That’s not the point he’s trying to make here. But the styling and the grooming and the way the hair is put, that’s a feminine thing. That’s fitting for a woman. Now, I want to say something—and I don’t have a lot of practical, lot of specifics here—but we need to grow up our little boys and teach them to be masculine. We need to grow up a little boys and teach them to act like men. Now, I’ll be the first to tell you a whole lot of this male chauvinism in what’s called manhood is garbage. It’s a bunch of brute, self-centered ungodliness. But there are manly things a little boys ought to be taught to be masculine and manly. And if a little boy dressed the other way in loving guidance, he ought to be taught to be masculine and manly. It’s fitting. It’s right, it’s proper. It’s the what God made for little boys.

Little girls ought to be encouraged and taught to be feminine, and have those aspects of their nature and their clothing and the way they carry themselves. That’s fitting to the feminine gender. That’s fitting. And that is womanly, my friend. That is of God. And this stuff that’s going on in our culture today, there’s sort of a blending in, the mixing, the unisex movement, whether the lines are being erased out, everybody just sort of wears big, baggy, sloppy clothes. You can’t tell if they’re male or female or or that and all this. Listen, that’s not of God. We ought to teach ladies little girls to try to look like ladies and dress like ladies and act like ladies. That’s not just some cultural taboo from the Victorian era. That is God’s plan from creation. And Paul says to the church at Corinth: “nature tells you that tells you that.”

Now, mamas, some of you’ve got little boys. And I know when they’re little, real little you put this lacy embroidery stuff all over them. But there’s a time when that needs to stop. Amen. All right. I’m just getting started. We got this thing called Prince. They don’t even have a name anymore. He’s—he’s now the male and female gender symbols. They don’t even have a name anymore. That means he’s nothing. I’m going to tell you that stuff is not just funny, folks. That stuff is wicked. It’s of Satan. God designed men to be masculine and women to be feminine. And that’s the way it ought to be. Well, you can tell I’m a backwoods fuddy dud. Whatever. I tell you what, I’ll just line up with Paul. You can line up with anybody you want to. Be a real man. You go deer hunting skin deer. You know, I’m teasing.

So Paul says nature itself shows you this. Nature itself shows you that. And now—now Paul brings the whole argument full circle as far as human nature is concerned. When the last phrase of verse 15, when he says, “for it is a glory to her.” What’s that? “Her long hair is a glory to her, for her hair is given to her for covering”. God saying this: the main reason why I put it in the heart of people to accept a lady having long hair is because I meant that long hair to make a statement. That’s a covering that says her role is to be in submission to a man. He said that’s the glory of her long hair. A lady’s long hair makes a statement. “I honor the authority of the man in my life,” he said. It’s her covering. It makes that statement, he said nature itself brings that out clearly.

Now let’s go to the last one. I’ll take about three minutes here. The principle of authority, the principle of authority. Paul says none else. If I have made points anywhere else, I’m about to make the point I need to make with you. “But if one is inclined to be contentious…” now there was a feminist movement in this day. It was just gaining steam at this time. Actually, there’s historical documentation of women taking off their shirts, getting spears and going through the woods, hunting, try to be like men. So there was some of that going on, and perhaps some of those were influencing some of the women in the church. We do not know. Perhaps some of the women were enjoying that emancipation that they got into the sin of not wanting to honor spiritual authority. And they were just having a hard time with this teaching. And Paul just simply says: “if anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice.” Here’s what Paul saying: myself, the apostle who has authority over you as a church, and all the other apostles consistently teach this doctrine. This is not some new fangled new twist I’m putting on things. This is the consistent teaching of all God’s apostles. And then he goes on to add more authority to that: “nor have the churches of God.” He’s saying: and all the churches who have received this teaching have received it as God’s teaching and God’s final authority. So Paul says: if you don’t understand it, you don’t get it, you don’t like it—tough. I’m an authority. This is right. Follow it. That’s all they say. The principle of authority.

Paul using his authority to say: this is what’s right now. We don’t have apostles today, but we have the writing of the apostles that God’s pinned in Sacred Scripture as our final authority. So Paul talks about being a woman of principle and a woman who honors biblical principle. She honors the principle of order: she knows God structured the universe to function in order, orderly and structural way, and her role is in subordination to her husband. She understands the principle of mutual dependance: she knows that she is equal to man in every way, shape, or fashion, but that God has called her to a different role than men, and she knows they’re totally dependent on each other and totally dependent on God. She understands the principle of human nature that throughout the ages, generally speaking, God has shown that women have the role of subordination and men have the role of headship. And she understands the principle of authority: that God said it’s this way, and that’s enough for me. I’ll accept God at His word.