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I Corinthians 11 is one of the most enigmatic passages in any of St Paul’s letters. In it, Paul seems to be concerned about things that we just wouldn’t expect from such a deep theologian and evangelist. Given that he will be delivering some of the most poetic, memorable and life-changing words about love two chapters later, this chapter stands out as oddly parochial. Hairstyles, shaved heads and whether or not to wear something on top of your head – these trifles can hardly be thought of as central Gospel issues!
Paul’s writing also moves between theology and culture, sometimes seeming to argue about creation, at other times about what is acceptable in Roman society of that time. He makes comments about women and men which he then changes a few verses later. And an obscure reference to angels and authority has had biblical scholars arguing for centuries. Who are these angels and what do they have to do with the issues he’s writing about? Clearly, the whole passage needs some careful study. It helps us, however, when we look at the structure of this chapter. Paul is writing it using a literary form called a chiasm. Here, a number of statements lead up to a central point, and then the same statements are revisited in reverse order on the way down. It’s a literary device that enables him to make strong points which he can then soften or balance out when he returns to them.
The background to this chapter also helps us in understanding what Paul is doing. In the previous chapter, he has spent time helping the Corinthian church to understand the freedom God gives to believers. He’s urged Christians not to judge one another when following their own conscience before God. Now, in 1 Corinthians 11, he shows how they should avoid judgement by not acting in ways that cause offence.
He’s speaking in the context of the Roman culture in Corinth, where an explicit display of Christian non-conformity might easily bring the Gospel into disrepute. He talks specifically to women and men who are already exercising their freedom in public worship, through prophesying and praying. It’s important to notice that the issue for Paul is not any restriction on gender participation. He takes it for granted that women have gifts of prophetic insight from the Holy Spirit and should be encouraged to use them. His concern is that in these public roles, men and women should avoid any cultural barriers that might distract people from hearing the message. In particular, they should present themselves without gender ambiguity and accept markers like head coverings and hair length which designate male and female distinctiveness. A man praying or prophesying with long hair would negatively affect the way people regarded God. A woman prophesying without a head covering would negatively affect the reputation of her husband. (v.7) So, using arguments from creation and culture, he urges those using their gifts to show respect to relevant gender codes.
Paul assumes that women and men together exercise spiritual gifts and prophesy in the church. The passage doesn’t even debate it. Its focus is on issues of appearance, propriety and respect, and not standing out culturally for all the wrong reasons. However, Christians who believe that authority in the church can only be exercised by men, claim that their position is endorsed by Paul here. They read Paul as arguing that men have headship over women, whilst their own authority as men comes direct from Christ.
Their argument centres on a Greek word kephale (‘head’) which comes up many times in the text. Paul repeatedly uses it both in its literal meaning (physical head) and as a metaphor, sometimes even in the same sentence. Those advocating ‘male headship’ claim that every time Paul uses kephale as a metaphor, it signifies ‘authority.’ So, when he says ‘the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man’ he’s describing authority relationships. But is this what Paul is doing? If it is, it would then suggest that women believers are not directly under Christ’s authority, when the New Testament clearly maintains that all believers are.
Another problem arises when the same people maintain that because ‘head’ means ‘authority’ Paul is outlining an authority structure of God-Christ-Man-Woman. Yet this isn’t the order actually found in the text, and it wouldn’t be faithful to biblical teaching if it were. If ‘head’ really means ‘authority’, Paul‘s statement ‘the head of Christ is God,’ would introduce hierarchy into God’s very personhood and contradict the co-equality of the Trinity. It would negate the unity that Jesus conveys when he says ‘I and the Father are one.’ ‘Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.’ ( John 10 30, John 14 16-20).
Many scholars reject the suggestion that kephale meant ‘authority’ in ancient Greek when the New Testament was written. They point to the huge weight of evidence that when used as a metaphor its most prevalent meaning was ‘source’ or ‘origin’. Even many of the early Church Fathers, who accepted the idea of male authority over women, didn’t see the use of kephale in this passage as supporting that idea. They understood Paul to be presenting three different sets of relationship, where in each, one is the ‘source’ of the other. This is summed up by a fourth century commentary writer, who wrote: ‘God is the head of Christ because he begat him; Christ is the head of the man because he created him, and the man is the head of the woman because she was taken from his side.’ (Ambrosiaster ‘s Commentary on St Paul’s Epistles). This is so much closer to New Testament Christology; that Jesus ‘came from God’ in the incarnation (John 13:3) and Jesus was the Word, in the beginning, that created human life.’ (John 1:1-3). St Paul himself powerfully expresses the same concept of God the Son being the firstborn of God, and sharing the unity of God, in Colossians. Jesus is ‘the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.’
As the chiasm develops Paul moves his argument about head covering from culture and gender codes to scripture and the origin of men and women. He makes the statement: ‘Man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman but woman for man.’(verses 8-9) He’s clearly referring to the Genesis story that woman was created second and because of man’s cosmic aloneness. But when Paul picks up that point on the return part of the chiasm, it has a different nuance. ‘Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman.’ (v 11-12). Both points stand together; men and women are different; women and men are interdependent and share mutuality. And it doesn’t really matter who comes first, because everything comes from God.
That leaves us with the central verse in the passage which has bewildered people for centuries: ‘a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels.’ Few scholars agree on who these angels were other than that they were somehow connected with women’s prophesying. Some suggest they might be Christian elders who visited fellowships to hear prophesies. Others refer to angelic messengers in Jewish literature mediating prophesies through human prophets. Most scholars agree, however, that the authority (exousia) is held by the woman herself, not by someone she sits under. It could be another reference to hair or head covering, showing unambiguously her authority as a woman. Or it could refer to the necessity of being anointed by the Holy Spirit before she prophesies.
So to summarise the passage, I believe that Paul’s arguments on head coverings are far from an elaboration of male authority and women’s subordination. They are a complex consideration from both a cultural and theological standpoint of how the Corinthian Christians should witness to the faith in their age. They also have implications and challenges about how we should witness to the faith in ours.
The passage expresses Paul’s concern that Christian women and men should exercise their leadership gifts in a way that honours their origins and their identity in Jesus. They must not use their freedom in Christ to ignore cultural conventions and propriety which might fuel disrespect. They must not, by implication, put one gender above another. They must rather present themselves and their authority, as women and men under Christ, in a matter that celebrates both their glorious distinctiveness and intrinsic interdependence.
About Elaine
Dr Elaine Storkey (BA, MA, PhD, DD) is a philosopher, sociologist, and theologian, who has held university posts at Kings College, London, Stirling, Oxford, and the Open University, in addition to visiting professorships in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. She is a Fellow of Aberystwyth University, Life Member of Newnham College Senior Common Room, Cambridge University, and a former Vice President of the University of Gloucester. She was a specialist writer in Gender studies with the Open University and has been long involved in issues of gender, work and safeguarding for women and girls. In the 1990s she was Director of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity and has held posts at two Anglican theological colleges. Elaine has also lectured in Africa, Asia, Haiti and across Europe. She has been involved with BBC and other broadcasting companies for 30 years, presenting television and radio documentaries with the Open University, TV, radio and podcasts, and as a regular theological broadcaster for BBC Radio Ulster. Her writing includes nine books and hundreds of journal and symposia articles.
Elaine was on the General Synod of the Church of England for 28 years, and served on numerous boards and councils, including the Archbishops’ Commission on Rural Areas, Crown Nominations Commission, the Cathedrals Commission and ‘Living in Love and Faith.’ She has been a theological adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and on the Church’s Central Media Board. Elaine has also been a C of E delegate to the World Council of Church in both Zimbabwe and South Korea as well as to the Genera Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The WCC has involved her independently in the five year Orthodox-Evangelical Dialogue and in apologetics and advocacy for women. She has co-founded a number of organizations on supporting vulnerable women, including Restored, and Press Rd. She is on the board of several others.
Elaine’s presidency of the NGO, Tearfund, spanned 17 years enabling her to focus on the issues women face across the world. It also pushed her to write Scars Across Humanity: Understanding and Overcoming Violence Against Women, published in 2015, updated for the USA in 2018 and named ‘Book of the Year’ in Politics and Public Life in the Christianity Today 2019 Book Awards. For other writing and lecturing she was awarded the Abraham Kuyper Prize at Princeton USA, and the Frumentius Award in Addis Ababa, among others. Her book Women in a Patriarchal World: 25 empowering stories from the Bible was published in 2020, followed by Meeting God in Matthew: a brief commentary on Matthew’s Gospel 2023
Elaine has been involved in arts organisations, in counselling and on theological panels across a wide spectrum, including climate change, work ethics, safeguarding and peace issues.. She continues to teach on the postgrad course at Oxford University, ‘Developing a Christian Mind’, which she co-founded 15 years ago.
Elaine’s has been married for many years to Alan, an economist and artist, and they have three sons and six grandchildren.
