Women who obey God's command are wearing a headcovering: Michelle Lesley P/1

 

In this post I will begin to focus on popular blogger Michelle Lesley

She has made the following statement:

1 Corinthians 11:4-5                                                                                       

Every man who prays or prophecies with his head covered dishonours his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven.....

Michelle Lesley: We are going to take a look at the different roles God has laid out for men and women in the church and one passage of Scripture people commonly like to twist to argue against the clear teaching of God's word about those roles. But aside from a very small minority of folks, no one is arguing that Christian women need to wear some sort of head covering in church or while praying. Most of us seem to instinctively know that the first half of 1 Corinthians 11 is not a command that is binding on 21st Century women. So why even bring up this passage? Because 1 Corinthians 11 is used by egalitarians as a "gotcha" passage against Christians who rightly uphold the biblical roles of men and women in the church."If you believe women shouldn't preach, teach men, or hold authority over men in the church," they say, "then why don't you wear a head covering? See? You're a hypocrite! You pick and choose which Scriptures you'll obey!" What they don't realise- because this passage takes some digging and studying... is that women who obey Scripture's parameters for biblical womanhood such as submitting to their husbands, following God's role for women in the church etc are "wearing a head covering."

My Comment 

Michelle Lesley does not realise that the words in 1 Corinthians 11:4-5 are not Paul's own words but are words spoken by religious leaders in the church in Corinth and referenced by him. Literal headcovering was, therefore, not even taught by the apostle Paul but but by some religious leaders. Neither was a spiritual headcovering taught by Paul in this passage as a way to uphold the so-called biblical roles of men and women.

The subject Paul addressed in 1 Corinthians 11:3-12 is origin and not authority as we know from the last verse in this section which reads as follows

1 Corinthians 11:12

For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything come from (originates from) God.

As for the subject of "authority" the word does appear one time in this section, in verse 10, when Paul wrote that the woman has "authority on her own head." It is, therefore, her own authority and is not related to the man's authority over her, be it her husband or another man.

".... The woman ought to have (a sign of) authority on her head."

Please note that the words "a sign of" are not in the original text but have been added by translators.

P.S I will continue in the next two blogs looking at Michelle Lesley's commentary on 1 Corinthians 11:4-5.

Read Part Two HERE