The standards that shaped Paul for a ministry that transcended all cultures were the virtues of honor, submission, modesty, and moderation. Grounded in the headships that God had established, these were the virtues that had to be expressed through the norms of public propriety in the cultures where God placed him. These virtues would be the standards that gave the churches the liberty to adapt to the norms of public propriety in every culture where God placed them to win others to Christ.

What was going on in the public worship of the church at Corinth (1 Cor 11:2-16)? Why had some wives and husbands chosen to change what they wore on their heads in worship? And why was Paul so concerned about their choices? What follows is a brief attempt to answer those questions and to anticipate some of their implications. 

The problem: Influencers in the NT world were moving society away from long-accepted norms of honor, submission, modesty, and moderation, and a minority in the church at Corinth was moving with them. They had made dishonorable, immodest, and extravagant choices of headwear for worship, sending signals to society that the church was elitist, promiscuous, gender-confused, and even idolatrous. Those choices, however, exposed an even deeper issue. They expressed a careless indifference to the honor and submission owed to God (as the head of Christ and all creation too, 1 Cor 11:3, 12), to Christ (as the head of every Christian husband, 11:3; 3:23), and to husbands (as the head of their own wives, 11:3, 5, 8-9). It was, therefore, imperative that the wayward minority at Corinth admit that their attitude and choices were displeasing to God and contrary to the virtues of honor, submission, modesty, and moderation that ought to characterize His church.

The solution: Paul admonished the troublemakers at Corinth to follow his example (1 Cor 9:19-23; 10:32–11:1). They should, therefore, avoid any appearance in public worship that might put others’ spiritual well-being at risk. They should return to long-standing norms of honorable, modest, and circumspect appearance in worship that would commend Christ to their neighbors, regardless of their cultural background (9:20-22; 10:32). Only in this way would they live out the virtues that must characterize God’s church and thereby advance the Apostles’ gospel mission. Living their lives as Paul lived his, they could say with him, “I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with [others] in its blessings” (9:23).

A note on church history: We’re sometimes told that up until the mid-20th century, there was compliance in all churches with Paul’s requirement of head-coverings for women in public worship. This claim can be questioned for at least two reasons.

First, the claim does not reckon adequately with the fact that, independent of Paul’s teaching to the Corinthians, women’s headwear had been a social convention for centuries, with noticeable differences across time and place. It’s not clear, then, how we can be sure whether it was Paul’s teaching, existing customs, or a combination of the two that influenced women to cover their heads.

Second, the claim disregards the fact that after the Apostles, though women may have done what Paul said, men did not do so. For example, portraits of Reformed church leaders (as suitable for purposes of comparison as statuary from the Greco-Roman period) show a common disregard among men toward Paul’s teaching that long hair was a disgrace to them (1 Cor 11:14). From evidence like this, historians will tell us to seek an answer to why Paul’s rule for women was binding but his rule for men was not. Did the churches defend what appears to have been their double standard and, if so, on what basis?

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