Headcoverings, or The Veil, Part 1

A Sermon,

Preached on the Second Day

in

SANTA ANNA

March 12, 2008

“Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD. Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken” (Jer 6:15-17).

Let me preface this sermon by making an observation – one that will likely offend a good portion of the intended audience right from the outset – but one that needs to be made. There is a principle involved in the topic, and exposed in the primary Biblical text covering the topic of the headcovering or veil, that needs to be understood. There is no single Biblical topic, taken directly from the plain teaching of scripture, which is more likely to pierce “even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow”, and to discern “the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). According to the scripture, the headcovering is patently designed and commanded by God to be a sign to show forth God's divine order – that between the man and the woman, and to typically represent the submission of man to God. So, by its very nature, you can imagine that this topic will be one that is highly hated and rejected by those who are in rebellion to God's divine order. It is a fact that the truth brought to light by a proper understanding of this topic will be received in direct relation to ones submission to God's divine order, and to God Himself.

Some of you may be surprised to see me start this discussion about headcoverings for women with this verse from Jeremiah. Surely (some will say) Jeremiah was not talking about women running about with their heads uncovered when he wrote these verses. I agree that he definitely was not - because he would have never imagined such a thing. It would have never crossed his mind that a society or culture claiming to follow and obey the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would permit such a blatant flaunting of God's divine order. I am also certain that Jeremiah was not thinking of homosexual acts committed by “ministers” when he penned these words. He could not have been thinking of child-molesting and man-buggering Catholic priests or of sodomite Protestant televangelists when he wrote this. I would doubt that any thought of the professing people of God allowing and even encouraging and defending blatant homosexuality ever crossed his mind. In fact, I would even go so far as to state that even those false prophets and wicked priests about whom Jeremiah does speak, those who “committed abomination” and “were not ashamed”, those who were bold to commit the most heinous of idolatries and who refused to hear the teaching of God's true watchmen; I do not believe even those false prophets and apostates would have suffered a homosexual preacher to live openly in the camp. I am certain that Jeremiah was not thinking of modern professing “christianity” when he penned these threats. I am sure he had no thought of half-baked “praise teams” where the women dress like harlots and the men dress like women. I am sure he had no inkling of Christmas pageants, Charismatic barking and laughter movements, Crystal Cathedrals, Starbucks and McDonalds franchises in church lobbies, man and wife “pastor” teams, exposed bellies and cleavage in the congregations, sky-high divorce rates, and every other type of foolish abominations out there masquerading as the true religion of the Holy God. No, in these verses Jeremiah was condemning Israel because of her covetousness, and because the people dealt falsely (Jer. 6:13), and because they were too involved in trade and commerce with the world (Jer. 6:20). They were indeed grievous revolters, slanderers, and corrupters, but I don't think even they would have imagined the horror that professes to be the religion of the One True God today. But, I hardly think that we should throw out this verse as inapplicable, merely because the sins of the professing people of God today are a thousand times worse than those addressed in this verse by Jeremiah. Jeremiah's advice is sound, and it should apply to every area of our lives. If we are advised to stand in the paths and to ask for the old paths wherein is the good way that we might walk therein, then it is our duty to study and seek out those paths.

I wanted to start out this series talking about the old paths, because there are too many lazy, modernist preachers out there who claim to be telling the people the truth, while they themselves are dealing falsely with God's people. Too many ministers, unlearned neophytes and old, proud, corrupters, are doing a terrible disservice to God's people by not telling them the whole truth. My purpose in this series is to show the old paths that we might walk in them, but in order to get to my argument, I will try to first examine why modern preachers and teachers are too afraid to preach what the Word of God actually says.

Modernist preachers and apostate apologists love to befuddle audiences with ill studied opinions on historical cultural practices, and literary citations violently wrenched from their context, and with these they seek to prove that modern innovations are actually acceptable and approved of God, even if they fly in the face of the plain text of scripture. The preacher is engaged in this act of scripture wrenching for only one real purpose – to satisfy and satiate the lusts of his audience. Why do you think anyone would go to such lengths to prove that a direct command of God is no longer applicable, unless it is to gain some other benefit other than the acceptance and approbation of God? Every modern preacher knows (whether he will admit it or not) that if he preaches an unpopular truth, especially to women, that he will lose the approval of the worldly woman, and most likely he will lose the man as well – since in our day the man (both married and unmarried) is led around by the woman. No preacher wants to lose his audience, so his internal lust for approval and acceptance, and his weakness in the face of inevitable dissent, causes him to bend to the will of human corruption, rather than to the will of God Almighty.

Now I want to lay out a scenario for you, because I need to provide some depth of understanding to you so that you can understand why hard truths are no longer taught in the Church, and I need to do it before I can even get to the arguments I have in favor of the woman's veiling.

In our scenario, I (as the father of my children) have gone on a long journey, and I have left very specific ordinances and practices for my family to keep in my absence. Some of those ordinances are specific to the time when I will be gone, some are accepted automatically from long use – in that they are things that I have always required - and some are overriding principles that ought to guide my family in their decision making. One of the long-time laws of my family is that my family is always to dress modestly, and in no circumstance are they to go around without proper clothes on. This has been the accepted practice of my family for our whole lives together, and they understand this law completely. Now, in our fictional scenario, during my absence, a stranger – a playmate, comes to visit my children and takes them to the pond to go swimming. He convinces them that they can take their clothes off and go naked just while they are swimming. His argument is that it is a silly practice to swim while clothed, and it is ridiculous to restrict nakedness while someone is mostly covered up in the water, so why not swim naked? Many of the other families in the area enjoy skinny dipping, so it cannot be all bad. They are convinced by his arguments, and a few of them strip down and go skinny dipping in the pond. The others, those who refuse to be swayed by modernist arguments, are adamant that this new practice is unacceptable and is contrary to the rules and the law given by the father, and they protest and dispute with the offenders. Later, I come home and I find out what has taken place. I find out that the children have been hoodwinked and bamboozled by a stranger, so I carefully reiterate and strengthen the law to my children. I sit them down and I say:

“I am glad and I praise you that, until now, you have obeyed me and that you have kept the ordinances and rules that I gave to you. But I would have you know that God has placed me over you, and that you are not to follow the whims of strangers. Every one who goes swimming naked, dishonors me and dishonors God. If you will not be clothed while swimming because you think it is best not to be covered, then you should strip off your skin as well, maybe that will show you how shameful it is for you to go without clothing. But if you will not strip off your skin, then also do not strip off your clothing.”

My argument is that, just as you would not go naked anywhere else, because you know that you ought not to and that it would make you a gazingstock and that it would dishonor your father; you should not go naked while swimming just because someone told you it is alright. Just as it would be foolish and ridiculous to strip your skin off just because someone told you too, in the same way you should not strip off your clothes because someone told you it is acceptable.

Note that the acceptable practice for the children at the time was that we are to be clothed in public at all times. I am dealing with a particular infraction, and I am extending the overall law to cover the exception that was created by deceivers. I am not making a cultural argument that is applicable only to this one generation, nor am I creating a local ordinance that is applicable only in my own pond.

Now, imagine that much time has passed. My rules still exist and have been written down in writing for future generations of my family. Several generations later, some of my great-grandchildren have a strong desire to go skinny-dipping, and they chafe against the long held traditions and laws against it. They make the argument that my law is no longer in effect, because nakedness has become more popular since then, and, after all, I was only writing to my own immediate children and only in that particular time. But alas, no one falls for it at first, and the new innovation is disallowed. The parents remember the practice of their own parents, so the rule stays in effect for another generation or two.

Then one day the children of a new generation, while reading my exhortations, find a loophole in the argument. They say, “he was only speaking of not being naked 'WHILE SWIMMING'. It plainly says here, “everyone who goes swimming naked”, it doesn't say that we have to be clothed all of the rest of the time. So as long as we are covered when we swim, then we are alright! Soon, all the children are walking around naked. The older folks are offended, and they protest and write treatises against public nakedness, but they are laughed to scorn. The children stay naked all of the time, but only put on clothes to go swimming – as per their new understanding of my original command.

Now, when these corrupt children grow up to be parents themselves, having lived a lifetime going around naked in public, they find it ridiculous and hypocritical to require their own children to wear clothing while they swim. They resort back to the original argument, that the command of the Patriarch was only to apply to his ownchildren in that generation. It should not apply to anyone else. So soon the commandment is forgotten and abandoned altogether. It is looked upon as a cultural relic, and an antiquated practice, maybe good for its time, but useless in a new and modern world.

So, how would you like to be the preacher or the parent, generations later, who has to say - Whoa! We not only should not be swimming naked, but we ought to be fully and modestly clothed all the time! How popular do you think you will be? Can you anticipate the attacks and the slanders? Can you predict the arguments that will be made to maintain the abominable, but accepted, status quo? I think you can if you try hard enough. It should be understood that no preacher today is expected to comment or examine the following scriptures at all, unless it is with the view of explaining the plain text away, and of relegating it to a museum of antiquated cultural anomalies of the past, something not relevant to Christ's Church today:

“Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered” (1Co 11:4-6).

Imagine for a minute that you are a sincere and diligent Christian, a member of the Body of Christ in any nation, and in any time past (most any time prior to the 20^th Century, and absolutely any time prior to the 19^th Century). Study for yourself and find out if a woman would have been permitted to go around with her head uncovered in that century. Those of you who are old enough will know the answer already. Even in America, one of the most religiously liberal countries in the world, up until very recently a woman was expected to be wearing a headcovering during the public fellowship and assembly. Even when I was a child, women had “Sunday Chuch bonnets” and were expected to wear them. Now, I confess that by that time the women had already abandoned the practice of covering themselves at all times, because that practice had disappeared a few generations earlier, but even as recently as 40-50 years ago women went to Church services with their heads covered. I have a picture of the Roman Catholic president John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie going to Church in the early 1960's and she is wearing a headcovering. But imagine that you are a diligent and sincere Christian living in the 1700's, or the 1400's, or pick any other century all the way back to the time of Christ. Do you believe that a woman went around with their head uncovered? Of course they didn't, and I'll prove that in the next part, but any legitimate and honest study of history and literature proves the point. But I have heard the most outrageous and ridiculous arguments from people (mainly men) trying to prove that many women in the first few centuries (and even those in the Corinthian Church) went around all day with their heads uncovered. This assertion is ridiculous and is unsupported by any historical documents taken in context. So, in our scenario, we can see that it was never the practice of the professing Church of Jesus Christ on this earth, until very recently, for a woman to go around uncovered. It wasn't until the late 1900's and early on in the 20^th Century that the innovation became the general practice. Now, most of the historical arguments against the woman's headcovering have followed the pattern of my initial fictional story. First the headcovering was abandoned outside the Church, but it was maintained in the public worship because even the false preachers and false prophets of the day could not then get away from Paul's plain teaching here in 1^st Corinthians. Then, much later, even in our own day and in the time of our parents, the headcovering was abandoned inside the fellowship and the assembly of worshipers. This was accomplished primarily by the argument that God's commandment through Paul no longer applies in our own culture and time, but that it was written specifically and only to the Corinthians and only for that particular generation. I will address all of the arguments against the headcovering in detail throughout the lesson, but I would remind the fair and honest hearer, that the modern practice of the woman going uncovered is a new innovation, not supported in scripture, and not the practice of the true Church in any age.

So, before I deal with the specific arguments that are often made in defense of the new innovations, let me make a plain statement of our position concerning what the historical record says, and, in relation to that, what was the practice of the Church of all times concerning the woman's headcovering.

1. It was the practice of the Church to obey the ordinances given to them by Paul and the Apostles, especially concerning the fellowship of the beloved. These were not “church specific”, “culture specific”, or “era specific” ordinances, but were the practices of the Church as practiced from the very beginning, even during the time of Christ, and they were passed by Apostolic authority to the Church in Corinth by the authority of Christ vested in His selected vessel – the Apostle Paul. (1 Cor. 11:2), and were then codified in Holy Scripture, which is our rule of faith, life, and practice.

2. Paul has shown forth his own practice, in this very book, of specifically stating when the ordinance or practice that he is suggestion or commanding, is NOT the command of the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 Cor. 7:25, concerning the idea of abstinence or celibacy among men, Paul states that in this case he is giving his own mind on the subject and not the law as commanded by Jesus Christ. This, then, ought to be a precedent that shows us that Paul is willing to let us know when he is giving the ordinance of Christ, and when he is giving the opinion of Paul.

3. Prior to the necessity of this letter, it was the practice of the Hebrews, and then the Jewish Church, and then the Gentile Church in all areas, for the woman to have her head covered (or veiled) in public at all times. The anomaly he is addressing, that of women uncovering themselves in public worship, was a new innovation at the time, and it was causing a disturbance and distress in the Church.

4. Paul does not make his argument in order to enforce a Jewish practice on Greeks and Romans, or to enforce a Greek practice on Jews and Romans. It was evidently, according to Plutarch, the practice of Roman women to go around with their heads covered, but Paul was not likely to be imposing a Roman practice on Jews and Greeks. Paul, instead, is mandating the custom as it was given to Him by Christ, regardless of its application to any particular culture. The argument can be unequivocally made that it was the general practice (with a few exceptions among Greek women) in all three cultures for the woman to have her head covered in some manner any time she was in public, but Paul makes no statement validating the customs or style of one culture over another, rather he insists that the new practice, that of the woman uncovering herself specifically for public worship, is un-Godly, unacceptable, inconsistent with God's divine order, and dishonorable.

5. There were, however, some overriding principles and realities which would have guided Paul, over and above his desire to give to the Church of Jesus Christ a pure form of public worship as commanded by Christ. Paul was a Jew, and in no place did Paul overthrow or overturn the law (except where Christ had already done so) for cultural relevancy or political expediency. God Himself said, “After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God” (Lev 18:3-4). God also had forbidden the Jews to cloth themselves in foreign attire: “And it shall come to pass in the day of the LORD'S sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel” (Zep 1:8). So it is not only unlikely, but impossible that Paul was, on his own whim and due to cultural or political pressures, satiating the desires of the people of God to throw off their own practices and to conform themselves with the culture or age where they found themselves.

6. The practice of the woman uncovering herself during worship was adopted by many because of the prevailing strength of the pagan mystery cults in Corinth. Remember that Christianity was a very new thing at this time, and it would not be strange to see women, particularly of the Roman and Greek sects, bringing in the practices of their former religion to the worship of the one true God. Note, too, that Paul specifically mentions that it was while praying and prophesying that these women were in the practice of uncovering themselves. This is understandable because in many of the Pagan Mystery cults, the women – following the practice of men in the mainstream religions – had adopted the practice of unveiling themselves before praying or prophesying.

7. Neither in the original Greek, nor in the English, does Paul support his command by appeals to political exigency or cultural relevancy, but in fact he prefaces his argument by commending the Corinthian Church for obeying the ordinances and practices of the Church specifically as they were given by Paul, without regard to their own personal opinions or cultural expectations on the subject.

8. Paul's argument was not designed to address any other issue other than that which is in view, namely, the wearing of headcoverings in public worship – and specifically while a woman is praying or prophesying. His statement was NOT a rejection or abdication of the already accepted social, cultural, and religious laws restricting a woman from being uncovered outside of the public worship. This was not an invitation for the woman to go uncovered elsewhere, because it didn't address that practice at all – since that practice would have been unheard of and would have been considered an abomination and shameful at the time, particularly to anyone from a Jewish background. Nor was Paul giving women permission to uncover themselves at all times other than when they are praying and prophesying – that would be an unacceptable and unseemly twisting of his words and intentions. It is like if I told my son, “Don't hit your sister because you are mad at her”, it would be silly to say that it is acceptable to hit your sister any other time, just so long as you aren't mad at her.

9. Paul did not make a complete and logical legal argument in order to erase its impact by later claiming that the woman's hair was sufficient for a covering. We will address that argument sufficiently in the second part of this series.

There is another point that I want to make before I conclude this first part, and rest assured we will be handling all the objections to Paul's ordinance in the next part of the series, but I began this exercise by pointing out that most people, specifically the preachers, will not want to hear, and certainly will not obey, the commandment concerning women's headcoverings. They will not hearken to the Word of God, because their internal corruptions will not allow them to hear the truth:

“Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein” (Jer 6:16).

Note the principle. God's children are not to stand in the new ways and ask for new paths, but they are to ask for the old paths and stand in the old ways. Israel was a type of the Church, and God forbade Israel from being absorbed into the culture and from adopting the practices of the people 'round about them. Matthew Henry said,

“The Jews being a peculiar people, they were thus distinguished from their neighbours in their dress, as well as in their diet, and taught by such little instances of singularity not to be conformed to the way of the heathen in greater things. Thus likewise they proclaimed themselves Jews wherever they were, as those that were not ashamed of God and his law.”

The Israelites were consistently commanded to not take on the ways of the people, and they were commanded to dress in a way that was particular and peculiar to themselves, and to never allow themselves or their culture to be changed or assimilated because of political or cultural expediency. Today's preacher places cultural relevancy as the hallmark of his argument to the Church. He cannot preach hard things, so he preaches soft ones. His flock says, “Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits” (Isaiah 30:10). His job is as a masseuse of strained consciences and as a false physician to a plagued people. He will never exhort his people to look to the old paths, because if they dare to look there, they will learn that he has lied to them and misled them, and that he has served himself rather than God. The great commentator John Gill likens the command to ask for the old paths and to stand in the old ways to a man who must backtrack down the path to find a signpost that will once again put him back in the right way. Well, if Christians were to actually do that, they will find that it is the preacher who has led them astray, and then where will he be? So instead of good counsel, he gives them new doctrines and cultural innovations, all to keep them adhered to him. It is a sad thing, but this is a fact. Only a diligent searcher, one who is willing to obey the direct command of God – that he be willing to ask for the old paths, and stand in the old ways, wherein is the good way – will find rest for his soul. The bulk of men and women will say, “We will not walk therein”, and “we will not hearken”. Therefore, it is said, that “they shall fall among them that fall” - and that is the sad reality that neither the modern teacher, nor the modern student, desires to face.

If the Lord wills, we will look deeper into this topic in the next part.

I am your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker

 
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