Hair, Head Coverings, and Weird Teachings

Am I on? Hunter’s going to get on to me. I’m not supposed to touch that pack. Alright. Good to see you guys today.

How are you doing this morning? I once again want to apologize for last week. We did work with the city to be able to have service, but miscommunications happen all the time. Police department didn’t get up with the sheriff’s department, which didn’t talk to the coordinator of the Shamrock Marathon. Therefore, some of you were coming to church this past week and not being able to get in.

So thank you for giving it a good effort and being back this week. Thank you so much for being here today. Just a few things happening. First of all, next week. Next week is our.

Our guest lunch where we have some tacos for all of you who are new that would like to attend that. Tariq, if you’ll pop that up on the screen real quick. Yeah, he’s running around back there. Oh, no. But we have a QR code.

You can register right now or you can register on that blue slip there and let us know that you are going to be with us next week. But we want to get a total so that we can prepare for you, so that you can come out. There we go. And is the QR code up there? Okay.

Okay. Okay. I get. Okay. All right.

Why don’t you do this? Then you can go on that QR code on the sheet where your notes are and register there. Just hit that and it will take you to the app and you will be able to register for our connect lunch next week. Also, I want to remind everybody, if you don’t know Easter is coming. Amen.

Big celebration. Easter. Easter with salt. So it’s a time to start thinking about who you’re going to invite. And this is a season where people will say yes to church.

They will say yes to church if they’re thinking about coming to church. That’s probably the day you’re going to get those stubborn friends that don’t want to come to church with you to church that weekend. Your kids or your parents or whomever that is, they’re going to come to church if you give them that invite. So start thinking about that as we go. April 20th.

April 20th is the date, in case y’ all didn’t. Oh, my gosh. That’s a month away, right? That’s only two Sundays from this Sunday away. So we’ll have some cards for you next week and some other things that you can use to invite your friends and family to our new place here to Enjoy the presence of the Lord together and celebrate the greatest feat in history.

What is that? Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, man. Nobody else has done that in history. Nobody has done that to themselves. Right.

Because he is God. And we want people to know Jesus. We want people to know the heart of a father that sent his son so that they can know know him and have life and life and hope. Amen. All right, so we are in First Corinthians, and we’ve been marching through this book since the beginning of the year.

So I’ve been kind of doing a scripture by chapter and dealing with some of those things in there that are really hard to deal with. Man, I’ll tell you what, it’s hard when you have to go through a book or you decide to go through a book and you don’t want to skip over anything because there’s so many, many things in here. And I would say that this week is probably one of the, if not the hardest subject to talk about. In fact, I even thought about skipping over this week. It’s found in First Corinthians 11.

So if you have your Bibles, you’ll turn there and we’ll start dealing with First Corinthians 11:1, 16. And it’s going to be this will probably be the most difficult message I’ve ever spoken about. And I say this because those of you who may think that Christianity is a bunch of oddballs or aliens or not of this world, you’ll see it today in this scripture because it’s nothing like culture tells us, it’s nothing like society tells us. And remember, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is divided into five sections, as I mentioned in week one. So the first week we talked about divisions in the church, how to deal with division number two, questions surrounding sex and singleness.

We walked through that for a few weeks dealing with those hard things. And then week three, how to navigate controversy such as meat blessed idols, how do we handle our liberties and what do we give up and what do we lean into or allow or what have you. And this part of the series, we’re actually stepping into what I like to call corporate worship wars. Corporate worship wars. So these wars in worship, and we’ll be dealing with that for about four weeks.

But I do want to say this. We are going to take a pause starting next week, and we’re going to switch gears up until Easter and then we’ll come back to this. But I wanted us to reflect on the Last Supper. And if you’re familiar with the Chosen series. The new movie has come out in the theaters or the episodes have come out in the theaters, and many of you are getting tickets and watching that.

And we’re going to join some other churches. I don’t think any church in our area is actually doing this, but we’re going to to walk through the betrayal of Jesus, the Last Supper at Palm Sunday and the Last Supper in Easter. And it’s going to be beautiful because we’re going to use clips from the Chosen, which will be really, really cool. So come on back next week and you’ll see some really, really cool stuff as we walk into Easter. But let’s dig into this scripture here, because today’s subject is women and men in the church.

Women and men in the church. Some of the most common confusion, misinterpretation of scripture statements found anywhere in the New Testament. These are the ones that are going to be the hardest to interpret. And because of those confusing phrases found in First Corinthians 11, a lot of people ignore this passage. In fact, you may have never heard anybody teach on this if you grew up in the church, because it’s easy to just say, you know what?

I’m not going to deal with the subjects of genders in the church. And you know, the mandates that God’s given and it’s going. And I’m going to bet that many of you probably haven’t heard a sermon on this. And I’ve never taught a sermon on this quite the way that I’m going to teach it today. But the tragedy is if we ignore this and step over it, not talk about it, we’re missing out on some real powerful spiritual insight that we see in Scripture that helps us as a church, as a family of God and in society.

So today I’m going to teach you, not only on this passage, what this passage says. I’m hoping that I can help you learn how to read this passage and other passages like it in its context so that we can better understand it. So are you ready? Are you ready? Okay.

Okay. Let’s go. All right. Verse 2 of chapter 11. Now, I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold fast to the traditions just as I delivered them to you.

But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ. I probably already lost some people just by saying that right there. Right? Every man who prays and prophesies with something on his head dishonors his Head. Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since that is one and the same as having her head shaved.

For if a woman doesn’t cover her head, she should have her head cut off. Hair cut off. See, I told you it was going to be hard. I’m glad somebody corrected me there, right? But if it is, aren’t you glad you came to church today?

Amen. But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off, not head or her head shaved, let her head be covered. A man should not cover his head because he is the image and glory of God. So, too, women should. Woman is the glory of man.

For man did not come from woman, but woman came from man. And neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man. This is why a woman should have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels in the Lord. However, women is not independent of man and man is not independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes from through woman, that is, we all come from a mother, that is.

And all things come from God. Judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is disgraceful to him? Oh, gosh.

Y’ all are like, wow, where are we going with this? But that if a woman has long hair, is it her glory, for her hair is given to her as a covering? If anyone wants to argue about this, we have no other custom, nor do the churches of God. What could be more confusing than this? It’s straightforward, right?

I mean, let’s. Let’s. So let’s pray and ask God to teach us here. Father, we just thank you for your word. We know that every bit of it is profitable.

Every bit of it is good. Every bit of it is inspirational. Every bit of it puts us in the place where we can experience your greatness in our lives and our society. So we ask this all in your name. Amen.

All right, so here’s the difficulty with this passage. There’s a number of interpretations to this. There’s been challenges to these interpretations. People believe different things, but there’s a number of interpretational challenges that we have in this passage. For one, we’re not sure if the head coverings that Paul talking about are actual head coverings or they mean hair.

He seems to imply both. Second, we’re not exactly sure why he’s concerned about women wearing shawls or coverings. I mean, is that a gender distinction thing? Is that a way to show respect in the church or is there something about modesty there? So we’re trying to figure.

They go back and forth on that. Third, what does it mean that a man is the head of his wife? If you are familiar with biblical scholarship, you know that a lot of trees have been killed based on this passage, right? A lot of books have been written to try to interpret this well, because you see what the words Paul used, the word for authority can be both submission. Submission, that is, can be both authority.

And it can be a source, like a head river. So is it source or is it like an authoritative structure? And fourth, even after we figure out all of this, we are not quite sure how to apply it in our context. I mean, how do you take something like that? Like, is it wrong for women to come in church without hats or some type of covering?

Some people believe that in certain denominations and certain movements, is it a sin for women to come in with a bobbed haircut or is it a sin for a man to have long hair? And how many of you probably grew up in churches like that that taught, hey, you know, don’t wear that hair long, son, that’s a sin. You know, you need to get that haircut. Some of you were in there and of that. And you know exactly what we’re talking about here.

And one more reason this passage is particularly challenging is that it’s understandably sensitive to our culture where we are in society right now. There’s so much misinformation and there’s so much confusion and there’s so many stereotypes around these topics. And maybe you’ve seen women subjugated or disrespected or oppressed, and maybe you grew up in a church where men were the only ones that did anything that really mattered. Women were just subjugated to, you know, you just take care of the coffee and make the copies and that’s your place. And men have the more important stuff.

They’re not involved in anything else. On the other side, we now live in a culture that says gender distinction is a sociological construction, that you can be born biologically a he, but you can call yourself a she if you want to identify with that gender or non binary or they them or zim or whatever. And if you insist on saying gender is a real thing, you could lose your job. Just ask J.K.

rowling if it helps encourage you any on this topic. Paul was writing to an even more contentious group of people on one Hand, you had Jews, very traditional people followed the law. There was a patriarchal structure, a traditional structure. On the other hand, you had the Corinthians who were sexually confused. Society in history.

Remember I told you the word Corinthianized was a normal word they used in history, that if you were sexually corrupt, then you were Corinthianized? In that culture, sexual promiscuity was rampant. Historians tell us that there was a large gay and lesbian population there. Transgenderism was also big in that culture. Cross dressing was common in Corinth.

You know, both genders, in fact, there was even division, or even a division of gladiators where women would dress like men, look like men, and go out and fight like men, and wouldn’t identify themselves as women. That’s the context of what the apostle Paul was dealing with here. Does it sound a little familiar? In our culture, we see this. So he’s speaking into correcting both audiences, both the people on one side and people on the other, men and women.

He’s correcting. He’s talking to men and women. Let’s get this right. So here’s four questions we want to ask. What does it mean when Paul says the man is the head of the woman?

And secondly, isn’t that just a cultural thing? Haven’t we moved past that? Wasn’t Paul just making an accommodation for that particular time in that particular period? And fourth, what does all of this mean for us? How do you even apply any of this to our current culture?

So that’s what we’re going to dig into today. Let’s start with the first question. What does it mean for a man to be the head of the woman? What does that mean? Well, as I mentioned, the word head in Greek, kephel, it can either mean authority, some type of authority, like a head of staff or a head of a business or a boss.

Or it could be like a headwaters, a source. A source. The headwaters in which a river flows. The source of where a river comes from. It seems to imply both of these.

Scripture number one, source. According to Genesis, Eve was created out of the side of men, which means he is her source. He is her source. And that order has some kind of implications there. According to verse 8, 9, and 10, there is a flow of authority.

There’s a flow even in a flow of glory, in how God sets up the relationship between a man and a woman. They are complementary pair. They are a complementary pair, both made in the image of God. But there’s a complementary thing happening here. And there’s a Sense in which women come from man and was created from man, but it’s not true transversely.

So he was created first. She was created from his side, and she was called Ezekiel, meaning the helper. She was his helper. And in other places, Paul directly connects the idea of headship to submission to authority and submission. Look at Ephesians 5.

It says, Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is head of the church. So him being the head implies a submission of some type in certain relationships. I love how Hannah Anderson says it. At its most basic, Scripture makes two claims about ministry, the ministry of men and women. First, that men and women are equal image bearers, worthy of equal honor and value.

Second, that men and women hold different roles, with men exercising a headship that corresponds to a particular kind of authority in the church and the home. Now, if there’s ever been a loaded concept, this is it, right? So we need to really dig into this for a few minutes. Let’s talk about what. What headship is not.

Okay. Male headship does not mean the inferiority of the woman. The book of Genesis, Paul quotes from there, and it’s clear that both men and women are both created in the image of God, but each reveals God’s glory and character in different ways. Complementary ways, differently, but equally. We’re different, but we’re equal.

Paul in Another place, Galatians 3:28, says, there’s no distinction in Christ. What he means isn’t that there aren’t genders anymore, that they’re just thrown out, but that men and women both have. Have equal value, no matter their gender. And he even says in verse seven that the woman is the glory of the man. Paul is not demeaning her.

He’s saying there’s a glory component. She was created as a glorious complement to the man. In many ways better. In fact, the writer of Genesis describes Adam and Eve and. And their creation in two different ways.

Bara for Adam, the man, meaning that he was created, and bana for the woman, because she was fashioned or designed. So the man was created and the woman was designed. So better version of the man. Really? I heard someone once say, the man is the sloppy copy.

And then the woman is made much better. That’s made prettier and better. Right? Andrew Wilson uses this illustration. The apple is the glory of the apple tree.

The tree is the source of the apple. So which is better? Neither. But apples shouldn’t act like trees and trees shouldn’t act like apples. They’re both good and useful, but they have a unique relationship with one another.

And that is a good and right and shouldn’t be muddled. To muddle this relationship is to say that God’s design isn’t good. God’s design isn’t good. So men and women play different roles in relationships, but nobody’s. There’s not a superiority role and there’s not an inferiority situation going on here.

And here’s how we know that. Because Paul in verse 3 says this. But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man and that man is the head of woman and God is the head of Christ. I want us to think. Think about that last part.

God is the head of Christ. What we know about the nature of God is there’s three distinct persons in one God. There’s the Father and there’s the Son, and there’s the Holy Spirit. They’re equal, but they play different roles. And when Jesus came to this earth, he submitted to the Father.

He said, your will be done, not mine, but your will be done. Now, that didn’t take away the equality they had in the Godhead. But Jesus for a particular time set aside his equality so that he could submit in that particular situation to the Father God. This wasn’t assault on his indignity, nor did it reduce the equality that he was God. And if it wasn’t an assault on Jesus, why would it be an assault on us to practice submission in some way, in some places?

Submission is something that God commands all of us to do in various capacities. And it’s a Christlike quality to practice submission. It’s good for all of us in certain areas to practice submission. Secondly, male headship does not imply the subservience of the woman. That doesn’t mean that she’s my wife.

Miranda is my serf or my slave and does only what I say to do. That doesn’t mean while the command given to her is to submit to the head, I’m commanded to love her as Christ loves the Church. And I would argue that the command for me is much harder than it is for her. Because I have to wake up every day and think about how am I going to serve her, how am I going to lay down some rights and lay down some things to love her and serve her the way that I should. I have to get up and think about that every day.

Yes, I’m given authority to lead, but it’s not the authority to get done what I want to. I look to her complimentary I like how Pastor Tony Evans says that spiritual headship for the man is not license to do what you want to do, but empowerment to do what you ought to do, which is to lay down your life for your wife. Men, lay down your wife, your life for your wife. And lay down your wife sometime, too, right? In a good way.

I love having some laughers in the front. That makes it a lot easier when I mess up. I’m a good comedian, right? All right, so, guys, let me say this. If you’re not actively and regularly asking your wife, like, how can I serve you?

How can I put aside some things? If you’re not doing that on a regular basis, then you need to ask yourself, am I loving my wife as Christ loved the church? Male headship does not imply independent decision making on the part of the man. That means God created all of us with different filters, with different ways of looking at things. We’re processing things different way.

Ladies, Even though God always refers to himself as a he, he has certain characteristics that he compares himself to a woman. In fact, in scripture, in terms of mothering, we see it over and over again how God the Father mothers Israel. And in Isaiah, he looks at them as a doting mother. And in Matthew, he’s heartbroken like a mother for his child. Israel and women in general have a stronger relational sensitivity.

They have a stronger nurturing instinct than man, and that’s what they’re designed for. And those instincts bring invaluable perspectives to decision making because we’re able to look at it from different angles. Churches or families where men make all the decisions, there’s going to be a lot of problems. Women need to be a part of the decision making. And saying that man is head and the wife should submit to the husband doesn’t mean that the women are absent in their decision makings.

It just means that if there’s a tie, if there’s a tie, and trying to break that tie to figure out what to do next, then it goes to the men. It’s placed on the men to break that tie for the final decision. I love how Tim and Kathy Keller. Tim Keller wrote a book, the Meaning of Marriage, and they were trying to make a decision whether they were going to go to New York City. If you know anything about Tim Keller, very successful pastor in New York City, did some amazing things in ministry for years, passed away a few years ago.

But a man of God that many have followed and been mentored by him. And as they were making the decision to go plant in New York City, from this little town in nowhere Virginia. His wife said no. He was trying to. He was like, I feel the Lord’s leading us.

She said, no. And they went back and forth and it came up to the time where they had to make this decision whether they were going to head to New York City to do this work. And he finally decided, you know what? I’m not going to do it. I’m just going to, you know, if she doesn’t want to do it, I’m not going to do it.

And he goes to her and says, okay, I concede. It’s okay. We’re not going to go. She says, oh no. Oh no, you’re not going to coward out of this.

You’re going to make that decision because that’s your place to make that decision. And of course, the rest is history. They went to New York and had a great work there. Again, the spiritual headship is not a license to do what you want to, but empowerment to do what you’re supposed to do. So that’s how we look at that.

And in the church, the headship of men means that they alone bear the weight and occupancy of leading roles in the church and overseeing and senior pastor positions and overseers. And that’s what we see in. In the church in several places. Here in First Corinthians and first Timothy, Paul makes clear the head office of pastor, the offices that carries the most weight in official teaching and governance and guidance and guardianship over the church, is placed on the shoulders of qualified men and leaders in the church. They’re designed that way.

But that leads me to D. And this is very important, okay? Male headship does not mean that women cannot teach and lead in the church. It doesn’t mean that they’re just here to make cookies or fill in little blanks of the things that aren’t important. Notice in this passage, Paul assumes women are praying and prophesying publicly.

Notice in verse five, when you stand up and pray, and it doesn’t say if you stand up and pray, it says when you stand up and pray, assuming that women are a part of the corporate meeting and sharing and delivering. And when you deliver a spirit given word from God, like Mary did to Luke, did in Luke, Deborah did in Judges, Hilda in Chronicles, Priscilla in Acts, Phoebe in Romans, that when you’re proclaiming God’s message, it’s good, it’s good to do that, but do it in a way that doesn’t overturn God’s design for the genders, doesn’t overturn God’s design for the church and the capacity that is above the lead pastor or the authority of eldership, of head eldership. That is what we believe, is that women in this church, that women have access to all the spiritual gifts that men do, including teaching and leading and pastoral positions. We do hold that women can be pastors and they can and should develop them and use them in the body of Christ. We need them.

We need them in these roles. Women lead teams, teach, make decisions, cast vision, help in processes, steering the church in the right direction, all these things. But we respect what God says in First Corinthians in First Timothy and don’t have them do that in the capacity in which God has laid out for men to wear the mantles that men wear, should wear. Bible teacher Jen Wilkins says it like this. The challenges for those of us in church leadership is to consider whether we are crafting a church culture that permits women to serve or one that pursues women to serve.

We should be pursuing women to serve. And finally on this, male headship does not mean that women cannot lead in society. A lot of times we can over apply a passage, and this passage has been over applied to mean that women need to stay at home and cook and clean and men take care of the family. But this isn’t applied in the area of the workplace or in government. Paul’s main arena for this application is only in the home, in the family and in the church.

Even the wise women in Proverbs 31 clearly has a robust high responsibility in her job. She’s someone of significance. We also have Queen Esther, we have Deborah, one of the judges. We see that all over Scripture that they had high authority positions in order to speak and lead people. So let’s not over apply that.

The second question is, isn’t the whole concept of male headship a cultural accommodation for an archaic society? So isn’t this just an accommodation? Because everything was kind of backwards in society back then and now we’ve arrived and we’ve progressed and now that no longer applies to us. That’s what many would say. But I would argue no for two reasons.

First, Paul says that the divine order is rooted in creation itself, that it goes all the way back to creation. Paul says these things are true because of how God created man and women, how he created them from the beginning. And. And in verse 14 he says nature itself teaches us these things. Ephesians 5 points back to the created order as a pattern, not just a contemporary cultural thing.

If Paul was only talking about a cultural situation, he wouldn’t have gone back to creation. He wouldn’t have gone all the way back to creation. In fact, by the way he references creation pre fall, he goes all the way back to the garden. I point that out because some people will say that gender distinctions aren’t a result of, are the result of the fall. And once you come to Christ, genders no longer matter.

However, that’s not true when we look at the Word of God as he goes back even before the fall and says there are definitely gender distinctions. And secondly, the reason is that Paul and I said this in earlier sermons ties this role playing to the demonstration of the Gospel itself. It gives the beauty of the Gospel to see the complementary nature of male and females that the male and the man relates to the church. It gives a picture of Christ leading and laying down his life for his people. And in turn, women give a picture of Christ and how they submit to and serve and bring glory to men.

So the last two questions, three and four, I’m going to put these in the same one. So what’s the deal? And this is probably the hardest one. So what’s the deal with the head covering and how does that even apply to us today? I bet that’s the main question you guys have.

So, so, you know, all this makes sense, but how about the head covering? What does the Bible say about that? Are we supposed to obey that? Paul’s application of honoring the male headship is to say this in verse four, Every man who prays or prophesies with something on his head dishonors his head. And every woman who prays and prophesies with her head uncovered does not dishonors her head, which in this context means men.

And in turn it dishonors Christ. So in those days, head coverings were common, whether that meant a veil or shawl or a scarf. It represented femininity, it represented modesty, it represented respect in that society. In fact, historian Kyle Harper says it like this. Roman women in late antiquity were to be marked above all by big Latin word for modesty.

I’m not going to say it because I get it wrong, because I don’t speak Latin. And for a mature woman to wear her hair unveiled was one of the chief signs of sexual immodesty. Well, that was then and this is now. I mean, when we go without a hat or without a covering, is it still what we need to communicate today? Well, let me teach you something about biblical interpretation just for a minute, because you can go in one or two directions, you can over apply or under apply a scripture.

Paul and other Bible writers sometimes teach this timely principle, this beautiful, timely principle, and then encourage the readers to, to take it and put it within their context and apply it in that day in an appropriate way. It makes sense in the way it makes sense in their context. The first way you can go wrong is to make their cultural expression normative. Like everybody just needs to do it throughout all time. That’s over applying.

And the other way you can go wrong is by failing to extract a tank. Timeless principle, like just throwing it out, it’s already gone. So that principle is no longer there. A perfect example of this is in First Corinthians 16:20, where it says, greet one another with a holy kiss. Now, are we going to do that today?

Go around and greet everybody with kisses? In that culture, that was common. That was a way of sharing a warm welcome. As you walk into the church to kiss on both cheeks, it just felt warm and welcoming. But if you did that today, you’re probably going to get hit or somebody’s going to be weird or you’re going to be labeled a creep.

So how do we apply the holy kiss principle today? Well, we love people in our culture. In our context, the timely principle is that we greet everyone with a holy kiss in a figurative way. But we don’t apply that literally. We don’t just throw out the baby with the bath water because we think it’s weird.

Our way of greeting someone is probably a side hug. You know, the side hug, you know, the male, female side hug. Hey, how you doing today? Or a tap, a hand tap or a back tap or whatever that looks like. In our culture, that would be considered fist bump.

Maybe you’re a fist bumper, but that would be considered the same as a holy kiss. In our culture. And we are to take the unchanging principles of greeting each other like family and hold on to them, but express them in our culture. And that’s how we interpret the Bible. The same is true with the principle of head covering and long hair.

What communicates in our day, what things communicated in there? What communicates in our day is not necessarily what communicates in their day and vice versa. First, femininity, verse 14. Nature itself teaches you that men and women are different and look different and not try to look like each other. That’s what it’s trying to say here.

The point is not about long hair or short hair. Point isn’t whether you should have long hair or you’re sinning, it’s whether you look longer, like a Man or you look like a woman. Paul is saying here, you know, men, you need to be like men. And women, you need to look like women. In that day, people who cross dressed usually had longer hair.

And those women who shaved their heads were looking more like men and men. If men didn’t have. They didn’t have long hair unless they really were on the edge of society, you know, on that progressive edge of society that we’re even experiencing today. That was their culture. But that no longer applies today.

I mean, men have long hair all the time, wouldn’t you say? I mean, coming in, we got Steve back there. He’s about the manliest man I know and has wonderful, beautiful long hair. And I’m very jealous of it because I’m losing my hair. I used to have very long hair as well.

But in our society, you know, that’s seen as a strapping, you know, no problems there. So the question is, what does dressing gender appropriate or in a gender appropriate way that honors the distinction of the nature of who we are as male and female? Well, probably it would mean men not wearing skirts, right? I think that would. Unless you’re Scottish.

I mean, we got cultural things there. Or I would also think that Lacey Haftrell blouse and things like that would probably not be appropriate for a man or mom jeans or whatever that looks like. So God made you a man, dress like a man. What that looks like changes from place to place and culture to culture, right? What that looks like.

So it can change. But for instance, 50 years ago, a man wearing an earring would have probably indicated that they were effeminate. But now it’s a norm. Or a woman who had a tattoo, it probably would have been considered masculine. But that’s not true anymore.

So that’s how we look at these things within the context in which we are observing scripture. I love how Kevin DeYoung says it. However we apply this passage, we can assert without equivocation that God wants man to look like men and women to look like women. Though what that physically looks like, what will vary from day, from time to time and place to place. The Bible here affirms an essential truth no longer obvious in our day.

It is disgraceful for a man to appear to be a woman and a woman to appear to be a man. It’s dishonor honoring to God to do things that mask and confuse the genders. Kevin DeYoung so first, men in every culture should look like men and look like women, and women should look like women. I’m just going all Crazy today, aren’t I? But second, when women lead and teach in the church, they should do so in a way that demonstrates not to attempt to subvert God’s order, but be allowed to lead and teach and practice every gift in the church.

Like I said, we believe that women have access to all the spiritual gifts. They have the ability to teach, they have the ability to lead, they have the ability to pastor. But God put something in order for a reason. And I don’t allow my opinions, I don’t allow my dogma or my own experience determine what’s best for leadership, what’s best for a church, what’s best for our families. I trust that God has laid out 1st Corinthians 2 and all those other scriptures to help us understand having a woman wear a head covering when she’s on stage no longer applies.

But this is a reason. For example, we don’t at least now have women lead in certain positions, positions like bishop or head elder or pastors. So that’s how it would apply today. But other ways women communicate submission. I mean, we do it every day, right?

We communicate submission in our families, in our marriage, we show respect by wearing wedding rings, taking the last name of the husband, how she dresses. These are all symbols that she recognizes and respects that the order that God has set up. All right? Especially in the church. Now, I know some of you are hearing this, and you might say that people are going to think this, that we’re on the wrong side of history.

We’re on the wrong side of history. We progress. Man shouldn’t be thinking that. But I made up my mind a long time ago that I’d rather be on the wrong side of history and the right side of the Bible. And that’s why I stand up here today and preach every word from Scripture, even.

Even if it makes people shake a little bit, because God’s way is best. I love how Andrew Wilson’s conclusion for this chapter says, and this is closing, we have to strive to display these two factors. Men and women are different, and men and women are equal value. Wilson says, if the way you’re trying to show distinction actually degrades one gender, that’s a failure. If the way you’re trying to display equality actually erases any distinctions, that’s also a failure.

And that’s what we strive to do here. We do so with the knowledge of God’s Word, following His Word, his design is best. And even when it goes against culture, Christ culture, church, as we’re talking about in the series, even when it goes in culture. We heed to what our Lord Jesus Christ, our Father in heaven, and what the Holy Spirit leads us to in his word. And maybe the other thing I’ll leave you with is, ladies, we need you in leadership.

Don’t feel like if we’ve ever kept you or you’ve ever been in a church that’s reduced you down to just someone who’s in the kitchen or someone who’s making copies, and you have way, way, way more to give, you’ve got a calling on your life. We want to promote that. We want to help that. We want to encourage that in the church. So let’s pray, guys.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that your spirit is here today, even in these scriptures as we teach them. Lord, maybe you’re placing something on somebody’s heart right now. I mean, I need to submit more or I need to love my wife more, or I need to open up my views a little bit more to see what God has.

Maybe I need to throw out some cultural dogmas or some swayed ideas based on my opinion or what society has told me to really find. Truly, what brings life. The Word of God brings life. Jesus brings life. The Holy Spirit brings life.

Maybe there’s one here today that hasn’t received you as Savior. Maybe you’re here today and you’ve never given your life to Jesus today. Would you make a decision, Give God a chance? Maybe you walked in here today and you’re just giving God one more chance, one more opportunity. It’s available to you today.

Would you make him Lord of your life? Lord, I believe that you are the Son of God, that you died on the cross for my sin. Say that with me. I believe that you are God and you died on the cross for my sin, that you submitted to the Father so that I could have life. You loved me so much.

Today I receive you as my Lord and Savior. Come into my soul. Come into my life. Change me. I’ll never be the same from this day forward.

Amen. Amen. Praise God. If you gave your life to Jesus today, we would ask you to connect with us. We’ve got a card there.

You can label it. If you rededicated your life to Jesus, let us know. We would love to help you along that journey. If you’re a regular giver or you want to give for the first time and you’ve been coming for a while, you can give in three ways. Y’ all know what to do.

If you’ll pop that up on the screen in the offering box saltchurch.org give or you can text 84321 and give that way. For those of you who are guests with us don’t feel complete compelled to give today. We’re just so glad you’re here and we’ve been praying for you. Thank you so much for being with us today.

So join us next week as we begin our new short series on the Last Supper. And I think it’s going to be real exciting. So come on out, bring a friend, and we’ll see you next week. Sam Sa Sam.