1 Corinthians 11:3-16

“This section focuses primarily on proper attitudes and conduct in worship, not on the marriage relationship or on the role of women in the church…If a believer’s actions offend members and could divide the church, then the believer should change his or her ways to promote church unity.  Paul told the women who were not wearing head coverings to wear them, not because it was a scriptural command, but because it kept the congregation from dividing over a petty issue that took people’s focus off Christ.”

“The covering or uncovering of the head is not merely a sign of individual freedom, Paul insists; rather, it signifies either respect or disrespect for one’s superior in the hierarchy.”

• Reflect on the spirit Apostle commends here of gentle yielding of rights for others and for the sake of not unnecessarily causing negative reactions in others within the church. What “rights” or ‘freedom” do I insist on which can potentially threaten the unity of the church?

“For women to have loose hair in public, however, was conventionally seen as shameful, a sign associated either with prostitutes or – perhaps worse from Paul’s point of view – with women caught up in the ecstatic worship practices of the cults associated with Dionysius, Cybele, and Isis.  Paul is concerned that the practice of Christian prophecy be sharply distinguished from the frenzied behavior of prophetesses in pagan worship (cf. 14:26-33, 37-40).  The symbolic confusion introduced by women with loose, disheveled hair in the Christian assembly would therefore be, from Paul’s point of view, shameful ….”

• What warnings does this passage give to modern day Christians’ adoption of secular conventions?