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Good morning my fellow travelers, today is day 50 of our summer journey, which we began May 1st, and we’re reading 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
I’ve learned, when reading the Bible, it’s important to stop occasionally and ask myself some questions…
* To whom was this chapter of God’s Word originally written?
* Were there any unusual or unique circumstances or cultural dynamics into which it was written?
* Are there other parts of God’s Word which shed light on the topics in this chapter, and what do they say?
* What is the overarching message God wants to communicate here, and are there some God honoring life principles, applicable to all generations in all cultures?
1 Corinthians chapter 11 begins a six chapter discussion of issues related to God honoring worship for God’s people in Corinth, in the first century. The challenge for us, is discerning how Paul’s teachings in these chapters apply to God’s people, around the world in vastly different cultural settings today.
Verse 1 of chapter 11 is really the final verse of chapter 10 and should be linked with vs. 31-33 of that chapter. However, it is also a stand alone principle, that should guide all of our lives, do you agree? Paul wrote “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” Shouldn’t we be able to say that, to every person we know, if we are living God honoring, Christ following lives?
Verse 3 is one those staggering statements… “Now I want you to realize, that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” Wow…that sounds volatile, especially in modern North America and much of Europe, doesn’t it? What is Paul saying here, and how do we apply it to our lives, today? Isn’t there equality in the Godhead, the Trinity? Doesn’t God value men and women equally? Yes my friends, that is the consistent teaching of God’s Word.
Remember I’ve told you Corinth was a wild town, with lots of different and in some cases, really crazy, sometimes immoral and even violent religious practices. So, for the Christians in Corinth, they wanted to know… how do we honor Jesus Christ our Savior; respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit; and worship Almighty God as He, the one, true, holy, God, wants to be worshiped?
In the rest of these chapters in 1 Corinthians, Paul deals with this fundamental question.
Back to verse 3… “…the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” What was Paul saying? We know God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are the three persons of the Godhead, the Trinity. It’s complex, but it’s true. Yet, when Jesus was here, He repeatedly referred to Almighty God as “My Father” (John 10).
Jesus explained He was here on a mission, sent from heaven, by God the Father (John 16:28; 17:4), to become the atonement sacrifice for rebellious humanity. Repeatedly Jesus explained He spoke what the Father wanted Him to say. He did what the Father instructed Him to do. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, you recall He prayed to His Father asking if there was any other way, but once again yielding His will to the Father (Matt. 26:36-46), all the way to the Cross.
This is what Paul is referring to when he says “the head of Christ is God.” Jesus Christ is the Corinthian Christians’ Savior and ours, because He was obedient to the Father and gave His life as an atoning sacrifice, a ransom, for us. It’s a major theme of Paul’s letter to the Romans as we’ll see later this summer.
But Jesus is also creator and sustainer of our human lives, (Colossians 1:15,16) and God has made Jesus the Head over everything, as Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:22: “God placed all things under His (Jesus) feet and appointed Him (Jesus) to be head over everything for the church, which is His body…”. Therefore when Paul writes “…the head of every man is Christ”, Paul means every man exists because Jesus created him. Every man survives because Jesus sustains his daily life. Every man who has trusted Jesus to be his Savior, is rescued from his sin by Jesus, and thus Jesus is his master and Lord.
But what about the phrase “and the head of the woman is man.” As you read the next few verses in 1 Corinthians 11 you’ll see Paul gives several examples of differences and relationships between men and women, in God’s overall design for a balanced and harmonious functioning world. God created man first, remember Adam in Genesis 2:7-17? God placed Adam in the utopian garden Eden, in all its perfection. But in Gen. 2:18 God says “It is not good for man to be alone, I will make a suitable helper for him.”
I love that friends! While Eden was perfect by God’s design, it was not complete, until God created the first woman. God did not create another animal, nor another tree or mountain or star. God knew the only thing which would complete humanity, made in His image, was a woman, not even another man, to compliment and complete the man.
Now watch this friends. Both man and woman are the beautiful result of God saying in Genesis 1:27 “Let us make mankind in our image”. By the way you notice the ‘us’, plural, right? That’s God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, the Godhead, the Trinity, speaking and working together to create humanity in, may I say, ‘their’ image.
So BOTH men and women are created of equal VALUE in the sight of God, since both are made equal in the IMAGE of God. Both are equally unworthy of Jesus’ atonement sacrifice for their salvation, and both men and women are saved by Jesus in exactly the same way, transformed by the Holy Spirit into new creations in Christ, exactly in the same way. Let there be no misunderstanding, God loves both men and women equally, and values them equally.
Both man and woman have unique and distinctive roles in God’s design for humanity and our world. Men are not designed to conceive, carry or birth children from their wombs, we don’t have wombs! And when the babies are born, our breasts cannot nurse them. It is one of many, many clear evidences, that by God’s design we, men and women, are designed by God and created to BE and LIVE very differently from each other, yet complimenting and completing each other. The procreation and care of children is one of many perfect examples of God’s design for harmonious and mutually beneficial relationships between men and women.
So what is Paul trying to say to the Corinthian Christians? In Corinth at that time, the society was in turmoil. So many different ethnic groups…some monogamous, some polygamous. Some patriarchal, some matriarchal. Look around the world today, you see it’s much the same ethnic and social diversity. So Paul wanted the Christians in Corinth to understand, God has a global design, for how humanity functions best. Males are designed by God to protect and provide. Females are designed by God to welcome the protection of their men, and to produce and care for children and nourish the family. Of course there is much more but do you see God’s design? Men and women, are designed very differently, with the distinctive roles that work harmoniously together? Remember God had said “I will make a suitable helper for him…”. God began with man…male. And when you read Genesis 1 & 2, Adam was given responsibility by God to care for all that God had created. Woman was then created by God, brought to the man, and Adam was responsible to also care for her, protect her, provide for her. It’s deep in our DNA as males. And that is what Paul is reminding the Christians in Corinth. Men… take care of the women.
Now lest we fall into the trap of concluding God’s design is women being slaves to men, look at verse 11 & 12 “In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.” Oh my friends, do you see a wonderful tri-une partnership by God’s design? God, man and woman, loving each other, serving each other, working together in harmony? Ephesians 5:21 says “serve one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Now as you read 1 Corinthians 11:3-10 you’ll see Paul’s lengthy discussion of the matter of head covering. This is a good example of the Bible speaking to a specific cultural context, but calling us to consider how it best applies in our generation and our cultural setting. Do you see the point is HONOR. When we come into God’s presence to worship Him or engage with Him in Prayer, what is the posture and behavior, which in our time and place, will be seen as most honoring to holy, Almighty, Majestic, merciful God? So I invite you to consider that in your specific setting. How do people dress and behave when they worship Almighty, Holy God in your town, in your church? How do parents monitor and train their children to behave when in worship of His Majesty, the Creator of the Universe? How do adults behave in your church during a worship service…attentive, participative, sleeping, cell phones etc?
You see my friends, the focus of 1 Corinthians 11 is NOT that we should dress, or wear head coverings, as Paul instructed the Christians in Corinth…we don’t live in Corinth in 50 AD. But we need to be able to look at ourselves in our cultural context, and we need to be able to discern, as led by the Holy Spirit, how do we worship God in Spirit, in Truth, with honor and respect today, where-ever we live in the world.
You can take the same approach to 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 as it relates to Communion or the Lord’s Supper as an important part of worship for Christians. In Corinth it was way out of control, as you can see by what Paul writes. It was not what Jesus had initiated in the upper room with His disciples. It was a mockery, a sham, and Paul warns them with strong language: “…whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord, eats and drinks judgement on himself.” Wow that’s strong language! But we understand, don’t we friends? Communion is a sacred celebration of the sacrificial, atonement death of Jesus Christ on our behalf. We participate with solemn reflection, and overwhelming gratitude, but always with profound respect and caution that we not bring any dishonor to Jesus in the manner in which we participate in this memorial service.
Ok friends… as you’ll see, the next several chapters continue this theme of understanding the miracle of God’s people, united by and in Jesus Christ, and how we best function together as God’s people, and worship in God honoring ways. Have a great day…
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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