Alright, let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 11, verses 2-16. So if you would open your Bibles there, 1 Corinthians 11, verses 2-16. Before I read, you know, you guys had a chance to talk a little bit about the content of the passage. I want to remind us that we've been working through the book of Corinthians now for what I believe to be something close to six months.

And really in my mind, the book of 1 Corinthians is a wisdom book. In my mind, it's Apostle Paul teaching the church, this is how you ought to think. This is how you ought to judge. This is how you should discern and come to a conclusion. And so remember that chapter 8-10 that we studied for a big section, it was about how to make decisions when you have the liberty but it affects your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Right? Well today, we're jumping into a completely different category of thought, right? And in my mind, nonetheless, it's still under the category of how to wisely behave in the church. How to wisely think about even, maybe it was current event issues for them, you know? How to think about those things.

So let's jump into the passage and then we'll take a moment to pray and study. It says in verse 2, "Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions just as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man and the man is the head of a woman and God is the head of Christ.

Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved. For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also shave her hair, have her hair cut off, but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head.

For a man ought not to have his head covered since he is the image and the glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man. For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man. For indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.

Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. However, in the Lord neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman and all things originate 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 a dishonor to him? But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her. For her hair is given to her for a covering, but if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.

Okay? Let's take a moment to pray. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the reading of your truth. And God, I pray that definitely your truth many times stands in opposition to the ideology of the world at hand. And I pray, Father God, that we would be very discerning on God, that we would not be sloppy with the truth, but first that we would understand.

And God, that we would be able to uphold it, affirm it, not only that, but have it be confirmed by the way that we approach our lives. Father, we want to thank you again for guiding us in your truth. I pray for every single one of us that meeting here tonight, joining together with the church, and looking at your word would be a fruitful time of communion with you.

We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Okay. So we're looking at this verse, and I want to start off by looking at verse two. It says here, "Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions just as I deliver them to you." Is he being sarcastic?

I asked you the question of, "Hey, this church is full of problems." So what is he intending to say when he says this in verse two? What were just some of your answers that you guys said? Maybe from the gentleman's table on my left. What were some of the answers to that first question about the church has a lot of problems, what is Apostle Paul saying?

He was sort of implying that despite all the problems, at least they were doing the traditions. Okay. Cool. Any other, what other thoughts did you guys have about that verse? About the table in that corner? He said that some of the problems that were discussed in the previous chapters were just about food, that they like, they both thought that, "Oh, it's okay for the Lord to do that by His will, it's not okay." It was despite that, it was an effort to like follow the path.

Okay. Cool. Good. So kind of combining the two, I feel the reason why I asked is because remember I mentioned that the church probably had multiple correspondence with Apostle Paul, letters going back and forth, and clearly they were asking him questions. I think Apostle Paul is thankful for the fact that like, "Hey, at least you're asking me." And they're asking him questions about, "What do we do about the food?" They're obviously asking questions about, "What do you do about this?" Maybe perhaps there were a group of ladies who are starting to take a more prominent role in the church.

Maybe there were ladies who were advocating like, "Hey, I want to be able to do what that guy is doing." Right? Nonetheless, they were trying their best to basically seek advice from Apostle Paul. And he says, "Thank you for remembering me." And he talks about the traditions. And the reason why I bring that up is because that's important to our topic of study, the traditions.

Okay. And I want to ask you this question, when are traditions bad and when are traditions good? If Apostle Paul lays down perhaps certain traditions, like, "Hey, year to year, I want you to do this." When does that kind of tradition become good and when does that kind of tradition become bad?

Any thoughts? Are you referring to having to practice them as you have to do it? Yeah. I guess I can be a little bit more detailed with the question. So I was trying to study what he meant by traditions. And what's interesting is he literally just means like traditions, a pattern that the group keeps.

Okay. So for our church, we have certain traditions, we have certain like practices that we keep. For example, even the idea of membership, is that explicitly spelled out in the Bible? It's not. Is it contained in the scriptures? Yes, we believe it is. But it's something that we practice really, how's the word, carefully and seriously.

And it's a weighty thing for us at our church. Okay. So when does something like that become bad versus good? I guess my main question is, is all like tradition by men bad? Any thoughts? Yes, Grace. When you don't understand the purpose of the tradition and you do it just to do it.

Gotcha. Good. It definitely becomes bad when a man-made tradition starts to lose its significance. Right? Because in my mind, traditions are not bad in and of itself at all. As a matter of fact, I like to actually begin traditions with my family. I like the fact that various churches have certain traditions.

You know why? Because I see certain traditions as applications. Okay? But then if you lose the principle behind the application, then it's like, what in the world are we doing? Right? It's like, why? What's the point? And as soon as you lose the significance, whether it's what it symbolizes or whether it's what it represents for us or whether the overarching motivation that was pushing that application and tradition, if that's lost, then now it's just like, okay, we're just jumping through hoops and we're just putting on drama.

You know what I mean? That's how it's going to be. And the reason why I bring that up is because today I really want to talk about the principle of gender roles, not so much the tradition of gender roles. Okay? The principle of gender roles as opposed to the tradition of gender roles.

And I think Apostle Paul makes the distinction. What do I mean by that? Verse three. Here is the principle. Can I have, since you're looking right at me, Titus, can you read verse three? But I want you to understand that every man is Christ. The head of a wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God.

Okay, cool. So Apostle Paul begins by saying, hey, I'm glad you're referring to me. I want to answer your questions kind of thing. I'm glad that you're trying your best to keep the teachings I gave to you. But I want you to understand this principle behind why I gave all that stuff.

And the principle is there is this relationship that's going on and I gave you a easy question about, hey, what are the relationships? How are they connected? It's Christ to every man, man to his wife, and then God to Christ. Right? And the connecting idea is headship. You have Christ as head over man, man head over woman, and God head over Christ.

Okay? But I want to ask you this question. You know, can some of you guys perhaps try to fill in that big bucket? Talking about the headship of a man or the headship of Christ is a huge bucket, right? So let's actually first talk about Christ. And it says here that Christ is the head of every man.

What kind of thoughts come into the idea of headship? What is referred to when you say, hey, Christ is the head of every man? Lordship. Okay. What else? Authority. You guys can jot these all down. These are good. Lordship and authority. What else? Sorry? Oh, as in like the other party submits to the head.

Okay. Good. Yeah. So, I asked you guys to kind of see if you can jog any memories of other verses. There's a bunch. You'd be surprised how many New Testament passages talk about Christ being the head. And you guys hit a lot of those. So for example, in the book of Ephesians, it talks about this lordship of Christ.

And so it says everything is subject under his foot. And you'll think about that scenario or the analogy, and he's talking about king. And I think I remember when I preached through Ephesians, I said there was a tradition in ancient days when essentially, literally, other nations and other rulers, if you conquered over them, they would have the king sit on essentially a platform like this, like a stage, you know, and their throne would be on top and the others would literally come by his foot.

You know what I'm saying? To show the kind of authority over the other people who've been conquered. It's like, whoa, okay. The other things is, for example, in Ephesians chapter four, to be head, he is the source. So he says he is the head and every other piece, that's 415.

Ephesians 415. Every other piece is joined together by the provision of Christ. So Christ in being head, he's kind of the provider. He's the sustaining power, okay? And there's just a lot of different thoughts. Now there's gotta be this question, is Christ's headship over every man the same as man's christship over a woman?

That's a big question because I just said Christ was like on the throne and then he was like at the feet. Is Christ's headship over a man the same as a man's christship over a woman? No. No okay, and then why? Right, okay, good. So thank you for saying that because I struggle with that quite a bit.

How to teach this idea of authority and the way that an individual has headship over, right? Well, if you turn your Bibles to Ephesians chapter five, this is the classic passage John, husband love your wives. That's Christ love the church, okay? Alright, so what I'd like to do is this is, it says here, and starting from verse 22, okay?

Or starting from verse 21, it talks about various relationships and then verse 21 says, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ also is the head of the church.

He himself being the savior of the body, but as a church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkles or any such thing but that she would be holy and blameless, okay?

So in that passage, it tries to make pretty clear the connection, okay? But in harmonizing those various passages, we realize, hey, a headship has with it not just a simplistic, okay, if you are a head, you're just absolutely ruler. From that passage alone, we realize headship has quite the array within its definition, right?

So I want to challenge us to think about that. I want to challenge you guys. Study that a little bit because on your own time, because that's an important concept. It's going to affect your relationship. It's going to affect how you teach various passages or think about various passages of scripture.

In harmonizing the two, I would also agree, there is a direct correlation of modeling and source. But our authority as perhaps men over a wife or whatnot is a delegated authority, okay? But nonetheless, nonetheless, it's still just as profound. And I want to give my take on what headship means just for the sake of talking about it, okay?

We noticed that there was lordship, there was authority, there was a provision, there was protection. In the passage that we read just in Ephesians, there was love, okay? There was sanctifying and the cause of growth of a wife, all that kind of stuff. For me, when I think about headship as a man, okay, again, not exactly one-to-one with Christ, but as a man, I think about responsibility, okay?

I think about responsibility. And when I, you know, sometimes I sit and I counsel younger ladies like, "Hey, what kind of guy do you look for?" And they'll say, "I want a leader and I want this and I want that." I said, "Great. What do you envision as a leader?" I said, "Well, he's got to be hardworking, not lazy.

He's got to know what he's doing and he's got to be able to have the strength to push it forward." You know? I'm kind of like, "Yeah, but I know some ladies who have husbands like that, but they're pretty miserable." And they're like, "What?" I'm like, "Because leadership in that scenario is CEO.

I know where I'm going. I know the goal. I know the result. Let's do it." You know? And then they motivate you to go do it. And that's CEO, right? That's CEO. Are those aspects necessary as a man to be a leader? Some of those are very necessary, right?

But is that what leadership entails? No. That's not what leadership, all of it, entails. In my mind, sometimes, actually, I can give guys slack in the sense that, yeah, sometimes they're trying to decide. They're trying to decide what to do. They're trying to lead others and convince them that they need to go that way.

You know? They're trying to have strength when perhaps they're timid and weak. But the guys that I really like to see as the guys who said, like, as soon as they saw the need to make a decision, as soon as they saw a need to motivate, they felt the responsibility.

As soon as they saw a woman that they started to like, it wasn't like, "I like her. Come here. I want you." It was, "I want to take responsibility over her so that her well-being is my responsibility. Her faith is my responsibility." That to me is a hard attitude of, like, "I want to take in." Right?

And to me, whenever you see the word "headship" of Christ, immediately it talks about, and then the fullness of the body. And so for me, that's the way I think about headship for a man, is this guy is absolutely responsible over that individual. That's a guy who I think would be a good leader.

Yeah, he might struggle with making a decision. He might be one of those guys who sits there and deliberates, but he is going to kill himself to try to do it because he feels the responsibility. Does that make sense? Yeah. So, free tip to all you ladies who are single.

Find the guy who feels the weight of responsibility on his shoulders. Okay? All right. So now, in thinking about that, so he says very clearly, here's the principle, all right? There exists a dynamic relationship to which headship can occur, and this headship includes a lot of concepts like authority and responsibility and all that kind of stuff.

And he says, "God over Christ, Christ over man, and man over woman." This is the principle. This is God's design. Okay? And then, what you see is the tradition. What you see is the application of that principle, of the principle of authority and submission in verses four through six.

Okay? And so, if I could have, Jeremy, can you read that one, verses four through six, paragraph? Yes. Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head. For she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved.

For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off. But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head. Okay. Thank you. So, in looking at this, I've got a couple sub-bullet points, because it's kind of important to study the background a little bit.

Okay? Do you guys remember, I don't know if you guys are, I don't know if I actually covered it. Wow. Okay, way back in the first class. Okay? Corinth is located, if you can think of like, you know the Panama Canal south of here? Those points of canals are really important for trade and all that kind of stuff.

Corinth was right near one of those, and then it's really close to Athens, really close to Acropolis. So, very close to the major trade route of Greece. Okay? The culture of that time is very different from the Jews. The Jews actually meant for a lot of covering. Okay? And a lot of the Jews, you know how Moses veiled his face coming down from the mountain?

So the Jews actually, for the guys, they covered their face, thinking that was the right thing to do. Well, in that culture, in the kind of Greek and Roman influenced cultures, the ladies had covering. Okay? And the thing about it is, he's saying essentially, it's ridiculous. In your culture, in your custom, it's ridiculous for a man to have his head covered.

And that would be disgraceful. All right? And so, I guess to put it into a modern day thing, it'd be like, this Sunday I'm preaching. And what if I got onto the pulpit with a dress? Right? Right off the bat, people would have problems. And then I could be like, it's just a dress.

Do you know what Jesus wore? It was like a long thing. It wasn't pants, you know? You could almost call it a dress. And then someone would be like, yeah, but it's not right. And I could argue and be like, well, in the end, what's your criteria? How come guys can't be more free?

And then the ladies would be like, no, because that's what girls do. That's our custom. Likewise, he's talking about custom. Like, in your culture, if a man were to do this, then it'd be disgraceful. So these are very like relative terms, right? It's not easy to just cut a line, but like, okay, if you wear this, like a Jewish hat, then it's super disgraceful.

It's cultural. So he acknowledges the culture and says, the custom of their time, and says, women typically wear head coverings and men do not. As a matter of fact, if you Google on your phones or whatever, Greek veil, you're going to see a bunch of veil and you're going to see a bunch of wedding veils and stuff because our current model of marriage comes from rich Greek people back in the way day.

It's the same, a lot of the same customs and the veil and the white gowns, all that kind of stuff, it's from then. Okay. So you see these veils that the ladies wore and the veils were covering that a lot of people wore. Married ladies would wear veils and sometimes their veils would be bigger because they had this kind of mentality of like their beauty and their presence is reserved for their husband kind of thing, which again, we can look at that culture and be like, dang, that was super conservative.

But you look at their rationale and it's like, hmm, that's how they applied. Okay. So anyway, all that to say is it was very common. It was something that distinguished between the ladies and the guys and Apostle Paul acknowledges it. But we have to ask the question, but what's the big deal?

Okay. Aren't they Christian? Aren't they free from the regulations of pagan world, of the pagan world? What's the big deal? I want to ask you that question. From your reading from verses two through 16, what is the big deal that Apostle Paul saying like this custom that you have in your culture, you know, you can't just like undo it right now.

Why? Women can't just, you know, uncover herself and then come into the worship service and just do all this stuff. Why? What's the big deal with this covering? Okay. It can be distracting, but why is it distracting? I guess from the passage that we're studying today, are there any clues as to why he thinks it's a big deal?

Okay, good. Because of what it represents. So in verse 10, if you look in verse 10, it says, therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. So essentially what he's saying, that first part's the key. The woman, what he wants is the woman has to have a symbol of authority on her head.

Okay. Now the reason why a symbol is italicized in your Bible is because those words aren't actually in the Greek. The way it reads in the Greek is she ought to have authority on her head. Okay. But it's implied. She's got to have the representation of authority because that's what it was back then.

If there was a group, there was a group, I guess in every like major, I guess, how would you call it? Nation, era, empire, you know, Assyrians even, there were movements of liberalism and there were movements of feminism. And sometimes the way that the ladies would look is they would have their head shaved.

And that's why in the verse he says, essentially, if she's going to uncover her hair, then let her just shave her head. To have a woman who had her head shaved was either a woman who was caught in adultery or prostitution, or she was like a zealous feminist who was trying to make a statement.

Okay. And the feeling in his mind is like, if you do that, you come in and you're just like, to us, it's like nobody wears anything like that. So it wouldn't make a big deal. I was trying to think of a corollary, but I couldn't really think of one.

I mean, there's, I can't think of something that a person would do who would come in here and they would have essentially an expression of complete rebellion and saying, you know what? I'm not under anybody's authority. We don't even have something like that in this age. But in Apostle Paul's eyes, that's what it would represent.

So the principle in order to get around it, huh? I guess, thank you for pointing out that. I'm not even wearing mine right now. I can't use that example. But if let's say, if let's say a husband and wife had their wedding ring and the husband was saying like, Oh, I really want you to wear it.

And the wife was like, no, you know, and she refused it. And that would be like the same thing. I don't wear it because I gained way too much weight since I got married and it doesn't fit. All right. Anyway. So I'm going to get another one. All right.

So the big deal is that it was a symbol of authority and because of what the principle it represented. Now there was another big deal about it. If you would scan with your eyes the rest of chapter 11, okay, look at what it's talking about. Just take a moment.

I'll give you time. Scan with your eyes the rest of chapter 11. Look at what it's talking about. Okay. And then I'm going to ask you the question, how does that rest of the chapter tie into what he's saying now? How would it, Oh, how would it tie into the question of, you know, why would he make a big deal about something like that?

If you just continue to look at the rest of the chapter, chapter 11, how does that all kind of tie in? In terms of the issue of authority or head shifting to a more independent space of the creation order itself. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. When you, when you mentioned verse 16, so yeah, after verse 16, it starts talking about communion, the Lord's table, all that kind of stuff.

I'm asking how does that section, father section, sorry, contribute to this idea of why Apostle Paul would make a big deal about head coverings. Okay. I'm getting at something more specific to, let's say if you look in starting from verse 17 and says, but in giving this instruction, I do not praise you because you came together not for the better, but for the worse.

For in the first place, when you came together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you and in part I believe it. Right? So he's looking at a church that is struggling to stay together. And then if you start having an attitude of like, forget authority, I don't want to be bound by anything.

If you have an attitude of, I'm not subject to anybody. If you have an attitude of, I'm not submitting to you, you know what I mean? This is going to ruin the church. This is really going to divide the church. And so Apostle Paul makes a big deal of this both because of what it represents for, yes, created order and what we're going to talk about, but also for the sake of greater church unity.

Yeah. And so he talks about the kind of, um, and the next segment he starts to defend then his principle. Let's move there right now for seven through 10. Let's see. Can I have, who's over there? Sincere? Is that you? Sincere, can you read verse seven through 10? For a man ought not to have his head covered in truth, in the glory of God, but the woman in the glory of man.

For man did not make the woman, but woman for man. For indeed, man was not created for woman, but woman for man. Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of the glory on her head, because it is a man's woman. Okay thank you. All right. I remember when I first as a young Christian read this passage being like, dang, you know, in the sense that perhaps a lady could read this in the wrong way and be like, dude, the Bible is very, in many ways, diminishing the value or the worth of a woman.

But let's take a closer look at the kind of rationale and reasons apostle Paul is giving in defending the principle of, hey, men have authority and headship and the ladies have a more submissive role. Okay. Let's take a look at verse seven. How would you define the kind of argument he gives there?

To say that, oh, he is the image and glory of God and she is the glory of a man. What is he referring to? The greater to the lesser or lesser to the greater. Okay. Greater, one more time? They call it the lesser to the greater. Okay. Gotcha. Lesser to the greater.

So in one sense, absolutely. He's talking about man's reflection of God's image, woman's inspection of glory of man. But what I'm kind of pointing to is the idea of, he's kind of referring to the created nature, right? So for the blank there, if you want to write created nature, what I'm talking about is a concept more of just simply the image, the nature by which we were created.

If you were to think of our nature, it's hard to describe. But when we look in Genesis, the way that the scriptures describe our nature, it repeatedly talks about being in the image of God, right? Being in the image of God. And so this is an aspect of just the nature of how we are created and the nature of who we are.

The reflections of God's glory. And then, verse eight tied very closely with that, when he says, "For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man," he is talking about not only just the nature of creation, but the order of creation. Okay? So that blank is the order of creation.

And in 1 Timothy 2.11, when it starts talking about actual ministry positions of teaching and authority, Apostle Paul gives, again, this argument of the order of creation for that rationale as well. Okay? And then number three, in verse nine, it says, "For indeed, man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake." Okay?

How would you guys describe that? What kind of argument would that be? Yes? Good. Purpose. Purpose. Purpose. This is the purpose you are to fulfill. Right? So, in thinking about that a little bit, I gave you this kind of extreme scenario where perhaps this lady is very accomplished. This lady is incredibly, I don't know, esteemed in every other aspect of life, whether it be her community, her work, et cetera, academically even.

And she takes this position of like, "Wow, I'm not sure what's going on, but I have leadership capacity. I have proven track record. What's going on?" And to tell you honestly, in the Christian community now, I would say it's almost 50/50. People who believe that, "Oh, women should be able to have leadership positions in church.

Women should be able to be pastors." Or on the other side is just simply, "No, women and men are complementary, but we have different roles. Men should lead and women should submit." I think the Christian community is almost divided and continually there are more people who would believe that women should have equal or like positions and opportunities within the church as well.

Okay? So for you guys, if you ever come across a situation like that, obviously here are some rationales that I just spoke of. But my question really is, what makes sense to you? Does it make sense to you guys? And how would you, I guess you can share just some of the things we talked about a little bit.

How would you communicate to somebody? Although, yes, that's an agenda and a practice of the secular world, this doesn't take place here. Okay? What I think is important to recognize, like in your warm up question, is that friendship, or equality, is not the same as role. Being equal with somebody doesn't mean you should have the same role as somebody.

You can see that very clearly by going to the head of Christ as God. Okay. So we don't say Christ is less than God. Right. We're equal. But he's subordinate in his role. And so that means that man can be head of woman without them being unequal in some way.

Okay. So different roles. Good. Well said. Did you have something to add too? Yes. The fact that the instruction for roles in the church is irrelevant to roles in the business world. I mentioned in the group, Proverbs 31, the woman is shown as being good in business. It doesn't say she ran the house.

It has nothing to do with the leadership, the role hierarchy of man and woman, the house, the church. Gotcha. Okay. Good. Anything else you guys want to add? Or I just want to take this opportunity. Is there any questions so far about this topic or the passage so far?

Leave it open for that. No? Okay. Okay. Yeah, I think what David said is important. This could potentially be a sensitive topic. And I hope that when we do talk about this, I definitely didn't want to come off studying this as like, this is what the Bible says. We're just going to apply it, read it and weep.

You know, it's just not the way I want to approach it. I think, you know, for example, if someone did, like, let's say a sister came in here and perhaps she came from a background where it was very much like, no, women, we need to fight for our position.

We've been suppressed for way too long, that kind of thing. I think there's a sense in which this passage does both of harmonizing. And I think I always appreciate the approach of Apostle Paul because at certain areas he can be very strong, at certain areas he's very cautious. And I think he can predict that perhaps sometimes we take certain principles like, hey, Christ is the head of the man, man is head of the woman.

There you go. You know? And there have been guys, there have been people who said, so in everything, the Bible says literally everything, I have authority. You just need to do what I say. Right? I don't think that's the way God wanted us to apply the passage, you know?

If you look at the next segment really quickly, over here in verses 11 through 12, it says, and we're going to start rounding things up a little bit. It says, "However, in the Lord neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman.

And all things originate from God." Okay? And I ask, what are some of the harmonizing principles given in these verses? Can you guys just throw some out? It's pretty clear and obvious what are some of those principles, but some may be not so obvious. So if you guys can, throw out some principles that we can glean from verses 11 through 12.

- Man and woman are dependent. - Good. They're mutually dependent on each other. So if a guy were to make the argument of like, oh yeah, you know, as you see created order, we came first, you know, and you just keep emphasizing the first, like, I was here before you, you know?

And it's like, yeah, but subsequent to Adam, which you are not, every single one of you guys are dependent on a woman, you know? What else? - All things are originated from God. - Good. All things originate from God. And that one is, you can stem a lot of different principles from.

For example, I think sometimes, I have talked to sisters who struggle with this concept and it's not so much because they're defiant or rebellious, but they struggle because they don't know how that's supposed to exactly look like, you know? The other times they struggle is fear. You know, they struggle with fear of like, okay, men are supposed to be in an authoritative role, but the fact of the matter is, the authority of men is complex.

Why? Because we're all sinners. And the propensity is that when you have authority, your authority is used for selfish means. So what if I end up underneath that kind of scenario? Do I submit to selfish authority? Am I only supposed to submit to religious authority? You know, practical authority?

Like, what am I supposed to submit to? And so sometimes I ease those concerns by saying, you know, when you think about even your submission, your submission is not like independent of God. It's still underneath God's provision, care, and his own authority, right? So some people fear being, I guess, dominated by a man's authority, even if that man is not godly.

But I remind them, your submission is delegated to you by God. A God who is careful, a God who has ultimate authority over our lives. Likewise for the guys, their authority is delegated to them, underneath God who is the originator of all things. Okay? Anything else you guys see?

Yes. (Question being asked.) (Laughter.) (Question being asked.) Right. Yeah. So those circumstances are incredibly, did you guys hear? It's just basically two non-Christians get married, wife becomes a Christian, husband says can't go to church. Okay? Those kind of scenarios are very difficult. Why, typically you want to start asking about, okay, how vehement is he?

How does he respond? What has he done? You have to know the scenario as to how he's going to react if her safety is in question. You know? Those things have to be all considered before we ever give somebody like that advice. We can't just be like, well, you gotta obey God, so just gotta do it, you know?

Because some people experience greater amount of persecution even in the home for doing what's right. Okay? But it's that aspect of, regardless of the circumstance, obviously every Christian is called to continue that strive and keep on persevering. So first it might be testing the waters to see if she can go, even if he's resisting and all that kind of stuff, to see if she can do it.

If it becomes something more volatile, it's like, man, if I do this, then perhaps kids are involved, the kids are going to suffer, you know? That's another thing to consider. Or she's going to suffer, then you have to find different alternatives. Definitely seeking help and all that kind of stuff is good.

But again, it's definitely, I think, the admonition always is to strive to persevere so that even the husband sees, gosh, my wife is dedicated to this beyond measure. You know what I mean? So yeah. Okay. Alright. Yes? I guess the extreme of that is like, well, we're taking it to its logical conclusion.

Right. So the logic is clear, but it's that issue of like, when do you decide this is a command of God, you have to go to church today. You know what I mean? Like or something like that. So for example, if the husband says, go and kill that person.

Obviously. Sure. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah, it's not. And I read an article recently, one of the sisters posted it up about a wife who was in a home where the husband was, I guess, not necessarily like a fanatic or, you know, incredibly devout Muslim, but he was a Muslim.

So there was no way that he was going to allow her to go to church. But the fact of the matter is I was very challenged because the lady said she tried in every single way and she felt a great conviction at least to denounce Islam. And that's a great, that's a step that she felt a conviction of that's an obedience to the Lord, which I would say, yeah, if you convert to Christianity, you can't, you can't just like lie and be like, no, I'm Muslim still.

You know what I mean? So in those types of scenarios, she chose to draw a line where she said, I will obey to this degree and incur whatever wrath may come. But on the other side, she's being creative and trying to, trying her best, you know? So, okay. Yeah.

I think what Leo is referring to is the verse in Hebrews. Right. We cannot forsake the assembly of one another. Right. And the word assembly there, it's synagogue. So. It's pretty much saying don't forsake the synagogue, which would be today, the church. Yeah. Sometimes. Right. Yeah. I mean, it comes down to like, you know, the husband's going to beat her or something.

Right. You know, like that's a whole different. Right. So, so moving forward and kind of wrapping this study up. Okay. It's a, this is a topic that again, is controversial to some degree and people debate about it. And some of you guys are like, I'm not interested because I already hold a stance of like complimentarian and I understand husbands are men should lead and the wives just submit and loving care for each other and we're equal, all that.

I get it. So why are we debating this? Because there's actually, again, a bigger thought that he's talking about. Um, and the final arguments, again, we hit a lot of verses today, so sorry, this is kind of getting lengthy. And the final arguments, you can see that he is giving a final argument of saying, Hey, this is intuitive for you.

There should be a distinction between man and woman. Um, this is something that it's just by nature you see, but then he ends by saying, but if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice nor have the churches of God. And I want to focus on that idea.

If one is inclined to be contentions, we have no other practice nor have the churches of God. Okay. Because I think he's getting to that idea again, starting from the very beginning of the book of Corinthians, we noticed that the church has struggled intensely with a sense of unity.

They had stuff about, you know, their association with different leaders. I'm of Paul, I'm of Peter, I'm of Paulus and all that kind of stuff. We noticed that there was a great divide when people were starting to sue each other. It's like they're taking each other to court. And then we're seeing various things that divide even in their immorality.

You know, when there is even sexual perversion in the church that actually divides the church incredibly. When there's adultery, it divides the church. It just divides the fellowship of the body. And then he sees people here, again, although it's gender specific, essentially you have people who are being contentious with each other.

Right? And he sees that as a great issue. And when he says, "Hey, we have no other practice," he's not just simply saying, "Oh, we've got no other options." He's saying, "None of the apostles and none of the other churches teach anything different. Should you so decide to refuse my teaching right now, there is nothing else.

That the apostles of the other churches are teaching aside from this." And I want you guys just to see that as he's thinking about just the topic of, let's say, gender and gender roles and what men and women should fulfill, he is truly thinking about the greater unity of the whole church and how it affects it.

And for me, when I think about that, I realize, again, Apostle Paul is trying to teach us to be mature. I think of it, this is just a side point as a way of conclusion. I think about a person who is mature. Someone who is genuinely mature. It's not a person, in my mind, who is just simply disciplined.

It's not someone who, in my mind, who, I don't know, has made the steps in life. Meaning like, they now have a job, they now have a career, they now have children, they now have all this stuff. That does not equate to maturity at all. But just like a man is supposed to have a sense of responsibility over a wife and his kids, I think when people are willing to see beyond themselves, beyond their own rights, beyond the whole contention over the meat and contention over this, but they're willing to see the greater church and the health of the church and to take responsibility to that to the degree that they're willing to fulfill what role God has placed for them, whether they like it or not.

They're willing to let go of liberties. They're willing to let go of suits. They're willing to let go of their competition. In my mind, I see an individual who is matured. So again, I want to just say that as a means to say this is not just a study and like, "Hey, let's learn to debate and controversy over men and women roles." It's an issue to me of maturity.

Okay? All right. Any questions? Yes. From your discussion where one role is different from the four, we're kind of stuck on how to defend the answer or is it just talking specifically to that context of that church or that school. Gotcha. Good. Yeah. We're just kind of stuck on how to defend that.

So in terms of defending that, I would look to the specifics of the passage. And essentially, the specifics of the passage says very clearly that hair covering is a symbol of authority. Right? And so there are many symbols that culturally we have that represent something. And so in my mind, Apostle Paul, he is very much more concerned about the principle of headship and authority and he is acknowledging the cultural symbol that's in use at that time.

Clothing changes a lot in the day and throughout time. And right now, we don't have anything culturally that marks off, "Oh, you're a married woman or you're not a married woman or you're a married man, not a married man." But there are things that also, even in this day, that represent something to the degree of are we associating with something that's holy or are we associating with something that's more rebellious?

Right? So I would use that means to say that here, just simply ask, so the public wearing a lot of that kind of stuff, is that a universal principle for all time? The universal principle for all time is the roles. Right? Husband, head, wife, submitting to that leadership. But the actual application of the head wearing would be a symbol.

That's the way I would do it. Does that help? Yes? I have a question, but it's a little bit, I think, maybe not so much on the principles, but in application. Okay. The scenario that you give, I mean, I understand it, but I think it's very singular in the sense that it kind of pictures or portrays women sort of being aggressive and asserting themselves into these roles.

So I mean, I think even other women would find women like this obnoxious. Okay. Inside a church where there are women who are leaders, I mean, I would have to presume that the majority, like both women and men, felt like she was gifted and put her in that position, right?

And so when we talk about gender roles and gender roles inside the church, are you kind of saying that churches that decide to do that are wrong in their application? Okay. So to answer your question about just simply the churches that have ladies who are, let's say, teaching as pastors and whatnot, do I believe they're wrong in their application?

Yes. I believe they're wrong in their application. To address, yeah, the example I gave is a very kind of singular scenario of a woman who happens to want, has an ambition for that. But you're right. Nowadays there are a lot of churches that encourage women and place people in those positions or even seek out specifically women because they want that diversity.

And in that kind of scenario, where do I put the blame? Yeah, it would be on the leadership of the church. This is one of those issues where I feel a level of confidence to say, yes, the application is just flat wrong because of the fact that the biblical passages that we see, they're not kind of implicit or vague, but not only is it explicit, but Apostle Paul gives timeless reasons.

Timeless reason as in creation order, God's intention, God's purposes, that kind of stuff. So to answer your question, yeah. So, okay. All right. Does any of you guys have any other questions on that? That's good. Okay. Let's take a moment to pray and then we'll wrap up. Heavenly Father, we want to thank you.

God, we thank you for the gospel. Lord, we thank you for your truth. God, you are the one in your scriptures that said that in Christ there is no man or woman because now we are heirs with Christ. We have been bought by the precious blood and each one of us as recipients of your grace, we are heirs in the Lord.

Father, I thank you for continuing to teach us wisdom. I pray, Father God, that although this is one of those just debated topics, I pray, Father, that we would approach it with great wisdom and tact. I pray also that we would approach it with great obedience and submission to your word.

I pray, Father God, that every single one of us would continue to just mature in our thought and thinking. Lord, as you've been challenging us through the book of Corinthians to see beyond ourselves, to see to the needs of the church, to see to the health of the body, I pray, Father God, with mature eyes we'd be able to not only assess that, but God, contribute and encourage that.

I pray, Father Lord, that you would be with us and sing Christ. Let me pray. Amen. Okay. (audience applauds)