1 Corinthians 11

SUMMARY.--Men in Church to Pray with Uncovered Heads. Women to Be Veiled. Disorderly Assemblies. The Abuse of Love Feasts. The Lord's Supper Profaned. The Lesson from Christ's Appointment of the Ordinance. Must Be Eaten with Solemn Reverence.

      1, 2. Be ye followers of me, etc. This refers to verse 33 of the 10th chapter . Like him, they should not seek to "please themselves," but to so act as to save others. 2. Now I praise you. This praise is preparatory to censure for disorderly conduct among them. Keep the ordinances. Those he had taught them while in Corinth.

      3-8. For I would have you to know, etc. The order of rank is that Christ is the center, with the Father above and man below him; and in the family the man is first and the woman second. That is nature's order. 4. Every man praying or prophesying. The last word means speaking by inspiration. With his head covered. He dishonors his head by covering what God would have exposed. Some hold that the head dishonored is Christ. I agree rather with Meyer and Schaff, that it is his own. Heathen priests of Rome covered their heads. So do modern Jews. 5. Every one that prayeth, etc. With the customs and ideas which existed in the East in that age it would be an unseemly act, and would bring reproach. The veil was regarded as a badge of subordination, and if not worn would imply that the woman did not yield deference to her husband. Almost all women are still veiled in the presence of men in the East. All one as if she were shaven. For a woman's head to be shaven was usually a sign of shamelessness (See Meyer). The uncovered head in an assembly was also unbecoming. 6. For if the woman be not covered. If she defies decorum by an uncovered head, let her go further, and be shaven. 7. A man ought not to cover his head, etc. In this whole passage we must keep in mind the Eastern ideas of the relations of the sexes. Paul bases these rules of propriety on the account of their creation. The veil is a sign of subordination to others present. But man, the image and glory of God, has no created superior. The woman, the glory of the man, is subordinate to him, of which the veil is the symbol. 8. For the man is not of the woman. In the creative act man was first, and woman was made from man.

      9-12. Neither was the man, etc. Woman was made for man because he needed a helpmeet. 10. For this cause ought a woman to have power, etc. She ought to have on her head the veil, the badge of submission to authority. Because of the angels. This clause has puzzled the critics. The idea probably is: "There should be no violation of decorum, such as a bareheaded woman in a public assembly would be, lest it offend the ministering angels which are always present, though unseen." 11. Neither is the man without the woman, etc. Neither sex is independent of the other; each needs the other. In the Lord. The Lord recognizes their mutual dependence upon each other. 12. For as the woman is of the man, etc. As she was created for man so man is born of woman. There is an equipoise. These relations are all "of God."

      13-16. Is it comely that a woman should pray, etc.? That is, in the public assembly. Private prayer, or with her own sex or household, is not meant. It was very unbecoming in view of the customs of the East, nor would it generally be esteemed decorous in our times, and with our ideas, that she should appear with no covering on her head at all. 14. Doth not even nature itself, etc.? It is nature's arrangement that men should wear short hair, and a woman long. For a man to have long hair and a woman to be shorn are violations of nature's teachings. 16. But if a man seem to be contentious. If, in spite of nature's lessons, a man contentiously opposes, let him know that no such custom exists in the churches. Many suppose that custom refers to being contentious. I think, rather, that it refers to covering the head, etc. The lesson of this whole passage is that we must not defy existing social usages in such a way as to bring reproach on the church.