Saving America Part 3: It starts with the Church. WE'VE GOT TO GO BACK TO THE HEAD COVERING!

Saw the headline and had to listen. I like Todd Friel, I've watched quite a few of his Wretched Radio talks recently, and the headline to this one mentions the woman's head covering, one of my big topics. Well, I knew there was no point in expecting him to contradict the viewpoint of his own theological frame of reference. John MacArthur employs the usual false arguments against the literal head covering, so does Alistair Begg, so I know Friel isn't going to say anything different. It's going to be the same old totally misguided argument from culture. I might have wanted to be pleasantly surprised but I knew better than to expect it.

And sadly I was right. Always this sophistry about the head covering. Golly gosh, yeah sure it's God- ordained but it's shaped by culture. WAHAT is shaped by culture? Masculine and feminine expressions. Ay yi yi yi yi.

Why is this so difficult> Why why why? 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is not about masculinity and femininity for starters, IT'S ABOUT HEADSHIP. HEADSHIP. HEADSHIP. It's about the HEAD, it's about authority, it is not about mjasculinity and femininity. It is about the headship of the man over the woman, and Christ over the man. THAT'S WHAT IT SAYS.

He starts from Paul's observation that women tend to wear their hair longer than men do. Why start there?: In the context of the passage it's one of what, four or five? arguments Paul makes FOR the head covering. This one is the least persuasive in my opinion, and when it is so frequently misread as prescriptive instead of merely descriptive, as in this case, I want to tear all my own hair out.

Some Pentecostals make the passage entirely about the long hair. In a discussion about this passage I had with some Pentecostals a woman told me her hair is so long she can sit on it, and she had grown it out to such a length because that is how she understands that passage.

But all Paul is saying is that we can see that women tend to wear their hair longer than men do. And from that observed fack he draws the conclusion that it is a sign that women know they are to have their heads covered. No, the hair is not the covering, if it were the fact that women do tend to wear it longer would suffice as the covering and Paul would not have had to write about the covering at all.

The logic of Paul's argument here is hard to follow but in the context of the whole passage it has to be understood to be another reason women need to wear a covering on their heads in the assembly. It makes no sense that he'd have written so much about headship only to answer it with the custom of long hair. The logic must be that since women naturally wear their hair long as a covering, it is one of the reasons for the additional head covering. In any case the rest of the passage makes it clear if this one argument isn't so clear.

The main argument in the passage is that because of the God-ordained order of headship women need to cover our heads as a recognition of that headship order. (Again if women normally wear their hair long that cannot be what he is advocating, there would be no reason to mention it at all).

No it is not about temple prostitution. Yes there were temple prostitutes in Corinth. If it's about wearing your hair long and women normally wore their hair long then again there would be no reason to exhort them to cover their heads so as not to be mistake for a temple prostitute. Any woman growing up in that culture would have known such a thing without needing to be told anyway. Good grief this is so ridiculous. Todd Friel, why didn't you just STOP AND THINK?

The man who caused all this confusion was a highly regarded Christian, but what he wrote about the head covering should be denounced effusively. I've written about it on the blog Hidden Glory, I'll only say here that the overall problrm with his essay is that he assumes from the beginning what he finally concludes. That plus thje fact that he's making up the whole cultural interpretation and the bigger fact that Paul is never ever talking about culture, he argues the whole point from God's Laws.

Here are a few of the best arguments for the head covering in my opinionj:

1. The fact that historically ALL Christians understood until the 20th Century that the passage rqejuires women to cover our heads, and it was not restricted to the assembly but women covered their heads most of the time TAKING IT FROM THIS PASSAGE.
2. The fact that we require men to remove their hats in the assembly, and the passage requires that of men, therefore it makes no sense NOT to require women to do the opposite and to cover our heads.
3. The passage is about THE HEAD, it is NOT about femininity and masculinity.

Good grief.

And I think the fact that this brief little piece of scri8pture is so mishandled to the effect that we disobey it has to mean the devil considers it a pretty important passage. If we disregard the Creation Ordinance to cover our heads we are very likely spiritually opening the door to all the other violations of God's ordinances which we see in the world and even in the churches today. Divorce, Gender Confusion, and every other abuse of sexuality that is bringing down wester civilixzation.

The conclusion being that if the churches saw this error and set out to correct it, requiring women to cover our heads in church just as we require men to uncover theirs, WE MIGHT MAKE SOME HEADWAY TO RECOVERING THE CULTURE.

GOOD GRIEF, CHURCH!!!!!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHpTlKN25Kg -- Friel's coments on the head covering start at about 3:45 and run for about two minutes.