Principalities and Powers, #6

Posted by owner on March 2, 2010

The sixrh in a series of studies of references to demons in Paul’s epistles

Because of Angels

“For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head” (1 Corinthians 11:10).

What angels?

It’s tempting to assume that the angels Paul is thinking of in this passage are God’s angels. In fact, that may be. However, Satan’s demons are also angels, although fallen angels. So Paul may have Satan’s followers in mind. We simply can’t say with surety. But it really doesn’t matter as far as Paul’s topic is concerned. Both God’s angels and fallen angels are interested in the question of women’s roles within the church. As we should be.

The question

The question Paul is dealing with is one of relationships within the body of Christ, and especially how those relationships are expressed when believers meet together. Here the specific issue is whether women should follow custom and wear a head covering in church meetings.

It seems like an insignificant issue in view of the stunning acceptance of women as participants in the new Christian community. In the Jewish synagogue a partition isolated women from men, and only men were active participants in leading elements in the worship service. Yet here Paul describes the Christian gathering as a setting in which men pray and prophesy . . . and women pray and prophesy too! This would be unthinkable in the synagogue. And as far pagan Hellenistic culture was concerned, seldom did women even take part in dinner parties. And when they did, the women of the household were dismissed to their quarters long before the men engaged in any significant discussion. We simply don’t realize today how shocking Paul’s depiction of women praying and prophesying in the gathered church truly was.

So why then is Paul so insistent that women wear a head covering while they pray and prophesy?

Vive la difference!

If scan 1 Corinthians 11 we see that Paul begins his argument by appealing to creation and insisting that gender differences are real. In this argument the Apostle, using “head” in one of its established senses as “origin,” rather than “authority,” points out that Jesus came from God the Father, man (Adam) came from God, and woman (Eve) came from Adam. Creation itself testifies to the reality of a distinction between the sexes.

To shift the setting to our country in the 60’s, women then had begun to affirm and insist on their equality with men. Some women expressed their enthusiasm for equality by burning their bras. The call to “ban the bra” was powerfully symbolic. Not only are women equal, the movement affirmed, they were the same as men! Burning their bras was a way for women to insist that there are no significant differences between men and women.

Something like this was happening in Corinth. And the symbol chosen was a piece of clothing that was as powerfully identified with women then as the bra is today. Excited about their equal access to ministry in the church, some of the Corinthian women went so far as to deny their unique identity as women by refusing to wear the head covering that served as a symbol of their gender.
And this really upsets the Apostle Paul. Paul isn’t upset because he views women as second-class Christians who are to be subordinate to men. Paul is upset because the women have missed the point! Wearing the veil that marks them as women is an affirmation of the truth that in the Christian community women have the authority to pray and prophesy, just as men do! And then Paul adds a strange comment. He says, “and because of angels.”

Angel attack!

Satan’s initial attack on the human race took place in Eden. There the mighty angel struck up a conversation with Eve, as Adam stood aside and watched passively. Spinning deceits, Satan tricked Eve into eating forbidden fruit, in direct violation of God’s command. And Adam then ate too, an action that was both an act of rebellion and also a declaration of independence from God.

Later the Lord confronted the frightened pair and outlined the consequences of their choice. And one of those consequences was the corruption of the relationship between the sexes. God told Eve, “your desire will be for adam [“man”], and he will rule over you.” With innocence lost, the relationship between men and women would be distorted. Women would orient their lives to men, and men would seize on this weakness to dominate and misuse women.

Satan had triumphed. Not only had he driven a wedge between humans and the Creator, he had also driven a wedge between male and female that would result in untold misery. The first angel attack on human beings conducted by the chief angel himself had been a resounding success.

Then Jesus came

In the cross Jesus provided a redemption that restores those who believe to harmonious relationship with God. And reverses the damage done in the Fall. In Christ the differences that divide human beings, whether differences between Jew and Greek, slave and free, or between men and women, are healed. In Christ, and thus in the Christian community, we are called to live together as we were created to be!

This was being lived out in the Corinthian church. Women were no longer dominated by men, but were partners with them. Like men, women led the community in prayer and taught it through prophesy! And then some women came up with the idea that to really be equal they needed to reject their identity as women and so tore off their head coverings, in effect saying, see! We’re just like men. At last!

I can understand their feelings. And sympathize. Women have been treated as second class members of the human race in every culture and in every age. Tragically, women still are viewed in this way. Even in the church. How exciting it must have been for those Corinthian women to be freed to minister as equals in the body of Christ.

But the women had missed an important point. What was significant was the very fact that they were equal as women. In fact, their participation as equals that was like a dagger in Satan’s heart/ That head covering women wore in church was a witness to Satan and his angels, as well as to God’s angels, that Satan had failed. In his death Christ had succeeded in restoring all that humanity had lost in the fall, including freeing women from the bondage in which they had lived ever since Satan’s initial victory. In Christ, women had and have authority to pray and prophesy. And wearing that head covering was a sign of the authority they now possessed.

There’s a lesson for us in this passage; a reminder that we are called by God to display the wonderful complexity and beauty of God’s plan of redemption. And surely one aspect of that plan is the restoration of women to the place of partnership with men that Eve once enjoyed before the Fall.

So let’s remember, men. Honor women as partners, and as full participants in the body of Christ.

Angels are watching.