From Chaos to Cosmos (1 Corinthians 11:2-16)

jsfry — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:33:11 GMT

From Chaos to Cosmos (1 Corinthians 11:2-16)

By Rev Jeff Fry, Darwin Park Community Church

^NIV1 Corinthians 11:2 I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you. ³Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. ⁴Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. ⁵And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head-- it is just as though her head were shaved. ⁶If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. ⁷A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. ⁸For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; ⁹neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. ¹⁰For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head. ¹¹In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. ¹²For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. ¹³Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? ¹⁴Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, ¹⁵but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. ¹⁶If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice-- nor do the churches of God.

Thesis: We must live by God’s order for man and woman

I. Intro

A. Review

1. True Spirituality

a) We all have an idea in our heads of what makes up true spirituality and how one is more spiritual or less spiritual

b) It’s interesting how people have measured spirituality:

(1) Early church had it right in Ephesians 4:13 saying that maturity is when we are all growing toward unity in our knowledge of Christ (our character becomes more like the character of Christ)

(a) Notice that maturity is not just a loving attitude or religious feeling but a matter of truth and a common understanding of God’s Son.

(2) We quickly warped this and by the middle ages and instead of relying on the truth of God’s word to change our character on the inside we relied on our own efforts to do regligious works such as confession, penance, indulgences,etc in order to be holy.

(a) Monastery, monks – never intended by Jesus who lived out his spirituality in the real world.

(3) Martin Lloyd Jones used to say that he could tell the real Christians by the way people used to answer the question: Are you a Chrisitan?

(a) Those who answered in a tone of “how dare you even question that – of course I am a Christian, can’t you tell?” were not Christians in the true gospel sense.

(b) Those who sort of laughed and said , “Ha ha me a Christian – well only thanks to the goodness of Christ and mercy of Christ yes I am a Christian. These people were true Christians because to them they knew that they weren’t Christians because of their own merits but only because Christ had saved them. By grace.

(4) We make the same mistake – we measure spirituality by how much one does instead of by who one is (character)!

(a) You can do a lot for God in the flesh

(b) The Corinthians were doing a lot of things but not in the way that was in line with the character of Christ – but instead in a worldly way, focused on themselves, not on Christ, not on serving the other person, but at the other person’s expense.

(c) Mary and Martha

B. We must live by God’s order for man and woman

II. We must live by God’s order for man and woman

A. State

1. Background

a) Head coverings – not sure but maybe like a shawl

b) The Corinthians had written to Paul about this.

(1) Exousia = authority was their word probably????

(2) V.10 “the angels” was their issue that they mentioned too in their letter to Paul (which is now lost – we don’t have it).

c) Kephale = head =

(1) Literal meaning: physical head on a body

(2) Metaphorical meaning:

(a) Leader, authority

(b) Source

d) Definition of Male headship (from Ray Ortland, p 99 “biblical manhood and womanhood”).

(1) “In the partnership of two spiritually equal human beings, man and woman, the man bears the responsibility to lead the partnership in a God-glorifying direction.

(2) Man and woman equal as God’s image-bearers

(3) Man and woman are distinct in their sex and roles that God made them to fulfill.

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