So whether men know it or not, Christ is their head, and they are responsible to follow him.
He is the leader of the race in the mind and thinking of God, and ultimately, as Scripture tells us, there will come a day when all humanity, without exception, shall bow the knee and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord Romans 14:11, Philippians 2:11). The first one is, "the head of every man is Christ." There is the declaration of Christ's right to lead the whole human race. The one in controversy is the second one, "the head of the woman is her husband," but he brackets this with two other examples of headship so that we might understand from them what the middle one means. This is clear, I think, from the threefold use of it that the apostle makes here. Used metaphorically, therefore, the word head means primarily leadership, and thus it is used in this passage. That is what the head of our body does it runs the body it is in charge it is the direction setter of the body. Now when head is used metaphorically, figuratively, as it is here, it refers to priority in function. Thus Herodias, the wife of Herod, ordered the head of John the Baptist brought to her on a platter because she knew that would slow John down to a point where she could handle him. They well knew that to remove the head from the body ended the life and activity of that body. There are some today who would argue that the ancients did not understand that, but I think it is obvious they did, because four of our five senses are centered in the head. When the apostle uses the word head here he is using the ordinary word for the hairy knob that sits on top of the neck, which contains the brain, and the eyes, ears, nose and mouth, and which, even in the ancient world, was understood to be the control center of the body. Here is the principle:īut I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Then in the following verses (4-16), he clarifies the practice of this principle under the conditions that were obtaining in Corinth and the world of the 1st century. In Verse 3 the apostle declares the great tradition of headship as a principle to govern the people of God for all time. In Chapter 11 there are two traditions the apostle looks at, the tradition of male headship which dates from the creation of mankind itself, from the earliest dawn of human history, and the second one is the tradition of the Lord's Supper dating from the beginning of the church, as it was instituted in the Upper Room. We have seen in this letter that Christianity includes not only the revelation of what Paul calls "the mysteries of God," those great, marvelous, insightful unfoldings of truth about humanity, and about life, that are undiscoverable by the natural mind, but it also includes, as this passage makes clear, certain important and essential traditions, i.e., practices that have been handed down from generation to generation. I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you. The apostle introduces this with these words in Chapter 11, Verse 2: It has now become a question, not so much of women wearing hats in church, but of whether they are going to wear the pants at home! We shall face these issues that are a part of the swirl of controversy that has escalated into the Feminist Movement of our day. It used to be that the focus of the chapter was on the question, "Should Women Wear Hats in Church?" but looking over this congregation, I can see that is a long past issue. (Junior Grade)?" This passage will deal with the question of male headship and female subjection, and other issues of today. It is a very complex chapter that deals with the question, "Are Women Fully Human? or Are They Only Humans, j.g. Chapter eleven of First Corinthians has become a great battlefield of the 20th century.