“ Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth of prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head ”.

This is not one of the easiest passages in scripture and possibly because of it we may have overlooked a key issue here and that is that Paul allows both men and women to pray and to prophesy in public.

He teaches this as well in I Timothy 2:8-9 though it is not so clear from the English text. Paul is writing about prayer in this chapter. He first of all shares for whom prayer is to be made in I Timothy 2:1-2

“ I exhort therefore, that first of all supplication, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty ”.

Paul next deals with the attitude in which prayer will be acceptable to God. He first of all focuses on the attitude of the men when he writes in I Timothy 2:8

“ I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting ”.

Paul then moves on to focus on the attitude of the women when he writes in
I Timothy 2:9

“ In like manner also, that women (in prayer) adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array ”.

Now you undoubtedly will think, just a moment, the word prayer is not mentioned in verse 9. And that is true. Neither is it to be found in the original text.

Another example where the verb has actually been left out is in
Ephesians 5:21-22.

“ Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord ”.

The literal translation of the original actually text reads

“ Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord ”.

There is no verb in the original text of verse 22 and its meaning is to be understood in light of verse 21.

I believe, we have a similar situation here in I Tim 2:8-9 where Paul first encourages the men to pray with the right attitude and then continues by encouraging the women to do likewise, or also pray with the right attitude and in their case that meant not being focused on outward appearance.

What we can see then is that Paul consistently encourages both men and women to minister in public in accordance with their gifts.

This puts a responsibility on each believer, male or female, for each one of us as individuals have been given one or more gifts, talents, and are we using them for the Lord? You see, we cannot use excuses, like:

”But Lord, I am too old”.

Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah could have said that when she found out she was going to have a son John at her old age.

Or we might say: “But Lord, I am too young”.

(Mary could have said that when the angel came to her to tell her that she was going to give birth to the Saviour of the world, even though she was not yet married).

We might even say: “But Lord, the times are simply too difficult”.

(Jochebed could have said that when she had her son Moses, even though she lived in dangerous times when baby boys were being killed).

God is not interested in any of our excuses. All He wants from us is our obedience. Some of our excuses may even sound like they have come right out of the word of God. Perhaps you recognize some of these:

“Man is the head of the woman”.

“A woman is to submit to a man and a wife is to submit to her husband”.

“A woman is to be silent”.

“She is not to allowed to teach or to have authority over men because of creation order”.

These are indeed strong statements and need very careful consideration. We must always remember though that these statements are to be read in light of the wider context of scripture. They cannot overrule the general sense of what scripture teaches regarding men and women. It would be very wrong for any one of us to build a case defending a particular viewpoint, based only on one or two passages of scripture.

We must remember as well that the authorative, inspired, infallible Word of God contains material that though we may learn from it, it at the same time may not be applicable to us today as it was for those to whom it was written.

An example from the Old Testament would be the purification rituals a Jewish woman would have to undergo because of her ceremonial uncleanness after her monthly period or after the birth of a child as described in Leviticus 12 and Leviticus 15:19-30.

An example from the New Testament would be issue of food that had been sacrificed to idols as discussed by Paul in I Corinthians 8.

It may therefore at times be useful for us to have background information to help us know how to apply what is written in a particular passage to our lives today. This makes sense of course for after all scripture was written a long time ago, over a long period of time and it was dealing with people of many different cultures.

How then are we to understand some of the passages in scripture, which seem to teach us that the woman’s role in the church and at home is limited and that she is to be under the man? And that this has been so from creation?

Let’s look at some of them.

We have mentioned, “Man is the head of the woman”. The first passage we will be looking at is I Corinthians 11:3.

“The head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God”.

In the English language the word “head” means either part of our physical body, or it means some one in a position of authority or power for instance: head of a school, head of a department, or head of a company.

In Greek literature the word “head” can mean these things depending on the word the author has chosen. Paul in I Cor 11:3 has chosen the word “kephale”, which can mean “physical head” or “source, source of life” but it never means “authority” or “power”.

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