“Ought The Woman”
Previously, we looked at the statement from verse 10 “for this cause,” and there we found four causes; here we examine the next statement, “ought the woman.” These three simple words from verse 10 inform us that there is a moral devoir that rests on women to maintain a dress code that does not apply to the men (see v7). In this case Christian women are morally obligated before God to display a symbol of their rank in Godʼs economy of order. From verse 10 we learn that the women “ought” to do the very thing that verse 7 says the men “ought not” to do: namely, cover their heads when praying or prophesying. (See Debate Chart HC #7.)
(As a by-the-by, the “ought not” of verse 7 and the “ought ” of verse 10 serve to illustrate that hair is not the covering being required by the Apostle. Men “ought not” to cover their heads when praying or prophesying, the Apostle writes. Is the Apostle saying: Men “ought not” to grow hair long before praying or prophesying? As if that would be possible. Further, is the Apostle instructing the Christian women that they, on the other hand, “ought” to, indeed, grow their hair long upon entering the assembly to pray or prophesy? As if they could. In that the covering is required only in the assembly when praying or prophesying, and not required otherwise (See Debate Chart HC #5), militates against the covering being hair. Simple reasoning would lay the hair issue to rest, if one were honest.)
In Ephesians 5:28-32 the Apostle Paul draws a parallel between a husband and wife, and Christ and his Church. In this apostolic teaching the man represents Christ, and the woman represents the Church. Therefore, each gender of the Lordʼs congregation has a moral obligation to manifest Christ and his Church to the world at large. The Bible tells us that we are living epistles read of all men (2 Corinthians 3:21). The world may never read the Holy Scripture, but they see and read the Christian life every day. So then, just as the Church is to be in submission to Christ (her head), so is the Christian woman to be in submission to her male head (her husband in particular). She should demonstrate this in her life, but particularly in the assembly of the saints.
The church must practice scriptural order; only by doing this can the angels (who are ministering spirits sent forth from God to minister in behalf of those who are heirs of salvation [Hebrews 1:142) minister in the fashion heaven intends. The Scripture teaches clearly that women are to have a covering over their heads “because of the angels.” If we desire the angels to minister TO US on heavenʼs behalf and TO HEAVEN on our behalf, then we must exercise the order of headship that God, Himself, has placed in the Church through His faithful apostle: Paul.
“To Have Power On Her Head” (See Debate Chart HC #60)
Here we come to the central statement of the text. The woman is to have “power on her head.” What could such a statement mean?
Now, admittedly the King James Version (KJV) has a difficult rendering at this place for modern English speaking people—because of its attempt to give a word-for-word rendering of the Greek. Therefore, one should considered a thought-to-thought translation of the original language. When the apostle said “to have power...,” the Greek word is “exousian;” it is a biblical idiom3 which has the sense in the Greek: “to have a symbol of authority” (semeian exousias).
The phrase, from the KJV, “to have power on her head because of the angels” is a biblical idiom. (An idiom is “an expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but that has a separate meaning of its own” [Merriam Webster]; examples of American idioms are: kick the bucket or hang one's head.) When Bible teachers attempt to interpret such passages without understanding the idiom, a wrong interpretation is unavoidable. Recently, in Oneness Pentecostal circles just such a misinterpretation has become popular—for just this reason. “Power on her head” is taught as just that—“power on her head.” It is being taught by such popular Pentecostal personalities as Lee Stoneking4, that a woman’s long, uncut, hair (on her actual head) is actual “power” with God through the Angels. Women are encouraged to unpin their long hair and drape it over the sick and infirm for healing power5. Christian households are assured of divine protection because of the power “on” the mothers’ and daughters’ heads, in the form of their long, uncut, hair. Divine wisdom is said to be passed on from the wife to the husband because of the “power on her head” (i.e. long-uncut-hair). The author is third generation Oneness Pentecostal6, and gives testimony that this is an innovation to Oneness Pentecost teaching that was never mentioned in his youth, nor in his early ministry. As an innovation, it violates the the Scriptural command to not add to, or take away from, God’s Word:
Deuteronomy 4:2
“You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, ...”
Revelation 22:18, 19
“For I testify to every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add to these words, God add to him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”
And also:
Deuteronomy 12:32
“What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shall not add thereto, nor diminish from it.”
Then, again:
Proverbs 30:6
“Add not to his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”
As is evident from the above texts, such an innovation is a sin, and those teaching it are not teaching truth.
This author witnessed Lee Stoneking teach this very error in his sermon entitled “The Order of Creation.” The authority for teaching resident “power” on the Christian woman’s head is arrived at by a literal interpretation of the phrase: “power on her head.” Stoneking went systematically from word to word giving each word’s meaning from the dictionary. When he was finished he strung the definitions together and arrived at his thesis statement. What follows is a transcription from Stoneking’s sermon “The Order of Creation” at about minute 32:20,
“I want to work with ought, power and because.
“The word ‘ought,’ in the Greek means: owe, or be indebted;
“The word ‘power’ in the Greek means, the ability, authority, rule;
“The Word ‘because’ in the Greek means, through, by, or with.
“So, what this verse is actually saying, therefore, ‘The woman is indebted, or owes her authority on her head, through, by, or with Angels.’ The word ‘power’—the original meaning, the ability to perform an act, the right, the authority, (this is incredible, this is incredible) and, the permission conferred by a higher court—permission conferred by a higher court.
“‘For this cause the woman is owing or indebted to the inward power which is conferred upon her by a higher court with the Angels.’
“That is what that verse is saying.”
Now, Stoneking has done with an idiom exactly what cannot be done. He has defined (sic) each word, and arrives at his thesis from those definitions. This is an impossible hermeneutic7 for an idiom. Remember Merriam Webster: “an expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but that has a separate meaning of its own.”
Understanding the Idiom
One would do well to consider this phrase (“power on her head”) from a number of other translations of the Bible. (Keep in mind that Bible translators must be familiar with the idioms of the language they are translating.) Given here is a sampling to consider:
- Todayʼs English Version of the Bible translates: “... have a covering over her head to show she is under her husbandʼs authority.”
- Philips Modern English Version of the Bible translates: “... to bear on her head an outward sign of manʼs authority.”
- New American Standard Bible translates: “... therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head.”
- The Amplified Bible translates: “Therefore she should [be subject to his authority and should] have a covering on her head [as a token, a symbol, of her submission to authority, that she may show reverence as do] the angels [and not displease them].”
The reading of “power on her head” from the KJV is awkward, and provides an opportunity for misinterpretation by the unlearned, as we have witnessed. However, as we have also seen, the readings from other respected versions of God’s Word clears up the confusion very quickly. But there is another problem with the “long-uncut-hair” crowd: Namely, their unwillingness to accept New Testament Greek scholarship, and their determined fidelity to the twentieth century American innovation (that is but three generations in the making) of long-uncut-hair as Paul’s required covering. Because modern English versions of the Bible remove the ambiguous readings of the A.D. 1611 King James Version, which allows a certain amount of misinterpretations, those who hold dogmatically to the required covering of 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 being long-uncut-hair seem bound, even chained, to the KJV for perpetuity.
Going back to the King James Version rendering, the word “power” is, of course, the Greek word “exousian” and means, authority. The Greek schalor A. T. Robertson writes:
“To have a sign of authority (exousian echein). He means sēmeion exousia (symbol of authority) by exousian, but it is the sign of authority of the man over the woman. The veil on the woman's head is the symbol of the authority that the man with the uncovered head has over her. ... .”)
This strange rendering is, nonetheless, biblical. The biblical idiom is visible throughout the Scripture. This particular idiom is visible whenever the symbol of the principle is often named as the principle itself. Therefore, the headcovering is here called the “power” or “authority” that the Christian woman is to manifest. Many examples can be found throughout the Word of God where the symbol of a thing is actually called by the name of the thing that it symbolizes. Included here are three examples:
- The act of circumcision is actually called “the covenant” (Genesis 17:10-138), when in
reality it is the symbol of the covenant. Therefore, the phrase “the covenant,” in this passage, is an idiom for circumcision. - The lamb slain at the time of Passover is actually called “the passover” (Exodus 12:21), when in truth it is but the symbol of all that the Passover entailed. Therefore, the phrase, “the passover,” in this passage, is an idiom for the actual lamb.
- In our present case (1 Corinthians 11:109) “power on her head” means that the Christian woman is to display on her head a sign or token that she is under the authority of her male head. Therefore, the phrase “power on her head” is an idiom for a cloth veil (RAC) on her head.
1 2 Cor 3:2 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
2 Heb 1:14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?
3 idiom: noun
a. an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements, as kick the bucket or hang one's head, or from the general grammatical rules of a language, as the table round for the round table, and that is not a constituent of a larger expression of like characteristic
b. a language, dialect, or style of speaking peculiar to a people.
c. a construction or expression of one language whose parts correspond to elements in another language but whose total structure or meaning is not matched in the same way in the second language.
d. the peculiar character or genius of a language.
4 Lee Stoneking: A leading United Pentecostal Church International, pastor/evangelist. Graduated from Apostolic Bible Institute, St. Paul, Minnesota in 1967; Received Ordination to the Ministry April 12, 1968; Bachelor of Theology in Apostolic Studies; Apostolic Bible College - St. Paul, Minnesota; Doctor of Christian Philosophy in Christian Education - Institute for Christian Works Bible College and Seminary - South Carolina Campus; Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Divinity; Southern Eastern University; addressed the United Nations General Assembly (April 22, 2015) about being raised from the dead; Stoneking has never married.
5 This very act was done in the author’s home town of Parsons, Tennessee. Ladies from the local United Pentecostal Church visited a terminally sick Sister while in the hospital. There were several, at least three, ladies that unpinned their long hair and draped it over the sick person while they prayed for her. They believed the teaching from their church that there was power with the angels in their long-uncut-hair to heal the sick. The sick lady died. ~ This type of activity walks very close—too close—to witchcraft.
6 Both paternal and maternal grandparents of the author were converted to Pentecostalism in the second decade of the 20th century—over 100 years ago.
7 hermeneutic: the study of the methodological principles of interpretation (as of the Bible) 2. a method or principle of interpretation
8 Gen 17:10-13 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. 11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. 12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. 13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
9 Ex 12:21 Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover.
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